tawbubby

We’ve been telling Amelia for months that when she poops on the potty, she gets to go see Seymour the Dinosaur at the Childrens Museum of Richmond. He comes out at 10:30 every day (except Sundays) and she RAN to him! She was the first kid there, and she said “I love you Seymour”.

Storytime at 11:00 had a bonus Curious George appearance.

Everyone was sitting in chairs in front of the stage, listening to the story- Curious George Visits the Chocolate Factory- might be our favorite CG book. Amelia walked up on the stage, got a stool from the side, and put it down right next to George. She sat next to him and listened to the rest of the story, looking sideways at him the whole time. She loved it!

Here are Daddy and Daphne enjoying a sandwich Amelia made in the play kitchen.

We went next door to see the giant spinning granite Earthat the Science Museum.

Sweet Daphne in her new shirt that says “Joy”, perfect for that smiley girl!

We’ve had the pool filled up this week since the weather was so nice. Daphne is the only one who doesn’t mind the COLD water. Amelia and Catriona wouldn’t go in. They just played with the water from the outside.

Amelia enjoying a naked swing!  Ah to be a carefree child.

Amelia made it until 4pm with no accidents! She was dancing around trying to not go #2 while we ate dinner. We threw out the “We’ll go for icecream” lure. She said “I will have chocolate, daddy will have chocolate too, and you will have chocolate with sprinkles.” She sat down with resolve, and went. Just like that. Who said to never use a food bribe? Icecream pics on Flickr Annex.

The icecream place doesn’t have toilets, though. She had to visit nature twice just over the hill next to the parking lot. “Daddy, I went potty in nature!” she said very loud for everyone to hear. Next time we’ll take her little potty with us I guess. What are you supposed to do?!?

That is what we say after she goes in her potty. We said it a lot this weekend. We put her in underwear Saturday morning and went for it. She had a great potty weekend! Only one accident on Saturday. We had two or three today, but one was my fault. (She couldn’t get there in time because I shut the door behind me and she couldn’t get inside.) And…she pooped in the potty!! It’s all over the internet now. We had her little elephant pool out because it was so warm today. She was naked, and hopped out of her pool and went in her potty! Hooray Amelia! I understand how the naked potty training thing works now…she didn’t have anywhere else to put it, and she knew it.
It was actually really funny because we didn’t believe her. Then Ethan and I were celebrating so much and she just pleaded “Will you please wipe me up?!”.
It went a lot easier than I thought it would, but we still have some work to do. She is ready, willing, and able. She just needed a gentle push.

White crayon update: “Mama it works!” when she was coloring on RED paper.

Here she is in a snazzy hat that she thought was totally appropriate for avoiding the sprinkler. She called it her clown hat.

Daphne conked out yesterday afternoon. Sleeping babies are so beautiful.

She and I both have an eye infection. One eye for me and both for her. Hopefully they will clear up fast. Daphne is buzzing her lips a lot and saying “bwah”. Amelia entertains Daphne sometimes (today was a peek-a-boo/hide&seek hybrid) and Daphne loves it. She smiles and follows her all around the room with her eyes. In the tub on Friday, Daphne reached to touch Amelia’s cheek several times. Sometimes Amelia calls out “Daphne, I’m right here” to comfort her. And today she was just about yelling at her “ah-ya-ya-ya-ya” to encourage Daphne to make some Daphne sounds. They have some neat interactions.

She made me laugh hard this morning when she was coloring on a (white) birthday card with a white crayon and she said “Mama it doesn’t work!”.

Amelia got her first game this weekend. We went to the lake with cousins Hannah & Zoe. Hannah is almost five. On Saturday while the younger girls napped, Hannah traced each shape from a stencil and colored them the same color as the punched out shape. Then she wrote the names of all of the shapes next to each one. She gave it to Amelia as a matching game, where Amelia could match the punched out shapes with the ones that Hannah colored!

We are going to laminate the game board so it will last for a while.

The other highlight was Daphne laughing over and over and Hannah’s peek-a-boo. Hannah popped up and down infront of Daphne in the high chair. Each time, Daphne would let out a throaty triple laugh- heh-heh-heh. It is the first time Daphne laughed over and over again. Hannah made the weekend very special for both Amelia and Daphne.

Here is a beautiful “chicken noodle dinner” face. She’s so pretty. Daphne’s sounds have a particular urgency when she sees us getting food ready.

She didn’t like “beef and beef broth” yesterday, though. The first food she didn’t really like.

Anyone remember Amelia in the do-rag? An old favorite!

