"Something tells me it's all happening at the zoo"

Jonny is taking a week or so off from work, which really means he'll be working at home for awhile. Except for today (a Saturday mind you), today he's in the Winden, AZ area (nowhere you need to know about) looking at melons. Funny story about that: he was stopped at the Border Patrol checkpoint because the dog thought the truck smelled like drugs. His truck frequently smells, but I've never noticed drugs. The good news is that Jonny isn't secretly doing/selling drugs. I think the border patrol at that checkpoint are bored. I've gone with him before and they always seem to be reaching for something to do and asking way more questions than really necessary.

Okay, enough of that detour back to the important stuff. Jonny was able to pry himself away for one night and we went to San Diego and checked out the zoo. What I had hoped and dreamed would happen was that we would leave, Molly would nap the whole way and then we would have a nice well rested baby at the zoo. Molly didn't nap until we were about 1 1/2 hours into the trip and she was generally fussy for most of that time. The problem was that I had turned her car seat around and she wasn't comfortable in the more upright forward facing position. We actually stopped and turned it around and shortly after that she went to sleep...Thank God! Anyhow she got about an hour nap and then regardless of the lack of sleep she was still able to have a good time at the zoo.

Forward Facing Verdict: Fun Perspective, but no good for sleeping.

Not so sure about goats

Animal statues are great for climbing

Walking about with Daddy

We saw lots of animals, but none of them resembled this one that we weren't supposed to be feeding.

We did see an animal that resembled dink after she's gorged herself on food or biscuits. Some sort of Tapir.

Checking out some birds with Daddy.

The next day before we left for home, we went and took a quick walk on the beach. The weather had been a little warmer than I had hoped for, but the weather on the beach was perfect. Too bad we had to leave.

"Look! Look! Look!"

The water was a little colder than she was accustomed to. She freaked out when she got her feet wet.

In other news, Molly has been officially moved into her bedroom. It's pretty nice.

When we moved the crib, we put the mattress as low as it could go. Molly made sure we knew that she's would be working on conquering it:

Her very own bathroom:

And my favorite, her very own closet. It's been awesome to have her clothes organized and not just crammed into a drawer.

Moving her into her room has freed up her old room to become a playroom

What a lucky little girl!

This cracked me up. Annette had said Kate has been getting into TV a little lately. When you see this happen, you know it's gone too far. Slovenly laying on the floor, mesmerized by it. Might be time to set some limits.

Busy Bee

As I said we would, we had a lot going on in the past week. Molly "graduated" from swim class, we had Uncle Chris and Aunt Stephanie visiting, and we had two parties! Needless to say there are way too many pictures and everyone of them has Molly's little mug in it. Of course there was also the day to day drudgery...eating, sleeping (or not), and bathing. I have to say it was nice to have a distraction from the day to day stuff and today I'm feeling a little abandoned. Chris and Stephanie left as well as my parents (they're in MO for two weeks) Jonny's back at work again and Mere never stops working, so it's just me and Molly left to fend for ourselves. I'm being dramatic of course. It really isn't that bad, actually maybe if I'm not constantly seeking out time with my family, I can get something done...or maybe I'll just go Netflix on demand crazy, it could go either way.

Here's Molly enjoying her celebratory Popsicle after completing swim class. She wasn't ever able to conquer the frog slide fearlessly, but she did blow bubbles in the bathtub last night, so I guess swim classes were worth it, especially since she got a Popsicle

Getting dressed after swim.

On Saturday we had a little get together for the combined celebration of Chris and Stephanie's 1st wedding anniversary, my birthday and my mom's birthday. In the end it was mostly about Molly though.

Showing aunt Cassie her frog.

Aunt Stephanie, Molly and her frog. She REALLY love that frog. It sings all sorts of songs that all seem to blow her mind and get her dancing. My favorite to watch is the "Twist" because she actually does a little twist action, it's pretty funny.

Mere's friend Carrie came over with her family and Madison and Elyse helped out Molly with the sit 'n' spin. Molly usually has a little warming up period with adults, but it was fun to see that for kids she was willing to override it. I guess that it's important to make exceptions when there is vital information like how to use a sit 'n' spin at stake.

After the party My parents, Karen and Danny, and Chris and Stephanie stuck around and we watched the casino fireworks on our balcony/roof thingy. It's kind of fun that we can see them from our house. The show they put on is way better than anything I remember seeing here in Yuma, so it's pretty cool.

On Sunday we went to my mom's for a 4th of July BBQ. Molly had her obligatory 4th of July watermelon and made her obligatory mess with it.

signature Molly Mac eye squint.

She had a good time playing with the toys Gran and Billy keep for her, some of which were mine once. Or in the case of this bunny, Christopher's and mine. But really the most important thing that you should take away from this picture is that her shoes match her outfit. Super cool!

