Toddlers say the darndest things-- fish edition

My toddler loves when we get Drs Foster and Smith catalogues. We get the cat and fish editions, both of which she loves to carry around and look at until they fall apart. Lorelei is flipping through the fish catalogue and says she wants to buy some fish.

I tell her that maybe next year, when she is three, we can get some fish.

She thinks about it for a while and then says "Yes. Cats will like them"

"You want to get them for the cats?" I inquire. "Cats eat fish, Lorelei."

She thinks about it for a minute and says, "Yes. Cats will like them. Yes. A lot."

I guess that's sweet of her, wanting to keep "her" cats well fed.

2 year horrors!

I had to take Lorelei to get her two year shots today. I anticipated tears and screaming and fits. I tried to get someone else to watch Ivy so I wasn't dealing with upset toddler and possibly a cranky baby too. But in the end I was there hauling in a carseat with a three month old, leading in a two year old to a doctors appointment-- her first one where she is old enough to really coherently tell me she doesn't want to do this.

She was a dream all through the appointment, and aside from the little girl who ran up to her and scared her when we first came in, she was a little bubble of happy right up until the shots, going along with everything she was supposed to and even opening her mouth for the nurse practitioner without problem. When time for shots came, I told her we'd get apple pie afterwords. Laid her back and she got the shots and screamed, but only for maybe 10 seconds! It startled Ivy too but she calmed down with only a to rocking her high chair. Moments later we were ready to leave, Lorelei following me down the hallway announcing "apple pie!" to everyone in sight!

I love it when I've braced myself for a bad time but then everything goes so well!

And where do you store YOUR diaper cream?

Lorelei's 2nd birthday party was yesterday so her room was a mess. She looked around for a moment after I set her down this morning and said "Cream." Not a usual morning word I just stared at her for a moment until she said "diaper cream"... then she went to the fridge of her laugh and learn kitchen and pulled out a tube of Desitin and gave it to me.

One of the kids that was at the party is quite a climber and her mom had found her on top of the changing table throwing stuff on the floor from the shelves above it. I guess Lorelei rescued and hid the cream from the other kids, which I am grateful for.... but the play fridge? hah...

Lorelei-isms

At 23 months my older girl, Lorelei, has just started stringing some multiple word sentances together. The results are sometimes quite giggle-worthy. For example (taken from my Facebook staus updates, so I don't lose them forever)...

This is when I first realized she was trying to string words together more.

Lorelei comes up to me and grabs my socked foot... "socks? off? pully honey pully push pull sock off honey honey push pull off" I help her get my sock off and...... "toes! toes!!"

then a few days later...

lorelei just took a new pair of shoes out of my hands and said "shoes." Then she followed me into her room where I was going to put them on her and corrected herself... "Actually, boots honey... actually, boots."

I guess they were kind of boots. They were these things: http://myskidders.com/styles.html Which if you've seen them at Target the answer is "Yes, they ARE awesome." They can be thrown in the washer! Lorelei loves them. Right now she has a black skull and crossbones pair. Before, she had the white mary janes with black soles. I recommend darker colors if at all possible because though they are washable, the details kinda ravel funny when washed too many times. But I digress. On with the sillyness.

Matt's looking at the Dinosaur comic (qwantz.com) and tells Lorelei one of the dinosaurs is a dromiceiomimus. Then he asks her if she can say it. "uh huh" she replies. "Say it", he says.... her reply--- "draaaaa-gon!"

It can only get sillier from here!

coffee anyone?

I lean over the bassinet trying to calm Ivy when I smell coffee.

"Ooh, I can't wait to drink some of that," I thought but then came to the sudden realization that I didn't make any coffee today.

One look into the kitchen confirms what I feared-- Lorelei at the kitchen table liberally sprinkled with ground coffee, an empty bag discarded on the floor.



Angry she was caught..


and back to the fun once she realized I wasn't going to take it away.

