Lil Miss Austin got her first official hair cut for a kids' salon last night. She was wonderfully behaved and we have some pictures that I'll add later. Her hair was in her face but we didn't want to lose the lenght because, frankly, she has gorgeous hair. The place had merry-go-round style horses and cars for kids to sit on as well as a video screen in front of each playing cartoons. So she sat quietly watching Lilo & Stitch while Yvonne (I think) made short work of her 2 year old locks.

Mrs. Austin of course kept the hair and almost cried when they filled out a little certificate recording for history the First Haircut. It was neat.

There was a little Indian boy there with his parents and we saw something very interesting. The kid had thick curly groovy hair (he was about 18-24 months) and the parents had his head SHAVED!! We were shocked. The stylists explained that they do this all the time for Indian families. It's apparently a tradition that they'll take the first hair cut hair and send to to the country of their origin and the family will use it in a prayer service which ensures long, thick, strong hair for their remaining lives. I plan on doing some research on this, but it seems odd that they cut hair to ensure they have nice hair. Kid looked a little odd bald.

Mrs. Austin said she'd divorce me if I did that to our girl. One thing to note, even though she was a perfect angel throughout, it's hard to remember sometimes that she's just a kid.

Blogger support is non-existant. If you know ANYTHING about archiving with them, drop us a line would you? Even posts that are done here aren't being saved correctly. It's getting tiresome, but it's hard to argue with Free. I guess if I wanted to bitch, I'd pay for Moveable Type and set it up myself. Ah, where does the time go.

Lil Miss Austin is really coming along in the cognitive arena. Last weekend we were going to go outside to a pond, look for some ducks to feed. Mrs. Austin decided that the kid needed a nap first. She would say, "If you take a nap now, when you wake up we'll go Bye Bye." Now, we've tried this reasoning in the past, but a 18 month old brain just doesn't wrap around If, When, Later, Goto, Select*From....wait, that's different. Well anyway, she doesn't know bargaining or bribing. "You can go outside if you eat your asparagus." Well, Sunday she took her nap, we watched a movie and when she woke up, instead of crying or calling out she said, "I'm awake. Go Bye Bye now." This was two hours and several R.E.M. cycles later that she remembered what we told her. It was endearing and amazing at the same time. She's starting to develop temporal awareness and it's probably the most useful ability next to walking and talking I think she can get. Understanding what later is, or what happened yesterday is just monumental. Cats and dogs can walk and communicate, but they don't understand what it means to do something 'after' or 'before.' I'm quite happy with our little prodigy.

We also spent a good chunk o' bread at the party store getting several trinkets for her birthday, and event she probably won't remember regardless if she is developing that frontal lobe. All I did was pull the cart up to the Spongebob section and proceded to pick one of each. We've even got a pinata for Cripe's Sake. I plan on video taping an adult getting nutmeged with a stick so I can win 10gs from Bob Sagat.

Still working on getting the old posts up in here. Today is Lil Miss Austin's Spring Fling at her school. It's for Easter, but we like to say it's a spring party. She'll actually celebrate Ostara which is the actual event. It's also the celebration all of Christianity used but called it Easter and it just so happened their messiah was brought back to life on that day. (On the spring festival? Right of spring? Fertility and new life and all that? Yes. Wow, how'd they swing that? I don't know, I guess they must have tried to kill off all the Pegans so they wouldn't be pissed about stealing all their stuff. Oh, cool thanks.)

Anyway, it also means we get a three day weekend. Well, Mrs. Austin doesn't, but the kid and I do. I was hoping for some Me time to get some drawing done, but I can deal. Brother Austin is coming over and we're also doing a Murder Party tomorrow night, that should prove to be fun. They always are, drinking and laughing and shouting at the top of our lungs that so-and-so is actually the killer.

Still no solid birthday plans, but I hope to rectify that this weekend.

I also got a new camera and will be putting up more photos of the soon to be 2 year old in all her cuteness. And I don't care what the Gap talent search said, she's The Cutest.

Lil Miss Austin also has a new favorite movie: Dinosaur. We've had it since she was really little. We liked it in the theater so we bought it on DVD and she really never got into it when she was smaller. Lately thought she's been sitting with me and watching the Discovery Channel and really likes when they do Paleontology programs. She's also fond of the giant green godzilla on the Mangia Pizza truck we pass by on our way to school. So I figured I'd put in the DVD to test my new surround sound setup. Man, she freaked. It was the coolest thing she's seen since we got her that giant plush Elmo a year or so ago. Now you can forget Wiggles, Rollie Pollie Ollie, Spongebob, Elmo. She wants to watch Dinosaur.

Gotta love it.

Hello, this is Mr. Austin. I'm hesitant to post here, but since it's relatively quiet I suppose my thoughts won't impede much.

We're readying for Mrs. Squiggles' 2nd birthday party coming up in May. Of course the theme will be Spongebob, and there will be cakes and balloons and party favors and possibly a piñata. I'm looking forward to it probably more than most. The only problem is, I don't know who her friends are. Does a 2 year old have friends? She knows people at school, she knows them by name in fact. When I pick her up I always ask her who people are and she shouts their name as best she can (Jashon=Jackson, Bre-an=Brendan, etc.) So this will be more like last year in that we invite people that have kids for the sake of having kids there. I think to have a birthday party for a kid and only invite your friends would be weird and a little selfish. But honestly, I don't know that she'd know the difference or even remember. I know that recently, we had 4 kids at our house and the backyard was pack full of fun and chasing the dog and swinging and sliding and general "Hey look at me!" I hope to recapture that but the kids we're inviting are all roughly Rowan's aga and are just now learning to run, walk, talk in sentances. Am I forcing the issue by bringing together kids that don't know each other for the sake of having kids?

Mrs. Austin had the idea of inviting her friends from school, but I had to shoot it down because I don't know who her friends are. I would feel bad as well inviting only a select group of kids, leaving the rest to wonder why they didn't get invited. (Like she's that popular, that kids are just waiting for their invitation like some Charlie Brown clones or something.) So without inviting an entire class of 20 kids, I guess we'll be left with the ones we know but she may not.

In the end it really only matters to me. Until she's 4 or 5 and older, she's not going to know enough to want certain people over. She's only recently asking to see Grandpa and Grandma (I'll let all 48 of you decide which ones she's talking about) and her uncle and new aunt. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before she'll start asking to play with neighboor kids and if we can go see a certain relative, but that's another year away.

A year that will just fly by like the first 2 have.