a belated and before birthday bash

Yesterday was my friend Amanda's little girl's birthday--Jada turned two. Last weekend was my friend Allecia's son, Kaden's, second birthday, and in a week and a half is my little one's birthday. So obviously, Amanda, Allecia, and I were all pregnant at the same time and gave birth just within weeks of each other. Amanda had the idea to go out to celebrate all of their birthdays. Since Jada's is in the middle it made sense to go on her birthday--a birthday celebration for her, belated celebration for Kaden, and a before celebration for our daughter. So last night our three families met at Red Robin. However, trying to fit 10 people (three of them toddlers, plus one older sister, who is a preschooler) into a busy restaurant on Friday night at 6:00 pm is no easy task. We waited an hour. An hour waiting with hungry toddlers in a crowded restaurant lobby feels like an eternity. When we went in to put our name in we saw a couple go sit down. We were still waiting when we saw them leave!

But we all survived, and after lots of running around the lobby, playing with balloons, looking at the tiger they have on display, keeping them away from the revolving door, and on and on and on, they finally called us back. And they all were pretty well behaved for having waited so long and being up way past their bedtimes. The highlight was having the waiters and waitresses come out clapping with three hot fudge sundaes singing to all three of them. They all weren't really sure they liked the loud singing, but there was lots of clapping at the end, which at least made my little one quite excited. She loves singing and clapping of any sort.

So here are some pictures. Enjoy.

Amanda and Jada

Weed and R

Allecia and Kaden (sorry it's not a great picture, Allecia....but it's the only one I got of both of you!!!)

Here's a better picture of cutie-pie Kaden!

The birthday boy and girls

Getting ready for the singing and clapping....Amanda was preparing them for the celebration!

"I Dee" is one of her favorite foods (translation: Ice Cream). She fed herself almost the whole thing.

Here's the result:

a picture of modesty

This is from New Year's Eve, but I just saw it for the first time last night when my friend who took it showed it to me. Yep, that's my daughter, folks. The poster child for femininity.

I've had it with video clips. I've tried and tried to post several, and spent well over and hour on it today when I should've been cleaning, but I was determined to get it to work. It didn't, as you can see, since there are no new video clips. Oh well. You've gone this long without seeing her on video, I guess you can continue to just see the pictures. So don't be surprised if you don't see anymore. I think I've given up, unless someone has some helpful advice for me.

learning the ABCs

In the last several days she's started singing her version of the alphabet song. It goes something like this:

"e-k-e-k-e-k-G" (she says that one really loudly and holds it for the appropriate length (longer than the other letters, just like it's supposed to be). Then it continues with other various letters, and sometimes just little grunts. "K" always seems to make many appearances throughout the song.

I think it's hilarious. At the end she squeals and claps. And then signs "More!!"

She also has started "reading" some of her books. Her favorite one to read is "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" It goes "moun dare moun dare, uh uh uh," or something close to that. "Moun" is brown in her language, and "dare" is bear, so there you go! Moun Dare, Moun Dare.... She sometimes does the other animals by saying their sounds instead of their names. She likes me to jump in and read with her, but I just like listening to her do it....especially when she thinks no one is paying attention and she's just reading away. Sometime I need to catch her in the act on video.

At the moment she's playing Mommy to her babies--she went and got one of her own diapers and is trying to put it on her baby doll. Of course the baby is small and would take a preemie size diaper and her diapers are size 4....so you can imagine how it looks--up to the baby's chin. Now I'm laughing because she just picked up her leap frog green plastic caterpillar and is trying to put a diaper on it!!! What an imagination.

a girl after Daddy's heart

It's a gorgeous day here today and after we got home from the grocery store (more on that later) we stayed outside to play for almost an hour. For the entire time we were outside, my nature loving daughter (Daddy's girl through and through--shown here picking up a leaf) ran back and forth from her favorite rock in the side yard to the oak tree in the front yard collecting acorn tops (she calls them "coe-ah," which is her word for "corn"). She'd pick up one at a time, run back to the side yard, squealing and holding her precious acorn top with such delight, drop it into the pile she had accumulated, run back to the front, and pick up another one. Here she is holding her acorn top....can't you just see the excitement written all over her face?

