Sunday, January 31, 2010

Driving back from Tahoe

Update - Molly slept all but 30 minutes of the drive. We didn't stop as a result, but it was well worth it. That's my trooper!!!

Friday, January 29, 2010

The pond...

It sure looks different this time of year.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Checking out the fishies!

At Hiro Sushi.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Ice vs. Mommy, Ice wins!

This morning Molly came up to me and said, "Frosty? Boots? Frosty?" This was her way of telling me she'd like to go outside. Now there's a brief window between wanting to go outside and actually getting outside. Molly is not a huge fan of all the snow gear that comes with going out in the snow. I got her snow bib and boots on no problem, but she started to meltdown as I struggled to get her snow jacket on. I pick her up, grab my fleece and head outside. Now there are two steps just outside the side door that go down to a covered little pathway that leads to the stairs that head down to the garage. This little pathway LOOKED clear, but was apparently covered in a nice thin layer of clear ice.

I went down.

Hard.

Did I mention I was holding Molly? I had her on my hip and immediately turned so she would fall on me. Both my feet went out from under me and I landed on my back on the steps. N was quickly at the door and grabbed Molly and took her inside. Once we got her snowsuit off and she calmed down she seemed perfectly fine. Apparently I absorbed her fall. I, on the other hand, was quite sore. Our plan for a walk was aborted.

The scene of the crime:



A couple hours later I decided to try again. This time I was just going to dress Molly in some fleece pants and her lighter winter jacket. N had salted the side walkway. The sun was out and there wasn't a trace of wind. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. We ventured up our street which has a little bit of an incline to it. We didn't make it far and Molly asked to be carried about every 20 feet. Halfway back I finally gave in. Maybe next season we can actually make it all the way around the block.

Molly at the end of our driveway:



Yes, those are little hotel bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Yes, she did insist on carrying them.



Absolutely GORGEOUS day:



The rest of the pics can be found in the K - Jan, Feb, March 2010 gallery (starting at the bottom of page 1 to page 4).

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Tahoe Tot Spot

Molly and I went to Tahoe Tot Spot today so she could burn off some of her energy. It was awesome. There were two main rooms (mini gym and activity room) along with a smaller arts n' crafts room. There was a pre-school class in the arts n' crafts room when we arrived. Molly immediately bolted into the mini gym area and made a beeline for the trampoline that led into a ball pit.



She LOVED it. About 20 minutes later the kids from the pre-school class came in and the place was pretty chaotic from that point out. The activity room had pretty much every toy you could think of. There was the train activity table along with a mini play kitchen and full on shopping area. I spied at least half of Molly's toys along with a corner full of costumes the kids could play in.

I picked up the Open Play 10 Visit Punch Card as I know we'll be back and it lasts a full year. There was also a toy store in the back that I must check out more the next time we visit. Molly lasted about an hour and a half before she laid down in the middle of the room and said, "Night-night." I packed us up and we headed back home. Little bug could barely keep her eyes open for the drive back and went down for nap time with no fuss.



Money well spent indeed.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Fairyland, video and more pics

Molly having a blast inside the Fairy Music Farm at Fairyland.





Jenn also posted the pictures she took into an album. This one is my favorite:



As I took the other end:

N is for Ninja

Molly has a t-shirt that says that and boy has that been true these days. Once again, Molly's toddler bed allows her to get up whenever she wants. This makes for some lovely early morning greetings along with a few middle of the night encounters.

My personal favorite? N waking up to Molly (lightly) smacking him on the face while whispering, "Wake up daddy!"

In fact I enjoy most of these encounters because Molly tends to go to daddy's side of the bed. Why? Well, because daddy will pick her up and bring her into our bed whereas mean ol' Mommy marches her back to her room for a diaper change followed by rather firm instructions to get back into her OWN bed.

