DanThat'sCool!

 

 

OMG. Why didn’t anyone tell me how hard it is to really converse in a conversational conversation that it’s like so hard.

 

 

 

 

Seriously. If Barbie doesn’t stop talking I’m gonna choke on my Fruit Roll-Up.

 

 

 

 

 

And then, when she’s asleep, I try and claw my way out the window like this without waking her.

 

 

 

 

Check it out. I scored enough cash for an Easy Bake Oven and a bus ticket outta here.

 

 

 

 

 

Wanna know a secret? I’m really a sweetie pie. But being a bitch gets you way more fruit snacks, suckahs.

 

 

 

 

Yeah. It’s me. Bring the gas money around back. I’ll be in the pink corvette. I got the snacks.

 

 

 

Hey, kids!  We’re going on a safari!

Fun, right?

Just a few reminders before we head out into the uncharted Ramada jungle.

Keep all arms and legs inside your Power Wheels Jeep.  Flash photographs are allowed, but please don’t agitate the animals with any unnecessary crazy a** waving or booty poppin’ in your Mom jeans.

Don’t ever try to drag the animals where they don’t want to go.  And whatever you do…do NOT feed them any more sugar.  Please.

If you follow all these safety guidelines, it should be a guaranteed good time.

Dare I say…maybe even Cheetah-licious.

That’s right.  Toddlers & Tiaras unleashed some major Jungle Love in our faces this week when they took us on a safari full of finger kissing wildlife, all in search of the elusive Cheetah Crown.

According to Director Jill Worley, the towering fake crystal crown with the towering fake crystal cheetah face in the middle would go to whatever 4 year old looked the most like a 20 year old by the end of the night.

No lie.  Her words, sorta.  Glitz means Glitz, people.  So start painting.

Jill was nice enough, but barely ticked the Crazy Pageant Director Dial, so I was just meh.  Sorry, but I need my directors to be In.  To.  It.

Our first cheetah hopeful was 2 year old Bella and her Mom Lana.

Bella was a handful.  She liked to say NO.  A lot.  And loudly.  Accompanied by screams and cries and some positively delightful hissy fits.

And she didn’t like pageants.  So naturally, she did pageants.

She was a patootie for sure, and looked like she could have been the laugh-a-minute secretary in some 1950′s sitcom.  You have to kind of squint, and picture her in black & white, but you’ll totally know what I mean.  I don’t know if it was the hair, or the forehead or what, but I felt like sending her out to Staples for supplies.

Miss Bella, can you come in here, please?  And bring your coloring book.

Mom started to say something about how Bella always did well in competitions because she was so poised and elegant, but I missed the end of the sentence when Bella started making fart noises into the camera.  This kid is really quirky cute.

When Lana first found out that she was expecting a girl, she had immediately begun looking for local pageants being held around her due date.

Her due date?  Like the date when you are giving birth?  Remind me to pick up some ice chips before that crowning.  Gross.

As Bella went out to make me some photocopies, we headed off to the town with the best name in the whole world.  Bald Knob.

You heard me.

There’s a place on a map somewhere called Bald Knob.

I can’t stop saying it.

Bald Knob is home to not only what I imagine has to be THE most HIGH-sterical Bald Knob souvenir tee shirts EVER, but also to Bald Knob residents 5 year old Emma Belle and her Mom Angela.

They live in Bald Knob.

Emma was another natural cutie who looked like a cross between one of those spunky kids who always tap danced in Little Rascals movies and Ryan Seacrest‘s girlfriend.

You can tell she is going to be gorgeeeeous when she grows up.  Heartbreaker.

She had bouncy blonde 1920′s curls and a smiley face that could have been permanently etched to her head by the Joker.  She was (…SPOILER alert: almost…) always happy.

Mom ticked up the Crazy Dial a little, so I immediately fell for her sparkly eye shadow and whatever that hat contraption thing was on her head during Emma’s outdoor photo shoot.

