Bee Sting

Poor, poor Molly. Last weekend she was playing outside in her sandbox and all of a sudden she just starts screaming. I had been watching her and as far as I could tell nothing had happened. I went over to her and she showed me her hand and I saw what I thought was a splinter. I took it out and thought it seemed sort of strange for a splinter and that's when I realized she had been carrying on about a "beetle". Then I saw the dying bee in the sandbox. Although she cried pretty heavily for at least a couple of minutes and continued to talk about it in a forlorn sort of voice throughout the day, after an hour neither (Molly or I) could really even remember or find where the actual sting was. I suppose this could be for 1 of these 3 reasons:
1) She's like her dad and has little or no reaction to bee stings.
2) I pulled the stinger out fast enough that it hadn't really packed any venom punch.
3) Since it was on the pad of one of her fingers, the bee was unable to really puncture through her skin completely.
Who knows, I'm just glad she's over it. Well I spoke too soon there. minutes after typing this she started screaming and losing her mind because a "beetle" landed on her. Fortunately this bee was just looking for a drink of water and wasn't interested in attacking.
Well, just in time for it to be too damn hot to go outside (it was 98 today...booo!), we have a nice little area for Molly to play. I've wanted to do this for awhile now and I'm glad that it's finally done. For her birthday we gave her a little slide and a sandbox/picnic table combo which she loves. I particularly love that I can sit in one spot and keep an eye on her since the area is all fenced off. Before I was constantly chasing her around keeping her from the certain death that lurked around every corner. So a big thanks goes out to my parents, Jonny and even Jonathan who came and helped us one weekend, I really appreciate the space.
I was so pleased that she was actually wearing her hat outside...

But then she did this.

Getting her water table all filled up.

She was so pleased with herself. She kept talking about how she was taking a bath outside.


In other news the past two days I've been hitting potty training pretty hard. The only times I've put a diaper on her have been sleeping and if we're out somewhere. I'm doing this hardcore and NOT using pull-ups. I have these Gerber training pants and plain old underwear. I really like the training pants since they do absorb some amount of pee (although they're definitely wet) the only problem with them is that they're impossible to find. Online they're sold out, at target they're always out of them, and yes, I'm willing to buy the boy styles too. Right now we have 6 pairs, which is not enough to get us through a day at this point. The first day I couldn't believe how many times she went...I suppose I'm doing a good job keeping her hydrated. When I was folding the laundry last night I counted 10 "accidents". I'm determined though that if I just stick to it, she'll catch on eventually. My approach right now is to take her to the bathroom as often as possible. If I was super diligent this should probably be every 15 min. and 5 if she's just downed a ton of liquid. Today was better than yesterday, so I'm hopeful that we're getting somewhere.
This picture is from Molly's nap today. What I can't understand is how she can fall asleep like this so seemingly easy for a nap, but for bedtime, I still have to jump through so many hoops to get her to go to sleep. Cutting her nap to one and a half hours has help, but it's still not a perfectly efficient process. Oh-well.
She's under there somewhere.

Singalong

One of Molly's favorite songs is one called "Jump-up". It's a kids song that she 1st heard on Sesame Street and since she liked it so much I bought it for her to listen to. If I play it while we're in the car, whenever it's over she says "Jump-up again". When listening to other songs, she'll frequently ask "different song?" but "Jump-up" NEVER gets this treatment, it is her favorite song. On one of our nightly walks she got into her "Mama" loop, where she just keeps repeating "mama, mama, mama..." even though she doesn't seem to really want anything from me, just wants to keep my attention I suppose. To try to break the cycle, I asked her to sing me a song. She started with the "ABC song"(I'd say she knows about 3/4ths of it now). Then she went into Jump-up. I wish I had a recorder on me because it was so cute. Her words went something like "Jump-up, Jump-up, I know lying down, Jump-up dance with me" just for reference, the actual lyrics are "Jump-up, Day is breaking, Jump-up, let's get shaking, I know, you're lying down, Jump-up and we'll dance around." Jonny and I were cracking up, it was just so painfully adorable. She's since learned the entire 1st verse. Just today she was running around the house singing it over and over.
In other cuteness news, today out of the blue she decided that a Lego piece was a camera and proceeded to take pictures while exclaiming "cheeeeeeese" over and over. So naturally I had to take pictures of her "taking pictures". This started a whole vicious cycle and now I have like a billion of the same picture, oh-well, happens all the time. I think I'm going to have to get a few of those huge Terabyte hard drives to hold all of the childhood pictures of Molly and now Maisie? Maggie?...no decisions yet.
Cheeseball

