Hot Dog, Hot Dog, Hot Diggety Dog

Okay, finally, I am getting to this.  Bad, bad, Mama.

My Tootsie turned 2 last week!  T-W-O!

I mean...it's all downhill from here, right!???

I just recently read in one of those baby magazines that this (the third) year is the hardest.  Out of the first, second, third and fourth, the third year won by a landslide in the mommy vote.

I concur.

I know I'm just beginning the third year, but I know.

It ain't my first rodeo.  I give you Exhibit A.

This is the Bug, smack dab in the middle o' the third year.  And this is the way I most enjoyed her at that age.

Y'all -- it was rough.

Things improved a lot in the next two years, but that year was H.A.R.D.

Don't get me wrong -- I ain't scared.  No, I was scared the first time around.  But I got my sea legs and I'm ready to take it on.

I'm not looking forward to taking it on.  But I won't be beat.  For the love of all that is holy, I am going to win this battle.

I will get through this year, and I will be standing tall at the end of it.  Come next year, around birthday time, this will be me.

I will ride down main street in a convertible and the  crowds will be lining the streets, cheering me on.  I will give a smug smile, and wave, kinda like this (except much younger and cuter).

[sigh]

Oh, yeah, back to Tootsie.

She had a birthday.

We actually had a ginormous party for the two of them, since their birthdays are 9 days (and 3 years) apart.

We rocked the Minnie and Mickey Clubhouse (which really just means we set up some wading pools and sprinklers in the back yard and made them run around back there for an hour or so).

We had a scavenger hunt (find Pluto's bouncy ball) and a sack race (Hootenanny Hop).  I have no photographic evidence of either.  FAIL.

But I do have a fantastic shot of Tootsie where it appears Gene Simmons' makeup artist had a go at her.

This is the result of the black icing on these bad boys....made my Mama herself.

Mmm-hmmmm...

Oh, and Tootsie's Nanny T got her a stepstool just like the Bug got when she turned two.  Tootsie immediately commenced to dancing  to "I've Been Everywhere Man."  (You will recall that was the song for the Bug's dance revue.)

That is Handy Daddy's arm holding up the iPhone playing the song for her.  Can't dance without the tunes, you know.

How on earth did we survive childhood without cell phones and such?  Anyway, it's best I don't chase that rabbit.

Then, if all that wasn't enough to send Mama and Daddy to the ER with a case of "exhaustion" (that's what the celebrities call their nervous breakdowns), we had another run on her actual birthday five days later.

All I gotta' say is them kids better work hard and save up, 'cuz they gonna' have to set Mama up in a phat mother-in-law suite when I'm old.

Mama don't play 'dat.