Monday, March 30, 2009

Strawbellies


Last week spur of the moment a few friends called to see if we wanted to go pick strawberries. It was raining and dreary so it seemed like a bad idea, but we all decided to go and see what happened. It turned out to be a beautiful day, and we had an excellent time both picking berries (which Adelaide calls "strawbellies") and checking out the animals.

Adelaide dropped a berry and stepped on it on the way to the wagon. She is actually saying "sorry strawberry" in this picture.

It took us forever to fill up our basket with berries. Adelaide carried them one by one back to the wagon and wanted to pick out the "tiny tiny ones." Not exactly what I was looking for but why not?

Baby goats may just be the cutest things on the planet even hard hearted Rocky agrees.

The kids had so much fun just running around. I love it when big kids take it upon themselves to watch my kid. Thanks Noelle!

Such a nice day.

Of course they all crashed on the way back, Adelaide with a sock on her hand.


Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Adelaide is 2!

It's crazy to think my little girl is two! I'll write more later and post lots of people pictures on facebook. There are ALOT of funny ones especially of kids hitting the pinata. Thanks Altunas for bringing that up from the border.

The LEGO cake(s). Thought they'd be simple to make, turns out, not so. I learned alot of what to do and what not to do when decorating cakes. For instance, icing a cake that has to be cut is hard especially with chocolate cake and whipped icing.

Adelaide was SO excited when everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to her. Can't you tell from her expression?

Some of the happy party goers.

She actually blew out her candles all by herself (without spitting all over the cake). We didn't get video of it so here are a few pictures to show her birthday wish.



I hope she's wishing her "terrible two" attitude will pass quickly.

Yum. chocolate cake. She picked it herself when faced with options such as confetti, strawberry, carrot cake, and vanilla. She without hesitation picked chocolate. My kind of girl.


Stealing a cupcake. Josh caught her in action. The first picture in the post was the "after" shot.

Opening her presents. Somehow we didn't get around to even wrapping our presents to her. She LOVES all of her presents. Seriously its like all of you that came know her very well or something and picked out stuff that's right up her alley.

What is it with kids hovering when others are opening presents? Do they think they might get something too? It's so cute.

Singing a Signing Time song, the one that comes before story time. I'm sure she's saying, "I love to read a book."

The pinata was the highlight of the party. Adelaide obviously didn't make a dent in it, but everyone had a great time taking a whack at it.

Such a fun day!

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

31 weeks

It's hard to believe I'm already going in for appointments every two weeks. Everything still looks really good. Head is down already. I'm measuring a little bit ahead; she said I was measuring right at 32 weeks. I never measured ahead for Adelaide so we'll see if that means he'll be here a little sooner than she was. If you remember I went 15 days past my due date with her.

My endocrinologist gave me the OK to not have to come back until after the baby is born which is pretty exciting. I had been going in to see her every 3-6 weeks on top of my normal doctor visits and bloodwork.

Today was the first time I really regretted bringing Adelaide to the doctor with me. She usually is very well behaved and either reads, colors, or plays. Today however she was very hard to manage and she topped it all off with a tantrum in the lobby when the second doctor called me in today. We were there for awhile since I was seeing both my OB and my endocrinologist but still, it was pretty bad. She wanted to walk, not ride in the stroller, and threw her shoe when I told her to come along. I plopped her in the stroller and she proceeded to kick and scream. The nurse said,"wow, must be one of those days." Those aren't the usual comments I get with Adelaide. She does turn 2 on Saturday so we are entering new territory.

I almost forgot to mention that Adelaide was still freaking out when we went to the bathroom to get the urine sample. I didn't have time to talk with her and help her settle because of the nurse waiting and all so I was just trying to make it. Adelaide asked for a cup too (like the one I was peeing in) and because I was desperate, I gave her one. As I was trying to get our things together, I looked over and Adelaide was scooping urine out of the toilet and was about to drink it. Nice.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Walruses Might Get Me!

