Flower Girl

We came down to Florida on Saturday so Miss could be a flower girl in my friend’s wedding. I was a little nervous about how she would do, since she wasn’t able to be at the rehearsal, and my friends are not people she sees often. I showed her You Tube videos of flower girls and had been asking her for a few days what a flower girl does, to which she always answered, “She drops the petals on the floor.”


She was absolutely perfect.






She was all about business as we were getting ready to go to the ceremony.


Very focused.


Getting in her zone.


I was nervous about leaving her at the end of the aisle, but wanted to be up front so I could coax her forward if necessary. I kept telling her that she would walk down the aisle and drop the petals and then Mommy and Daddy and Lass would be waiting for her up front. I was seriously nervous that she would freak out a little bit. In addition to her inexperience with the role of flower girl, I was also a bit worried because I had woken her up before 5 am to catch our flight, and then she napped for only about 30 minutes on the ride from the airport to the hotel. Plus it was crazy hot and humid and buggy at the ceremony, so I was concerned that she would be cranky. I should know better than to underestimate my girl.


She started a little bit slowly.




Then she got going and did a beautiful job.


She dropped her petals just as she was supposed to.


She was absolutely precious and I was in tears watching her.


Though I was squatted down at the end of the row of seats at the end of the aisle, she never did see me until she was right near the front.


She kept going though.




When she got to the front, she seemed to notice that she had a bunch of petals left in her basket.


So out they went! Priceless.


I was incredibly proud of my big brave girl.

A Bath Time Conversation

A bath time conversation:
Miss: “Wook! I make sanwishes!”
Me: “Mmmm! Those sandwiches look delicious!”
Miss nods head, “You eat it Momma?”
Me: “What flavor are they?”
Miss: Blinks…

Me: “What flavor is the blue one?”

Miss: “Hmm, bwuebewy!”
(Naturally.)
Me: “What flavor is the green one?”
Miss: “Maybeee, appasauce, punkin, aaaand kiwi!”
Me: “Ooo, that sounds delicious. What flavor is the orange one?”
Miss: “Hmm, maybeee appasauce, punkin, aaaand banaaana!”
(That morning I had given Lass some babyfood that was a mixture of apples, pumpkin, banana, and sweet potato, or something like that.)
Me: “Wow. What about the yellow one?”
Miss: “Mm, maybeee appasauce, punkin, aaaand… Grandma!!!!”
Me: “Grandma?!”
Miss: Cracks up laughing.

Three Day Potty Training – Day Two

We are potty training this weekend. No pull-ups. Not even at night. Miss threw away her leftover diapers at the start of day 1. We’re using this 3-Day Potty Training Method and it’s working like a charm. I selected this method for several reasons. One is that I know several people who have used it successfully. Two is that it doesn’t drag out the process of potty training. Three is that is makes sense to me. I could go more into detail about why I like this method, but it is a pretty intense, focused potty training strategy that has left this momma pretty tired after two full days of hovering over my two-year old, saying over and over and over “Make sure you tell Mommy if you have to go pee-pee or poo-poo okay?” So I’m too tired to do a lengthy post tonight.
I’ll just say for now that we started with many accidents and mad dashes to the potty. But today we had no accidents except a little dribbling when Daddy didn’t quite get Miss to the potty in time. She even had a couple of times when she told me she had to go in time to keep her underwear totally dry. We have had dry underwear after naps on both days, and this child who has been such a heavy wetter at night and has never woken up with a dry diaper made it through the night with only slightly wet underwear this morning. I went in to check on her at about 3 am, fully expecting to have to change her jammies and sheets (or peel off the top layer of my two-waterproof-layer-sheet system),and she was dry then. So I’m happy with the strategy we’ve chosen to use. I’m thrilled with my girl who just gets it. Here is an amazing video of my amazing girl (in her big-girl underwear) dancing with her shadow. I couldn’t stop watching this.

Well, I Did Say She’s a Monkey. . .

Guess who came running down the hall this morning while I was still in bed and her Daddy was still getting ready for work yelling, “I just get out my Blankie!”??