She'd pick up only one at a time. Never mind that she has two hands....or that acorn tops are small and she could hold several in her hand at once. No, that hasn't occurred to her. So it was back and forth and back and forth. And loving every minute of it.Here she is running back from her rock (her rock is the big one behind her to the left). She likes to sit on it, and this is the first place she runs whenever we go outside to play.

Once she had a pile over by her rock, she decided that wasn't the place for the pile. So she proceeded to pick them up again one by one and move them to a different pile under the dead lilac bush, which is about a yard away from her rock. I caught a little of that process on video. I tried to upload it and had trouble. I'll try to add it on here later.

This went on and on, and would've continued unless I hadn't intervened and told her it was time to go in to have lunch. She didn't want to go in, but was happy to eat lunch and practically fell asleep feeding herself her yogurt. Daddy came home and sat and had lunch with her, but she didn't say a word. Very unlike her usual chatty self. "She's very quiet today," he commented. I told him I thought she had worn herself out running back and forth for so long. Here's hoping for a long nap this afternoon!

We'll go back out this afternoon and probably this evening, too. She would stay out all day if she had her way. I just wish this beautiful weather would stay with us, but it's supposed to rain the rest of the week, and then be colder on Saturday, which is our next nice day. Oh well. At least we've had this glimpse of spring for today.

Okay, so I said I'd tell you more about the grocery store. I went because we needed milk, but I decided that I'd check the ads to see what was on sale, even though I didn't need too many groceries. Well, I found out that Lysol products were half price, and there were a ton of Lysol coupons in the paper recently, so I was able to buy about six different bottles of different cleaners (which I desperately needed, too!) for 28 cents each! And a bottle of toilet bowl cleaner for 4 cents! Plus I had a prescription transferred there using a coupon and got a coupon for $10 off my groceries in return. I was very excited about my deals. Not only that, but earlier in the week I saw this post about signing up for Kohl's email mailing list and getting a $5 coupon, so I did that and received my coupon a couple of days later. Today I went, looking for a white short sleeved shirt with a collar for my little one to go with a skirt I have for her for the summer. I had no luck in that department, but I decided to look through the clearance racks. I found two dresses for her for next winter both marked down to $3.40. I bought them both, used my $5 coupon, and ended up paying $1.92 for two dresses that originally would've cost me $68!! I get a little too much of a thrill from my bargains, so most of you are probably reading this paragraph thinking, "So what? Who cares what you paid for toilet bowl cleaner!" but it's quite exciting to me.

So there's a glimpse into my day....bargains and acorns!

happy easter

I realized today that this was her third Easter.....strange when you consider the fact that she's not even two years old!

She was a week old her first Easter (she's wearing my first Easter dress!),

last year Easter was the day before her first birthday,

and this year Easter falls two and a half weeks before her birthday.

It's strange the way it falls at different times.

The day started with her first ever Easter egg hunt. Daddy grew up having them in his house, so he wanted to continue the tradition, so last night he filled a huge bag of plastic eggs with candy and "hid" them in the living room. Hiding them from a not quite two year old means laying them out in broad daylight across the floor, on the couch and chairs, on the windowsill, and so forth. The trickiest ones were in the back of her car--we had to help her find those. She loved it, though. We gave her her bucket and showed her how to put the eggs in, and she went back and forth across the room, picking up an egg, then trotting back and putting it in the bucket, then going back for another one, and back to the bucket. We laughed at her lack of multi-tasking....she could've put an egg in each hand, but she didn't. It was one at a time practically every time. Here's a rare exception! It took her several eggs to realize that there was something in the eggs. When she figured that out she'd then shake the eggs as she carried them back to the bucket, but didn't bother sampling anything inside. It wasn't until after they were all collected that she found the chocolate eggs and tried biting into the foil to get to the chocolate. Gross. She wasn't interested in the jelly beans--took her a long time to even agree to put one in her mouth. When she finally did she spit it out, tried a different color, spit it out, tried one more color, and gave up. Jelly beans don't make the cut, I guess. Chocolate was another story. She asked for it all day.

