One Smart Cookie

Okay, please don't criticize our parenting because of this blog post.  Things happen to toddlers are part of growing up. That being said, I introduce you to Abby's newest "mark" of achievement: The Black Eye:

On Wednesday evening the three of us were playing a fun game of Hide-and-Seek between getting home and dinner time, and in typical fashion, it was an accidental game of H&S.  I came into the kitchen to stop some whining by Abby, then ran up the hall to get away from the situation.  You know, fix things, make people laugh, run away.

Abby and Anny, though, took that to mean that it was time to chase Daddy, who was really just trying to find a little moment to use the potty.  I did the hallway loop, then through the dining room into the bathroom.  Anny and Abby followed, but stopped at the crossroads of our house - the top of the stairs.  Anny went up the hall, I didn't move.  Abby must have spun in place, because the next thing I hear is Anny gasping at the idea that our Abby was falling down the stairs!!

Here cheek got black immediately, so we tried to put ice on it, and forced it on for a couple of minutes.  Then we resorted to our normal calm-down activity - Sesame Street.  She sat quietly and would let us look at it, but not touch it.  Not surprising.  We were concerned about two things - that she damaged her eye or that she broke her orbital bone.  Anny felt around the bone and could not find any concern, but the eye seemed harder.  She was answering the "how many fingers" and "what is this sign" but we could not be sure if she was using her hurt side or the other one.  Finally I just asked "hey Abby, does your eye hurt?"  She's smart enough that she looked at me and said "no, Daddy.  My cheek hurts."  There, our concern was lessened - she could identify it for us.  Phew.

On Thursday morning when getting her dressed, Abby looked at me very seriously and said "Daddy, next time I go down the stairs, I want to go on my feet!"  I looked at Anny and whispered "I guess she is implying 'and not on my face!' when she says that!"

On Friday Abby had a previously scheduled pediatrician appointment and he gladly looked around both the outside and inside of her eye.  He assured us that she is fine, but reminded us that we are very lucky that no more damage was done.  Lucky indeed.

We got lots of questions, and honestly I fear Child Protective Services.  Our kid has a black eye and our excuse is she fell down the stairs?  That's likely, right?  Lucky for us, she's very vocal and can tell everyone herself if they ask!

*You can find the concept for the photo HERE.  Abby would not look sad for me, but instead looked like she would mock someone into actually fighting her!

"Daddy's Work"

Abby has been to my office - heck she has been to my office more times than most people who don't work here have since she visited once a week in July and August.  She saw my office when I could not get to files from our recent move, and she came back and "helped" me with files when I could.  Abby knows where I work, though she is only two and can have no concept of what I do.

A few weeks back we think that Abby might have gotten the wrong idea about where I go when I leave the house every day.  You see, the three of us typically go fun places on weekends, but we also go to a lot of places over and over again.  We find a place we like and it becomes habit.  We did our best to get every dollar out of our pool membership, so Abby expected swimming a couple of times each week.

One Saturday Anny was not feeling very well and so I decided to grab Abby and get out of the house because it was an incredible afternoon, and the College Park AirFair 100 was going on - celebrating 100 years of aviation in College Park at the airport right around the corner!  Anny dropped us off so that I didn't have to deal with parking.  I took Abby, some cash, a bottle of water and a diaper in my pocket, and off we went!

There were all sorts of things to see - old planes and new ones, gilders and helicopters, an old car and lots and lots of people.  We walked around and saw some of the planes first, but it was blazing hot and there was no shade, so we made a dash for a covered tent.  They have just reconstructed a new Wright Flyer that will travel from city to city, so it was kind of neat to see that.

Because we got there after Abby's nap, we missed all of the really fancy stuff - the sky walkers and the maneuver displays and such.  I was a little bummed about missing the parachute jumpers, but I am not sure that Abby would have really understood how cool it was anyway, so I got over it.  I knew that Abby would get excited to see helicopters up close, and boy was I right!  We even got to go inside a Chinook that was parked for the day, which she then tried to imitate!





