Secret Weapon

The battle for sleep continues here, but I now have a secret weapon.

Yep, you're looking at it, the back of Molly's head. When I'm putting her to sleep, many nights she resists and squirms and sometimes even bites, scratches and hits. However, the other day I discovered that this all goes away if I simply stroke the back of her head. I'm not sure why this has a hypnotizing effect on her, but I'll take it!

Last night we had the Morris' over for dinner and Molly and Grayson had lots of fun in the playroom and the other rooms of the house as well.

Molly hasn't been able to wear this bib for months because she immediately rips it off as soon as I would put it on. Grayson borrowed it for dinner and suddenly she wants to wear it. Just for fun though. I tried to get her to wear it for breakfast and she wouldn't do it.

I get it now, when I want her to do something, she won't. When I don't care, she will. Rocking a sweet headband, but if I want her to wear something in her hair...no way!

hopping with the hippity hop bunnies.

I'll let you kiss me if you give me all of your ice.

Toy boxes are great for many reasons.

If you get lonely you can invite a friend.

Poor Molly and Grayson are constantly being manipulated by their parents so that we may better document their lives. For the record, we practically begged them to kiss.

He's so cute though!

We tried to get a picture of us with the kids, but it wasn't going to happen. Grayson wanted down and Molly wanted to pick her nose.

So we gave up and let them loose. Ramsey and I managed to not throw any fits or pick our noses on camera. Afterwards, that's another story

We had a great time and hope to do it again soon!

Lights Out

Last night sucked, there's no sense sugar coating it. It started at bedtime when the huge storm that August has been waiting for finally made an appearance. Supposedly it hailed in the foothills, but at our house it was all wind and rain. Usually I'm all for storms, the desert needs them and desert people need them too, but this was one of those crazy roof destroying, tree uprooting, electricity outing storms that in the end probably does more damage than good. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, but when your roof starts leaking and the house is hot and muggy at babies' bedtime, it's a little harder to see it from that perspective. At first I thought I would just postpone bedtime and that soon enough the power would be up and running and we could get on with our night, but it just didn't happen. After an hour or so we decided it was time to just get Molly to sleep and hope for the best. We took her out to Mere's front porch where she has a nice little gliding love seat. This was the nicest part of the evening. The wind has died down, the rain has stopped and all that was left was a nice cool breeze. If I hadn't required sleep, I would have like to just stay out there all night. Fairly quickly, Jonny had her asleep and we took her back to our bed since that was the coolest room. Pretty soon though the cool was wearing off and it was just sort of hot and sticky...pair that with a hot sticky baby in your bed taking up all of the space and you start to feel pretty shitty. We tried to get the pack n' play assembled but it wouldn't work and the episode culminated in Jonny drop kicking out the door...no exaggeration. Around 11 we decided that we had had enough and decided to try for greener pastures at my parent's house. Thankfully their power and A/C were working beautifully and we soon attempted to settle in. We quickly found though that Molly's comfort relied heavily on our discomfort. As soon as she started to sense that maybe you were getting comfy and sleepy, she would remind you whose comfort it was that was most important. Thankfully our power is back on (Mere said it was out until 5!) and she is now happily napping in her crib. Thank Goodness!

Lights out! Time for a little flashlight cellphone photography.

Letting her dissemble my purse was my secret to extending bedtime without excess fussing.

She of course thought this was just some sort of exciting adventure.

She's a peach!

Molly's Granny brought her some peaches and she was really into them. She ate the whole thing just like she's doing here. It was impressive, but the kid LOVES fruit! There is no fruit that she won't eat.

Jonny's nose is shaped as such that he can keep his wedding band hanging on it. I'm not sure why or how this was discovered, but it was. Molly thinks it's hilarious and of course wanted to try it too.

It starts here,

Then you put it like this,

Ta Da!

I really wanted to get a video of Molly getting into her closet without her knowing because when she knows that there is an electronic device around, she can't concentrate. Unfortunately that is easier said than done, so she isn't really giving the loud, excited screech that she usually gives when she goes into her closet, her all. I think she must feel the waves radiating off of electronic devices because she always knows where they are. Today at the grocery store there was an old man who thought it was hilarious how she deftly swooped into my purse, snatched up my iPod and started the music without me knowing.

It's also worth mentioning that if it is clean, and hanging up, she will always pick out the same outfit.

This picture is from back in April, but this is her favorite outfit. It's unfortunate that she'll be outgrowing it soon.

Baby's got a new pair of shoes

The shoe obsession continues and has now escalated. Apparently flip flops are just a "gateway" shoe and now Molly has moved on to the hard stuff. What girl could resist a 4" pair of turquoise heels?

Lookin' good little buddy, lookin' good!

Since I was never a doll girl (when I was a toddler I would express how ungrateful I was to receive them) it never occurred to me to get Molly a doll. Thankfully Gran has more insight than me and did get Molly a doll, because she freaking LOVES her "behbee". If we ever have a shot at creating an attachment item, this is it. I have started trying to get her to sleep with it and so far she's into it. When it isn't there she asks for it, which seems to be a good sign. The only problem is that it can get in the way of being comfortable, so that can complicate things. Of course it hasn't magically cured our sleep ills. Although she had a few really awesome nights in the past 2 weeks, the past few nights have been really SUPER bad. I've even tried to bring her to bed with us which she did not like at all. The last couple nights it seems Jonny is the best one to close the sleep deal not because he's the most soothing of the two of us, but because he seems to be the right combo of exhausting screams and rocking motion. I still find myself unwilling to go the cry it out alone route, so for now I'm just going to have to practice my deep breathing and hope that you truly can sleep when you're dead.

