The Pickle. An Update.

Those of you who have been around these parts for awhile may remember how petite my little Zoe pickle was upon entering this world. 4lbs 15.5 oz petite to be exact. 

Over the first 6 months of her life all the little thing did was eat and scare us with her inability to gain weight. She was tiny. Always a size behind. Always a peanut.

Almost 4 years later the situation is a bit different. Homegirl had a (pre)preschool doctor's visit today and while she may still be a pickle, she is no longer a peanut. 80th percentile for height and 70th for weight. Even her new doctor commented on her size and the length of her legs, reminding me to keep her in a car seat as long as possible even though she will quickly be in "booster seat" range. 

They did a vision/eye test in which she had to watch a screen for a few minutes with a patch over one eye and electrodes on her head. She sat down and said to the nurse "OH! A movie! Do we get to eat popcorn?!" Yeah, she has personality to boot. 

Next week she starts pre-K. It wasn't really planned that way, but because she is almost 4, they are moving her up a class. I even have the option of putting her into kindergarten next year if we feel that is right for all of us. 

Almost 4 years old... I'm going to blink and she will be driving. 

Twitter: It made the VMAs worth watching

I used to "live blog" award shows. Oh, those were the good old days before micro-blogging was invented... I have to say that for all the people that STILL proclaim that they "Don't get Twitter," I respond with "I don't get how you can sit down and watch an award show for 3+ hours without it".

Over here on the left coast (if you are lucky enough to have ATT U-verse) we had to wait until 9PM to see the hot mess that was the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards. But that didn't mean we didn't get to share in the controversy and "WTF's?" with the rest of the country. The Twittersphere was ablaze with comments on Lady Gaga in drag, Niki Manaj's stuffed animal chained to her leg, Katy Perry's Cheesehead hat and all the questions about "who the girl singing in the chair" was.

In fact, according to this article by Mashable, the single most Tweeted moment EVER to this point was when the lovely Beyonce flashed her belly pooch to the world, confirmed the much speculated rumor that the singer is indeed with child. 

According to Twitter’s Global PR team, Beyonce’s baby reveal at 10:35pm ET gave Twitter a record bump of 8,868 tweets per second. That means that Beyonce’s VMA moment received more mentions per-second than the Women’s World Cup, Japan’s New Year or Osama bin Laden’s death.

The baby bump heard 'round the worldA pregnant Beyonce got more tweets than the death of public enemy #1. 

Insanity. But? OHMYGOD, how sweet was that?! #SQUEE. 

There has been lots of controversy about the VMAs and the fact that MTV even still hosts them considering they no longer actually play music videos. (You can check out Stef's coverage on Adam Levine's VMA tweet here, and my counterpoint here.) But you must admit it's always good for laugh. The silly musicians trying harder and harder to outdo each other in ridiculousness (love the sugical mask trend this year) but watching with 5k friends makes it that much better.

Additional stats include:

• Best VMA day ever on MTV.com with 1.9m visitors on Sunday August 28, 2011.
• More than 1.2m live streams were served across MTV.com and on iOS and Android.
• Social media traffic was up 76% from 2010. Twitter referral traffic to MTV.com was at its highest level ever.

I started thinking about it: when you open your Internet browser, or check your iPhone/Droid/Blackberry, where do you go first, Twitter or Facebook? I threw the question out to my Tweeps and the majority of them said Twitter. So now the next question really is why? Do we love the quick checks? Do you want to see what people in your stream are up to? Or is it all about you and your latest 140 character thought?

Also, did you tweet or follow along with the VMAs last night? If so, who was your favorite person to see updates from? 

Blog Hop: 25 things you may not know about me

My first thought when Christine announced this on her site the other day was: "I think everyone knows everything about me." But then I took it as a bit of challenge... can I come up with 25 things that you may not know about me??? Maybe, maybe not. But let me try...

1. My favorite wine is Chardonnay. Red wines make me stuffy, especially when I'm taking a lot.
2. I once went to a party at Alan Thicke's house. Robin Thicke was the little brother of my friend's boyfriend who spent the entire night on the piano.
3. My college car was a 1984 Datsun ZX with the leveler blind things on the back window. Men used to come up to me at random places and pet my car telling me stories of when they owned that same car in the 80's. It was kinda creepy. 
4. The fastest I've ever driven was in that car, when I clocked in at 115 miles per hour on the desolate highway that you take to get to Laughlin Nevada from the 15 at around midnight during spring break. Yup. I was smart.
5. I spent New Years Eve 1996 in the dirtiest club in TJ. I stumbled home across the boarder. Yup. I was smart. 
6. I met Jason in 1997 while working at Sea World. He was my boss. I got a promotion.
7. To this day we credit our friend Marcy with hiring me. On another note, she ended up marrying another Sea World employee that was her subordinate. Hey, it was a different time back then in the 90s.
8. This you know if you've ever had the pleasure of standing behind me when I bend over in low waisted jeans - I have a dolphin tattoo on my upper right hand butt cheek. My friend Maria V has the same tattoo - same place - also discovered by bending over in her True Religion jeans.
9. My favorite scent when I was 18 was the combination of Bath and Bodyworks Apple Blossom lotion and Elizabeth Arden's Sunflowers perfume.
10. I worked at the Guess? store from 18-21. I regularly wore cowboy boots and blazers.
11. The first thing I look at on men is their shoes. 
12. With women I check out hair, handbag, rings then shoes.
13. Birds hate me.
14. I 100% regret never living in New York City in my 20's.
15. I hate my handwriting and my voice.
16. My favorite movies of all time are The Princess Bride and the Big Blue.
17. The first boy I kissed went on to win a Grammy.
18. I've met a Beatle. And? I didn't know who he was.
19. I have small looking feet. In actuality they are average, but they look small. That, my friends is exciting.
20. I now think better in 140 characters than in long sentences.
21. I love Barbie Dolls and still have 2 in boxes that Zoe is not allowed to touch.
22. I'm the best person EVER to go shopping with.
23. I lived in a house with a ghost. (okay, that's cheating. You all know that, but this is hard and that is SUCH a good story.)
24. I was an extra in the movie Newsies, filmed on the Universal Studios backlot.
25. In 1996 I was on the "All New Dating Game" with Tom Bergeron. I was a Bachelorette, and I was chosen. And no, we never went out on the date. 

So what about you? Want to join in on the Blog Hop fun? Link up here or back on EverydayMama's site!