Above is a rare view of Daphne’s neck! She’s getting so big, isn’t she? Today she sat up by herself, on Ethan’s lap, for about a minute. She can almost always correct a forward lean. She is reaching for toys and pulling them out of a bucket or bin. She particularly likes shaking some silver rings that were 5 cents are her great grandmother Gigi’s Encore store. It was the best baby toy bargain we found through two kids.

When Amelia doesn’t play with a toy for a while, I can change it in some way and she will start playing with it again. She hasn’t played with her kitchen in a while. I messed with it today during nap time- hung some things on the hooks, put the tea set and dishes on one shelf, all the pots on another, etc. She must have noticed, and she played with the kitchen for a good 30 minutes before dinner tonight. I ‘caught’ her here organizing her food- toddlers can be a little obsessive- she stood all her canned goods in the oven. I’m not sure of the thought here, but the two play potato chips ended up on Daphne’s exersaucer.

Amelia’s teacher braided her pigtails. She looks like such a big girl! We didn’t even know her hair was long enough to braid. We had some cake for Amelia’s 2 1/2 birthday yesterday. She said “It’s not my birthday, it’s my half birthday.”

Amelia and I had some egg hunts in the living room this morning with some eggs she got in a basket from her preschool teacher. I hid the first batch while Amelia counted in the other room, and then she found all of them. Then we played four rounds where she “hid” the eggs for me. You can see from the picture why hid was in quotes. Can you find Amelia in the picture?

Amelia would tell me “Go in the other room and I will tell you when to count”. I went into the kitchen and emptied the dishwasher while she hid the eggs…it took her a few minutes. Then she called out “You can count now”, and I would count to 20, and then come in and hunt for the eggs. She would say “OH, I see one!” and point to it in it’s out-in-the-open hiding place. She had fun with both sides of the game at once, but I had more fun laughing at her funny-ness.

Daphne’s been enjoying her Easter cards. Daphne’s 8 months old today! And huge and sooooo smiley. More pics later.

Amelia came to me on Monday morning and asked me to put something in her jeans pocket. I said OK and asked her to go get me a piece of paper and a pen. I wrote her the top note, read it to her a couple times, folded it, and put it in her pocket with instructions to take it out and read it if she missed me during the day.

Then I went upstairs to brush my teeth before we all left the house for the day. As I was coming down the stairs, she met me and handed me the second note, and said “This is for your pocket.” She asked Ethan to write me the note, told him what to write, and to put some hearts on it like I did on hers. This is certainly one of the sweetest things she has ever done and I am sure I will never throw this away.
The third note is the one that Ethan wrote for Amelia. Both notes were tucked in her pocket when she came home in the evening. I’m not sure she took them out to read them, but at least they were close to her while she went to her new school.

Speaking of, so far neither girl has really reacted to switching daycares. Amelia loves the ball pit! and Daphne is pretty easygoing in general. Amelia peeled a hard-boiled egg today and according to her, she ate some and liked it. We’ll have to try that again because we can’t get her to eat eggs- like her Uncle Mike, maybe? Daphne loves the mirror on the underside of the cabinet that is over the changing table (she goes crazy talking) and their Jumperoo and exersaucer. She has started fussing if someone lays her down-she wants to sit up and see the world. We have noticed many things that we like about the school and the teachers, we’re pleased.

We got this bike trailer when Amelia was newly 1 year old. The first time we tried it, she screamed most of the ride. We didn’t use it last spring because we were amidst moving chaos and I was pregnant. Well, we got it out two weeks ago and she now loves it! Here she is with our friend Catriona.

Half the kids on the street got rides one night this week…meaning the half who are small enough to fit into the trailer.

Amelia LOVES this towel. We call it Dragon Burrito when we wrap her up in it after her bath.  She has learned to tell herself “Don’t slip!” after she’s wrapped and takes off to her room for pajamas.

Daphne has moved on from her sling tub to the bath chair. It’s better to fit both girls in the tub, and fun to see her reach for toys in the water.

Daphne figured out two-syllable sounds this week- that she can move her mouth to make the sound change. I hear a few consonants like d or b every time she is talking (a few da-da’s yesterday), but mostly softer sounds like Wu-ah and Oo-ah. She loves to talk and blow raspberries with her tongue.

Wish us luck this week. The girls start in a new daycare/preschool tomorrow. Starting daycare was tough for two weeks for both of them (and us!), so we’re not sure what will happen when they change daycares. Amelia is in Catriona’s class so we are hoping that will help her adjust quickly.
Happy April Fools! Maybe everyone is tricking me this morning because Ethan and Amelia are still asleep (8:45am) and Daphne just went back to sleep.