Going Mamarazzi

My crowning moment of motherhood

2012-01-31T21:14:00.000-05:00

On Sunday we went to the Independent Catholic church in Fells Point to watch baby Zoey get christened. It was Hannah's first time in a church, and she did surprisingly well though she became bored with the constant up and down and refused to participate in the subsequent ups (I don't blame her--I get tired of all the up and down that goes on in a Catholic church too, although I suppose it's better than having to sit still for an hour...). We had to ask her to whisper a few times and also to hold her applause for the organ player until the end, and I carried her out screaming once when she decided to stand up and simultaneously fall over face first into the pew in front of us, but other than that, model behavior! Fortunately it's a really laid back church so nobody gave us any dirty looks.

Amy and Nate provided refreshments after the service, so everyone headed down to the basement room to mingle and munch. Hannah and I were the first ones at the buffet, me trying desperately to cut a wheel of brie with a plastic butter knife, Hannah loading up her plate with the surrounding strawberries. After clearing away some of the berries, she noticed the "garnish" the brie was sitting on and berries were sitting on and started pulling at the leafy green stuff and putting it on my plate, saying, "Here mommy. Here's some kale for you."

I was so proud. I realize that most of you will think I'm crazy for calling this my crowning moment, but I seriously love it that the little munchkin knows kale and knows that it's not just a garnish. Not many 2-year-olds (or 32-year-olds) can claim that.

The only thing that would have made me prouder is if she had put it on her own plate and started chowing down. Maybe some day. A mom can dream....

The below pic is unrelated. I took it the morning before the christening while waiting for Clay and Grammy to show up. Hannah has joined me in my ritual of drinking hot water throughout the day (she has hers with honey) and was enjoying a cup while snuggling her Lila doll and enjoying a slow Saturday morning wake up.

Conversations with Hannah: Pee pee shooting out

2012-01-30T17:38:00.005-05:00

Daddy: "Can I have a hug?"
Hannah: "No, I can't give you a hug because my pants'll get wet and my pee pee is shooting out."

(She offered him a hug after putting her shooting pee pee in the potty.)

City Rat Sled Ride

2012-01-21T21:21:00.001-05:00

When I was little, my dad took us to the hill at Smithsburg high school to sled ride on snow days. There were other hills too, but that's the one I remember most. I haven't found an equivalent hill in Baltimore (I'm sure there's one in the county somewhere--ideas anyone??), but in the meantime, we've got the hill we live on and the hill in the parking lot a block away. Heck, we don't even need snow--a thick layer of slightly melted ice on a sidewalk is all this city rat needs to break out the sled for some winter fun!

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm ready for some snow now....Well, not right not, but maybe after Eric gets back from his dog sledding trip.

Habla Espanol

2012-01-14T22:01:00.000-05:00

Eric and I took Hannah to a trial Spanish class this morning designed for kids ages 2-1/2 to 3 years taught by a woman from Columbia who speaks very little English, both inside and outside the classroom. Hannah was the youngest of the three in the class, but probably not by any more than a year, if that. The class was great, and I stand to learn just as much as Hannah. Today's class focused on animals, specifically, pejaro, perro, and gato. We sang songs that I couldn't understand the words to, played games, and did crafts that focused on emphasizing the words for bird, dog, and cat. We also learned the words for fly, walk, and run, and, when one of the crafts involved gluing eyes, ears, and noses on a cat and dog, we learned all those words too, but I forget them now....

My guess is that Hannah will pick it up way faster and easier than me, although she stayed pretty timid, clingy, and off-to-the-sides today. She had plenty of good reasons for being in a bad mood though. She's had a pretty severe ear ache all week and was up screaming for most of last night so she was exhausted today, and it doesn't help that the class is really late in the morning. Most of our activities start between 9 and 10, but this didn't start until 11:20 and it's an hour class. Hannah's other classes are 45 minutes, so about 50 minutes into this one, Hannah was fussy and ready to go, and we were eager to get our over-exhausted and long-since expired munchkin down for a nap.

Given the time of this class, we probably won't register her for this semester. I liked the program and see the importance of exposing her to another language while she's young, but that time just doesn't work for us, and the only other time frame for her age group is during nap time on Mondays. There are a lot more options for classes once she actually turns 3 so we'll revisit the idea then. Of course, we're leaning toward a Montessori education right now which will mean that she'll start learning French as soon as she starts.

If you're in the Baltimore/Towson area and interested, check out Fun with Foreign Language. They teach Spanish and Mandarin Chinese to ages 18 months to 10 years.

As for the ear ache, no clue what's going on there. Thinking it was an infection, I took her to the doctor on Tuesday. Apparently there's a ton of wax lodged in her ear canal, some of which the doc pulled out, and there's a little water in there, but no infection. Certain that it would turn into an infection in a few days, the doc wanted to put her on an antibiotic anyway. Although I'm pretty anti-antibiotic, I allowed it because her waking up screaming all night is getting exhausted, and also because she's had mucous coming out of every orifice since the beginning of December. I don't think I made the right call though because if it were an infection, she shouldn't still be in pain after 4 days on an antibiotic, right? Swimming yesterday was probably a terrible idea...We tried to get her to sit still with peroxide in her ear today, but she freaked out within a minute which is not enough time for it to clear out all that gunk. We tried a little alcohol too, the main ingredient in Swimmer's Ear, but by then she was freaked out and wouldn't let us anywhere near her ear. Eric said he used to get ear aches a lot and that Grannah put drops of sweet oil in his ear. I have no clue what that is but am thinking I should look into it....Any other advice anyone?? Peroxide always works for me...

Quirky, quirky Hannah...

2012-01-10T21:00:00.000-05:00

I managed to sneak Hannah into her underwear and pants today before she realized that I was dressing her at which point, she promptly put an end to it and insisted on keep her pajama shirt on. She took the shirt I'd picked out for her to wear and went tearing off into my room where she found an excellent hiding place for it, so excellent that I was unable to find it. While in my room, she pulled this hat of mine out of the closet and put it on her head before going downstairs to put on her slippers and fill her backpack with stuffed animals. This is how she looked when I came down:

I eventually talked her into showing me where she hid the shirt by praising her excellent hiding skills (which really were excellent--I seriously couldn't find it) and asking her to pretty please help me. She gave in, and I brought the shirt with us in case I was able to sneak her into a normal outfit, and I was. She change shirts after gymnastics and even put on her shoes so she looked less interesting walking around Whole Foods. What can I say? I was embarrassed....Sigh. I'm going to have to get used to it because my guess is that she's going to come up with far crazier ensembles come high school...

In other quirky Hannah news: yesterday I was making dinner and Hannah was losing brain cells staring at the boob tube when all of a sudden she came running into the dining room singing the "I gotta pee, I gotta pee, I gotta pee, hey, hey, hey, hey" song (am I the only one who sings that or do you guys know what I'm talking about?). She grabbed her little portable potty that we keep on the first floor and ran back in to the living room. I walked in a minute later to check on her and was startled to find her on the potty on the couch:

It's a bad pic, I know. I grabbed my camera as fast as I could but she was in the process of standing up when I snapped it and since I don't use flash, blurry is the result. I had to share it though because of the sheer ridiculousness of it. Who does that?? Today I caught her trying to do it again and asked her to please leave it on the floor to pee. This is not a habit we need to get into. I mean, really?? Fortunately, no pee was spilled in the taking of this picture.

Hannah's first visit to Earth Treks!

2012-01-07T22:15:00.002-05:00

Hannah's first visit to the climbing gym was awesome!! Within minutes of being there she was running around the soft blue mats (empty at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday) giggling excitedly. Jess and Todd got there shortly before us, and Erin and Brody showed up a few minutes after us. After getting everybody checked in and signed off on, we took the kiddos upstairs where there are rooms with clusters of super easy routes.

We ended up inheriting two kids' climbing harnesses a few months ago from the family I used to babysit for (score!!), so we're all set up. We suited up the kiddos...

...tied them in...

....and let 'em roll! Hannah took off pretty well (with a teeny bit of help from me pulling on the rope). She had one freak out when she climbed about halfway up the wall, out of Eric's reach, and then wanted to come down. She didn't want to let go and cried out for daddy to get her. Eric climbed up (hurt back and all) just far enough to support her feet on his hands. That was all she needed to let go. He had to do that one other time, but then she was fine.

This was a pretty kid-centric visit so us grown-ups didn't get too many climbs in, but we managed a few. Hannah was mesmerized when Jess went up the wall, and when Jess got to the top, Hannah reached up her arms and said, "I got you Jess!"

I should note that Eric was on paparazzi duty today since his back is too hurt to climb or belay so a lot of the photo creds go to him. Check out this fun action shot:

We took lots of snack and juice breaks too.

They both seemed to like watching the people bouldering below.

Jess had the bright idea to teach Brody to traverse which was genius for him since it enabled him to hop on and off the wall with ease.

More miscellaneous climbing shots...

Hannah climbed up just far enough to touch the hold shaped like a red frog and then just hung out there and looked around for a while. I convinced her to put her feet on the giant red hold you see below her knees in the pic below, but that was a mistake. That extra inch caused her second freak out. Once again, Eric shimmied up and put his hand below her feet.

Since Hannah was freaked out those two times, Jess offered to belay Hannah while Todd belayed me so that I could climb on the rope next to her. That was super fun, and she made it up pretty far that time.

After about 2 hours and probably six or seven climbs (for Hannah), we started packing up, but before leaving, I insisted on a posed shot.

Hannah loves Brody so much that she didn't want the fun to end. She suggested that he come back to our house to play with her new toys and cried when we said no.

We had so much fun that we're considering getting a membership and making this a regular Saturday morning activity. My only hesitance is that we're also talking about removing the goalie in the next few months and taking that next plunge...It's days like this that make me want to just stop with one kid. We're finally able to do stuff like this again. We've got some freedoms and flexibility. Do we really want to start all over again???? I really want Hannah to have a sibling, but man, the idea of starting over again is just daunting. Fingers crossed that hypothetical child number two is laid back and easy and capable of sleeping anywhere and anytime...What are the odds of that???

Potty Talk

2012-01-06T21:40:00.001-05:00

Last week I was trying to diaper the kiddo prior to her nap and she resisted, insisting that she would wake up to pee. (I don't know where she got that idea; I haven't thought to suggest it yet. I figured we'd be in this phase of wearing diapers when sleeping for a veddy, veddy long time, which is fine, really, because it's only when she sleeps.) I figured, worst case scenario, she pees the bed, and I do a load of laundry when she wakes up. No biggie, right? So I gave up, put the diaper back in the drawer. And guess what happened? She woke up dry. No wet sheets to wash. Crazy, right!!! Ever since then, she's been "waking up to pee" during nap time and so far, no wet sheets. Now, to be fair, she only napped 4 out of the last 7 days, but still, 4 no-peeing-the-bed naps is pretty amazing if you ask me.

I love it that she's telling me when she's ready because I otherwise would have no clue how to make some of these leaps. I was really hoping she'd be potty trained by 2, but other than letting her run around naked and pee all over the floor, I had no clue how to make that happen. Fortunately, I didn't have to. I don't know if I ever told this story or not, but one day in June, I was trying to get her dressed for gymnastics and she refused to be diapered, so we left the house in underwear, and we made it home without any accidents so we tried again on Thursday (the other day that I'm with her all morning). That worked out so I started leaving her in the kids room at the gym in her underwear, and lo and behold, that worked too. With the exception of the flight to and from Michigan, she hasn't worn a diaper out of the house since the end of July.

And now, here she is telling me she's ready to "wake up and pee" during nap time...What's next?? Bedtime without a diaper??? Crazy. And totally awesome. I'm running out of reasons to post-pone another pregnancy....

Out with the old...

2012-01-01T21:48:00.001-05:00

Guess who managed to stay up until midnight last night for the first time since Hannah was born! That's right, this early-to-bed, mostly loser-ish mama right here. It helped that Laura was here making life fun, and it also helped that Eric volunteered to stay home so that I could walk down to 34th Street to see the ball drop, something I've wanted to do for years but somehow never got around to doing in all my 5-1/2 years of living here.

Photo courtesy of Ms. Laura Mae and Jon

I've gotten terribly behind in my blogging this month and don't feel like dragging December's memories into the new year with me so I'm going to create a monster of a post catching you up on everything you didn't know you missed in December (which, as it turns out, is not as much as I thought) starting with Christmas day and working backwards. Get your reading muscles ready!

1. Christmas (as in Christmas day)
Hannah took her time opening her presents, playing with each thing she opened for a while before opening another, so the present-opening lasted all morning which was really nice.

As I said before, I'm not much of a shopper, and I don't want Hannah to get used to having a ton of stuff under the tree, and we spend a lot through the year on various classes (getting ready to add Spanish classes to her weekly routine which already includes gymnastics, music, and kids fitness fusion) and memberships (just bought a Port Discovery membership and renewed our membership to the aquarium). That said, the only things we put under the tree for her were two packs of Dinosaur Train figurines and a book, but those figures combined with the Megabloks Dinosaur Train that Grannah and Granpah got her made her day. I don't think I've mentioned Dinosaur Train before, but it's awesome, and Hannah loves it, and I love that she loves it because it's a seriously great kid show. You should check it out if you have kids.

Grannah and Granpah got Eric this crazy face/head warmy thing and some nice socks and flannel pants, all of which will come in quite handy when he takes his crazy self to Minnesota this month to dedicate an entire week of his life to dogsledding and camping in below freezing weather. Ugh. I'm cold and miserable just thinking about it. You couldn't pay me enough money to go on a trip like that!! I can think of few things more miserable than spending 7 minutes in below freezing weather, let alone 7 days. No thank you!

Grannah and Granpah also got Hannah an indoor gardening kit. Grannah helped the munchkin plant the seeds that afternoon, and a few days later, they sprouted! Hannah's having fun watering her plants and watching the green shoots get bigger every day.

After a nap we walked to the playground for some fresh air.

Hannah's got a new game where she stands behind this little play bar thingy and pretends to be a waitress of sorts, asking us what we want and then running off to the grass to retrieve it the pretend smoothie or sandwich or whatever was asked for before bringing it back to the customer. Here's Grannah placing her order.

2. Holiday parties
We got fancied up for Eric's holiday party at the beginning of this month, and sadly, the pics (due to my inability to take low light pics) turned out pretty terribly, but I thought I'd post one for posterity's sake anyway. I got my hair cut the following week so it no longer looks so incredibly, ridiculously terribly thin, though I do find that I have a lot less hair these days than ever before which totally sucks.

Amy babysat for us that night (and also did my hair and makeup and provided that super-sweet push-up bra) so we got to relax and enjoy the night knowing that Hannah was more than fine. She was so excited to have Amy to herself for the night that she repeatedly asked us to leave--it was fantastic! So we went out and had some drinks and even danced! It took me four drinks to get to the dancing point, and I suffered a bit the next day, but it was worth it.

Eric was hurting a bit the next morning too so when Hannah woke up early, the two cuddled up on the couch and watched videos on the internet. I love this pic.

We went to my holiday work party the week after but didn't get any pics which sucks because my hair looked awesome that night. Oh well. Mary Cate babysat for that so once again, Hannah ushered us out of the house, and we were able to totally relax and enjoy getting to know my new coworkers.

3. Meeting baby Zoey!!
The first exciting thing that happened this month that I never got around to blogging about was Zoey being born to Amy and Nate next door. This means that Hannah is no longer the only kid on the block!! It's going to be so fun watching Zoey grow up and watching her interact with Hannah.

We went over to meet her and take some pics about a week after she was bornp Hannah was mesmerized. She has been asking for a baby sister for some time now, and meeting Zoey made her more insistent. We keep trying to explain that we have no control over whether it's a boy or girl and wouldn't she be happy with either a brother or a sister, but at that, she just pauses, narrows her eyes at us and says, "No. I want sister."

Alright, you're caught up now I think. Whew!! Sayonora 2011!! Happy 2012!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T15:50:00.001-05:00

I have grown increasingly Scrooge-like and anti-Christmas in the past years (I'm guessing I inherited this from my dad), but I made an effort this year to identify those parts of the holiday that I enjoy and embrace them while simultaneously allowing myself to let go of the parts I don't like without letting my overly guilty conscience get the better of me. I know I'll ruffle a few feathers by saying this, but I haven't considered myself Christian for a long time so the whole nativity story doesn't do it for me (please no comments on that--I'll just send you to this site for my defense). Without the religion aspect of it, the holiday quickly turns into a big commercial blowout, and I hate shopping and crowds and junking up the house with stuff we don't need or want and junking up other's people's houses with stuff they don't need or want...Gift giving is great if you've got an awesome idea for someone and if you can obtain said idea without facing crowded parking lots and stores, both of which seriously try my very low-patience level, but without a great idea, it's just stressful. So I'm not into it. Earlier this month I ordered a few things for Hannah, Clay, and my mom from Amazon (I hate supporting the big guys, but man do I love online shopping). Eric and I bought ourselves a new mattress back in November as our present, and I don't exchange gifts with most of the other adults in my life.

