A Trip to Target

Posted on April 23, 2010 by Elise

This has been a bit of a crazy week. Peter left Monday morning for a work conference in Florida and didn’t get back until last night. I’m so glad he’s home and want to give a big thanks to all the babysitters who watched Alethea while I was teaching piano lessons this week.

My main strategy for making it through four days without Peter was to leave our house as little as possible, but I realized on Wednesday morning when we were out of milk, orange juice and chocolate that a grocery run was a must. So that afternoon, I told Alethea, “You need to get your shoes on. We are going for a ride in the car.” Not paying attention to her response, I moved to the kitchen counter to pack my purse. I minute later I felt a tug on my pant leg. Alethea holds out one of her shoes and says “Go?” Yeah, didn’t know she understood that much.

So we get to Target and I’m buckling Alethea into the shopping cart when a little boy and his mom enter the store. “Mom, Mom! Look at that little girl!” the boy exclaims as he points at Alethea. “She’s SO pretty!” Wasn’t that sweet?

As we go about gathering our groceries, we get to the yogurt section and I ask Alethea, “Where is your yogurt? It’s the one with the baby on it.” Alethea looked around for a few seconds and then pointed right to the YoBaby shelf. (Having just typed that, it doesn’t sound that impressive. But I’m her mom, so I get to be excited about things like this.)

Anyway, it turns out that the thing I was avoiding was kind of a fun experience and it really made me realize how much more Alethea understands than what she can communicate. Plus I got Alethea two tops and two bottoms for a total of $10.50 on the clearance rack, so all in all it was a worthwhile trip.

The Weekend Report

Posted on April 18, 2010 by Elise

Friday

Peter and I went to our third and final Twins game of the week. It was a fun game despite a certain unfortunate event that happened in the row in front of us. I don’t want to go into too much detail, so let’s just say the boy sitting in front of us suddenly didn’t feel well and it’s a good thing the guy two rows up was wearing a rain jacket. Ewwww…

Besides that though, the Twins played well, we sat next to some amusing people, and I got this cool picture of Peter:

And this cute picture of us:

Saturday

This was our “All about yard work day”. We focused some time an energy on “The Bean” area in our front yard. Here is the before pic (notice the distinct bean shape):

After raking, weeding, and covering it in mulch The Bean now looks like this:

The cutest moment of the day goes to Alethea (is anyone surprised?). She watched me as I pulled weeds in The Bean and threw them into my big bucket. Then she got down on her knees and started picking up leaves and twigs and putting them in her little pail. I’ve never seen her imitate me that closely and it was very sweet to know that she wants to be like mommy.

Sunday

The morning was church including a good sermon on the topic “hearing God’s voice when we feel outnumbered”. We were challenged to consider the question “What is God asking me to do in my current situation to serve Him?” which is an especially challenging question to me since I feel like being a stay at home mom requires almost constant concentration just to keep Alethea fed and clean and clothed and out of trouble. Sometimes I know all God gets is my sloppy seconds and a few minutes of my time when Alethea finally goes to bed at night. So I guess I will have to give further thought to the question.

After church, the rest of the day was less remarkable, but not stressful, which is the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Don’t you think?

Watch that Baseball Soar

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Elise

We’ve sure been having fun this week with the Twins first homestand of 2010. Peter and I were fortunate enough to have tickets to opening day at Target field on Monday. What a great game! The atmosphere at the ballpark was electric and everything in sight was new and clean and shiny! (And you know how much I love new and clean and shiny!) The weather was beautiful, Jason Kubel hit the first ever home run at Target Field and the Twins won! Hurray!

Our View of the Twins Home Opener

Today we went to the second game of the homestand with my mom and our friend Chris. We were brave (or foolish) and also took Alethea. She did reasonably well, although Peter and I have made the definite decision that she will not be attending any more games this year since we spent quite a bit of time walking the concourses with her. Not that it was a total loss because in the process Alethea did manage to make a few friends: the two ladies at the beer cart who thought she was adorable, the 15 month old named Molly who was (I kid you not) a full foot taller than Alethea, the chick who had “had a few” and told Alethea that it was okay to be bald since she herself had been bald until she was two years old and finally the woman manning the Budweiser “Good Sport” booth who informed a very interested Alethea that you had to be 21 or older to win.

