Long Weekend

We enjoyed our long weekend, and for Mom it was a 4-day weekend this year thanks to a new, improved holiday schedule at work! Friday wasn't much of a holiday for her, though, since she spent all day installing a new closet organization system in their bedroom. And of course this "one day" project continued on throughout the weekend. I loved helping though and I think the closet looks really "cute."

On Saturday we had neighbors over for a cookout and despite the chaos with four little ones, we had a good time. All of us little girls ended up in the sprinkler and another neighbor girl came over to join in. I took advantage of the opportunity to be the teacher and had them all sit in a semi-circle around me while I "read" to them. As always, Caitlyn and I played very nicely together, but I did have a hard time playing with her little sister Nora who is just one-year old. When Mom reminded me that I needed to be nice to both of my guests I said "but she's mean to me." You know how mean one-year-olds can be!

Caroline is getting up very quickly these days. We broke out one of my favorite old toys-- the musical table-- and of course I was more than happy to show her how it works. She is really enjoying playing with it and Dad used it to block her in a little safe alley by the couch and ottoman. She just started clapping this week and is eating more and more table food. She had some chicken and hamburger this week, and our dog Lily is thrilled with her progress!

On Sunday we went to a little waterpark nearby and enjoyed the spray. Mom and Dad tried to use it to get me tired enough for a good nap (and it worked!). That night Daddy and I went to another hockey game. His old team is doing very well and I love going to the games. Unfortunately this time I wasn't asleep when we got home and the long nap might have worked to our disadvantage as midnight rolled around and I was still awake.

Monday I got up early and helped make blurberry muffins and fruit salad. Then we went to the Y for "eppercising" and swimming. I will be starting swimming lessons soon and Mom wanted to get me in the regular pool instead of the very warm pool where our Mommy & Me classes were held. That afternoon we went to a baseball game with a group from Dad's company. It was a lot of fun. "The Tank was chilling" (which is what I say when she's wearing Dad's sunglasses) and I had a great time with all the snacks and visiting with Trish who babysits me sometimes. I especially liked getting the peanuts out of the shells (and just licking the shells) and of course I had to have dip 'n dots ice cream. On the way out of the stadium I fell asleep and had a little snooze in the car.

It was a great weekend!

What a Zoo!

After a very long day of travel, Grampy Bear, Grammy Pammy and Aunt Suzie made it to our house at 9 p.m. on Thursday evening. I was "in bed" but watching at the window so I got to see them for a bit before everyone went to bed. Caroline, Daddy and I took Friday off from work/school and got to spend some time playing with everyone. Mommy had an important all-day meeting at work, so there are no photos to document anything that happened that day.

On Saturday all seven of us packed into the minivan and headed to the zoo. Everyone was well behaved in the car and we spent a lot of time guessing what our favorite animals would be. Once there, we were excited to see all the animals in person. I had my face painted at a very fancy place. I picked the "Mardi Gras" look because it had pink and purple and matched my outfit.

Mom had been telling me stories about the last time we went to the zoo two summers ago and I loved hearing the story of the peacock who followed me. Guess what? I found him again and was more than happy to tell the other kids that he was "my peacock."

Caroline just strolled along with us and alternated between napping, playing with her feet and smiling. She was as happy at the zoo as she is every where else.

We had a good laugh when we came into the children's petting zoo and found Grampy standing there. Dad exclaimed "Look at the donkey!" (another version of the joke followed with a word I am not allowed to use).

I enjoyed the petting zoo and Suzie helped me feed the goats. I alternated between liking it and just throwing the food over their heads so that they would leave me alone. Suzie and I even got to brush them. On the way home most of us declared one of the species of monkeys as our favorite. At that point we were all quite tired and ready for naps.

Saturday night Caroline and I had a babysitter and the grown-ups went out to a nice dinner (rated as one of Grampy's Top 5 best dinners ever) and did a little shopping. After my long, late nap I was still up when they got home. And still up when they went to bed after 11. Then, like clockwork, I was up at 6:30 a.m. Mom took me to the grocery store and then for a very early breakfast picnic to keep me out of the house for a while. Then we took Suzie to Target, where I got another new pair of sandals, and went to Grampy and Grammy's hotel for a swim.

My trips to the park with Grampy were the highlight of my weekend. I think we went five times in three days. Sunday night we went out for a casual dinner and enjoyed the nice evening outside. I capped it off by stripping off my clothes and running through the sprinkler in my underwear. Mom and Dad told me that I have to wear something or the police will come! FYI, the police will also come get you if you don't have your buckle on in the car; if the kids are driving; or, as I have just recently learned, if you are too loud in the car.

The Canadian gang headed home on Monday morning and I missed them as soon as they drove away.