I was thinking part of the reason Molly always went to N's side of the bed was due to the fact that N's side of the bed is closer to the bedroom door. Well, that is not the case up in Tahoe and last night Molly made a wide berth around me and over to N's side where she simply said, "Daddy up!"

Most of the time Molly goes to N and has him pull her up into bed, but there are times were she climbs up herself at the foot of the bed. The first indication I have that this is happening is Sadie growling at her as she tends to use Sadie as leverage to get herself all the way up onto our bed. Sadie is not pleased with this turn of events. One time she basically did a running cannonball onto N and nailed him in the back with a knee. Another time N woke up to her hand on his face when he THEN realized she was laying completely on his back (he was on his stomach). Yes, N is a VERY sound sleeper.

Molly is content to snuggle for about 20 minutes or so and then she starts asking for Abby's Flying Fairy School. Or Monsters, Inc. (that's her latest obsession). These requests start out as whispers, but quickly escalate to very loud demands if shown no sign of movement on our end.

Personally, I'm loving the fact that N is getting up with Molly more and I get that extra 20-30 minutes in bed. LOVING it! :-)

Who? Me?

Molly has mastered her innocent look. Complete conviction... down to her core. Let me give you a few examples.

Since we moved her over to her toddler bed she can get up and play with toys in her room. This usually only happens at nap time when she's not quite ready to crash out. I'll hear her little footsteps as she goes around her room and picks up toys. Well, we have hardwood floors so Molly can also hear MY footsteps when I start making my way down the hall to her room.

THUD!

(That would be the sound that whatever toy she was playing with makes when she throws it down on the ground.)

Dunh-duh-duh-duh-duh.

(Those would be her footsteps as she runs back towards her bed)

SLAM!

(That would be the sound of the full on DIVE she does back into her bed.)

I have opened the door to see the last part of the dive. A blur of a little body as she simultaneously dives into bed, grabs her blanket, throws it over her, and then manages to look back towards me in the doorway... COMPLETE INNOCENT LOOK on her face... and then she has the nerve to blink a few times to further flesh out her complete and utter embodiment of pure childlike innocence as her wide doe-like eyes seem to beg the question, "Why are you standing there Mommy? I've been in bed this ENTIRE time."

Yeah. Suuuure you have kid.

Another great example is when Molly is caught walking around the house with something she shouldn't have in her hands. This usually happens to be crayons (which are to be kept in the kitchen at her activity desk). As soon as she sees you she immediately puts her hands behind her back. If you ask her what she's holding in her hands she will tell you, "Nothing." If you then ask her to show you her hands she will, in one swift movement, chuck the objects behind her and then bring around her empty hands with that same COMPLETE INNOCENT LOOK.

Oy!

I'm not even going to get into the fact that she already knows to work parent against parent and then toss the grandparents into the mix when she wants something. Little one already knows how to work every angle. There's a reason she's turning into quite the daddy's girl.

Snow vs. Molly... It's a draw!

We got Molly all bundled up in her snow suit (it still fits!) and took her outside for her next encounter with snow. We were hoping things would go easier this time around considering her recent obsession with Frosty the Snowman. Molly was looking at all the snow and kept pointing and saying, "Frosty? Frosty the snowman?" so there was hope.

Um, it went better than last year? I *think* that's a safe statement. She wasn't overly thrilled to be in the snow, but she did think Sadie running around was HILARIOUS so that helped. She did have some fun when daddy picked her up and tossed her in the air a few times. Then she was done.

So yeah, I'd say it was a draw.

We have ALLLLLL week to work on her folks. Heh.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Friday, January 15, 2010

Fairyland



Molly and I headed up to Fairyland today. We met up with Jenn, Robert, Connor, and Bev and arrived a few minutes after they opened at 10:00 am. I had no idea this place even existed until a friend posted some pics on Facebook. It was wonderful. The kids LOVED it!