Adelaide's imagination is really coming to life these days. She tells us outlandish stories often that make us laugh. However, a surprising side effect of the book Baby Beluga, that is probably just coincidental, is that Adelaide has started fearing things. If you've ever read Baby Beluga you know there are no monsters or anything in it and all the sea creatures are friends, but Adelaide has started fearing walruses.

Yes, walruses. When I get to a page in the book that has a walrus, Adelaide says "he might get me," "he might hurt me," or "don't touch him." I always remind her that he is just in her book and that he can't hurt her, but it doesn't seem to help. The other day she kept asking "where is the walrus?" I kept telling her he is in the book. Then we started coming downstairs. She asked one more time where he was, and I told her, "he's upstairs." Before I thought anything of it, Adelaide broke down in hysterics. She was sobbing and shaking uncontrollably in my arms. It took a long time for her to calm down.

For about 2 hours afterwards, she would not let her guard down. If I tickled her or tried to distract her, just as she'd stop being diligent, she'd stop laughing and look around cautiously. She had one more incident the same day where she was absolutely terrified. No matter what I said, trying to rationalize with her, she was still scared. We looked at dancing walruses on youtube. We talked about how it's too hot here for walruses and how they live in water. We even revisited the book and looked at how the walrus was friends with Baby Beluga.

She's even started waking up some in the middle of the night crying, feeling scared. It's really weird. It's calmed down with walruses, but now it's expanded to other animals-- elephants, hippopotamuses. Yesterday when we came in from outside, Adelaide started running really fast. She said, "the hippopotamus might get me."

This is new territory for me. I hope I'm handling it in the right way, but trying to comfort her and talk with her about her fears. I'm hoping this phase will be short lived. It's really hard to see a kiddo so scared.

Friday, March 13, 2009

Baby Beluga

Adelaide is quite the singer these days. If she's not telling us stories or yammering on about who knows what, she is singing. She'll frequently sing nonstop her entire arsenal of songs-- twinkle, twinkle; baa baa black sheep; jesus loves me; abc's; rockabye baby, father abraham, if you're happy and you know it; etc. etc. Most of her songs are typical toddler songs, but not all. Signing Time has had a big impact on her singing with songs like "Rainbow Salad" and "In the Water." A friend was babysitting for us a few weeks ago and thought Adelaide was crazy when she was sitting in her crib saying "rainbow salad" over and over.

Another thing that has influenced Adelaide's singing is our music. Occasionally she'll hear a song she likes from our collection. Right now a current favorite band of hers in Arcade Fire. The song "Neon Bible" is heard around our house often. She even requests it alot when we're in the car.

A new favorite song that made it to the mix is Baby Beluga. Adelaide has become quite interested in animals that live in the water. So we checked out books about ocean creatures from Family Connections last week. The book Baby Beluga was an instant favorite. Since it's by Raffi, I figured there must be a song that went with it. Sure enough, we went to the library the following day and found the CD. By the end of the day Adelaide had the song memorized and Rocky and I have had the song in our heads ever since. We're going on a week now!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Washing my Fist Pound

Adelaide is pretty obsessive about washing her hands. Today she said, "I'm washing my fingers and my fist pound."

Monday, March 09, 2009

Not Just Saying Numbers

Adelaide has been saying her numbers for awhile, but in the past couple of weeks she has actually started counting things. I thought at first she was just guessing and randomly getting it right because when I'd start counting things with her she would just say her numbers 1-10. The more and more her "guess" started to be accurate, it made me start to wonder. So today at the library she finally gave up her game and let me see her counting things. We always "play puzzles" at the reading center when we go to the library and today we were doing one with farm animals. I asked Adelaide how many horses there were, an answer she's told me before and gotten correct, but today she actually counted, "one, two, three" and stopped. Then she also added, "one white horse." How many chickens? "one, two, three." How many eggs? "one, two, three, four, five." It's like she only wants to let me know she knows something once she's good at it. She's also started identifying some numbers. The other day she said, "look mom, a 0."