Enough griping! Here's what I LOVE about Christmas:

1. Decorations!! Especially the really kitschy kind with lots and lots of lights! One of my favorite holiday memories from childhood is piling into my dad's car and cruising around Hagerstown admiring the lights and decorations. As an adult, walking down to 34th's Street multiple times each year has become a favorite tradition. I'm thinking we should pull a page out of their book next year and get our own house all Hampden-ed out. I might try to make it to the store tomorrow to stock up on discounted lights so we can join the club next year.

2. Holiday crafts. We started a new tradition this year: making ornaments! Every year we'll make a different ornament to give out to family and friends. This year we made ducks out of dough because I have a duck cookie cutter...I'll try to acquire a new cookie cutter each year, but in the meantime, it's a ducky Christmas! Here's the lot of them minus three: Grammy's, Clay's, and ours (which I forgot to take off the tree before taking the picture). That reggae style one in the middle with yellow and green stripes is Eric's doing...I'm hoping to get Hannah to add her own style to it before we give it away, but although she loved this project, she's over it now.

3. Quality time with family and friends. We're bummed because Uncle Joel and Uncle Justin couldn't make it to Baltimore for the holidays this year, but at least we've got Grannah and Granpah! Since shopping isn't my thing, I offered the gift of QT and took everyone to the aquarium for the day. We cruised around the exhibits at a nice pace, watching the octopus pull itself around it's tank on pink tentacles and the puffins paddle around their tank with their cute orange feet.

We did it up to the fullest extent, including getting our pics taken in front of the blue screen which we never, ever do. I don't know if I'm allowed to post that pic here or not, but I'm thinking (hoping) that since the Copyright is visible, it's fine....

This visit was made even cooler by the fact that, for the first time EVER, we got to see the three toed tree sloth that lives on the fourth floor in the Amazon exhibit. He ambled across the netting on the ceiling and then shimmied, very slowly, down a tree. I always assumed that he didn't really exist, that maybe the sign explaining who and what he was was just false advertising, but nope, he's there! He's just a good hider, I guess.

Like I said, our timing was perfect. After we finished looking at that section of the aquarium, we had 15 minutes until the dolphin show. Getting there 15 minutes early, coupled with the fact that the aquarium was wonderfully empty, meant we got awesome seats at the dolphin show--the best ever--front and center!

After the dolphin show we mosied through the jellyfish exhibit and then made our way to the Polar Express 4D mini film. The 4D thing is so cool!!! Hannah especially loved the snow machine that kicked on in the theater.

We were starving after that so we stopped at the cafe for lunch before heading to the Australia exhibit in time to watch the archer fish get fed grasshoppers off a stick. The feeding of the archer fish is probably my favorite part of the aquarium, and I never get tired of seeing it even though I've seen it a kabillion times by now.

I managed to get through another Christmas without setting foot near a mall or any other kind of store--wohooo! Lights, holiday crafts, and quality time with loved ones--this is my kind of holiday!!!

P.S. I've got tons of pics from this morning that I'll upload and share later.

Early Christmas celebration

2011-12-20T21:36:00.000-05:00

In spite of Christmas still being a few days away, Hannah has already done quite a bit of present opening starting the second weekend in December when we brought up the kitchen (still in the box) that Grammy had brought with her over Thanksgiving and asked Eric to hide and put together sometime before our early Christmas celebration. We changed our minds last minute though and decided that we didn't want to host and would be driving to Hagerstown instead to let Chip do the honor. Mom requested we give Hannah her present early so that all the pots and pans and plastic food that Chip and Erica and Mom got her would make sense. I took a video of Hannah being presented with her gift, prior to Eric putting it together, and another of her playing with the finished product with Amy, but while Eric was putting it together, Hannah decided she didn't want to wear pants, and I wasn't paying attention to the pantslessness when I took that second video, so it became unshareable--which is a total bummer because it's super cute. Unfortunately, I didn't realize she was pantsless until after I uploaded it to YouTube (because it's the first thing my mom noticed and pointed out), and I can't figure out how to delete a video from there, but I did find a new editing program and one of the pre-set options is to to turn your video into a cartoon. I don't like how it looks, but it does make it so you can't see the pantslessness which means it is now shareable. Second, unfortunately: YouTube is taking forever to make the changes so I can't share the link yet.

Hannah played with her kitchen all week, putting her breakfast in the oven instead of eating it and stealing carrots while I was mid-chop and stashing them in the microwave. Every morning when she came downstairs she said, "Mom, I have kitchen!"

On Saturday we drove to Chip's for our early Christmas celebration. We got Clay a little Thomas the Train plow thingy, some extension tracks for his train set, and a book. Us "grown ups" spent most of the day tinkering with the train track, trying to create the most awesomest track and use every single piece.

Hannah couldn't play with her presents because it was a bunch of small pieces that we didn't want to lose so in addition to using the train set as a distraction, we played with this crazy dinosaur that roars and shoots darts. Grammy got it for Clay. It didn't work as a great distraction though because it freaked out Hannah. She kept her distance. She likes dinosaurs, but not mean ones, and this one has teeth and moves on its own.

All that play time made us tired so we curled up in Clay's little bed and pretended to sleep.

Then it was back to the train! This last track we made was definitely the awesomest.

It was freezing outside that day, but we ventured out for a short burst of fresh air anyway.

It was a really nice, relaxing day, and although we love hosting, we really loved being able to just play and lay on the couch until the food was ready and then lay on the couch some more afterwards. So far, this holiday is shaping up to be pretty laid back which is right up my alley!

Conversations with Hannah: naked topics

2011-12-13T18:04:00.000-05:00

Last night Eric was surprised to open the shower curtain and see Hannah leaned against the toilet, quietly waiting for him. Being his modest self, he grabbed a towel to cover himself.

Hannah (very seriously): "Dad, do you like your penis?"
Dad: "Yeah, it's okay."
Hannah: "Alright. Go ahead."

Satisfied with this answer, she turned around abruptly and walked out of the bathroom leaving Eric to dry off alone.

The accompanying photos are totally unrelated (obviously), but since they're of daddy/daughter QT and since this post is lacking anything fun to look at, I'm sneaking them in.

Tonight after dinner Eric grabbed a broom and began to sweep up the copious amounts of glitter that Hannah and I spewed all over the floor during our arts and crafts session this afternoon. Hannah immediately grabbed her broom and began to help. It was cute, so I went mamarazzi and snapped a few blurry but flash-free shots. Without further adieu: The Sweep Sequence.

Pause to investigate belly button and determine whether or not it needs swept.

Forget sweeping, let's make like a witch and get out of here.

Conversations with Hannah: checking for mean dinosaurs

2011-12-09T21:37:00.001-05:00

This morning I dressed Hannah in the living room because Amy was sprawled out on the couch waking up slowly, and Hannah is pretty much refusing to be separated from Amy. Once dressed, I brushed as much of her hair as she would let me and was trying to get her to sit down so I could put on her shoes when she pulled down her pants and underwear and bent over like she was looking for something in her pants. I asked what she was doing, and she looked up at me and said:

"Umm. Just checking. Mean dinosaurs in my butt."

Amy and I cracked up laughing and she lit up, obviously pleased with her ability to entertain us with silly anecdotes about mean dinosaurs in her butt. Over dinner tonight we discussed whether checking for mean dinosaurs was her intent when she pulled her pants down, or if maybe she didn't actually know what she was doing (or how to answer the question) and came up with that on the spot when questioned.

If I could have a super power, it would be the power to be omniscient and always know what's going on in the heads of the characters that share this story with me. I think Hannah's head would be a fascinating place to be. Also my cat's head, if only so that I could look out of her eyes and see where she goes when she's out gallivanting around the neighborhood. I met the woman who lives on the corner the other day and she told me that she feeds my cat breakfast every morning (she didn't know it was my cat and once she found out, she asked if that was okay). Who else feeds my cat breakfast?? And where does she go when it rains and she refuses to come inside? I want to know these things.

Amy's and Hannah's self portrait on the iPhone using the CamWow app. The two are totally inseparable.

The holiday spirit: Hampden style

2011-12-05T20:13:00.001-05:00

We got festive this weekend and set up our tree. I got home from acupuncture in time to help put the ornaments on the tree (meaning I missed the whole part where you dig out the tree and accessories and piece it together--shucks) and take a picture of Hannah topping it off with a star.

On Sunday we donned our ugly sweaters (ugly dress in Hannah's case--thank you Shannon for that sweet thrift store find!) and walked down the street to the annual Mayor's Christmas Parade.

We met Atticus (and his parents) at the corner of our street and Falls and then walked the parade route up to Brody's and Addison's (and parents') ugly sweater party.

Hannah loved waving at all the Miss this and Miss that who ride around perched on the back of convertibles, and she was also pretty into the giant snowman balloon.

We kept our coats zipped up pretty tight the whole way to Erin's and Ryan's, but unzipped them with pride when we found ourselves among friendly faces and fellow ugly sweater wearers.

Brody was pretty psyched to see "Baby Hannah" as he referred to her, but I didn't manage to get any pics of them playing together. Addison totally grew up in the few months since we'd seen her last so her and Hannah (only 4ish months apart) hung out more than they previously did.

Hannah loved the snowman hat that Jessica gave her but was not a fan of having that strap tucked under her chin. She found it more comfortable when worn across her forehead.

Is it me or is there something strangely super hot about ugly sweaters?? No? Just me?? I love these ladies!!!

Of course a family shot of us decked out in ugly holiday clothing was imperative. Eric really did well with his. It's this sweatshirt with a snowy winter scene and a bunch of black streaks all over it. Random and weird. Hannah loved her dress; I don't think she got that wearing it was a joke, but that's okay. She will someday.

I'm bummed because I didn't get to see any of the awesome dancing groups that I saw last year. After we went inside to pee, we didn't make it back out again. Hannah went down to the basement and spied Brody's train table ("He's so lucky!" she said), and getting her out of the house after that proved impossible. Fortunately, she was so thrilled with the train that she didn't require attention so even though I missed the rest of the parade, I got some much-needed QT with good friends, and it wasn't long before Hannah was joined by her friends and got a little QT of her own.

I guess we're officially into the holiday season now, which is fun in some ways and not fun in others. I'm trying to just focus on the fun and discard the parts I don't like. Each year, that gets a little easier...

Hannah's first visit to the symphony!

2011-12-03T20:04:00.001-05:00

We skipped our regular Friday morning swim this week and went to the Meyerhoff instead to see the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra perform Prokofiev alongside a Cinderella puppet show. They have four family concerts each season performed on a Saturday morning every other month (next up in February is LIFE: A Journey Through Time). They take each of these family concerts and break it down even farther to tailor it to specific age groups which they perform on the Wednesday and Friday before the Saturday concert. Tiny Tots is the shortest program at 35 minutes and is tailored to kids in pre-k and kindergarten; Hannah might be a bit young by their standards, but I figured if she can sit through an hour of Dora, she'd last at the symphony for 35 minutes.

I was right. She sat, riveted, on the edge of her seat throughout the whole show. It probably helps that we pulled a Cinderella book out of a hand-me-down bag a couple months ago, and it's quickly become one of her favorite books (though not mine since it's the Disney version based on the movie and therefore poorly written). She also has a book out of the library right now called Musical Max, and at the end, Max becomes the conductor of an orchestra.

We got lucky too: we spotted two of Hannah's neighborhood pals as soon as we walked in, Julia and Sophia, so we had company. After the show I snapped a pic of the girls looking quite mature and cultured in their theater seats.

I really wanted some sort of monumental first-time-at-the-symphony pic, but the place was a certified madhouse with school groups swarming everywhere, and I wasn't sure what the most monumental backdrop would be anyway since I couldn't very well put her in front of the building and then stand back far enough for anyone to be able to tell what the building is and still recognize Hannah as anything more than a speck. I ended up sneaking us back into the lobby after the show (they diverted us out the back door) and just taking a pic in front of the their holiday decorations. It's not really the backdrop I was hoping for, but it's better than nothing. Quite serious looking isn't she?

The Hannah's-first-visit-to-the-symphony picture.

Hannah's Turkey Day

2011-11-26T21:15:00.001-05:00

Hannah started her turkey day by racing down to the basement to wake up Grammy and her little teacup chihuahua, Winnie. While Eric and I made blueberry pancakes, Hannah and Grammy camped out on the couch watching the Macy's Day Parade--a favorite past-time of my mom's. After watching a few of the numbers from various Broadway shows, Hannah ran upstairs to get a costume of her own that, in my overly bias opinion, rivals the best of Broadway's dressers. Check it out: sleep sack, butterfly wings headband (plus flower headband around neck and rabbit ears headband in arms), two purses, keys, backpack, and sunglasses around the neck. Watch out Broadway!!!

Clay came then and the two spent the rest of the morning running around after each other while Eric and I made turkey and all the accouterments. I tried to get a pic of the kiddos with their little Thanksgiving plates, but by the time I had the camera, Clay had pushed his plate aside. Within seconds of taking this picture, he had stood up, turned around, and was jumping up and down. Hannah chowed down on some turkey but was otherwise unimpressed with the food as well. They weren't even interested in the pumpkin pie! Crazy, right?

Shortly after dinner Clay crashed on the couch with his mommy.

Then his daddy flopped over and passed out with the rest of his family. The rest of us watched two episodes of Olivia, one of Hannah's favorite shows and one that I actually don't mind watching with her. Olivia reminds me of future-Hannah sometimes, all eccentric and spirited.

After an hour of resting, we trekked down to the playground to get a little fresh air and enjoy this amazingly warm weather.

Hannah and Clay took turns pushing each other on the bike.

Chip and Erica went home then, but Clay stayed over with Grammy. Hannah's first sleepover!!! We put the crib mattress on the floor in the guest bedroom for him and aside from rolling it off it a few times, he slept great all through the night. Both kiddos woke up around 7:00 and sat down to breakfast in their pjs.

After breakfast we took the kiddos to the pool at the gym. I left the camera in the locker for obvious reasons, but took the video camera and put my mom in charge since she doesn't have a bathing suit and had to sit on the sidelines anyway. Leaving my mom in charge of getting video proved to be a colossal mistake. No offense, mom, but Hannah could have taken better video. There are 11 videos, 8 of which are completely unwatchable. The picture actually goes in circles from my mom's thigh, to the wall, to the ceiling, before settling back on her thigh. Seriously mom??? My guess is that she'll blame this on the fact that she didn't have her glasses, which I'd buy if the video at least held relatively steady, but when I say that it moved in circles, I am not exaggerating. I got sick watching them. So here are the least offensive:

The first is of Hannah jumping off of Eric's shoulders. Like my mom says at the end, she cut Hannah's head off. That's okay though--she held the camera steady with no ceiling shots. (For some reason the embed code is not turning into a video so I'm going to link the text and you can just follow it to YouTube if you want to watch it.)

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WKXbGMcEQSE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This one is just miscellaneous swimming footage worthy of posting only because it, like the one above, does not include a ceiling shot. A couple weeks ago we picked up a little Speedo swimming vest at the consignment shop for $5, and Hannah is loving it. She takes off across the pool now with no problems and constantly tells me to "wait here" while she sets off after her ball or some other toy.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/N8QcVtdeJyQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I took the last video since I had a better angle being in the water.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1VUKx1lrSGQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Although swimming wore the kids out, we pushed 'em a bit more and walked them over to the aquarium for lunch and fish-watching.

Clay pooped during the dolphin show so Eric took him out to change him (except we didn't have another diaper so he didn't actually change him so much as just remove the poopy diaper and cross his fingers that Clay didn't pee until we got back home--and he didn't). When we came out of the dolphin show, Clay was passed out in Eric's lap. Those two really bonded, and it was super cute. It's also super amazing to see a kid pass out like that in the middle of everything. Hannah was exhausted too, but not enough to let herself go to sleep. Even after a day that busy, she was laying in bed that night saying "I not tired!! I not tired!!" In between yells, she rubbed her eyes and yawned emphatically.

Eric, with Clay asleep in his arms, high-tailed it to the car to get Clay wrapped in a pee pad and buckled into a car seat. Hannah and I lagged behind considerably because Hannah felt the need to stop and hug every tree. I gotta admit, I love that she was hugging trees.

We spent the rest of the weekend recovering from all that awesomeness and excitement. I hope everyone else had a great turkey day too!

"Moooommmmmyyy. Cleeeeaning."

2011-11-19T14:26:00.001-05:00

For days I have been trying to get a video of Hannah playing the piano at my aunt's house off of my phone and onto this blog, but that particular skill is apparently above my head, so I give up. This post will be a bit of a repeat for those of you who saw the pic that Eric posted to Facebook last weekend using my phone and my Facebook account in spite of my repeated requests that he do it on his own account because I prefer to keep all of my memories in one place with this blog being that place.