Lana had obviously become so enamored with Abby Lee Miller‘s pearlized makeup on Dance Moms that she ran right down to the Bald Knob Mall (…I just can’t…) and bought out the Bare Minerals counter.  By the time she had applied it both above and below her eyes, I knew she was destined for Reality TV greatness.

Seriously.  Mom could go jogging at night with that reflective headgear.  By the time we hit the pageant and she put on her Goldie Hawn Laugh-In dress, I was in love.

Potential Hall of Famer.

Then, kicking and screaming, we had to turn our back on Bald Knob for a few minutes to head down the highway and meet up with 21 month old Brooklyn and her verbally challenged Mom Amy.

I’m not sure what was going on here.

Mom was one of those pretty Barbie doll Moms you see out and about who seem to do better when they don’t try to talk so much at lunch.  You just stay cute, honey.

I’m sure she meant well, but every sentence basically ended the same way it started because she tended to ramble and repeat and forget to use punctuation.

It’s going to be a nice day out today if it doesn’t rain because it’s going to be a nice day out then otherwise.  Like that.  But about pageants.

Her husband Adam was a textbook example of what I like to call the What Have I Gotten Myself Into male, complete with dazed eyeballs and an empty wallet.  He felt that the whole thing was a waste of money.  Talk about shutting the bank door after the horses have already left for the pageant…or however that saying goes.

Because Amy’s job didn’t pay much, mainly due to the fact that it was a made-up one and she didn’t actually have a job and it’s going to be nice out today maybe if it doesn’t rain, Adam was in charge of paying whatever Amy said to pay for pageants.  

He had no idea what was going on.

Their scenes together must have been a sound tech’s nightmare as every sentence just kind of dribbled off into awkward silence while they stared at each other in disbelief.

This is my life?  If you play Adam’s nervous laugh backwards on a cassette deck, it actually sounds like he’s whispering “Help Me.”

As Amy explained it, Adam knew all kinds of words and it made her nervous because she wanted to make certain that she used actual words too, or something.  Because you need words to talk.  And words, and math, are hard sometimes.

Honestly, she made my left eye hurt.

Safari Wear was this week’s Outfit of Choice, and it was exactly what you would expect, but hooched up a little.

Emma’s silver outfit, complete with tear away skirt and provocative animal tail, didn’t really scream Jungle to me, but it’s not like I was mailed a score sheet or anything.

And I quote: “I get to rip off my dress.”

Let’s just get that out of our system now, sweetie, before all those Bald Knob University tuition bills start piling up.  Been there.  Done that.

Bella’s Monkey outfit came complete with what I originally thought was some kind of yellow medical tubing device or something attached to her chest, and for a minute I got really upset thinking that she might be ill.  But then it turned out to just be a banana phone stuck to her belly with velcro.

I know, right?  A banana that’s a phone.  Shut.  Up.

Bella was definitely a bigger fan of her Verizon Planet of the Apes outfit than she was of the spray tanning process as Mom tried to spritz her down with the same art store air brush they use to mist cheeks on Marie Osmond dolls.

Because Bella was terrified of the full size industrial Big Ang spray tanks, Lana had been relegated to using craft store air compression.  She’s only a foot tall, but it must take them all afternoon to get two coats of shellac on this kid.

Since Brooklyn was only 21 months old her pre-game prep wasn’t quite as elaborate as her fellow princesses, but getting her out of the house and into Grandpa’s RV for the trip to the pageant seemed like a lot of work.

It was going to be a family road trip which was almost cut short when Grandpa activated the automatic front door and nearly took her head off.  Luckily though, Dad had found another one of those unexplained random children that I love seeing in T&T scenes and was dangling a new baby upside down in one arm while juggling gigantic Target plastic tubs in the other.

So even if Grandpa had really knocked Brooklyn senseless, they had a  spare in the trunk.

