Showing the Ropes

Recently we had a friend over for a play date who is exactly 4 months younger than Little Miss.  Since it was a gorgeous day, we had to spend some time at the water table.  Here's Little Miss showing I the ropes.  Isn't the size difference amazing?

When Little Miss first started at this table, she couldn't stand on her own and needed to hold on for support.  That's the stage that I is at now.  It's really interesting to look back and see where she was only a few months ago, considering that it just feels like she's always been able to stand and walk now.

Girl Gone Wild

Recently we went to a play date at a friend's house.  It was a beautiful day so we set up the sprinklers outside and let the kids loose in the yard.  What I thought would start out as a fun run through the sprinklers:

quickly devolved into this:

My Little Sweet Pea celebrated her ability to remove her own diaper and walked around a large portion of the day without any clothes.  None of the boys seemed to mind and since we were outside I wasn't worried about any messes.  I wish that we had a yard that was more conducive to this because I do think that especially with the warm weather, she enjoys letting everything breathe.  

Making Music Together

Now that Little Miss is getting a little older, I've been looking into some classes to sign her up for.  She seems to really enjoy music at home, so I thought a music class might be a good start.  They have a free sample class you can attend and, luckily, one was on a weeknight so hubs could also come and check it out.  While I'm not sure that he was feeling the love, Little Miss was happy to sit in my lap, take it all in and participate a little.  Daddy hovered in the back and played photographer while staring down two little boys who simply wanted to jump and scream the entire session.  

The boys definitely made the class more intense, but who am I to say how one should experience music?  We decided to take the plunge and start in a few weeks.  I really hope that it winds up being worth it and she continues to warm up as she gets more comfortable with the teacher and the activities.

Happy 15 Month Birthday, Jelly Bean!

I acknowledge that this post is nearly a month overdue, but sometimes life is like that.  Can you believe that my little gorgeous girl who started out like this:

now looks like this?

The end of July marked her 15 month well visit and Little Miss is dropping in the rankings!  She weighed in at 23.0 lbs (lower than her last checkup!) which is only 77th percentile.  Her height was 31.75 in (88th percentile) and her head was 18.25 in (70th percentile).  While she's still above average, I haven't seen all three numbers out of the 90s before.  That being said, she had a huge meltdown at the Dr's office and it was very difficult to take those measurements.  I think that they might be skewed.  Rather than keep up with a monthly rundown, I've decided to share 15 interesting facts about Little Miss in honor of her 15 months.

15.  Her way of saying 'more' is taking a closed fist and hitting it into her opposite palm.  You can gauge her hunger by how emphatically she hits her fist.

14.  She's obsessed with the dishwasher- the silverwear specifically.  She races from wherever she is when she hears the dishwasher open and immediately unloads the silverware, irregardless if whether it's clean or dirty.  I have her help me unload the silver wear when I put the dishes away and she loves it.

13.  She's already received her first kiss.

12.  Her favorite colors are blue and orange- at least that's what she always chooses when selecting paint.

11.  Her hair is finally long enough for hair bows.  Even though they're not necessary, I still put them in her hair.  She sometimes likes them.

10.  I finally found one thing Little Miss gets from me- she loves to dance.  If she sees me dancing she demands to be picked up and won't let me put her down until I'm finished.  She's just starting to dance on her own, but it mostly involves small knee bends.

9.  I call hubs 'Sparky' and her 'Magoo.'  These nicknames have no basis except they tickled my fancy one day and have stuck.

8.  She is getting her molars in.  While this caused pain and many sleepless nights for her friends, she doesn't seem to be affected by it.

7.  Every time I nurse her or wear her, she always has at least one hand playing with my hair.

6.  She refuses to go down the stairs in a normal baby way.  She insists I hold her hand and she walks down like an adult.

5.  She loves shoes.  She gets really excited when she sees that we've brought them out and rushes to the couch so we can put them on.  She also loves moving ours around the house.  Knowing this, it perplexes us that she looses her 'stuff' at the shoe store.

4.  We have a box with some toys for her to play with in the car.  When we open the car door to get her out, she holds up the box for us to take.

3.  She's our little fruit bat.  She starts each meal with the fruit and demands ours if we haven't eaten it quickly enough.

2.  The family member who receives the most love and affection is Huck.  She says 'va' when she gives him kisses and he gets lots of pets throughout the day.

1.  When she wants you to lift her up she goes up and down on her tippy toes.

I Canoe, Can You?

The summer finally turned warm and that meant only one thing- time to get in the water.  We've been to our pool, but it was time to introduce Little Miss to the rivers.  For her first trip out we didn't want to do her namesake river, as that has too many technicals.  The Harpeth River is a great one for beginners as it's shallow and never has any rapids.  We were lucky enough to have Uncle Jon join us for our adventure.  He was able to get a family shot at the put in:

He also got one of us getting in:

What we realized early on was that it was going to take hubs to paddle and me to watch the baby.  Because this is an easy river, it wasn't really a problem.  Although I packed a lot of water toys for her to play with, she was happy to just stand in the front and watch the scenery go by.  

