we're getting closer...

...to spring! It's almost March! Winter's almost over! Of course, there's snow on the ground, but that doesn't matter. The calendar says spring arrives this month. I'll just look at this and imagine:

I can't wait. Playing outside, going to the park, swimming, vacation, bubbles, the sand box, riding her tricycle.... ah, just thinking about it all puts me in happy mood.

Well, it seems that my extroverted social butterfly is becoming a bit shy. We're hoping it's just a little phase, because she seems really attached to me at the moment (more than normal), but who knows, since I've always been that way. Today at the grocery store the lady at the meat counter was talking to her and she looked down at her lap and wouldn't look at her. She finally looked up a little and grinned just a little and then said "dye dye" when we left, but a couple of weeks ago she would've been smiling, talking, and squealing away if someone talked to her. A few days ago Daddy took her to the library and into the little playroom she loves and she clung to his leg almost the whole time because there were a couple of other kids in the room. Is this my daughter? The one who just a month or so ago was in the center of that same room dancing around while all eyes were on her? What's going on? The last two weeks she's cried when we've gone to the nursery at church, when usually she loves going in there. She's been happy when we've picked her up, but why is it taking her so much longer to become comfortable all of a sudden? Like I said, we're hoping it's just a phase of separation anxiety or stranger anxiety or whatever, but I guess only time will tell.

Baby Einstein has made a surprising reappearance on our TV screen. I thought those were out a year ago, but for some reason she's totally in love with them again--particularly Baby Noah and Baby MacDonald...you know, the ones with the animals, of course. And she loves the little logo that looks like this:

She sees it on a few baby einstein books she has and goes crazy, shouting, "ah-gie, ah-gie"), pointing at that face. We think she's trying to stay "Einstein." Then she points to her videos and wants to see the same picture on the case. She also loves the little caterpillar that comes on at the beginning and thinks every caterpillar in every book is the baby einstein caterpillar.

The Wiggles are still an obsession, too, and now she has little stuffed dolls (Dorothy, Wags, and Henry that my mom found on ebay) and a Murray guitar to add to her obsession. Whenever she watches the Wiggles (every morning at 7 am) they all come out and dance with her and she points to their pictures on the guitar, too. This girl would watch The Disney Channel every waking moment if we would let her. (we don't, though sometimes it's tempting!).

Well, she's awake and talking in bed, so I need to go get her up.

words of the week

Just in the last week or two her vocabulary has started expanding a lot. Here are some of her new words:

cack-uh = cracker (this is a big improvement on the "k, k, k" she used to say when she wanted one!
bow--nie (with a big pause in the middle) = brownie
Dah-dee = Dorothy (the dinosaur on the Wiggles)
Hi, day-dee = Hi, baby (talking to her dolls)
bah = barn
a-uh = apple
puh-puh = purple
bom = bottom
tay = tail
bow = brown
ge-i = get it or get him (when waking Daddy up when he's pretending to be asleep)
bo = boat

That's all I can think of at the moment, but they're starting to sound a little more like the real thing (except day-dee, of course....but she is saying some words with the "b" sound now!).

Still plugging away on my class, but this week is easier than last week. I'll still be glad when it's all over, but I'll spare you my complaints from now on!

remind me to never do this again

This has to have been the worst week I've had in.....oh, probably since my little one started sleeping through the night. That was when life started getting bearable again...until this past week, that is.

I mentioned that I'm taking these classes to renew my teaching license....a license that I don't know when I'll use again but have to keep current in case I do want to use it again (kind of like an insurance policy...you pay for it even though you hope that you won't have to use it). It's a bunch of jumping through hoops, taking classes you don't want to take just because the state says you have to have 6 credit hours in order to renew it. It's expensive, it's time consuming, and it's just a bunch of baloney, if you ask me. My dad got a permanent license back in the day and never had to worry about it again. You can't do that anymore. Ah....the good ol' days....

Anyway, so I'm taking these classes. I signed up to start the first one the last week of January. It went three weeks, then I had a week off and the second one started, lasting three weeks. After I enrolled and paid all my money they told me the first class was full and I had to wait until the next start day, and they went ahead and enrolled me in that class. Well, it overlapped with the second class for one week. That was this week. THE.worst.week.EVER!

