Whatever It Takes

As long as she is dressed it really doesn't matter if she wears her Curious George t-shirt with plaid shorts. Or in Thursday's case her white onsies that she slept in, a shirt 3 sizes too big for her, her bathing suit top that was 1/2 way on, and my t-shirt over all that.

It's a good thing that a serving size of Gerber Puffs is between 60-80 pieces and that is only 25 calories. Allison decided to be generous and share half a jar of puffs. At least I was able to do the dishes.

The other week Amelia wanted to sit by the door and look outside. However a storm with lightning was starting, so I didn't want her sitting by the metal screen door (I'm such a good mom, aren't I?). So I put the kids in their booster seats and let them watch the rainstorm.

The storm didn't hold their attention for too long, but Dora kept them quiet for a while.

Sometimes in order to eat lunch, you have to multi-task.

Sometimes you just have to keep the kids contained so that you can clean.

Sometimes in order to clean up you have to create a mess. I switched all their toys to different toy boxes so I brought them all out in the living room so I could clean them up. Amelia was having fun with all the toys.
In order to keep Allison out of trouble while I tried cleaning the house, I created a fort for her. It didn't hurt that the fort was in front of the TV.

A Perfect 10

We have a ten month old on our hands...Amelia is on her way to becoming a toddler. This past month we have seen such a huge growth spurt...not so much in the physical sense, but in her development.

She learned to crawl. It seems so strange to see her crawl into the room to come find me. I also think it is cute when I think she is crawling to see me or Allison, but she keeps on going by. She definitely has an agenda on where she wants to go. Unfortunately, the place she is often going to is the dog dish. We are back to square one in that department. It seems like we just got past the point of Allison playing with the Ozzie's food and water and now we are starting all over again. The worst is that Amelia is obsessed with putting the dog food in her mouth.

She is pulling herself up onto everything and her legs are getting stronger. I think she will start cruising along furniture in the next few weeks. Hopefully she doesn't do that when I am on my way to work, especially taking her first steps. I don't want to miss that.

Amelia is also playing with toys much more. Rather than just holding onto them, she is interacting with them, pushing buttons, putting balls in cups, etc. She also wants to play with Allison more. She really is fascinated with what the older kids are doing at daycare and wants to join in on the fun.

So far Amelia hasn't met a food she hasn't liked. For the most part, we have moved on to table foods, which she loves. She cleans off her tray faster than I can put food on it. I am trying to be good about having her eat what we are eating for dinner and not having to make something different for her. I want to expose her to more foods so I am not stuck with feeding her grilled cheese and chicken nuggets all the time.

She is starting to get into books and likes turning the pages. Allison likes reading her books, especially at bedtime. Amelia can say dad and dog, more like da (long a) for Dad and da (short a) dog. Maybe mom will be next?

We are Still Here

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately. Sickness has invaded our home. It has been a slow moving process starting Thursday, August 6 when Allison came down with a fever. That lasted until that Sunday. Then Amelia came down with a fever the following Wednesday. Luckily hers wasn't as high and didn't last as long. Both girls acted fine, they just had the fever. It did require some juggling of schedules - days off and working late into the evening at home for me.

Amelia recovered in time for us to go to visit my family for the weekend. On Saturday, Brian and I went shopping with my mom at Birch Run. The girls stayed with Aunt Keri and had a blast with their cousins. On Sunday, we went to the Tigers game where I was miserable from the heat. I have been to 19 out of 30 baseball stadiums in the last eight years so I have had my share of ball games. It is safe to say that was the worse game, even hotter than the St. Louis game which was bad.

On Monday, Brian took the day off to work on some household projects, when I came home and saw that the project wasn't even touched, I didn't have a good feeling. Sure enough, Brian had succumbed to the virus and has been sick since then. He was hit even worse than the girls. So, I am the last man standing. Hopefully my "mommy super powers" will keep me from getting sick. I actually had a dry irritated throat since the weekend and really bad headache the other day. Hopefully that was my portion of the virus.

So please forgive us and stick with us. As soon as I put Amelia in an outfit that is worthy of a picture, I will post her 10 month old post. Hopefully this weekend.

A Pony Ride

Tonight we went out to dinner and to the mall to get out of the house for a little bit. Allison was all excited when she saw the carousel, so we had Brian take her on it. We arrived just as they were starting a ride so we had to wait.

