On?

Alex has mostly figured out the concept of on. She knows she always wants ceiling fans on. She always wants the tv on (even if she always leaves the room about a minute later). But now she wants thing on that don't go on, like, say, dinner. On the table, yes, but just on......hmm, no idea how to pull that one off. Train on, yes I get it. Book on, well, ok, I suppose. I guess on is a good thing, and off is bad. Makes sense to me. :)

Today Alex and I visited one of my old college friends and her family. We had a very busy day of playing with different toys in an unfamiliar house and being played with/picked on by other kids. It was a great time for us both.

Lunch was especially fun for Alex. We had hot dogs, and my friend's daughter wasn't eating hers. Being around the turkey vultures has taught Alex to swoop in on unclaimed food, so she swooped in and scooped that hot dog right off her unsuspecting victim's plate, and ate most of it while she watched. I now know that, if faced with a hot dog lunch and no knife to chop that lunch, she'll be just fine. The same with the hot dog bun. No chopping required, apparently.

She came home, and on a lovely afternoon spent mere moments outside before eating more dirt than ever before. Is she a dedicated geophage, or is it just a geo-phase? Who can say. Only time will tell.

Grammy and Grampy should know that her Easter sheep has become the new favorite toy. The sombrero, well........she'll like it more when her head grows a bit. :)

I don't know why, but the word puma caught Alex's ear today, and she was all about pumas this afternoon. She told me "Puma, puma,puma." after her nap. Ok.... There were other mentions as well, all equally oddly timed. She has a book with a puma in it, so at least I know where she got that word from in the first place. And I suppose it is kind of fun to say.

We had a big angry cry-fest this afternoon because she refused to ask nicely for some Goldfish. She knows how to say please and often follows the prompt to do so, but didn't want to, and much crying and fist-clenching ensued. She finally asked please for a graham cracker, and I caved and gave her the Goldfish. Then she kept on asking for a graham cracker, so she got that too. So spoiled. She then had the graham cracker in a death grip in her left hand while shoveling in the Goldfishes. I think she ate the graham cracker, or perhaps hid it behind a curtain to eat later. She's a bit of a squirrel that way. And we don't mind so much with a cracker, but when bananas are involved it gets ugly.

Well, she is "good nighting" and we're sucking down chocolate pudding that's been waiting for us for hours, so all is good in the world. :)

Strategic Errors and Other Things

I want Alex to know as much as she can know about the world around her, and of course this means that I'll be teaching her names of different animals. I didn't think of it at the time, but realized that teaching Alex that there was a tufted titmouse on the bird feeder wasn't really necessary, and in fact probably just a plain bad idea. She now says, "Tit........mouse." repeatedly. If I'm lucky she'll remember the mouse part. So we've stopped referring to them by their proper name. I'll have to look up the Latin name and use that instead......

We were out in the garden yesterday and I gave Alex the extreme pleasure of being in charge of one very dirty trowel that had been sitting on the porch after much digging up of bricks along the back path. She was very happy about the trowel. So happy that she decided it was a good idea to put it in her mouth. I asked her nicely not to, and she persisted. I also persisted, and finally she came up with a, in her mind, suitable compromise. She kissed it instead. A big, loud, dramatic mmmMMMMMMuuuuuuUUUUUUUhhhhhh kiss. It didn't really fly with me and the trowel was eventually relinquished to me. She then ate some pebbles to make up for lack of gardening tools, and was whisked inside.

Before that, though, I found a salamander under some landscape fabric I was removing, and showed her said creature. I relocated it to the compost pile, so now she says both compost and salamander together. She still sometimes references Auntie Wuwu and Adam, but not as much. Apparently salamanders trump relatives.

Watching TV

As in turkey vultures. We've got spruce trees behind the house, and the last two nights have watched the neighborhood turkey vultures roost back there. That explains the lack of corpses in the yard, I guess...

Speaking of turkey, Alex has found true love in the form of honey-roasted turkey cold-cuts. Dinner was a bit late this evening, and I decided to hold her hunger at bay with a bit of turkey. She ate many, many slices, each time asking for a new one - "Turkey peez?". Ok, maybe it was , "Turkey peez!". Either way, one bite into one slice and she was asking for more. She does tend to forget food in one hand in favor of filling the other hand with something, but this was a case of simple turkey greed.