If you didn't see it on Facebook, here's the story: while I was cleaning the bathroom last week, Hannah grabbed a clean rag and took it to her room. Shortly thereafter, I heard "Mommmmmyyyy. Cleeeaaaning." I finished up the bathroom and and popped my head in to find Hannah standing among the pile of books and toys that she'd pulled from every shelf she could reach, meticulously wiping the now-empty shelves with her rag.

Aside from cleaning the bathroom each week, I don't really clean more than once every few months so I have no idea where she learned this skill. Does Dora clean? Or Elmo? Hmmmm....

Mommy's little helper is not always the most helpful, but her intentions are charming none-the-less.

Pics from this year's trip to Weber's

2011-11-13T17:25:00.001-05:00

Today I remembered that we took Hannah to Weber's Farm last Saturday with Amy and took a bunch of pics. Look how much Hannah has grown since our trip to Weber's last year. We went a lot earlier in the year last year so we didn't have to bundle up as much as we did this year. It was 38 degrees when we left the house last Saturday. Brrrrr!!!! The good news was that, whether because of the cold or because it's after Halloween, we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

Hannah was a big fan of the maze this year. She saw an entry way and tore off running so fast that I could barely keep up. Of course, the narrowness of the maze combined with the grown-up size of my shoulders and the added weight of a winter coat didn't help my nimbleness.

We skipped the hayride this year and spent the rest of the morning on the slide.

After the first time down, Hannah insisted on going by herself. I was a little worried but figured the worst case scenario was that she tumble down the hill Jack-and-Jill style...and hopefully not break her crown.

Then we started racing down the slide; that was pretty fun. By this time, the weather was nearing 50 so each time we came down, we shed a layer before tromping back up the hill.

Amy got in on the action then. She slid down really fast for some reason so all the other pics I have of her have Hannah way in the back.

Down to just clothes (with long johns underneath)! Dressing for fall weather is impossible.

After asserting her independence, Hannah decided to have company again and chose Amy as her running mate in the race against Daddy.

I'm hoping we'll get back out there again before the season is over, but knowing us, that won't happen.

Conversations with Hannah: Learning to blame daddy

2011-11-12T08:06:00.001-05:00

Hannah: "Sharing's not fun."
Terri: "What?? Who told you that??"
Hannah: "Ummmm...Daddy must've."

Conversations with Hannah: "2 more hours"

2011-11-07T18:27:00.003-05:00

Eric: "Are you ready to go up for a bath yet?"
Hannah: "No not yet. 2 more hours."

(After 2 minutes)

Terri: "Hannah, it's time to go up now."
Hannah: "No thanks. 2 more hours."

Mama gets a job

2011-11-06T21:18:00.003-05:00

Pardon the posting hiatus; mama got a job! And just in time because Hannah's fun factor has plummeted significantly in the last few weeks. The terrible twos just keep getting more and more terrible. Everything is a fight: getting dressed, brushing teeth, brushing hair, getting in the bath, getting out of the bath, putting on shoes, taking off shoes, singing in music class...you get it. It's insane. I lost it last Tuesday and just started screaming, not even saying anything, just screaming, "ahhh! ahhh!" like a deranged lunatic, like Hannah....

The morning after that, I didn't have the energy to fight. I just wanted to get her dressed, and get in the car without it being a huge ordeal. She, of course, didn't want to get dressed, so I put her clothes in my backpack and took her to the car completely naked. I strapped her into her car seat in her birthday suit, climbed lethargically into the driver's seat, and headed for the highway. I called Eric on my way downtown to the gym, looking for sympathy I suppose, but he just cracked up laughing. Hannah thought it was pretty funny too. She sat in the back saying, "nakee mommy! nakee in car!" I"ll admit that in hindsight it was a teeny bit funny, but I was way too burned out and beat up to find humor in anything that day...Anyway, by the time we got there she had stopped laughing at being "nakee" and said, "ready to get dressed mommy!" Yeah, I bet you are, I thought. I think it was a whopping 45 degrees out that morning. I don't know how she made it that long. So I parked, dressed Hannah, and then strolled her to the gym where I happily left her in the kids room while I jumped on the treadmill and tried to jog off my insanity before pilates, all the while thinking that maybe going back to work full time would be the easiest option because it would get me out of having to deal with the insanity of raising a very headstrong, spirited 2-year-old.

I could never do that though; I'm way too much of a control freak, and anyway, as hard as it sometimes is being a stay-at-home mom, I have no interest in crawling back into a cubicle and staring at a screen for 8-9 hours a day while I get fat and lethargic. Not to mention having to deal with commuting and getting dressed in something other than yoga pants on a daily basis. Yeah, no thank you. Even on the worst days and when money is at its tightest, being a stay-at-home mom is way better than working, in my opinion.

So when the recruiter called a few weeks ago I told her I wasn't interested, that I'd only consider part-time, work-from-home options. I get lots of calls and emails from recruiters looking for a proposal writer, but I NEVER answer a call from a number I don't know, so why I answered that call that day is beyond me. Said recruiter sighed and said my qualifications seemed like a perfect fit. I thanked her and got back to my business. She called back a few hours later and left a message saying that the VP said that part-time, work-from-home is ideal for this position and would I come in for an interview. Since I never answer calls from unknown numbers and since I was particularly stressed about money after taking on a car payment, I agreed to an interview; I thought this might be fate and figured I better at least explore the option.

I shook the dust off of my suit and made the 45-minute commute to interview this company. I liked the VP, I liked the company vibe, I liked that the majority of the employees work from home if not all of the time, then at least a great deal of the time, and I liked that they don't really have any other people who are just writers so although the position is for proposal writing, they'll be giving me tech writing, press releases, website updates, newsletters, and whatever else they need written. I told him I had no interest in growing my career at this moment and didn't want to lead any efforts or be in charge or climb any career ladders. I just want to log on, edit/write, get paid, and then go about my day. He offered me the job on the spot at the hourly rate I requested (which makes me think I should have asked for more or at least asked what range he had in mind, but oh well), and I accepted.

I'm working 20 hours a week, and although I can work whatever hours I want from day-to-day, I am working from 1:00 to 5:00 most days. That means I don't have to sacrifice my morning routine with Hannah; we can still go to the gym and to gymnastics and music class and keep up all of our activities. What I'm sacrificing is my domestic time and my quiet time: the time of day where I clean and figure out what to make for dinner and then prep it and check emails and talk to my mom (and run up and down the stairs dealing with a child who refuses to nap)....On the days that I managed to finish dinner while Hannah napped, I would take her to the playground when she woke up, but on the days when I didn't, she'd end up watching TV while I finished dinner. Now she has an awesome babysitter who arrives after Hannah's nap (or lakc thereof) and is solely devoted to playing with her. I think this works out way better for Hannah, and now I'm not stressed about her watching TV, which I hate.

Last week I managed to cram the cleaning and meal preps into other parts of the day (cleaned the bathroom after I brushed my teeth, before putting naked Hannah in the car last week), and Eric is helping out a lot more and seems happy to be doing so.

One thing that really helps is that Eric and I sat down last weekend and created a meal plan for the whole month. Figuring out what to make for dinner day-by-day was a huge waste of time, but I just couldn't make myself plan ahead until I had too. I love having a meal plan--it's so much more efficient! My grocery trips are more efficient, and since I know what I'm making way in advance, I start prepping dinner the night before and at breakfast and lunch, that way I can throw it all together when I come upstairs at 5:00 each day.

So my first week went pretty well once I made it through all the technical glitches of getting logged onto my computer (which turned out to be a huge ordeal that required me to ship my computer to the tech support department in Fredericksburg, Virginia so it could be reset). So far I like what I'm doing and I like who I'm working with, and I like how it's fitting into our lives even though it means I'm juggling toilet brushes with tooth brushes and doing all kinds of other crazy multi-tasking. Mostly I like that we are going to keep living on Eric's salary and use my income to pay off the student loan and the car loan which means that if no other emergencies come up, we should be out of debt this time next year. Then we can start saving for a house with a front yard which is something I have ALWAYS wanted since I was really, really little.

I was definitely incredibly exhausted this weekend, but it's manageable. I have always functioned better with a busy schedule anyway. When I get a little free time, I lose a lot of productivity.

And now, some pics from a random photo shoot this week:

Prom pics on a rainy day

2011-10-29T22:15:00.000-04:00

I don't know how you guys like to spend your prematurely rainy/snowy/slushy/craptastic days, but around these parts, we play dress-up in old prom dresses and then catwalk up and down the hallway. That's just how we roll.

This one is from 10th grade. It's always been my favorite

This one is from 11th grade. Hannah likes that it looks like Belle's from Beauty and the Beast. Unfortunately, all of the pics in this dress are blurry...but I had to include at least one anyway.

I got rid of my 12th grade dress pretty quickly because it was super, duper small. My friends and I had a pension for spending hours and hours each night drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes at West Winds, a diner in the west end of Hagerstown. We migrated there when our shifts at Bob Evans ended each night...that's right. Bob Evans. Totally gross. Anyway, I don't think I was eating much back then because I was an absurdly small size 3 when prom rolled around. I knew I'd never fit into that dress again so I sold it in a yard sale a year later. Not that I intended to ever again wear the ones I could fit into...

Anyway, I don't know why I held on to the others at first, but a few years ago Amy told me she was saving all her party dresses so her future kids could play dress up in them because she used to love dressing up in her aunt's old dresses. That's the best reason I ever heard of to keep old, dated, ridiculous dresses, so now that's why I'm holding on to them. And today, to celebrate the premature winter weather, we had a premature prom dress, dress-up party. Take that crappy weather!

Hannah's first trip to an art museum

2011-10-26T20:47:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to take Hannah to one of the various kid-specific activities offered at the various art museums in Baltimore and finally got around to doing so on Saturday morning. We took Hannah to the Walters Art Museum to participate in the Free Family Festival of Discovery. I didn't realize that they have a whole floor devoted to kids with a play house, loads of blocks and puzzles, puppets, a reading area, and two studios. Hannah loved all the toys, especially the house and would have been content to just sit and play with the toys for the entire time, but we pulled her into the studios to try out the projects.

The spiro-string art was totally lost on her, even after I got the whole thing started and left her with the fun part. She exited that studio almost as quickly as she entered. She liked the geodesic domes project much better. It involved packing peanuts, glue dots, crinkly green stuff, and little wooden sticks. The idea is to build a dome, but Hannah had a great time just sticking stuff together. I didn't bring the camera with us, but I took a phone pic:

At 11:00 we found seats in the theater to listen to Rhythm and Rhymes for Wise Young Minds by Jali-D, a drummer. Personally, I loved it. I think he's fantastic and would have like to have seen the whole show, but Hannah grew bored after about 20 minutes and said "leave now." So we left. It's just as well since I still wanted to see what was happening in the rest of the museum and we were creeping up on lunch time by this time. We skipped most of the other art projects choosing instead to just look at all the sculptures (Hannah's favorite), but we did end up doing a hide-and-seek activity because that was the only way to get this really cool brain hat that Hannah wanted. She's wearing it in the pic below, but you can't see it very well because of the glare...And that's a big brain we're standing in front of. Hannah colored on a sticky note and then stuck it to the brain. I'm not sure what the point of that activity was...Probably would have been lost on a 2-year-old anyway.

I now know that the Walters has drop-in art activities for families every Saturday and Sunday from 10:00-3:00 so hopefully we'll make it there on a more regular basis.

Happy 2nd Birthday to Clay!

2011-10-24T20:58:00.001-04:00

Meal times take no less than an hour at our house, mostly because Hannah isn't much interested in eating and does so only while distracted with her doll house or some other toy. I indulge her, not so much because I worry about her starving, but because I know that if she doesn't eat well at meal times, she insists on eating at less opportune times, like when she's supposed to be sleeping.

Anyway, we were scheduled to spend Friday, the day after Clay's 2nd birthday, with Clay and Uncle Chip and Grammy in Hagerstown, so I did my best to speed up the typical hour-long breakfast process. I was thwarted from the get go though because Hannah insisted I take pics of her posing with Lila before she eat anything.

We made it out of the house eventually and got to Chip's shortly after 10 armed with birthday presents. We spent the better part of the previous morning at our local toy store, me looking for just the right gift while Hannah tried on tutus, snuggled all the babies and stuffed animals, and pushed the giant wooden train around it's giant wooden train track. We emerged with some maracas and this Kidoozie microphone because Chip said that Clay loves microphones and the one attached to his kiddie keyboard is broken. This one is cool because you can plug an iPod into it and sing along to your favorite songs, but I'm cringing now because I just searched for it on Amazon so I could link it, and the reviews are terrible....Well, he had fun with it that day, and with any luck, his microphone will last longer than those owned by the reviewers.

We spied cows out the back window then and got the kiddies bundled up for some outside play.

Hannah climbed up on Clay's bike while my bike was turned and fortunately didn't topple it in the time it took me to turn around and resume protective mom duties.

Then she found a chair and pulled it up to the fence to watch the cows. Better than TV!!

We went to the Pennsylvania Dutch Market for lunch and let the kiddos chow down on fried chicken and potato wedges (and Hannah, an avid broccoli lover, gobbled up the broccoli I had packed for her).

After lunch we headed back to Chip's and spent the rest of the afternoon looking through my grandmother's salt and pepper collection which she left to me in her will. There were four boxes of shakers, some of which were reeeeaallly cool! Grandma died when I was still in college, but the shakers were MIA for a while and just turned up again recently so that's why we are just now getting to look at them. Everyone in the family picked out a set to keep, even Hannah. She picked out a kangaroo set: a mama kangaroo pepper shaker with a baby kangaroo salt shaker that popped in and out of the pouch. Super cute.

Happy birthday Clay!!

Eric's first marathon!

2011-10-16T21:53:00.000-04:00

After16 weeks of serious training, Eric ran his very first marathon on Saturday morning. His only goal was finishing, but somewhere in the back of his head, he was also hoping to do it in less than 4 hours, and he did! he made it in 3 hours and 53 minutes. I snapped this pic of him right before he left at 6:30 a.m. with the intent of posting it to Facebook with a good luck mantra of sorts, but my morning as a marathon runner's groupie ended up being way crazier than I expected. There's a learning curve there....I'll do better next year.

After seeing Eric off, Hannah and I got started on our morning routine. The race started at 8:00 a.m. and mile 3 was the zoo so the goal was to head there first to cheer, then try to make it to a few other locations. My dad and Sondra showed up by 7:30 and helped me get Hannah ready and out the door by 8:00. We made it to the entrance of the park by about 8:20. Eric runs about an 8 minute mile so we were cutting it close, but we should have still made it...We never saw him though.

When the crowd of runners thinned out to walkers, we booked it back to the house to print out the map and plan our next stop. I'd have done all this sooner, but it was a busy week and we had to drive to Annapolis on Friday night to buy a new car (a different post altogether) so there was no time for me to plan.

The thing with the marathon is that it's 26 miles up and down and all around the city so if you want to get anywhere during the marathon, you have to drive all the way around the route. Luckily, we're at the northern border of it so we can at least get out and get around.

We decided to drive all the way to the southeast corner of the race to cheer him on from Patterson Park and then try to make it back to 33rd Street for one final cheer, but on the way to Patterson Park, we drove by the Lake Montebello aid station and decided that was a better place to be since we weren't sure we'd make it to Patterson Park in time anyway, and I didn't want to miss him again. Lake Montebello was mile 20 so if we missed him there, there'd have been no room for redemption.

We had close to an hour before we saw him so we took a few pics while we were waiting. A note on these pics: I was fiddling with the white balance that morning and then never changed it back to automatic and also never used the playback feature to look at the pics as I was taking them so they are all turned out very blue. Every last one of them. There's no editing out that much blue so I just made them black and white.

A lot of runners passed while we were waiting, and I was starting to worry that we'd missed him again, but in a crowd of 22,000 people, we finally found him!

After waving him off, we hightailed it down to Camden Yards in the hopes of watching him cross the finish line. Nope, that didn't happen. No clue where the finish line even is. It was pure madness down there. Luckily Eric borrowed random people's phones to call me and find me in the crowd. He had to do this twice because I was so frazzled, that I wasn't clear on where we were meeting after the first call in spite of the fact that I was the one who said where to go.

Anyway, we finally found him and got to congratulate him!! Woohooo! Unfortunately, I'd forgotten to bring his drink and the marathon cookies I made him...I was not a good groupie, but I'll be ready for next year!

Yay Eric!!!! Congratulations on your first marathon!!