Then she got her easter basket. This was my basket growing up, so it has special meaning to me. She wasn't very interested in anything in it, except more foil covered chocolate eggs. I had to show everything to her later for her to understand what it all was. (Note: most of the candy in the basket is for Daddy (and a Resee's egg for me....) and not for her! She only likes the chocolate eggs anyway, plus there's a chocolate bunny Daddy wanted me to buy because he always got one of those in his basket. I'm sure she'll devour that, too, in time.

We went to church and she cried when Daddy left her in the nursery (he leaves her because she does better separating from him than from me) but was full of smiles when we came back for her. This is usually the case, so I'm glad she enjoys it after the initial tears. She hadn't been in several weeks, due to her sickness and then mine, so we were apprehensive about leaving her again with her recent shyness episodes. I'm glad it didn't affect her this week.

This afternoon we went outside into the sunny but chilly day and used her new sidewalk chalk from her easter basket, though she was much more interested in the bubbles I took out, too. We went for a walk and she enjoyed carrying her bubble bucket and pointing to the plethora of airplanes we saw flying above.

The highlight of the day was the "Turbo Tigger" toy--an Easter gift from Grandma. She has been very excited about her Pooh doll in the last couple of weeks and now Tigger has joined the family. This Tigger bounces on his tail and sings "The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers." She loves it and starts bouncing and squealing herself everytime he does. I have some cute video of her with Tigger, but it takes forever to load, so I'll have to do that another time.

All day long, in addition to watching Tigger bounce, she carried her "eggies," as she calls them, around, trying to open and close them. Plastic eggs are not meant for two year olds to open and close--she gets so frustrated. But she loved carrying them all around the house, back and forth from person to person and room to room, naming the colors each time.

She had a fun day.

elmos and tigers and hair cuts, oh my!

Busy day around here....Daddy's off for Good Friday, so we decided to go to the zoo. It was a little cold, so there was hardly anyone there, which was nice, and a nice thing about having a membership is that you don't feel like you're wasting your money if you leave after an hour or two (we left after about two). She loved seeing the tiger up close. He just paced back and forth behind the glass watching her. It was kind of frightening, actually, as her parent, but she loved it!!

And she touched a snake. Gross. I hate snakes. I made Daddy take her to do that.

Yesterday she got her hair cut. It needed it badly. She looks a little more well kept now!

After we got home from the zoo I set to work decorating an Elmo birthday cake for Kaden, my little one's best friend, who turns two tomorrow (he's two and a half weeks older than she is, so that means it's only two and a half weeks until her birthday! I can't believe it.). If you'll recall I took a cake decorating class a little over a year ago (you can click back to March 2007 blogs to find some pictures if you're really bored!) and learned how. I made Kaden's little smash cake last year for his first birthday and the cakes for our little one's birthday last year, too. I'm looking forward to making her a ladybug cake in a few weeks--I'm sure you'll see the results on here if you come back. Elmo's eyes are a little on the yellow-y side because of the butter in the frosting and because I used regular vanilla and not "Wilton Clear Vanilla," like they recommend, but other than that, I'm fairly happy with the result.

I hope Kaden is, too! Happy Birthday, Kaden!!

it worked!!!!

Okay, so now since I think I'm so smart, I'll try another one! In this one she was playing with the clock on the toy and started dancing to the music. But as soon as she noticed that I had the camera on her, she had to run over. She figured out that she could see herself when I played it back for her, so everytime she'd see me with it pointed toward her, she'd come running, saying, "see, see!" So much for candid shots! But enjoy the brief little dance....