Anyway, it's been a busy day of not too much but lots of business, and Alex skipped her nap for the most part, so I'm done with today. Tomorrow I'll feed Alex the turkey before nap time, and we'll both be happy. =D

We've seen a lot of wildlife these past few days. We had the deer(s), the fox - Jeff saw it carrying something back to it's home in the woods the other afternoon - squirrels of course, rabbits - who knows how they stay away from the fox - and then red tailed hawk, turkey vultures who hang out in our spruces, two groundhogs - oh no - and finally the voles, who are providing endless entertainment for the cats who will from now on be watching them religiously. They move a bit too fast for Alex to follow, but she'll notice them sooner or later.

We had a great morning of stealing puzzle pieces at the library, and then played for a while before she got too pooped to party anymore. Before her nap, though, I noticed she had something in her hand that didn't belong.....a socket cover. She's figured out that she can pick them out of the older sockets and chew on them. Oh goodie. At least she's not chewing on the outlets!

She has also decided that it's great fun to announce her name at odd times. She now pronounces it "Arex", and says it as loudly as possible for maximum effect. With a big smile. Also, she has decided that the bristle-block heads with smiley faces on them should be smiled back at, and she's been picking them up and grinning at them all the time (when her hands aren't full of outlet covers).

Enjoy the jelly picture! That is every morning at our house.

We saw deer around the house for the first time yesterday, and Alex watched right from her room as they browsed for goodies in our non-deer-friendly garden. We had three does and a fawn who hung out and nibbled grass for about ten minutes before trotting off to greener gardens. And now we're trying to teach Alex that deer means many as well as one deer. Well, we'll get there eventually.

She talked non-stop about Adam and Auntie Wu Wu today, mostly around the compost pile for some strange reason.......

We have experienced yet another landmark event - Alex played with crayons without eating crayons. Despite Maroon's taunting in the form of a broken-off tip (which was carried around for several minutes) Alex defied the odds and refrained from even taking one nibble on a crayon. Now, it is just after dinner, and certainly that could be a contributing factor, though I'm fairly certain that Alex has eaten crayons after breakfast. In any case, I'm basking in the glory of a basement art studio visit that did not go awry.

Alex is learning a few new tricks to manipulate us with. We've been working hard on having her say please, and she has finally figured out that please is the magic word that gets her -almost- everything. Her favorite new phrase, mostly spoken to Daddy, is, "Pick up please." Well, ok, peez, if you want to pick nits, but close enough. She tries other things like, "Brownies please." to no avail. It's a shame that she has to learn an easy lesson and a hard lesson together, but hopefully she'll someday understand that, though magical, please doesn't always get you what you want.

Thanks to Grammy, we have to keep at least one cardboard box around the house, because she's a bit addicted to choo-chooing around all over the place. My back isn't happy, but Alex certainly is.

She can now climb with ease onto my office chair in order to type on the keyboard, pluck water glasses (sounds like "water bowl" when she says it, but we know what she really means) and anything else of interest off my desk. She's also decided that climbing bookshelves seems like a really swell idea, so I am so happy that Jeff decided to bolt them all to the walls. I love it when a plan comes together. =D

We haven't been outside much lately, as the weather's been less than ideal. (Alex has, all day today, been requesting sunshine. Seriously. No idea where she came up with that...) But has responded well to the "I'm watching you." therapy I tried with the whole eating pebbles problem. If I tell her I'm watching her, in my stern Mommy voice of course, she puts the pebble down. Very exciting, and sure not to last. But it's nice while it does.

Alex Tries on a Dress

She was, of course, thrilled to try something new on. And equally thrilled to be photographed doing it. This picture was taken after she tried to escape the dress by pulling it over her head. She has subsequently been picking the cherries on the sleeves.

Word of the Day

Coincidentally. I won't even attempt to type out what it sounds like when Alex "says" it, because it changes every time.

More Garage

Sorry this is such a bad picture, but I thought everyone would enjoy Alex enjoying the garage. It was so sunny in there she had to wear her shades.

This morning we took a walk around the neighborhood and when we we're almost home, we got ambushed by two black poodles. A tall, skinny one and a short, fat one, to be precise. They ran out of the woods after us, only to circle around and not get close enough to be touched. So, clearly being naughty dogs who escaped their yard. Sure enough, after they followed us home, or at least, half way up the drive, they ran away, only to be summoned by a whistling, clapping owner. But for the rest of the day, garage-poodle-garage was all I heard.

Alex had a pleasant day, as always. Her recent edible love is ice cubes, or as she says, ice-a cubes. Much to our chagrin, she crunches them. Or lets them melt in inconvenient places like on the coffee table.

Alex is now saying "Up, down, sideways." a lot. All thanks to the Mixed-Up Chameleon, who looks in those directions before catching and eating flies. She's starting to do the hand motions too.