So I was trying to finish one class and start another one. These are three week classes, but they are a full quarter of a graduate level class, squeezed into three weeks, so it's an exorbitant amount of work in a very short period of time. Fine if you are childless, but for those of us with almost two year olds running around, it's difficult. Forget trying to get anything done when she's up. Impossible. So every naptime and every night after bedtime I've been at the computer. But this week it was even worse. Because of the amount of work I had to finish for two classes, I was also up here every second I could spare when my husband was home and could be downstairs with our little one. Well, she's going through a "Mommy" phase where she doesn't want anyone else but me, so everytime I came up to work I had to listen to her whining and crying because she wanted me and not Daddy. She'd come to the bottom of the stairs and yell, "Mama, Mama," to me. It broke my heart not to be able to go to her. Daddy did the baths and bedtimes almost every day this week so I could get an extra half hour or 45 minutes in....which caused tears on her part as well because she wanted Mommy. Well, Mommy wanted her, too. I would've much rather have been giving a bath or reading "Time for Bed" or singing her to sleep. Two broken hearts....

So today I turned in my last assignment for my first class and my two assignments that are due on Monday for my second class, so I'm ahead for a couple of days (out of necessity, because I'm going to my nephew's birthday party tomorrow and won't be home to work on it!). It's a relief, and yet not really because I know on Tuesday I have to start it all up again! At least these next two weeks won't be quite as hard as this last week was, since I'm back down to one class again.

If I had nothing else to do I would've enjoyed these classes. They're interesting, it's nice to have "discussions" with other teachers around the country online and not have to talk to them face to face (not a particular strength of mine), and I've learned a lot. However, I do have other things to do...much more important things, like dance to Wiggles songs and wipe goldfish cracker crumbs from little cheeks and play in the snow, just to name a few. I have baths to give and songs to sing and board books to read. Give me that anyday over online textbooks (have you ever tried to read an entire textbook on the computer screen? It's torture!) and intellectual "conversation." Do you know how hard it is to go from saying things like, "Five little monkeys jumping on a bed...." to then having to sound profound and write a 700 word paper in APA style?

Kudos to all of the parents of little ones who go back to school and do this stuff every day. I don't know how you do it. It's definitely not for me. Thankfully, for another five years it doesn't have to be.

Tomorrow is a new week. It's bound to be better than this one was.

a little about me

This blog is called the World of Weed, but it seems that I'm always writing about the daughter of Weed (well, she is pretty much my world, since I'm a stay at home mom)! Well, I ran across this survey and liked it because it's different than all of the rest I seem to get, so I thought I'd answer it so you'd know a little more about me that you may not already know.

1. What is the one BIG goal you hope to accomplish this week? Finish my classwork. This week my two classes I'm taking overlap so I'm trying to finish up my first class and get started on my second class. It's a ton of work and I'm not sure how it's going to happen (getting off of my blog would be a start, though, huh?)

2. What is the one household chore you do NOT like to do? I can only pick one? I hate household chores. But if I had to choose I'd say changing the sheet on my daughter's crib. It's torture and takes forever. Who knew a little bed could be such a pain?

3. What would you buy if someone gave you $2,000.00 (all debts and bills paid)? I'd put it in the bank because I'd need it soon enough. But if I had to spend it, I guess I'd fix our fireplace so we could use it and cut down on our heating bill.

4. Describe yourself using one word. Quiet.

5. What is the one saying or theme that you live by? "I'll do it tomorrow." Not a theme I want to live by, but for some reason I've sort of adopted it...hmm...I'd better work on fixing that.....tomorrow, of course!

6. What is the one household item you can NOT live without? Dishwasher. Well, I did live without it for many years, but now that I have one, I don't want to ever be without it!

7. If you had one chance to go anywhere in the world where would you go? Europe--all over, but most of all I want to see London and the Alps.

8. List the one person you admire the most. Only one? My parental unit...does that work for one? I admire my mom and dad for being happily married for 40 years in a world full of divorce, for teaching me just about everything I know, for working so hard all of those years to provide for my brothers and me....for too many things to list here, actually.

9. What is one thing people may not know about you? My eyes are different sizes. If you look carefully at a picture of me you'll notice. Now aren't you glad you know that?