 

 

 

You think a $4,000 dress can’t be real? You should see my honeymoon photos.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh. Hell. No. White people are crazy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

With a toy for each gay and boy…we are Santa’s elves.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dat’s my baby. She’s holding it all wrong, but that’s my baby. I swear.

 

 

 

 

 

Ok. I may be only 3 months old, but I know this shizzle is seriously f***d up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

You get no dress for $4,000!! Lady right. White people crazy.

 

 

 

 

They’re baaaack!

And even more importantly…she’s baaaack!

Toddlers & Tiaras and Annette Hill are back, bitches.

Christmas came early this year as TLC snuck in a new episode of America’s unspoken glitzy, guilty pleasure one week ahead of the official season premiere.  Surprise!

It totally screwed up my DVR and my pre-game snack planning, but when a gift comes preloaded with as much lunacy as this one did…I’m not complaining. Hand it over.

Plus it had Annette.  And I do love me some Annette.

I’m not sure why exactly, since she isn’t nearly as whacky as some of the other Pageant Directors that we’ve been introduced to over the years.  Not even close.  And you know I also love me some cray cray.  The cray cray-er the better, actually.

But what Annette lacks in wide eyed hyper-enthusiasm and inappropriate lollipop licking (…you do remember the episode with that blonde director going to town on that fine piece of sugar, right? Eeew…) she more than makes up for with Fierceness.

Cuz Annette Hill don’t play.

The last time we got to hang out with Annette she was working that Motown pageant and threatening to get all her junk up on stage and shake what her Momma gave her.  We can only hope the cameras were rolling for that one and that one day we’ll finally get to see her in action on some Director’s Cut DVD.

But this time around it was all about Christmas and Glitz.  Universal Royalty style.  So grab some holiday Chex Mix…this is gonna take awhile.

Our first tiny princess was 3 year old Katlyn and her Mom Kymberli, who both had a little Annette DNA up in there somewhere.

Katlyn was approximately 28 pounds of OhNoYouDin’t as she sassed her way around the bedroom while Mom explained how Divalicious her daughter was for such a young age.  She was a 5th generation pageant girl, born and raised like royalty livestock.

And Baby Girl was poised to take on the world.

Based on volume, Mom contained a substantially larger percentage of the OhNoYouDin’t chromosome than Katlyn, and was therefore mathematically even more Divalicious.

Hey, I’m not hatin’.  I loved her.  And I totally want to hang with Kymberli and Annette when they go clubbin’ on the weekends.  Can you even imagine…? I don’t even have enough bail money in my savings account to cover that trip to the Apollo.  Call me.

But even Dad said that Mom didn’t look like she was starving.  She was a hoot with that bleached, flat ironed synthetic VH1 hair that just made you want to pop off on somebody.

And the apple don’t fall far from the tree, because Grandma Kelli had it going on, too.

But her name is NiNi, not Grannie.  Or at least I think that’s how you spell it.  They never clarified.  But that’s how I’m going to spell it, just so nobody mistakenly thinks that the other NeNe has a grand baby doing pretty feet in Austin.

The other one is very rich, bitch.  She don’t need  your big a** trophy and dollar bill fans, mmmkay?  Bloop.

(Yes, in hindsight…if you don’t watch The Real Housewives of Atlanta you probably could have just skipped over that last paragraph and gotten to the finish line a little quicker.  My bad.)

And then we met Christopher.

Spray tanned, frosted tipped, Crest whitestripped, nervous lipped Christopher.

I just can’t.

Christopher was (allegedly) the Pageant Dad to 9 year old Hailey.  A single father (allegedly) married to Laura for 7 years.

Again.  I just can’t.

I know I make up a lot of stuff when I write.  And I may snark a little.  Once in awhile.

But I just can’t.

Remember The Dick Van Dyke Show?  Two twin beds with a nightstand in between?

Christopher was straight (…no pun intended, but nonetheless hilarious…) out of Central Casting with his Stretch Armstrong face and California Glow spray tan.  The Justin Timberlake *N Sync hair was also a nice touch, as was the twitchy wink that punctuated nearly every sentence.