I don’t mean to totally diminish Alethea’s sitting still skills. She did manage to stay in her seat long enough to enjoy the pretzel we bought her as well as several licks of my ice cream bar. After they were both gone, she enjoyed playing with the wrappers too. Bonus!

So to end this post, I know that I ought to put up a cute pic or two of Alethea enjoying her first Twins game, but unfortunately I couldn’t find my camera as I was running out the door to pick up my mom, so all the pictures of that game are on Grandma Debbie’s camera. I’ll have to post a couple once I get copies from my mom. Until then, Go Twins!

Between Sizes

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Elise

Poor Alethea. She appears to have gotten my short legs. We spent some time hanging out with friends this weekend and among them was Judah, Alethea’s hospital buddy. He’s a full head taller than Alethea now, although Alethea weighs approximately five pounds (or 25%) more.

Alethea’s proportions are making it more and more frustrated every day as I attempt to clothe her. 12 month pants are pretty tight around the waist, but her large stack of very cute 18 month pants are all about 4 inches too long in the legs. I’m not sure what to do. I feel bad for putting her in too tight (and probably uncomfortable) 12 month sizes, but she’s not any where near tall enough for 18 month pants. I’ve tried cuffing them, but at some point they always come uncuffed and then she trips on them, which isn’t really safe.

What I really need is some 15 month pants. If only the world of baby sizes didn’t make a sudden jump from 12 to 18 months, everything would be okay.

But since 15 month pants don’t exist, anyone know where I can get pants for a short baby with a root beer belly?

A Mouse in the House

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Elise

When I lived in the heart of South Philly, it became sort of a standard part of the cooking process to inspect boxes for chewed corners before using their contents. If you think I’m overstating the infestation, please know that we switched from traps to poison after we’d caught 20+ mice and it seemed like there were more critters running around than before.

If I didn’t know better I’d say we had a similar infestation in our house at the moment, but as it turns out, it’s not a mouse, it’s Alethea. There is one food cupboard in our kitchen that Alethea is allowed to play in. We picked that cupboard to not be off-limits for her exploration because we thought there wasn’t anything in there that she could hurt or that could hurt her. Turns out when your kid starts chewing (and swallowing) the corners off of all the cardboard boxes, things that seemed okay for her to play with are suddenly in question.

I’m hoping that all this chewing is only a symptom of her recent teething, but I’m starting to wonder if she is lacking fiber in her diet or something. Has anyone else had a kid who actually seemed to enjoy eating cardboard? She also likes to eat paper as well as leaves and twigs when we are outside.

Mystery Solved

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Elise

Peter and I were trying to figure out why Alethea has been so grumpy the past few days. Grumpy is a nice word, really. ‘Holy Terror’ went through my head a few times too. But anyway, today I decided to check for teeth. Sure enough, molar #1 is coming through and I think #2 is not far behind. I’ve decided I don’t really like the whole teething thing…

Not that my opinion counts for anything.

Happy Easter!

Posted on April 4, 2010 by Elise

Sorry for not posting more this week. Things have been a little crazy.

So, besides piano lessons and normal stuff, this week I was also part of the dramatic reading for the Good Friday service at our church. It was a cool reading, but I’m glad I’m done having drama practices. The service went well though and I have to say, I think Good Friday might be my favorite service of the year at our church. It is always so thought provoking and meaningful.

Saturday we prepared Easter dinner. Alethea was very helpful, patiently watching me cook from her high chair. She was even so gracious as to taste test the mashed potatoes:

Saturday evening we had our friends Chris, Amie and Drew over for an impromptu dinner party. I was a little worried that Alethea would be upset when Drew played with her toys, but she wasn’t at all. She just seemed interested in watching what he was going to do with each toy.

This morning Alethea got dressed up in one of my childhood dresses to go to church:

We went to church and attended a lovely service. Then we came home and had our Easter dinner with Peter’s brother Steve and our neighbors Jo and David. The menu: ham, potatoes, green beans, rolls, salad and ‘Tunnel of Fudge’ chocolate cake for dessert. Everyone thought the food was exceptionally good, except Alethea who didn’t eat well and wasn’t very appreciative of the quality of the food offered to her. However, her afternoon wasn’t a total loss as she was delighted with the giant pink bunny Jo and David brought her:

She also eagerly dug into her Easter basket from Mommy and Daddy. As predicted, the grass in the bottom was as much fun for Alethea as the toys on top.