If you have a blog and want to use this...consider yourself tagged!

piecing things together

As I've mentioned before, though she babbles non stop she's behind in her language skills. Most almost-two-year-olds have been talking in short sentences for a few months now. Ours never has. But just the other day we saw a glimpse of her learning to put everything together. We were driving in the car and were stopped at a red light. We were pointing out the red to her and told her it would turn green soon (this is a regular pasttime when we're driving because she's often fussy in the car and we're trying to get her attention on something else). So the light turned green. She said, "geeee!!!!" Then as we drove through the light she said, "dye dye gee." Translation: Bye bye green light. Not quite a sentence, but she's getting there.

on a bargain high

I've just been shopping (by myself....Daddy's home today for President's Day, so I got a little time to myself--ahhhhhhhh....) and have to share my bargains.

First I went to CVS to get a prescription filled for my husband. I don't usually go there, but CVS takes competitor's coupons, so I took a competitor's coupon for a $20 gift card with a transferred prescription, and they honored it. So I got my prescription and $20 to spend.

I decided to spend it on items that would earn me ECBs (Extra Care Bucks). I've been reading a coupon board online for over a year now and see all of this stuff these women get for free by using coupons and earning ECBs at CVS. It always sounded so complicated, so I never tried it. But a few weeks ago a friend recommended a website which broke it down so I actually understood what to do and she tried it and it inspired me to try.

So this week CVS has a deal that you buy $30 worth of certain products and you get $15 back in ECBs to spend the next time you go to CVS. Huggies diapers were one of the products. They were on sale plus I had coupons. So I bought 3 packs of those and a couple of other things on the list of items to hit the $30 mark. I had a coupon for $4 off a $20 purchase, so it was going to cost me $26 plus some tax. Subtract my $4.50 in diaper coupons and my $20 gift card.....I ended up paying $2.67 out of my own pocket, plus I got $15 in ECB to spend just like cash the next time I go there. I was so excited.

Then I went to Kohl's. I had a gift card there. I bought a ladybug summer outfit (shorts and a shirt) for you know who for her birthday and a shirt for myself, and all of it was also on sale. After I used the gift card I had to pay $.09!!

I thought about staying out a little longer, but decided I'd better come home while I was ahead. My husband, of course, doesn't understand....he says I still had to pay for the prescription (it was $10), so really I spent $12.67 at CVS, but I told him that I would've had to have bought that anyway somewhere, so I may as well have done it at CVS to make my money work for me!

where do we begin?

Okay, we got a potty chair....now what? (No, this isn't the potty chair we have...we have a very simple cheap one...I just thought this was a funny picture of one, and probably one my husband would try to build her if he saw this picture!)

Yesterday we took it out of the box and she sat on it (with her clothes on). She was most excited about opening and closing the lid.

This morning she dragged it out of the bathroom out in front of the TV and sat on it to watch The Backyardigans.

I guess she likes it...

success!

She can drink out of a straw!!!

I know it's not exciting for anyone else, but it is for me, because every time she does something with her lips I start to think, "Maybe there's nothing wrong with those muscles after all!"

We were at Wendy's yesterday having lunch and didn't have a sippy cup with us, so we got her a little cup of water and tried the straw. Within seconds she was sucking water out of it. How she learned, I'll never know. She just did it.

My girl's got talent, huh?!

happy valentine's day

Couldn't decide which to post, so you get all three!

We're going out to dinner tonight--I don't think we've had a "date" since Christmas when we were at my parents' and went to a movie, so I'm looking forward to it. My husband asked me where I wanted to go and I said I wanted to not have to plan it, so I was in charge of the babysitter and he was in charge of dinner. It so happened that my mom was going to be at my brother's last night to sit for them while they went out, so she offered to come here today to sit for us tonight. Perfect! My job was easy!

