I couldn't stand the tangles anymore, so last night I cut off the oldest bits of hair. Don't worry, I saved them this time, unlike when I first trimmed her bangs.
The bad news is that her hair isn't curling up higher now that it's shorter, so I think she's going to be maybe just wavy to mostly straight-haired. Oh well. It's not like I passed along much other appearance-related DNA. No point being vain now. Besides, she's beautiful.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Thanks, Auntie Aiiieeee
Today at dinner, Gaz was happily eating her pasta when she said, "I eat the pasta and then it turns into blood, right?" I shake my fist at thee, Aiieee!
But it's cool that she's retaining some information about her circulatory system. While discussing knee owies over the weekend, we talked about "why red comes out" when you fall down. I'm sure most of it was over her head, but some of it has to have soaked in by now.
And speaking of things I would rather her not bring up in public, she's been singing quite a lot lately. A current favorite is "Sometimes People Don't Poop All The Time," which, I think, is an ode to constipation. I guess that's one of the side effects of potty training. You have to talk bodily functions so much to get the whole point of the potty across, and then the kids don't always know that it's time to not talk about poop anymore. Joy.
Anyway, we've just gotten back from a trip to Shelbyville, where we visiting Grandma Judy, Grandpa Will, Great-Grandma Wasson, and Grandpa Great. If you can, send some good thoughts to Grandpa Great, as he's just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We're all hopeful, since it looks like it's been caught before things get difficult, but still. We worry.
Today we went outside to look for bugs and Gaz spent some time catching ants with one of the neighbor boys. It was hard to drag her back inside. Oh, and she's really pestering us for a bike now that everyone else is out on them these days. I don't even know if she's tall enough. Please, someone tell me that she isn't tall enough!
But it's cool that she's retaining some information about her circulatory system. While discussing knee owies over the weekend, we talked about "why red comes out" when you fall down. I'm sure most of it was over her head, but some of it has to have soaked in by now.
And speaking of things I would rather her not bring up in public, she's been singing quite a lot lately. A current favorite is "Sometimes People Don't Poop All The Time," which, I think, is an ode to constipation. I guess that's one of the side effects of potty training. You have to talk bodily functions so much to get the whole point of the potty across, and then the kids don't always know that it's time to not talk about poop anymore. Joy.
Anyway, we've just gotten back from a trip to Shelbyville, where we visiting Grandma Judy, Grandpa Will, Great-Grandma Wasson, and Grandpa Great. If you can, send some good thoughts to Grandpa Great, as he's just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. We're all hopeful, since it looks like it's been caught before things get difficult, but still. We worry.
Today we went outside to look for bugs and Gaz spent some time catching ants with one of the neighbor boys. It was hard to drag her back inside. Oh, and she's really pestering us for a bike now that everyone else is out on them these days. I don't even know if she's tall enough. Please, someone tell me that she isn't tall enough!
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Gah, it's been a while
I had no intention of being so lackadaisical. Many things have happened, followed by Mark saying, "that's the kind of thing you should be blogging!" and I would say "I will blog!" and then I wouldn't. Because at the end of the day, I'm really tired and into laying on the couch. Read a little or watch a little teevee and then go to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. In between fits of beating myself up for this, I suggest to myself that maybe this is just one of those times (like August - November last year) when Gaz just completely wears me out to the point that I shouldn't try for too many or too involved extra-curricular activities. But mostly I'm just hard on myself.
Like, I should have blogged about serf (surf?). Gaz has a little pink Disney Princess tea set (which I did actually buy for her myself, because we were desperate for a tea set and there were no others in my price range), and just as soon as we got all the pieces out of their nuclear fallout resistant packaging, she started saying that the cream pitcher was "surf" or "serf," it's hard to get a kid who can't read to spell out the words she makes up. So this goes on for months. "Mommy, would you like some tea and serf (surf)?" is the question I'm always being asked, to which it is my duty to reply, "Yes, that sounds lovely." And then finally, a couple of weeks ago, she comes running up to me with the little pink pitcher, holds it aloft, and yells "SERVING WENCH!" At which point I realize that surf (serf?) was as close as she could get to saying serving wench, and this is a major accomplishment for a complex term like that coming out of her mouth. And also that she picked this up from a What's New, Scooby Doo? cartoon we have on DVD (it's set at a Renaissance Faire, and some guy hands Daphne a pitcher and says, "Serving wench! Take this hence.") and I am both amused that she picked up the most hilarious term from that and embarassed that it's patently obvious to the world how much television she must watch from her ability to quote Scooby Doo. It's still funny, though.
