The Durham Bull ...

If you're not from North Carolina you may or may not know that Durham is nicknamed "The Bull City". Which is why our baseball team is called "The Durham Bulls" and why my doula collective is known as the Bull City Doulas.

It also goes a ways towards explaining why my daughter thinks that anything bovine-related is automatically named or related to "Wooly Bully" (the Durham Bulls' mascot, which Bea misnames of course).

For example, after dining at (you guessed it) Bull City Burger and Brewery last night:

Face-stuffing with a hamburger, where she ate more bun than meat.

Bea was very, very excited to show her "drawing" of Wooly Bully to (and I swear she said this) his cousin... The Durham Bull:

Oh how nice. A drawing of a cow ...

Though, I'm not sure if her drawing wasn't actually more of a threat in hindsight:

Better watch it Cow, or you'll be tomorrow's burger!

Regardless, Bea was excited to show it off to The Durham Bull, so we walked a few blocks down to take it to him in person:

I hope he likes it!

See? Right here. Get in line or your ground beef, buddy.

At first, she was kind of just in awe of the giant statue:

Wow. He's kinda tall, huh?

 

But she eventually warmed up to Him and got serious about his critique of her artwork:

Yes, I thought you'd see how great it was!

Then she asked to "pet" The Durham Bull:

And even asked to kiss him... which honestly grossed me out a little, but hey, what's a little staff infection between friends?:

Don't worry- I sanitize the crap out of that hand ...

And proceeded to ask questions about his anatomy. Questions like: "Does The Durham Bull have horns?":

Does The Durham Bull have a nose?

Does the Durham Bull have a nostril?:

Does The Durham Bull have TWO nostrils?:

And then she wanted to take a walk around The Durham Bull to check out his neck:

Which of course, lead to asking questions about his tail:

And, well, once we were all gathered at the Business End of The Durham Bull... it just got awkward for everyone. Quickly. So we ushered her away as fast as we could:

I'm really hoping we didn't scar her for life ...

My parents are freaks.

Monday Tid Bits ...

• My mother-in-law came up on Saturday night to visit with Beatrice Kate. Casey and I took advantage of the free babysitting and had a hot date went to Target and Whole Foods. What? When you're childless, you better capitalize! Even if it's not sexy.
• Even though it's been "chilly" (and by chilly I mean, below 75 degrees) for barely a week now, I'm already dreaming of all things fall. In these dreams, I'm seeing fun scarves, stews and candied apples. 
• Oh, and pumpkin ale. Which, to my luck, became a reality when Husby brought home a 6-er of Harvest Time Ale from local brewery, Big Boss. It was delish.
• I signed up and received my first BirchBox this weekend. For $10, I'd say it was worth it. I'll do a post on it next month, when I remember to take photos of the contents. But for now, I'll just tell you: it was filled with fun and quirky samples, including a weird pea green nail polish that my toddler insisted she try out. And then, spent the rest of the day calling her feet "Monster Toes". That was worth $10 alone.
• I had a birth last week. This was a particularly long one and for some reason, I can't seem to shake out of the resulting sleepiness. Maybe I'm getting old...
• Bedtimes around here have been HORRIBLE. Seriously. Bea used to be so easy to rock down and now? It's a 45 minute battle-of-the-wills that involves a lot of stalling, a lot of rocking, a lot of singing (which by the way, she's very selective in her song preferences) and unfortunately, a lot of tantrum throwing. We're at a loss for how to make this better. Aside from strapping her into her bed for the night (which by the way, we never actually considered yet).
• Our old dog, Arnold, was recently diagnosed with "Dog Alzheimer's" Yep. So that's happening. And it goes a little of the way towards explaining his insistence on pooping in the floor when he has a giant backyard instead...poor Casey.
• Bea is taking a dance class. It's possibly the cutest thing in the world. More on that later this week.
• I'm thinking about doing a "week in the life of" series of posts this week or next. Is that something that would be interesting? Mostly, I'm curious (as I'm sure my husband is) where all my time goes each day... Maybe if I start recording it here, I'll find a way to make better use of it.

That first day ...

Beatrice Kate started a Parents Morning Out program this fall. She'll be attending two mornings a week, for a total of less than 4 hours away each morning. That's almost 8 glorious hours apart from each other a week.

At first, Bea wasn't so keen on the whole idea of school:

Say what? School? No. Way.

But then we talked, and talked, and talked about what "school" was and how she would meet new friends and how she could play all morning with new toys and she would have a new teacher that she could meet and that she could eat snacks like cookies and Goldfish. And then I got out my camera to take her photo, and she was on board:

Hold up. You said Cookies, right?

Ok, I'm in.

After a hug and a kiss from Daddy, you know, for his emotional well-being:

Melts. My. Heart.

 She was ready to load up:

Let's do this, Mama.

 And seriously, how cute does she look?

Showing off her Sparkly TOMS (the socks were her idea, not mine).

You guys, her backpack is as big as she is. I'm dying of cuteness overload:

How did she do? Well, this mama's heart was so, so proud of her girl. She skipped (SKIPPED!) to her class room from the parking lot and never looked back, except to ask, "Mama will promise to come back?" and after I pinky swore that Yes, no matter what she does in life, Mama promises to always come back. She ran forward on her way to Independence:

Somebody hold me: