Happy Belated Valentine’s Day

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Valentine’s Day Fail: M came home with Valentines from most of the other kids, and we sent none.  I figured she was too young and upon asking the daycare it sounds like most of the kids who do the Valentines have older siblings, so I’m not a complete failure.  I thought I wouldn’t care about that kind of stuff (I was even saying I didn’t care about 10 minutes before I picked her up), but it was super cute looking through all the little Valentine’s from her friends.  My heart hurt a little, anticipating the day she’ll come home and say she didn’t get one from “so and so.”  But I can’t be worrying about that kind of stuff already.
Here she is looking through her Valentines.

For dinner, R made us a heart shaped pizza :)

I’m a lucky girl!

 

 

Cauliflower Potato Curry Stew and Reading

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Tried three new recipes in the last week from the online Whole Food Kitchen seminar.  This one was from one of the contributors and I wouldn’t recommend it for a Sunday night at 7pm – lots of chopping and prepping (10 potatoes, a whole head of cauliflower!).  R absolutely loved it. I liked it a lot, but was so exhausted from the weekend and all the prep that I think I didn’t really savor it.  Looking forward to trying it again as leftovers.  I have a feeling this is one of those things that gets better with age.

Snapped this picture of M on our (lack of) snow day on Saturday.  Her love for books and the time she can spend looking through them gently makes me a proud mama.  Don’t be fooled though – her favorite book, Pete the Cat – I Love My White Shoes, has plenty of pieces of tape holding it together.

 

Climbing and “NO”

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It’s evident to me that Miss M is now a toddler. While she stills says “yeah” to a lot of questions, she’s starting to say “no” a lot more when she doesn’t want to do something.  She says no a lot to Izzie, when Izzie is licking her, trying to take back one of her toys that M has picked up, or when she’s pushing M out of the way to get to something.  M is starting to really assert herself.  And climb.  She’s starting to climb.  She’s gotten up on the couch a few times, but isn’t too interested in that.  She can get herself down just fine.  The other day I caught her standing on top of her hamper.

 

 

 

 

Imitating

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In Gainesville, we spent an afternoon hanging out in my aunt and uncle’s backyard on a beautiful Florida day.  All of a sudden M was trying to put her hands down her pants on the outsides of each of her legs.  She was really insistent about doing this and it took us a few minutes, but we figured out that she was trying to put her hands in her pockets like Grandpa Ron.  Problem was, she didn’t have any pockets.

 

Elmo Sings His Last Song

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For Christmas M got several Elmo dolls, and the singing Elmo was her favorite!  You squeeze his belly and he says, “Elmo wants to sing a song.”  You squeeze again and he says, “AHEM.” and then “La” each time you squeeze him, louder or softer depending on how hard you squeeze.  M had mastered this, and would even put him on the ground and step on his tummy to make him sing.  I guess she did this too many times, because while we were in Jacksonville, Elmo sang his last song.  My friend even tried replacing the batteries, but it seems to be permanently broken.  Bummer.  I think I’ll call the number on the tag, since he’s only about a month old.  Interesting thing I observed was my reaction when she brought me the broken Elmo.  I had this brief terror about having to one day tell her that someone or something she loves isn’t going to be around anymore, and it really broke my heart.  I shook it off quickly because she was yelling, “Elmo, Elmo, Elmo,” but I felt such heartbreak at the thought of having to tell my little girl anything negative.  This parenting thing is only going to get harder, I think.  Luckily, she wasn’t too upset.  I just told her Elmo lost his voice.  On the plane ride home she was “feeding” Elmo some cookies, and cracking herself up.  It was so fun to watch her pretending.

Girls’ Weekend Away

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About two and a half weeks ago or so I finally scratched my persistent travel itch.  Please forget that we went to Florida for over a week for Christmas, that’s irrelevant at this time.  There were two bigs things pulling me to North Florida this past weekend. My cousin and his wife just had a new baby, Cameron and my college roommate, Sharon and her husband are expecting a baby in April.  Originally I had planned to be in Gainesville at the same time as my cousin from Boston, but because of work, that didn’t work out.  The flight there was pretty uneventful.  M was awake for the whole first flight but was a good girl and enjoyed the extra seat next to me.  She fell asleep just as we were landing and slept through the quick layover and second flight.  She even slept through the car ride to my aunt and uncle’s and went right to bed when we arrived. It was so wonderful to meet Cameron. His mom is a champ, birthing his 10lb 8 oz self with no drugs!  He slept through most of our visit, waking up only to pee on himself and me while I changed his diaper (I have no experience with boys) and to poop on my shirt on another occasion.  Boys!  His parents looked remarkably well, although it sounds like they aren’t getting much sleep.  Chatting about all the new baby stuff had me doing a lot of reminiscing about those first days with Miss M.  After two quick nights in Gainesville, we were off to Jacksonville to see Sharon and Sarmad.  My dad had driven up from South Florida to hang out with us a bit in Gainesville and was nice enough to drive us over to Jacksonville.  We laid low at Sharon and Sarmad’s, checking out the new nursery, napping (3 whole hours at a time one day!), playing at the park and in their backyard.  It was so great catching up and talking to some awesome and excited parents-to-be.  The plane trip home wasn’t awesome, but also wasn’t really worth complaining about.  She was awake for both flights and was really cranky and fidgety during the second, longer flight.  We were lucky to be able to move our seats and have the center seat open.  All in all it was an awesome trip with awesome company.  I loved spending some quality time traveling with my girl and visiting great friends and family.  Thank you to everyone who hosted us and to those who sat near us on the plane rides!