Brian bought a token from the machine and handed it to Allison. She stood by the fence around the carousel and intently watched it go around, as she tightly gripped onto the coin. As the ride ended, she and Brian stood in line for their turn. Allison was so ready to go, that she tried cutting to the head of the line. When it came time for Allison to enter the ride area, she gave the operator her coin, looking very proud of herself for doing so. It about melted my heart seeing her do that. She looked like such a big girl.

Brian put Allison onto a horse and buckled her up. As he went to wrap his arms around her waist, she told him "No!", after all she is a big girl now. I tried getting her attention but she wouldn't look at me. I thought once the ride started she would wave to me as she went by. However that wasn't the case. For the whole ride, she was very serious and looked straight ahead. I could not get her to look my way at all. I wish I had my camera with me because she looked so cute.

It must have been too much excitement for the girls because on the way home they both had meltdowns. I ended up jumping into the back seat at a red light to try to calm Amelia down who was screaming her head off. Allison got into the act too by crying. By the time we got home, both girls were screaming and I was cracking up. At that point in time, I figured I could either laugh or cry myself.

Allison's Strut

When Allison has free room to walk somewhere, she gets a little strut going, as if she is on a mission. "I Know Where I Am Going And Don't Get In My Way." She has been known to stop a crowd of people with her strut. I love walking behind her and watching people stop what they are doing in order to watch Allison as she struts on by them.

When we were on vacation in Lake Geneva, we were walking down the sidewalk. This was at the end of the week, so at that point Allison really knew her way around and was confident in where she was going. She was doing her little strut when I looked up and saw a young couple coming our way. If you saw the guy on the street, he would have been the last person that you would think to be amused by a two-year old. However, he was mimicking Allison in her walk, arm swinging along. He was cracking up at Allison and mentioned how cute she was.

We have tried to capture this walk on video, but every time we try to tape her, she mixes a little run with her strut. You can get a feel of her walk though on this video. She was just so excited to be at the zoo and out of her stroller that she couldn't contain herself.

Lost in Translation

On Thursday morning I had to go into work so I work up early before anyone else. I tried to quietly sneak downstairs after getting ready but heard both girls making noise. I went into Amelia’s room to take care of her first. It was my hope that if it was quiet in the hallway, then maybe Allison would fall back to sleep or at the very least be content with laying there quietly, however that wasn’t the case as I could hear her yell out “Mum??? Dad??? Mum ???”

I figured that since it was close to Brian’s normal wake-up time that he would get her out of her crib. I just sat down in the rocker to feed Mia when Allison bursts into the room, looking completely exasperated, with one hand on her hip and the other hand raised in the air with palm up. I can only imagine that this is a look of moms with pre-teen and teenage girls see on a daily basis.

Allison looks at me with hand in air and goes off on a "rant" and points to her room. While I couldn’t understand a word she was saying, I could easily translate to “Did you NOT hear me in there, I’ve been calling for you for the last five minutes and you didn’t come get me.”

However it appears that I did not correctly translate the entire conversation, because after she was finished “sharing her frustration” she walked out of the room. I followed her because I didn’t want her to go downstairs yet, as it is easier if she stays upstairs until Brian is finished getting ready to work. I walked out of the room expecting to see Brian when I suddenly realize he was not in the bathroom or her room. I heard our bedroom door and Brian comes out.

I looked at Brian, looked at Allison, and looked at Brian with a sense of dread in my face and stammered “did…did you get Allison out of bed?” pleading with my eyes for him to say yes. He said no.

So, as I mentioned earlier, I did not translate Allison’s entire conversation correctly. The correct version was “Did you NOT hear me in there, I’ve been calling for you for the last five minutes and you didn’t come get me. Since you two couldn’t help me out, I had to climb out of bed myself. What did you think that thud was?”

So cross your fingers for us that this was an isolated incident. We are not ready to convert her crib to a toddler bed yet. I enjoy not hearing the sound of pattering feet and feeling the hot breath of a toddler on my face at two o’clock in the morning. I like knowing that if for some reason she doesn’t want to take a nap in the afternoon, I can say “tough, you are stuck there.”

She Crawls

Since we went on vacation a few weeks ago, Amelia has shown interest in crawling. She has come so close that a few times I watched her and debated "was that an official crawl? Does that count to go into the baby books?" There were a few times that she had the knee and arm action going at the same time but it only lasted one step forward. I figured to be officially counted as the "first crawl" then she needed to move at least two to three steps forward.

On my way into work Thursday morning, I received a call from Brian that Amelia officially crawled. By the afternoon, she was an old pro at it. For so long she was content with sitting in one spot while playing with her toys that it seems so strange to find her in a different spot then where you sat her down. I see no rest in our future for a long time.