The Annunciation, according to Girl V.

Girl V has a pop-up book on the life of Christ, which includes a scene of the Annunciation. Being a two-year-old girl with two human-looking images before her, Girl V made them talk. Here is what they said.

Mary: "Hi!"
Gabriel: "Hi!"
Mary: "What are you doing?"
Gabriel: "Standing."
Mary: "Ok. Open the door!"
Gabriel: "No. No open the door."
Mary: "Ok. Bye!"
Gabriel: "Bye!"

Yesterday in church, she made her father very happy by announcing loudly that "Jesus is yucky!" Daddy sees it as imposed penance for his sins.

Girl V now 27 months old.

She has recently mastered transitive verbs and is now acquiring them rapidly - hear, wear, find, drop, clean, squish.
She is HIGHLY SOCIAL and wants me to do EVERYTHING that she is doing. If she's pouring water - "Mommy, pouring too!" then when I do: "Two pourings!"
She got a sandbox today which she loves despite the fact that we did not put the sand in yet (wanted to sleep on the placement of it before loading it w/ 300 lbs of sand.)
She is very interested in the concept of hiding. Whenever she can't see something, or someone is not around, she says it/they are hiding. My mom came to visit and now that she is gone, she is hiding. But she also knows the real meaning of hiding, she just needs to narrow it down.
She is now learning songs like Baa Baa Black Sheep, Ring Around the Rosey (which she thinks means run a circle around something), ABC song. Loves to dance, likes to go to stores with me but gets frustrated when she can't get out of the card and dance to the music on the loudspeakers.
We drive by a cow pasture on our way to a frequently visited destination, but cows are not out yet despite the nice weather. She remembers that they were there several months ago and now hypothesizes that the cows are not visible because they are playing "Ring Around the Rosey."
She is very ok with someone leaving and does not throw a tantrum, typically, just says, "Bye! See you later! Love you very much!"
Fakes injuries for sympathy, or fakes needing to go potty, particularly when about to be punished. But is pretty good at saying please now. Also says "excuse me" but at weird times, so I am not sure what she thinks it means.
We are starting to try and take her to church, which she does not like. She misbehaves loudly so I have to take her out, which is where she wants to be. So I try to keep "out of church" more boring than church, which is not easy. She just cannot get the concept of not talking at "normal volume" in church. I guess we will just have to wait until she understands it. We are going to short masses and trying to avoid the priest who preaches at length.

Today we took Girl V to Dinosaur Land with my mom, her husband, his daughter and his parents. We all had a lot of fun watching Girl V marvel at the "an-mals!" She said the 30-ft tall King Kong was "scary" but was very brave and checked him out a few times. There was also a giant praying mantis, cobra, shark and octopus in addition to the dinosaurs. She wanted to ride the dinosaurs but that is not allowed.

The Daily Gut: "But the notion that, when some mildly edgy or tasteless remark makes us cry, we turn to a fat, cheerfully inane clown weatherman for words of healing is proof that we are but characters in an epic satirical novel set in a world of sniveling morons."

Argh

I have to fire a woman twice my age tomorrow, over the phone. Can you pray that I have the right words to do this as professionally as possible. Also, any suggestions for firing someone over the phone? This is not recommended for good reason, but the only option in this case.

THANKS.

CIRCUS!

Today, all 3 of us went to see the Ringling Brothers Circus, thanks to my Mom who sprung for the tickets. Girl V had a great time. We had been reading books and watching a video about the circus for 2 weeks so that she would know about clowns and acrobats. On the way there, we stopped in the parking lot of a McDonald's and she said "here it is circus!" so we had to explain that no, the parking lot was not the circus. So we got inside and sat down at the circus only to have her tell us that she needed to go to the potty. She NEVER tells us she needs to go at home, so I was a little surprised and not really wanting to take her to the strange stadium bathroom. But she kept asking, for about 10 minutes, so I decided to take her. And she went, and was totally unfazed by all the strangeness, and we were done in 2 minutes! WOW. Then later, she asked to go again, and we did, with NO drama. Amazing.
She did a good job at sitting still for a long time - the show was 2.5 hrs, though it did have an intermission. She was a little unnerved by a large, moving, inflatable dragon that breathed smoke, and the confetti that they shot EVERYWHERE (think national party conventions on TV) before intermission, but otherwise everything was cool.
She was pretty overwhelmed by the many clowns, elephants, tigers, dancers, acrobats, horses, etc. She made some comments about the events but I could not hear her. We will see what she says about it tomorrow. They had 7 guys riding mini-motorcycles at high speed inside a spherical steel cage about 15 feet in diameter. It was WILD.
In the car on the way home, she sang the whole "Baa Baa Black Sheep" song. I have been singing it to her but did not realize she knew the whole thing. She has also been tracing letters in her coloring books and making "seahorses" out of playdough. She is 26.5 months now.