Smile!

New Chapters

I should seriously be in bed right now, but for some reason I feel compelled to whip this out. This will be the 1st post of my 3rd Volume (In my printed books anyhow) I can't believe how much I've written and how many pictures I've taken to fill up all these books. It's funny because I remember in college whenever I would have to write a paper I would become obsessed with how long it would have to be so I could make sure I was doing the bare minimum (sorry to all my teacher readers) and now I have casually written pages upon pages. Of course maybe if I had found my topic as interesting as this one...now what was it that I majored in again? Oh yea, human development. Well it wasn't interesting to me then.
You may have heard that there are new car seat recommendations that say that you should keep your child rear facing for 2 years or up to some weight that I can't remember, probably 30 lbs. This is fine and well for people with normal sized cars, but for me, this means that for two years (starting in August) one passenger in my car will have wrap his or hers legs around his or hers neck. It is possible, but it's a pain. So we may in the coming weeks get a more sensible car. Right now I'm leaning towards leasing since it seems that gas may be on it's way out and I don't know what's next as far as cars go. I don't want to be stuck paying for a beta-max. I suppose it's not going to happen right away or anything, but it should probably happen sooner rather than later or else we might find ourselves in some sort of crazy Mad Max nightmare. Seriously though, what do I know...absolutely nothing...except that two kids take up more space that I don't have.
On the same thought of running out of space, my abdomen is starting to look like it might be. I think I look like I'm about 2-3 weeks bigger than I was last time around. I'm hoping this really is just a early "popping" thing and doesn't necessarily translate into a bigger me come delivery time. I was pretty large last time. I'm also to that point where I can now feel Maisie or Maggie (possible names) all of the time now. Just like Molly, she's a mover and a shaker. P.S. if you have an negative opinion about those names...I'm probably not interested. I may however be interested if you have an opinion between those names...maybe.

Moving on: Pictures

Last weekend was crazy birthday party weekend. We started it off on Saturday with both Kate's and Jeffrey's parties and finished on Sunday with Keegan's. It was fun for us though since we don't get out much, sad but true.

Jeffrey's party was at Summer's house. Molly had a blast going crazy with all of their toys. There was the slide which big cousin Emmaline helped her with and the plasma car which was super cool. I'm going to have to get her one of these even though the suggested age is 3+. Then there were the simpler things like shoe swapping.

Lorelei with Molly's shoes, Molly with Emmaline's shoes=good times!

Also a good time is my make-up drawer. Yes, I know I need to get a lock put on it. All of the other drawers/cabinets in the bathroom have them, but at the time she couldn't reach the make-up drawer. What? They grow?

Grayson came over to play the other day and made it clear that he's cool with girls and their stuff. Here he is checking out Molly's dress with some very pretty shoes on. And no, despite her reputation, Ramsey did not make any attempts at dressing him up, he picked it all out himself.

Trying on some shades. Again, Grayson is secure enough in his boyhood to wear pink.

Party time, and...

This weekend Molly had her 2nd birthday party. This year she definitely grasped the concept of presents. Especially since the entire week prior to the party consisted of her receiving them.

One of her early birthday presents was a cool activity table from my parents. It's the kind with the roll of butcher paper for lots of big drawing fun. So far it's a big hit. She especially likes to sit on it.

