Mohawk Baby!

This is how Cecilia's hair looked when she woke up this morning. Just had to share.

No gel required! I really should wash her greasy hair...

An imaginative story

This morning, Caroline seemed a little concerned about something...

C: There might be a hippopotamus under our floor. I heard something that sounded like a hippopotamus. He might try to take one of my toys!
Me: I'm wondering what makes you think of a hippopotamus?
C: Well, it happened to Lilly. A hippopotamus was under her floor, and it came and broke her dollhouse. It made a crack in the side of the dollhouse, but we were able to fix it with tape.
(Lilly is her imaginary friend - she's a mouse)

Okaaaaay...

Definitions by Caroline

Urinals: "boy sinks"

There have been a few times recently when my husband has taken Caroline into a public restroom. When she asked, he explained what the urinals were. But apparently she just doesn't get it, because she still asks him, "Daddy, can I wash my hands in one of those boy sinks?"

Arts and Crafts with Caroline

This is obviously more "craft" than "art." Caroline saw a picture of a tiger on a pad of construction paper and asked about it. I told her it was just to show ideas of things you could make using construction paper. So she said she wanted to make a tiger. I thought I'd cut out different shapes for various body parts and let her assemble it however she wanted. I showed her how the body and head fit together, and then after that, she was on her own. I thought it was interesting how she put one ear on the bottom and one on top. I just told her which body part each piece was. She assembled it with a gluestick. There were lots more stripes she could have used, but having the attention span of a three year old, she stopped after four. I figured it was a good exercise in spatial awareness as well as fine motor skills.

Synchronized Lid-Chewing

Cecilia and cousin Andrew enjoy the Tupperware lids

We went to Tennessee for our annual August birthdays celebration. I have a birthday at the beginning of the month, and Chris's sister, father, and grandfather all have birthdays at the end of the month. We went up on Friday and returned on Monday. It was nice to spend some leisurely time there, and several of Chris's relatives met Cecilia for the first time.

My baby plays with toys

Yes, it's amazing... to me, at least. Caroline never really played with baby toys. Not unless I played with them with her, talking to her constantly. I was convinced that baby toys are a marketing gimmick, much in the same way I think most baby products are gimmicks. But apparently, some babies DO play with baby toys, I have discovered. Not that she wouldn't be happy to play with Tupperware lids, pieces of paper, and any other household items... but the toys we had for baby #1 are actually getting some use now!

Cecilia is getting good at lunging forward, stretching to reach items that are out of her reach. She can bend completely at the waist so that she is practically against the floor, but still in a siting position. She'll also flop to her belly this way. although she doesn't like it once she's there, typically!

This toy has many interesting moving parts. Cecilia is always drawn to the little round thing with the red dot in the middle. She touches it with one finger and observes how it moves with great interest. When she's focused on a toy, she won't look up at me when I try to get her attention... she really concentrates. At first I was offended, but then realized it is just her personality, and that she does interact with me when she wants to. But she really seems to enjoy figuring things out. I guess she'll be the engineer in the family!

A Tip from the Kitchen

This tip comes from my ingenious husband...

Anyone else use all natural peanut butter, the kind with only peants and maybe salt as the ingredients? If you do, you know that all the peanut oil settles at the top of the jar. Whoever is first to open a new jar must first stir it all up, a somewhat time-consuming and messy process. My husband was helping Caroline make her lunch, and he began using a spoon. Then he had the idea of taking the electric mixer and only attaching one beater to it. It fit down into the jar perfectly, and in just a minute he had perfectly uniformly-mixed peanut butter! No more bottom-of-the-jar dry, crusty peanut butter for us!

This is the same guy who, along with one of my brothers, used an electric drill on a pepper mill when my mother asked that they grind up a quarter cup of pepper. This works well, but I'd advise aganst doing it in front of the owner of the pepper mill!

Bad Mommy

Not only do I let dogs lick my baby in the face...

... I also let her eat sand.

beautiful

Perhaps I'm biased, seeing as I am her mother. And perhaps my mother, who says, "She is the prettiest baby I've ever seen," is also biased, being the grandmother. But those eyes... oh my. She is breathtaking. If this isn't proof of the existence of God, then I don''t know what is.

A Trip to the Beach!

We didn't think we would be taking a real vacation this summer, so when my mom asked if we'd like to go to the beach in August, I was very excited! We went from Aug. 2 to 9th. The beach was called Seabrook Island and is close to Charleston, SC. It is somewhat upscale while also being kid-friendly. We stayed in a condo called the Atrium Villas, which was right across a quiet street from the Seabrook Island Club and the beach. The club was where the pools were located. As guests in the condos, we got to use the club membership cards to access the pools. There were two larger pools and a kiddie pool. There was also a restaurant/bar beyond the pools and with a good view of the beach - it was a nice place to sit at a table under an umbrella while feeling the ocean breeze. Very refreshing!

The view of one of the pools and the Pelican's Nest restaurant from our condo balcony

Caroline had been pretty nervous in swimming pools lately, so we weren't sure how much she'd enjoy getting in the ocean and the pool. But she warmed right up to it quite quickly! She enjoyed laying in the shallow part of the ocean and letting the waves rush over her. It didn't even faze her as she followed Daddy out into the ocean, waves nearly knocking her down! This is the Atlantic Ocean, but there is a skinny little uninhabited strip of island out beyond Seabrook Island, so it seemed to keep the waves pretty tame. There were actually signs up that said "Extreme currents - no swimming at any time," which was odd, because people were out in the ocean every day we were there... and so were we! I'm guessing the signs were a warning so people wouldn't try to swim out very far. Caroline only went out about waist-deep. I got stung by something (a ray?) on my ankle on our second day there, and while the stinging only lasted a half hour, it still made me reluctant to go out as far again! But Caroline and Chris went out into the ocean every time we went down to the beach!

We enjoyed hanging out at the pool, too. We had great weather the entire time - just one rainy afternoon. so we spent most mornings at the beach and the afternoons at the pools. We brought a tiny inflatable pool for Cecilia and set it up on the beach and on the pool deck so she'd have her own little area to splash in. Caroline went out into the big pools with her water wings on... and then she even let Daddy take them off her, and she stood in the pool where the water was three feet deep! She really seemed to enjoy herself, and it was good to see her pretty much over her fear of going out into the water. We were thinking she'd end up staying on the steps the whole vacation!We are so grateful that my parents took us on this trip! It was so relaxing to be able to just hang out at the beach and pool, to not have to do chores and cook, and to be able to enjoy each other's company! I am always so sad when I have to leave the beach. But we took many photos to help us remember the great time we had!

From the mouths of babes...

Caroline: "Grampa, is Muh (Gramma) getting old?"

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Caroline: "Grampa, you don't have very much hair."