We also got to see a few of the choppers take off, which was jaw dropping for her - we stood right under the Montgomery County Police helicopter as it flew away.

We also got to listen to live music and I introduced Abby to her very first ice cream cone!


The bottom line is that I took Abby somewhere by myself (and have done that a lot since then) and we had an incredible time - but Anny and I agree that we believe it has changed Abby's concept of what Daddy does every day.  It seems that she genuinely believes that I got to the airfield every day and watch helicopters and eat ice cream!

Swim Class Graduate!

Abby has successfully completed the "Bubblers 1" swimming class at the same swimming pool that I took all of my swimming classes many years ago!  She was more comfortable on the first night than on the last, but all of the children were breaking down at that point!

She got check marks on all of the boxes, meaning that they think she can do all of the required things to... well to continue to cling on to mom, dad or any human available.  She is much better at being dunked and holding her breath, as well as kicking and moving her arms in a manner that could be considered swimming.  Getting all three of those things to happen at the same time will be coming in the future, but probably not this summer!

New Words Learned from the experience: Lessons, Suit Bathing (bathing suit) and Swimsuit

Dear Abby - You're Two

(Idea stolen from dozens of people, sorry.)

Dear Abby,

Today you turn two years old!  You've grown so much since we first brought you home on June 12, 2007.  Your mom and I wanted for a long, long time to have you in our lives, and we could not feel more blessed than we do when we are with you.

You are the light of my life, and of moms, too.  Everything we do now goes through a filter of "how will this work for Abby" without even thinking it on purpose.  I sometimes think that you are the reason your mom likes me so much, but don't tell her I said that.

In the past year you have learned so much that it blows my mind.  On your first birthday you could not walk, and today you are running, literally in circles, wherever you please.  You could only say a few words, and sign a few others.  Now you are very good with both, and even when you babble it is wonderment to me.

Last night you even sang us a song, which I assume is titled "La La" and I am sure that I could never reproduce it, but you were sure it was a song and told us so.

Your bigger family loves you, as well.  All of the locals will be here for your party, and we will see everyone else over the summer.  You diligently learned everyone's names from their pictures, and do really well at matching pictures with real faces.  That still amazes me, since I struggle sometimes with that.

You love your friends, teachers and babies (your three categories, not mine) at school.  You recite their names as if to remind us who they are, even when we are at home.  Always when we are at home, come to think of it.  I hope you never lose track of your friends, and they of you.

You are tentative in a new place, but only for a few moments.  Once you have judged something (or someone) safe, you're off and we have to pull you away.  I'm grateful for your happiness around strangers and friends alike.

We are lucky that you are willing to try new foods, and always just a little disappointed when you call too quickly for "chicken" if you don't like a new food.  I am persistent, though, and will get you to like asparagus soon enough!

I am looking forward to the next year of your life as much as I have the last year, and the one before that.  I am ready to be amazed by what you come up with, what you do, and how you grow.

Abby, we love you more every day.  I hope you always know that.
-Dad

Pretend Play

As you can guess since Abby will be two in less than two weeks she is a handful. I swear it's a good handful 98% of the time and we're elated to be having the handfuls that we have compared to other parents out there.

One of the times that Abby is most stubborn is at lunch or dinner time.  (For the record, she's an angel in the morning at breakfast...)  We often find ourselves reminding her that it's time to eat, not time to throw things on the floor or watch Elmo or Signing Time on the computer.  Meal time is for meals.

On Monday while Anny and I were in the kitchen cleaning up and getting things ready for dinner prep we could hear Abby quietly playing in the living room.  She was playing with her castle toy, complete with people and a huge dining table.

The one-sided, aimed-at-toys conversation we overheard was:

"Sit down."
"Dinner, sit down."
"Sit, Eat."
"SIT."
"SitSitSitSit!"

I'm not quite sure where she has heard that before...

All of her meal time troubles go away if you give her a cookie:

Summertime in Spring

This weekend was pretty much a whirlwind of fun and activity for us!  With temperatures in the upper 80's and low 90's it could have been miserable, but it was great!