Between the two services at church, good food, and lots of time spent with friends and family, I’d say we had an enjoyable and uplifting Easter weekend.

Eleven Month Update

Posted on March 29, 2010 by Elise

Saturday was Alethea’s eleven month birthday. Happy Birthday, Baby!

For most of this past month Alethea was only willing to walk when someone was waiting to catch her if she’d fall, but just over the past week she has started to branch out on her own and can even sometimes stop or turn while she’s walking. She still looks a bit like Frankenstein or as one friend said, a drunken sailor, but she is getting more fluid every day.

Although she has put most of her energy into walking, Alethea has also added a few more words to her vocabulary this month. She now says ‘ball’, ‘clock’, ‘that’ (which she uses as she points to things she wants you to name) and much to my delight, she finally says ‘mama’… so sweet. She did say ‘puppy’ quite clearly the other day while playing with her toy dog, but she hasn’t said it since, so I’m not sure if it was on purpose or not.

Feeding has gotten a little easier this month. Alethea is more willing to try new things lately and will pick up some things that aren’t dry, like strawberry slices. (She is turning into quite a strawberryaholic actually.) She also has begun feeding herself using a spoon, although I have to hold the container she’s spooning out of to prevent it flying across the kitchen.

Sleeping has been so much better this month. Alethea now will generally go to bed between 7 and 8 p.m. I wake her up for a late night bottle at around 11:00 and then she sleeps through until between 5 and 6 a.m. Then I feed her again and it’s back to sleep until between 7:30 and 8:30. It’s so amazing how much better I feel now that I’ve gotten a few weeks worth of good night’s sleep. And Alethea seems to be in a much better mood as well. She’s downright funny these days. Such a ham!

Well that’s about it for month eleven. The year has gone by very quickly and I now I have to decide what we’re doing for a birthday party! Can you believe that it’s less than a month until Alethea’s first birthday? I can’t. I’d better go get planning.

Who Moved My Cookies?

Posted on March 24, 2010 by Elise

Recent police report from our area:

“A box of Tagalongs Girl Scout cookies was reported stolen from an unlocked vehicle 7:21a.m. Feb. 27…”

The police have not arrested anyone in the case, but Cookie Monster is a prime suspect…

Lessons I’m Learning

Posted on March 22, 2010 by Elise

Recently I have been realizing that although having a kid isn’t always intellectually stimulating, I am learning a lot of things along the way. Just over the past few days I have discovered the following:

1) Baby teeth can disappear. Alethea had six teeth showing the other day and now she only has five. One of the top ones has gone back up into the gum line. How weird is that?!?!? I just hope that it doesn’t mean we have to go through another few weeks of grumpiness to get the tooth back again. That just wouldn’t be fair.

2) Children have an odd sense of what constitutes fine cuisine. My baby who has actually chewed up and swallowed a piece off a corrugated cardboard box refused to eat the piece of Daddy’s hot off the grill Angus beef hamburger she was offered for dinner the other night. Crazy kid.

3) I can feel Alethea’s teeth even through blue jeans. Yes folks, We seem to have entered a biting phase. Getting bit through blue jeans doesn’t hurt so bad. When she bit my bare neck, it left a mark for several hours. I’m not sure what’s gotten into her and why she’s gunning for me. She has made no attempt to bite Peter while I’m becoming a little scared to hug her since I never know when it’s coming. What have I done to my child to cause so much resentment so early in her life?

4) Even with a crowded crib, Alethea can tell when something isn’t as it should be. The other night when we put Alethea to bed, her brown fuzzy blanket with the silky edge was in the dryer downstairs. Although she went to bed with her remaining five crib items (nuk, backup nuk, pink blanket, teddy bear and stuffed puppy) she seemed to be having a hard time settling in. It took me a bit, but I finally realized what was missing and sure enough, the second she had the blanket in hand, she laid right down and went to sleep. I wonder if that blanket will be her security item. Or maybe she’ll have 6 security items?!?! Oh, boy!