Caroline had her nine-month check-up yesterday afternoon and is doing just fine. She is now just shy of 22 lbs (21 lbs 15 oz. to be exact) and Mom says she feels every bit of that. She was 28.5 inches long. That puts her in the 90th/95th percentile for weight and 75th for height. She had two shots and got over her devastation pretty quickly. The pediatrician thinks her birthmark is beginning to turn gray in spots which is how they begin to fade. We hardly notice it any more, but the kids in my class ask Mom about it quite often, so we hope it fades before Caroline's classmates are old enough to ask her about it. She is pulling herself up quite easily now and seems sturdier on her legs. I walked at 10.5 months, so we will see how quickly she does it. Caroline also just started to do little claps. Grampy enjoyed seeing her grind her teeth and kept asking: "how can you grind four teeth?!?!?"

Happy Mom's Day

Let me start by wishing everyone a happy Mother's Day!

One of our gifts to Mom was a quiet Saturday night. Dad and I had a Daddy-Daughter date night and went to a hockey game. I had a terrific time and especially loved getting to help pick up "Chuck-a-Pucks" on the ice at the second intermission. The game started late, so by the time this happened, Dad had changed me into my pajamas, so I went out in the ice in my shoes and PJs. Mom says this probably wouldn't have happened if she was there, but that's the beauty of Daddy-Daughter date night! That, and all the junk that I got to eat. It was a very quiet evening at home for Mommy. Caroline went to sleep at 7 p.m. and didn't make another peep.

Mom also got to sleep in on Sunday morning. Daddy packed us all up (including Lily) and took us on some early errands. We came back at 8:15 and brought Mom flowers that I picked out- "Crazy Daisies" that are all fun bright colors. Mom thinks the marketers of the oh so natural-looking Crazy Daisies hit their target audience with me! Caroline and I also made Mommy some cards at school. On mine I had to answer some questions about Mom:

• Favorite color: purple
• Favorite food: strawberries
• Favorite scent: the smell of hot dogs
• I love my mommy because: she gives great big hugs

If only we could find a perfume with Mom's "favorite scent." We made Mommy breakfast, went for a long walk and then we got dressed up to take Mom to lunch. While I was waiting for everyone else to get ready, Dad found me sitting in some shade under a tree with my book, which everyone found funny. You can see we don't have much shade in the morning!

After some shopping and a nice lunch we came home and had big, long naps-- yet another gift! Then Caroline played a lot with Mom and Dad while I kept sleeping. She was funny because she kept getting her feet stuck in her dress. She is busy trying to pull up on everything, she waved for the first time last week and she is making lots of sounds including "Mamama." And last week she turned nine-months old, which is very hard to believe.

One of the funniest stories of last week came from my teacher. Here's what Miss Amy told Mommy . . . She had taken me and my classmate Diego in from play time to use the potty. I turned to Diego and said "I like your panties!" and he was like "Huh?" and I kept repeating "I like your panties!" and he kept saying "huh?" After several rounds of this Miss Amy intervened and told me that boys don't wear panties. And I asked what they wear. She said underwear. And I told her my Dad doesn't wear underwear. He wears shorts. I then went on to fill her in on what everyone else in my family wears-- including Poppy. By the way, I still think boys tighty whities are panties.

Grampy Bear, Grammy Pammy and Aunt Suzie are coming down from Canada on Thursday and we are very much looking forward to that! I am sure we will have lots of pictures and stories to share next week.

Happy bithday to Jamma on Friday and Uncle Buddy on Sunday!

Recovering

We've recovered from last Monday's excitment and are hoping for a more mundane start to the week. My stitches were removed on Friday and I did fine with that. The cut is healing up nicely.

Dad returned home from Canada on Tuesday after a long day of travel that began with a 3:30 a.m. flat tire in the rain as Grampy Bear drove him to the airport, included 6+ hours in the Newark Airport and ended with a delayed flight home. Thankfully he made it home in time to cook us dinner on the newly assembled grill.

Mom attended my parent-teacher conference on Tuesday and heard that I am doing well at preschool. I am working on writing my name and cutting in the lines. I know all of my colors and most of them in Spanish, too. I have a short attention span and wander away during small group projects (normal for my age), but I am doing great with motor skills and am a very nice friend.


This weekend we enjoyed having Daddy back home. We had our own Derby party on Saturday and I picked all of the horses with jockeys wearing pink and purple. Mommy picked the winner, but unfortunatley for her we didn't have any money on it.Caroline has been busy crawling and we find she can move very quickly these days. She is crawling on all fours now, but for long distance she still falls back on her go-to move: the army man crawl. She is enjoying eating real food like pasta, cereal and bananas. Our dog Lily is enjoying this, too, but wishes we would give her some chunks of meat! Now that Caroline has four teeth, she has taken to grinding them together. This makes Mommy cringe, which makes Daddy and me laugh! We have also discovered that Caroline is one tough cookie. When Daddy picked me up to go to the doctor on Friday, we peaked in at Caroline and witnessed her in action. She crawled over another girl, got on top of her and pulled her hair! I yelled "The Tank's wrestling!"