I love the bow that Annette made for Molly, I wish Molly felt the same way about it. I'll save it for next year I guess. She did look super cute with it in for about 2 seconds.

After playing and eating we threw caution to the wind and went swimming without waiting 30 minutes. Somehow we all survived. Molly favorite things about the pool time were "jumping in" and the water feature. She still isn't sure about swimming, but I'm sure like any other child that has grown up in Yuma, she'll learn to love it.

After swimming she had a bath and then whooped it up with everyone. Doing a little baby workout, muscling chairs around.

Here she is playing a little tag with uncle Chris

"Gotcha!"

Drag the baby:

I don't usually post pictures of food, but I thought my 4th of July cookies turned out pretty cute. At least this one did:

We of course finished them before the 4th. Whoops.

In other general Molly news, I've started giving her bubble baths instead of the ordinary ones I had been giving her. I'm not sure why I held out on her, but anyhow she's getting them now.

little bubble head.

After her nap yesterday, Jonny found her looking like this:

I had left some short in the crib and she decided that her head was where they went. Pretty cute.

This is a typical scene at our place lately. She loves purses, (real or imagined) and sunglasses.

She prances around telling us that she's going "bye-bye". So "bye-bye" from Molly Mac!

Happy Birthday to me!

Well just as an update from my last blog, Molly has slept better the past two days. Sunday night (as a birthday treat for her mother I guess) she slept the whole night with no interruptions. Last night she slept decent, but with some interruptions, but nothing I couldn't deal with. I appreciate the sympathy, but I should probably be clear that during the 4 hours that she was awake on Saturday night, she wasn't inconsolable for me...only for Jonny. My problem that night was that she would not stay asleep alone in her crib. If I was rocking her in the chair, she was fine...If I was rubbing her back while she laid in the crib, she was fine. The second I tried to stop doing those things and leave or God forbid, have her father try to help her out...she would wake up and scream. Shitty sleep habits aside, we've been having a lot of fun lately.
I'll start with some father's day pictures. We went to Jonny's mom's house for brunch and Molly had a grand time hanging out with her Aunt and Uncle, Grannies and Papas and her favorite cousins.

Madeline and Molly

Jonathan, Molly and Daddy

Also worth mentioning, is that we've started swim classes. We've made it through a week and have one more to go. She's a little reluctant to enjoy the classes, but she's mostly a good sport. Luckily she has her buddies Grayson and Kate to help her out. One day my mom was able to come and take some pictures.

Getting ready to take the plunge with Grayson and his Gram:

Watching Kate "blow bubbles" or maybe she's taking a sip.

Her good humor ends at the mouth of the frog. She really wasn't interested in doing this again.

"All done" as she frequently tells me during class...she's always ready for her lunch and nap after class.

Our whole house (except for the bonus room upstairs) is open for business. We haven't furnished it yet, but it is done and the house has passed it's final inspection with COY...phew! There is nothing a kid likes more than an open area to run in, so we just let her go. I think she's going to be sad when we start putting furniture and such in her "baby run".

Checking out her new room with the cool new rug that grandpa gave us for my birthday.

"Troll on the bridge"= Gran denying access to the stairs.

Since I wrote before about Molly's orneriness, I thought I would tell you what I'm trying to do about it. Since I really got a lot out of the book "Happiest Baby on the Block", I thought I would check out the sequel "Happiest Toddler on the Block". So far I really like it and think it's making a difference. I won't get into all of the details here, but it basically gives you a technique for talking to a screaming child. I think the thing that helps me the most is just having something else to do besides being pissed off. It's nice to feel like you have a plan of action other than being mad. Especially since communicating with a toddler isn't without it's complications.

I'll end on a positive note (I think anyhow). I turned 30 yesterday! Don't feel any different, so I don't think I'll worry about it too much. I'm too busy chasing Molly around to care about how old I am.

iPod

Well it's 3in the morning and Molly is having her second crappy night in a row. Jonny is with her right now so I'm just listening to her scream. I took the first 2 hours, but I'm now at the end of my patience so It's jonny's turn. I don't why she screams so horribly for jonny. Her screaming is actually quieter when left alone...go figure. I think the problem is teething,but nothing seems to help, so I don't know. So for now I'm just sitting on the couch playing with my new toy, an iPod touch. I know that my birthday isn't until tomorrow, but when the package came I thought it was something that I had ordered, not my birthday present from jonny, so I opened it. It's pretty nifty, but I don't think I'll be blogging from it since touch screen keyboards suck. But when you're delirious and exausted at 3:20, I suppose it's worth the distraction. I suppose I should go and take care of my kid now since she'll at least sleep in my arms... I've lost all hope of sleeping tonight anyhow.