We pretty much let them run amok and check things out at their own pace. It wasn't very crowded so we could keep an eye on them. This place was very kid friendly and most of the attractions were built for little ones to run through. It wasn't very big and I'm pretty sure we saw everything at least once. There was one merry-go-round they were too short to go on (38" height requirement), but they had a blast on the little train instead. Although their favorite part was probably running through the Old West style town front that was all connected on the second floor and had a slide at one end.



By the time we made it around to the mini Alice in Wonderland inspired merry-go-round Molly was getting tired and more content to chill in her stroller than get on the ride. Robert had a blast though... AND had the ride completely to himself! Luckily Molly caught a second wind post lunch and I was able to get some pictures of them in the Emerald City as various Oz characters.





Click here for the gallery from the day.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Molly's cousin rules!

Auntie Carina (technically Molly's cousin) picked her up a genuine Frosty the Snowman from Build-A-Bear. The flower on his top hat and his cheeks light up when you lift the top hat up. It also makes that twinkle sound your hear throughout the tv special (that I now know by heart). Molly is stoked!

Monday, January 11, 2010

crack monkey came to visit...

No, I am not referring to the fact that Aunt Tracey and Great Aunt Jan (or Jan, the Great as she prefers to be called) were in town. I am referring to my normally lovely daughter that went off the rails sometime Saturday morning. I'm still not entirely sure what was going on with Molly, but she woke up in a rather delicate mood on Saturday morning. This delicate state continued through Sunday afternoon.

Molly's fake cry has escalated to full on tears and she was pulling it out left and right all weekend long. First my sister and N walked down to Starbucks with her Saturday morning. This is normally an outing Molly really enjoys. Well, the more they walked the more she had a meltdown. Everything subsided once at Starbucks and she saw another little kid to say hi to, but then the meltdown continued as soon as they left for the walk back. Molly got a good nap in and we had hoped that was the end of it. That night we headed over to my parents for dinner. My Aunt Jan had flown out from Canada that day and was staying with them. Molly was pretty good... at first. Then the fake cry was pulled out. She just wanted daddy to hold her and would bust out the fake cry whenever he put her down. Usually when Molly just wants to be held by N she's not feeling well, but we had no indications whatsoever that she was sick or coming down with something.

My sis spent Saturday night at our place because NORMALLY mornings are a great time to spend with Molly. Saturday morning (pre-Starbucks run) Molly crawled into bed with my sister to watch Sesame Street and then they had a great time chasing each other around the house. We put Molly down around 8:30 and she went down with out any fuss. Her bed time routine is usually started around 7:30 or so and she's usually left alone by 7:45/8:00. She had also gone down late on Friday (a little after 9:00) as N said she wasn't acting tired and thought he would just keep her to say hi to Tracey when she got in. Now I'm wondering if the slightly later bed time was a contributing factor.

The rest of us head to bed just after 11:00 and we hear Molly. She is crying a little and very whiny. N goes in to check on her and she does NOT want to stay in her room and does NOT want N to put her down. So she ended up our room watching Sesame Street until about 12:30. She had been saying Ah-bah-gabba-gool all day and at some point N deciphered that to mean Abby's Flying Fairy School. N put her down and then I was aware he was up with her a few more times, but didn't fully wake up myself until around 2:30 when I heard him start to run a bath. I go in and he's pretty much been up with her the entire time. He got about 20 minutes in bed, but then heard her get up again. I go back to bed, but I can hear them through the wall (her bathroom is on the other side of our bedroom wall) and can hear that she's starting to wind up Up UP. I go in and relieve N and get Molly in her pjs and try to relax her. I finally end up reclined in the rocking chair in her room and she eventually falls asleep on me. I wait for another 30 minutes or so before I put her back down and it's 4:30 by the time I crawl in bed.

N's up with her at 6:30 and brings her back to our room to watch Sesame Street as my sister is camped out in the living room trying to sleep through the chaos. Molly wants to be held and only held by N. And only wants to be sitting in his lap. I feed the dogs and cats and then take care of Bree and Jon's cat (they were out of town) that's diabetic and needs a shot twice a day. I get back and Molly's still up. They both finally fall asleep sitting up (propped up with every pillow we had) and I transfer Molly to bed around 9:30.