Okay, enough of that for today. I can't exert myself too much all in one day. I've been sick, after all! Today I finally feel pretty much like myself. Still can't eat very much--nothing much sounds good, but I did eat both breakfast (a tiny bit of cereal) and lunch (half a peanut butter sandwich) so far. That's more than I've eaten in the last three days combined (a couple of saltines, a few bites of toast, and several bottles of gatorade to replensish my fluids were about it). Last night I finally felt hungry and wanted to eat and I couldn't find a single thing in the house that sounded good to me except for popcorn! My husband was afraid it would rip up my poor stomach, but I insisted, since it was growling like crazy and I had to put something in it, and I couldn't stand the thought of another saltine or bite of toast. So I ate just a little and ate it really slowly, and it tasted so good. Hopefully I'll be back to normal tomorrow if I can keep eating some real food today and get some more energy.

Last night for some reason I couldn't go to sleep. I think it was because I took a two hour nap yesterday afternoon while my little one napped, since I was so wiped out from the days before. So last night I was laying in bed tossing and turning and finally turned on the TV (my poor husband has been banished to the guest room since all of this started so I wouldn't bother him with all of my comings and goings from the bathroom!) which means I could turn the TV on in bed, which I ordinarily couldn't do. I flipped around and found the show, "Top Chef" on Bravo. It brought back memories of my last month or so of pregnancy two years ago--I was always so uncomfortable and couldn't sleep and would end up on the couch almost every night flipping around at midnight looking for something to watch. I discovered Top Chef then and became hooked. I never see it anymore because it seems like it's always on after I go to bed, but I really like it, and I got to see the first episode of a brand new season last night! I'm tempted to keep watching...but that would mean staying up past my bedtime (it's normally on at 10:00 on Wednesdays, I found out, and I usually go to bed at 10). Too bad I don't have TiVo.... just the old fashioned VCR, and I guess I could tape it.... I don't know if I'm that committed to it or not! That's a lot of work to remember to set that every week. We'll see.

first ever video clip

Okay, here goes nothin'....I must be feeling better if I'm willing to attempt this! I was playing around with my new camera today and figured out how to take a few short videos with it. Then I actually figured out how to get them onto my computer. Now I want to see if I can get them to play on here--the final hurdle. Here's the first one (I hope!). I know it's not very exciting, but give me a break...it's my first one!

I brought that toy up from the basement this morning--I took her down there while I was putting in a load of laundry and she fell in love with it all over again, so I brought it up. She spent at least a half hour playing with it--you would've thought it was a brand new toy!

Now if this one works, I'll try to post one showing off her dancing skills a bit....stay tuned.

so sick

The last day and a half have been one of the longest ever. Yesterday afternoon I put my daughter down for a nap and then laid down myself because I hadn't slept well the night before and I was tired. As I laid there my stomach was bothering me. I did fall asleep but when I woke up I felt really nauseous. Well, it only went downhill from there.... Except for once in grad school when I had food poisioning, I've never been this sick. My husband had to stay home from work today to take care of our little one because I can barely move, except to make it back and forth between the bed and the bathroom. This is a rare time that I'm actually sitting on the couch downstairs. I couldn't take my bed anymore. And to make matters worse my mom now has it too. I feel so bad that I gave it to her. Unless it's something we both ate this weekend or something. Ugh.

a day fit for a queen

So today is my birthday, and in my family we've always made a big deal over birthdays. Today was no different. My parents came down last night and we all went out to dinner at Buca di Beppo. It's a restaurant we hardly ever go to because it's more fun to go with lots of people. Our little one had a great time playing with the crayons (for the first five minutes until she threw them on the floor and we couldn't find them), dipping her fingers in olive oil (yeah, I know...gross!) and drinking from Grandma's straw.