Kids Fitness Fusion

2011-10-13T18:02:00.000-04:00

I enrolled Hannah in a new class called Kids Fitness Fusion. It's a drop-off class (her first drop-off!) for kids ages 2-4 at my gym and is held at pretty much the same time as my favorite pilates/barre class on Wednesdays (so we're always at the gym then anyway). I don't know exactly what happens in that class since it's drop-off, but the first time I dropped her off I saw a room full of balls, a sliding board, and a basketball net...After her class, they took her to the kids room to wait for me to finish my class. Here's how I found her:

I don't think I've ever seen her so crashed out. I asked her if she had fun but she ignored me, and when I asked if she was ready to go, she shook her head and said, "no, stay here."

When I went to get her this week she was sitting at the little table eagerly shoving the kids room-provided Goldfish into her mouth.

She still isn't telling me what she does in class, but she at least answers "yes" when I ask if she had fun. I think the fun has something to do with a little boy named Ian who I met on Friday at the pool. His mom swims when I do, and on Friday, she brought Ian to the kids pool after her workout just like I do with Hannah. As soon as he showed up, Hannah started yelling, "there's Ian! there's Ian!" I swam her over and asked the mom if her kid's name was Ian. Yup. It's so weird to think that Hannah has friends I don't know...but I guess that's what the kids room is good for! There were a few occasions last winter where women in the locker room approached me to ask if I was Hannah's mom and tell me that Hannah plays with their kid. One mom told me that her daughter was having a hard time adjusting to the kids room and would cry when the mom tried to leave, then Hannah would bring her over a baby doll to try to comfort her. Of course I love hearing stories like that! But it catches me off guard because I don't really hang around the kids room much before or after dropping her off so I don't see her playing with the other kids and have no idea who they are. Anyway, Ian seems sweet, and I'm glad Hannah is socializing and making friends and having fun in the kids room and in her new class.

P.S. Sorry for the poor picture quality; I'm not in the habit of carrying my camera to the gym so I was left at the mercy of my phone.

Mama's first night away and Hannah's first stroller nap

2011-10-10T17:24:00.000-04:00

Whoever said there's a first time for everything might have been right. Hannah fell asleep in her stroller yesterday in broad daylight, in public, at a bustling event in DC. For the first time ever, I was one of those privileged moms pushing around a sleeping child while enjoying an afternoon out of the house. I never thought the day would come!

How we all ended up back in DC again for the second weekend in a row is kind of a funny story. I took the train in alone on Saturday morning for a much-needed girl weekend and my first ever night away from Hannah! Amy and I trekked around DC on Saturday, got facials, and then went out to dinner in her neighborhood at this awesome Greek tapas-style restaurant. I enjoyed my first dirty gin martini in about 3 years and loved every drop of it...so then I made the unfortunate decision to have two more.

Being the lightweight that I am, I had quite the hangover come 5:00 a.m. and remembered why I never returned to drinking after Hannah's birth....It was a fun night, but I don't see me doing that again for a looooonnnnng time.

The worst part is that in my silly stupor, Amy found out that the next day was Taste of DC weekend and that Shannon, Demetrios, and Atticus were planning to attend, so I thought it would be a fun idea to invite my family to partake in the second day of my girl weekend. I drunk dialed Eric, and he said he'd start gathering up stuff immediately. When I woke up with a debilitating headache at 5:00 a.m. I texted him to call it off so I could spend the day in bed and then return home after I'd recovered. When he still hadn't texted back by 8:00, I called his phone and it went straight to voicemail. His phone battery died. I called the house phone and caught him as he was walking out the door. Too late to call it off.

Consequences people. Three martinis is too many, and drunk dialing is never a good idea.

The day was mostly painful but there were a few moments of bearability that coincided with the Taste event, and Hannah sleeping in the stroller was just plain awesome given my state.

All things considered, it was a great first weekend away in spite of the fact that I didn't get anywhere near as much sleep and rest as I'd planned on getting so I guess that means I'll just have to do it again really soon, right Eric????

Hannah takes the train to DC to visit Amy and go to the Smithsonian

2011-10-02T21:07:00.000-04:00

We made it to DC to visit Amy on what might have been the last nice day of the year. Friday started out sunny and low 70s--perfect!! By the end of the day, clouds had commandeered the sky, and the wind was picking up. It's been cold and cloudy and depressingly fall-ish ever since, and as a result, we have spent the entire weekend on the couch or in bed. I don't think DC was that exhausting, but having it coincide with the changing of the seasons really did a number on us, particularly me.

We managed to make it to Penn Station in time to catch the 9:05 commuter train to Union Station where we found Amy sipping a smoothie and staring blankly at a wall of mugs from outside a tourist store. For some reason she sensed people, but instead of thinking it was us, she assumed it was some strange family so she kept her gaze fixed on the mugs until Hannah was close enough to grab her legs, and she finally had to look at us. She jumped a few feet up and then smiled in relief.

After hugs and a pit stop, we hopped on the metro and rode it to the National Mall. Of course, we couldn't walk through without snapping some touristy pics of Hannah and Amy in front of the Washington Monument...

...and another in front of the Capital Building.

Then we set off in the direction of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Amy had been wanting to take Hannah to a Smithsonian for a long time and decided on the History one because Hannah has been very in to dinosaurs lately. All week we'd been telling Hannah the plan so that when she woke up on Friday morning, she kept saying, "See Amy. See dinosaurs. So excited!"

An elephant in the main lobby started the visit off right for Hannah.

Amy was worried that Hannah would either be overwhelmed at the sheer size of the dinosaurs, or underwhelmed because they're just skeletons. I think she fell somewhere in the middle, not quite grasping the concept of the skeletons, but intrigued regardless. That said, the dinosaurs didn't end up being the highlight of the day, but we'll get to the highlights later.

After lunch Amy took Hannah to the museum gift shop and let her pick out a belated birthday present. Hannah picked out a soft, blue triceratops, and then her and Amy put on these dinosaur headdresses, and I went all mamarazzi on them.

After the gift shop, Amy remembered that there's a kid's discovery room so we headed there to inspect sea shells, beetles, toys from around the world, and this alligator (crocodile??). Hannah kept pushing down its nose and saying "Close mouth!"

Then came the first highlight of the trip: the Butterfly Pavilion. They've got this pavilion set up on the second floor in the insect hall that's full of all kinds of beautiful butterflies that fly around freely. For $6, you can hang out with the butterflies for as long as you want. Hannah held on to her own ticket, and after letting the person at the door rip the stub, she sought out a butterfly and offered it her ticket.

Shortly after we entered, a lady walked in with the two mesh baskets you see in the pic above each with a few newly emerged butterflies that they released while we were there. The attendant used a kitchen brush to pick up a butterfly and then handed it to us for closer inspection.

Hannah really wanted to hold a butterfly so I sat her down on the wall and told her that if she sat very still, maybe one would land on her, and one almost did, but it was aiming for her forehead so she flinched and it flew off.

Then this beautiful emerald butterfly landed on my leg, which was not exactly what Hannah was hoping for, but was close enough.

After the butterflies, we took Hannah to see her first movie on the big screen! It was an IMAX 3D movie called Born to be Wild, and it was awesome!!! When the opening credits started coming at her, Hannah threw her head back against the seat and sat there, mouth agape for a few minutes until she adjusted. Later, when leaves and trees looked really close to us, Hannah tried to grab them and then held up her stuffed dinosaur to let it munch on the leaves. Watching Hannah watch the movie was as much fun as watching the movie!

After the movie we hailed a cab and headed back to Amy's apartment to rest. I'm bummed that I forgot to take pics there....I guess we'll just have to go back!!

Amy lives in a beautiful part of the city right near a giant park with a really fun playground. After a quick rest, we walked to the playground and after played for about half an hour, before heading back to Union Station to hop aboard the 4:20 train. The clouds had rolled over while we were at Amy's, and the wind had picked up. Hannah put on her jacket, and I wished for mine. Fall snuck up on us, but lucky for us it had waited until the end of our visit.

There were a lot of firsts for Hannah on that trip: first train ride (as a means of transportation and not just as a ride at a museum), first metro ride, first visit to DC, first visit to a Smithsonian, first movie--not to mention it being an IMAX 3D movie--first cab ride.....Big day for the little Banana.

Conversations with Hannah: "Just kidding!!"

2011-09-30T18:30:00.000-04:00

Hannah (while riding on Eric's shoulders): "Daddy have bubbles in ears!"
Eric: "Whaaaat?? I have bubbles in my ears??"
Hannah: "Just kidding!!"

Voodoo child

2011-09-27T21:08:00.001-04:00

Yesterday our hallway was packed full of all the stuff I pulled out of Hannah's room to de-flea prior to spraying the daylights out her room for the second time and then returning the de-flead stuff to the de-flead room. In between loads and loads of laundry, I was carrying an armful of pillows fresh from the dryer back to her room to stash on her top bunk (in the hopes that the fleas won't get to them up there) when I got my ankle stuck in between the wall and the laundry baskets and plummeted forward. Face plant.

Hannah heard the thud and my scream and pulled herself away from her dinosaur movie to check on me. I sat down on the floor in her room to inspect my ankle, and she went to her shelves and came back with this giant bouncy ball type thing (that we call the wrecking ball) that lights up when it hits the floor. She, very seriously, rolled the ball around my ankle for a few seconds and then looked up and asked, "feel better, mommy?" I stifled my laughter, assured her that I did feel better, and thanked her for her help.

At dinner later that night, she spotted a bandage on Eric's finger and asked what happened. He explained, and her remedy this time was to get this light-up birthday wand thing that Grannah got her for her first birthday and hold it over his wound until he assured her that he felt better and thanked her for her help.

I'm not sure what brand of magic healing she's using, but it's quite effective.

Hannah's pretend boobies

2011-09-25T20:42:00.000-04:00

When Lila was bestowed on Hannah, Hannah was still nursing three times a day and often insisted that Lila tandem nurse with her, so here I'd be, hanging out with two boobs out, Hannah on one and a baby doll on the other. I'm all in for a good game of let's pretend, but this one wasn't one of my favorites. I tried explaining to Hannah that she was Lila's mommy and could therefore nurse Lila herself, but that concept was lost on her. Pretending Lila was nursing from me, okay. Pretending Lila was nursing from her, totally insane. Is the realm of pretend a developmental thing that happens in stages/at certain ages?? Or do you think it's just because Hannah was still nursing three times a day back then and is now nursing not at all? Whatever the reason for her refusal to nurse Lila herself, it's a thing of the past. This week Hannah began nursing her own babies. I think it's super cute so I snapped a few pics of her nursing one of her smaller babies tonight during her bedtime routine.

So, yeah, I think it's safe to say that Hannah is weaned now. I started cutting her back in June, first eliminating the night time nurse. By the time her second birthday rolled around she was just nursing first thing in the morning, and by the time we got to Michigan a couple weeks later, she was rarely asking for boobies, and I wasn't offering. There were a few weeks where 3 or 4 days would pass before she'd remember to ask for boobies, and although I let her take her time with it, if I thought she was asking because she was hungry or thirsty, I'd push food and drink. I think the last time she nursed was Labor Day after we got back from the State Fair....I think...So yay! I've got my boobs back! And yay that Hannah has her own pretend boobies with which to nurse her babies!

Kitty AIDS

2011-09-22T19:54:00.002-04:00

Kaya has FIV, kitty AIDS. Crazy, right?? Eric was astonished and wanted to know how she could have kitty AIDS if she wasn't having any kitty sex. The vet explained that FIV is most often transmitted through bite wounds. She was attacked back in 2007 and ended up with two pretty bad bite wounds that cost me $500 at the time to fix. Now it's a few years later and we've already shelled out almost that much just to find out what was wrong and get her started on an antibiotic. I'd like to find the punk cat who did this...

Last Friday, after 3 days of extreme lethargy and not eating, drinking, or eliminating anything, I realized that something was seriously wrong and called the vet. Hannah and I skipped our Friday morning swim and raced Kaya to the doctor. Before we did that, Hannah was being really sweet, covering Kaya with her blanket and saying, "Feel better Kaya? Feel better??" As I watched Hannah trying to comfort Kaya, it occurred to me that I don't have any pictures of Hannah and Kaya together (because Kaya runs like hell when Hannah tries to play), and that since Kaya was pretty seriously sick, that particular scene could be my only photo op, so I took it.

The antibiotic is kicking in and although Kaya still has a very small appetite, she is moving around and seeming healthier. I don't know what's next. I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it affects her. Since she has lost 1/3 of her body weight in the last 2 years, I don't imagine she has a lot of time left, but who knows.

Oh, and see that red mark on Hannah's left cheek?? That's a flea bite. Awesome, right? They love Hannah and bit her to shreds for days while I frantically researched bug bites online trying to figure out what was going on. I thought fleas would be easier to see, but they're really not. We've been vacuuming and cleaning and washing sheets like mad, and as a result, Hannah is waking up with fewer bites each morning, but I can't keep that kind of cleaning up, and it's not enough anyway so I agreed to some Ultracide...It's supposed to be non-toxic once it dries....I'm a little skeptical, but I'm willing to take my chances. After all, fleas caused the bubonic plague, did they not??? Given a choice between the plague and toxins, I'll take toxins.

Speaking of, Hannah and I need to get the heck out of dodge this weekend while Eric does de-fleas our house....anybody want visitors???

The terrible twos wake up with a roar

2011-09-21T20:49:00.000-04:00

I naively believed that Hannah hit the terrible twos early at 18 months and that life henceforth would be smooth sailing. Sometimes I forget the number one lesson I've learned since becoming a mom: no phase is ever over, it just hibernates. The terrible twos have reawakened, and they are accompanied by a much stronger set of lungs and a far greater level of persistence.

There are a number of occasions throughout the day that throw Hannah into a fit, but the most difficult happen at night. Once again, Hannah refuses to go to sleep or be in her room by herself. She wraps her arms around my or Eric's neck very tightly and insists that we stay. If we leave anyway, she protests by screaming so loud that she gags and chokes and has to take 5 (seconds, that is) to clear her throat before continuing, and continue she will. On and on and on and on...screaming and screaming and screaming. If you do stay with her until she falls asleep (and this process often takes more than hour so good luck hanging in there), you'll need to return a few hours later (and then a few hours after that...) when she wakes up and realizes you've left. Last night she was up at 10:30, 2:30, 5:00, and 5:45. Insane. I was seriously insane by 5:00, and I lost it. I screamed at her to go to sleep, and I slammed doors, and then I cried crib side (I moved her from bunk bed to crib before throwing my own temper tantrum). When I started to cry, she stopped. She patted me on the back, and said "shhhhh..." and kissed my head. Sigh.

Hello bad mommy with the terrible temper, not so nice to see you again!! (I apologized to her this morning.)

Her day time tantrums are much easier to handle. I still sometimes feel like my head is going to explode, but if I can just get some music going, I can get through it. This morning she launched into one of her fits when i told her that I couldn't remove the shoulder pads from her car seat strap. I flipped on the radio and rolled down the windows to keep the screams from reverberating around the car. I pulled up to a red light like this and a gaggle of picture-snapping tourists stopped to stare and smile sympathetically at me. Some of them laughed. I think they were genuinely impressed by her decibel level.

She went down for a nap without too much insanity, but woke up from nap screaming and could not be convinced to do anything else. She screamed when I picked her up and screamed when I put her down. She reeked of the poop that she had filled her diaper with but kicked me if I tried to change her. Eventually I gave up, returned down the stairs, flipped on the iPod, and resumed squash chopping. She stopped crying shortly after and started bumping her butt down the stairs while announcing to me "Stopped crying mommy."

Since I was close to rock bottom last night, I spent much of the day doing some serious thinking about how to get us out of this phase as quickly and painlessly as possible. I decided that the bedtime coddling has to stop because all it does is make her want to be coddled every single time she wakes up at night, and I can't deal with that. Tonight I hugged her for at least 10 minutes before pulling myself out of her boa constrictor grip and making my way guiltily to the shower.

Blood curdling screams serenaded me while I shampooed and rinsed and dried and dressed, and when I was finished, I returned to her room and sat in a chair for more than 5 minutes (a modification of the Sleep Lady's shuffle), all the while talking to her about what I expected of her and reassuring her that I would do everything in my power to keep her safe, happy, and healthy. Then I took off again. She only screamed for about 10 minutes after that and has been quiet since so hopefully this tough love approach will get the sleeping thing back on track, because I can handle it during the day time hours, but it's downright unbearable in the middle of the night, especially after a number of previous wake-ups.

The only other solution I could come up with was to assume that her needing our presence was normal and give in to that. Frankly, I think that proponents of attachment parenting and the family bed are probably right on--it definitely seems more natural, especially when you think about tribal cultures all bedding down together in one hut--and I think that Hannah would probably prefer that style of parenting and benefit from it greatly. Sadly, I can't provide it. I don't have it in me. I need just a little bit of space at the end of the day and have no desire to sacrifice that and go to sleep with her at 7:30 or to have to tiptoe into a darkened room later on and skip books before bed so as not to wake her. Nope. As ideal as it sounds, and as much as I'd love to be that mom, I know my limits.