Let’s just say that I went to college with a lot of “Christophers” who “dated” a lot of “Lauras” when they weren’t waitering at The Cheesecake Factory or painting sets for West Side Story and leave it at that.  I don’t want to influence your opinions on the topic.  You know me by now.  I would never do that.

But before we move on, I’ll just add that those “Christophers” were also the ones who wore those year round euro-trash scarves wrapped five times around their necks and wouldn’t even put on a hat in a blizzard because the static might mess up their tips.

You can just tell Hailey’s Dad owns about 6 pair of those 180 wrap around  the back of your head ear muffs that are always stacked up in the aisles at Macy’s on Black Friday.  You know he does.

And now I’m done.

Christopher’s goal, aside from actually participating in the pageant himself, was to bring Hailey out of her shell.  She was quite shy.  And expressionless.  And yawned a lot.  Good luck with that.

Our final contestant this week was 3 year old Ava, who was so busy clubbing her big brother in the head with a ceramic piggy bank that she barely looked up at the camera.

Mom Monica had that subtle deer in the headlight smile that a Mom always has when she’s attempting to distract company from noticing that her son may have a chunk of white ceramic and two silver dollars embedded in his skull.

You are correct, Mom.  Ava’s a handful.

Then it was off to retrieve Hailey’s $4,000 dress at Muzzie’s, which coincidentally enough, was also the name of the bar that many of my college “Laura” friends went to one night instead of sitting through another West Side Story dress rehearsal.

I just can’t.

Christopher had hooked up Hailey with a stylist.  For her first pageant.  And his name was Ephraim Danforth.

Of course it was.

Somehow, the $4,000 dress had required another $1,000 in alterations and was now ready for pick-up.  Not being a tailor, I can only assume that for $1,000 the gown either now has the Power of Invisibility or will help Hailey fly when she eventually jumps out the window clutching her college education bank book.

Five seasons into T&T, the best thing that came out of the trip to Muzzie’s was that we finally got clear and concise directions on how one walks in a pageant gown from Ephraim Danforth himself.

On the outside, you should look like royalty and walk with your hands slightly scooping your dress as you heel/toe your way down the runway towards Buckingham Palace.

On the inside, you should look like you just scored Streisand tickets at Madison Square Garden.  Box seats.  With a Meet & Greet.

You need to Google it.  Ephraim is my new fabulous screensaver.  I think he even wet himself a little.

When I finally get to go clubbin’ with Kymberli and Annette we’re gonna have to take a 4 door, because we are absolutely swinging by Salon Mia Bella and picking up nail tech Shumei.  She is the tech who drew the short straw and had to give Hailey a french manicure while Christopher twitched and got all jealz on the other side of her station.

When she got wind of the $4,000 dress during an hour of awkward silence, she almost poked her own eye out with a file.

She could buy car for dat!

And then she laughed so big that I wanted to go to a restaurant in Chinatown and hug somebody.  Shumei needs to have a scene every week.

Back at Casa Diva, Katlyn was being shrink wrapped inside a makeshift snow globe.

Literally.  Shrink wrapped.  Like pork chop leftovers.

Mom and Dad were trying to figure out a creative way to design their holiday prop without cutting off all their daughter’s oxygen or alerting Child Services.  Saran Wrap didn’t seem like it would be the way to go as NiNi said a prayer for help.  That’s about when I realized that NiNi is big on that.

Jesus, take the wheel.  Jesus, take the snow globe.  Jesus, help me find the remote.  As we moved on to the pageant, NiNi kept asking Jesus for everything but glue sticks, which made her that much more endearing.

Makenzie was right.  I want my NiNi.

Finally, it was Showtime!

Annette was all gold and full o’ glitz and ready to get it done as the girls began the customary hotel room meltdowns.

Ava didn’t like people yanking on her ‘do and was getting ready to fling another piggy bank unless they wrapped this thing up quickly.