Kids are funny though. For neat thing they do, there's always something that makes you wonder why your kid is so slow. Even though Adelaide is averaging only one potty accident a day now-- some days none, some days a couple if we're playing with a bunch of other kids and she's preoccupied, sometimes a dribble before she holds it and makes it to the potty-- but she still calls all that enters the potty "poo poo." It just does not click with her that some things are pee pee and others poo poo. Oh well. It only gets a little confusing when it comes to rewards. We give her a little tiny sticker now for peeing, and a bigger sticker and one M&M if she poops. Maybe that's why it's all poop to her? If she can convince us her prize is much better :). She usually forgets about the prizes anyway nowadays so I don't really think that's it.

Tuesday, March 03, 2009

One Pack = One Vaccine


I know many of you that read my blog already use Pampers, but I just wanted to let you know about this cool thing Pampers is doing now through the beginning of May. For every package of Pampers you buy (well, ones that are specially marked anyway), one infant or mother will receive a tetanus vaccination. Tetanus doesn't sound that threatening, but I read a stat that it claims a life approximately every four minutes. The risk of tetanus of completely eliminated with the vaccine though which is pretty cool.

Also if you collect points through the Gifts to Grow program, you can redeem your points for a vaccines. 1 point = 1 vaccine. I never feel like the point values equal the products. However, in this case it seems totally worth it. Also they have onesies available for 10 points; if you purchase one of those it also provides a tetanus vaccine.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know about this cool program.

Clean and Dry at the Y

I know. I know. I'm still talking about potty training, but that's a major part of life for us right now. So we've now had two days in a row without any accidents besides bedtime and naptime. That's fine with me. Adelaide is probably a little young to hold it through bedtime, and she does sometimes make it through her naps. Yesterday despite going to the library, going out to eat, and to get ice cream with my dad she did perfectly. Even when she said she had to go in the car and we told her to hold it 'til we got home, we didn't have an accident.

Today however was the bigger test. When we are around, we remind her and are attentive to her potty needs, but today we dumped Adelaide at the YMCA while I went to the fun long OB appt that checks for gestational diabetes. We were gone for 2 hours and when we came to pick her up, she still had on her same dry pull up! They had just switched shifts so I don't know if she held it or if she went to the potty, but still I thought that was pretty impressive. I'm washing the cloth diapers right now one last time and then am going to put most of them into storage until the baby's arrival. I'll still keep a few for nap time and night time but I think we're almost done with the process. Adelaide now has so many stickers on her potty chart we can't count them all.

Another funny thing that happened while we were at the YMCA today-- Adelaide asked to hold my membership ID while I was checking her pull up. As soon as I handed it to her she said, "Sunee Conly." I was shocked and couldn't stop laughing. I don't know how she knows my full name. I asked her what her dad's name was. She said, "Daddy." Not quite the same answer. She is a pretty young reader :).

Sunday, March 01, 2009

Go Fly a Kite


Yesterday would have been the perfect day for flying a kite, but today was the day we chose. We couldn't find our old kite from college which we love; it was a fabric one with a 500 ft or so string. I have no idea what happened to that thing. I hate losing things. It's one of my biggest pet peeves. Anyway, luckily we had a sweet Spongebob kite our neighbors gave us when they were clearing out their garage, so off to the park we went.

Adelaide was still more interested in the slides and playscape but had a little fun with the kite. My dad is in town and he and Rocky really played with the kite the most.

Even though today was a crazy day where we weren't at home much Adelaide still only had one accident during church. She stayed dry during her nap, our trip to the park, going out to eat dinner, and going to a couple of stores afterwards. Sweet.

I just need advice on how to deal with these early stages of potty training when out and about. Usually by the time I pull over and get Adelaide in a store to the restroom, it's too late. Should I keep a potty in the car? I'm learning I need to ask her to use the potty before we leave anywhere. Leave it to a first time mom to not think of that important step.

Anyway, here's pictures from today.