East Side Hootenanny

We are blessed that there are tons of festivals and free concerts all over the city throughout the summer.  Some of my mama friends mentioned they go to the Hootenanny, so hubs and I decided it would be worth checking out.  We got there early and were able to claim a primo spot in the back under a tree.  We laid out our blanket and just hung out for a while as people continued to filter in and the music played.

It was a perfect evening.  There was a nice breeze, we were sitting in the shade, there wasn't any humidity, and we didn't get one mosquito bite.  Little Miss pretty much stuck to the blanket.  At one point, Daddy took a little walk with her and left her a little ways from the blanket thinking she'd get practice walking on grass as she came back.  She stayed there for quite a while.  She looked at the grass and squatted down:

She made a friend:

And then she just hung out some more:

Finally, Daddy had to go get her.  She was quite content playing with us:

I guess we should consider ourselves lucky.  There was a mama friend there with an almost 2 year old and he would not sit down.  They spent the entire time walking with him and chasing him around.  Guess 10 months makes a big difference. We were happy that we were able to get out and enjoy some live music and still leave before bedtime.  You know when you're a parent when it's 7:00 and you're heading home in the car talking about what a good night you had.  The fresh air really did the trick because Little Miss fell asleep on the ride home and didn't do any of her usual bedtime antics for Daddy.  The concerts go through June so we're hoping to be able to go to some more.  Last summer I was too overwhelmed and tired with a newborn.  We didn't really do anything.  Here's to a summer of free entertainment and the energy to enjoy it!

Flower Girl Preview

Next weekend Sugar Pop and I will be flying out to San Francisco to watch my cousin get married.  Little Miss was asked to be a flower girl alongside her cousin.  Here's a preview of what my little stunner is going to be wearing:

 

Do I think she'll do what she's supposed to do?  Not at all.  But she sure will be pretty.

Getting Skirted Up

I tried my hand at sewing while I was pregnant.  I made a lot of things for the nursery (crib skirt, curtain pulls, skirt for end table, seat cover for the window bench), and while they weren't perfect, they worked.  I also tried my hand at making some cute little dresses out of onesies.  Some of them were adorable:

And some of them were total failures:

Another thing I tried making was a skirt.  This stretched my ability because I had to use elastic and I followed the measurements for what was supposed to be a 12 month size.  This week I finally fished it out and put it on.  It is adorable.  Here's Little Miss walking towards me giving me the 'milk' sign with her hand:

I think these pictures are cute, but they accentuate her belly.  The elastic likes to sit low in the front, but higher in the back.  Here's a side view from when she was playing in the hallway:

Perhaps the cutest view is the one from behind.  It was hard to get this one because this girl is always on the move!

In some ways it reminds me of a tutu.  I'm glad that I made it and it's a look that she can definitely rock and is comfortable for the summer.  I especially love the center fabric.  It was at the end of the bolt and I have a yard (plus the excess from this piece) that I've been saving to make her a bubble romper this summer.  But I love the fabric so much that I'm terrified I'll mess it up.  I'll probably end up doing nothing out of fear, so I'll have the enjoy the skirt more, I suppose.

TGIF- The 'Sun Spot' Edition

I know I post a lot of these two, but come on, aren't they ridiculously cute? She laid there for several minutes and they just looked at each other. She was chewing on a frog bath toy that we use outside at the water table. She would hand it out to him, he'd sniff it, and then she'd take it back. If these two don't define the term 'bestie,' I don't know who does.

The Mulch Zoo

I love that the mamas I hang out with are pretty active and always looking for places to take their little ones. This week is gorgeous here so we decided to have a zoo play date on Tuesday. We loaded up the kids into strollers and carriers and walked around to see the different animals. I would point out an elephant to her, and all Tater Tot would be looking at was the bush in the foreground. She wasn't really ready.
Then some of the mothers of older kids decided to go to the petting zoo. I thought it just sounded dirty and gross, but peer pressure won out and I took Little Miss in to check it out. I put her down thinking she'd want to walk around and explore some of the goats and other animals milling about. Nope, she immediately squatted down and started exploring the mulch. I was a bit grossed out thinking about the animal fluids that must be on that mulch, but I tried to persevere and get her interested in an animal. This was an epic failure- you can see kids playing with one of the goats in the background and Little Miss would only look at the mulch. After a few minutes I decided she wasn't ready for this either and whisked her out.
(Sorry about the white onesie. We had a wardrobe malfunction and I didn't have a full change of clothes on me. Something to remember for the next time we head out.)