Saturday -
We started the day at Maryland Day, which is annual open house that the University of Maryland puts on.  It was hot and crowded, but a heck of a lot of fun!  Abby had a blast playing with the bubbles when we first got there.  There were plastic ducks in the main fountain on campus, and all three girls had fun retrieving them and throwing them back into the water.

(No pictures from Maryland Day - I left my camera and phone at the house on accident.  It was really weird for me to not be connected!)

After grabbing lunch and a nap, we went up to celebrate Luke's second birthday!  Lots of family and tons of presents, but mostly it was fun to watch the children together.  Evan and Luke are constantly in motion, which is awesome to watch.  I think that Abby did not believe Luke was up to the challenge of opening his gifts on his own, so she helped a little:



We left their house way too late, but Abby did not notice too much.

Sunday:
We realized on Saturday night that our regular church service on Sunday was not going to be "normal" but rather was the Easter Choral Cantata.  I love music, don't get me wrong, but I don't love Latin.  We decided to head up to the National Aquarium in Baltimore for the morning.  Last summer we got a membership for the family as a good, indoor play place for Anny and Abby for hot summer days.  Abby has never really been a huge fan, so we wanted to go this spring to help decide if we wanted to renew our membership.  The answer is "no" but we had a fun time.

We have not been to the dolphin show with Abby, mostly because we paid for the membership and I'm too cheap to tack on extra money while I'm there!  This time they gave us tickets to the show for free, so we were not going to pass that up.  Anny went in and found seats while Abby and I walked up and down stairs a few times and looked at the dolphin tank from below.  Very cool.  When we got in and sat down it took Abby a minute to figure out what was about to happen, but when she figured it out it was hard to wipe the grin off of her face!



We had lunch at the Inner Harbor - nice big salads really hit the spot for Anny and I.  Abby went to sleep in the car, but not quite enough.  I hate when that happens.

After having folks over to watch the Capitals game, we went out and played in the yard and the street for a while.  Yes, I am a bad parent and let my daughter walk in the street without holding my hand, but she seems to be pretty clear about when that is and is not allowed.  We walk down the street with her in her wagon, or on her new bike, and sometimes we let her push her baby stroller:



Overall we had an incredible weekend and can only hope the whole summer is this fun!

Play Kitchen Build

It's finally here - the blog post about Abby's new play kitchen!

I was inspired by a blog post I found HERE that did something similar, but I kept parts of their idea and added some of my own.  As an added bonus, my brothers' scroll saw is in storage, so I got to buy myself a new one!

I started with the Ikea RAST end table.  At $15 it was probably cheaper than if I went out and got nicely finished wood and cut it myself, plus it was a great, square starting point.  (Cost so far: $15)

Then I cut a hole out to put in a metal bowl from our kitchen.  We have too many bowls as it is, so giving this one to the project made sense to us.  I added a piece across the middle to support any weight Abby might apply, as well as to divide the box in half - one is the "oven" and the other side is currently non-purposed.  This is also the point that I had to buy a new scroll saw, which was both fun and awesome at the same time!  (Cost so far: $15 for project, $29.99 for saw)



The tricky part, and the part that required the most thinking, was the faucet.  I scoured Ebay and Craigslist for a real kitchen or bathroom faucet, new or used, for several days before giving up.  I looked at prices in stores, but the cheapest was about $30.  I could not justify that in my head.  I decided to make something out of PVC pipe, and I think it turned out well.  It's two pieces, a p-trap and a part that fits into the p-trap.  I had to cut the bottom piece to get it into the tight space, but that was easy.  The two pieces cost me a total of $3.  (Cost so far: $18)



I had a random piece of nice, finished wood laying around the house that is only about 1/4 of an inch off of fitting perfectly with the table, so I used it.  I'm not much on perfection - it gives me nothing to complain about later if there are no flaws!  We think the wood was a shelf to an old entertainment center.  Cost: free.  (Cost so far: $18)