Last night I tried to get him to tell me where we were going. I finally got him to give me a clue. He said, "You've been there before." I had a guess, but only because a week or so ago he told me he didn't remember where this place was. So I told him my guess and I was right! It's one of my favorites...Bravo. He's not a huge fan, but I've always loved it and a couple of college friends and I go there almost everytime we get together, but one of them moved away so we don't get together much anymore, so I haven't been in a really long time (I think I was pregnant the last time I was there--two years ago!?!?). I can't wait.

dress up

As I mentioned earlier this morning, I'm watching my three year old niece today for a few hours. She brought a big bag of dress up clothes with her for the girls to play with. My little one has never played dress up before, and to tell you the truth I didn't think she'd be much into it because she hates getting dressed in the morning and undressed at night. It's like she can't be bothered to stop what she's doing to do something so unexciting!

But I was wrong--she had a ball! Do little girls just have this instinctive understanding that big poofy dresses are fun to put on and purses and crowns make them "glamorous?" Because even though she doesn't have a clue who the Disney princesses are and has never had a tiara or any type of princess attire, she immediately knew what to do with them all!

I put the Snow White costume on her and that wasn't enough...she wanted the gloves, too. Of course, she doesn't know how to put fingers in the holes of a pair of gloves, and they were way too big for her tiny hands, but she loved having them on her hands anyway, and clapped and clapped with them on.

While I was helping my niece put a costume on, this is what my girl did on her own:

It's supposed to be a skirt, but she thought it was a hat and it wound up looking like a veil. Hilarious.

And her favorite, of course, was the ladybug, as it's an obsession of hers lately. Did I mention that I'm going to make her a ladybug cake for her birthday? I decided to make that the theme this year for her little party.

So here's my little ladybug, along with her cousin, Madame Butterfly. They're both in bed right now, which affords me the time to share all of this with you!

a sleepy, snowy day

I wrote this yesterday....so keep that in mind as you read.

My day started at 2:30ish this morning, when our little one had one of her night terrors, or whatever they are. She had one a few days ago, but before then it had been months since she'd had one. I've learned not to go into her, even though she's crying and carrying on, because she's not awake and it only makes it last longer if I try to fix it. She works through it much better on her own. Around 2:45 her cry changed and I could tell that she was awake and was calling "mama." Then I went in and she was fine as soon as I picked her up. I sat down with her in the dark and rocked her and sang a few songs while she sat quietly. I couldn't tell if she had fallen back asleep or not. After a few minutes I said, "Are you ready to go nigh night some more?" "Okieeeee," she answered quietly. So I put her back down and she was quiet. I went back to bed, but for the next hour she would rouse every few minutes and do her strange "I'm not awake" cry, so I couldn't sleep (not to mention my husband's snoring, because he has a cold). I was tossing and turning and didn't want to keep him up, so I got up and came downstairs. I was wide awake by that point and didn't fall asleep (on the couch) until about 5:30. At 6:30 I heard my husband get up, and a few minutes after that our little one started making noise, too. So my day started (with very little sleep).

It snowed overnight, about an inch and a half, but then it started again and was supposed to continue all day, along with some freezing rain. All of the schools around us closed (including the city schools, which never close) and my husband says the road are pretty bad.

When I went to get her up after her nap (oh, I slept a little during her nap, by the way, so I felt much better by this point) I walked in her room and the hood from her hooded fleece was up on her head! I wished I had had a camera with me--it has a pointy hood and she just looked so funny sitting there in bed, hair all a mess, bright red cheeks, and a pointy hood on her head. Quite a sight.

So after her nap this afternoon we ventured out into the winter wonderland. She was, of course, excited to wear her boots. I threw a snowball to her, which she then picked up but wasn't sure what to do with. So she did what any exploring toddler would do, I suppose....put it in her mouth. She's almost through the putting everything in her mouth phase (I think!) but she couldn't resist. "Mmmmm," she said. "Yuck!" I said, as I told her no. It was dirty because the gloves I had pulled on as I rushed out the door were an old pair that I had used to help my husband out in the garage one time.

So she "threw" her first snowball and I helped her make her first snow angel. She liked it when I moved her legs back and forth and back and forth. She thought that was funny. She didn't get it, though, and when I tried to show her what she made she turned away and got interested in something else, but oh well. It's still her first snow angel:

We came inside after 10 minutes or so because it was lightly raining freezing rain and we were getting wet. She would've stayed out all afternoon, though. Then we played with one of her favorite things--her pretend food. Right now she's really into the ears of corn, a bunch of peas, and a pretend chocolate chip cookie. She carries them around for a significant portion of the day.