And then yesterday (someone should sound the scatological post alarm now) Nana Cel, Papa Charley, Gaz, and I were in Borders, picking out some new books for Gaz. She was lurking in one corner of the kids' section and we all kinda figured she was probably filling her diaper. So I went to look at a kids' book about Barack Obama, and Agatha suddenly came running up to me shouting "Mommy! I dropped some poop on the floor!" over and over. I calmed her down, sent her off to the bathroom with Nana, and all I can say is thank God I had wipes in my purse. And also thank Gaz that it wasn't as messy as it could have been. Somehow the poop completely missed her clothes, her legs, her shoes . . . everything but the carpet, of course. But it didn't make a mess really, except for it's undeniable presence. Anyway, thank God for wipes. I can't say that enough.
But the best part is that she did all this right next to the potty training books. And it should go without saying that we've had a good laugh or eight since then.
Since the subject has already come up, potty use has dramatically increased. She's generally not peeing in her diapers anymore at all, and is pretty responsive to questions about whether or not she has to pee. Today we got her some training pants with flowers and such all over them to help encourage her to keep up with the potty habits. I have to say, except for the late evening/early morning potty requests, this is all rather effortless. I'm glad I haven't pushed her to get out of diapers. Encourage her progress, yes. Push, no. She's so willful, I suspect it wouldn't have worked anyway.
As we near the third anniversary of Gaz's birth, I can report that she is as tall, blond, silly, and nursey as ever. I've long said I would happily give her three years to breastfeed and after that we'd negotiate. I'm still not feeling the need to negotiate, though. How much she nurses varies so much depending on the weather, travel, owies, etc., it always makes sense when it comes up. So sorry if that weirds you out or you think it's crazy. It's worked fine thus far, and so long as it works for me and Gaz, it'll be part of our lives and I'll probably blog about it from time to time.
Now bathtime nears and we must scrub bug repellant off Gaz. Gotta love that west nile virus.
Like, I should have blogged about serf (surf?). Gaz has a little pink Disney Princess tea set (which I did actually buy for her myself, because we were desperate for a tea set and there were no others in my price range), and just as soon as we got all the pieces out of their nuclear fallout resistant packaging, she started saying that the cream pitcher was "surf" or "serf," it's hard to get a kid who can't read to spell out the words she makes up. So this goes on for months. "Mommy, would you like some tea and serf (surf)?" is the question I'm always being asked, to which it is my duty to reply, "Yes, that sounds lovely." And then finally, a couple of weeks ago, she comes running up to me with the little pink pitcher, holds it aloft, and yells "SERVING WENCH!" At which point I realize that surf (serf?) was as close as she could get to saying serving wench, and this is a major accomplishment for a complex term like that coming out of her mouth. And also that she picked this up from a What's New, Scooby Doo? cartoon we have on DVD (it's set at a Renaissance Faire, and some guy hands Daphne a pitcher and says, "Serving wench! Take this hence.") and I am both amused that she picked up the most hilarious term from that and embarassed that it's patently obvious to the world how much television she must watch from her ability to quote Scooby Doo. It's still funny, though.
And then yesterday (someone should sound the scatological post alarm now) Nana Cel, Papa Charley, Gaz, and I were in Borders, picking out some new books for Gaz. She was lurking in one corner of the kids' section and we all kinda figured she was probably filling her diaper. So I went to look at a kids' book about Barack Obama, and Agatha suddenly came running up to me shouting "Mommy! I dropped some poop on the floor!" over and over. I calmed her down, sent her off to the bathroom with Nana, and all I can say is thank God I had wipes in my purse. And also thank Gaz that it wasn't as messy as it could have been. Somehow the poop completely missed her clothes, her legs, her shoes . . . everything but the carpet, of course. But it didn't make a mess really, except for it's undeniable presence. Anyway, thank God for wipes. I can't say that enough.