Yes. My little monkey finally climbed out of her crib this morning. Which meant I spent the day frantically obtaining all the needed items to make her crib into a big-girl bed by bedtime. See, I have been in serious denial that this day would ever come. If I could have, I would have kept her in her crib until age 16. I’ve had this huge fear of “The Big-Girl-Bed Transition,” thinking that it would lead to lots of problems getting her to stay in bed and go to sleep, or issues with her waking up at night, or some such other nonsense. So I have avoided any steps toward making The Transition. And although I have occasionally thought, “Maybe I should get the conversion rails for her crib and some guard rails so we’ll be ready when we need to transition her to a full-size bed” I have never actually gotten my rear in gear and gotten these items. I didn’t want to think I would need them soon. So this morning found me anxiously awaiting 9 am to call the children’s furniture store where we bought her crib, hoping that they would have everything I needed in stock so the transition would be smooth. They didn’t have the right color rails, but the guy at the store sold me what they had and ordered the right color and told me I could just exchange these for the correctly colored ones when they come in. Nice, right??
After naps (she napped in her crib, BTW, without any attempt to climb out again) we went shopping for “big-girl sheets,” and a waterproof mattress pad and a new pillow. We found some cute sheets and I let Miss choose between a new fluffy bird pillow and an owl pillow to match the sheets (she chose the owl). We read a new book about a big-girl bed several times today and generally made a big deal about it all day. She observed almost the whole production of putting her big-girl bed together. All the while we were telling her about Daddy putting her big-girl bed together so she can sleep on it and so on. She “helped” me put the new sheets on and of course we put her Bear and Elmo and Blankie in the bed too. I didn’t put any other bedding on other than sheets and her Blankie. I figured she had enough to get used to for right now, and she still flips and moves all around in bed so having lots of blankets on would just turn into a mess. And I actually ditched the pillow I bought and substituted a small toddler-size pillow my grandma made for her instead. I wanted her to have a pillow, but the one I bought today was just too big. And she loves the little embroidered pillow from Great-Grandma, so into the bed it went. She thought the new big-bed was pretty cool.




And, as is so often the case with my mommy-worries, my worst fears about this transition did not come to fruition. At least for now, she is peacefully sleeping in her big-girl bed, where she went to bed without any issues or struggles or climbing out or anything else. And thank goodness for the video monitor, which will hopefully help me to sleep peacefully tonight as well. Fingers crossed. . .

Two-Year (Really??) “Miss”-cellany

I did a short post on Miss’s birthday. Now I have some time to write about what my big girl is doing at two.

She is such a funny little girl. She’s very active and curious. She is starting to get into pretend play more and more. She’s enjoying dress up, taking care of her dolls, cooking in her kitchen, etc.
Here’s she giving her doll a bath. The other day she was “feeding” her Elmo doll, by holding him up to her chest as if nursing him. She cuddles and bounces and “burps” her dolls, and I see her rocking and shushing them. She’s such a good little mommy.

She’s also an active little monkey. She loves to climb and romp. She can jump with two feet, balance briefly on one foot, and kick a ball. She likes spinning around, or being spun around, to get dizzy. She also has quite good balance. Today her fun new thing was “I wanna stand on Mommy’s back.” She managed to balance very well up there.
Yes, she’s holding my hair here to get herself steady.

After she mastered balancing on my back, she thought it was very funny to jump up, straddle my back, and drop down on her rear end onto me. Yeah. Ha. Ha.
She loves music and dancing, but you knew that already. . . She is in gymnastics and music classes, each once per week. She sings a lot now. Sometimes she busts out singing all the words to songs that I can’t believe she even knows. Like “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “Rock-a-Bye Baby.” She knows these songs even though I’m pretty sure I’ve only sung them to her a couple of times. The other day she started reciting “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed” word for word while we were driving in the car, except she didn’t get the counting down quite right. It was adorable, by the way.