We've been working on Alex's spoon skills, which are more than lacking right now. I should say that she knows how to get a food-laden spoon into her mouth without (major) incident, but the loading of the spoon is the bane of her existence, so she usually just doesn't bother. But recently she has decided that spoons are pretty cool. She can kind of scoop stuff out of a bowl using the spoon in her left hand, but has found another even better method that works for both hands. She simply takes, say, a green bean. With her fingers. And places it on the spoon. Then she eats it, assuming it makes the long and treacherous journey to her gaping maw. It's so close to right, but in the most characteristically Alex sort of ways.

We went for our first walk in the neighborhood today. We have discovered that there are three Boston terriers, one across the street and two down the road. We saw the pair of doggies today, and Alex proclaimed, "Moo Cow!" I explained that black and white animals are not necessarily moo cows, but she persisted for a moment before repeating "Doggie!" for the rest of the walk. When she wasn't telling me she was done and ready to go back to the garage. Speaking of which, please to enjoy the fabulous picture of Alex doing her burpie dance in the garage. She prefers the garage to all other places in the house and out of the house. And delights in dancing in there while trailing her burpie through oily, salty puddles. And buffing the car with the burpie. Lovely.

I got out and worked on our new path while Alex was napping today. For reasons unknown to anyone, the previous owners had a mulched path with pavers that was line with two rows of bricks. The inner row is sticking halfway out of the ground, and consequently, half of many of theses bricks has crumbled and fallen, leaving brick shards on the ground and sticking up along the side of the path for, oh, I don't know, babies to fall on? Anyway, I'm lifting the outer bricks that are slowly being eaten by the lawn, and sinking the salvageable bricks on the inner row to make a nice flat, non-baby-spearing path edge. Ok, it's not soooo dangerous, but very ugly and as such, slightly baffling considering the rest of the house and garden has been very tastefully and thoughtfully taken care of. Very strange, but a few more afternoons of the brick relocation program should take care of that. Then there are a few other things to tackle outside.........Little junipers in the shade, I may or may not be talking to you.

Alex has decided that her favorite room in the new house is the spa room. She would spend all her waking moments in there, at least most of them. She's got a thing for eating all the stones outside and pointing the "garage garage". But I digress. Anyway, she's taken to dancing on top of the hot tub, so I think we should build her a stage to dance on. It's totally in keeping with her Leo personality to have her own stage, and we would never worry about her falling into the empty hot tub either!

Also, I keep forgetting, thank you Grammy (and Grampy) for Knuffle Bunny. He hangs out with her in the crib. She's not sure what else to do with him yet, but I'm sure she'll come up with horrifying things to do with him soon enough. Perhaps repeatedly put him in the washer and make Daddy look for him?

Also, many thanks to Jeff today for giving me a well deserved? day off to go to the Philadelphia Flower Show. I would have loved to have spent the day with him, what with all the romantic Italian-themed music, Venice exhibit and many fabulous flower arrangements that should have been at our wedding, but instead I went with Melon Sample Girl (a short story not worth explaining, though somewhat funny) and had a relaxing-ish day. If you don't count the crowd-dodging.

Anyway, I'm pooped. Speaking of which, there's fox poop in the yard. Can't wait for Alex to find that.......

Quick List

Things Alex did today:

Ate more snow than thought possible

Ate more potting soil than thought possible

Put her raccoon on the shelf in the kitchen rather than hold it through breakfast

Refused to put her burpie on the same shelf (it is now covered in jelly)

Danced/chased the cats on the hot tub

Made ridiculously small footprints in the snow

Tried to eat driveway snow

Possibly ate canned cat food

Had a very bubbly bath

Pulled (is still pulling) books of the shelves (not her books)

Pulled her books off the shelves

Said most of the alphabet many times

Counted to 13

Patted Diesel

So much more, but it's been a long day, and I am les tired.

Well, we had two soil-eating incidents in a short frame of time today (in between vacuumings, no less) but an otherwise pleasant day. Jeff is teaching Alex to say "Excellent pizza." Which will come in handy at least once a week.

Alex had her first shower in the new house today. It was uneventful until I was done toweling her off when she bashed up against the bathroom door with both hands, flinging it open. She streaked naked into her room, and I had to catch her to clothe her.

She has also decided that the end of the carpet at the top of the basement stairs is where the floor ends for her, and won't (yet) go past that mark. Which is great for us of course, because the basement stairs are a bit too tricky for her to navigate just yet.

No snow eating today, as it was only about 20 degrees, not counting the windchill.