For her party, I made her some cupcakes in the images of some of her favorite characters. It's a show called "Peep and the Big Wide World" about 3 little bird named Peep (a chicken) Quack (a duck) and Chirp (some sort of red bird). She loves them and she liked her cupcakes...it of course helps that it's cake.

Singing happy birthday

Yum yum!

I remember reading a while back from some etiquette expert that having children open presents in front of other children is unnecessary and maybe even cruel at times. I think there may be some truth to this, especially with toddlers.

Grayson loved Molly's new puzzles so much that he was thinking he might take one home. Fortunately when we showed him he got his own favor, he was cool with letting go of the puzzle. Literally, he just dropped it on the floor. You can also see in the background of this picture an enthusiastic Madeline. She looks like that in about 15 consecutive pictures. Sorry Madeline.


When it came right down to it, Keegan really wasn't interested in giving Molly the present. Don't worry, your birthday is next week, I'm sure you'll get some pretty good stuff too.

Well if you're still reading I have some news to tell. I'm sure this is what everyone wants to know and it probably should have been my lead story.
Well if you're someone who knows how to read these things, you probably already know. Jonny says that he would have known, which makes me feel good about my decision to find out. I hate the idea of him knowing and me not knowing. At the party we talked with Karen and Danny about my agony over deciding whether or not to find out. Danny came up with the best advice that anyone has given me regarding this and told me I should just flip a coin. Later that day I got out my ipod and used a coin toss app that I have. Jonny called it tails (although since he wasn't paying attention to me, he didn't know why he was calling it) and that was our answer. So if any one's interested, Molly's going to have a baby sister!

Today when we got home I put the DVD in and she watched. She wasn't really interested at first, but afterward she exclaimed, "YEAH! Baby sister!" It was so cute. I have to say I feel the same way.

Molly at 2

Considering all of the deadly seismic activity going on, I was particularly grateful to wake up after a full nights sleep (3rd in a row) and go in to Molly's room with Jonny and sing "Happy Birthday" to her little smiling face. I hope that everyone affected by this, can find peace and safety in the coming weeks.

I thought I should take some pictures of Molly on her big day, just to show what she's up to. Here she is doing some of her favorite things. Reading her favorite book, while watching TV. Life's simple when you're two.

Like I said, Molly slept through the night the past 3 nights. I don't know if shortened naps are helping with that or not, but they're definitely helping in her falling asleep. If we skip a nap altogether, the result is amazing. Sometimes the whole process (including story) only takes like 15 minutes. If she takes an abbreviated nap, we'll still come in at under an hour, which is nice. I have to say it's really hard for me to wake her up. At one time, doing something like that would have been considered an act of treason in our house, punishable by death and everything. It's sort of funny how completely out she is. I go in, shake the crib, yell, sing, stomp around, all that sort of stuff. Then she sort of begrudgingly wakes up and remains pretty drowsy looking for at least 20 minutes. I do sort of miss having the afternoon to myself, but it's worth the reduction of bedtime induced stress.

I forgot to share a funny story from the other day. Margaret and Glen were in town visiting so we had a few lunches out. When Molly goes out to eat, when she sees all of the lemons in every one's teas and waters, she about loses her mind until she gets one. On our second lunch out, as the waiter was taking our drink order, Molly looks right at the waiter and says "I be having lemon". Quite a sentence, and in the correct context and everything! I suppose if you really really need something though, you have to find a way.

Fancy Car

Last weekend was Midnight at the Oasis, so papa was driving his corvette around. We told Molly it was his "fancy car" and she loved that. She became obsessed with playing in the fancy car. You would think that she had forgotten it, moved on to some new game and then BAM! She starts whining about wanting to play in the fancy car again. I guess she just knew that she looked good in it.

She loved checking her look in the mirrors

Tomorrow is the big day! We don't have anything planned for tomorrow but there will be a rip roaring party this weekend. I'm of course completely disorganized and I'm not really sure how it's going to fall together, but oh-well, party planning just isn't my thing. I do have the cake planned and that's all anyone cares about anyhow, right? I'll admit it's a large part of what I care about when I go to parties.