Since I have about a dozen mouse pads at my office that do not get used (they come with new computers, and we've gotten ten new ones in the last four years) I decided to put them to use in my project.  I cut circles out of the mouse pads to make burners.  They are not attached for two reasons - we might paint it so they would be in the way, and I don't know how we would attach them properly.  Oh well.
I added stove top knobs that are actually casters from tables at my office that were on their way to the trash.  They were screwed into a 1x2 across the top at the same time that I put a kickplate (1x4) on the bottom to keep toys from sliding under the kitchen.  (Cost so far: $18)



I added an oven door and Abby immediately knew what the whole project was!  You will notice that the knobs here are pink - it's because the casters from the previous picture were too large with the door on the oven - it would not open!  I ran out to Target and picked up some dresser knobs for $5.  Ended up at Ikea the next day and could have gotten better looking knobs for less money, but what's done is done.  (Cost so far: $23)



And that's the whole thing!  If we had bought a wooden play kitchen in a store we would have spent at least $125, and the cost for one can go up to numbers that I'm too embarassed to type!  I spent $23 and about four total hours on this project by using mostly scrap wood from around the house.  You can also check with your local hardware store (or Ikea!) for scrap wood to save on the cost.

Here's Abby enjoying her newest toy!

Don't Lick That!

Suggestions welcome/encouraged!

At about six months (maybe before) Abby had an obsession with putting things in her mouth - toys, coins, food, fingers... everything.  It is an age-apropriate method of learning for an infant.  They do a better job of using their five senses to learn about things around them than we do - I assume my desk tastes like dust and plastic, so I don't try to taste or smell it - I rely on touch and sight. 

Abby has seemingly reverted to some sort of tasting/licking stage.  Some things are adorable, like when she licks a blueberry before eating it.  Licking her clean feet after bath time was cute, too.

Some things are a little weird, like the freezer in our basement and our fridge upstairs - maybe she was licking each to see if they were the same or different.  (She didn't report her findings to me, but probably has a journal somewhere!)

Some things that she has licked are just disgusting - including our dog and, even worse, a piece of wood at Wendy's on Sunday afternoon.  Just.Disgusting.  I had to run through her high chair and over another chair to get her off of it.  If you've never been to a Wendy's - it was the wooden fram between the old smoking section and the old non-smoking section.  It's about a foot wide and she loves to run a circle and climb over it.  Fun game - gross twist to it.

Our particular Wendy's is not the cleanest thing around, so there were jokes about spots and blisters that would show up in the afternoon, and we were relieved that they did not!

Help!  How do I break her of this new game?  I don't want to create a punishment necessarily, but this is one situation that I would like to stop before it goes too far... 

Happy Halloween!

(Click on any photo to see a larger version)

At Abby's school yesterday they had a costume parade, and played with bubbles:


Here she is leading the charge for more fun!



I made a flower to go with the costume at dinner.  It did not last long once she figured out people were giving her food!


We only visited five or six houses, all of folks that we wanted to say "hi" to anyway.  In spite of that, she got a bag FULL of food!  Here she is checking out her haul!


Upon closer investigation, she dumped the bag and picked out a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup (my favorite, too).  We did NOT let her eat it right before bed time, I promise.  (And for the record, I didn't eat it either!)



Here is my favorite shot from the night. I like it for several reasons, but mostly because she was just so blissfully happy to dig into a big container of sugar. I'm sure she would have, if we let her.












Now the big question is whether or not to let her have some candy. She's had a few pieces of candy over her short life (Thanks Amy!) but typically chocolate winds her up. We'll probably have some with breakfast and keep it at that!

Happy Halloween!
(Or, at this point, All Saints Day!)

Met Them in St. Louis! v1

Friends, I have been negligent in my blogging again, but have all intentions of making it up over the next few days! I refuse to do a step-by-step of our trip to see the family in St Louis, but I will touch on highlights. I think I will break it into categories:

1 - OUR Kiddo
2 - The Kiddos Together
3 - Parents

Today is dedicated to OUR Kiddo!