Videos

I had thought that the video upload wasn't working because every time I uploaded the video in the last post, when I tried to watch it, it said that there was an error or some BS. Anyhow, I gave up and just posted it anyhow, and it turns out it's fine. Apparently I deleted and re-loaded dozens of time over the course of a few days for nothing...screw you blogger!

Here are a couple of other videos from the past couple days. The first one is at the paint store and there really isn't any point to it, but hey, Molly's in it, what more do you want from me?

This one is of Molly running around in my shoes. She's always doing this, but this time she was actually able to get her toes in the right place and walk. The child is obsessed with shoes. I think this could get expensive.

We have a big couple weeks coming up. Swim lessons start on Monday, my birthday is the following Monday (30 if anyone is keeping track) and sometime soon after that, Uncle Chris and Aunt Stephanie will be in town for a visit. Also we're going to be moving into the 2nd half of our house REALLY soon! All we have left now is the crazy room upstairs, very exciting. What I'm most excited for is to have my laundry in the same house as me. I'm useless at doing it if I have to remember to actually go to another building to complete the task...ask Jonny about it, he's done pretty much every load since we moved in here.

Criminal

I've been cleaning out Molly's drawers and filling up bags for storage. Molly has been working hard emptying those bags and strewing things about the house. She brought her daddy some tights, and Daddy decided they should rob a bank.

Our little criminal.

Jonny's melons are doing pretty good and Molly has been enjoying the literal fruits of his labor. She loves melons! Any kind, any time any place. Who doesn't like sugar water? Jonny grew a really good yellow variety that Molly is seen enjoying here.

Double fisting melons:

Last weekend we went to Cassie and Ben's house for a graduation party. Congratulations to Jonathan for graduating 8th grade. I started dating Jonny when Jonathan was two, and it blows my mind that he's going to be in high school next year. I can imagine that Cassie and Ben feel this even more intensely than me. Jonny has informed that it isn't surprising to him at all...it has been a little over a decade after all. I guess he's uneffected by time.

Molly and Aunt Cassie...oh THAT'S where the eyes came from!

Swim lessons start soon, gotta get ready!

While we were swimming Molly reminded me of what a little daredevil she can be. She was convinced that she could go it alone, and was struggling to break free from me. Have to watch that one!

Speaking of daredevil, Molly has mastered the step ladder. I don't usually leave it where she can get it, but I was reorganizing the other day since I now have most of my cabinet doors in (yeah!) and when I wasn't paying 100% attention to her she starting going up and down and up and down. In this video, she's doing it in order to get some of her stuff on the counter. Very exciting stuff. I know it kind of looks bad letting her do this...but she really is surprisingly agile.

She never once seemed precarious, although I don't think I would be too keen on her doing it without me near by. My mom has been surprised at Molly's ability to climb and doesn't think that any of us were this capable at her age. I did however go back through the Burgess Baby Blog and found that in May of 09, there was a post call "time to climb", so I don't think that Molly is alone in her abilities :-)

Ornery Ones?

Molly shows us everyday just how smart she is, most of the time that just means she finds new ways to get into trouble. Like this picture, it seems harmless, but what happens when she tries to put her shirt on by herself, is that she basically walks around blindfolded. eventually she runs into a wall, and it end in tears. Maybe her mother should help her out?

Here I go again taking pictures of her instead of helping her out. I didn't see the process that got her into this mess, only the results.


If the twos, threes and fours suck...then I'm totally screwed. Molly is an extremely strong willed child and I have to say that it's not always easy for me to match it. We of course have boundaries in place (mostly physical ones) but sometimes you just have to pick your battles. I know I'm a 1st timer so I have no point of reference, but even my mom says she thinks Molly is a handful. She's a grandma however so she uses words like "precocious" , "clever", and "busy" where as I use words like "pain in the ass" and "NOOOOOOO!!!!!! don't touch that!!!!!". I've joked that I should change her name from Molly Jo to Molly No since I say that more often.

Hey it's not all bad time though, there are good things happening too. Like our new chair. Molly and I have a new chair, and I love it. My old one served us, but I'm glad we've upgraded. Now when we're rocking I don't have to feel as though it's going to burst into flames at any minute. The noises from that thing were terrifying and even though we made efforts to save it: stealing bearings from the ottoman or even trying to get the company to let us order new ones, it was no use. A few weeks ago I ordered this beauty from Barenholtz furniture, and I couldn't be happier. The best part (aside from not busting into flames) was that I was able to pick out my own fancy fabric from their vast selection.
Good looking kid, Good looking chair:

My secret for getting her to stay in the chair and keep the bow on her head? Bribing her with my cellphone. I usually don't let her touch it because she's capable of some pretty complicated procedures (switching the network from which the phone is operating from...true story) or simply just calling someone but I REALLY wanted her to stay :-)

"hello"

It didn't last

"Where did I put that thing?"

"Oh yea, the floor"

"Good luck with your photography mom, I'm done here."