In new baby news, I was supposed to have my ultrasound tomorrow, but they called and re-scheduled, so now I have to wait until Monday. Initially I really didn't care since I wasn't planning on finding out the sex, but I'm really tempted to find out this time around. I know how Ramsey feels about that...my loves surprises friend. I also know how Michaela feels about it...my hates surprises friend. I don't know whose going to win out in the end: the Ramsey angel or the Michaela devil sitting on my shoulders. I also don't know why Michaela ended up being the devil in this, I'll blame Rams for referring to finding out early as "the dark side" when I told her I might be too tempted to wait. Sorry Michaela.

No Naps

The other day Molly just didn't want to take a nap. I put her in her crib, and left like I always do and after about an hour of her playing happily in her crib, she was still going strong. So I decided not to worry about it too much. It did kind of suck not having all that time to myself to get things done, but what else could I do? My Dad has been saying I should try this out in the hopes of her sleeping better at night, so here was the opportunity. It hasn't made her sleep though the night any more consistently, but it has made bedtime a breeze. Usually we can spend up to 2 hours in attempt to get her to sleep. We would start at 8 and wouldn't be done until 9:30 or 10. Feel free to judge away if you must. I know lots of people would say that we should have sleep trained and that we've screwed her up, but crying it out is not for us. Anyhow, no napping definitely speeds up bedtime. 20 min. (including story) seems to do the trick and once she didn't even make it through her favorite book, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. On days when she seems like she just has to take one, I make a point to not let her sleep more than 1 1/2 hours and that seems to still have the desired effect. Thankfully no napping doesn't seem to have ill effects on her mood, she still seems pretty happy to me.

The other parenting task that I'm doing all wrong is potty training! When she wants to use it, she loves it, but when I've tried to do the whole schedule, taking her in every 15 min. she resists. Today she initiated the whole process herself in the morning. After showering, she was running around before I got her dressed, and she went in and took care of business and then she even went in and picked out a pair of underwear to wear. I thought "this is a sign". I had no where to go today so I figured I'd see how we'd do. At first I thought 30 min. would be enough of an interval, but it wasn't, so I switched to 15 min. She would go in and sit down, not go, and then go on the floor somewhere 2 min. later. I gave up after the 4th "accident" of the day.
For another day I suppose.

Pottying in Style

One thing I think I do right, is feeding her. I'm not perfect by any means but I do get her to eat her veggies and she's still crazy for fruit. I'm also really good at limiting the junk she eats. I figure that at this point I still have control, so why go a ruin that by introducing her to all of the junk I love? A perfect example is cookies. I am terrible when it comes to cookies, I love them to the point I could probably make myself physically sick from them. I'll make cookies (I don't buy them) and after they're gone I'll tell myself, like a drunk might, that I will never bake cookies again. Then, a month later I'll be at the store and I'll talk myself into getting a bag of chocolate chips. I won't make them right away, I can hold myself off for a little while, but eventually I'll cave and there will be a whole batch of something sitting in the kitchen and I won't even know how it got there. Yet, even with this horrible addiction, Molly has never had more than 1/4 cookie in one sitting. I know you shouldn't judge, but the other day at the Dr's office I saw a kid probably a little younger than Molly with a baby bottle of chocolate milk. C'mon! I'm not opposed to chocolate milk, I love it, Molly's had it before, but make him drink it from a cup at least.

In other household news Molly's birthday is coming up. I have desperately wanted a nice outdoor area for her to play in, so I'm hoping that for her birthday we will at least be on our way to that goal. My dad is working on putting up a nice sturdy iron fence around a little portion of our backyard, and we have a contractor who is going to do some concrete work for us. For her birthday, we bought her a little slide and a sandbox. I think they're going to be a big hit with her. Sometime down the road I want to build her a playhouse (and by "I" I mean Jonny and my dad), but that's also for another day.

Work gloves on and ready to go!

Well it's likely that when writing my next post I'll be the proud parent of a 2 year old! Can't believe it's almost time to print off volume 2 of the blog book.