Lydia smiles a lot in the bathtub because she enjoys being splashed with warm water and she adores having her hair washed:
I smile after her bath is over because she looks so Biblical in her striped hooded towel:
Bathtime Smiles
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Photo-phobic
I’m not sure if that’s a real word or not, but that’s how I would describe Alethea.
Any time I pull out a camera, whether it’s the big Nikon or just my iPhone in camera mode, she either runs away or I get expressions like this:
You’d think I was asking her to eat brussel sprouts or something.
Anyway, the other day I stumbled on a new strategy. It doesn’t work to take pictures of Daddy or Lydia saying cheese, but if you ask Dee the puppy to say cheese, then Alethea wants to be in the pictures too…
Thus, I actually got a few cute shots where Alethea is smiling, like this one:
And this one:
So now if I just don’t mind a ‘well loved’ puppy dog in the pictures, I might be able to avoid getting any more photos like this:
I just might have to tolerate the dog, because I don’t know if I can stand breaking her poor little heart any more!
Are You A Parent?
You might be a parent if you find yourself saying any of the following during the course of your morning:
“Don’t drink the bathwater! You’re sitting in it, so now there’s butt paste in there too, so it’s icky!”
“The bookcase is not a ladder! Climbing it isn’t a good idea, no matter what you’re trying to get.”
“Please stop licking your shoe!”
Turns out I’m REALLY a parent, because I said all three of those today, and it’s not even 2pm yet…
I wonder what will come out of my mouth in the ‘Things I Never Thought I’d Say’ category this afternoon.
And Her Daddy Was Proud
If you know anything about my relationship with Peter, you’ll understand when I say that Peter once confessed that when we first started dating, my inability to be anywhere on time made him wonder whether we really ought to be together.
Peter is perfectly punctual. He hates being late. So it drives him crazy that I am almost never where I need to be when I need to be there.
I try… really I do… but there seems to be no way to leave the house totally one hundred percent prepared for the day. You know, make-up on, water bottle in hand, house spotless so that I don’t have to return to a mess… It just doesn’t happen, but I’m always trying up to (a.k.a. past) the last possible minute to get as close as possible to that elusive ideal.
Yesterday was one of those days. I was trying to get the girls and myself out the door to run errands. I had them both dressed and told Alethea, “We’re leaving in two minutes. In two minutes we will need to get in the car.” Then I went to brush my teeth.
When I came out of the bathroom, there was Alethea, standing at the top of the steps. She had put on her pink shoes and slung a purse over her shoulder. I laughed and said, “Well, it looks like you’re ready to go, huh?”
She gave me a very serious look and then replied, “We’re late.” And with that she turned and started down the steps.
Of course, when I told Peter about the incident last night, his response was, “That’s my girl!”
Sigh….
On the bright side though, maybe now that it’s two against one, they’ll be able to reform me of my chronic lateness. You never know, it might be possible.
But, please, don’t hold your breath.
Ash Wednesday
I don’t have any super profound thoughts for you on this first day of Lent. But I am looking forward to the Ash Wednesday service at church tonight.
We are going to be singing this song:
I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, tears lose their bitterness.
Where is thy sting death? Where grave thy victory?
I triumph still, abide with me.
In life in death, Lord…
Abide with me.
Lydia’s Two Month Update
Saturday was Lydia’s two month birthday. Happy birthday, Baby Girl!
We went to the doctor yesterday morning and Lydia’s current stats are: height – 22.5 inches, weight – 13 lbs 15 oz, head circumference – 41 cm. That puts her in the 57th percentile for height, the 98th for weight and the 92nd for head circumference. She’s an adorably chubby baby!
Besides gaining several pounds, Lydia’s other achievements over this past month include learning to hold her head up and look around, getting her hand into her mouth whenever she’s not swaddled, and smiling at Mommy and Daddy, Alethea, the globes over her crib, and at nothing in particular. Most of the time she’s a sweet, happy, easy baby.
