Tinker Bell

One of MLO's birthday gifts was a little Barbie like Tinker Bell.

She loves it, of course she has already managed to break the leg off a few times and come crying to me to fix Tinker Bell. Being the dutiful mom, I always do.

It now goes to bed with us at night, on it's own pillow. While we are reading our book, MLO checks on her to make sure she is still laying down and didn't wonder off.

When she wakes up in the morning a frantic hunt for Tinker Bell starts (because my adorable MLO is quite the toss and turner with a few good kicks and such while she sleeps). Once found, she comes and eats breakfast with us.

However, Tinker Bell always stays home once we leave for daycare.

I guess she isn't old enough for that yet.

MLO's birthday party

This weekend we had MLO's birthday party (she is turning two on Sept 27th). I invited about seven kids with their parents and other various friends.

MLO wasn't sure what was happening and why so many of her daycare friends were suddenly at her house!

She took it in and sat with me or gramma while she decided if it was okay that they were around. Then she got into it and there were little kids running around in our backyard like crazy.

Later she didn't totally understand why everyone was singing to her. Missed the point of a cake with candles being brought out and why she was expected to blow, but she obliged. She of course ate the cake (there is a bakery in West LA called Mani's bakery which makes sugar-free cakes that are SOOOO good, so we had one of those).

Then the present experience was very high randomity. She sat on my lap and ripped up boxes with paper, ohing and ahing over stuff. Her friends helped open some stuff and our little circle got tighter and tighter with each present.

Her godparents couldn't make it to the actual party, but showed up just as the last people were leaving. They (who don't have any kids of their own yet) brought her as many presents as she had gotten from everyone else combined.

The cutest part was after the house was finally quiet and I was cleaning up, she was sitting on the kitchen floor playing with some new toys and I heard her start to sing, "happy birthday to [her name]" to herself.

Dinner

As each item is being put on the table, MLO is labeling them:

Mommy's plate
Daddy's plate
[MLO's] plate
Mommy's juice
Daddy's juice
[MLO's] juice
Mommy's fork
Daddy's fork
[MLO's] fork
Mommy's spoon
Daddy's spoon
[MLO's] spoon
Mommy's napkin
Daddy's napkin
[MLO's] napkin

If I forget anything I am corrected by my two-year-old and given a very stern talking to.


o0o0o0o0o0o

A super-duper give away here, come on, you know you want one.

Missing MLO

Is it usual for mommies to suddenly start missing their kids a WHOLE bunch when they are gone.

In the last week, I am sooo anxious to go pick up MLO from daycare. I miss her terribly during the day and can't wait to see her again.

Too much?

Morning Routine

Our morning routine before arrival at daycare:

We wake up, she insists I lay in bed with her for about fifteen minutes and cuddle (my favorite part) and talk.

Then she starts feeling hungry and we have to get up to get some food. In asking what she wants the first answer is always "[insert her name here] food" with a big smile after because she knows I can't do anything with that. From there we usually get to cereal (with milk she insists) or a bagel with cheese melted on it.

After breakfast we get dressed. She will start tugging off her "jammes" before I say anything. She has progressed to the point of pulling her own pants/shorts up (usually with a leg in each hole, but sometimes both legs in the same pant side).

The newest development is that we can't drive straight to the daycare. We first MUST go to a store, any store doesn't matter, but must be a store. We only need stay a few minutes, but MLO has to be able to get out of the car and walk through the doors at least.

We went to the grocery store once to get protein drinks for mommy. We went to Juice it Up and ordered drinks for both of us. We went to a pet store once and walked to the bird cage and then turned around and left.

Then we can go to daycare with no fuss whatsoever.

Learning how to work the system

MLO: I tired

Me: Want to take a nap?

MLO: Yeah (crawls in bed) mommy read book

Me: (picking a book) how about this one?

MLO: OK!!

Me: (reads book) nap now

MLO: No (jumps out of bed) outside!!!

And off she runs - she pretends to be tired so I will read a book to her since she knows we always read a book before going to sleep. She loves books that much!!

Birthday Weekend

My Birthday weekend was both great and bad at the same time.

The great part:

Hubby took me to see "Wicked" at the Pantages Theatre on Thursday (my actual birthday). Absolutely fabulous and so much fun, haven't been to live theatre in awhile and I really missed it. All the actors were great (except the Wizard who was a little weak but workable). Could tell that they had a lot of fun with costumes and such and overall a great night.