I hope Hannah doesn't get some crazy complex or have attachment issues as a result of these limits...

Hannah places a ban on singing

2011-09-20T20:22:00.002-04:00

Hmmm...I don't know how that last post got posted...It was a draft a really, really, really long time ago, like in Hannah's first year of life I think. I never got around to posting it so I guess it decided to post itself. Very strange.

Anyway, the topic today is singing. I finally enrolled Hannah in some music classes, and she had her first one last week (second if you count the demo class). She spent the first 15 minutes of the last class running in circles around the circle, which surprised me because although she's very energetic, she's usually more tentative and reserved in new-ish situations. Anyway, she settled down when the instructor broke out the shaker eggs.

Enrollment in the class entitles each participant to two identical CDs with recordings of the music for that session and a song book so you can learn the words. We've had a few dance parties at home (broke out our own shaker eggs and drum for extra fun), and we've been listening to the other CD in the car, so I'm starting to learn the words, butttttt...I'm not allowed to sing them. There is a big emphasis in this class on parent participation, on being over-the-top enthused and giving 150% of your energy. When the parent voices die down to a whisper the instructor says, in a sing-song voice with a big smile on her face: "Yours is the voice they want to hear."

This is not true in our household. If I so much as whisper something about an eensy weensy spider, her royal highness, Hannah Banana, shouts, "No mommy! No singing. My music. No singing." Mine is NOT the voice she wants to hear most.

Hannah is also learning the words and is singing along an eensy weensy bit. Her favorite songs are the ones that just work on rhythm and don't use words. She was even singing "la, la, la" while picking out a book to read the other day. Love it! This is the child who used to scream "NO!" every time my finger made a move to turn on the radio in the car. Now she says, "music louder, mommy." My fear that she would grow up hating music is being assuaged. Whew.

I wonder if I'll be allowed to sing her songs in class on Thursday or if Hannah will temporarily lift the ban on singing....

News on the Boobs

2011-09-15T20:48:00.000-04:00

My mom sent me this article from Huffington Post that says, according to a cost analysis, "The lives of nearly 900 babies would be saved each year, along with billions of dollars, if 90 percent of U.S. women fed their babies breast milk only for the first six months of life."

Also on breastfeeding, I read this in little snippet by Elizabeth Barker in my Body + Soul mag:

"If breastfeeding is a mother's little helper in weight loss, it may also be your secret little robber in bone loss. Your new job as milk supplier steals around 200 mg a day from your calcium stores, affecting your bones--unless you exercise, according to new research from the American College of Sports Medicine. In a one-month study, breast-feeding mothers who worked out had a significantly smaller drop in bone-mineral density (compared to a sedentary control group) and lowered their body fat without dieting. The weekly regimen included three 45-minute bouts of weight-bearing cardio and three strength-training sessions. .."

Hannah drives the fire truck

2011-09-15T14:42:00.000-04:00

I took Hannah with me to the fire station around the corner to vote in the primary on Tuesday, and since I wasn't in the system (in spite of the fact that I vote in all presidential elections and became a registered voter when I turned 18), we had to wait around for half an hour or so while they tried to find me. The good news is that the firemen in our local station are awesome. They turned on the lights for Hannah and then let her play inside the truck. Driving is one of Hannah's favorite things to do; we sometimes sit in the car out front for over an hour with her jerking the wheel around, putting the windows up and down, turning the wipers on and off, and wreaking havoc on my radio stations.

What she really wanted was for me to sit in the back while she drove, but that seat was like 4 feet off the ground or something crazy high so I told her it was best if I stayed close enough to catch her if she fell.

Hannah and Brody play at the zoo

2011-09-14T19:18:00.002-04:00

This is from the end of August, but it took me a while to figure out how to to email it from my phone to myself...Hannah just loves Brody.

Bedding down in the bunks

2011-09-11T20:18:00.000-04:00

Since we bought Hannah's bunk beds, she has started off all naps and bedtimes in the bottom bunk, insisting on sleeping there, but ending up in her crib within about half an hour of laying down, sometimes at my suggestion, and sometimes she just climbs in there on her own. We aren't in a hurry for her to evacuate the crib since there's nobody waiting in line to use it so we've just been letting her do her thing and adjust at her own pace. Last night I tucked her into the bottom bunk and turned on her ladybug constellations as usual, then went downstairs and immediately zoned out in front of a movie. She didn't make much noise, and to be honest, we kind of forgot about her. It's a rare minute that Hannah lets you forget about her, especially at bedtime, but she's been unwinding quietly and without as much assistance from us lately as long as we leave the door to her room open. We watched the movie from start to finish pausing only for pee breaks and didn't once think about how strange that was. We never looked at the monitor (also weird) and didn't even notice when it died. After the movie, I dragged myself upstairs, plugged in and turned on the monitor, and nearly had a mini heart attack when I didn't see her in her crib. I gasped and was ready to freak out when I realized that she must have fallen asleep in her bunk bed for the first time! (The bunks aren't visible in the monitor.) Eric and I tiptoed in with a headlamp to peek at her, and sure enough, she was passed out on the her bunk bed. We ogled her for a few minutes as only a truly obsessed parent would do and then tip toed back to our room to chatter about the cuteness.

We don't have a bed rail yet so I crossed my fingers that she wouldn't roll out of bed, and she didn't. I crossed the fingers on my other hand that she wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night and, not realizing where she was, freak out, but she didn't do that either. She slept there in her bottom bunk perfectly peacefully until the very late hour of 7:00 a.m.!!! We got some pretty sweet mattresses for those beds, so maybe that made the difference.

On our first morning in Michigan this year Hannah woke up at 5:00 and slept the rest of the morning in our bed. When she awoke a few hours later, she slid off the bed without disturbing Eric and padded out into the kitchen where Granpah and I were pulling together breakfast and waking up slowly. She came out so quietly and cutely with her pjs and bed head that I had to pick her up and squeeze her. I was looking forward to a replay of that this morning, but she slept so late that I had already finished my stretches and morning routine and was actually eager for her to wake up (crazy!) so as soon as I heard her talking I made a beeline for her room to squeeze her and tell her how excited I was that she slept all night in her bunk bed.

She slept there again during nap time and this time I got my much anticipated scenario when, after a nice, long nap, we heard her say "Daddy!" from the top of the stairs.

Tonight she's in her crib. She climbed in there a minute after I left her room and started jumping up and down maniacally and yelling who knows what....I suppose one easy night per half-year is about all she has the patience for. That's fine though; all in all, I love this toddler phase of parenting.

Hannah Milks a Cow at the Maryland State Fair

2011-09-10T14:33:00.000-04:00

We spent most of Labor Day weekend being as lazy as humanly possible, but were itching for excitement by Monday so we headed up to the Maryland State Fair. Eric, ever the spender, took his last $100 out of his allowance account and gleefully announced that he was going to spend it all at the fair. I rolled my eyes and told him that if he managed to do that, I'd reimburse him $40 from my allowance since that's the most I was willing to spend and it only seemed fair that I chip in. Once inside the gate I ran off to the bathroom and met up with him a few minutes later clutching $45 worth of tickets in his hand....Let the rides begin!

I don't do rides, especially not rides that go around and around which is the case with most rides since the alternative would be riding up and back--and since that would require riding backwards, I wouldn't do that either. That's okay though, there's a place for people like me on the sidelines. We are the ones who stand with the stroller and the backpack and whatever other accumulated junk, and we are also the ones take all the pictures. We allow the fun seekers to have more fun because they have less to worry about. And I'm okay with not being fun in this regard because I consider myself a pretty fun person otherwise, and I'm pretty sure that Hannah would agree.

Between rides Hannah spotted a giant blow-up Dora doll. Lucky for her Eric was eager to blow his cash so he propped her up on the table, paid the lady a few bucks, and helped Hannah fish out some fish until she had won herself the blow-up Dora.

Her and Dora were thenceforth inseparable. The man at the moon bounce tent wanted her to leave it with me, but she wore him down rather quickly.

Dora also got a chance to pet nearly all of the animals in the petting zoo, including this nice, furry sheep.

But even Dora can't compare to a slew of super cute, fuzzy little ducklings! Hannah dropped the blow-up, held out her hands, and said "hold them, hold them," over and over and over again.

I looked around for someone to ask, and right then a young girl in a green shirt started to climb over the fence into the duck pen. Before she had both legs over I had struck up a conversation about whether or not they were her ducks ("sorta") and if my daughter could pet one ("yes"). Of course as soon as I asked about petting them all the parents who heard started getting their kids ramped up to pet a duck and then all the kids mobbed the area, eager for a touch, but the mob eventually died down and Hannah got some QT with the cute little quacklings, and I got my photo op. I hope that someday we live someplace where we can have ducklings waddling around all cute-like in their fuzzy little coats.

After the ducks we spent a considerable amount of time watching the piglets nursing from their mama pig. I explained what they were doing and Hannah was mesmerized. (I didn't take a picture of that because they keep the pigs in a tall cage that can't be photographed through.)

Then I saw a sign that said "Milk a Cow," and I was off and running, dragging a less enthused Eric behind. He didn't get why I wanted to milk a cow. I didn't! I wanted Hannah to. Duh!!! Earlier that week I was telling Hannah about where cow milk comes from (as opposed to rice milk). I ended up searching around for a cow milking video on YouTube which was far more illustrative than I was being, but hello!!! The chance to milk a cow herself is the ultimate icing on that little lesson! I really wish there was a 4H program for city kids... Hannah did awesome, and the cow milking was my own personal highlight of the day.

We grabbed lunch, and then Eric talked me into getting on the ferris wheel in an attempt to burn some of the billions of tickets he had left. When I say I get motion sickness I mean on everything. Seriously, everything. I can't ride in any moving vehicle unless I'm the driver. Roller coasters and anything on water leave me shell shocked for hours afterward. I can't even turn in a circle more than once without getting dizzy and nauseas (which is a problem with a 2-year-old who's recently become obsessed with Ring Around the Rosie). It got so bad when I was super pregnant (like 8 months) that I couldn't do flip turns when I was swimming laps because the flip made me sick, and if the pool was crowded, I'd get seasick on other people's wake. So yes, ferris wheels make me sick too, but I sucked it up and got on anyway.

After that I started getting cranky, and Hannah started rubbing her eyes. It was past nap time for everyone, and I'd had enough of the chaos. Lucky for us the cloudy day meant the fair didn't get hoppin' until around lunch time so we'd covered a lot of territory early on without waiting in lines and with no sun beating down on us either. Eric picked up our not-so-subtle crankiness and started scrambling to use the last few tickets before the ladies lost it (no telling who would go first). He took Hannah on the carousel and then the teacups again and managed to use every last ticket and spend every last dollar.

Then we peaced out. Whew. I love kitschy, all-American activities like State Fairs, but they sure are exhausting.

What Dora's good for

2011-09-04T13:12:00.000-04:00

Guess who learned how to count to 10 and has done so repeatedly today?? Even now, when she's supposed to be napping, I can hear her up there counting loudly to baby Lila. I guess Dora is good for something.....Not that a 2-year-old needs to be able to count to 10 and frankly, I'd rather she not know how to count than watch as much Dora as she has been, but still, I must admit that I'm impressed and close to proclaiming her a genius and sending in a recommendation to Mensa that they admit Hannah as the newest member of their genius club.

Second annual trip to Michigan

2011-09-03T22:39:00.001-04:00

I've had "MI blog post" on my to-do list all week, but not much got crossed off that list this week because we ended up buying one month of HBO when we got back in townand have spent every night this week catching up on the fourth season of True Blood. That's 10 1-hour episodes in 5 days (Monday-Friday). Pathetic, I know. Anyway, we're caught up now and have to wait until Sunday to see if the vampires blow up the witch's hangout with Sookie inside. In the meantime, let's relive Michigan!

We flew in on Saturday, and on Sunday we headed to Binder Park Zoo. I think the great thing about zoos is that they're a really nice place to walk around and enjoy being outside. Binder Park fits that bill: it's really pretty with tons of nice walking paths. It's also impressively large. I was my usual mamarrazzi self, and although I tried to exert some control and not post 18 of the same shot, I couldn't pick my favorite of these first three with Granpah and Hannah on the dodo bird. I think the third one is my favorite...You?

I seem to have a thing with taking pics of Hannah running off down paths ahead of me...I took a ton like this in Ohiopyle too.

We didn't bother taking our stroller with us to Michigan since we don't use it much anymore anyway, but we did end up renting one at the zoo, and it's a good thing we did because it was a lot of walking and it was all during nap time (which we skipped that day) after a day of traveling (also missed a nap on the travel day) AND both Hannah and I were fighting colds, so her energy waxed and waned (as did mine).

Eric and I look better in the other pics, but this is the only one where Hannah is showing her shining face instead of the top of her head.

Hannah and Grannah grabbed a branch of leaves off a nearby tree and fed this ginormous turtle with the super long neck. Mmmm....leaves.

Like any good zoo, Binder Park has a petting zoo. Unlike our zoo, you can feed the goats at this one. Wooohooo! I love how Hannah has her hand on this goat's bum but neither are paying attention to each other.

Hannah's first carousel ride!!! Unfortunately, I wasn't fast enough with the trigger to get a decent shot.

I think Binder Park's claim to fame is probably their Africa exhibit which is huge and really pretty and set up like a pretend safari. Very cute. By this time in the day, we were all pretty exhausted and the crowds were getting thick, but Grannah managed to wiggle Hannah in to the giraffe feeding station where Hannah fed and befriended a giraffe with a very, very long, black tongue.

Uncle Justin was at Grannah and Granpah's when we got home from the zoo, and he took this super cute pic of Hannah coloring.

On Monday we hung out at the lake, Fine Lake, where Grannah and Granpah live. Granpah got a new sail boat and look at what he named it!!! Hannah liked learning the ropes and helping Granpah sail her namesake. They kept it on the lift this day, but she got to go sailing the next day.

After a nice nap, we headed over to Eric's bff's house to hang out. I think I was mamarazzied out from the zoo because I left my camera in my backpack until the very end when I snapped this shot of Hannah with Cooper and Carson. I don't know what I was thinking, but I wish I hadn't been so lazy.

On Tuesday we went to MOO-ville, a local dairy farm and creamery that has awesome ice cream and a farm animal petting zoo. It was really sweet spot and a very laid back activity which was much needed and appreciated.

I let Hannah have a very small peach ice cream cone, more of which melted than was ingested.

Eric took this next pic....He took a ton of these but unfortunately, this is the best one...I probably should have handled this since it would have been nice to have had a good pic of Hannah and Grannah, but in addition to still being on the warpath with the cold that was trying to bring me down, I was also at war with cramps, so I found a nice little chair to sit on and stayed there.

Later that day Granpah took Hannah sailing....No good pics here either, but I had to post at least one of Hannah on her first sail boat ride.

On Wednesday morning we went to visit Aunt Dawn and got to hang out with her granddaughter, Paris, for a little bit before she headed off to band practice. Aunt Dawn has a ton of really cool family heirlooms that she was showing us. I'm looking forward to getting ahold of the family tree and ransacking it for names for the future baby number 2 (which is no more than an idea right now).

On Thursday we packed up and moved to Grand Haven to hang out with Uncle Justin on the beach for the rest of our stay. Our original flight home was Saturday afternoon but the impending doom of Hurricane Irene forced us to change that. We thought about leaving early and getting home before the hurricane and then realized that that was a terrible idea and decided to stay on the beach and come home AFTER the hurricane. Duh. Much better choice. Where were we during Hurricane Irene? Making sand castles on Lake Michigan. Ahhhhh....

Hannah dug around Uncle Justin's backpack and found a lollipop and although I have never given her one and don't think she's ever seen another kid eating one, she seemed to know that it was something special and went right to work unwrapping it. Fortunately Uncle Justin is a mostly healthy eater and this lollipop is 100% pomegranate juice with no added sugar so I let it slide. I don't like candy though. I'm easing up a teeny bit on her sugar intake, but I don't think there's ever a reason for her to have candy or chocolate (chocolate because of the caffeine and candy because it's not real food).

Hannah soon grew tired of Uncle Justin's bare chest and decided to help him put his shirt on.

Once properly dressed, he was ready to play her game. First, run from the blanket to the water. "Unca Justin. C'mon."

Then run from the water back to the blanket and hide under the umbrella. "C'mon Unca Justin!"

Back and forth, back and forth from the beach to the blanket, all the while insisting that "Unca Justin" follow her. Super cute watching them play together.

So, on one side of Uncle Justin's apartment is the beach. If you walk to the top of that hill and then down the other side, there's a super awesome playground. These days, there is no place Hannah would rather be than a playground.