Alex just woke up from her afternoon nap. How do I know? I heard her say (over the monitor, which now works after a few weeks of mysteriously only beeping incessantly and not broadcasting anything) "All done." This time she means it. :) Maybe.

She also rifled through the soil of the Pandora vine again, so I moved it on top of the chest in the family room. So she can pull it down -and- get dirt everywhere.....

Alex had another thrilling day at the new house. Her morning consisted mostly of running around frantically with occasional stops at the "micsic" table to dance. We unpacked like, I don't know, unpack rats? In any case, very quickly so that we are down to no more boxes upstairs at all. What a relief to only have extraneous stuff to unpack whenever we get around to it!

Of course we got about five inches of snow today - the perfect opportunity to finally use the snow suit that I bought oh so many months ago. Turns out Alex has grown, but there's nothing wrong with the overstuffed sausage look, so I crammed her in there nice and cozy. And then discovered that the convenient waterproof booties that slip over baby's shoes were designed for babies with daintier feet. So after much debate, Jeff and I found a few grocery bags and rubber bands, and suddenly Alex was mostly waterproof like we wanted.

We went outside just as the snow stopped falling and the sun came out. Alex was unimpressed as per usual, but when we put her down on the driveway she, quicker than the eye could possibly see, scooped up tiny, daintier than her feet mouthfuls of snow. She soon had a minuscule snow goatee, and seemed quite happy. Oh, I forgot to mention, since she peeled her mittens off mere milliseconds after I put them on, her hands were uncovered, and of course instantly as cold as the snow.

Anyway, she progressed from clean snow to brown slush very quickly, so I removed her from the driveway and plopped her on the lawn into the fresher snow. She fell hands first and had a nuclear meltdown due to the shock of almost face-planting in the snow. It all went downhill from there, and she was soon not only inside but fast asleep - that minute outside was enough to completely sap her of all her strength.

Later today, I clear what seems to be a small explosion of plastic and plush in the living room so I could vacuum. Alex, ever helpful, mostly ran around with the tubes from the vacuum. I had just finished vacuuming and was flitting around doing something equally domestic somewhere other than the living room only to return to the living room and find Alex with both hands in the very fluffy soil of the Pandora vine. She had soil on/in her mouth, and had raked big handfuls onto the floor, like you do when Mommy is vacuuming and otherwise domestic goddessing and not paying you any attention. OK, not totally true - I always talk to her even when the vacuum is running. She obviously needed more than a few words today.

Anyway, a squirt of the kitchen hose later, Alex was de-soiled, and we moved on with our day. Books were read, cats were stepped on, but no more snow was eaten. We'll wait a bit on that.

After a quiet evening of Spongebob, watched from the toasty lap of Daddy and under a warm blanket (one of 16, I discovered after a quick count today) it was off to books (3 of them) and bed. And after a cry and a short conversation with herself, Alex is still, I assume, firmly tucked in and finally asleep. Hopefully to dream dreams of brownies. (We shared some today. I'll not reveal how many, and who ate the most.)

Alex is back with us at the new house. We (Jeff) were worried that the transition to the new place would be a bumpy one, but so far, she has only had one problem - she can't stay up all night long to run around in circles playing her new bongo (thanks Gerry) and screaming like the baby banshee she is. She's having a great time running the loop from kitchen to foyer, living room, dining room, laundry room and back to kitchen. And the bedroom run, which takes more time as she has to inspect every room for dangerous pointy objects to pick up. Of which there are many at the moment, as every room has a little project or two involving at least a screw driver or pair of scissors.

But we're over half-way unpacked. And by that I mean that we've unpacked over half the things that actually need to be unpacked. There are innumerable boxes of too small baby clothes, extra curtains and random Star Wars paraphernalia, not to mention the millions of flower pots. But we've chosen to wade through the morass of uneccessaries at our leisure (maybe when we're buried under a foot of snow and can't figure out how/if the new-to-us snow blower works).

All of Alex's toys and books have been unpacked, of course. I find it impossible to fathom how we fit all that stuff in our former living room. Goldfish come to mind - I've heard they grow in conjunction with the size of the tank they're in, so perhaps plastic kitchens do the same relative to the living room size? It certainly seems that way, because we're still tripping over every block, fake frying pan and tractor. Well, the cats have more to lurk around and puke leaves onto, so that's one good thing about the baby stuff that seems to threaten swallowing the world.

Alex is asleep in the next room, and we're very hopeful that she'll have a good night. Not convinced that she will, but she did burn a lot of energy tonight, stopping only to eat a little Spanish rice and some pie, so perhaps.........