Scrabble Letter B

Originally uploaded by Leo Reynolds

Audrey’s developed a new obsession, one that I can finally get behind. Bears are fine, the ball thing, that was okay, and I could do without her love for the change box. But now–she loves letters, particularly those that appear on the stickers that identified her crib pieces for assembly. The drop down rail–it was piece B and I never got around to removing the sticker.
She’s never tried to climb out of her crib but she’s tried to get in at least a dozen times in the last couple of days. All she wants to do is point to the letter and say “BEEEE!” I’m proud she knows all of 2 letters (A was the first she could pick out) but I don’t want her figuring out how to actually get in the crib and translate the knowledge to getting out.
In comes Scrabble. We have a couple of copies of the board game and I brought one to the last day of SAT class I taught last week. Later, I needed to get a little work done and so gave her the bag of letter tiles.
They are her new best friend.

Oh, IKEA, I love you. You make this possible:

This too (notice the white shorts):

This is how they got that way:

And my favorite contribution:

So serious!  I don’t know what your future holds, little girl, but I can’t wait to watch you work at it.

Here’s a classic Calee story for you:

The day I turned two, I wandered in to my parent’s room and asked, “Birthday?” Not ones to lie, even at 4 or 5 in the morning, my parents affirmed that it was, in fact, my birthday. I then uttered the now family-famous phrase, “Birthday? Presents? In the closet?”

Audrey is obsessed with birthdays. We thank PBS Sprout for providing us with a few minutes each morning to get the coffee going and stumble around the kitchen, but it has also taught her the glory of the birthday. Chicka the bird and her miscelaneous co-host sing:

Happy, happy birthday, to you, to you! Happy, happy birthday, to you, to you! It’s good to grow, so light the candles and blow. Happy, happy birthday, to you, to you, to you!

At any given time during the day, Audrey will ask if it’s “birfday?” time. I’m not sure if she wants to watch the show or if she’s looking for cake or Elmo cards, but I know she’s not asking for presents. That’s right, she hasn’t figured out that birthdays and presents (in the closet or otherwise) are a team. Good thing too, ’cause here are her presents:

For the first time in my life, I have birthday and Christmas presents in advance. I hit a super sale at Target and bought over a hundred and twenty dollars worth of toys for Audrey and Toys for Tots for less than $30. There are three bags, just sitting in our closet, and Audrey has no clue!

The sale was almost, dare I say it, profane. One afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was buying random laundry detergent and whatever with Audrey when the woman behind us in the checkout line started piling the conveyor belt with toys. Audrey had to point out the BEAR! BEAR! BEAR! and the lady offered that they were on super sale, most things were 75% off. There was no way I was going back through the Target maze again with the toddler in tow, but after Audrey went to bed, Jake stayed home and I hit the shelves.

Hooray for a DOLL! and a BEAR! and all sorts of fun things. Don’t worry, I passed up the Hannah Montana Barbies. I haven’t sunk that low. Yet.

This post was sponsored by the Parent Bloggers Network, introducing Couponers.com. And, if you’re a blogger, you can join the PBN blog blast too. Thanks PBN, last week, I won $250!

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about what a fab eater Audrey is.  Pride and falls.  That’s me.

Tonight, we went to BJ’s Pizza to celebrate my sister’s latest blood test results.  Kidney disease is losing this fight, buddy! Sis still has a long way to go but it’s great to see her cholesterol at 190–not 750.

All of the elements for a fun dinner out were in place- plenty of hands to help entertain, a loud enough restaurant that she could make a little noise, crayons, and an obscenely early meal time.  We left the house by 4:30 and she ate only bread until we arrived home at 6:30.

She would not eat:
pizza
sausage
potato
salmon
tomato
feta
chicken

We made it back to the house, grumpy hungry toddler in tow.  Did she want to eat? NO!  Eventually, I was able to bribe her with black olives to eat maybe an ounce of sliced turkey.  I remembered the way she demolished a cup of cut green beans in her cart at Target yesterday so I microwaved a bowl and she ate a dozen.  I think she also ate maybe three pieces of watermelon.

What happened to my eat anything girl???  She spent her time at the restaurant climbing in and out of her booster seat, playing with the ice water, and stacking pennies from my purse.  I guess her behavior could have been worse, but if I’ve learned anything, it is always feed the child before going out.  She can always eat more out.

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Burger King Corp.

Motherhood uncensored has a brilliant little idea to encourage blog readers to click through their RSS feeds and give the blogs they love a little extra traffic. Since I’ve managed to totally mangle my rss button, I don’t think I have too many subscribers. But if you read other blogs, check out her whole post and send a little love to the writers you read each day.

There are LOTS of things swirling in my head right now that I’d like to put into a blog post. So many.

I want to write about

• How our list of prayers for the dead should really stop growing
• All of the preschools I’ve been visiting and how there should be one with this
• This Speaking of Faith interview with Barbara Kingsolver that I just re-listened to
  (and how it makes me want to grow more vegetables)
• My sinking suspicion that out life needs to slow down more–and I don’t think we’re that busy
• The latest book I’m afraid to read: Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life

But- I’m trying desperately to launch a new project out the door and know that I have to keep up here or I’ll lose all of you who never leave comments (bad you!) So, here’s a list of words another busy brain has been spouting:

Knows for sure:

Meow
Bath (this was her 1st one)
Mama
Dada
Nana
Papa
Auntie
Ball
Bear
Dog
Cat
Bubbles
Pool
Zebra
Bow (and she does!)
Mail
Peas
Please (sounds more like “eeeese”)
Elmo (Welmo)
did I mention Meow?
Hot
Brrrr (that would be cold)
NO!
No, mama.
Know? (with a raised shoulders and arms)
All Done
Blue (all colors are blue)
Noodle
Basa (that’d be kielbasa)
What’s That (was tat?)
More
Beach (sounds like bitch…)
Melon
Birthday Cake (birday cay)

There are some more words I’ve heard her mimic, but not say without prompting. Of course, I can’t remember most of them.