Our biggest struggle this month has been bed time. Lydia will go to sleep easily, on her own, for 90% of her daytime naps, but 6:00pm rolls around and suddenly we have a cranky baby who wants to be held constantly and won’t go to sleep. If we’re lucky, we’ll get her to sleep in her bed by 8:00 or 9:00pm. If it’s a particularly bad night, one of us will still be holding a wide awake baby when her late night feeding comes around at 10:30. We’re a little mystified by this, but hope she’ll outgrow it soon.
Although we have a hard time getting her to sleep at bedtime, once she’s out after her late night feeding, she’s usually sound asleep until she wants to eat again at 4-5am. A few times she’s made it until 6 or 7am and one night (after a particularly busy day when she didn’t get all her naps in) she actually slept until 9am, at which point I decided to go in and wake her up to feed her since she had been asleep for almost 10 hours! Yay for a baby who sleeps at night!
Although Lydia still sleeps an average of 18 hours a day, she has increased her morning awake time to around 1 hour, which gives us more time to play after her feeding. We enjoy talking together (she’s starting to coo back), smiling at each other, and occasionally I can even coax a little chuckle out of her. She hasn’t full out laughed yet, but those little throaty noises are just as fun and always make my day so much brighter.
Lydia’s current favorite things include: eating, watching the globe mobile over her bed, being swaddled, looking at faces and staring at the ceiling fan in her room, which is what she is doing in the photo above. (For a picture of big sister Alethea staring at the same ceiling fan at about the same age, click here.)
Although they are predicting another 3 to 5 inches snow tonight, we are holding fast to our hope that with a baby who eats and sleeps well, a summer full of delights is right around the corner.
‘The Bean’ Landscaping 2011
Okay, so I know today is Lydia’s two month birthday, but you’re going to have to wait for her update until Monday, because that’s when she goes to the doctor to get weighed and measured, so I’ll finish her two month post then.
In the mean time let me bore you to death entertain you by showing off my just completed landscaping plan for spring/summer 2011. As many of you will remember, we have a large raised bed in our front yard that we have lovingly nicknamed ‘The Bean’ because of it’s kidney shape. After a lot of research and internal debate I have finally placed orders for the plants I am going to kill attempt to grow this year in an effort to make The Bean more attractive.
Because I am anal retentive like things to be planned carefully in advance, I made a scale drawing of The Bean, scanned it, and added plant photos to help me lay things out.
So without further ado, here is The Bean Plan 2011:
As you can see, I’m dreaming of a colorful garden mixed with trees, shrubs and perennials all accented by a lovely winding flagstone path, complete with a bench on which to sit and relax. And while I’m dreaming, I’m going to imagine that not just my plants, but my children as well, are so perfectly behaved that I have plenty of time to just sit and admire God’s creation all around me. Ahhhh… isn’t it a wonderful vision?
The reality is that I’m not sure how many of my plants from last year will have made it through the winter and from experience I can tell you that the ones coming in the mail for spring planting will be so small they’re almost invisible sweet little baby plants that may not flower during their first season. Add that to the fact that we are not even sure if we will be tackling Operation Garden Path this year and the resulting picture is a Bean full of wood chips far less idyllic.
Oh well. Peter and I are hoping to live in this house until we can’t make it up the front steps any longer, so I figure we should have a few more years to achieve the perfectly planned, but still slightly wild looking garden of my dreams. In the mean time, I’ll just have to content myself with admiring my fabulous diagram.
How to Buy a Potty Chair
After I got so many comments and e-mails all saying ‘go for it!’ following my first potty training post, I asked Alethea if she’d like me to get her a potty chair so she could learn to use the toilet by herself. She said, “Okay!” (And yes, I am taking that with a grain of salt. I also asked her if she’d like an Oompaloompa to go with it and her answer was, “Okay!”)
