What a Difference a Year Makes
June 12, 2008 at 12:45 am (Uncategorized)
This is almost hard to believe. Same place at just about the same time last year. For anyone who’s ever heard the expression “they grow up too fast” here is visual proof-positive of that little adage.
The Last Month Back in the O.C. (Original Cowtown)
June 11, 2008 at 7:10 am (Uncategorized)
(Above) Just before leaving for nearly a month back in Cowtown, Bee is at her favorite place again making circles and trying to write the letter “A”
Driving long distances is actually becoming fun as she decides that reading is much better for everyone than screaming her head off. How pleasant!
Cousins!!!
Her Grandma Sue and Cousin Auggie all have fun playing in the water.
Super-Cheese smile over breakfast.
Playing in the fountains at Easton and having a grand time of it. Fully clothed and soaked to the bone.
Appa Dooce!
EmoBaby
The Last Week in Photos
April 29, 2008 at 3:26 pm (The Bee)
The kitchen sink has been a favorite spot lately. She tells us she wants to “wash, wash” (sometimes with a please) and hops in, fully clothed, and has the time of her life. Now if only we could get this reaction to the real bathtime.
On the slide at Columbian Park. I told her to smile and this is what I got…a show of teeth. Cute though 
Bee was completely attached to Shelby (Shabby as Bee calls her) at our fire night and wouldn’t leave her side. Poor thing, she only had about five minutes Bee-free to enjoy a beer.
Right before everyone left we were commenting on how we were sure we’d seen bald eagles nearby. Everyone was a bit incredulous. Just as they left and we were out back picking things up, what should land on a nearby tree but a giant bald eagle!
I zoomed in on him here. It was getting and is a bit hard to make him out clearly but you can see the white head and trademark wide shoulders. How cool!
So now we’ve experienced two amazing things in Indiana that are firsts for us. A bald eagle live in person and an earthquake! When the quake hit in Illinois we felt it as it woke us up. Later the next day we felt the aftershock and listened as our house sounded like it has people on roof. Crazy!
Busybody
April 16, 2008 at 3:53 pm (Uncategorized)
17 Months
April 14, 2008 at 6:22 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: The Bee
The nicer it gets outside the less time I find to do things like update this puppy so just to catch up, here are a few random things about where the Bee is at and what she’s been up to. There would be pictures to accompany this but she decided the camera was thirsty and was letting it slurp out of the cat’s water bowl. We have no idea if it will work again. We’re drying it out. 17 months is a fun age….goodness.
1) If you were to come over right now, at some point, perhaps several points, during the day you would hear her say, sweetly demanding, “mix it” …. And believe me…If you do not act quickly to enable her mixing desire, she will say, “mix it mix it mix it” with each “mix” getting a bit louder and with a bit more of an edge until finally, you push her learning tower up next to the kitchen counter, proffer a few non-glass items of dinnerware, a wooden spoon, and a little cup of water so she can “mix” stuff. So yes, “Mix it” pretty much means, “I want to make pretend soup and I want to do it now!” On a good day, she’ll follow it up with a tacked-on “pwease” which totally warms the cockles of my heart and thusly grants her all rights to completely destroy the kitchen. I am helpless.
2) About “pwease” …. She has it down to a science. She knows when to use it and when it doesn’t matter because she would get what she is asking for anyway. For instance, she says, “color color color!” and I look at her like “yeah, not now” and she goes, all matter-of-factly, “pwease” … Not even a pleading kind of please…just a simple statement as though in her mind, adding it creates a special qualifier under which any desire must immediately be fulfilled. Again. I am completely helpless.
3) Ring Around the Rosies is the most fascinating and hilarious possible activity anyone could ever dream up. To her. She could goad us on to do it over and over again for an hour if we let her. She loves it. My knees hurt.
4) Three Syllable Territory and the Alphabet to P. She clearly says “butterfly” and a few other well-articulated three-syllable words that blow me away and sings (in tune most of the time even) the alphabet to the letter P before it turns into a muddle that ends with something like “now abaycay nest tam sang wif may”. She likes to count and her favorite number is two. Everything is two if you ask her how many of something there are. A lucky break for her next birthday. However, she can recite the numbers in orders which makes her sound pretty smart and makes her feel like a big girl.
5) Knowing but highly cautious, somewhat suspicious glances at the P-O-T-T-Y. The other day she said PooPoo before she laid a log and says PeePee when she looks at it but the minute she sits on it, she looks all perturbed and goes, “no,” hops off, takes the removable seat off and often either chews on it or tries to wear as jewelry.
6) Her laugh has evolved from quiet little giggle sounds to full on laughing out loud with her belly. This can be witnessed when “neck monster” chases her, when Ry speaks to her via the kind of creepy (to me, but I’m like that about toys sometimes) Butterfly puppet with the wonky eyes, and when she sneezes and we fall backwards. It is the most beautiful sound in the world.
Mid-March.
March 18, 2008 at 4:31 am (Random Rants)
Bee was having a fantastic time at her grandma’s all week while Hub and I were thereby granted four days Bee-free to remember that yes, indeed, we both still exist and still rather enjoy one another’s company. Despite our best intentions to go hiking on the trails near our house, cook complex dinners that babies would probably hate, listen to loud music and stomp around at 2 a.m. if we felt like it, we pretty much just vegged. It was glorious. We rented an entire season of Lost to catch up on it since we don’t really watch t.v. much, spent precious time on our own individual computers playing games (and me working, luckily I like what I do for a living) and just being in the same house. Just the two of us. While I enjoyed it, it is clear that our lives were lacking something before Bee. This is what we did all the time and while it was deliciously self-absorbed, every moment of it, I would go crazy if we went back to that all the time. She gives us purpose, a reason to put ourselves aside, and a convenient excuse to sit around and watch an entire Sesame Street while eating macaroni and cheese with our bare hands.
