Well, that's just ridiculous

I love Costco, perhaps a little too much. But who on earth thought packaging milk like this was a good idea?

I mean, really. I know not all Costcos do this. My mom buys a two pack of Kirkland milk in perfectly normal containers in California. They have the same thing in Oregon. So why do we get these ridiculous looking milk cartons? Is it an East Coast thing, a North Carolina thing, or a "let's gang up on Allison and make her buy stupid looking milk" thing? Well, the joke's on you, Costco, because I'm going to spend 50 cents more and keep getting my milk at Trader Joe's. Their milk has a normal-sized spout. Perhaps if we drank out of buckets, the Costco milk, with it's fist-sized opening, would be fine. But I need a funnel to pour milk into Mabes' cup.

And you know what's kind of disconcerting? Looking out your window and seeing this:
Seriously, right out the window. I've seen these guys jump, they could easily make it to our balcony. Stanley, on the right, appears to be watching me as I type, while Clifton, on the left, is calling out to his friends, "Yep, that's her! The lady that threw her flavorless, dry waffles into our forest!" In my defense, while the waffles really sucked, we figured the squirrels, possums, or birds might enjoy them. Guess not. Or maybe they knew that I made really good waffles the other day, and they're upset that I didn't share. I'm watching out for the squirrel army...

Naptime Shenanigans

In the last 2 weeks, Mabes has had 3 stints of 2 no-nap days in a row. She had been skipping a nap maybe once a week, but this much? Boo! But no, she didn't stop there.

When she was supposed to be napping on Tuesday, I peeked in her room to sniff, because sometimes she poops in her diaper/pull-up and can't sleep. I mean, really, would you be able to sleep with a load in your pants? Probably not. So I went in to change her, hoping that catching it early would then still allow her to get a good nap. As I turned to face her crib, I realized she was standing in her crib, pull-up on the mattress next to her. Oh, no no no no! I thought we had successfully dodged that bullet! You see, Mabes has climbed out of her crib before. My sister's kids never did that, or fecal fingerpainting, so I figured having had 1 of those would mean I would be exempt from the other. But no.

In all fairness to Mabes, there was no fingerpainting involved. She just pooped, took off her pull-up, then I'm guessing she must have stood up and sat down numerous times, getting butt prints on her sheets, pillow, and Winston, her big stuffed dog. Her hands appeared clean. I changed her sheets, washed her up, and then she actually did go to sleep while I frantically did laundry and tried to figure out how to spot-clean Winston with anti-bacterial soap. He's a little traumatized, but he's fine.

And then today, she was jumping in her crib instead of napping. I was about to go in and tell her to stop, when I hear a loud "pthunk." I went running in to see that she broke her crib, and one end of the mattress was almost on the floor. She wasn't the least bit upset, just a little peeved that her jumping had to stop. Much to my relief, it was simply a screw that had popped out and it's fine now. Phew. I know I should start thinking about a big girl bed, but seriously, if you know anything about Mabes' sleep habits, you know why this is a silly, silly idea. Crazy. The girl would never sleep again, which is why I'm going to try to keep her in a crib until she's 18. That's not weird, is it?

Ouch!

We went for a walk on Friday, and Mabes decided to run. But then she tripped, scraped up her nose, and bruised her forehead. I can still hear the sound of her forehead hitting the sidewalk. In true Mabes fashion, she cried for all of 45 seconds while I held her, then she wanted to get down and run some more. As you can see in this picture, she's clearly broken up about the whole thing.

I feel terrible. I know kids fall, they get scrapes, big deal. And she's fine. But I keep thinking about all the things I could do to prevent this kind of thing from happening, and the only conclusions I've come to are either a) completely pad our apartment and never let her leave or b) let her leave only when wearing knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, a helmet, and perhaps a catcher's chest protector. And maybe give her a rolling backpack (you know, to prevent scoliosis) when she heads off to school. But given her parents, she'll already be enough of a huge nerd, so why give other kids ammo?

This is what sucks about being a parent. I knew I'd hurt when she hurts, but I'm still sad for her after she's moved on. Knowing that I'm not able to keep her from experiencing pain is incredibly difficult, and yet I realize that's kind of the point. She has to have those experiences, and I have to let her.

It's pretty cute when she looks in the mirror and says, "Oh, no, I have messy on my face!" When she woke up from her nap, I heard her say, "I take owwie off," I thought, "huh, wonder what that means?" It means she's picking at it--gross! So it'll probably be there a while!

Someday...

When we build our dream house, I'm going to have it carpeted with bubble wrap. Okay, maybe not Mabes' room, because she's a light sleeper and that would make checking on her difficult. But I definitely want at least a bubble wrap room. I pulled out a square foot of bubble wrap and it kept Mabes entertained for a good 25 minutes. Imagine a whole room--floors, walls, chairs--covered in bubble wrap. And then I'd eat sugary cereal and bread dough for dinner and laugh that all my childhood dreams had come true...

Emaline loves to bounce...

"...and bounce and bounce and bounce. Sometimes she eats, sometimes she sleeps, but mostly, she bounces."


That's from her new favorite book, Emily Loves to Bounce. Because really, it's about her. One of her first words was "chockabba," meaning both kangaroo or jump. Sadly, she no longer says
"chockabba," it's "kay-woo," but whenever she's jumping around she yells "I jumping like a kay-woo!"









