Bananas & Standing

I just gave Elaine her first banana. She was very suspicious and tried to spit out the first bite. (The only solid food she will eat is oatmeal). She then decided she liked it, but would not admit it. She glared at me the whole time she ate it, crawled quickly away, and then quickly returned for more. She ate about 10 little pieces this way, never acting like she was enjoying it in the least.

Anyway, I decided to tape her funny reaction; while I was doing so, she let go of me and stood, unassisted, for a good 2 seconds! Unfortunately (and of course), the camera ran out of memory right then. Watch closely, and at the very end, you can see her let go with her left hand. She stood for long enough for me to say, "You're standing," for her to look down and realize she was standing, do a mini squat, stand back up, and then sit down.

Losing Battle

Our yard is totally infested with dandelions. Over the past couple of weeks, I've spent hours in the front yard, digging up the little buggers by the roots. Our front yard is now dandelion free. However, our back yard looks like this, and I'm not even going to try . . . . .


I didn't know dandelions could be bushes!

Moose Antlers and Patience

A couple weeks ago, Mariah and I were pulling dandelions in our front yard. She picked up a stick, put it to her head, and said, "This is a moose antler!"

I said, "You have a good imagination," to which she replied, "I have a good memory."

me: "Yes, you do."

Mariah: "And I'm patient!"

Hmm. Maybe she has heard her mother praying for patience?

If I Were a Lion

My favorite children's book right now is If I Were a Lion, by Sarah Weeks. It captures my 2-year-old to a T.

We got it from the library last week (I just grabbed it off the shelf without reading it). It's a gem.



I loved watching Mariah's face as Mike read it to her that night before bed.

As he read the first page, "I'm sitting in the time-out chair because my mother put me there. She said, 'You try my patience, child! I do not like it when you're wild,'" Mariah's eyes got wide, and she looked first at me and then at Mike with this oh-my-goodness-this-book-is-about-me look in her eye.

The little girl in the book then goes on to explain how she is far from wild:

"Wild? Who me? That's so absurd. How could she even use that word?"







"If I were a lion, I'd growl and roar and knock the dishes on the floor."










". . . Am I howling? Do I bark? Rummage through the trash at dark?"

And so on. The illustrations are darling; I especially like the wall-art additions on each page.

Very fun book.

Chubbers

April Showers?

April 16th, at my parents' house, we woke up to this:

So, Mariah tried on her Christmas dress (which I had acquired the night before at a Relief Society swap meet) to celebrate, and then she and I headed out to shovel the snow in the warm April sun.

The snow melted very quickly and was almost gone by the end of the day.

Yankee Dog

While Mom, Dad, and the boys were at the condo in Island Park, we stayed at their house to puppy sit Yankee.

Mariah and Yankee got more and more used to each other as the week went on. Yankee settled down a bit, and Mariah got more tolerant and brave. By the end of the week, they acted like siblings. I felt like I had both the good and bad of 2-year-old twins.

Elaine was a bit more nervous than Mariah, and I tried to protect her the best I could for the first few days. But Laney would purposely go by Yankee or take Yankee's toys and then cry for help when Yankee started bugging her. So I finally decided to just let the 2 of them work it out. After a day of that, Laney would just put up her hand and cringe whenever Yanks came by, and Yankee got more used to her and stopped bugging her so much.