Two Month Old Pictures

My ballet dancer in training.

"What trouble can I get into now?!"

Daddy's girl, helping make breakfast. (Your favorite is waffles, and you ask for them every day. Sometimes twice a day.)

You like to carry your baby on their back, like I carry you. I now use a scarf to tie her on.

I like this picture because somehow it says "American Gothic" to me. I also like the obvious size comparison between you and your Dad's foot, which is bigger and longer than your thigh.

This hat, from Grandma Byrne from her trip to Ireland, says "The leprechans made me cute", looks really cute on you. And, I adore your smile. Dad was standing behind me and doing things to make you laugh, which is how I got such a good picture.

The Heavy and the Rain

Last weeks word was "Heavy". Everything was heavy. Now you've settled into using it on anything heavy or difficult. Moving the chair is "heavy". Carrying the milk carton is "heavy".

This weeks word is "Rain". Not too odd when you look at our climate, I suppose. On any given day you can say "Rain" and be right several times during the day. Yesterday you made the connection that rain meant water. I'm still not sure if you know it means "water from the sky" or if any water will do. But, everytime you look out the window it's "rainy".

Your rain boots are your favorite shoes, although they're not my favorite. You love them because you can put them on by yourself. I dislike them because they come of at anything more than smooth pavement, and especially when I am carrying you. After letting you wear them one day when we went to meet Dad on the way home from work, and picking them up a thousand times or more, they don't get to take trips with you. You do look pretty adorable, though, when you stomp around in them. You look a bit like Farmer Jane out to work in the fields.

I See Stars

Tonight, for the first time, you looked up and said "stars", then you looked again and said "more stars". I've showed them to you twice, and you have some on the ceiling in your room, and you can recognize them in books, but I've never seen you recognize them in the sky before. You are so smart!

We went shopping tonight to look for the next step up in child proofing for the cupboards, since you now know how to get into the ones that you need to put your finger into a small opening in the cupboard and push down. We go several new ones that you need to press a button while opening the oval that fit over the knobs on the cupboard doors. I give them 6 months, but it's enough time for me to move out all the really nasty stuff we have under the sinks.

Pictures from a rainy hike

Baby Proof?

The baby proofing of the cupboards and drawers worked for a year, but their time is up. You can now open one of the "baby proof" cupboards, and since they're all baby proofed the same way, the others are only a matter of time. The one you are getting into has the dog treats, and since you love to feed the dog treats I see you over there all the time now. Since Isbre has gotten into that cupboard when it wasn't closed fully and eaten enough treats to make herself sick, this is a problem.

You and Isbre have started playing together for a few minutes at a time, and I love it because you are both so high energy. And you love playing with Isbre. You shepherd her into your room when it's nap time (you've started shepherding your Dad and I as well, by getting behind us and giving little pushes) and look for her first thing in the morning. When she goes to Shroeder's for doggy day care, you ask about her during the day and love to go with one of us to get her.

You and I are in the last stages (knock on wood) of a cold that Robert hasn't caught (It's good to have someone well in the house to take care of the rest of us). We're coughing and sounding horrible, but feeling better. Just in time for thanksgiving :-)

Super Stuffy Nose

Poor baby, you have a really stuffed up nose today. Yesterday it was drippy, but today it was so stuffed up that you were lisping like a person with a bad cold.

I feel like your Dad and I are creating the narrative for your life right now. Or, more correctly, we're helping you create it. You will say a word and then a sign of some sort, and it's really a full sentence that he and I will say for you.

Another Day

Yesterday you scared the **** out of me. I was driving back from Mud Puddles, a toy store, where we'd just missed the music hour because we got lost, and you were in the back seat eating a cheese sandwich and drinking milk. When I look back in the mirror, you were completely motionless with your wide eyes staring straight ahead. You are never still, so I had no idea what was going on. I was afraid you had had some sort of attack. Then, you slowly slumped to one side and your eyes closed. You were asleep. You fell asleep with your eyes open!