These Shoes are Made for Walking

Now that we have a walker, I feel like I have to give her experiences walking on different surfaces. When we're in the house we're barefoot and that's how I like it. However, the time is approaching where she'll need to wear shoes while we're out and about. After a traumatic trip to the shoe store (Seriously, she screamed bloody murder) we came home with one pair of shoes designed specifically for new walkers. Monday was shaping up to be a gorgeous morning, so I decided we should go out by the neighborhood fountain for some exploring. Mostly, what she did was look at me. Then she stomped for a while. I think she was trying to get used to something between her feet and the ground. She crawled a bit, bear crawled a bit and then finally walked around some. There's still definitely more to explore (especially grass), but I didn't have sunscreen on her and wanted to get her back inside. It's nice to have a place she can explore so close to the house. Hopefully she'll walk normally in shoes with a bit more practice.

Green Eggs and Ham

So this post involves neither green eggs, nor ham. This weekend we decided to skip the cereal and make a protein filled breakfast of eggs and turkey bacon. Little Miss loved the eggs, but wouldn't really touch the bacon. I'm wondering if it's because the doesn't have molars yet and so can only chew with her front teeth. Either way, more for Daddy and me!

Welcome to Toddlerhood!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5MThsLfRXA&feature=youtu.be

It's official- we have a walker!! For the last month or so I've been telling everyone who would listen that I really liked the phase that we were in. Little Miss was independent, cuddly, played nicely with her toys and worked really well with her schedule.
Seemingly overnight after her first birthday, she became hungry all the time, started voicing definite opinions, toyed with dropping a nap, and seemed harder to engage. She started using her walker consistently right before her first birthday and has taken a few steps here and there over the last week or two, but nothing really to speak of. I knew the day was fast approaching when my little Tater Tot would begin walking. Last Thursday, May 15, was a rough day because Little Miss and I both had colds. I spent most the day laying on the couch and trying to supervise her from a supine position. When hubs came home I snatched the opportunity to lay down in my bed upstairs. The the texts and videos started rolling in. This was one of them. Apparently, Little Miss decided to make that the day she was going to officially burst into toddlerhood by walking. She went all over the house and is amazingly stable on her feet. She walks all the time now and rarely falls. I know there will be things to embrace about toddlerhood, but I'm mourning the loss of my baby.

The Spoils of Silence

Whenever I went to or hosted play dates, I would watch the other kids tear up the house and my little baby would play nicely in the main area. I felt sorry for the other moms and thanked my lucky stars that I had a baby so content to play with her toys. Well, that switch that flipped when she turned a year old put all that to an end. Little Miss is into absolutely everything and she gets really mad when you don't let her play in, oh, say, the garbage. She wants to be involved with you more and more, but there are some times that she'll still play independently. Unfortunately, now that she's into everything, you have to be really aware of where she's playing. I thought she was playing with the water bowl in the master bathroom and was going about my business. Hubs came upon this in the closet. Apparently, Little Miss found some file tabs for the filing cabinet and started to check them out. As far as messes go, this wasn't a big one (I should take a picture of the toilet paper scraps she'll leave all over the bathroom if left unattended), but it's certainly a lesson to be aware of all the potential hazards around the house. Looks like it's time for baby proofing, Round 2.

Buckle Up

Now that I'm able to go paddling regularly, kayaking paraphernalia is making its way into the house.  I brought my dry bag in one night so that I could empty my wallet and keys in the house.  It was on a table to go back outside when Little Miss Curious spotted it, took it down and started exploring.  She wasn't too interested in the lights that were left inside, but she sure did love the buckles.  She spent ages looking at the buckle and trying to figure it out.  

The tongue of concentration made its appearance.  The bag never actually made it outside.  She views it as a puzzle and I left it out so she can come back to it and keep trying.  She looks at it at least once a day and also carried an extra dog collar with the same kind of clip around the house for an entire day.  Hopefully she'll get it figured out soon.  I love how she sticks with a task until she figures it out on her own.

Not Just for the Dogs Anymore

We all know how Little Miss adores Huck.  He's pretty fond of her as well and they share lots together.  He lets her play in his water bowl, and she feeds him from the table.  She gives him belly rubs and he shares his sun spot.  He's also really good about sharing his toys, and not just with Little Miss either.  When little friends come to visit for play dates, one of the most popular places in the house is the dog toy basket.  A few weeks ago a friend came over and became quite smitten with a spiky football.  Enough so that his mother asked to borrow it rather than risk a meltdown as they left.  Huck never plays with the toy so I let it go and didn't worry about it.  I completely forgot about it, but they brought it back the next time they came over.  I threw it in the basket and didn't think much about it. 

The next day I found Little Miss standing by his toy basket looking out the window wistfully holding none other than the football toy.  It is truly nothing special, and yet it's irresistible to kids.  

I'm just glad that Puppy isn't really into the toys and it's not a source of conflict in the house.  Perhaps I should just go ahead and move the football to her toy basket and be done with it.  

You Feel me Now?