This morning I got presents--a new digital camera from my parents, because we have a huge monster camera--takes awesome pictures but it's way too big and cumbersome to take everywhere, and I wanted one I could put in my purse or the diaper bag and have it with me everywhere. And my husband surprised me with a long weekend for the two of us in Chicago! He didn't plan the details--he wanted me to do that so I could get to do what I want to do, so I get to get started planning a fun trip--awesome! I was floored. I never would've expected that from him because he's a mountain-climing, clean air, national park lover who really hates cities and would never choose to vacation there, so the fact that he gave this trip to me means he really loves me if he's willing to go just because it's something I enjoy! How sweet! I can't wait. I don't know when we'll go, but sometime this spring or early summer.



Then we had a girls' outing--my mom, my little one, and me. We went shopping and I bought some birthday presents for our little one's upcoming big day. My mom took the two of us out to lunch. I chose California Pizza Kitchen because I love it and my husband hates it and I only ever get to go there if I go with someone else (so not very often at all!). It was delicious and they surprised me with a hot fudge sundae with a candle on top at the end--and didn't even sing to embarrass me, for which I'm thankful!



Next we came home for naptime. After she was safely asleep (with Daddy home to supervise), my mom and I left again for another shopping excursion. It's always a treat to go shopping without a toddler in tow. We went to the mall to several shoe stores I never get to go to with my little one, because I'm looking for a new pair of sandals. I didn't find anything, but we had fun looking and we did some more birthday shopping for a certain almost-two-year-old, as well, which is always lots of fun.



The plan was that my husband and I were supposed to go out to dinner tonight and my parents would babysit, but on the way home from the mall I realized that I really wasn't hungry because of my huge lunch, I was tired from shopping all day, and my husband's basketball team is in the final game of their conference tournament tonight and he really would rather stay home to watch his game, so I decided to save our date for another night when I was hungrier, less tired, and there was no basketball game fighting with me for my husband's attention (I'm plagued--March Madness is ALWAYS starting the week of my birthday. Ugh!). But it's okay...it lengthens my birthday this way!



We ordered pizza instead and had the cake my mom made me (from scratch carrot cake--yum!). And despite my dateless evening, I was a queen today and had a great day full of my favorite people and my favorite pasttimes (spending time with them and shopping!). I'm a lucky girl.

fresh look

I decided to change the look of the blog for spring. Green makes me feel springier.

Enjoy!

prying my eyes open

Yes, the extra hour of daylight in the evening is good. Especially when it's a sunny extra hour, like it is today.

But what else is there to like about this daylight savings time???? I'm so tired I can't do much of anything. In the morning I can barely get out of bed. I drag for most of the day, and then at night I'm not ready to go to sleep and have trouble. Which only perpetuates the getting out of bed problem in the morning. Ugh.

Last week I gradually pushed our little one's bedtime forward a few minutes each night to get her ready for the time change. She's done great with it--and her bedtime is even a half hour later now than it used to be (7:30 instead of 7:00--my husband thought 7:00 was too early, so we decided to try it out). I guess I've learned the lesson that I need to adjust my own bedtime the week before, too! I'll try to remember that next spring (in the fall it doesn't seem to matter, since there's an extra hour involved!).

Not much else going on here. She's still getting over her cold, but she's in a good mood now again most of the time. She's starting to put words together a little more. In this book I sometimes read her before bed there are a few words that are colored in different colors. She points to one and says "O....blue." Yes, it's a blue O. Then she does the same for other various colors (always an O though--it seems to be her new favorite letter). Today she pulled my jacket down from the back of the chair where I left it and was dragging it around saying "jacket....mama" over and over. Well, she doesn't exactly say the word jacket, but her version of the word is too strange to even try to type phonetically! My favorite word to hear her say is "yellow." It sounds more like "yewewwow" or something....but it's so funny to hear.