Down the hall, NiNi and Kymberli had apparently just returned from the MTV Music Awards where they performed a medley of their hits, because I can’t think of any other reason why they would be so overdressed for a kids pageant.  And packing cowbells.

If they could get Katlyn half as blinged up as they were for the pageant then Baby Girl was bringing home the Gold, fo’ sho.  I hope they get that dressed up when we all go out for ribs.

As Hailey sat comatose in the chair, the hairstylist that Christopher had paid good money for was falling further and further behind and Dad’s nerves, patience and rubber face were all being pushed to their limits.

He even offered to take Hailey back to his room and do the hairstyling himself.  I’m guessing that means that he had hot rollers and Aqua Net in his carry on, which was…convenient.

I just can’t.

Ava’s ambition when she grows up was to be a doctor.  If that’s really the case, I hope she responds faster with the crash cart than she did during the Beauty portion of the show.  It just didn’t happen.  Even Judge DJ Pecktal took off her glasses like a naughty school teacher in a hard rock music video and commented on how dazed little Ava appeared on stage.

I’m hoping DJ is laying tracks at the club the night I hit the town with the girls, because she seemed like she could get a party started.

Katlyn’s ears bled a little from NiNi wailing on the cowbell, but it was all out of love.

Hailey missed her call and never got to walk the stage with her age group because everyone was still yanking on her hair back up in the room.  Through the bronzer you could tell that Christopher’s cheeks were burning red with anxiety and I could already feel a Celine hissy fit coming on.

He eventually pulled two other hair and makeup people out of thin air and got Hailey down to the ballroom, but it was too late.  But not too late to angrily sashay right up to the podium (…tuck your shirt in, dude…) and get all up in Annette’s face.  Daddy likes it rough, I guess.

Turns out he had paid Annette’s company for the faulty hair lady and demanded that Hailey’s deducted points be added back into her score.  Annette listened, but didn’t really look at him.  Like your Mom does when you are whining about something and she’s trying to watch her stories.

Ok, dear.  That’s nice, dear.  Here’s your lousy three points, you big cry baby.

Christopher even hugged her, and probably got more creeped out than she did.

Pageant Girl Cooties.

For the Christmas Wear portion, nothing says Holiday like stealing decorations from a hotel lobby and sticking them on a life size snow globe, I always say.

Kymberli and Dad panicked a little the night before, bailed on their Saran Wrap death trap and instead chose to ransack the hotel for some festive decor.  Which they promised to return after snagging a trophy for Katlyn.

Jesus, take the security camera.

Ava stood in a Christmas dress.  Period.

Hailey ended up on stage dressed as an elf, singing off-tempo to a track that sounded like those old pull string toys when the battery is just about to die.  Cute, maybe, for a 3 year old.  But for a 9 year old? Deduction.

As she began a slow slide down to the floor to finish the routine, it looked like someone had accidentally knocked one of those creepy Elf On A Shelf dolls off the mantel and didn’t even try to catch it.

Christopher was not happy.  And called the whole thing a surprise, which was a little odd considering that he helped carry the props, saw his daughter dressed up like an elf and (allegedly) lives in the same house with her.  Not to mention that he was clutching the Elf Microphone the whole time he was harassing my girl Annette.

Unless he had something else in his luggage that looked like a fat candy cane with a knob on the end that took AA batteries.  He was holding it for crying out loud.  What part of this was a surprise?

I just can’t.

Then some kids won some stuff.

Katlyn had enough trophies for a yard sale.  NiNi testified “Here comes Santa Claus! Here Comes Santa Claus!” like she was wearing a big hat in church.

Ava got a little sumthin sumthin that made her happy but made Dad Victor insist that she was robbed.

Hailey lost to a girl in a cupcake dress.  One that probably didn’t cost $4,000.

Two happy girls.  One, not so much.

But Dad was there to support poor Hailey by yelling at her to pick up the hem of that $4,000 dress as they exited the hotel.   Don’t make me show you how to walk in that dress, Girlfriend.