Yesterday we almost died laughing. You had hidden the zuchini I had on the counter...

Words words words

You try to copy most of the words we say, and you're getting closer and closer.

I never realized how many "hard" sounds English has until I heard you learning to speak it. Many of the sounds are gutteral and in the back of the throat.

You will go to sleep on your own when we have other people watch you, but not when we're here. Last night Lauren baby-sat, and you fell asleep with her on the couch before dinner (before 6:30) watching Baby Einstein. You NEVER do that with us, even if it's late. You fell asleep at Pat and Bill's for naps, once on Bill's lap, and you fell asleep on the floor at noon when Greg was watching you. Are you like me when I have a cold and you just want to sleep through things you don't want or understand. By now you should find Dad and I pretty boring and just being around us should put you to sleep. But, no, we need to give you a bottle and rock you and read you a story and then hold your hand. You never just GO to sleep.

We took you to a "Day of the Dead" celebration at Urban Grind coffee house. It was very well done and we made macaroni skeletons and ate skull cookies and listened to a great entertainer sing songs and tell stories. Maybe next year we'll make cookies for Day of the Dead and hand them out at church or around the neighborhood.

You love the Baby Einstein DVD and want to have them on all the time. They hold your interest for a long time, although sometimes you like to get up and do things while they're on. Since they're basically classical music with pictures I don't mind having them on. I don't want you to watch them all day, though, because I don't want a couch potato.

Mama Mama Mama mamamamamama......

I loved it when you first learned to say Mama, and loved it even more when you used it and meant me. Oh my gosh, it was wonderful. You knew I was special and you had a name for me. That's a very exciting moment.

Now, you use that word incessently. All The Time. And if I don't respond right away, it just gets louder and louder. Usually you want to point something out to me, and because you still don't have that many words I have to look at what you're pointing at or signing. Whew, it can be exhausting.

You really like the video "Once Upon a Potty", especially the song at the end. You watch it over and over, and it's the only thing besides the "Your Personal Penguin" video that I've seen you sit still for. You take your potty chair over to the TV, and the matching "Once Upon a Potty" book and watch. You will watch it 3 or 4 times in a row and not get tired of it. I have the "Now I'm Going To the Potty" song stuck in my head and it will not leave. I'm not sure it will help when it comes time to potty train you, but it can't hurt.

In fact, you're in watching the video now which is giving me time to write this entry.

You have started to appeal decisions you don't like to the other parent. Which isn't very effective when we're both there for the whole discussion. If I say "No, no more crackers before dinner" you will look at Daddy and ask him. If Daddy says "No toys while you're eating", you'll look at me and "ask" me (point and say "Mommy" until I look up and give an answer). That seems to be an inborn skill, because I can't think where you would have picked it up.

Other than the videos, you still don't like playing on your own much. Last night your Dad and I tried to get you to play with your toys while we finished our dinner, and you couldn't do it. You would stand in the middle of your toys and bawl. You would go sit in your time-out spot and look at us and sniffle. But you don't like sitting in your high-chair while we finish eating, either. Sigh. I guess it gives us something to work on.

You're sleeping in your bed all night for the last few weeks, which is a blessing! Whew! It makes everything else easier. Daddy puts you to bed with a bottle, tooth-brushing and a story and stays in the room until you go to sleep.

And, last Friday, you didn't wake up when we came home from a movie and Lauren Burgess was baby-sitting you. It was a first and we were thrilled. Seriously thrilled. Cartwheel thrilled.

Our Kitty Died

Last Saturday our cat, Tesla, died. It was tremendously sudden; we had no idea there was a problem until he started yowling and couldn't use his back feet. We took him to Dove Lewis Animal Hospital and they said he had a stroke and he would simply have more of them and the best thing to do was to have him put to sleep. We cried and sat with him while they gave him the drug.

We burried him in the back yard in the south west corner, where he loved to sit and survey his territory (the green space) when we had a post there. This week we ate fish all week in his honor.