Putting Mommy and Daddy to Sleep

Have you emptied your bladder recently? If not, I recommend doing so now.

OK. Now, you are less likely to wet yourself as you read the following story:

All who know Elizabeth have seen her talk to, nurture, and feed her "babies", which is a loose term for anything she owns. Well, she has moved on to bigger and better things. Namely, mommy and daddy. Her new stalling technique before bedtime is to make mommy and daddy sleep on her bedroom floor. Tonight, she took it to another level, playing out an entire charade that went something like this...

"Mommy, Daddy sleeping, you go sleep, too!" I lay down on the floor next to daddy, whose head is covered with an afghan. "I have blankie for you, too!!" She covers my right scapula with a blankie, and pats my back. Then she hands me a stuffed puppy dog to snuggle with. Daddy, not to be left out, starts wimpering. So she gives him a tiny stuffed bunny. Not satisfied with this, he says, in a whiny voice, "I want the gorilla!!". To which she says, "O-Kay." Crosses the room to fetch the gorilla.

We both start whining about wanting a story. Again, she says, "O-Kay." She procures "Blue Hat, Green Hat" and "The Going to Bed Book". But before she can sit down, she decides she needs a bench. So she goes and hefts her stool with the carved letters that spell her name(which isn't light), nearly dropping it on my head in order to situate herself between us. She sits down with the book. Then changing her mind, gets up again. She fiddles with other books.

Continued whining about a story. "Please read us a story!!! PLEASE!!!" "I want THAT one!!!" cries daddy as he points to "Blue Hat, Green Hat". She repeats this little routine a few times, each time we get more insistent. We want a story. I fake a big snore, to which she says, "Wape up, Mommy!! Wape up!"

She finally settles herself onto the Elizabeth stool. She opens "Blue Hat, Green Hat" in the middle and stares at the page. Daddy says, "Well, aren't you going to read it to us????" To which Elizabeth replies succinctly, yet forlornly....

"But...I can't read!!!!"

ABC's

Elizabeth loves to recite her ABC's. Last weekend, as we were driving in the car, I caught it on video. Sorry for the whirring of the car in the background.

OOPS!!

Elizabeth has been under the weather today, with a little bit of a fever, just feeling pooky. She perked up for her bath, and we had a grand time, and she proclaimed "Naked Lady!!" running out of the bathroom without a towel. She then returned, shivered, and said, "Mommy, it's very cold!" Wonder why...

We toweled off, and she was standing outside her bedroom door as I looked for her jammies. Then I hear this dripping noise hitting the hardwood in the hallway. "Elizabeth, did you pee-pee on the floor?" I asked, as my child stood aghast. "Yes mommy", she replied, with downcast eyes. Then she proceeded to giggle, run into her room, and track urine everywhere. Hmm, and I thought little boys were the only ones who thought having pee-pee everywhere but the toilet was funny.

No more naked dollies!

I just had to blog about this. All toddlers get great pleasure from undressing. Both themselves and their toys, dolls, pets, etc. It's the re-dressing that's the difficult part. Due to this little issue, Elizabeth has toted around two dolls in various states of undress, since Christmas.

Tonight after dinner, as mommy and daddy were fixated on DIYnetwork, Elizabeth was putting the jammies back on her baby doll. Ever so gently she pulled the arms through, and even velcroed the back closed.

To add to the absolute cuteness of it all, a few minutes later, she had a paper towel over baby's face, saying "Blow! Blow! Good job!" as she wiped its nose. Lucky for Elizabeth, the plastic baby doll doesn't squirm and scream when she wipes it's nose. I'll bet it doesn't kick her in the face when she changes its diaper either. But that's another story.

The "Beach" at last...

We took our annual trip to Florida, in mid-February. After a marathon all night drive from Chattanooga, we arrived at the "beach". Elizabeth's pronunciation is improving, thankfully, so it sounds more like "beach" now. We LOVE Marco Island. It's very peaceful, no crowds (esp in February), and laid back. This year, we stayed on one of the canals, and watched the fish under the dock day and night.


Elizabeth, of course, had a blast. She loved playing in the sand and swimming in the pool, especially the pool at a friend's complex, which was nice and warm. The ocean...not so much...She's terrified of it. She wouldn't even let mommy go in, for fear mommy would get swept away. We're going to have to work on that. She stood, horrified, hanging on to grammy yelling "No, mommy, No! No ocean, no ocean!"