My sis and I go meet my parents and aunt for lunch leaving N at home with Molly who slept until about 12:30. She was less crack monkey like when she woke up from her nap, but still pulling out the fake cry an awful lot. We've been trying to nip that in the bud by stressing she needs to use her words. N will not pick her up if she just starts crying and walks over to him with her arms up. We tell her she needs to calm down and say, "Up please" before he'll hold her. So far that seems to be working.

I'm still not entirely sure what the hell her deal was. She did have a slight temp of 99 something when N got up with her at 6:30, but that was completely gone post nap. We've poked and prodded looking for her second molars, but don't feel or see anything. They might be working their way down, but so far nothing has poked through.

Slightly bummed the crack monkey made a visit while family was in town. My sis did get to spend some quality time with her before she became daddy's girl, but it was still annoying.

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Incoming!

Sadie update

Sadie had her follow up x-rays yesterday and all is healing well. It will be another 6 weeks before she can resume all activity (off leash balls out activity along the lines of hikes in Tahoe or dog parks), but for now it's unlimited walks. The muscle mass difference between the two legs is still visibly noticeable, but the gap is lessening every day. She has been acting normal for a while now, but we still have a ways to go before she can do everything she used to do before. We just need to keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn't overdo it.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

1:22

That's what time my clock read when N and I were woken up to Molly walking up our bed. She had crawled up on N's side of the bed and then pretty much fell on top of him. My clock said 4:38 the last time I crawled back into bed, although it was probably past 5:00 by the time I fell back asleep after listening for any sounds to indicate Molly was getting up again.

Last night I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. I cut up a meatball into Molly size pieces and let it cool off. She devoured it and then asked for more More MORE. I cut off some pieces from my meatballs and put them on her plate. They felt cool enough to my touch, but apparently they were still too hot to bite into as she immediately spit it out and threw it. She then refused to eat anything else OR drink anything else. We're pretty sure she burned her mouth by the way she was sucking in air. We tried to get her to eat a popsicle, but she was not interested in putting anything back in her mouth. She kept crying so we finally got some Orajel in her to help ease the pain. That didn't really seem to do much so we got some Tylenol in her. She was pretty delicate for the rest of the evening, but went down ok.

Then she woke up at 9:30 crying again. So I got another little dose of Tylenol in her and rocked her back to sleep. All was quiet when I crawled into bed.

Then 1:22 this morning we were greeted with a lovely incoming Molly cannonball. We kept leading her back to bed and she kept getting out. Changed her diaper. Rocked with her. Ten minutes later she'd be walking back into our room. N gave her another dose of tylenol. Finally I just sat with her for a good half an hour and she finally just sat up and said, "Bed." I gladly obliged and put her down and crawled back into bed myself. All was well until 7:20 or so this morning when I woke up to Molly walking through the kitchen.

Hopefully last night was an isolated incident and there are no surprise visits tonight. Mommy's tired.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Molly and her sherpa

Molly and N walked down to Starbucks this morning. Well, Molly walked to the house just past the Rose Garden and then informed N she would be carried from that point forward on his shoulders. He obliged.

This is the lovely greeting I received upon their return:



Apparently she spent a better part of the walk back drumming her fingers on his head.

Click here for more pictures.

Walking to starbucks with daddy.

Adorable!!!!

Holidaze

Other than getting sick just in time for Christmas, the holidaze has actually been great. We laid low on Christmas Eve, but on Christmas Day we hosted like normal. Thanksgiving worked out so well I decided to do the same routine. Grant arrived just after Molly went down for her nap around 1:00. Then everyone else arrived around 2:00. We were able to eat an early dinner and clean up before Molly woke up from nap time.

