tawbubby

A gloriously messy Daphne:

Daddy and the girls trying to snooze mid morning:

We got our first “No!” from Daphne last night. Not bad, at 20 months old. She figured out how to say the “n” sound last weekend. It took her another week to say “No!”.
She ate a terrific dinner. A ton of peas, some chicken, and some tater tots. I picked up one small carrot shred from her tiny salad, offered it to her and she said “No!”, and shook her head. I think she pushed my arm out of her way too. She was all about peas last night. No carrots allowed in that tummy, apparently.

Amelia and I just went on a walk, up the street, up the next street, to the stoplight, and back.  It was great.

We picked seeded dandelions.  I love Amelia’s audible inhale whenever she’s trying to blow something- bubbles, dandelions, balloons, sometimes kisses.  We blew a few and then had to save a fully seeded dandelion ball for Daddy, and we blew one that some seeds flew off of, and then had to save that one for Daphne.

Sounds

Her: Mama, do you hear that bird?

Me: Yes, I do hear a lot of birds.

Her: Do you hear that clicky one?

Me: Oh yes, I do, right over there.

Her: But, what kind of bird is that?

Me: I think it is a cardinal.  They click like that.  (Maybe I’m completely wrong, but I think so?)

Her: They make a different sound from the others.

But, what if, Mama?  We hear that question all the time.  Even after we say three times that a particular situation she thought of wouldn’t or couldn’t happen.

We crossed the street when the sidewalk starts by the retirement home.  Amelia said “We need to walk fast in case someone tells us we can’t walk on their sidewalk.”  I explained “Sidewalks are for sharing, Amelia.”  She said “But, what if someone tells us we can’t walk on their sidewalk?”  I said “Well, they won’t because sidewalks are for sharing.”  She said, “But, what if, Mama?” (probably more than once).  I said “Well, then I will remind them that sidewalks are for sharing and they will say ‘Thanks, I forgot that sidewalks are for sharing.’ and we can walk on the sidewalk with them.” 

Sounds

 Her: Mama, do you hear that sound?

Me: Yes, those dogs bark all the time.  (there are dogs in two different houses barking at us walking by)

Her: It’s like a little sound.

Me: Every time we walk by.

Her: No, I think it’s a cricket.  In the grass, or in the tree? Because it’s a little bit frightened?

Of course, I only heard the dogs, and she heard the dogs and the cricket.

We talked about how loud some cars are, and how the red truck hurt her ears. And what would happen if we told them they hurt my ears? 

She found a large rock nugget in the road.  I said “Oh, Amelia that is so pretty, that is a treasure.”  She found another small one.  Then she kept telling me to make sure I let her know if I saw another treasure.

The library

Me: Amelia, how did “Night, night Jack” day go?  (she is supposed to go to nap and say night night jack to her neighbor, and roll over facing away from him so they don’t talk)

Amelia: I said ‘night night’.  But he didn’t go to sleep.  He read his book.  And I read my book.

Me: What book did you have?

Amelia: The flower book.  It’s a new one from the library.

Me: The school library?

Amelia: Yep. But we don’t go there.  Only the teachers go there.

That was interesting to me because we take her to the county libraries fairly often.  And they call it going to the library at school when they change out the books that are in the classroom.

When we got home, she gave Ethan the dandelion.  And the big rock, and said “And you can share that with Daphne.”.  She came, gave me the small rock, and said “And you can share that with Daphne.  Because it’s a treasure.”.

Best big sister ever.

We had two days in the 80s last week. The girls played in the sprinkler on Friday evening and the pool on Saturday afternoon. Friday ended up being a ‘bike wash’ party with our neighbors, ages 2 and 3.
I love this picture with Amelia’s stomach sucked in to avoid the cold water.

Daphne…a bathing beauty. It’s good last year’s suits still fit! She loves the bell on that bike and was ringing it with vigor when we took the picture.

Truckin’ a long through the car wash again.

It poured rain a lot of the day today but sunny and warm days will be back soon…

Apparently, driving everyone around this weekend (with Mama in the back seat giving me directions) made an impression on Amelia.

On the way to day care this morning, Amelia grabbed a sheet from the Washington DC key map that was in the back seat and gave me directions to day care…

Go straight.
Then go to Rockville.
Stop at Japanese.
Then turn right.
Go straight.
Then turn left at Lightning Storm and Thunder.
Then Gingerbread. Right on Candytree Lane.
Dora Candyland…
Then go to the airport, and stop where the planes start.
(etc)

This went on for a few minutes. Finally she handed me the page from the DC mapbook and asked if I could see where we were going.