Little Miss is at the age where she loves touch and feel books.  This is a good thing because she's not as interested in listening to an entire story at the moment.  We had a couple in her collection and then for Easter Mamaw bought her another one that was really big.  She really likes that one.  On this day, I found her feeling the one that Mamaw gave her.  By the time I got my camera, she already found another book and started petting that one as well.  

This girl never gets over petting different animals.  Maybe she'll be a vet.  Or a zookeeper.  Just hopefully not a member of the circus.

 

Happy Mother's Day to Me

Last year when Mother's Day came around, I was a brand new mom and was just trying to survive. This year, I definitely feel like I earned this day:) To celebrate, we loaded everybody up and drove to the local state park for a hike. Notice Shorty's brand new ride? She outgrew the Ergo and it was time to upgrade to something bigger. I hemmed and hawed for a long while as they're pretty expensive, but finally settled on this Kinderpack. It has a much higher back so she can't lean anymore, which was really pulling at my back. It also has a mesh back which allows more air through which will hopefully help as the temperatures continue to rise. This must've come with a complimentary side of Sleepy Dust, because she's already taken two naps while riding, one while on this hike. She feels much lighter and it's a lot easier for me to carry her both on my back and on the front. However, as wonderful as the Kinderpack is, my Mother's Day gift was even better.
Hubs must've really thought hard about this because he came up with a great gift. He decided to give my kayak a little TLC, now that I'm using it more. It was a hand me down kayak from my Dad and I've loved it. However, it was starting to get a little neglected and needed some attention. Hubs already added a drain hole for me (yay!) and is also going to reseal my dry hatch, restring my steg so I can actually move it up and down myself, and add a clip so I attach my paddle to the outside while I'm taking a break. I'm pretty excited for all the updates to be made. Since most of my paddling will be done without him this year, it's a nice reminder of him while I'm out on the water. It was a really great day. I hope that you moms (and moms of fur babies) also had a great one.

River Queen

Ok, so this post isn't about Tater Tot.  And it really isn't about rivers, either.  It's about how hubs and I are finally starting to get to the point where we can think about our personal goals and eek out time in the week to do things independently.  Hubs joined a gym and has been aiming to go three times a week.  This might be a lot, but his workouts are really short, he goes on the way home from work, and he's usually coming in the door by 5:00 on those days.  It totally works for both of us.  He also wants to get back into cycling and found a local cycling club that has group rides on Wednesdays.  He hasn't made it to one yet, but we're going to try to reserve Wed nights so he can.  

But what about me?  I have a bum knee that has put running on hold for the time being.  What else did I want to do to get myself out of the house for some exercise, fun, and personal time?  Paddling!  There's a very active local group here that does Tuesday and Thursday after work paddles on the lake out here by our house.  It's great because I do the reverse commute to get there and never get stuck in traffic.  To make it even better, Uncle Jon also loves paddling and makes it out for these trips as well.  And we recently hit a very lucky week where our friend, Derek, was in town visiting.  Jon has an extra kayak and, therefore, Derek was able to come out as well.  It was magical getting back out on the water (although I already had my first trip of the season with hubs).  Here we (Derek and I) are heading out to one of the many islands in the lake.

It was amazing getting to talk with each other without having to perform any baby duties.  In fact, the baby hardly came up at all and at times I felt like I was a single lady again having adventures like I used to.  The three of us were having such a good time catching up, that when the rest of the group decided to paddle off for dinner at a local marina, we stayed back on the island and paddled back to the put in on our own.  At the end it took us about 20 minutes to get a shot of the three of us that we all could agree on.  I haven't laughed that hard in a while.  

It was a lot of fun and on this occasion we were able to make it back to the house so hubs could also catch up with Derek.  Because it's a long evening, I only want to commit to doing it once a week.  However, knowing that I'm going to get out on the river gives me something to look forward to during the day if it's starting to drag.  I'm really glad hubs and I are able to do this for each other. 

 

Getting Berry Picky

The weather here is very summer like and local produce is starting to become available.  One of the nice things about our new location, is that we're not far from rural areas.  There's a pick your own strawberry farm about 20 minutes from the house.  Sunday morning we woke up and decided to get some strawberry picking in before nap time.  

First up, drive to the farm and take obligatory picture with the sign:

Because Little Miss wakes up early, we arrived and there was one dad with his daughter there.  We thought, "Sweet!  We won't have any competition for the strawberries!" We strapped Little Miss on, grabbed some big buckets and began searching:

Except, did you hear me mention that we went on Sunday?  The berries were all picked over from the day before.  The closest Little Miss got to picking a strawberry was this:

 

After searching through maybe 5 rows, we had less than 10 berries in our bucket.  We finally acknowledged the futility and bought some that were picked already.  I've toyed with bringing her back during the week because the berries were so darn good, but I'm not sure.  It's a lot of effort to constantly squat with a baby on your back.  When we were done we rested in the shade for a bit before heading home for nap.