We were lucky that it rained earlier in the week and the water was high enough for us to get out and introduce Little Miss to some swim spots.  She wasn't in love with the way her life jacket made her tip back, but we made the most of it.

We did the kids' trip, so it was a reasonably short paddle, but with all the swim spots, and the provision of some snacks it was just the right length for us.  Here we are at the end of a successful day on the river.

I'm not sure if we'll make it out again this season or not, but it definitely gave us the courage to try it again.

Stick a Bow on it

Poor Little Miss was born bald and her situation didn't improve very quickly at all.  She made it through the summer without hair and in the winter did kind of a reverse balding thing where her hair was thickening up on top, but still sparse around the sides.  Here's a good example from January:

However, just as Little Miss has been growing, so has her hair.  A few weeks ago I was just playing around, but was thrilled to be able to do this:

I can fit a bow in my girl's hair!!  It was very exciting for me.  She liked it and actually left them in for a day or two.  Now she just finds them annoying and takes them out as soon as I put them in.  Her hair isn't in her eyes yet, so they're not a necessity, but the time is getting close.  Finally.  Perhaps she'll finally get a sprout for her second birthday.

Our Morning Walks

This summer we've been truly blessed with amazingly mild weather.  The mornings are usually cool, the humidity is low, and there's often a little breeze.  I've been taking advantage of this by taking Little Miss and Huckleberry for walks.  Usually we go on our local greenway.  Little Miss is happy to ride in the stroller and I take Huck along.  This is my typical view:

It's hard to tell with the mosquito netting and the glare, but she has a cup of milk in one hand and a little stuffed toy in the other.  She just hangs out kicking at the netting and watching the scenery go by.  Sometimes she takes a little snooze, but that's becoming increasingly rare now that she's starting to give up morning naps.  These walks are also great exercise for Puppy.  The turnaround point is a little more than a mile from the house and I always try to make the way back shorter than the way out.  This is difficult because it's mostly uphill on the way home.  This wears Huck out and on this day he needed a little break:

Whatever I'm doing must be working because when Hubs joined us on a walk tonight he said that he was having a hard time keeping up.  This gives me confidence that it is possible to get in shape while walking with a baby and dog in tow.  

My Little Pirate

We've already established that Little Miss loves to walk around the house with things around her neck.  Daddy's belt is one of her favorites.  One morning I asked her if she would like to wear the belt and she stood still while I put it on.  This was going to be a post about accessories.  However, as I was snapping the picture I asked her to smile AND SHE DID!  This is the first picture where I captured an intentional smile.  I love how her face lights up and she looks so happy.  When I looked at the completed photo, I couldn't help but think that between the outfit she was wearing and the way the belt hits her, she looks like a little pirate.  Argh!

My Alarm Clock

This is how I wake up every morning:  Generally, I'm roused from my sleep because either the sound machine suddenly gets louder or I hear her door banging into the wall of her bedroom.  Then she takes a moment and runs to the bed, looks at me and gives a little giggle before I lift her into bed for cuddles as we start our day.  Isn't that just the best?  I'm so in love with my life and my little Tater Tot.  

My Little Felon

Let the record state that this is the first item that Little Miss ever shoplifted.  We were out shopping at a large chain store for some supplies for a project with a friend.  I was wearing Little Miss on my back and she was doing quite well back there, but I just wanted to be sure she stayed entertained and didn't start fussing.  We were in the button aisle and I just handed this back to her thinking that she would shake it like a shaker.  She took it and seemed to enjoy playing with it.  We continued around the store and I didn't think much about it until it was time to check out.  I reached back to get the buttons and they weren't in her hands.  I couldn't feel anything between my back and her tummy and so I assumed that she must have dropped them somewhere along the way and I was too distracted to notice.  Imagine my surprise when I was taking her off my back in the parking lot and the buttons dropped to the ground.  Big oops.  Now, some of you might be wondering why I didn't just take them back into the store- and that would be a great question.  I was in a hurry to move onto the next place with my friend and just didn't.  That's all I can say to defend myself.  So not only is Little Miss a thief, but her mama is an enabler.  There.  I said it.  

Our Wee Rider

We bought this Wee Rider at our local discount store a while ago.  Hubs has been anxiously waiting to ditch the trailer and move onto this.  He deemed Little Miss ready and installed it on his bike last month.  I must admit that Little Miss never seemed pleased with her new ride.  She would cuddle into the trailer and it never took long before she was napping.  In this thing, she had a nervous look on her face the entire time and never looked comfortable.  She eventually did get tired and leaned forward to fall asleep.  It didn't look very comfortable and we cut the ride short to make sure she would be ok.  Honestly, I hate the thing and I'm terrified every time we go out with it, but hubs really likes it and doesn't want to go back to the trailer.  Since I'm not willing and/or able to take the trailer on my bike, I have to bite my tongue.  But neither she nor I have to like it.  