But the best part is that she did all this right next to the potty training books. And it should go without saying that we've had a good laugh or eight since then.
Since the subject has already come up, potty use has dramatically increased. She's generally not peeing in her diapers anymore at all, and is pretty responsive to questions about whether or not she has to pee. Today we got her some training pants with flowers and such all over them to help encourage her to keep up with the potty habits. I have to say, except for the late evening/early morning potty requests, this is all rather effortless. I'm glad I haven't pushed her to get out of diapers. Encourage her progress, yes. Push, no. She's so willful, I suspect it wouldn't have worked anyway.
As we near the third anniversary of Gaz's birth, I can report that she is as tall, blond, silly, and nursey as ever. I've long said I would happily give her three years to breastfeed and after that we'd negotiate. I'm still not feeling the need to negotiate, though. How much she nurses varies so much depending on the weather, travel, owies, etc., it always makes sense when it comes up. So sorry if that weirds you out or you think it's crazy. It's worked fine thus far, and so long as it works for me and Gaz, it'll be part of our lives and I'll probably blog about it from time to time.
Now bathtime nears and we must scrub bug repellant off Gaz. Gotta love that west nile virus.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Still Here, Still Busy
Just not posting often. A thousand apologies!
We've finally wound down from a crazy bunch of traveling. Since this time last month, we've visited Evansville, Michigan twice, and Joliet, all on back to back weekends. This is our second weekend in a row at home, and we're finally feeling like we've recovered from all the travel. Not that we don't love seeing everyone, but all that time in cars does take its toll on a person. I caught a cold around the first of the month, and it's taken me until just recently to sleep it off. My lollygagging hasn't been entirely due to laziness. ;)
I'm working on uploading a huge quantity of pictures and will update here when that's done. Stay tuned for puzzling evidence.
Let's see . . . Gaz continues to surprise and entertain me. We're doing a lot of singing, and she picks up lyrics really fast. After a few listenings to the Jimmy Driftwood songs "Straighten Out My Laig" and "Down in the Arkansas" she could belt out the choruses perfectly (well, the words, not necessarily the tune), and she's picking up some Elvis Costello and They Might Be Giants, as I've been playing some of that lately. We also do this thing where I'll start to tell her something, and maybe she's not listening, so I'll start singing a little song about what we need to be doing, and she'll answer me in the same tune, and we'll go back and forth like this until one of us (usually me) gets tired of singing. Sometimes it's the difference between arguing over getting out of the house to go to the grocery store and having a happy, pleasant child willingly take off without protest.
Two days in a row we've had good potty mornings. We get up and first thing she and I go to the bathroom, where I've been able to talk her into sitting on her potty. She's got the usual amount of patience for a two-and-a-half-year-old, so getting her to sit down long enough for her to actually go is usually the problem. But she's so excited about being involved in emptying the potty chair into the toilet and flushing that she's slowly starting to come around to the joys of potty use. During the day she still doesn't think much about having to go until after it's already done, so I don't see an end to diapers any time soon, but we're making progress. She's generally dry all night, so this is good too. We're trying to figure out some kind of reward we can do consistently that doesn't involve food or stuff. Maybe trips to the zoo? We're working on that.
The vocabulary is enormous. We have many more thoughtful conversations than we used to, and Gaz is more sensitive now about how she speaks and how she sometimes misspeaks or misunderstands words. I've been admonished several times now "don't laugh when I say that!" because she'll say something that comes out wrong but adorable, and I just can't help myself. I keep trying to explain that sometimes the words come out and the words are funny, not Gaz herself, but she's my little diva. She takes herself pretty seriously.
We've been doing a lot of cooking and cleaning together. Right now she and Mark are vacuuming (she with her little play vacuum), and she is my constant companion for dishwashing and general straightening up. Earlier in the week we made cookies, which was educational for both of us. She learned the dangers of flour (getting it all over herself, in her eyes, etc.), and I learned that she is the exact opposite of attentive. Or she is attentive and keeps doing what I tell her not to do to see if I'll give in. Periodically we'll have these battles of wills, and while that is, I know, a part of her understanding what the boundaries are with me, I just wish she would schedule these for more convenient times. Not when I'm trying to get cookies in the oven without burning myself.