A little too literal

My toddler is starting to actually understand what the TV is saying. Today she was watching Yo Gabba Gabba and drinking from a bottle of water when a song came on about flowers needing water. She ran over to her pitcher of big fake fabric flowers (one of her favorite toys sent to her by her grandmother) and was about to pour some of her water in it when I realized what she was doing.

Wow.. comprehending toddler. Need to watch what I say and what she sees on TV more!

New room for the big sister

Here's a rather picture heavy post for you, about the state of some of our baby preparations (possibly better called Big Sister preparations really)

We've decided with the new baby to give her Lorelei's current room and move Lorelei into a room that is slightly further from our bedroom. Her current room shares a wall with our bedroom so I don't need to use a baby monitor. Also the changing table and crib are already in there so it makes more sense to move her out as she progresses to the big girl bed (or at least we HOPE she progresses to using it soon.) Right now she and the cats use it as a play place

In the works, painting the little room, adding a larger area rug (the room has big white tiles), changing out the light fixture and in general dolling it up in a way that Lorelei will hopefully love it.

The color I chose to use for her room is sort of a robins egg blue. Yes, blue for a little girl's room-- because so many accessories and toys and such are pink. Her current room is a nice limey green for similar reasons.

I'm trying to figure out what shade of blue I want to use. I'm leaning towards the darker one, because I want to paint a white tree mural, and I don't think it will show up well in the lighter blue.

She already has this stripey rug which she loves, so I got her some polka dotted sheets in the same colors.
As you can tell the room is already being used as a play room.

That's all we have for now though. I'll be getting a solid colored fitted sheet to cover the box spring, and at some point she will get a dresser, blinds (there are already white curtains) and a cleaned out closet.

I have a lot to do...
including convincing the cats that it's not "their" room...

A year??

Has it really been that long since I had this baby (and long hair??)?

This was her third day of trying solid foods!

Today she was pilfering ginger candies outta the pantry and running around with a bottle of juice at a coffee shop saying "no" when I asked for it back. Brattish? yes. Cute? I'l admit it... yes it was.

Busy busy

I've been sick and busy and strangely without things to say recently.

I'm a bit disappointed too, because I found out a good friend form back home is pregnant, and I'd love love love to give her a gift of maternity and newborn portraits but... my new little one will only be about a month old when she has hers so I don't know that I can make it work. I can't travel in the last month of pregnancy, and I don't know that I want to fly with a one month old.

I've been taking a lot of studio type portraits recently. I got this great candid of my daughter earlier today.


So how's everyone else doing this December?

Trouble

I've been busily messing around with my new light setup and trying to make a go out of photography. Since I've gotten some great ones of some of the kids in my moms group I was thinking "I can do our family photo no problem."

First day I tried, I got so mad at trying to work with the timer I gave up.

Today I went and got my neighbor and asked her to snap a few for us. I had to assure her that everything was set up and all she had to do was click. She got comfortable with it pretty quickly. Then Lorelei decided she was completely against the idea of portraits.

We finally got a passable one of the card, but it definitely was NOT what I was going for.

At least it made for a good photo montage...

By "good" I do mean ridiculously silly.

Halloween Costumes anyone?

I got them done, and I think they turned out pretty well. Unfortunately there's no full picture of my dress, which I think was the most impressive thing, plus I never got a good full body shot of Lorelei because she wouldn't cooperate for me. I got at least good looking pictures of her dad and I both though. (sadly, no family picture)


My boyfriend, the garden gnome. A neighbor kid actually told him to watch out for boots.

Lorelei's costume had a headband with flowers and flower appliques but she wouldn't leave them alone. Oh well, still a mighty cute fairy, if I do say so myself!

Growing up so fast

This morning my little girl just actually said "Good Bye" clear as day.

Her daddy was getting ready to leave for work and she insisted on being picked up and gave him a big hug. I gave him a hug too and she pushed me away, hugged him tighter and said "good bye" in the saddest tone ever.

It brought tears to my eyes... but it's probably just the pregnancy hormones. Hah.