She loves reading and can recite many of her books, almost in their entirety. “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” is one she can pretty much “read” herself.
Her language amazes me more and more every day in how rapidly it is improving. She nearly always speaks in complete sentences now. She sometimes busts out with the funniest and cutest things too. “It’s pretty windy today, Baba,” or “Don’t worry Mommy,” or “Just be patient Lass” (when Lass started fussing to eat and it took me a minute to get to her). When she says “no” to something, she often likes to give a reason. Like, “Miss, would you like a snack?” she’ll say, “No, I too tired” (which sounds like “toy-ed”) or “Let’s put your socks on” she’ll say, “No, it’s too little.” Too tired and too little are her her standard responses these days.
The other day she was rubbing Lass’s hair and she noted that it was soft. She then commented that her own hair is soft as well. I asked her about Mommy’s hair, and she agreed that my hair is soft too. Then I asked her about Daddy, and she said, “No, Daddy’s pokey!” She can repeat nearly anything that is said to her or within her hearing. She is really into identifying people by name. Today she pointed to herself and said her name, then pointed to Lass and did the same, and pointed at me and said “Mommy.” Then she said, “That’s my family.” After Daddy came home from work this evening she correctly listed all four of the members of her family. She is getting a little better at using the correct pronouns, though she still makes mistakes with this quite a bit. She knows all of her letters and the sounds they make. She is starting to be able to identify what letter a word starts with by sounding it out. She knows all of her colors and shapes. Seriously, I am amazed by the capacity of her two-year-old learning every day.
She loves to do crafts. Coloring, painting, gluing, etc.




Of course anything that she can manipulate with her hands is fun. Play-Doh squishing is a joy for her.



She is pretty good with her spoon and fork now, though she often chooses not to bother with them. She eats very well most of the time and is a pretty adventurous eater. She has always eaten dinner at the table with us and pretty much eats what we eat.


She loves her sister. She likes to get down on the floor near her and give lots of kisses and hugs. She calls her “Sis” and gets very excited when Lass “talks” to or smiles at her. She tells her that she loves her, which just makes me want to press the pause button and savor such moments with my littles.
I know I say this every time I do one of these posts, but I really love this age. Miss’s personality is really emerging and I am enjoying her so much. She’s smart and funny and sweet. She gives hugs and kisses freely and often without prompting. I’m so blessed to be able to watch her grow every day.
And in case you were wondering, Lass is 6 months old, and I’ll do a post to update on her achievements very soon!

To Cut or Not to Cut?

Miss’s hair is beginning to get a bit unruly.

It can be a bit hard to handle at times.
I have been debating for a while now whether or not to get it cut. Or to cut it myself. Several months ago I gave her a tiny fringe bang trim when her wispy bangs first started to grow into her eyes. Now her bangs are seriously getting into her eyes again, but I don’t want to cut them because I want to let them grow out.
For now I’m trying to keep her hair in pigtails a lot with the bangs combed over to the side.
Or I use a barrette to pull the bangs away from her face.
Both of these options work quite well and look pretty darn cute. A problem only comes in when she decides to repeatedly pull out her barrette or when her winter hat smooshes and makes a mess of her pigtails. I typically redo her hair several times a day. And sometimes Her Toddlerness just refuses pigtails or barrette. Period. This usually isn’t too much of a big deal as it generally only lasts a little while. I do still wonder sometimes if I should just go ahead and cut it. But I know the temptation to cut while growing out a hairdo can be overcome.
And I don’t want to cut it yet. Even when we aren’t sporting a barrette or pigtails, these locks are still precious I think.

For now, we’ll stay the course.

Fun with Play Dough

Miss has been enjoying her little play dough set she got from Santa. She loves molding it and using her little rolling pin on it.






Of course the most fun of all with play dough is smooshing it through your fingers. It was quite fun to watch her squeezing it as hard as she could saying, “Squish it!” and “Squeeeeze!” Funny girl.


21-Month “Miss”-cellany

21 months is fun. I *heart* 21 months. My elder girl is so stinking funny at 21 months. She is getting into all sorts of new things, some good, some bad. She likes to climb anything she can. She’ll climb onto the counter from her Learning Tower. She tries to climb the cabinets. She climbs me. She climbs her dad. It’s not uncommon for me to turn my back for a second and turn back to find her balancing on something she just climbed up on. It’s a minor miracle she hasn’t climbed out of her crib yet (knock on wood).
She likes to carry and pack things. She had a blast carrying all her importants in a backpack at the farm last week.