Molly was a little overwhelmed with all the Christmas presents. She would get interested in whatever gift (and sometimes just the packaging) she opened up she would have no interest in opening another present. So the opening of gifts was spread out throughout the day. We still have her main present from us wrapped up and sitting under the tree. I figure she can open it sometime in February and get super excited about having a new toy. With all the presents she received from family the one she loved the most were these "magic" feeding baby bottles that my mom got her. I think she just loves the fact that they fit into her little hands and she can carry them everywhere. And I mean everywhere. She goes to bed holding on to them and wakes up holding them.

This last week Logan's school was shut down so we were able to do some play dates (click here for pictures). On Monday Bree and Logan came over for the day and the two kids tired each other out. Then on Tuesday Robert and Connor were also able to join Logan and this time Jon for another play date. The Jodoins took off for nap time, but we were able to put Logan down for his nap again here. All of the kids love Molly's favorite present. Molly has been "feeding" all of her toys and Logan picked up on it. It was pretty darn cute. That night we left N with both kids (after they went down for the night) so Bree, Jon, and I could go see Invictus. Great movie.

Thursday we headed over to the the Jodoins for New Years Eve. The plan was to get together around 5:00 pm and have the kids tire each other out. Jenn made dinner and then we were all praying the kids would go down so the adults could ring in the New Year. It worked. I noticed Molly was starting to slow down around 7:30 so I asked if she was tired (she nodded) and if she was ready for nite nite (she said yes and headed down the hall to find daddy). We put her down in Jenn and Jarrod's room in a portable crib and she was out like a light by 7:45. I'm a little surprised she was able to fall asleep while the other kids were still running around and making tons of noise, but she did. We didn't hear a peep out of her until we woke her up to head home. All the other kids were down by 8:45 which was quite the feat. We played a couple games and rang in the New Years with a quick look at the tv while the ball dropped and then back to the game of Settlers we were playing. Jeff won. Congrats Jeff!

My parents had asked us when Molly could come over for another sleepover so we dropped her off on Friday night and headed out to dinner and a movie with some friends. We saw Sherlock Holmes. I LOVED it! Excellent movie and I hope they make another.

Yesterday we actually had two parties to attend. Molly's friend Leo turned one on the first and we had his birthday party in the afternoon. The festivities started at 1:00 so my plan was to try and get Molly down for an early nap. I would head to the party first and then N and Molly would join us after nap time. Well, she went down around 12:30, but at 1:00 I could hear her up and playing and went in. As soon as I opened the door I could see her dive across the room to her bed where she pretended she had been all along. I told her no more playing and to get some sleep. We didn't hear any more movement so I think she fell asleep shortly thereafter. However, little bug was apparently tired because she slept until 5:10. She completely missed Leo's party. We then headed over to the Connally/Shipmans for a holiday dinner that Bree made. It was deeee-licious (to quote Molly). We were able to get Molly down on Logan's super cool new toddler travel bed. She did end up in the very corner for some reason, but she still went down easy and fell asleep. Which is great news seeing as I just ordered one since she no longer fits in her little tent.

I hope everyone else had a great holidaze. Until next year...

It was only a matter of time...

This morning I heard Molly babbling and thought to myself, "Am I dreaming?" The sound of her voice was much too clear (and too loud) for it to be coming from the monitor. I then wake up enough to look at the monitor and the lights aren't moving, but I hear Molly again. Then I realize she's in our room. Little bug was laying in Sadie's dog bed talking to herself. First sound she made all morning. I didn't even hear her walk in. She then wanted up in our bed and kept asking for the tv to be turned on. I tried to move her out to the living room so N could keep sleeping, but she got quite adamant and N said to just turn the tv on. So Molly watched her Sesame Street this morning smack dab in the middle of the bed while N and I tried to cling to the mattress on either side. Once she started to move around and crawl on N we relocated out to the living room.

Now if only I could teach her to turn the tv on in the living room herself maybe I'll get to sleep in. ;-)