So we were thrilled when a friend invited us to one of those giant bounce house places. Mabes was in heaven. Being the concerned parent, I was a little worried that it would be overrun by tons of big kids and injuries just waiting to happen. But since it was a Wednesday morning, it was pretty much just the under 3 crowd, and not much of a crowd at that. There were times we were the only ones in whatever inflatable structure we were playing on at the time.










Mabes ran from one structure to another, each time yelling, "Mommy! I jumping! Look at me, mommy!" So she got some great exercise, and is getting really good at climbing ladders (and whatever you'd call this), and loved all the slides and weird squishy things to jump on. It was so much fun. I kept thinking of my brother and how he'd be in heaven here. He keeps saying he and his wife will visit, so if/when they do, we know where we're taking Uncle Jeff and Aunt Kirsten! It was so funny to see all these parents jumping along with their toddlers, and I had a blast on the slides. I think I was probably more scared than Mabes. She has no fear!









Two hours later, we came home, ate lunch, and put her down for a nap she was so ready for. It was good exercise for both of us, she got to play with her friends, and we just had a fun morning.

Mabes and a Duck

We had playgroup at the park yesterday. Mabes loves this park because it's right next to a lake with ducks and seagulls and will periodically run over to the lake and plop down on the grass and just watch the ducks. During snacktime yesterday, she was holding a pretzel and a cracker and this one duck was circling the table of kids just waiting to pounce on something. All the other kids were closely guarding their snacks, but Mabes was far more interested in the duck.

She was saying, "Hello, duck! How are you?" and waving the hand with the cracker in it. Seeing an opportunity, the duck pounced and grabbed the cracker out of her hand. Mabes jumped back, shocked, but pretty pleased with herself. She tried to get the duck to take the pretzel, but he wasn't interested. It was then that I realized that all the other kids were pretty freaked out by this, and the moms were upset--"Oh, no, the duck could have bitten her!" I'll admit, I'm overprotective about a lot of things, to the point of being just a step or two away from crazy. But really? Ducks? I mean, I thought the ducks in Fremont were bad (back in the day you were actually allowed to feed them), but then we went to Oregon, and the ducks there were just flat-out vicious. They'll take your food whether or not you had intended to feed them. They're so used to people feeding them, they have no fear. Compared to those ducks, this one practically asked for her cracker politely before gently taking it.

So maybe I was a horrible mom for letting her, but she kept running around with this duck. She'd hold out the pretzel, and say, "Here duck! Chase me!" then shake her booty at him and run/skip away. The duck wasn't as interested, so she just kept repeating this little dance around him. Finally, he waddled over to the lake and jumped in. Mabes followed to the edge of the rocks, and shouted, "Bye bye, duck! See you later! I take a picture of you! Cheese!" Apparently, the pretzel was her camera, which was why she refused to eat it.

As a sidenote, I am so excited, it's ridiculous. Why? Because I finally found Little Einstein's underwear today. I realize this speaks volumes about the level of excitement in my life, but screw that, I don't care. I've spent way too much time on google searches, ebay searches, at various Targets and the Disney Store looking for them, but I finally found them today at a Target I don't usually go to. And on clearance--it doesn't get much better than that. I think I've convinced myself that these panties will potty train Mabes on their own. They also had boy underwear, so after calling Sarah, I picked up a set for Dono. I just keep giggling.

....And I just returned from a short break. Mabes appeared to be concentrating a little to deeply on her kitchen counter, and I asked her if she needed to poop. This question is usually met with a loud "No!" and she runs to her room and then poops. This time, she glanced at the June panties (proudly on display, I had told her she couldn't wear them until she pooped on the potty) and said, "I go to potty." And she did it! Ahhhh, bribery....

What's going on in that head of hers?

First of all, her vocabulary is crazy. Forget picking up new words, she's pulling things out from who-knows-where. Like yesterday, she grabbed a sash (from her pirate costume) and said it was her jump rope and kept attempting to jump over it. I have no clue where she learned about jump ropes. Nursery?

She talks non-stop. Not only does she wake up happy, all her toys do, too. Or so she says. "Mommy, wheh ah you! Mommy, I wape [wake up] happy!" Then when Dave or I go get her, she repeats that she's happy, then tells us that Ricecake (also called Lammy now, since that's what Dono calls his stuffed lamb) woke up happy, along with Winston, the giant stuffed dog my mom bought her last year. Her Little People house woke up happy, her airplane woke up happy, her cars woke up happy, her dolls woke up happy...you get the idea. Oh, and those toys also stay dry and poop in the potty, not their panties--her words, not mine. Fabulous, Mabes, but since your toy vacuum is so good at pooping in the potty, maybe you could just try?

In the last few days, she'd decided she's ready for another airplane trip. Specifically, a trip to see Ainsleigh and Dono. She'll randomly say, "Shoot, mommy, I need suitcase!" Why? "So we go on airplane, fly up up in sky, and see Ainsleigh and Dono!" She gets really upset when I tell her we can't go on the airplane because we don't have tickets. "But I want to fly airplane, see pilot, see Ainsleigh Dono!" She was dragging around a belt today and mumbling something about suitcases, then I realized she thought it was her suitcase and she was packed and ready to go. She also thinks she needs to drag her backpack around, undeterred when I point out its obvious lack of wheels.

And perhaps the newest addition to her vocabulary is the word "curly." We use it a lot to describe her hair, Dave always tells her how much he loves her curly hair. But we think she thinks curly means cute. She always talks about mommy's curly hair (?) and then tonight told Dave he was so curly, and then she dropped to the floor and wiggled around saying, "I curly, too! Look at me! I so curly!"