To paraphrase Ryan Seacrest…Christopher, out.

Happy Holidays.

 

 

Trust me. There’s a Government Hair Conspiracy out there that no one ever talks about.

 

 

 

 

 

My menthols bring all the boys to the yard like rama lama ding dong, Haters.

 

 

 

 

Why would anyone give such a young child a cigarette? I mean…look at all that hairspray. They’re lucky she didn’t explode.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh. Hell. No.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So not fair. All I got was a juice box and that bitch got a carton of smokes?

 

 

 

 

 

Seriously. I can’t stop looking at it. And she’s holding it all wrong, too.

 

 

 

 

We’ll always be together.

Like Shoo Bop Shoo Wadda Wadda Go Go Go Go Go Juice.

Or something.

The point is…we’ll always be together.  At least until there is no more Crazy for us to dwell on, anyway.  Then I’ll probably just flake on you.

But until then there’s Toddlers & Tiaras.  And if the latest episode is any indication, it doesn’t look like either of us are going anywhere soon.

It was the Beautiful Me: ’50s Pageant/Rockin’ Around The Clock, which took us all like Greased Lightening to a simpler time when roller skating car hops brought you soda fountain specialties and 4 year old girls smoked Lucky Strike unfiltereds on the daycare playground.

I know you miss those days.  They were good times.

As perky Pageant Director Angela Smith explained, this 1950′s themed extravaganza was giving away over $10,000 in prizes to some lucky winner.  Since the Top Dawg would only score $2,000 and probably not even recoup the asking price tag on her new cupcake dress,  I’m not really sure where the other $8,000 was headed.  But Angela seemed legit so I didn’t question her math skills.

She gave a quick run down on all the waitresses and malt shop employees that would be showing up for the ’50′s Outfit of Choice (…OOC if you’re transposing this via your Flash Gordon DeCoder Ring…) portion of the contest and how it was all going to go down at the hotel.

I’ll admit to getting a little excited when I first heard 1950′s, thinking that we would finally see some pint-sized Creature from the Black Lagoon or a little Invasion of the Glittered Body Snatchers.  Or The Blob.

The Blob would have been waaay cool.  But no such luck.

Apparently there was a Happy Days clause buried somewhere in the online registration form, because pretty much every princess was either serving ice cream or holding a Coca Cola bottle hot glued to a frisbee tray.  Maybe next time.

Thankfully, though, a few girls thought out of the box.  Or tobacco carton.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again.

Our first contestant was 22 month old Ava and her crazy haired Mom Jessica.

Loved.  Mom.

Google “crazy pageant mom” and there’s Jessica.  But she’s the good kind of crazy, not the flip out and start crying in Russian kind of crazy.

Jessica is that loud woman you always hear at the Walmart snack bar telling a story about what happened the other night when she went to Target.  But she never finishes the story because she goes off on 42 different tangents and then does one of those explosive laughs that usually end up with gum flying out of her mouth and landing in that little container of cheese you get with your road salt pretzel.

The only thing bigger than her personality was her hair, which could probably stop a bullet better than those kevlar vests the cops always wear when college kids start tipping over cars after the Super Bowl.

She was In.  Sane.  But the good kind.

Eyes going everywhere.  Hands going everywhere.  Hair going everywhere.  Even one mosquito going everywhere that Jess was afraid would make the viewing public think her house was all “Nasty Up In Here.”  

And how ’bout that ’80s hair?  Whoa.  There was so much of it that it quite possibly may have been ’80s and the very beginning of the ’90s hair all ratted up together with some kind of NASA sealant that always made it look like she went swimming three days ago and was still waiting for it to air dry.

Seriously.  Where do you go to get hair like that?  Where is that salon?

I mean…I’m always standing behind these people while they’re digging through their damn fanny packs looking for that 25 cents off breadstick coupon that they swear is in there somewhere, but I’ve never seen them actually getting their hair did.  I really need to go there.