Yesterday we bought some flowers for our yard and had some friends over for dinner. We had planned to eat outside, but we all agreed that it was a bit too breezy and ended up having a cook-in. It's supposed to be pretty nice this week, so we are looking forward to more spring!

The Incident (as told by Mom)

I got the dreaded daycare call on Monday morning and had an admin come get me out of a meeting with the message: Jamie's on the phone and Katie's had an accident at school and may need stitches.

Jamie was still in Canada, but they reached him on his cell phone and he was able to track me down. So off I went to get her at school. She was acting fine, happy to have a bandaid and busy enjoying a chance to color with big girl markers in the school's front office (which is where she drew a picture of what happened-- the black line is the gate around the playground). I found out that somebody pushed Katie into the fence and she hit her forehead on the post of the gate. If you ask, Katie is more than happy to report that it was Zachary who did it.

The cut was pretty small (maybe 1/3 inch), but looked like it needed stitches, so we went to the ER. Thankfully, the cut wasn't bleeding anymore and Katie wasn't in pain, so it was just a matter of keeping ourselves entertained for about an hour. Unfortunately, I had minimal amusements in my purse, but we made do with what we found. The challenge was keeping Katie from asking loud impolite questions about the people around us. She's been doing this and I told her that "our policy" is that you save the question for when we're alone in the car. As you might imagine, though, an ER is an interesting place with lots of things to question. It didn't help matters that the lady sitting across from us had a spider tatoo on her arm, the man had earrings and a third person was in a wheelchair-- all curious sights to Katie.

Finally we got to go back to see the doctor and Katie was very brave. She did a good job talking to the doctor and was very calm while they cleaned the cut. After that, they "bundled" her in a sheet (think straightjacket) and laid her down. The tech held her head and I held the rest. She cried when she got the shot to numb it and continued to say "I want my mommy" while they put in the stitches-- thankfully only two of them. After that she got a new bandaid and a popsicle, which made her happy as a clam. She did a great job and we called Jamie who told her she was tough like a hockey player. She just beamed with pride.

After that I took her to get "Old MacDonald's" for lunch and her perscription. She was thrilled to be getting medicine and wanted to go back to school to show off her hospital bracelet.

She was fine all night-- just excited for Jamie to come home on Tuesday to see it. At school on Tuesday Zachary brought her a stuffed animal to say he was sorry and they are friends again. We go to the pediatrician on Friday to have the stitches looked at and maybe taken out-- since that is Jamie's area of expertise, he will handle that appointment!

Visiting

Dad went off to Canada to surprise Grampy Bear for his 60th birthday, so Grandma and Poppy came to help keep me and Caroline in line. We had a nice visit here and Dad had a great visit at home-- we wished we could have gone, too!

We kicked off the weekend with a late night Friday-- well actually it was a very early Saturday morning. I woke up at 3:30 a.m. ready for Grandma to come get me. And from there I was like a jack-in-the-box and never really slept again. Mom was up with me for most of this and then at 6:30 she handed me off to Grandma and got some more sleep.

Surprisingly I was very good on Saturday. Mom and I went to the grocery store then we all went to a special kid's event at the mall and saw a fun band play, that included one of Mom's co-workers. They were really good and I had fun dancing. I also got to make some crafts and play with sand and fake snow. I got a very messy cookie and talked to a policeman. He asked if Mommy was a fast driver. We said no.
When we got home around 2 p.m. I went up to my bed and laid down without being asked to and had a great nap. That night we went out to dinner at a yummy BBQ place and on the way home we saw a rainbow!

While we were at the grocery, Caroline helped Poppy put up a safety gate at the top of our stairs and did her first real crawls. She didn't want Mom or Dad to feel bad that one of them missed it, so she did it while they were both gone! In other Caroline news, her top two teeth have come in (they are visible in the photo below where she's standing in the pack 'n play).

On Sunday we went to a big park in the morning and enjoyed some playing. In the afternoon Mommy and I baked a strawberry cake that was very yummy (we saved you some, Daddy!) We also went to our neighborhood park after dinner. That visit didn't go so well. I was having a hard time listening and then wouldn't leave so Mom had to carry me home screaming the whole way--thankfully it's close. I am now on park probation.

Thanks for coming Grandma and Poppy! I missed you as soon as we pulled out of the driveway.