Today I let out the hems in several of her dresses from last spring. Yes, folks, my almost 24 month old daughter will be wearing her 12 month dresses again this spring and summer. They still fit! They were too short, though, so I let out the hems, which were really deep. She's still so tiny. I wonder what she weighs now. She goes to the doctor the day after her birthday (which is now less than a month away--unbeliveable!!), so we'll soon see.

Alright, I'm going to bed early tonight, so I can hopefully get out of bed a little more gracefully in the morning tomorrow.

the aftermath

Here are the results of yesterday's blizzard.

It's bright and sunny today. Almost looks like spring (if you can ignore the foot and a half of snow on the ground!). The weather channel says we got 20.4 inches. The local news says 14 inches. I didn't measure, so I don't really know. It's a lot...that's all that counts.

We had an added bonus to being snowed in yesterday--our heat was threatening to go out. The heat pump outside started making very strange sounds. Of course everywhere we tried to call was closed due to the weather. My husband called his dad and together they talked through a few things he tried in the basement. The result? The furnace wouldn't come back on. We thought we were doomed...no heat and couldn't drive anywhere. Several minutes later, out of nowhere, it came on! Still making noise, though.

The temperature dropped in the house to 64. We put our daughter to bed in our room in the pack and play with the heater on so we'd all be warm last night. Somewhere in the middle of the night it started working normally again and stopped making that weird noise. I actually was too warm last night (I wasn't used to sleeping with a heater on in my room).

Today the furnace is working fine. Just a little added excitement to an already exciting blizzard.

My husband shoveled three times during this whole ordeal. The poor guy is beat. We live on a corner so we have double the sidewalk to shovel, in addition to the driveway. Yesterday some neighbors were trying to get out and shoveled a path down the street. In the process they buried my husband's work vehicle in the snow, which was parked on the street. He had to dig it out this morning so he can go to work tomorrow.

We haven't attempted driving yet. With 4 wheel drive it shouldn't be too awful. We just haven't been brave enough to try it yet (well, I should say I haven't been....I'm sure if my husband wanted to go somewhere badly enough, he would've already!).

Our daughter's oblivious. All she knows is that she's gotten lots of time with Daddy in the last few days and is loving every minute of it.

well, I was wrong...

...about the snow, that is.

We're up to about 9 inches and counting. It's coming down (sideways most of the time because of the wind) and is supposed to until dinner time tonight, they say.

We're all three hunkered down here for the duration--it took my husband three hours to get home last night from where he had to drive for work (usually less than an hour drive) but he made it around 5:30. I was so relieved to see his car drive up and so glad we have nowhere to go today (everything is cancelled or closed anyway, so I guess it wouldn't matter!) . This morning he got up with our little one and I was lounging snugly, so warm in bed, thinking about how thankful I am that we have a warm house, plenty of food of supplies so we don't have to go anywhere, and we're all safe and sound. Yes, the snow is a pain (just read yesterday's post to find out how I really feel about it!), but it's kind of nice to sit inside a warm house with the people you love and look out at it.

Maybe after all of this stops we can take her outside (it'll be up to her waist!). She seems to be feeling a little better, so hopefully she'll enjoy it.

just a little update

First things first...........I'm DONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just turned in my final two papers (which aren't actually due until Monday, the last day of class, but I had to get them out of my hands so I submitted them). Can I just shout "HALLELUIA" from the tree tops???? Not usually my style, but I'm so excited to be done (can you tell???)

Even more important than that, though, is that my little one is sick. :(

I mentioned before that she had a cold. She still does, it just has gotten worse. Yesterday she was just not herself--choosing to spend most of the day sitting on my lap. If you knew her and her unending energy, you'd know that she's sick. She's all stuffed up, coughing a ton, eyes watering non stop.... She would just lay her head against me and rub it back and forth. Poor thing. This morning she woke up at 5:00 crying and when I went in her whole face was covered with a mixture of tears and gunkity-gunk from her nose. Oh, I felt so bad for her. She went back to bed at 8:30, slept two hours, and woke up much happier and more like herself. She's back in bed for round two now, though, so I'm hoping that another nap will help zap these germs. It's miserable being sick, but it's even more miserable to watch your sweet little one be sick when she has no clue why she just feels yucky. And she can't blow her nose to get the stuff out, can't take any medicine to help her congestion or coughing, and can't tell me what hurts. No wonder she's cranky! I would be too! I'm actually so impressed with how happy she was after her first nap this morning with what she's going through. We went to the grocery and she was great!