Jessica used to do pageants when she was younger, which explained a lot.

You know when they plopped a crown on that head, they didn’t need no stinkin’ bobby pins.  That Monster Truck Pull hair probably just latchd on to it like it had a life of its own and didn’t let go until they were home safe and sound.

Grandma Helen was just as whacky, but with a much more manageable ‘do.

Honestly, by the time Gram had finished demonstrating proper top down on your convertible parade waves and shown us how they booty pop over at the Senior Center, I totally forgot the episode was supposed to be about that little kid sitting on the floor.

Love me some crazy, and I loved those two.

At one point, bite sized Ava did slap her Mom in the chops, which they don’t really condone in child rearing books.  But the kid was wearing a pretty funky dress that said “I’m So Fabulous, I Cry Glitter” and part of me just really wanted that on a t-shirt for the gym…so I’ll it slide this time.

But no more punching, Miss Thing.  Save it for the guys who are gonna beat me up when I hit the locker room wearing my new shirt.

Next we were off to visit with 4 year old Destiny and her Mom Lisa.

Mom explained that, never having done pageants herself as a child, she was absolutely living her dreams through her daughter.  Destiny then pig piled on top of that one and explained that she liked pageants because…well…because her Mom said so.

You do the math.  Next family, please.

Last stop was to meet 8 year old Emma and Mom Vikki.

Emma hated to practice, loved to watch television and proudly let us all know right from the start that she was internationally known for her Emmatude, which at first sounded like Inner Tube and got me all discombobulated for a second.

Mom was very nice but seemed like she hadn’t completely sucked down the Pageant Kool-Aid yet, because once in awhile she looked like Moms do when they wish their kids had just tried out for the school chorus instead of a hobby that required road trips and 27 plastic bins full of fake hair.  Pageants are a lot of work, people.

Especially when you’re chasing your kid around trying to steal the remote out of her grubby paws.

For this pageant, Ava was getting some new photos done by Miss Alicia.

Normally, it seems like all these pageant people do is have their pictures taken.  But remembering that little Ava is only 22 months old, I don’t really know how many photos she could have realistically stockpiled so far beyond a sonogram and maybe that inkpad thing they do with the bottom of your foot.  So this time it was probably justified.

And again.  She’s 22 months.  So needless to say, getting Ava to sit up and focus on her Mad Hatter’s Tea Party movie set was a little challenging, to say the least.  Imagine trying to prop up one of those bean bag stuffed animals you win at the Fair, except all the beans are either in the head or the butt and the wobbly thing keeps tipping over and throwing donuts at you at the same time.

Luckily Jessica’s hair was so amazing that I was as easily distracted as Ava and didn’t really notice any of the drama.

Not only had Jess driven to the photo shoot with her head out the sunroof the entire time, but she had also somehow managed to face backwards on the highway.

Or maybe she just really teased and smooshed the back of her hair up more than normal.  Dunno.  But it was amazing.  And I loved it.

While Jess was picking up stray donuts, Emma and her Mom were bribing each other at the dress shop.

Vikki wanted Emma to wear a black dress.  Emma wanted the pink one.  Then Emma locked herself in the dress shop bathroom and Mom tried to remember if she had ever heard of a soprano in the school chorus having this kind of diva meltdown over a lousy cupcake dress.

Over at Destiny’s house, she was rehearsing her We Go Together routine from Grease, and it was right around here that things started getting really good.

Based on the movie’s finale when good girl Olivia Newton John comes back to school all tightly hooched up for John Travolta‘s greaser boy with the best name ever Danny (…insert your own Travolta/Masseuse joke here ________ …) Mom thought it would be a hoot to have Destiny come out smoking a cigarette.

I know, right?

Because if it’s good enough for Sandy, it’s gotta be good enough for a 4 year old.  Plus, Destiny’s missing a few teeth, so the filter part would slide right in like it was meant to be there.

