Alex is a big fan of the playground, of course. Her favorite thing to do is swing, and she's sometimes spent close to an hour straight swinging. If only she weighed a bit more to give us more of a workout....Anyway, she's all about the swings, and shrieks like a banshee whenever we get close to the playground (which is unfortunately situated on the way to about half the places we go on a regular basis. I go quite deaf on errand days.).

Yesterday, we got to the playground, and as we approached the swings, always the first and sometimes the only destination, she simply stated "Happy fun shrings." I couldn't have said it better myself.

She also impressed several folks today while we were out shopping. I was bragging about how verbal she is because they couldn't help but notice her fabulous talking skills. I told the ladies we're working on coincidentally, and they were beyond impressed when she said it for them. I was beyond impressed too because I thought for sure she's leave me hanging because I actually wanted her to say something specific!

Yogurt

Do I even have to say more? OK, I will. Alex thinks that everything in a cup has to be for drinking. But if it's not in a sippy cup but in, say, a blueberry yogurt cup, well, it can get a bit messy.........There -was- a spoon there somewhere, and she's really good at using it.

I got super lucky with the facial expression. She looks like she's serenading the yogurt. :D

Back to the Blog

Phew, well, it's been a long time since I've written anything. It's been a stressful few weeks with lots going on, not all of it good. But everyone is doing well now, and it's time I get back to writing a bit. So here goes.

We've been working on the master bathroom for the last week. It's got blue tile (think grey-blue, not something fun like Mediterranean blue) and used to have wallpaper (peeling, dirty wallpaper) with what can only be described as ugly ugly ugly. There it is in all it's "glory" before we (I) removed it. It was asking to be removed, what with the peeling corners and all, so I obliged. Note also the pink shower curtain rod. Lovely. Just our thing. :l It matched the pink shower curtain, which incidentally is no more. Missing from the picture is the "lovely" vanity light - one of those silver strips with four blobby light bulbs. That too is a thing of the past (though technically, it's still here, it now just temporarily resides on my dresser until my lazy rear gets it into the trash...). Oh, and I just noticed the weird thing our camera did with the tile color - it's actually the nicer blue color, not the really grey-blue. Well, ok, depending on the light, I guess.

Anyway, a few minutes of wallpaper stripping and a few hours of wallpaper backing stripping and glue washing, the bathroom walls are primed and the new light is installed. The light took some time , chiefly because A. The circuit breaker box had that circuit labeled "Heater". Call me crazy, but since when would the heater and the master bath be on the same circuit, especially when they're on opposite ends of the house...and B. I'm easily confused by reeeeeeeeeally tiny pictures that come with light installation instruction. and C. I was trying to be quiet because Alex was napping, and trying to be quiet always results in both loudness and extra time needed to slowly try not to drop anything (else that you haven't already dropped several times).

When I'm completely done, I'll post pictures of our shiny new bathroom.

Alex has been having all together too much fun, as she tells people now, playing outside now that Spring has erupted into temporary summer. She spent the day yesterday charming Granny and Pop Pop (not to be confused with Grammy and Grampy who were in another state probably drinking their millionth bottle of wine. If I had to guess.). Alex also was busy learning all her honorary Aunt and Uncle's names. Most notably, she was pretty convinced that Roger's real name was Garage-er, which I had to explain was a huge compliment since the garage is one of her most favorite things.

She's been busy in the garden with her many trowels, and a seashell that also makes for pretty fun digging. She's been cutting way back on the whole eating it if it doesn't move too fast thing, so that's good. She attended her first and second plant sales, charming the ladies at the second sale to cut her a particularly nice dandelion for her to clutch until it melted in her sticky little hand.

She's been mostly, speaking of melting, having bad nights lately. Lots of waking up, and since it's been hot, she's been sleeping in only a diaper because she creates more heat at night than the air conditioning can suck off is she's clothed. But nothing makes her as happy as when we make her a noodle, or as she says "Make a nootle?" so I'm sure now her dreams are full of her picturing her naked self running around everywhere. And speaking of dreams, the other day I woke her up from a late nap and she, still half-asleep, started talking about the swings at the playground.

Well, I'm sure I could write much more, but -someone- was so wired last night she didn't go to sleep until after 9 (I think - we've disposed of our alarm clock as it had been beeping very quietly for the last few months like the alarm was going off to ever so gently keep us awake). I'm off to warm up some blueberry pancakes and poke her awake so that perhaps we can get on a more reasonable sleep schedule today. I can always hope......

Easter

Well, Alex is still recovering from her Easter fun. She had a phenomenally fun day with Grammy, Grampy, Auntie Lulu and Uncle Adam. I was blissfully unaware of most of the fun because she was off being entertained by everyone else, but there were lots of smiles, giggles, bubbles, and even a cookie and marshmallow bunny.

She bit the extremities off a bunny cookie, devoured pineapple stuffing by the truckload (and she was carrying a remnant of that same stuffing last night, only to leave it in the living room for this morning) and even noshed a red beet egg. Very exciting stuff. And even though she didn't have an egg hunt because no one remembered eggs, she had way too much fun.

And now she finally has a tutu! I can't wait to take her to the park in a tutu, or the grocery store, or the mall...Well, perhaps not, but she does like it, and I imagine some day she'll request to wear it somewhere less than appropriate, and I'll consider the possibility.

Incidentally, the cats have benefited greatly from Easter in that they get to eat all of Alex's left-over ham, a huge treat for them. They were stalking me last night for ham, as a matter of fact.

Heh, we just asked Alex what her middle name is and she said "Doom.". Scary....

Alex is currently running around the house under a blanket. She often uses it as a cape, but has decided that the thrill factor is higher if she hides under it and runs into things. Thrilling for us, for sure.

We've also had several days of no eating of either assorted natural debris outside or crayons inside. I don't know if this is the end of the disturbing eat-everything era or just a blip on the radar, but I'm enjoying quality outside and doodling time without fishing things out of her mouth for once.

Also, Alex has, after many disappointing mistakes, realized that pulling the flowers off the daffodils is not acceptable. She now kisses them loudly and dramatically instead. I'm sure they appreciate it as much as I do. =D

Today was a banner day for Alex. We spent at least an hour outside and -no eating rocks occurred-!!! A miracle! And she's also figured out that Jeff is at work during the day - Daddy work - and that apparently, when he is home, that means he's on. Makes sense to me.

She did have a moment or two of naughty today when she tore the flowers off our crocuses (croci? crocusi?). But she knew they were purple when she did it, so I'll call that a pretty good thing to have happened. She also restrained herself and didn't tear the flowers off the daffodils, and that was very exciting indeed.

She's in her crib talking to herself when she should be sleeping, but her voice is getting quieter and there are no random loud outbursts, so one can only assume sleep is on the way.