She is still our outdoor girl. The girl loves to be outside and explore. She picks things up or gathers them together. She’s not afraid to get dirty.
She can say just about anything at this point and in full sentences, if not fully grammatically correct sentences. She says the funniest things sometimes, and almost always in the correct context. If I came to get her to take a nap when she was playing with her Baba (my husband’s mom) at the farm last week she would say, “Bye-bye Mommy. See you next time!” Today she was talking on her pretend phone and she said something like, “Hi Grandma. All done talking. Bye-bye, see you next time” (I think “see you next time” comes from the way her favorite show “Yo Gabba Gabba” always ends).
The other day she was doing something that was driving me nuts and I snapped at her a little, “Stop it!” Well, of course today I heard her saying “stop it!” with a little frown on her face. Made me feel like a big heel. I am very careful what I say around her so she doesn’t start copying even less savory words or phrases (which I admit I have been known to say on occasion 🙂 and wouldn’t you know the one time I did swear in front of her, I heard her mimicking “Dammit!” just a few seconds later. Fortunately I didn’t react and she only said it once.
She also has other funny little things she does and says like “I go cazy!!” when she’s dancing or “I yuuuv it!!” when she really likes something. She can sing her ABCs, count to 14 and knows all her colors and most of her shapes. She knows almost all of her letters by sight and can identify the sound each letter makes. It seems all of this stuff happened overnight too. One day she was my baby, and the next she was this funny little girl with some serious personality.
She has a little bit of sass in her too. In general she’s a very good girl and usually listens when I tell her to do something. Admittedly it sometimes takes me two or three repeats of an instruction, occasionally with a bit of hands on encouragement, before she listens, but most of the time she does what I ask fairly readily. Recently however she has started letting me know when she doesn’t like it by letting out a shrill scream while complying with my requests. It’s like she’s saying, “I’ll do it, but I’m not gonna like it!!” We have had a few tantrums and their frequency has increased a bit, but so far these are usually short lived. I must admit there are moments when I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing in terms of disciplining my toddler, but we seem to be doing okay so far. And I am learning all the time and figuring it out as I go, so I’m okay with that.
Miss loves to sit on the counter while I’m getting ready and play with my makeup or hair brush. I love watching her imitate me with my makeup brushes. She also loves to have her hair done. If I ask her if she’d like to get pigtails she gets very excited, and she loves to pick out the barrette she wears and her socks. One day we were in her closet as I was selecting what she would wear that day and I held up a shirt and asked her if she liked it. Her eyes got big and she said, “oooh, booful! (beautiful)” Of course that’s the shirt she wore that day. I can’t get enough of the pigtails. . .
She loves to push her baby dolls around in their stroller, but even more than that of course she loves for me to push her baby dolls around. “Mommy push?” she says. So I do. She also loves to chase and be chased, so we do this often with the stroller as well. The vacuum works too.
Miss loves to play with her sister and hold her. She asked to hold her the other day so I had her sit and placed Lass sitting up between her legs. Miss grinned ear to ear and held her and hugged and kissed her for a minute. Then she kind of pushed Lass away from herself and said, “Play toys?” So I thought she was done with her sister and wanted to go play with her toys. Well she walked over to Lass’s playmat and picked up some of Lass’s toys, looking back at me expectantly so I would put Lass down and Miss could play with her. She loves showing her sister things.
She is also starting to get interested in manipulating things and learning how things work. She pays very close attention when I show her how to get toys on and off the play mat hooks.
She is also getting into dressing herself. And undressing herself. She loves snaps and zippers and is very eager to do up the zipper of her jammies every night. Fortunately she hasn’t quite figured out how to undo the zipper. We had to abandon the few pairs of jammies she has with snaps, because I went in to check on her one night before I went to bed to find her jammies in a heap in her crib and her lying in bed with nothing but a onesie on. After she got up the next morning and I put her jammies back on her, I went to the laundry room for a minute and came back to find this.
Her near nakedness apparently inspired the urge to dance and go “cazy.”


And of course the jammies were a great tool for playing a sort of hide-and-seek/wander-around-without-looking game.
She is noticing the camera more and will look at it and say “picture!”
Sometimes now I can get her to stand still for a second and maybe actually pose for the camera. Here she even said, “cheese” for her Daddy.
Bottom line? I love this age. I have loved every stage, every age so far. But I. Love. This. Age. And man I love that girl.
Speaking of love, here’s a little sneak peak at a very-soon-to-be-three-month-old. I could just eat her up.