Painting Parties

I started feeling mommy guilt (1st world problems) because I wasn't doing enough enrichment with Little Miss.  I started doing sensory things, I instituted dance parties, and I put on my big girl panties and started painting with her.  I'd been putting off painting because I was worried about the mess, but I decided to just go for it anyway.  I made some watercolor paint at home and then bought finger paint.  We started with the finger paint.  I let her pick out her own colors, but she wasn't really sure what to do.  I modeled by making dots all over the paper.  It took a long time, but she finally picked up the brush and started going.

She must've decided that was fun, because then she added another color.

She declared herself finished shortly thereafter.  That particular painting, being her first, has the spot of privilege on our refrigerator door.  We're such dorks.  Anyway, she really enjoys painting.  Here she was back at it a few days later:

We've talked about buying some larger t-shirts from Goodwill to use as smocks, but that's as far as we've gotten with that.  Luckily, she gets a little messy, but it's nothing that a washcloth or a bath can't fix.  There haven't been any huge paint splatters anywhere.  It gives us a fun opportunity to make our own cards.  If you receive a card or letter made by Little Miss, then we thank you for giving her art an authentic purpose.

 

A Ribbon Cascade

I'm sure I found the idea on Pinterest, or somewhere equally as resourceful, but I finally got around to cutting some ribbon to hang over the edge of the island.  The counter top extends out quite far and I thought it would create a fun little nook for Little Miss to explore.  On the first day all she wanted to do was look at it.  

I showed her some different things she could do with the ribbon, but she didn't appear at all interested.  It wasn't until the next day that she got the hang of things.

Now that it's been up for a little while, she will walk by and play with the ribbons, but she still doesn't really go under there to hang out.  There are so many other fun spaces for her that I can't say that I blame her.  Just when I think that I'm going to take it down, she plays with it some more, so I suppose it'll stay up until it comes down of its own accord.  

Happy Independence Day!

The 4th of July is a big deal in our neighborhood.  All the neighbors we've been meeting have told us what a great time it is so we were really looking forward to it.  As an added treat, hubs' cousin and his family joined us.  I have to admit I was worried that her cousin would think that he was too cool for her, but I couldn't have been more wrong.  Those two hit it off like peanut butter and jelly.  She enjoyed showing him her toys:

After playing in the house for a while, we set up a table and chairs on our main square and had a neighborhood potluck.  

I love how you can see our house in the background.  It was really fun, but with everyone there with their guests, it was a little crazy.  After dinner while waiting for the fireworks to begin, there was a parade around the square.  Her cousin graciously offered to pull her around in the wagon we decorated for her.

It was too sweet.  (You can also see the water activities they had set out for the kids to enjoy.  This neighborhood is just like Mayberry, I swear.)  I also have to include a photo of some of the other kids riding around on their bikes.  

Aren't they too stinkin' cute?  After the parade was over, we dismantled the table and watched the city fireworks right from the lawn you see in the background above.  Last year it was really rainy on the 4th and Little Miss was barely 2 months old, so we didn't really do much about fireworks- just watched them on tv while she slept.  We were surprised that they lasted for 30 minutes....the suburbs put on quite a show!  Little Miss seemed to enjoy them and her cousin offered to hold the shivering Huckleberry, who hates fireworks.  I can't tell you how nice it was afterwards to simply fold up our chairs and walk across the street to our house.  That might be the single-handed best thing about our neighborhood.  We hope you also had a great 4th.  

Dining Al Fresco

I don't know about you, but our 4th of July was gorgeous.  Hubs never likes to eat outside because he says bugs spoil it, so I was shocked when hubs agreed to eating lunch outside.  We brought out the high chair and enjoyed a nice lunch together while we were waiting for some special guests.  

It was well worth coming outside, we just had to be careful of the impending sunshine.  We didn't have on sunscreen and didn't want anyone getting burned.  We had to move the table and switch some chairs around, but we all managed to stay shaded and enjoy our lunch.  That is, except Huckleberry, who took the opportunity to lay out and catch some rays.  I love simple family adventures.  This is how you make memories.  

 

Standing Room Only

Now that Little Miss has her learning tower, we're putting it to good use.  One day it was time for snack, but I was trying to get some food prepared for later in the day.  Rather than take her food to the dining room and wait with her while she sat in her chair and ate, I simply laid it out for her on the counter opposite me and let her stand and go to town.  She loved it because she could see what I was up to and I loved it because I could supervise and still get stuff done.  Win win.

I know what some of you may be thinking and the answer is yes.  She does eat that much for snack- especially where fruit is involved.  I don't call her my little fruit bat for nothing.