We decided to fly out late on Thursday and return mid-day Monday, mostly for Abby's sake. We ended up doing a LOT of walking around the airport, and stopped for some dinner. It was actually an ideal place for her to practice walking great distances while safely in the sight of her parents.

Once we got on the plane we grabbed two as close to the front as we could that were together. Ended up sitting next to a very nice woman who slept for most of the trip. It's always awkward to be the person bringing a baby/child onto a plane. I am always looking over my shoulder, wanting to apologize in advance. Turns out that on the flight out, we didn't have to apologize for much! Abby was a little fussy because she was being cramped, but went to sleep before we were out of Maryland airspace and slept until after we landed.

Once we landed, though, things changed. I can imagine that it's a little intimidating, though, to fall asleep in a cramped plane and wake up to a big cousin poking your leg! Abby was a trooper, and then she really woke up. And stayed up. For many hours. New Rule: Do not let Abby nap at 5:30, even if it's on a plane.

Over the weekend she was great with her cousins, but that's for the next post. :o) (Yes, just to build anticipation...)

On Monday we flew back, this time planning on landing before dinner, so that we could try to get Abby back into her "normal" of the Eastern time zone. She fell asleep between lunch and the airport. We let her sleep as long as she wanted to, which was pretty amazing. We checked in, still asleep. We got through security, including a very thorough check of both Anny and Abby because the buckles on her overalls set off the metal detector. Still asleep. She finally woke up when we found a place to sit down.

She was great in the airport again. I think that she has some extroversion in her system. Abby knows how to work a room already, and she sure did work the airport! I think she went out of her way to make eye contact with everyone at Gate 4. It's really neat to see people gabbing on their cell phones, irate about something at the office just stop and smile. The scary thing is that it looks like she understands that, so she will work to make that happen. Very cute.

On the plane we managed to get the inside seats on the front row, sitting next to a woman who had just met her 7 month old grandson for the first time. It was a great situation for us. Whenever Abby was on the floor our "friend" would put her leg out so that Abby could not get to the aisle. Brilliant. Abby also began the flight on a good note with the flight attendant by clapping for him whenever he was on the loudspeaker. It was even cuter when they welcomed "ladies, gentlemen, and Abby to flight...." She heard her name again, so she got excited again.

We tried to occupy her, and had success at it. It helped us that we didn't play all of our cards at once. We started with her book. Moved on to playing with a water bottle. Then snacks came. Then she pooped, so it was a lot of fun to distract until we got through the (very light) turbulence. After a clean diaper I showed her the clouds out the window, and when that got old I showed her that the windows could be closed. We had two windows, so it was twice the fun!

Abby fell asleep during the descent, but we knew better than to let her sleep this time! As soon as we got to the carpet inside BWI I began to gently wake her up. By the time we got to the baggage carousel she was awake and chipper again, walking all over the place with Mama. When my brother and his wife got there, Abby was in even more heaven. (They were life and money savers by picking us up from the airport, so we bought them dinner.)

GREAT trip from Abby's perspective. I'm looking forward to our next trip out, which will be at Christmas time.

Next post will be about all three of the girls. If you're itching for pictures, check them out HERE!

My Thoughts, Bottled and Packaged for You

Anny asked me yesterday, very honestly:

"Do you just sit around and think this stuff up all day?"

She knows better! I was with her all day! There was very little "just sitting around" on Saturday when we helped to host a surprise birthday party for our friend Charlene. We did the farmers market, breakfast, and some cleaning house before leaving at 10:30 ish to get to their house. The only time for thinking was in the car, when we were talking.

(insert joke about Rob choosing between thinking and talking, and rarely doing both at the same time.)

So, what was she so baffled about? A picture concept in my head*.

As I've taken up the Project 365 Challenge over on our Flickr account (HERE). Project 365 is where you take a picture a day for a year. In our case, we're taking our 365 days of pictures of Abby. We have missed a couple of days already, but have made up for it in other days. Our project is the 365 days between Abby's First Birthday and her Second.