She came back an entirely different baby with a ton of new words, a new set-in-stone sleeping schedule, and with a bunch of new toys and clothes that her Aunt Danielle couldn’t resist buying her. In that week I swear she changed more than I express in words. She’s a lot more with it and a LOT more opinionated. She has the run of the house of grandma’s and I suspect that she recognized a difference upon coming home and waking up to the at-home routine again.
Because yes, there is a routine. That’s because it’s winter and we are kind of at a stand-still as far as finding new and interesting things to do. And yes, so, along those lines…
I am making a promise right here and now, for posterity or maybe just for the sake of a self-reminder that I will not spend part or all of one month of the winter in the Midwest next year.
Hard to believe, but by this time next winter she will be even more self-aware and even more able to travel, communicate, and be my little person than she is right now. A winter trip is a viable idea—something, anything, to break the monotony. I also say this about a winter hiatus next year because I think that a little something called “cabin fever” has begun to sink in and it just happens to coincide with several days of spring-like weather followed closely by more miserable cold and sleet-type weather that forces us back indoors as soon as we were able to get out. I don’t know where we’ll go and how we’ll do this whole thing, but it will happen. Especially since we are no longer in the city where there were far more ill-weather diversions than there are here. Purdue may be a good place in terms of education and opportunities for Hub but Lafayette/West Lafayette Indiana is, if you will pardon me for saying so, a cultural deadzone. There is nothing to do. That is, at least, for a mom and baby who have yet to meet many people around here yet. I’m grateful for the cool people I’ve met and playdated with here but other than that, all winter has been an endless cycle of going to the stupid mall and the stupid pool at the gym.
I should emphasize that I will probably feel differently about this when spring finally comes and stays but at this point, I feel like Bee is getting bored and this is a baby who usually seems vastly entertained no matter what she’s doing.
I’m projecting. It’s me. I want to do exciting, fun, creative and interesting things in public places while I suspect she’s probably fine getting up, coloring, watching Blue’s Clues and following me around.
Spring is almost here. Spring is almost here. Spring is almost here……
Pictures Again…
March 16, 2008 at 5:00 am (The Bee)
Apples are pretty much her favorite thing ever. Except for macaroni and cheese. And kittens. And markers. And….okay, this could go on forever.
Playdate late in February. It was so fun having all of them running around the house, going crazy and tormenting the cat but like I really needed something else to convince me that one kid is quite enough, thank you…
Is it June Yet?
January 31, 2008 at 6:02 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: baby, talking, walking, winter
Well now, don’t I just feel like a total flake about this whole blogging thing? Here it’s the end of January and I haven’t written a word here for over a month. I suppose it’s a combination of being exhausted by the end of the day after hanging with a speedy mischievous baby and trying to work during any free moment that presents itself. That and it’s just winter and there’s nothing to do here except go to the stupid mall play area. I am so tired of that. Where is spring already? I’m all set for playgrounds, grass, flowers, all of it. It’s a few months yet. Best not to think too much about that.
I was just reading over my last post and had to laugh because we were just so excited that Bee was taking some steps. The future of a walking baby loomed in front of us and we were so stoked. While I am still happy enough to watch her cruise around, I must say that I am getting one heck of a workout each day. She has a thing about wanting to play with the (really only) three things downstairs that I don’t want her messing with and goes for them anytime I turn my back, laughing like it’s all a game.
Her favorite off-limits plaything is the cat’s litter box which is located under the bar thing in our kitchen in a little cubbish area that she likes to crawl into and disappear before I have time to notice she’s missing. I usually get her at the exact moment that I’m too late, only to pull her out and find crusted cat poop (no matter how many times we clean it, there is always at least one piece that got missed) and sticky litter in her hands. This delights her. Not only because it’s like a little sandbox in there but because (yay!) it means that mommy will hoist her up by the sink and, joy of joys, wash her hands, which is an event she finds fun and exciting. She is also rather obsessed with the cat’s food and water bowls and while she finally stop trying to eat the catfood after several bad experiences, she like to dump out the food, then the water, then play in the mud she’s created. Joy of joys again. The cat has been patient with her up until this new development. Again, a foray into the cat’s bowls means another grand visit to the sink where that neat soap is, thus making this whole act of badness a win-win situation for herself. Her third love in life is the giant plant (or should I say tree?) we’ll have in our front room until it gets nice out again (if that will ever happen, for god’s sake). It has a lot of appealing dirt that she scoops up with the underside of her fingernails and then sprinkles on the floor. Thrilling. Again, the sink and soap.
But you know, I will take this any day over that whole helpless baby phase. I would much rather chase after an active alert and bright child than sit and watch one roll around, droll, and make poop-face. I am much better at being a mom at this stage.
Speaking of bright baby, here is a list of the words (that I can think of offhand) that she, now almost at 15 months can say with some degree of proficiency:
Baby, kitty, daddy, mommy, me & you (although not necessarily correctly), arf (means dog), moo (means cow), this, that, more, NO! (so glad she’s got that mastered..urgh!), cookie, noodle, flower (wower), Nala (her pet), up, star, bird, pea, moon, …there are others that I can’t think of right now. But what is more amazing is how many words she knows but can’t say yet. I open any book she’s familiar with and ask a question like “where’s the alpaca” or “where’s the teactor” and she’ll point with little or no hesitation. Such a smartie. And pretty much one of the cutest babies ever too.
Oh yeah…some pictures from since my last post which are, in order Christmas in a pretty outfit, New Years Eve, New Years Day looking like the biggest troublemaker ever.