Uncle Warren and Aunt Marion visited all the way from Wisconsin! We picked them up at National Airport on Friday and went to the National Zoo. Aunt Melissa came down too- it was nice to see her two weekends in a row!

The double stroller rental was a bargain. Here is Uncle Warren pushing his grand nieces around.

Sometimes it was hard to keep Daphne in it! But they both got to rest, snack and cool off on a pretty warm day. Daphne really enjoyed the Ape House. Amelia was all about Pandas. Saw some tigers walking around. And a horse, after I told Amelia that I didn’t think the zoo had horses. Unfortunately, the house for the Elephants and Giraffes was being renovated.

Saturday morning Aunt Melissa was Our Hero when she heard Daphne crying at 6:45am. She changed her diaper, put her back in her crib and Daphne went back to sleep until 9. For some reason, we didn’t hear any of it over her monitor.

After breakfast, we drove around Richmond in the rain. Uncle Warren lived here for two years in the 1950s and we saw his old house.

It was nicer in the afternoon so we went to the park. Daphne and Uncle Warren had matching hats!

Daphne made her first solo trips down the slide and was walking and climbing all over the place. We played frisbee in the field.  Daphne’s role was to laugh as I caught the frisbee and then walk it over to the next player. She really got a workout. Here she is enjoying her Aunt Melissa.

Ethan taught Amelia to throw a frisbee. Her technique needs some work.

Aunt Marion played dollhouse with Amelia for a long time this morning. They brought her a cute pet set for her doll family.

There were some stories, puppets, singing, lots of eating.  Amelia said she liked reading with Uncle Warren, playing piano with Aunt Melissa, and playing dollhouse with Aunt Marion.  We all enjoyed watching Amelia and Daphne play together.  Everyone left this afternoon and we will miss them.

Amelia’s classmate had a Bike and Giraffe party today. It was really a great party. Here’s D in her rig.  Her feet don’t quite reach the pedals yet, but it won’t be long.

It’s great to hear “I don’t want any help, I want to do it myself” as Amelia paraded on her decorated bike.

We got a second trike from the North Carolina Franks that Amelia likes to ride.  But the bike in this picture (got recently off Craigslist) has really helped Amelia feel like a bigger girl than Daphne.   She rode it so well today at a nice, flat park.

The intensity of juice box drinking by Amelia and Catriona makes me laugh.  Cake yet uneaten by Amelia.  I love this picture.

Daphne’s dinner. Girl can eat. You can tell in the occasional photo.

We got Happy Meal Cinderella dress up accessories at McDonald’s on our way up to PA on Thursday. Amelia got a huge plastic heart ring and Daphne got blue gloves that hook on your middle finger. Classy! Amelia wanted to put together all her Cinderella items- with the dress a neighbor handed down to her. Not bad for all of it being free, huh?

So, Cinderella is what we read tonight.

Anyone know a three-year old girl who hasn’t bought into Disney princesses?

We all went to Pennsylvania this weekend for Grannie Annie & Grampy Ray’s 40th wedding anniversary (today).  The girls were great during the long haul in both directions.  That is really a blessing.   This morning they were really too tired to keep their eyes open for more than 15 minutes of riding, and slept until almost Maryland!  They got to see a whole bunch of relatives and friends of Grannie & Grampy.  At least for me, the party was pretty relaxing because their aunt and uncles were a good distraction for the girls.  Thanks!  Uncle Mike got the “I’m going to really miss you” from Amelia.

Amelia rode on our old tire swing and walked up to the shale pit with Uncle Dave and me.  Uncle Dave told her that deer poop jelly bean shaped poops because they eat jelly beans…I’m waiting to see if she brings that up in conversation again.  She really liked Blackie, their cat.  She and Daphne got to sit in Grampy’s tractor seat.  And she helped Grampy fill the bird feeders.  She asked Grannie this morning “When are you going to move from your creaky house?”  (actually I think she used the word ‘creepy’, but meant ‘creaky’).  Falling asleep at night was tough for her when she heard the house settling.   She told me she put pink (her blanket) over her head, but it didn’t keep the creaks out.

Daphne really took to climbing stairs there in December, and was quickly back at it again.  She really enjoyed her scrapple this morning.  She carried many of Grannie and Grampy’s things around their house.   I think Daphne learned the word “home” tonight when we drove up the driveway.  She was so happy to be home and immediately started moving all their toys around the house.

Aunt Melissa- please send some good pics of the weekend! We only took one, and it wasn’t good.  Two weekends of photo strike-outs in a row.  You can check out all of us sleeping in the car on Flikr.