Anyway, today during my weekly trip to Target, I stopped by the baby section to look at potty chairs. Now I was hoping there would be two or three to choose from. What I wasn’t prepared for was having a dozen styles sitting before me on the shelf:
My options ranged from just a simple plastic lift-out bowl in a simple plastic seat, to chairs with lots of bells and whistles. Suddenly I was confronted with choices I hadn’t even dreamed of prior to walking down that aisle. Did I want the seat to lift off and sit on the grownup toilet to make the transition to big toilet easier? Did I want the base to convert into a step-stool? Did I want the potty to look like a frog, a racecar, a throne, or of all things, a toilet? Many played music, a couple had padded seats, a few sported toilet paper holders…
I was overwhelmed.
Then I asked myself what would be most appealing to Alethea? The answer was clearly, this one:
It plays music, has a handle to ‘flush’ and even tells you when you’ve done a good job. Yeah, I was pretty sure Alethea would like it. So, I was going to buy it, even though it was the most expensive one and it didn’t convert into a step stool (which seemed like a nice feature for when Alethea was ready to move up to using the real toilet). But then I looked at the box a little closer and noticed this:
That’s right folks. It doesn’t just play music, it has “Encouraging songs with lyrics and fun phrases”!
Suddenly in my mind’s eye, I caught a glimpse of Alethea singing those lyrics and repeating those fun phrases in a public place. Lovely.
The ‘Cheer for Me! Potty’ went back on the shelf.
I ended up selecting this one instead:
It is the Royal Stepstool Potty, which was $10 cheaper than the Cheer For Me model, and as the name implies, it does convert to a stepstool to prolong its usefulness. Plus Alethea will be rewarded for ‘contributions’ with “regal musical ditties and fun sound effects”, which sounded a lot safer to me than “encouraging lyrics”.
I think I made the right choice. Alethea is still taking her nap, so she hasn’t gotten to weigh in on the matter yet, but really… who needs a retractable toilet paper holder anyway??!?!
February Photos
Yesterday when I was writing Alethea’s update, I realized that I didn’t get the camera out nearly often enough this past month, so I pulled it out and snapped a few more photos for my ‘February 2011’ file.
Alethea still won’t hold still for the camera, but at least she smiled:
Lydia smiles a lot now when she’s awake:
Daddy and Alethea did ‘cheers!’ and as you can see, it was really cute. Unfortunately the camera didn’t flash, so it’s also a bit grainy:
Microfiber couch + dry winter air = static electricity in the hair:
It must be nice to be a baby. It’s the only time in your life when you can have milk crusted to your face and still look completely adorable:
That’s it for this month. Maybe in March we’ll get some outdoor photos without snow in them… winter can’t last forever!
Twenty-Two Month Update
Today is Alethea’s twenty-two month birthday. Happy birthday, dear girl!
Unfortunately Alethea is spending her day trying to recover from a horrific diaper rash. We’ve been treating it on our own with frequent diaper changes and loads of butt paste for several days, but this morning her bottom started bleeding, so I’m thinking it’s time to head to the doctor.
On a more positive note, this month Alethea had several fun milestones including counting from 1 to 10 without any prompts or assistance from me (and she even remembered the number seven). She also started voluntarily naming colors of different objects and expanded her song repertoire to include a mostly-complete version of ‘Old Mac Donald’, ‘Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes’, and the first part of the ABC song.
Turns out headbands also make stylish glasses
Current dislikes include: getting dressed, having her diaper changed, green vegetables, having her picture taken, and water going anywhere near her head or face. Current likes are: making Duplo towers, baths (just not the hair washing part), books, fruit (especially grapes), playing outside, and all of her comfort items – brown blankie, baby doll, nuks and assorted stuffed puppies (there is quite a crowd in her crib at night).
She also loves shoes… and boots… and anything she can put on her feet by herself, her favorites being a pair of bright pink mary janes.
They even go with pajamas!
She continues to be a loving big sister to Lydia, although she was overheard one night when both girls were supposed to be sleeping (and neither was) to say, “Lydia, be quiet!” After all, it is hard to sleep with a baby crying in the next room.
Best picture of the girls to date
We are having a hard time believing that in just two short months we will be celebrating Alethea’s second birthday. Time is positively flying, but we’re soaking up every minute of fun we can with our energetic and imaginative little girl.