Someone's Got a Birthday

I just spent a whole bunch of money (that I don't have) on this little curly-haired person. My little niece just turned two. She's coming out to visit the California contingent this weekend for a birthday blowout, in order to claim her haul of gifts and take them back to her desert home in Nevada, where she stores her loot.

I've been trying to avoid retail therapy lately, but when you're buying toys and clothes and other stuff for tiny cute people, it's futile to resist. It's the tiny-ness of the clothes that kills me.

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My niece is very interested in Elmo, chocolate cake and books. (She is also a fan of prunes, which she tasted for the first time in the photo here.)

When you call and get this little person on the phone, she yells how-ah-yah!?! (how are you?) with an interesting Brooklyn-ese twang (we don't know where the accent came from). But if you ask her what her favorite food is, she yells "chocolate cake!" quite clearly and with pretty good diction.

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I realized that I am very competitive in the gift-buying department. I didn't know this until today, but it's very important for Auntie Tangobaby's delicate pysche to have brought the most kick-ass gifts of all the assorted family and friends at the party.

I am not quite sure how I got this odd competitive streak, but living in San Francisco gives you access to some really great boutiques and shopping. If you saw the little outfits I just bought, your head might explode from overexposure to cuteness. European cuteness. There's this shop, Murik Children's Store, near my office that sells children's clothes from The Netherlands, Belgium and other assorted European countries that make cuter clothes than we do.

Before Little Curly Girl was born, I opened a bank account for her. When I can, I put some money in her little account, so when she is old enough she can take dance classes or music lessons. But I also told her while she was still in utero that she can use that money for Option 3, which is to go to Paris with me, and Auntie Tangobaby will buy her some fancy shoes from the City of Lights.

I think that if I keep planting the seed, with the help of very cute European-style outfits, that when the time is ripe, my brilliant niece will choose Option 3: The Paris Shoe Shopping Trip. Then she and I will run away to Paris together to buy gorgeous footwear, eat magnificent chocolates and flirt. And go to museums.

I also got Little Curly Girl a Putmayo children's CD called French Playground so she can practice her songstyling en français in anticipation of her choosing Option 3.

(She's also getting some books, a fluffy floppy soft tiger, and some refrigerator magnets because everyone needs refrigerator magnets that are plush toadstools and squirrels that you can play with in the kitchen while your mom is making you a grilled cheese sandwich.)

The chocolate cake and Elmo accoutrements she'll have to score from someone else. Auntie Tangobaby needs to get a second job now.