Of all the pics I took this one is MY FAVORITE. I'm adding it to the long list of pictures that I intend to print and frame...I still only have one framed pic of Hannah, and I think she's only like 6 months in it. Digital photography is nice, but as a result of it, I have absolutely NO current pics of her in the house. None. And that list I mentioned, the long one of pics I want to print, it doesn't exist. There is no list. So I know there are a ton of pics I want to print, but I don't know what they are. Sigh.

Our second annual August trip to Michigan was a good one! We're still struggling to get back to our routine though; the 4-day holiday weekend isn't helping, especially not after our extreme True Blood marathon which has consumed all our free time this week and kept me up way later than I like to be up. And now this blog post has me up way past bed time. I'm tired!!!

Conversations with Hannah: "Bummer"

2011-08-31T07:40:00.000-04:00

Eric: "Ahhowww!"

Hannah: "What happened?"

Terri: "Daddy burned his fingers."

Hannah: "Ohhhhh...bummer."

I heart inflatables

2011-08-19T21:32:00.004-04:00

Tired, but wanted to post a few not-so-good pics before we shove off to Michigan. Hannah and I finally made it to Ultimate Playzone on Thursday morning and loved it! It helped that Brody and Addison were there for Hannah to play with, especially Brody since Hannah trusts him and loves following him around. I was hoping to get some good pics of the three of them bouncing around on all the crazy inflatables, but getting them all together for longer than a split second was totally impossible--they're way too fast for me to keep up with.

This one is verging on inappropriate buttttt....

I almost had a pic of all three of them on this thing but then Brody took off with Addison close behind, and here's Hannah taking off after them.

Brody watching Hannah contemplate the sliding board.

This is definitely someplace I can see us frequenting pretty often. Who doesn't love a giant space full of various inflatables, a giant play house with slide, and a pirate ship with two slidess??? Plus it's cheap--$7 total. Adults are free with one paying kid. And the best part: adults can play too. Toward the end Hannah got bored in the little play house where Brody and Addison were content to keep playing so the two of us hit up the maze inflatable, and by the end of the morning, I was sweaty and ready for a nap. I heart inflatables.

Pig tails

2011-08-17T18:30:00.001-04:00

I'm testing my ability to blog from my phone, though I don't anticipate doing it often...way too techie for me.

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4

The Ultimate Imitator

2011-08-16T21:01:00.000-04:00

There have been a few days in the last two weeks when Hannah has refused to nap. I blame it on myself because for a while there she was falling asleep by about 1:00 so I started to think, "oh, nap time at 1:00 instead of 12:30," and instead of taking her upstairs at noon to start winding down (which is what time I take her up if I want her asleep by 1:00), I started taking her up at 12:45. It rarely takes her less than an hour to wind down and pass out, so why I bumped nap time back is beyond me and even more baffling is why I keep repeating this mistake in spite of the obvious outcome. ...Actually, I do know why I keep repeating it. It's because she's actually started eating, but only if you follow her around with a spoon while she keeps busy doing more important things, like making her Boots paper doll tell her Dora paper doll to put on her sunglasses. If I follow her around, she will actually eat everything on her plate, but it takes no less than an hour. So an extended lunch time is partly to blame for missing Hannah's nap time window.

This whole following-her-around-with-a-spoon thing has got to end. I know it. I've told Eric that although I have no regrets about making Hannah the center of our universe, if there is ever to be another child, we need to coax her off to one side of the universe at least a little bit. She is a super fun kid to parent, but holy cow is she exhausting!! Sometimes I wonder how(if??) I'll be able to add another kid into the mix without losing my mind, especially if child number two ends up being as spirited as child number one.

As usual, I've digressed. My original intent with this post was to tell you a story I've titled: The Ultimate Imitator. Today I laid Hannah in her crib at 12:50 and sat down in a chair by at the end of her crib for 20 minutes (I've been trying to restart a bit of the ol' Sleep Lady shuffle in an effort to coax her off to one side of the universe), but I hadn't eaten lunch yet so after 20 minutes of watching her lay on her back staring up at the ceiling, I left her to her own devices and went to raid the refrigerator. She was bolt upright in bed in bed playing with her dollhouse dolls--which, for some stupid reason, I let her take to bed with her--before I was even down the stairs. She walks them along the back of the crib and then drops them down between the wall and the crib. Before long, all had plummeted to the floor, and Hannah was at the foot of the bed yelling, "Mommmmmy. Dropped daddy. Dropped baby. Mommmmmy. Help."

I went up but only because I figured she'd pooped anyway and needed to be changed. For whatever reason, Hannah will poop within about 20 minutes of being placed in her crib for nap time. She poops in the potty the rest of the day, but she saves that after lunch poop for nap time. It's about the only predictable thing she does. So I went up, changed her predictably poop diaper, picked up the little dolls, and put Hannah and dolls back in crib. She resumed playing, and I resumed my spot on the couch watching the monitor while looking up recipes in an attempt to plan dinner.

It wasn't long before she had dropped all the dolls again and again started yelling for me. I ignored her for a while but then she dropped lovey, so I went up and returned lovey and blankie only and then came right back downstairs. She screamed for a minute and then decided to use her words: "Nap time. Over. Nap time. Over mommy. Mom. Mommy. Mommmmmmy. Mom. Right now mommy. Right now. Up. Up. Waaahhhhn [One]. Twooooo. Free. Right now mommy. Waaaaahhhhn. Twoooooo. Free."

It's very humbling to realize you're being imitated, and it's also kind of enlightening since you often don't realize certain things about yourself until they're imitated. So, yep. I often say, "Right now Hannah" when she's lollygagging around. And when I want her to do something, say, lay down so I can put on her diaper and pajamas, I say "Hannah, I'm going to count to three. You can either come lay down by yourself, or I can come and get you and lay you down. Wahhhhhn. Twoooooo. Last chance to lay down by yourself. Three. Okay, I'm going to come get you." She almost always does the thing I'm asking her to do at "thr..."

I talked to her through the intercom in the monitor telling her that nap time was not over, and that'd I'd be up in 20 minutes, exactly 2 hours after laying her down. I'm desperate for one of those toddler alarm clocks to help convey the message of when she should be sleeping and when it's okay to wake up, but we spent so much money on the bunk beds and mattresses for her room that we're still paying for some of July's expenses and have no room for $40 clocks that may or may not work with Hannah.

So I turn off the volume on the monitor for the next 20 minutes to keep from losing my mind, and I watch the clock. At 2:40, I drudge into her room and open the blinds. After standing her on the floor, she continues her imitating by pointing at the crib and telling me to "Lay down. Close eyes." That's a command you don't have to tell me twice! Unlike my daughter, sleeping is one of my favorite activities and there are few things I'd rather do. I crawled into her crib, curled up, and closed my eyes. She grabbed a library book and sat on the chair that I was sitting on earlier at the beginning of her nap and began reading aloud to me. This is the kind of role reversal I can get behind.

This is what I mean when I say that she is both frustrating and totally fun.

If you made it all the way through that spiel, please accept these totally unrelated photos from yesterday as a reward for your efforts.

Yesterday morning we decided to tempt the gods of luck by playing with an open umbrella indoors during breakfast. It made a pretty fun tent-like structure.

After breakfast we put on our raincoats and took the umbrella outside with the intent of singing in the rain and jumping in some puddles, but that's when Shannon and Atticus pulled up so we happily went back inside to play. Hannah helped me babysit Atticus all day yesterday, and with the exception of nap time (during which both children screamed simultaneously for over an hour forcing me to run back and forth between the bedrooms every 10 minutes), she was quite helpful.

Somehow, Atticus didn't discover Hannah's birthday balloons until the end of the day when his daddy came to get him. The kiddos spent a good 15 minutes swatting those things around and giggling like crazy.

Whew. That was a lot of writing. I'm spent so you'll have to write your own conclusion on this one.

Hannah trikes around by herself

2011-08-13T20:22:00.004-04:00

Eric had to run 16 miles this morning, and since we had nothing else to do, we decided to bike along beside him and be his pit crew. His plan was to do two 8-mile loops over to Druid Hill Park and then back, and our plan was to just do one lap. Hannah needed a break once we made it to the reservoir though so we pulled over at the far end where you can see a view of a bunch of on-ramps to 83 and the city in the background and stretched our legs, drank some water, and ate a snack while Eric ran a few laps around the reservoir. Those laps upped his first loop to 11 miles so that when we made it back to the house, he just had to rehydrate and head back out for a short 5 miler.

Hannah liked watching daddy run, and I guess she really liked being on the bike too because she had me remove the protective waist band thingy from her trike so she could get on and off independently. After her nap we took her and her trike over to the parking lot behind The Rotunda to give her a chance to practice pedaling by herself. Now, just to be truthful, that parking lot has a slight but definite slope which helped her pedaling efforts pretty significantly, but still! We were impressed none-the-less with her first independent trike ride!!

As a disclaimer, we had a terrible time editing this video...While filming Eric cut her head off for the last 30 seconds or so. We tried to cut that but the editing software really blows so...when you get to the part where her head is cut off, you should probably stop watching...Also, for some reason I can't get it to embed so you'll have to just click the link.

Birthday extravaganza: Part 2

2011-08-09T21:12:00.001-04:00

After my dad and Sondra left on Friday, Eric and I got busy in the kitchen. Cooking busy, that is. Actually, we started getting busy toward the end of their visit because there was a lot to do. Eric made the cole slaw and started the potato salad while I was at the playground. He put the pork in the crock pot the night before (while I was struggling to get the birthday extravaganza: part 1 pics posted). I had started the hamburger buns before leaving for the playground, and he rolled them out and cut them while I was gone. Then there was the shortcake to make and the ice cream to prep....I made peach shortcake and peach pie ice cream (my attempt to duplicate Ben & Jerry's Willy Nelson's flavor which is, by far, my favorite). By the time Friday was over, we were beat, but it was nice to wake up on Saturday and just hang out with our guests rather than have to spend time in the kitchen.

We didn't have a formal present opening thing; Hannah pretty much opened them as people walked in the door. Grammy was first to arrive, and she brought Hannah a smaller, softer Elmo doll--good for snuggling--and some adjustable roller skates which Hannah is pretty into though she prefers to sit back on them while holding my hands and let me push her along. She also got her a book, some Dora and Boots paper dolls, and some new socks because I'd called earlier that week and asked her to pick up some more purple socks. The last pair she got have become Hannah's favorites, and she will not wear any other pair when sleeping, not the white or green or pink. Just purple. Unfortunately they do not come in packs of just purple so we now also have two pairs of pink and green socks which Hannah will not touch. On the bright side, two pairs of purple socks means they get washed occasionally.

Kim and Jason showed up next with a very cool magnetic dress up doll that Hannah has played with pretty much every day since then. She's already picked out her favorite outfit and we are not allowed to put the doll in anything else which is a total bummer for me because I want to play too! Sigh.

Before choosing that favorite outfit, she let Grammy help her dress the doll. Lucky Grammy.

The loot piled up on the table! Daddy was pretty into the skates while Grammy stuck to the doll and Hannah just stared on blankly, clearly overwhelmed with her sudden increase in toy choices.

I guess it was all too much because Hannah retreated into the snuggly safety of Kim's arms and stayed that way for an abnormally long time. Awww!

When Grammy showed up, I said "Hannah, guess who's here??" Her eager response was "Jason??" Nope. It's Grammy. But here's Jason!

The carpeted upstairs seemed like a good place to take our first test run on the skates.

My Aunt Pam and Uncle Donny were the next to show up. They brought Hannah this puzzle with zoo animals that makes the noise of each animal. The monkey is, hands down, the favorite. Hannah and I play with that puzzle a lot during meal times but we use the animals like they're dolls and march them around the table and have them talking to each other. They also got her this magnetic number maze which she does not totally grasp the concept of yet, but she does like to point out the animals, and we are working on learning how to use the magnetic wand thingy.

Chip and Erica and Clay rolled in last with a bag full of tissue paper and this really sweet kitty cat keyboard that Clay picked out for her. The cool thing about that is the microphone (and also the "meow" setting where each key meows the appropriate note). Hannah has a much smaller keyboard with a mic, but the mic recently died and she has recently been really interested in using it, so this present was really timely.

Not sure what light that is on Clay's face...I guess a fellow mamarazzi??

After opening her last present, Hannah took Clay upstairs to show him her new bunk beds and bed tent.

Next up on the toddler's agenda: running laps up and down the hallway and in and out of the bedrooms on either end of the hallway while screaming and giggling incessantly.

After working up a good appetite, we all grabbed food and found a seat. Hannah's favorite part of any bbq is the hamburger bun which is why I opted to make my own.

The post lunch coma...I think Eric took this pic while I was upstairs with the kiddos. (I got new curtains last week!)

Said kiddos went straight from lunch to jumping on the bed and then rolling around in it. Clay is blurry in every single picture because he does not hold still for longer than a second at a time...

I finished up the desserts then, stuck a candle in some whip cream, and gathered everyone around the table to sing to Hannah again. She looks thrilled, right? She loved the peach ice cream which was a total melted mess and didn't harden up until much later in the day, but didn't touch her shortcake.

And back upstairs again, doubly full and on somewhat of a sugar rush. Clay was very enthralled with Hannah's baby Lila and spent much of the rest of the visit feeding her. He's going to be a good big brother when his little sibling comes in February!

I think Clay might need his own baby doll...I might have to look for one for him for his birthday.

Hannah was hanging all over Uncle Donny, wrapping her arms around his neck and jumping on his belly, but all of those pics turned out blurry because of my refusal to use a flash. This is all I got...Better than nothing!

Mmmmkay. I'm exhausted. And we still need to take down the decorations...It's like a permanent birthday party up in here.

Hannah's 2-year stats

2011-08-08T15:55:00.004-04:00

Guess who hit a growth spurt??? In the last 6 months, Hannah has gone from being in the 20th percentile for weight to the 50th. The spike on the chart the pediatrician showed me is huge. When it comes to height, she's holding steady in the 90th percentile. Here are her stats:

Weight: 26-1/2 pounds

Height: 35-1/2 inches

Head circumference: 50.1 cm

My only concern was Hannah's potential allergies. I don't think I ever got around to blogging about her gigantically swollen eye that she woke up with about a month ago and left her looking like a non-hunched back Hunchback of Notre Dame. I raced her off to the doctor's office the day and the nurse practitioner on duty said that we since it was soft (rather than hardened) and not leaking and not bothering her (she didn't flinch when the nursed pushed on it) that we had nothing to worry about. It was an allergic reaction to something, possibly just a bug bite though we couldn't find the bug bite. Anyway, since then that same eye sometimes gets red and watery. Since that's the worst of her symptoms and since she's young, we're going to wait to do allergy testing.

Other than that, all is well! Her doctor is impressed that she's using the potty as much as she is (midway through the exam Hannah grabbed herself and said "pee!" so I had to race her off to the bathroom).

Oh, and apparently it's time to start looking at preschools--did you know that??? Well, if we're going to do preschool anyway. I don't know what we're going to do, but if we want her in a preschool when she's 3, we need to apply as close to Labor Day of THIS YEAR as possible. That's insane to me. I guess I need to start doing some research to figure out what we want to do. Maybe something for a day or two a week would be okay but I don't think she needs much (and I don't think we can afford much). Is it me or is there always something to research....

Just uploaded pics from Hannah's second birthday extravaganza on Saturday! I'l be editing and uploading in the next day or so....

Happy Birthday Hannah!!!!!

2011-08-05T23:00:00.003-04:00

Today's the day that Hannah officially entered what I, so far, consider to be the terribly awesome 2's. Aside from that power struggle phase she hit around 19 months, I think this age is awesome. You can keep the whole baby phase--I'll take a talking, walking toddler any day!

She's really growing up too. She leaves the house more and more often in underwear with few accidents. I've even started leaving her in the kids room at the gym without a diaper--just one day a week until she gets used to having Miss Hope put her on the potty, but still, that's good progress! As for boobies, she's letting go of those too. Two days ago she made it through an entire day with no boobies at all! Most days she still nurses first thing in the morning, but that's it. It's happening!

She's also learning her colors which I guess is part of learning to talk and wanting to label everything. We had Mouse Paint out of the library in our last batch of books, and she loved that one so I think that jump started the color thing.

Alright, enough blabbing, on with the pictures! We have a big birthday weekend, and today was just the start! My dad and Sondra came early today bearing balloons and a present. Hannah was watching out the window as they walked up the sidewalk so she was excited before they even got in the door.

And right about here is where the battery on my camera died, and I had to switch to cell phone. And right about here in the post, is where my computer died, and then Eric's died, but then I got his to start working again. It's almost 11 which is WAAAAAAY past my bed time, but I'm going to persevere a bit longer. Unfortunately, Eric's computer doesn't have photo editing software so the cell phone pics are not edited since I didn't email them to myself until after the internet killed my computer.

Anyway, it's a bed tent!! Woohooo!