The Evolution of Sleep

When Little Miss was a wee one, she pretty much slept anywhere.  At night, she slept next to our bed in a co-sleeper:

(Remember when we had to sleep downstairs temporarily while the air conditioning was broken?) During the day, she slept in my arms or her swing, but mainly in her bouncy chair:

Last fall, around 6 or 7 months, we transitioned her to her crib in her own room:

That worked well for a while.  She continued to sleep in her crib through the move and was pretty successful.  Then we hit a major sleep regression and Little Miss required lots of 'visits' in the middle of the night.  Unfortunately, instead of taking 5-10 mins to put her back down, she was falling asleep on us in the chair and then waking up every time we transferred her back to her crib.  It could sometimes take up to 2 hours to get her back down.  Clearly we needed a different approach, and sleep training wasn't our answer. I asked my mama friends and one of them had this brilliant solution.  Take the mattress out of the crib.  When Butterbean wakes up, lay next to her and comfort her and then roll away once she's asleep.  We tried it and it's worked out really nicely.  Sometimes she just wants to touch our face or put her hand in our hair and then she goes back to sleep pretty quickly.  We can then get up and go back to bed.  Sometimes, she's a bit harder to get back down.  More than once, hubs and I have fallen asleep cuddled up with her on her little crib mattress and woken up with her asleep beside us.  Then we can roll away and go back to bed.  Either way, we're not sitting in a chair and then praying that she won't wake up at the transfer.  It makes everyone happier.  At night, she's pretty good about just crying for us and doesn't crawl off the mattress.  She actually wants help going back to sleep.  During the day it's a breeze to nurse her down and then lay her on the mattress.  It's actually a lot easier on my back now that I don't have to bend over the crib rail to lay her down.  Here she is snuggled up during a nap:

We've been doing this for a few months now and we're happy with it.  We've considered getting a twin mattress just so it'll be more comfortable for us, but we're still just toying with the idea.  We're at 1-2 wakeups a night, which we're pretty comfortable with (although we know molars are around the corner and there will be more).  I'm not sure when we'll actually decide to convert her crib to a toddler bed and have her sleep in there, or if we'll go straight to a big girl bed, but that will probably be our next step.  In the meantime I've realized that one can never have too many photos of a sleeping baby.

My Little Fashionista

At our old house, I became friends with the neighbor two doors down.  She had a daughter 4 years old and came over one day with some clothes that she told me she couldn't bear to give away.  She wanted Little Miss to have them so that hopefully she would be able to see them again on another little girl.  It was really sweet.  And then we moved.  The clothes were all really big at the time, so I put them in a bin and didn't think much of them.  Last week I actually went through the bin and found this shirt.  It was pretty cute and was perfect for the chillier morning we were having.  Before we went to coffee I dressed her in the shirt and snapped this picture:

But, wait- there's more!  When we go to coffee, the babies often crawl around on a very dirty, very cold cement floor.  I didn't want her bare legs touching that, so I added some leggings.  The whole look was very cute.  This is the sort of picture that we'll look at when she's much older and I'm sure she'll criticize me for putting her in all the different patterns, but I think is very endearing right now.  The smile just adds to the look:

She got lots of compliments on the outfit at coffee and I was able to just slip off the filthy leggings when we left and it had warmed up.  I must admit that I'm in love with dressing my little girl.  I only wish it were so fun to dress myself.

Draft Day

My dad wasn't into sports at all, so I didn't grow up with that influence in my house.  Hubs really isn't that into sports, either.  I adored the Titans, but when no one around me really cared, I started to spend my Sunday afternoons paddling on the river and I lost interest in the team.  Across town at my uncle's house it was the opposite story.  He had season tickets to the Bears and the Bulls and would also go to other sporting events.  He doesn't just enjoy watching the games, he studies them and can explain different plays and strategies.  And the off season isn't just for rest- he studies the potential players coming up in the drafts or in trades in anticipation of what might happen in the new season.  He brought his draft book down with him and decided to get it out with Little Miss:

Apparently she enjoyed turning the pages and going through the book with him.  According to Uncle Mike, she's really interested in tight ends.  Aren't we all, Sugar Pop, aren't we all...

Playing House

After the birthday party Grandma, Aunty Judy and Uncle Mike stayed with us to visit for a few days.  They offered to babysit at different times.  I've definitely learned to take people up on their offer when they volunteer to watch the baby.  I was out and about when I received this series of pictures via text.

Apparently, Uncle Mike was trying to model how to go though the door for Anna.  I'm sure she watched him in amusement as she does it all the time.  It was a really fun picture and I really appreciate the lengths that he went to play with her.  Maybe there was other motivation, because the above pics were followed by this one:

Any play session that ends in cuddles is a good one.