While in Florida, dad took Jeff, Karen, and I to this place called Goodland. "The little drinking village with a fishing problem." Live music (which we never really heard b/c they were setting up for 2 hours), bar food, lots of alcohol, all on a Sunday afternoon. What more can you ask for?

We enjoyed an afternoon on John and Sue Siegfried's boat, and Elizabeth is now quite the seasoned boater. Not timid at all, she ran up and down the boat looking for dolphins, which we saw quite a few of. We tooled around the canal, to say hi to papa, who stayed back at the condo.

After a week hanging out at Marco Island with grammy, papa, and auntie Karen, mommy and daddy headed off for some time on their own. Stayed for a few days at the Hilton Clearwater Beach, quite a nice hotel that nickel-dimes you to death. Luckily we weren't too keen to hang out on the beach, b/c 2 beach chairs were $31/day. We thoroughly enjoyed our sunset cruise on Captain Memo's Pirate Ship, though. Probably a little too much...

On our way home, Jeff and I stayed overnight in Atlanta to have dinner with Ian. We stayed at the Hotel Indigo in Midtown, which is a totally neat old hotel. Went to this great little wine bar called Eno. Spent Saturdayshopping at Ikea, Harry's Farm Market, and Trader Joe's. Luckily we didn't have Elizabeth, as she wouldn't have fit between all the loot.

All in all, we really enjoyed the break from reality. And have been quite productive since returning home.

Wishing Nemo Would Get Lost

I'd like to take this time to publicly thank Grammy and Papa for bringing a copy of Finding Nemo over the holidays. I'm sure that, by now, I'm a foremost authority on all things Nemo. I can recite the whole movie. In my sleep. Backwards.

For instance, Marlin and Dory have just been sucked in by the whale(one of my favorite scenes)...it goes like this...
Whale: Makes big loud whale noise
Dory: Oh, that one was a little tougher, he either said he wants us to go to the back of the throat, or he wants a root beer float.
Marlin: Of COURSE he wants us to go to the back of the throat, that's EATING US!!! How do I taste Moby? *slapping whale's taste buds with a fin*

Catch my drift? (sorry...bad pun...)

One day...we watched it 5 times in a row. 5 TIMES!! Now, I know, it could be worse, we could be watching Barney reruns. And Nemo on a large TV with a great sound system really IS cool beyond words. But, after the 50th run, it gets a little old. So Nemo is going on a little vacation. To...well...somewhere.

From the top of Mount Wannahockalugee...NO MORE NEMO!!!

Amen. Hallelujia. Has anyone seen Wall-E?

The saga of the beach continues

You know, I read somewhere that toddlers don't have any conception of time. Not until age 3 or 4 can they understand the difference between tomorrow and two weeks from now.

So...last night, I was getting some of Elizabeth's things together for the beach, packing up the swimsuits, etc. Of course, she wanted to put one on NOW. But that's not the best part. She goes into the closet and grabs her coat, and says "bye- bye". I asked her where she was going, and she says. "B*tch!" For the next hour or so, she was insistent on going outside, so she could go to the "B*tch!" Why did I mention the trip again???

Later in the evening, she comes up to me, jacket zipped up, and says, "B*tch!!!" (you know, if we tell her it's a bad word, she's just gonna say it all the time...) I say, "B-ee-ch", sounding it out. Then she walks up to daddy, who's not heard the rest of the conversation. "B*tch!!!" So, daddy says, "I know mommy is grumpy, but is it that bad?" Thanks, daddy.

Elizabeth goes to a Lutheran preschool. I can see it now, as she puts on her coat and saunters up to Miss Emily, and says, "B*tch!" My kid is going to get expelled from preschool.

Out of the mouths of babes

I know I need to post the holiday pictures. But first things first.

Elizabeth, who has the smallest feet of any two year old, is finally outgrowing size 4. We were talking about how we'll need to find her some shoes for the beach. (we're headed to FL in a month)

Elizabeth says, "B*tch!!" (I'm thinking, oh, boy we're gonna have fun with this, especially because "SIT!!" sounds like "S*it!!!")

So, we're sitting at dinner and I say, "Elizabeth, show daddy how you can say 'beach'!"

"B*tch!!" says Elizabeth

Daddy follows with, "Elizabeth, can you say you'd like to see the 'Sun on the Beach'?"

'Nuff said. I hope you're laughing so hard you're crying. I know I was.