It's supposed to keep snowing, so we'll see what tomorrow holds, and whether we can go out again.

Okay, now it's back to today, Wednesday. I got much more sleep last night, though she still had one of her "episodes" as I've come to call them, since I don't know what to call them. This time it was at 10:00 though, just as I was getting ready for bed. It didn't last long and was much more manageable.

It did snow again last night a little bit. All of the schools are closed again here. I'm watching my niece today (she'll be here in a few minutes), so I'm sure my little social girl will be in all her glory with another little one to play with!

(Oh, and here's just a little of what goes on at my house....dancing with a jump rope in her mouth. Doesn't everyone do that?)

the pig tail war

My friend, Emily, recently posted on her blog about wishing she could put pig tails in her daughter's hair (our daughters are almost the same age), but her hair is still too short. I commented on her blog and said that I'd love to do pigtails too, but it's a battle I usually choose not to fight. She hates having her face or head touched to clean, brush, comb, wipe, etc, and makes it abundantly clear to the perpetrator (how do you spell that word, anyway?? I can't get my spell check to work!). Washing her ears, face, and hair is a daily battle I do choose, because, hello, she needs to be clean!

But anyway, until today she'd only had pigtails (successfully) two times, and that was because Daddy held her arms away so she couldn't grab her hair or my hands and make it impossible for me to do. I can't do them by myself at this point because she doesn't understand why Mommy's pulling her hair and can't help but pull away.

So today her hair was awful--she got out of bed looking like her finger was stuck in a light socket. Some mornings she wakes up and it looks almost perfect, and other mornings it's a static mess. Today is was the latter. So I decided to fight the battle of the pig tails. Daddy held her down and I, armed with a brush and two teeny tiny rubber bands, went to work. She wiggled, she squirmed, she cried and carried on, but Mommy (with reinforcement from Daddy) won. The pig tails stayed.

I tried to take pictures, but she was too busy either dancing, playing, fooling with her pig tails, or crying (because I wouldn't put the camera down) to really smile for me, but oh well. Here she is in her pig-taily cuteness (complete with drool on her jumper!).

my new name

First I was "da da." For a long time, actually.

Then came "dee da." My mom was that too for awhile. Last time we saw her she was "ga ga" (sounds kind of like "Grandma," right?)

Finally I became "Mama." I was so excited!

The other day I became "Nonny," as she's trying to say "Mommy." She'll say "nonny nonny nonny," and I'll correct her and make sure she's looking at my mouth as I say, "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy." Then you can see her little mouth contorting just so and she says, "Mah-ny Mah-ny," and then finally a "Mommy" comes out. She'll say Mommy a couple of times and then it's like she just can't make her mouth say that anymore and it's back to "Mama," which is just fine with me! I'll take "Mama" anyday over "da da!"

I've had the thought for a long time that there's something wrong with the muscles in her mouth/lips. From day one she had eating problems (couldn't latch on correctly, had to switch to the bottle, had a zillion problems with that, too, and on and on). She can't drink out of a straw, uses the "d" sound for everything that's supposed to start with "b," and has trouble making the "m" sound, too. Something about putting those little lips in the right position just isn't easy for her. She can make the sounds now, but it's taken a long time, and it isn't very often that she uses them correctly in context (Mama is an exception). I mentioned this to the doctor a couple of months ago at a visit when she was sick, and she said we'd address it at her 2 year well check up, so we'll see. If there's a problem, I'd like to know about it now so we can get her in to see someone who can help us sooner rather than later. I hate that she's learning all of these wrong ways to say words! When she's in kindergarten I don't want her being made fun off because she wants to play "dasket-dall" or tells her friends "dye dye" at the end of the day, or can't drink out of juice boxes because she doesn't know how to use a straw!

So anyway, "Nonny" is off to bed. I just signed off of my class for the night (it's so weird that I can go to class 24/7 in my PJs if I want to), and I'm tired.

picture time

Okay, so I lied.... I said I wouldn't be around much this month, but I've gotten tons of work done for my class in the last two days and am several days ahead (chalk it up to being completely stressed about it all, so I worked hard to get as much as I could done), so now I can take a break and share some pictures with you.