They played in the bed tent for a very long time while Eric and I got to work in the kitchen making cupcakes (found a recipe with no sugar, just a tablespoon of honey in a cooking for babies and toddlers cookbook) and then prepping all the food for tomorrow.

After a while I coaxed them out of the bed tent and outside to get some fresh air and take advantage of the temperature not being 100 degrees.

My little climber! She's after my heart with all this climbing she's doing.

Pappy and Grandma Sondra brought her Easter basket up that we left behind along with a few empty eggs. She carried that thing everywhere we went this morning, taking the eggs in and out of the basket and separating them and then putting them back together again.

An egg half makes a great clown nose.

Don't worry, I didn't forget about the 2-year comparison pics! Let's use this one of Hannah since it's a great face shot...

And here's 2-year old Eric,on the right (with Uncle Justin on the left).

And here's 2-year-old Terri holding my new baby brother!

To be honest, I haven't even looked at these pics closely to compare them because getting this post up has been a 3-hour affair involving a number of computers and phones and hard drives and insanity and frankly, I'm tired. This is way past my bedtime and we have a BIG day tomorrow with lots of my family coming up to celebrate Hannah's birthday. Lots more pics to come....

Also, there's no way in H-E-double hockey sticks that I'm taking the time tonight to edit this thing so I'm sorry in advance about the plethora of typos.

Summer Lovin'

2011-08-02T20:57:00.001-04:00

In addition to making this house more livable, we've got another requisite to ceasing the house hunt: one trek to a place with open space and trees per week. We exceeded that goal last weekend with a picnic at Robert E. Lee Park on Saturday and another picnic (and a swim!) at Gunpowder State Park on Sunday. Kylie and her parents met us there which made it twice as fun!

Yay for a summer-ful weekend!

My guys

2011-08-01T20:20:00.005-04:00

Thanks to my mom, Hannah has a Dora obsession. It started on an all day house hunting binge in which Grammy spent the day playing with Hannah so that we didn't have to drag her along on the hunt. Grammy brought with her a portable DVD player and Dora video and popped it in for Hannah after her nap. Instant love. I griped and groaned about it the way I would gripe and groan about her being addicted to any television show, but the obsession (and portable DVD player) came in handy a few times after that when we wanted to house hunt and needed to take Hannah along. She was content to sit in the car for any number of hours as long as she had her portable DVD player with Dora on repeat.

Then came the dolls which Grammy came across quite by accident but happily scooped up for her Dora-obsessed granddaughter and put in the mail immediately. I was initially annoyed by the encouragement, but she explained that when I was little, after watching Strawberry Shortcake and My Little Pony I got the dolls and then preferred playing with the dolls over the watching the shows. In retrospect, I totally remember playing with those toys constantly but I don't ever remember watching the shows so I was hoping the same would happen with Hannah. Not so much, but she does ask for the show a little less.

I'm getting to the point of this post slowly, but I swear it's coming. Bear with me.

There's one episode where the Dora gang is getting ready for bed and they've all got their various loveys that they sleep with, and I don't really remember any of it, but Benny (that blue cow-like thingy) has an armful of stuffed animals that he calls "my guys" and he needs all of his guys to sleep, and then Swiper comes along and takes them all so then the hunt is on for Benny's guys.

So a few days after Hannah gets her Dora dolls in the mail, she starts referring to them as "my guys" which I find adorable, and pretty much every day I wonder how Hannah can get any cuter but then she does, and tonight she topped all cuteness cakes. We were sitting at the table on the booth seats, all of us on one booth, and Hannah was standing between us and just being super lovey dovey telling us she loves us and then she puts an arm around my neck and the other arm around Eric's neck, pulls us in close, and says "my guys, my guys" and kisses us each on the cheek. Eric and I crack up laughing, and then I nearly vomit from all the cuteness.

Move over Dora! Mommy and Daddy are the new guys! Woohooo!!

Bunk beds!!

2011-07-29T21:44:00.001-04:00

Did I tell you we decided to stop looking for houses again? Deep down we knew the time wasn't right, but we were in a slight state of denial and had convinced ourselves that the time could be right...But it's not. It's really not. So we stopped again, and we are relieved in a sense and bummed in another. To deal, we decided to live in the house we are in now rather than continuing in this limbo-like state. See, we were procrastinating with getting Hannah's room set up properly and also with finding ways to incorporate (i.e., properly store and organize her toys) her stuff into the house. We kept telling ourselves there was no point in doing anything until we moved and were able to spread out a bit and figure things out, but that's just not true. We need to make this house functional and learn to live in the space we have. So we bought bunk beds!

We wrapped up my old queen sized bed which has been hogging up her room since before she was born, shoved it in the garage, and then set up some new This End Up bunk beds that we found on Craig's List with a dresser and book case for $475! I had never heard of that name brand, but it is SWEET! It's this gorgeous, solid wood furniture that weighs a butt load! Buh-bye creaky IKEA dresser that threatens to collapse no matter how many times Eric (and once Joel) hammer the daylights out of it. Buh-bye flimsy book case! (It should be noted that both of those pieces of furniture were also bought used on CL...but they were purchased all the way back in '06 when I moved into this house and were NOT built to last, obviously!)

I took a few before pics of Hannah's room to show the contrast, but I took the pics after I'd started pulling stuff out so they make her room look a little worse than it actually was...She liked playing on those bouncy seats, but I've got all that stuff packed away now!

"Before" shot of Hannah's room from the doorway.

"Before" shot taken standing on the bed.

"Before" shot taken from the window wall looking out the door and down the hall.

Okay, now for the transformation!! I love a good makeover, and I think Hannah's room got an awesome one!

But first, I want you to know that this is not my favorite model of bunk bed on the This End Up website because of the solid wood headboards and the ladder that juts out into the middle of the floor. I had a feeling it would look and feel heavy and would block critical light. It's not blocking the window too bad, but it's not ideal. It would definitely be better if we had this model with open slats on either end that double as a ladder. But we'd have paid three times as much if we'd bought it new, so solid headboards it is!!

"After" shot taken from the door.

The bunk beds! Hannah loves them.

"After" shot taken from the bunk beds.

Her sweet new book case. (Which has enough space to enable us to get rid of that toy trunk--which I've had since high school--and open up even more floor space.)

"After" shot taken from the window wall.

First snuggle up in the new beds!

It's like a whole new room in there, and it's WAY more functional! There's tons of floor space, her toys are organized on the shelves, her clothes are spread out in more drawers allowing for better organization and accessibility, and with the bunk beds centered on that wall, there's a couple feet on either end so that I can easily access the closet on one side and the window blinds on the other--a task that previously required crawling all over the queen bed.

More importantly, Hannah LOVES her new furniture. The second we got them set up and spread out the super sweet memory foam mattresses we picked up at IKEA, she was up the ladder and giving it a test jump. I ran for the video camera to capture her hysterical first impression:

She is not sleeping in them yet, and I'm not in a huge hurry for her to do so. Frankly, I kinda like her having bars around while she sleeps....It forces her to eventually give up playing and go to sleep, and I'm not sure she'll do that once she's trusted with the freedom to move around. I did let her try to nap in the bottom bunk on the first two days (at her insistence), and surprisingly, she stayed in bed. She didn't sleep though so after about an hour I moved her, kicking and screaming, to her crib. There's no rush...yet.

My favorite of her firsts: First "I love you"

2011-07-23T20:28:00.002-04:00

So, an awesome thing happened tonight: Hannah said "I love you" to me! I've been waiting for that sort of affirmation/positive feedback since the day her little embryo self laid down on my urethra making it impossible for me to pee no matter how much water I guzzled. The I-love-you thing started on Tuesday at gymnastics. Every class is ended with a round of Skinnamarink and for the first time ever, Hannah sang and signed along. Her favorite part is the end where it goes, "I love you, boo-boo-be-doo." She's been singing the song all week, but tonight at bed time is the first time ever that she looked at me, smiled big, and said "I love you" without any prompting or song singing. It was pretty awesome. I said it back and then we laughed a bunch and spent a terribly cheesy 5 minutes just saying I love you to each other and laughing. This might be my favorite of her firsts.

QT with Autumn

2011-07-16T20:36:00.002-04:00

I just realized I never posted these two pics from Autumn's visit with us at the beginning of July....I've been terrible with blogging this summer probably because we've been spending most of our free time either looking at houses online or schlepping all over the greater Baltimore area to look at them in person. Exhausting. Frustrating. Un-fun. Yesterday we decided to give up for a while, mostly because Eric was beginning to realize that all of my reasons for wanting to wait to buy a house--like the fact that he could get transferred to another base in another year and a half--are actually pretty valid. As much as I'd love to have some green space and a floor plan that wasn't so much like a shoe box (long and narrow), it seems silly to move when we don't know for sure that Eric will get stationed here again. I was relieved after he called it off, but we didn't tell our Realtor so first thing this morning she sent us a bunch more listings, and Eric fell in love with a home in Reisterstown. I'm talking majorly in love. Totally smitten. Personally, I don't get it. I mean, it's a nice house and all, and yeah, yeah, yeah, it's got a pool and hot tub, but there's nothing that really stands out, you know? It's just so....mediocre. Don't get me wrong, I'm not sniffing at the awesomeness of a pool, it's just that I really love a historic home with character and this one is not that. There's no character. That and the neighborhood is total suburbia right off a main road that's lined for miles and miles and miles with strip mall after strip mall and in between, fast food joints and car lots. Boooooooring. We drove through the neighborhood this afternoon, and I am just not impressed. We've got an appointment to tour the house in the morning so we'll see if I change the tune I'm singing after that.

Speaking of moving, Autumn is leaving in less than a month to head to Dubai for a couple years, and I did not take nearly as many pictures as I should have while she was here. In fact, I really only broke out the camera twice. First to snap some pics of Hannah all dressed up in this belly dancing costume complete with shoes and headdress that Autumn picked up for her while gallivanting around Europe. Fun, huh?? Between Autumn and Amy, Hannah's dress up box is getting quite eclectic.

And the second time I broke out the camera was when we were heading out to dinner. This was the July 4th weekend when Eric was working 12 hour days. Autumn took Hannah and I to Goldenwest for dinner so I could spend nap time chatting rather than making dinner. Wohooo!

Sigh. I've got Amy traveling all summer, Laura living in the south, and Autumn heading to the Middle East for 2 years. I miss my favorite ladies.

A first I'm reluctant to admit

2011-07-08T20:01:00.001-04:00

I have a secret. I let Hannah have some ice cream a few weeks ago and I've been hiding it from you. My friend Jenn captured the evidence on her phone, and I promptly stashed it on my hard drive while debating whether or not to admit to this indulgence. In the end, I decided to post it for posterity because it will be fun to look back on someday and see a pic of her first ice cream cone at her second HonFest, but before you go getting all excited and thinking you can come gallivanting over here with trays full of cupcakes covered in frosting and sprinkles and all other such nonsense, please read the following:

1.) No, this does not mean that you can give her ice cream (or cookies or cake or any other sugar laden food with zerio nutritional content).

2.) No, this doesn't mean that I will be giving her (or myself) ice cream again anytime soon so don't think that I'm just keeping all the fun to myself because I'm not.

3.) This was a special occasion in that it was HonFest weekend and where there's a festival in Baltimore there's often a Taharka Brothers booth and I LOVE Taharka Brothers ice cream, especially their super amazing graham cracker flavor....yummmmmm. And we were leaving for vacation the next day so we were on vacation mode. And also, let the record also show that I have been off the sugar for a looooong time now. A seriously long time. (For health reasons, not by choice.) Such a long time that I was hell bent on getting graham cracker ice cream cone from Taharka even if it meant having to give Hannah a taste because eating it in front of her and not doing so would just be mean.

She liked it a little too much. So did I. So good.

Hannah gets a trike!

2011-07-07T19:53:00.000-04:00

More catching up on the blog! Grannah and Granpah came to visit the weekend after we got back from vacation and brought Hannah a super special present! A trike!! We took it to the zoo and rode it straight to the farm yard to pet the goats. I snapped as many pics as possible since I've been a big slacker on their previous visits.

Here's the trike! It's pretty rad. It's super versatile and has a removable push handle so that it operates like a stroller (great if you're in a hurry but they still want the novelty of riding a bike). It also has a removable 5-point harness and circular waist band thingy (you can see it in the pic) to keep younger kiddos safe while they learn to ride. You can also remove the shade thingy, cup holder, and trunk so that eventually, it's just a regular tricycle. Cool, huh? I love things that grow with the kids! You end up buying so much stuff and using it for such a short time...products like this make it so much easier to fork out the dough! Not that I forked out any dough in this case....

Hannah gets patriotic without permission

2011-07-05T21:17:00.000-04:00

Hannah and I went to the gym yesterday morning, and when I returned to the kids room to pick her up, the first thing she did was show me her nails:

Ummmm...seriously??? WTF?? I feigned an "ohhh....pretty..." and contemplated making a scene but was too shocked to do anything. I mean, who does that?? Who just paints some random little toddler's nails while hanging out in a kids room, not to mention that this was the gym we don't normally go to so they really don't know me or Hannah. We could have strict religious beliefs or something and then what? Then they'd really be in trouble. As it turns out, we do not have strict religious beliefs at all unless you count an unwavering and borderline obsessive dedication to keeping my child free of toxins as a religion. I mean, I didn't use nail polish during my entire pregnancy because I was worried that inhaling the fumes would hurt the fetus or that the toxins would somehow seep through my nails and into my skin where they would eventually find their way into my uterus and cause Hannah to come out with three ears.

OKAY, maybe that's ridiculous. I'll give you that. But that's the point: I'm ridiculous and so are plenty of other parents so who in their right mind would decorate some kid they don't even know without getting permission? Obviously someone who did not think it was a big deal. I opted not to appear as wacko as I really am though I did consider asking to see the bottles of polish so I could determine just how toxic it was (like, if it chips off in her mouth, will she sprout that third ear?). Interestingly enough, when I got home, Eric wanted the answer to that very question and suggested I call there and ask what they put on her so we can figure out how quickly we need to remove it. I loved it that he reacted like that--a man after my own heart!

Luckily Whole Foods sells an all natural nail polish remover that does not have formaldehyde or any other poisons in it, and the lady working there handed me some cotton balls and suggested I just use the sample to remove it in the store so I didn't have to buy it. Whew!! Hannah's hands have been returned to their original child-like glory and will hopefully stay that way until she is much, much older.

Now, this is two posts in one because both are time sensitive. Hannah is 23 months today, and I just so happen to have a pic of myself at 23 months so I thought we'd do a little comparison.

I'm still very behind in my blogging but I had to put a pause on the catch up to do my Happy 4th of July and 23 months post. Next up is pics from our visit from Grannah and Granpah (or "Nampah" as Hannah has dubbed him) last weekend!

QT with Amy

2011-07-03T20:05:00.001-04:00

I'm catching up slowly on my posts...When we returned from vacation, Amy came to stay with us for a few days to get in some QT before heading off to Japan...then Ethiopia (I think??) and then Sweden...I'm exhausted just thinking about all that traveling!!

Amy laid down on the couch one morning (most mornings) after breakfast, and Hannah brought her some toys to snuggle with, a book, and a cup of water (which Amy spilled because Hannah neglected to say "Day Go!"--Here ya go). Then Hannah decided that all Amy really needed for a good nap was a snuggle.

After nap one afternoon Hannah and Amy settled in on the couch to play with Amy's iPad--one of Hannah's most favorite toys.

OH! And Hannah ended up with a pretty sweet souvenir from Amy's last trip to Japan: this summer outfit that the kids there wear and a cute little purse.

We miss Amy already!

Part 2 of vacation: Family Reunion

2011-07-01T21:01:00.001-04:00

Time for part 2 of our vacation post: the family reunion. I wasn't as snap happy there as I was the rest of the week--and it was only one day instead of 4--so I don't have nearly as many pics, and those I do have aren't that great, so this will be considerably shorter than the previous post.

Before I start posting, I think I should mention that this is our 5th annual (consecutive) family reunion so woohoooo to us for starting it and keeping it going! The location moves each year, and we take turns hosting to evenly distribute the stress load. This year it was at my cousin Adam's which is about an hour from where we stayed in Ohiopyle.

This photo was taken moments before Eric cannon balled the crowd, soaking them all.

Clay thought these rings made my Aunt Pam's hair look prettier.

Hannah floated around on the floaty for a looong time, living the good life.

My uncles.

Adam manning the grill.

The cousins playing ball.

Hannah shoots hoops with the fam.

Highlight of Hannah's day: walking Winnie.

It was also one of Clay's favorite activities. They did a pretty good job of sharing.

Not sure what they're doing...playing with rocks? I just thought it was a cute photo op.

Uncle Chip pauses a game of home run derby to teach Hannah how to hit a ball.

Back in the pool! Everyone was in and out all day.