And the other news around here is the weather. Some are predicting a foot of snow. I've also heard 4 inches, so who knows....everyone seems to have a different opinion. I tend to believe the 4-6 inch range, but we'll see--maybe it's just wishful thinking. I'm so sick of snow. My birthday is next week. My birthday is in March. March is spring.....SPRING! Not snowy! No snow allowed this close to my birthday! Go away, snow!

My husband's on his way home now from an hour away where he had to go for work today, of all days, in the middle of a snowstorm. I'm sick of snow.

Did I mention how sick I am of snow?????

brought to you by the letter K

She learned a new letter yesterday.

She was milling around the kitchen table and found Daddy's hat down at the other end of the table. She loves wearing his hats, so she pulled it down and put it on. Then she pulled it off and started playing with it. Eventually she brought it to me (I was busy sitting at the other end of the table cutting coupons) and showed me the letter on the front of the hat and said, "T!" I told her no, that it wasn't T, but K. She repeated, "kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" At dinner I said, "Tell Daddy what letter you learned today." She didn't say anything at first. Then I showed her his hat and she said, "kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" Later we were getting ready to go to my friend's house--her son is Kaden (they're best buds). I told her we were going to Kaden's house. "kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!" she exclaimed. In the bathtub last night I found the K from her collection of foam letters and asked her what it was. It took her a minute to respond, so I said, "It's like Kaden's name," and she immediately said, "kaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

Today I found it in the box of magnet letters (I only have a few up on the fridge right now--the ones she knows and the ones that spell her name) and added it to the collection. After her nap we'll work on them and see if she can remember. If so, then we're up to seven letters that she knows.

I'm almost done with my class! I have two big projects due Monday. One of them is finished and the other one is well on its way. I can't wait.

This blog entry has been brought to you by the letter K and the number 7.

cow, cow, cow

She's obsessed with cows! It started because of this toy she got for Christmas:

It's a puzzle--the cow fits in the barn, the pig fits inside of that and the sheep inside of that. It also sings "Old MacDonald."

Then last week I got Baby MacDonald out of the library again, since she was so enthralled with Baby Noah again.

Now every few minutes I hear, "cow, cow, cow," as she points to the DVD case on top of the entertainment center. She'd watch it all day if she had her way (yeah, I say that about a lot of things...she really would watch TV all day if she was allowed).

brief weekend stories

Friday: Ate Desitin while in bed (how she managed to reach the Desitin from bed, I'll never know. All over her face, hair, shirt. Called Poison Control. "Don't worry," they said. Then why does it say to call Poison Control?

Saturday: She went to the zoo with Daddy (I was at a women's conference this weekend--SO nice to get away, but I missed her like crazy!). Enamored by the elephants and monkeys. Face pressed up to the glass at every exhibit. Afterwards went to McDonalds for her first happy meal. Nose running like a faucet...getting another cold. I had to work in the nursery Sat. night at church, so Daddy was in charge again. I was so happy to see her when I got home--she had had her bath and was almost ready for bed, so I rocked her while she drank her milk--the first I had really seen her since Friday afternoon.

Sunday: Woke up coughing and had a stuffy nose. Didn't want to take her to the nursery to subject other kids to her cold, so I went to church and Daddy stayed home with her. This afternoon I stayed home with her while he went to our small group. She's in a good mood--it's just a little cold right now--I just don't like other kids being exposed to her germs.

New words: Yellow (wewwo), Cow

So that's our weekend in a nutshell.

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!