tawbubby

Scene: Yesterday, when I picked Amelia up from day care. They were playing in the common area.

A: DADDY! DADDY! GUESS WHAT WE EARNED TODAY!
E: Do you mean what you learned today?
A: NO! NO! WHAT WE EARNED!
E: What’s that?
A: WE HAD GOOD LISTENING EARS, SO WE EARNED THE SUGAR THING THAT AIDAN BROUGHT FOR SHOW & TELL!

[I found out later it was Pixie Sticks.]

E: Did you have this… recently?
A: UH-HUH, I DID DADDY! I DID!

And during this brief conversation, I also had the following conversation with one of Amelia’s classmates, three times:

Jack: AMELIA JOHNSON’S DADDY! AMELIA JOHNSON’S DADDY! WATCH ME JUMP!
[jumps]
[repeat]
[repeat]

We are wondering how Pixie Sticks constitute “show & tell”…

Daph’s new bathing suit is super cute:

We were at the lake for Grandpa’s birthday. We had beautiful weather and got to enjoy the water. Amelia was brave enough to jump into Ethan’s arms a few times. Bebe has a picture of Amelia driving Grandpa’s boat…will share when we can get it.

Daphne has also joined us in the booster seat at the big table.

She really enjoys it, and walks to the booster seat instead of the highchair, which sits empty in the dining room. We took the booster seat to the cabin, and haven’t looked back since. Despite a few messes.

Daphne’s favorite “word” right now is “I love ooo”.  She tells all of us many times how she feels. 

Here’s Walker, the newest Friend-of-Tawbubby, Bebe and Grandpa’s new dog.

He’s a Golden-doodle (Golden X Poodle) and very cute.  He enjoyes that the girls’ arms and dresses are close to his mouth compared to big adults.  He doesn’t know he will get clobbered if he walks under a swing.  Daphne seems to enjoy him a little more than Amelia. She played a little ‘fetch’ with him this weekend, and ‘chase’ the day they met.

Saturday, Amelia pretended she and I had a doctor’s appointment. this all occurred in Bebe’s playroom, in realtime.

First she got dressed, but that was just putting on dress-up shoes. Then she called ahead to make sure the doctor was available, complete with 10 seconds of silence after dialing before talking into the toy cell phone.

Amelia drove, which consisted of her buckling her pretend seatbelt, and then holding her right arm up at a 45-degree angle behind her.

Ethan: “What are you doing?”
Amelia: “I’m backing up.”

But the best part was when we got to the doctor, she made us wait 20 minutes before he saw her. seriously. I kept asking if she wanted to go outside and find Mama and Daphne. but, no, we had to wait for our appointment. TWENTY MINUTES.

Hysterical.

We went to Highland County VA for Gifer’s 90th birthday party.  Gigi and Gifer have been coming to their cabin for 45 years!

Daphne learned a bit of the Happy Birthday song.  She likes to watch a video Ethan took while everyone sang.
The Johnsons (9 humans, 3 dogs) stayed at three different cabins along a river. It was in the lower 70s so the girls had a little fun in the water. Daphne got her feet wet but not much more. She liked the moss on this rock, and would pet it, and then check out her hands.

Here is Amelia fishing.  She quickly taught Daphne to say “Smack” as she raised the stick, and slapped the water with it.

Daph enjoyed a warm bath in the bathroom sink.  Much nicer than the cold river!

Last week it was my (Ethan’s) lucky turn to a 1-on-1 walk with Amelia. I decided to do something a little different. the houses on our street are at the edge of the neighborhood, and the next neighborhood has a mirroring street and set of houses. I decided to surprise Amelia by “sneaking up” on our house.

The conversation, went like this, long our walk.

E: I’m going to show you a surprise.
A: What is it?
E: It’s a surprise.
A: but I want you to tell me.
E: if I did it wouldn’t be a surprise.
…..
A: Where is the surprise? is it candy?
E: No, it’s just up ahead.
…..
A: Where are we going?
E: I think the surprise is behind this house.
A: can you carry me? I’m tired.
E: Sure.
…..
E: See that house?
A: Yeah.
E: that’s the surprise.
A: (smiling) let’s go see it.

[Amelia didn't recognize the back of our house at all. As you will see.]

E: Look at this house. What do you think?
A: Let’s go inside!

(We go though the back gate into this strange area, our own backyard).

E: See that window up there?
A: Yeah.
E: A little girl lives in that room.
A: What’s her name?
E: I think it’s Amelia!

(I think Amelia thought I was making up a story, like about a Princess Amelia or something)

A: They have a playhouse on their porch!
E: they do.
A: I want to go play in it.
E: Well, let’s look up here (walking towards the front yard).
A: They have a truck just like ours.
E: That’s true.
A: HEY! This is our house!