Her doll even has it's own backpack/baby carrier, pretty fancy.

Taking her baby for a walk.

Gearing up with Aunt Mere for the long haul with a little hair twirling.

Grandpa finally got to give Molly that bucket ride. She seemed to like it. She also seemed to like that I gave her my ipod to play with.

The frame that these pictures are in doesn't allow for removal, so I wasn't able to properly scan them. They're of Jonny when he was close to Molly's age and I think I see some similarities. What do you think? (Click on them to see them larger)

A little off the top

Well I warned her that if she didn't start towing the bow line that there would be consequences. The hair constantly hanging in her face finally got to be too much and I had my mom give her a little trim. She's a crazy17 month old, and we used safety scissors so the results weren't perfect but I do think we've done better than "dumb & dumber" at least.

"ugh? whatcha doin'?"

"Man! I'm going to look soooo good!"

The results

Molly approved, but thought it needed to be styled differently.

Hide & Seek

I know I need to quit being surprised, thinking my child is some sort of genius every time she does something clever, but watching how quickly she figures things out continues to blow my mind. You'll just have to bear with me. The other day at the paint store I was being a negligent parent and not paying 100% attention to her. At one point she found an object of her obsession: the spigot button from the water cooler. The cooler is like 40 years old so it just pops right off. So of course within 5 minutes she's over it and had moved on to...let's say foam brushes. Now I have no idea where she has put the button (negligent mother and all). I start looking for it but realize quickly that it is unlikely to show up being that there are a zillion place that it could possibly be many of which are concealed. I decide as a last resort that I would ask Molly, she's the one that lost it, she's the one who should be responsible for finding it...right? So I show her where the button should be and I ask her where and while I'm doing it, I sort of feel stupid. Even if she does know what I'm saying, she probably doesn't remember it. But no! I wasn't giving her enough credit. She started sort of meandering around and at one point I realize that she is pointing out to me, with her foot, where the button is. Freaking genius! Then the other day I had one shoe on and was looking for the other one. Without any prompts, she brings me my other shoe. I know, I know, this is something that a retriever could also manage...but not any that I've ever owned.

It was so cute. Yesterday Molly went to visit her cousins and at one point she decided to give Lorelei a hug. It did however reach a point where Lorelei starting becoming uncomfortable with the length and intensity of the hug, and desperately wanted to be removed from the situation. I don't blame her...it was getting a little awkward.

Playing nice.

Playing Nicer. "Someone get this kid off of me"

Molly's new thing is wearing her sunglasses in the car. It cracks me up. She's so serious about it.

Okay, so we can't get enough of the kiddie pool and the pictures just can't be stopped, I'm sorry.

She was all about draining the pool once she figured this out.

Showing some teeth

She looks like some sort of evil warrior with some sort of magical hose sword. Or maybe like Landon, it's a Harry Potter spell...aguamente?

She wouldn't do it in swim class but now she's all about blowing bubbles

Daddy 1st

Then Molly

Despite all of the pool pictures, this is what we're doing most of the time.

Seeing with your ice

I haven't blogged in awhile because I had a run in with Time Warner...long story short I came out on top, and I'm back in the blogging business.

I guess I'll start with my title. My mom and I have been curious about the "My baby can read" program and the other day she got it for us to try. She had done a similar program with me when I was a baby and it worked, but she decided not to go through with it and so I ended up like all the other stupid 6 year olds learning to read in 1st grade. So now we know where my future as a genius went awry...but it's alright because there is still hope for Molly. So far she's actually learned to recognize a few words. The first word in the book is "eyes" and if I ask her what it says, she'll say "EEEYYSSEEE" however it also sounds strikingly similar to another word she likes to say which is "IIICCCEEE" so I'm not convinced she's made an actual connection. She does really and truly recognize the word "dogs"....shocker. When she sees it, she makes her little "woof woof" noise in recognition. If anything she' really likes the books and the video, so even if she isn't reading "Anna Karenina" by age 3, it won't have been a total failure.

The other day Molly found a way to combine her love of phones and shoes. What could be better than a shoe phone? Just a side note about the whole phone thing: Molly calls phones "hellos" and she calls out to them frequently. What's funny about that is that my world traveler brother informed me that in Nepal (where he'll be hanging out for 10 weeks very soon) they also call cell phones "hellos". Of course if Alexander Graham Bell or Mr. Burns had their way, Molly would be calling them "Ahoy-hoys" (that Joke is for Jonny).

OOMolly and her handy shoe phone.

"Ahoy Hoy"

"Yes, yes, invest in porkbellies" She looks so important!

Well I just don't have the will today to reorder all of these, so you'll just have to look at them as is. I'm sure you'll manage. As usual it's hot out...so last weekend we had Molly go crazy in the sprinklers/pool. she had a great time.

Sitting on the edge letting all of the water out.

Walking through the garden with my now muddy shoes.

She LOVES my shoes.

Okay, I had to reorder these ones:

"The set-up"

"Whoa"

Running in the sprinklers

Okay so I'm totally full of shit. I had to reorder these too.

In the end she was mostly interested in her stroller that was on Mere's front porch. I was pretty impressed with this maneuver.

before

after

Big Molly Mac grins!