The bad part:

I then got home to MLO and gramma to find that MLO had gotten the stomach flu at daycare that day and was throwing up and grumpy. Friday me and her stayed home and ate fruit here and there (except when I had to go out for a meeting and then a friend came over to watch MLO).

By Friday evening, she was all better.

Saturday was fun, with MLO and I going shopping and other fun stuff for mommy's birthday.

However come Sunday morning - hubby got the stomach flu and I ended up with a tooth ache (the kind that prevents any chewing and little talking to avoid opening your mouth wide).

Went to the dentist today and nothing wrong with my teeth - but gums are seriously infected. So off I go to get my drugs...

So this was a very interesting weekend - but I will look back and remember the run stuff more :)

Birthdays

September is a very busy month in our household:

MLO turns two at the end of it and...

today is my birthday (yes the 13th, so I get occasionally Friday the 13th birthdays). I am turning 29 - just got to keep reminding myself that I have one more year left of my twenties :)

Oh also - Happy Jewish New Year :)

I hate doing dishes

Unfortunately - so does hubby (well not "hate", but just so busy that doing dishes seems a poor choice with the little bit of relax/free time he gets).

This means dishes pile up in our sink until it is full and I finally have to do them because I need the pan at the bottom or we are out of plates.

I don't mind cooking - just hate the clean-up.

I know what MLO's first chore is going to be just as soon as she can reach the sink on her own!

Farmer's Market

Sunday morning (early) MLO and I went to our local Farmer's Market.

Since we moved to our new house I keep meaning to go (it is five minutes away), but come Sunday morning, I totally forget. So Saturday night I set up a reminder and lo and behold it worked.

I told MLO we were going to some "outside stores" (two of her favorite places to go - outside and store) and she jumped and ran to the door.

After getting her out of her jamees (the word for PJs) and into clothes and shoes, we packed up and went.

It was great!! She could run around wherever she wanted and I could still easily see her. They had fresh fruit and veges (of which I bought an insane amount) as well as one of my favorite vices - kettlecorn.

There was also pony rides and those jumping things and a lot of fun stuff for little ones. MLO told me she wanted to go on the pony, but when it was actually her turn (and she was required to let go of me) she backed out. I told her it was okay, we would get chances to try later.

Of course, once back in the car she kept asking me over and over to ride the pony. I told her we would try again next week. We will see.

Coughing

MLO has developed a nighttime cough, she is perfectly healthy during the day and you don't hear a single cough. When she lays down to sleep, she starts coughing.

I have tried elevating her head, which seems to help, but, MLO moves a lot in her sleep and she always manages to scoot herself down and off the elevated pillows.

I also tried a warm humidifier which just made her sweat up a storm. Note, humidifiers have a tendency to fill up diapers as the diaper sort of sucks some of the water out of the air. I have been told it might be better with a cool one so will be going out and buying one of those.

This has lead to very little sleep for mommy so my posting has fallen behind as everything else seems to take longer to get done when you are tired.

If it doesn't handle soon I will be taking her to her doctor and we will go from there.

Hopefully it will though :)

Labor day weekend

We had a quiet labor day weekend.

Saturday we went to the mall (because Southern California is REALLY hot and the power people have asked us now to run our AC full blast all the time otherwise we are going to get blackouts).

MLO had a great time pushing her stroller. I think we ran the entire length of the mall (which is about two city blocks) three or four times. She was just doing great between running besides me (and bumping into people so mommy got to say "sorry" every other minute or so) or pushing the stroller.

I bought the one thing I wanted which was some spaghetti string tops for MLO to wear to bed so she doesn't wake up totally drenched in sweat.

Sunday we stayed home and ran our AC all day (heaven forbid) with lots of visitors. MLO's old nanny came by and after a few minutes of MLO starring at her, seemed to remember her and was dragging her off to her room.

MLO's aunt (my sister) also came by and they played. Then MLO's uncle (my brother) also was there, so MLO had a lot of people to play with.

Monday we had some friends over and even though I told hubby he was crazy, he went out in the heat and actually barbecued. Of course, the burgers and corn were fabulous (I even had a second burger, which is a lot of food) so I just gave him big hugs and thanked him over and over for braving the heat.

So, we had a good weekend with just the right amount of randomity happening for MLO.