But my favorite thing I’ve heard come out of her mouth:

Renoir

I’m not joking. We look at impressionist paintings in a little book (in French!)

She’s a genius. Or at least a really cool sponge.

We’re still finding bits of sand in nooks around our house, but we’re back from six glorious days in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  My parents took us to the land of timeshares, swim up bars, and wide open beaches and I don’t think any of us wanted to come back.  Certainly not Jake.  He’s plotting his return.

I read some great books, did a little writing and took lots of photos.  This post is for the photos…

I have some very important work to do here:

Dad is cool:

They make the same look:

Already knows to pose for the camera:

Whoa!

Why do we have to go home again?

I love flickr and digital photography and the fact that if you hate looking at vacation photos you totally could skip this post and not miss a thing.

Ah, Cabo.

The last time I posted about Audrey teething, we had a week from hell and got nothing but big white spots under all of her gums.  This round, I’m really hoping for some teeth.

To complicate toddler teething matters,  I think she has some allergy that’s making her eyes puffy, she spiked a 102.7 degree fever this evening and she will eat only blueberries or things masked in bites of blueberries.  She’s winning the discomfort lottery right now, I tell ya.

Right now, she’s moaning every 20 minutes or so but not quite crying enough to wake herself up.  We’re open to any tips and tricks at this point–we leave for Cabo a week from today.  I want these stupid teeth to make an appearance but I REALLY want her not to be working on a case of bronchitis.  Sigh.

Lots of fun things happened at the end of the week, I may even blog about them.  It will have to wait for tomorrow when I’m pretty sure I won’t be at church due to my potentially contagious, highly irritable baby girl.

Now that the car-induced week from hell is over, we’ve been buzy making up lost fun.  I was inspired by SAJ to make Audrey a daisy chain crown.  We didn’t have any daisies so I used yummy smelling sweet peas from our garden.

This lasted for a few seconds.   She was much too busy enjoying a special treat– JUICE!

Those Trader Joe’s juice boxes must be super powered because Audrey quickly decided that the ground was not the place to sip apple juice and squish mommy’s favorite flowers.  She needed a new perspective. It was time to climb.

So, that was the beginning of a whole new world for us.   Audrey can officially hoist herself up onto everything.  No table, chair or light switch is safe.

The light switch game now provides hours of entertainment around this place.   I’d much rather have her be entertaining herself with full access to my tables, counter tops and upholstery than the days when she needed my constant attention all. the. time.

Things are good around this place.  I’ve been busy with freelance writing work and Audrey’s busy growing up.  We’re both happy

Today marks day 7 of the teething chronicles at our house. Audrey is working on all of her molars at once and her gums are bright red with little white tooth polka dots brewing beneath the surface. Oh how I hate teeth! She can chew just fine, who needs molars?

This latest round of teething knocks out all of the other unpleasant tooth emergent weeks, including the first one we spent at the Lodge in Colorado and thought we were dying from dehydration. My poor bunny! She is so miserable and the only good thing I can think of is that she’s learned where her teeth are. Ask Audrey, “Let me see your teeth.” and she’ll shove her finger so deep in her mouth you have to back up in fear that she’s going to gag up her last round of green onion (numbs the gums) and banana (stops the drool.)

Last night was the culmination of a week without large chunks of sleep. She started to cry during the last few minutes of our recording the latest Man in Black podcast. This was 9 pm. While our friends were circling to leave, I went upstairs and got her back to sleep. That lasted 15 minutes. I warmed up a bottle (a special treat since she’s a sippy cup girl now) and Jake took a turn. Twenty or so minutes later, he had her quiet for a minute and a half and then we decided to let her cry for a while.

Blissful quiet. For 20 minutes. This was long enough for Jake to fall asleep and me to recharge. She would cry for 5 minutes then be quiet for 5… I eventually went in and found her and the sheet soaking wet. That bottle had leaked and she was whimpering. I win the bad mom moment award.

Fresh jammies, nice blankey covering the sheets and I nurse her back to sleep. More crying when she hits the mattress. I go back to bed and think she just needs 5 minutes. I give her 15. At this point, it’s 11:30 and I’ve given up on sleeping in my bed. I’ve taken plenty of red-eye flights and the rocker is more comfortable. The only problem is, I’m willing to sleep in the chair but she’s not. Audrey wants to play on the floor and point “oooh, ooh, ooh” at the light stripes the street lamp is casting on the floor through the blinds.

I take my pillow and blanket and lay on the floor and she plays around me. Who knew she had so many toys that made noise? Eventually, she points at the bottle that now only has 1 ounce of milk and I give the rocker another go. She finishes her bottle and lets me rock her to sleep for the first time in her 14 months of life. I wait until she’s snoring, place a folded blanket in the corner of the crib and angle her head on the raised blanket and her body next to the bumper. Quiet.

I go back to bed and watch the clock hit 12:01. I fall asleep praying the Jesus prayer:

“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me a sinner.”

But by mercy, I mainly mean sleep.