You knew how this one was gonna end before it even started, as Destiny kept squawking that she needed the “the real one” instead of having to fake an invisible doobie between her fingers.

Don’t deny Baby her smokes.  You know how she gets.

Back at Casa Hair, we got to meet Ava’s Dad Chad, who could not have wanted to be there any less if the building was on fire.

Really nice guy, but you know as soon as someone stops blinking and says they would rather watch paint dry than sit through a pageant…yeah, it’s over.

Thanks for playing, dude.  Drive safe.

Jessica spit out some more gum and said “Roll with the ‘Fro” for some reason as Dad left to pluck out his own goatee hair by hair.

Finally it was Showtime!

I was oddly fascinated by the emcee with the spiked up hair and the Adult Contemporary radio station voice.  Every time he opened his mouth I wondered if he was going to announce one of the kids, give us a little backstory on the next Barry Manilow CD or tear his own face off to reveal that Mr. Rogers was actually still alive and doing pageant voice overs.

Beautiful Music.  For Beautiful People.  You’re all special.  WWT&T.FM

Hair and makeup went the way it always does.  Those scenes have all been pretty interchangeable since the Makenzie Myers heyday ended.

Oh.  No.  I’m sorry.  I’m not doing that.

There are still plenty of meltdowns, but very few compare.

Destiny kept spitting out her soda like Linda Blair.  Emma’s makeup artist had requested her face be blurred out like an episode of COPS, which I think was probably due to the embarrassment of being seen in that nasty shirt she was wearing.

The biggest drama was Ava’s hair.

Jessica wanted to use the wiglet, while the hair girl wanted to use the baby fall.  I know….drama.

The one thing you don’t F*** with around Jessica is hair, because the bitch knows her stuff and the whole thing was working her last nerve.  By the time tiny Ava was hooked up with the wiglet and no ringlets, Jessica was certain that she had stumbled onto an industry-wide pageant conspiracy where hairdressers were intentionally plopping the wrong wigs on the wrong kids to throw the game.

Despite the emergence of an international coiffure espionage ring, all three little girls did well in the Beauty portion.  Ava became a little mesmerized by the hot floor lights on the stage and tried to touch them like a burner in the kitchen, but she’s a quick learner.

Hot.  Hot.  Boo Boo Kitty.

By the time the ’50s Wear rolled around, the paint in Chad’s garage had probably dried and the girls were ready to go.

Ava recovered from the hot stove lights just in time to see the girl before her use the same pink Barbie car that they were just about to hoist up for her own routine.  Mom was horrified that the judges would now not only think that her home was full of fruit flies, but that she also has to borrow props from total strangers.

Most likely to save some money for new window screens and a case of Raid, I would assume.  Have you been to Home Depot lately?  It’s not like they’re giving those things away.

Emma channeled Lucille Ball’s Carmen Miranda dance and was this week’s unlucky recipient of the scary slo-mo music, which always means you just forgot something.

But the night belonged to leather wearing, chain smoking Destiny who came out toking it like Spring Break, much to the shock and awe of the audience and the judges.

For the first time in Toddlers & Tiaras history, the now classic “Sparkle Baby” mantra was replaced with “Don’t Forget To Smoke” as Mom rolled her a fresh one and sent her out on stage.

Hey.  Relax.  I just embellish…I mean…report it.

Then some kids won some stuff.

Destiny got a Beautiful Me logo ashtray and won the Personality prize.  Emma scored Ultimate Face which I always think is a funny title.  Ava brought home Beauty Supreme and then threw her crown like a Mad Hatter donut and broke it before she ever got home to see Dad’s paint job.

As Jessica’s massively amazing hair blocked out the last bit of sun and night fell on the ’50s, everyone headed back to their respective mini vans and she left us with one last gem.

Jessica likes to do pageants.  No denying it.  But she likes to eat even more.

Yeah.  Definitely eating first.

Seriously.  How can you not love her?  And who let that fly all up in here?

A Wop Bam Boom.