Amelia’s a pretty observant kid. I think she was totally thrown by this strange house. She doesn’t have a sense of direction, so she didn’t know we had looped back behind. And a familiar thing can look new from a different angle. The walk was a lot of fun.

Immersion therapy: Amelia has had a fascination-fear relationship with all kinds of detectors for months now. It started with a fire drill at daycare in the fall. Then Bebe and Grandpa’s storm flashlight-radio. And every type of detector, emergency light, alarm mounted in any building she visits. Store ceilings, dentist office walls, every where she goes, she doesn’t miss a single one. Last week, her smoke detector started chirping low battery. So she and Daddy changed the batteries in all of our detectors.

Brave girl!

Daddy got a Wii for his birthday, and here is Amelia’s Mii:

Not bad, huh? Thanks for helping her make it, Mr. Chris! We can’t wait for Grandma to come and try bowling.

Sunday afternoon we went to Catriona’s 3rd birthday party. And Daphne’s first dress up.

She insisted on the bib. I tried to take it off and she got mad.  So pretty!  She is also wearing her new pink crocs, size 2-3.  So tiny.

Daphne has a couple chores.  She helps us feed the dogs now (and has gotten Amelia re-excited about that one).  Here, she helped me get the laundry from the washer to the dryer.  I laughed every time she went half way into the washer.

Daphne and I are enjoying a Mom/Dad-n-me swimming class.  Our class is four kids and half moms, half dads.  We’re half way.  One girl is almost swimming.  One boy cried through all three classes.  If the almost-swimmer is a 10 and the crier is a 1, Daph is about a 6.  She really liked two out of three days.  The other she was either hungry or tired or distracted by her Daddy and sister who came to watch (and to watch the 3 year old learning like Amelia will in June).  Today I let go of her under water for a few seconds, a few times!  That is really parent-training rather than baby-training.

Tonight in the tub, she started pouring water over her head.  Something her big sister has NEVER done.  She really laughs when I go under water, pop out at her, and say PEEK-A-BOO!  She’s getting used to the submersion.  Tonight the teacher said they won’t take water into their lungs.  If they get water inside, it goes to their stomachs.  She had a couple great burps and one splat on the sidewalk as we walked into the house.  Guess we have to work on how much water she is swallowing.   She really liked floating tonight.  We did that with just a hand under her head and the other under her chin (to keep her head tilted back).  I put her head near mine and after 5 seconds she would really relax.  Her least favorite part might be learning to hang on to the wall, but her arms have always been her weak part.  And, her body isn’t tiny- she has a lot to hold up!  So we’ll just have to keep at it.  Our pool opens Memorial Day weekend, look out for a little fish.

We went to see Elmo and a Sesame Street Live show on Friday night. It was what Ethan wanted for his birthday. Amelia just loved it and Daphne liked it a lot. Elmo and friends sing a lot about healthy snacks, unlike the snow cones and cotton candy they sell at the show.

Daphne had a few pulls of cotton candy and was done. Amelia finished her whole snow cone, dancing and snow
coning through the second half. Here is one of her great moves:

She really went to town dancing. I suppose it was sugar-fueled.

Daphne got 2 character (maybe Prairie Dawn? and a non-Elmo monster) high 5’s and Amelia got one (Bert).  Turns out Amelia’s favorite character is The Count.  She announced that on the way home.  After the first half, and an intermission, Daphne waved and said “Bye bye Belmo” for most of the second half. A very pleasant way to say “I’m tired, take me home to bed.” She was hyper in her car seat for maybe two minutes, and then conked out, asleep.
We all had a great time.

This kid just makes us laugh. She really doesn’t like cold stuff, but she keeps coming back for more because it’s sweet.

Click here to see a funny video: Daphne eating a popsicle

She also had her first watermelon slice this weekend.

She didn’t like it at first. After spitting out the first couple bites, she’d take a bite, walk around, come back for another, for probably ten bites. Amelia polished off almost 4 slices.

She is talking a lot and imitating everything. She says “I wuv oo dada”, “dada mama yaya” (over and over, usually in the car), “lellow” (for yellow), and can say counting sounds after we say 1. One “doooo” “eee” “awww”. Often when she sees a car she yells “CAR!” because that is what we do when we’re playing on the street so all the kids know to run to the grass. Her ‘all done’ has transitioned from a quick & snappy “ah duh” to a slow drawl “awllllll dunnnnnn” with extra dramatic and drawn out sign language to go with it.

She wiped out this morning on the bottom step. We didn’t see it, but she wouldn’t put any weight on her left leg for the morning. Took her to the ER. Xrays negative. Went by the Flynns for some dinner on the way back and she took off walking again. At least I am a good mom, and really, I want her to walk. It’s not like I didn’t want her to, I just wish she did right before we spent 2 hours at the ER. At least she is very pleasant company and kind of used to people messing with her.