Early this morning my little one found a hooded sweatshirt that she wore yesterday laying around--somehow it didn't make it up into the hamper last night when she went to bed. She decided to put it on (with Mommy's help when she couldn't get it on all by herself). Then she found Daddy's Steelers stocking hat (a hat he's had forever and a day) and put that on. She also still had her PJs on....she was quite a sight, so I decided to take some pictures. (By the way, notice that the back of her car is filled with her beads. That's where she likes to store them!)

Later on in the morning I decided to attempt fingerpainting for the first time with her. I was feeling blah and we didn't have any plans today, the weather was gross, and I needed something different and exciting to add pizazz to our day. I figured I'd have a big mess to clean up, but oh well. I was up for the challenge. So I taped newspaper to the kitchen table (actually, all the newspaper had already been taken out, so all I had were a few ads I had saved), and then taped a big piece of paper over the top of it. I squeezed a small bit of each color of finger paint onto a paper plate. Then I brought her over and put her new art smock on her that she got for Christmas (it's HUMONGOUS!--but it did the job!) and put her in her high chair. She didn't quite understand what was going on, but she was excited. I then put my finger in the paint and drew a smiley face for her to show her how to do it. She got a huge smile on her face and dipped her finger right in. It took her awhile to get the hang of it, and she tried a few times to bring her finger up to her mouth (but I was able to keep it from getting into her mouth, and she eventually stopped trying), but she seemed to really enjoy it.

After she was done, but before I cleaned up, I was trying to get her to smile for a few pictures. I started singing a song to make her smile, and she, in turn, started dancing. In the process she got some paint on her face. Up until that point she had stayed so clean! Actually, there was very little mess to clean up, so I was happy about that.

All day long she kept asking for more. I'm afraid I've started something.... Maybe she'll forget about it by tomorrow!

a few quick tidbits

The other night Daddy snapped his fingers (I think it was to some music). Our little one thought that was great, so decided to snap herself. After all, snapping is just moving your hand up and down and saying, "K," isn't it? Well, that's what she thinks it is, anyway. It was so funny I started crying I was laughing so hard.

There's a Wiggles song about standing on one foot and shaking your hands. She's got the standing on one foot part down pat: she holds onto the coffee table and lifts her foot up whenever that part of the song comes on. It's too cute.

There's another Wiggles song about moving your arms like Henry (he's an octopus, for all of you non-Wiggles fans out there). The dancers move their arms around and around. Well, the other night, out of nowhere, she started moving her arms really slowly around and around (mind you, she wasn't watching the Wiggles....just wandering around moving her arms). I couldn't figure out what she was doing. Yesterday as she watched that song, she started moving her arms around and I finally figured out that's what she was practicing several nights before!

This story is for my friend, Nancy (Nancy and I were roommates in college). Nancy made R a beautiful quilt when she was first born. When we used to lay her down on the floor to play we always laid her down on that quilt. Since she's been mobile and doesn't play in one place anymore the quilt has been folded up, hanging on the back of the rocking chair in her room, and occasionally if I go in to check on her and it's cold I'll put the quilt on top of her. Well, in the last couple of weeks, when she gets up from a nap or gets up in the morning she wants to crawl up on the rocking chair and point to the colors in the quilt. She says "blue" and "green" when she points to the those colors, and wants me to say "pink" and "yellow" when she points to those colors. Then she wants to take the quilt down onto the floor, spread it out just so (if it has wrinkles in it, she fusses), sit on it, and look at her books. We do this nearly every day at least once. And before we leave the room she makes sure I fold the quilt back up and hang it back on the back of the chair. Nancy, I thought you'd like to know that your quilt is still used and loved!

I probably won't be posting much for the next month or so. I'm taking two online classes, starting today, in order to get the credits I need to keep my teaching license valid. It expires this summer, so I needed to get on the ball and get this done. I got the syllabus last night for the first class and it looks like a ton of work, so I don't know that I'll have a lot of time to post here. We shall see! I'm a little worried about how I'll get all of the work done, but my husband assures me that I don't need to get an A, I just need to pass. He thinks I should aim for a B or C. I told him that I don't work that way. How about I just do my best and see what that gets me? I'll be glad when March 11th is here and I'm all done!