She's having a great time lately going to the library, and now that the weather is getting gradually nicer, we're taking strolls down that way much more often. Each time we go she ends up grabbing a book from nearby the area where I am looking for things, and most recently she picked up a cute little tiny book (entirely without my input!) called On Bullshit. I am sure a couple of great-grandfathers got a big kick out of that. I know I got a kick out of the look on the librarian's face when Agatha relinquished the book so she could scan it in. (It should go without saying that I didn't read the book to her, but she enjoyed reading it to me. "Once upon a time a girl walked down the street. . .")
I'm sure there are a million other things I could (and probably should) relate here, but I'm tapped out. Probably better focus on the uploading.
We've finally wound down from a crazy bunch of traveling. Since this time last month, we've visited Evansville, Michigan twice, and Joliet, all on back to back weekends. This is our second weekend in a row at home, and we're finally feeling like we've recovered from all the travel. Not that we don't love seeing everyone, but all that time in cars does take its toll on a person. I caught a cold around the first of the month, and it's taken me until just recently to sleep it off. My lollygagging hasn't been entirely due to laziness. ;)
I'm working on uploading a huge quantity of pictures and will update here when that's done. Stay tuned for puzzling evidence.
Let's see . . . Gaz continues to surprise and entertain me. We're doing a lot of singing, and she picks up lyrics really fast. After a few listenings to the Jimmy Driftwood songs "Straighten Out My Laig" and "Down in the Arkansas" she could belt out the choruses perfectly (well, the words, not necessarily the tune), and she's picking up some Elvis Costello and They Might Be Giants, as I've been playing some of that lately. We also do this thing where I'll start to tell her something, and maybe she's not listening, so I'll start singing a little song about what we need to be doing, and she'll answer me in the same tune, and we'll go back and forth like this until one of us (usually me) gets tired of singing. Sometimes it's the difference between arguing over getting out of the house to go to the grocery store and having a happy, pleasant child willingly take off without protest.
Two days in a row we've had good potty mornings. We get up and first thing she and I go to the bathroom, where I've been able to talk her into sitting on her potty. She's got the usual amount of patience for a two-and-a-half-year-old, so getting her to sit down long enough for her to actually go is usually the problem. But she's so excited about being involved in emptying the potty chair into the toilet and flushing that she's slowly starting to come around to the joys of potty use. During the day she still doesn't think much about having to go until after it's already done, so I don't see an end to diapers any time soon, but we're making progress. She's generally dry all night, so this is good too. We're trying to figure out some kind of reward we can do consistently that doesn't involve food or stuff. Maybe trips to the zoo? We're working on that.
The vocabulary is enormous. We have many more thoughtful conversations than we used to, and Gaz is more sensitive now about how she speaks and how she sometimes misspeaks or misunderstands words. I've been admonished several times now "don't laugh when I say that!" because she'll say something that comes out wrong but adorable, and I just can't help myself. I keep trying to explain that sometimes the words come out and the words are funny, not Gaz herself, but she's my little diva. She takes herself pretty seriously.
We've been doing a lot of cooking and cleaning together. Right now she and Mark are vacuuming (she with her little play vacuum), and she is my constant companion for dishwashing and general straightening up. Earlier in the week we made cookies, which was educational for both of us. She learned the dangers of flour (getting it all over herself, in her eyes, etc.), and I learned that she is the exact opposite of attentive. Or she is attentive and keeps doing what I tell her not to do to see if I'll give in. Periodically we'll have these battles of wills, and while that is, I know, a part of her understanding what the boundaries are with me, I just wish she would schedule these for more convenient times. Not when I'm trying to get cookies in the oven without burning myself.
She's having a great time lately going to the library, and now that the weather is getting gradually nicer, we're taking strolls down that way much more often. Each time we go she ends up grabbing a book from nearby the area where I am looking for things, and most recently she picked up a cute little tiny book (entirely without my input!) called On Bullshit. I am sure a couple of great-grandfathers got a big kick out of that. I know I got a kick out of the look on the librarian's face when Agatha relinquished the book so she could scan it in. (It should go without saying that I didn't read the book to her, but she enjoyed reading it to me. "Once upon a time a girl walked down the street. . .")
I'm sure there are a million other things I could (and probably should) relate here, but I'm tapped out. Probably better focus on the uploading.
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