The real reason that I began the project is that I want to take better pictures of Abby, not just more pictures. (If I kept all of the pictures that I have taken in the last 13 months, there would be no room for any more on the three computers in our house) I was tired of taking the same picture over and over. Right now, Abby is still gaining toys like it's going out of style, but she's also gaining personality and style.

I've got a ton of ideas from other people, and scenes that are in my head for pictures of Abby. She's always game for a camera and I'm always game to take pictures. We're perfect for each other.

Feel free to pop by Abby's Project 365 anytime. I'll link to it on the sidebar starting today.

*The particular picture-idea I had just come up with was using all of her foam bath-time letters for a picture of "alphabet soup." I'll do it one evening when I think about it. My proble is that I think of them at odd times when I can't follow through....

Abby Getting Some Web Attention!

We put the best-of-the-best pictures up on our Flickr page (HERE) and on occasion I tag a couple to the ParentDish group. Well, turns out they really liked on this week!

Click HERE for the ParentDish post of our little girl! Since she was chosen for a picture-of-the-day she is eligible for the picture-of-the-month!

Abby's First Birthday Party!

Saturday was Abby's big day, in more ways than we could have thought! We had a really good turnout for her birthday party, but her day started way before 2:00.

When Abby first woke up it was way too early - 5 am. I swooped her up and rocked her back to sleep for the next hour and a half so that we had a bit of a head start on sleep for the day. We headed off to the Farmer's Market where she was the center of attention in her new Red Wagon!
On the way home from the grocery store she fell back asleep, it was about 9:15 by then. Instead of letting her get a 30 minute nap in her crib, I once again rocked her to the tune of another hour. All of this forced/extra sleep was in anticipation of an afternoon of missed naps and great excitement. Turns our our gamble was worth it!

Abby was showered with gifts and attention and loved every minute of it! She got to play with her friends Evan and Luke and had one more trick up her sleeve for the day......

Once about half of the crowd had left Abby WALKED!!!! Anny was in a chair and I was on the couch and Abby went back and forth with no help several times! Yes, all apologies to my wife, but Abby is the kind of child to wait for a crowd to blow our minds!

There are no pictures or video of the walking, but there are plenty of the party and day. Here's a slide show of the day:

Beach Trip - Gramps Birthday Surprise

Last Friday we made an overnight trip to surprise my grandfather for his 76th birthday! (I thought it was 75, but was corrected over the weekend.)

Things did start on a sour note Friday when I got a call from Abby's daycare that she had a fever and was just not being herself. I was at work, but hopped in the car and headed off immediately. When I got her home I gave her Tylenol and a cold bottle (of milk, not beer!) and took some of her clothes off. She cooled down within a few minutes and played happily for the next hour and a half until Anny got home.

We decided that Abby would be fine, especially if she took a nap. A two and a half hour car ride should do the trick - and it did!

Since this was a surprise visit, I decided to skip our normal "halfway there" call. When we did arrive, I just let our dog in through the front door. The thought behind this was that if his dog went crazy with barking, she would do it at Rusty (our dog) not at Abby, which could have presented a problem. It worked perfectly.

We arrived early enough to take Gramps and Grammy (HIS mother!) out for a proper birthday dinner. He had planned on soup from a can, which is not acceptable in my book! Two of my aunts arrived later in the evening, after we had gone to bed.

Saturday we went to one of Gramps' breakfast hang outsThe Kannery. Amazing breakfast sandwich! Abby was still not at 100%, but we decided that since we were so close to the shops, we would take a look at the sidewalk sales going on. Good idea! Abby fell asleep pretty quickly, so we got a walk, she got sleep and everyone was happy.

We were also too close to the beach to pass it up, so we took Abby down to the water. She was not really awake yet, but we did grab some pictures. I wish that she would have been feeling better so we could have gone back. The water was still freezing, so we'll have to go back for a day this summer and do the beach trip right.


From May 2008

We had a good time and Gramps was truly flattered. He was so giddy that he called on Sunday to thank us for our surprise trip.

This weekend will be different. Lots of hanging around the house and cleaning. Probably another test run with the Cupcake Cake. More on that next week, hopefully with pictures!