Hannah got used to Winnie 's constant barking and started to pet her gently while saying "shhhh" soothingly.

Clay loved standing in front of the fan. Hannah loved watching him stand in front of the fan.

I love being with my family and wish we motivated to get together more often, but once a year is better than not at all! We had a great day, and it was an awesome way to end an awesome week of vacation.

Family vacation: Ohiopyle State Park

2011-06-27T14:24:00.000-04:00

No lie, I took nearly 600 pictures on vacation and have been working on this post daily for the last 6 days....And this doesn't even include the pics from the family reunion that we ended our vacation with!! Talk about being backlogged...Of course, it doesn't help that I had fewer nap times and evenings to work on it given that the second we returned Eric kicked house hunting into high gear. He was so bummed to be leaving the mountains that we spent our first few days back looking at houses in Howard and Baltimore Counties. One is incredibly exciting/awesome...and also intimidating in size and scope of work that needs to be done, but I digress...more on that when there's more to tell.

In the meantime, we heart Ohiopyle State Park!! We had no idea that southwest Pennsylvania was so pretty!! My only complaint is that there is virtually no real food there...we brought some with us, but not enough. One of the "grocery stores" we went to had one small head of broccoli and that was it for green vegetables. They did, however, dedicate an entire shelf to Jello and the many colors it comes in. What the heck!! Crap. I'm digressing again. Let's just start posting these pics....

First, this is the cabin we rented at Jellystone Park in Mill Run. We picked Jellystone because it's only 7 miles up the road from the park and we figured it'd be great for post nap activities like swimming and mini golf. We picked this cabin it because it was on the far edge of the campground which meant that there were no neighbors behind us and also that we were right next to the fishing lake.

Cabin number 19 and our accompanying site!

The fishing lake at Jellystone.

We set up the playpen in the loft and Hannah learned to climb up and down the ladder in no time!

Inside was super cute, but I never got around to take any pics other than these ones of Hannah hanging off the dish towel hanger thingy like a monkey.

Yogi was around a lot, always showing up on the back of a golf cart to pose for photo ops, and Hannah loved him, but I didn't carry my camera around the campground much so the only pic I have is her in this picnic basket statue...

I packed a lot of our stuff in reusable grocery bags to cut down on unpacking and the need to dig for needed items. When we arrived on Sunday, I dropped the bathroom bag in the bathroom, the kitchen bags in the kitchen, Hannah's bag in the loft, our suitcases in our bedroom and then grabbed the pool bag and headed out for an evening swim. Woohoo!!

Day 1: Explore Ohiopyle and get bearings.

I like to do a little exploring/putzing on my first day in a new place just to get my bearings so on Monday we headed down to the borough of Ohiopyle. There's not much there--an ice cream shop, a hotel, a visitor center, two restaurants and a pizza place, a market, and a ton of outdoor recreation stores that want to take you out on the Youghioheny River in various rafts and kayaks. I didn't snap many pics of the borough, but here's on of Hannah pushing around this toy crane that she found on the ground outside one of those shops. (We returned it later.)

One of the borough's coolest non-nature features is a brand new playground that plays to the rock/tree/river nature theme of the area. We stopped there for a bit and let Hannah swing around like a monkey.

After establishing that there was most likely only one worthwhile place to eat lunch, we crossed to the other side of Main Street to check out Ohiopyle Falls and walk along the river.

Daddy and Hannah on the lower Ohiopyle Falls viewing deck.

Ohiopyle Falls from a distance.

Then we trekked down to this little spot by the river where all the boaters drop in and dipped our toes in the water while taking in the action.

So, one thing I forgot to mention is how freakin' cold it was in Ohiopyle at the beginning of the week and how inappropriately I packed. I usually check the weather of a destination prior to packing, but I never got around to it in this case and since the temperature was close to 100 degrees in Baltimore for the whole week leading up to our departure, I figured it couldn't be more than 20 or 30 degrees colder in the mountains, right?? That means it'd be 70s/80s which is pretty darn nice. But no. We woke up Monday morning to 50 degree weather. 50 flippin' degrees!! Seriously?? It was so cold we had to turn on the heat in the cabin and then get creative with our outfits...A notorious over packer, I opted to under pack for this trip and cut down on the warm clothes. I packed Hannah one pair of pants, two long sleeve shirts, and one thin zip-up hoodie. For me, I packed one pair of pants and one thin long sleeve shirt. That's it. Our pants were standing up on their own by the end of the week.

That said, after a morning of exploring Ohiopyle, lunch at The Firefly Grill, and a bit of a nap, we opted for mini golf instead of swimming. Hannah's first round of mini golf! Daddy showed her the ropes.

Hannah's first putt.

It wasn't long before she discovered a more efficient means of meeting the goal--forget the putter, just drop the ball in the hole.

After putt-putt we headed to the fishing pond and followed around a family of geese. Hannah tried to feed them some bark she found on the ground.

Next up: hammock time!!! Hannah LOVED the hammock!

After some dinner cooked over the charcoal grill, we headed back to the fishing pond so Eric could teach Hannah to fish--another first for her.

Hannah even played with the worms! Ewwww!!!

WHEW! That was day 1. And what a great first day!! If you're still hanging with me on this mother of a post then you deserve a prize...many prizes.

Day 2: Cucumber Falls and hike to the natural water slides.

I used the flash with a few photos to light up Eric and Hannah but even though the light was better, their faces were not...Then another couple came along and we got them to snap a family photo. Too bad it's so dark...

(Luckily Eric brought a hoodie--I lived in this all week.)

Eric climbed down behind the falls which I would have loved to do but....well, did I mention it was cold?? Freezing. I wasn't about to get wet. I can think of few reasons to willingly enhance your cold factor. And by few, I mean none.

The access trail continued so we followed it and snapped a ton more pics...

The trail followed the river and opened up to various little beaches and rocky spots.

The trail led us right to the natural water slides which was fortunate since that was next on our list of sights to see.

We took a seat on the rocks to watch the crazy people sliding down, and Hannah looked so cute I took a thousand pics of her. Here are two...

This second one is my absolute favorite photo of Hannah EVER! Love it!!

After the photo shot, Eric decided to join the crazies. He followed a group of guys to the top and then followed them down the slide...the video is pretty funny.

One of our fellow crazies-observers offered to take a family pic...Wish I weren't tucking my chin all weirdly. One dark shot and one bad shot--0 for 2 on the family pic.

After nap time Hannah helped daddy built her first fire and then we took turns snuggling.

Day 3: Biking the Great Allegheny Passage...and then giving up and going to the zoo.

Wednesday late morning actually warmed up, but we were on the bike trail by about 8:30 and it was still freezing. A downfall of her bike seat is that the wind hits her head on. She was shivering and saying "cold" in minutes so we didn't make it very far on the trail before giving up and heading back to the warmth of the car.

Earlier in the week I'd found an advertisement for a place called Living Treasures Animal Park which is a giant petting and feeding zoo...It was kind of sad because they had animals like lions, (white) tigers, and bears all trapped up behind bars...but it was also kind of cool because we got to feed an ostrich, llamas, alpacas, horses, goats...And there were lots of baby goats and pigs and, well, lots of super cute baby animals in general.

This monkey had a baby so tiny it was still latched on to her belly. See the baby's arms reaching around?

Day 4: Hiking the Ferncliff Peninsula

While researching some of the sights at Ohiopyle I found a website that said Ferncliff Peninsula was an easy trail and often overlooked but that it was home to a wide variety of flora and fauna and totally worth checking out. Easy and beautiful? Perfect.

On Thursday we parked at the Visitor Center, a restored train station, and then crossed this restored railroad bridge onto the peninsula.

This wide trail (and the above railroad bridge) are part of the Great Allegheny Passage bike trail.

From the bike trail, we hung a left onto the Ferncliff trail which circled around the perimeter of the peninsula. The reviewer was right: it was gorgeous.

The trail quickly opened up to the river where we found a pool full to the brim with tadpoles. I don't think I've ever seen a real, live tadpole before and here were millions! So cool!!

Here we are on the other side of Ohiopyle Falls, across the river from the viewing deck we stood on earlier in the week.

Hannah got tired of being the subject of so many photos then and insisted on taking a few herself. She took the next two shots. Not bad for a beginner, huh!

Somehow, in spite of my insanely detailed packing list, we still forgot to bring the backpack. Or maybe just didn't have room for it in the car at the end and decided we didn't need it? I don't know, but it would have been nice to have. Hannah did a fair amount of walking, but she also required a fair amount of carrying.

There were a number of balance beams, er, I mean, fallen trees, along the trail.

A third chance at a family photo and this time I'm annoyed with the backpack straps strapped around my middle and how incredibly unflattering my sports bra is...I wish someone would have told me that sooner considering I've been living in the thing for like three years now. Family pics: 0-3.

I snuck off during nap time that day to visit Fallingwater. No kids under 6 are allowed and we were short a babysitter so it was a solo trip, which was fine since I'm rarely alone and enjoy my rare moments of solitary time, but this house was so amazing that I really wish Eric could have shared it with me so I had someone to talk about it with instead of just someone to describe it to...

Day 5: Checking out Confluence
We had picked up a number of brochures from the visitor center and decided to check out the next town over on the Great Allegheny Passage, Confluence, on Friday. On the way we stopped at a few vistas off the side of the road.

Once in Confluence, we checked out the giant dam and then drove around the town. I think I was expecting someplace like Stars Hollow but Confluence was a long way from that. We had planned on walking around, exploring, and grabbing lunch, but after driving around, we decided that there was nothing to see and parking was therefore futile. We drove back to a place on the edge of town called Lucky Dog Cafe, and I'm so glad we did! They had REAL food!! Real, delicious, yummy food! It was the most expensive meal we'd eaten out all week because I was so craving nutrients like crazy by then and just kept ordering stuff and stuffing it in. They also win mad points for having an awesome playground set up in their outside eating area. Eating out would be so much easier if all restaurants had onsite playgrounds.

Lucky Dog Cafe is connected to Riversport, yet another store that rents gear and guides for those interested in paddling the river. In the months leading up to vacation, we had every intention of leaving Hannah with my relatives for a day so that we could head out on the river together, but in the weeks leading up to vacation it became more apparent that this was probably a pipe dream. They're about an hour from Ohiopyle and my mom was unable to come up early like she thought she would. During lunch on Friday Eric started talking about how he wished he could rent a kayak and do some paddling so I told him to go next door and check into it. No need for both of us to miss out. Anyway, I'd run off the previous afternoon to do my thing.

Here's a pic of Hannah trying out his boat.

And a pic of a sleeping Tigger, one of the many dogs that lives at Lucky Dog Cafe/Riversport.

We tried to beat Eric to the take out point later that afternoon so we could get pics of him paddling, but we were too late and missed it.

FINALLY!!!! That's it!! Holy crap was this an exhausting post. I'm only slightly relieved though because Day 6, Saturday, was the family reunion and all those pics still need to be edited and posted AND, on top of that, I've got some cute pics of Hannah and Amy from earlier this week that I'd like to post AND some cute pics of Hannah with Eric's parents (in town for a long weekend) and the trike they bought her...In other words, many more to come!

Ready for vacation!

2011-06-09T20:26:00.001-04:00

Hannah and I did some Target vacation shopping today. Among other random things (cat food, travel bottles, juice boxes, kid size camping chair), Hannah picked out a swim noodle, googles, and a pool ball which she enjoyed modeling for Daddy when he got home.

Ohiopyle, here we come!!

OH! I should note that I let her pick the colors of her goods and she picked green!! Green goggles (choices were purple, pink, blue, and green) and a green ball (fewer choices--just blue and green) which is totally after my heart since green is my favorite color. (Swim noodles came in yellow, orange, and blue with blue being by far the prettiest.)

Dinner with Addy

2011-06-08T20:15:00.002-04:00

Adelaide came to play today. First things first, Hannah ransacked Addy's bag for loot, cuddled up to Adelaide's lovey, put on her hat and bib, and latched onto her cup. After a little play time, they sat down at Hannah's little table and ate dinner together.

We are going to miss them when they move down under in a month :(

22 months

2011-06-05T20:35:00.000-04:00

There's a little girl around the corner, maybe 7 or 8 years old, who LOVES Hannah and races up to her every time she sees us. The other day she had a big pool set up in front of her house and was playing with Hannah in it when she exclaimed that Hannah doesn't look anything like either me or Eric. Then she looked at her mom and said she didn't understand where cute babies came from. Now, I don't consider myself as unfortunate as she seems to, but honestly, I agree with her--where do cute babies come from? I mean, holy cow. I am constantly astounded at the cuteness I see in my child and completely baffled at its origins.

To prove Marley's point, here are some pics I took of Hannah today drinking a smoothie out back followed by a pic of me at 22 months.

I wasn't planning on doing a comparison post this month or next--figured I'd just wait and do one when she turns 2--but my mom was rooting around her photo album last week and sent me pics of me at 22, 23, and 24 months so I figure, why not? Those old photos aren't the best quality, especially since the house I grew up in had NO natural light so the flash was always busy bleaching out my little face. I tried to tone down the contrast a bit in the editing programs but I don't think it helped...Happy almost-two-years Hannah!

Growing butterflies

2011-06-03T21:46:00.001-04:00

Grannah bought me a butterfly garden for my birthday, and we spent the end of May growing butterflies. It was awesome!!! If you order from Amazon, you get a coupon inside to order the caterpillars (since they can't just sit in the box while waiting to be bought), but if you order from the Insect Lore website, they send you everything at once (same cost either way). We ordered the caterpillars immediately and were surprised at how tiny they were when they came...and then how big they grew in such a short amount of time!! They come in a little container and that's where you keep them until they turn into chrysalids. There's enough food in there for the duration of their caterpillar life span, and the holes in the lid provide enough air so all you have to do is watch their progress.

Hannah happened to be wearing her butterfly headband while checking out the caterpillars one day--photo op!

When the caterpillars finished their week or so of eating, they turned into chrysalids and hung upside down from the lid. Eric carefully moved them into the butterfly net thingy and then we waited....On Saturday we came down to breakfast in time to watch the first few butterflies emerging from their chrysalids. So cool!!!

Their wings are brown and boring when they come out, and they bleed (meconium--just like when babies are born!), but their wings were bright orange by the end of the day.

We watched them for a day and then released them into the wild (as urbanites, I'm using that term loosely) after breakfast the next morning.

One caterpillar never fully emerged--it wiggled and tried to, but it's poor wings were shriveled up...It was really sad. The other four were beautiful though, and it was really fun watching the whole process and then coaxing them out of their net to freedom at the end! It was a great present! Thanks Grannah!!

One step closer to being potty trained

2011-05-31T20:48:00.000-04:00

Big news in the realm of potty training: little Miss Hannah Jane left the house without a diaper today and made it back after a morning of gymnastics and grocery shopping in the same clothes she left in, i.e., no accidents!!! I should note that this was not my idea. She refused to let me put her in a diaper, and eventually, I grew tired of trying to talk her into it and begrudgingly let her have her way.

She's been doing great with using the potty when at home, and she's even been sitting on the "big potty" lately (pooped on this afternoon!), but I've been hesitant to take it to the next step and unsure of what that next step is. I mean, what's the in between step between being potty trained at home and fully potty trained? I didn't research it and have no clue what other people do, but I think we did a good job of winging it.

First, I laid one of those pee pad thingys horizontally in her car seat. You know those things that you put on the changing table or in their beds when they're super little to keep them from constantly leaking all over everything? No clue what they're called, but it solved my fear about her soaking her car seat. I don't actually know how well it works since she hasn't peed on it (yet), but I feel pretty good about it.

Next I packed an extra dress and an extra pair of underwear. I never got into the habit of carrying extra clothes with me when she was little because I figure I'm never that far from home that I can't just take her home in case of some crazy blow out, but now it makes a little more sense.

Then I packed the potty. Yep. I took the whole potty with us. We have two potty's actually, one that's a bit less portable and stays put in the main bathroom and one that is super light and simple and travels with us throughout the first floor, onto the back porch, down to the basement, and most recently, on car trips.

I took her straight to the bathroom once at HoppinTots and every time she so much as moved her hand in the direction of her crotch, I raced her to the toilet. She peed on the potty three times while at gymnastics and then again in the parking lot after gymnastics on her little potty (which I emptied into the bushes--no worse than your dog peeing everywhere, right?), then again in the parking lot at Whole Foods before going in to the store, and then again after the store before getting into the car.

A toddler in public without a diaper is a little stressful and requires diligent observation. I had to take a nap after all that!

So yeah, big day for Hannah!

Pee pee aside, here are some miscellaneous pics I've taken in the last week or so....

Hannah's first full-blown pigtails.

Grammy ended up with an extra little pool that she sent home with us. We managed to squish it into a corner of the deck, and Hannah spent the remainder of this super hot weekend skinny dipping on the deck.