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!

Babies: Can't sleep with them, can't sleep without them

We had a big week here in the Mac household. On Wednesday and Thursday we hung out with my friend Allysia and her kids. We had a rollicking time at Jump up...Jumping up and generally going crazy with all of the other little ones. On Thursday Ramsey and Grayson joined all of us for a playdate at our house where we pretty much just caught up while we let Anayah chase around the babies :-) Thanks Anayah!

The only thing that this picture accomplishes is that all of the kids are in the same shot. Taking a decent picture of one kid is hard enough...four, with 3 under 2...impossible.

Jadon relaxing in Molly's pink rocker: So Comfy!

Jadon showing Molly how the water bottle works:

This was so cute. When Ramsey and Grayson had to leave, Jadon did not hold back on the hugs. He's a lover!

We had a great time hanging out with her and her family.

On Friday, Jonny decided that he wanted to see what all of the Jumping up was about so we went back to Jump up and Molly and Jonny had a great time pushing the limits of daring. Daddies are always good for a little danger and in a room full of mats and trampolines, the potential is endless.

Saturday brings me to the title. We had our 1st night away from Molly. Mere has offered to take Molly overnight many times, but it never really worked out before (generally my fault). Anyhow I decided "what the hell" and Molly spent the night with Mere last night. Since we had all of this free time on our hands we went out to dinner and a movie with Ramsey and Blaine. We went to Ah-So and had some good food...probably too much of it, and then we went to see Inception which I enjoyed even though it hadn't really been something I thought I wanted to see. When I got home I did have to fight the urge to go busting into Mere's house to check on Molly, but I didn't do it. Despite the title of the blog I did sleep okay, but I did have a little trouble falling asleep thinking about what Molly was doing..."Is she up?, Is she crying?, Is that my problem? Seriously...Is it?" Although I was worried about Molly, I was also worried about Mere and what Molly was doing to her. I know everyone think she looks like an angel, but she can be mean. In the end though, Mere said she did pretty good. Like her mother, she did have trouble falling asleep, but once she fell asleep she did fairly well, so yeah for that! Next time will be easier.

I'll end with one more picture. Molly's hair is getting out of hand, but she won't let me do much to help her out. I tried a goofy little ponytail, but she had none of that. I might have to cave and just cut her bangs. We'll try to stay away from the "dumb and dumber" look that Landon and Grayson have sported from time to time (their words, not mine). I don't think a little girl can pull that look off as well.

Pool Time

I'm sure my parents will appreciate a little Molly fix since they're in MO right now, so I thought I would post a couple pictures from this morning. We got Molly a little inflatable kiddie pool complete with a slide. It's pretty nifty, and Molly had a great time whooping it up this morning. It was a nice distraction since, like Kate, Molly's been teething pretty hard the past couple days. She's working on 3 teeth right now and hasn't been sleeping very well...ugh! Teething for Molly seems to be this SLOW painful process, I'm ready for it to be over. At least you can't tell in the pictures.

Fancy footwork

All smiles for pool time!

The second we turned on the little sprinkler for the pool, she freaked out and booked it. I love the look of concern on her face.

Today was actually overcast, muggy with a slight breeze. Match that with a soaking wet swimsuit and babies get a little chilly. I helped her out and took the top off.

Still a little sleepy since she didn't sleep that well last night.

She thought she was so clever hanging out on the porch with us on the other side.

"Look at me, I'm so cool!"

Happy Birthday Lorelei!

Yesterday we went to a birthday party for Molly's cousin Lorelei. Molly had a great time splashing around in the kiddie pool with her. She had so much fun, I think I may need to go out and get one for ourselves (a pool, not another baby). We have plenty of heat ahead of us, so I'm sure it would get lots of use.

The Birthday Girl:

Slippin' and Slidin'

The 3 cousins: Emmaline, Molly and Lorelei