Technical Difficulties

I'm still working on Lorelei's costume.. slowly but surely. Bodysuit and tights dyed, silk for her skirt dyed, some little flowers for embellishments made, wings made...

I'm having a bit of trouble with the wings though. The trial run revealed a droopy problem.

I didn't think about the fact they wouldn't stay up as well on a onesie as they would on a dress, or maybe they are heavier than they are supposed to be? Who knows.... I think I will be sewing some ribbon on them and tying them on that way along with the velcro.

She still looks awful cute though even with the droopiness!

Ready for Halloween?

I'm not! Ive been working on Lorelei's costume, but I may be overestimating my abilities and time... because I also need to make my own costume, and my boyfriend's too. His will be simple, but I have big plans for mine.

Luckily I also have the tights and onesie dyed for the toddler costume, and have everything for her skirt I just need to assemble it :)

Here's my progress as of this afternoon...
Can you tell what she's gonna be?

She already loves the practice skirt I made up ... she brings it to me and then lifts a foot up for me to put it on her, and prances around the room in it. I don't know if it's the bright colors or the softness of the silk, but hopefully she will like the not-just-for-practice one too.

Happy Caturday!

In an effort to blog more I'm adding some weekly "themed" posts to my blog. The first two I'm trying are "Made it Monday" where I blog about things I made. The second one is this... Caturday!

What is Caturday? Why, gratuitous pictures of cats of course!

This is my kitten Curie cuddling with my baby last November. They were both about four months old.

Lorelei eats a lemon

Lorelei eats a lemon 5, originally uploaded by Bakiomau.

If I knew how to post all the pictures through Flickr I would. But seriously, she kept going back for more... making that strange little face after each lick. Then she got too much on her hands and rubbed it on her chapped cheeks and cried. That part was sad. The rest of it? Classic baby moments.

If you click on the picture you can check out all 6 pictures in order on Flickr

Busy busy busy

Busy doing what, you may ask? Keeping up with this....


One of these days I'll catch my breath and be back....

Oh Baby

Why would you ever LOSE weight between six and nine months?

We breastfeed on demand and feed you as much as you want.

So that's the news. She lost around four ounces between her six month and nine month checkup.
I was told to start supplementing with formula, which I said no to. I was told to start pumping 3x a day, which I said yes to. Then I thought about it and decided not to. My course of action instead is to be more proactive with the breastfeeding... offering it more often including BEFORE not after each meal. I can already tell that a few more nursings each day have gotten my supply up, and with pumping I am worried that it would have shot me into oversupply mode which is bad for both me and the baby. I also started offering her higher calorie foods-- french toast sticks (basically just egg, milk and cinnamon with bread, nothing fancy), some full fat cheese, offering yogurt more often, browned ground beef when we are having spaghetti... But with the increased nursing she isn't very interested in real food.

In about a week and a half we will see what's up, with one of the dreaded "come back in two weeks" weigh ins.

But the more I think about it, the more annoyed I am that the doctor freaked me out so bad. She's happy, healthy, getting to milestones before the charts say she needs to be there and she got that nine month weigh in about a week after she really started gettign active crawling on everything. I've mentioned it to a lot of people (what can I say, it made me feel insecure) and at least half the people I've talked to mentioned minimal to no weight gain between six and nine months. Plus it was a different scale this last time, plus she hadn't had breakfast. Four ounces is two shot's worth of weight. It's the difference between having a full belly and not really. I'm not saying she doesn't need to gain weight, but I AM saying I shouldn't be freaking out about it. Right?

Any feedback on this one?

Teefers

Third tooth is out of her gums. No wonder it's been hard to get her to sleep. It even looks painful to me... those top gums are weirder than the bottom ones.

Bluebonnets!

We finally got out and found some bluebonnets! It was way too sunny out though, being about 3 in the afternoon and 80+ degrees. We will have to go on a less sunny day for better pictures, but at least now we know where to find them.

Lorelei was thrilled to actually be allowed to touch a plant




Oh, you there in Austin were expecting me to tell you where I found them?
My secret, unless you ask nice.