So it has been weeks since we've gone to scarboro fair. We had a wonderful time. Took Teresa, Dan's sister with us and we all had a fabulous time. But the highlight is definetly Lea and I riding the very tame, very old elephant. Teresa started the day saying we would see an elephant and thank goodness there was one, because Lea was holding Teresa to her word of seeing and riding the elephant. So we did. Lea was so excited, until she climbed on in front of me, at which time she put her stretched hand over her face and eyes and said "scared." When she climbed down the stairs from the elephant pavillion she told Dan "Scared. Again!" So she liked it. We still hear about the "Elephant. Ride Elephant." She even wakes up talking about it. There was a camel that you could ride next to the elephant. We did not ride it, and Lea will tell you there was a camel and that we did not ride it. It comes out like "camel. ride. [shake head no]" "Pet. Bunny" is also a good story Lea tells. The last word, "bunny" is whispered as though it is one of the greatest secrets known to childhood. There was a great petting zoo that we were at for at least half an hour. Bunnies, goats, ducks, pigs, ponies. Lea got a carrot on the way in and the goats would nibble it. "What ate the carrot?" "Goat" or "Pony" also whispered. Lea wore her fairy skirt (not bought there, but brought along so we didn't have to spend the money for a new one!) and by the end she wore that and Teresa's hat. Very cute.
So Dan found out that Lea will repeat almost anything. Does it constitue child abuse to get your child to say things that will get her beat up at renaissance fairs?
This all comes from the guy running the elephant ride at Scarboro Fair who was definitely of the hippy variety... wheather he was dirty or stinky was undeterminable due to the presense of the elephant and bathroom about which he and Dan argued over which smelled worse.
There is no video, sound only: Listen for Dirty hippy
Due to unforseen events we were unable to make our planned trip to see Grandma Dusty and Gra. We were disappointed that we didn't get to see them, but have reschedule and are looking forward to it. Plus I was able to make good use of the time to take a breather after some very hard weeks at work. I did take the days off from work and enjoyed our weekend as a "vacation at home" Saturday we took the canoe out on our local White Rock Lake. Lea was much more thrilled than this photo shows. This is a canoe that Dan remember riding in with his dad when he was a wee lad and was excited to share it with our wee lass. I was petrified that we were all going to end up very soggy by the end of the day, but thanks to Dan's expert boating skills and Lea's full cooperation we had our driest canoe trip ever.
We had a fabulous time. It was picture perfect in parts... other parts were spent rowing around picking up litter. BUT we found this corner of the lake where the water was clear as glass... brown glass, but still... We rowed around the tree line and saw turtles and ducks. We saw two kinds of turtles - soft shell and some other kind. Lea would cry "MORE!" when the turtles went under water to get away from our prying eyes as we intruded on thier basking in the sun. Not surprising, her cries did not bring the turtles back and even the power of parent wishes would not bring them back to their sunny spots.
When turtles were not in view, Lea busied herself by throwing rocks overboard. Fortunately I had the forethoght to bring cups of rocks (I'd learned that this was a good past time from our pond fishing trip)! And it worked!
At the start, she tossed some toys out, which were fished out of the water by Dan from his spot in the back of the canoe and finally mom learned that Lea should hold nothing but the cup of rocks. We did lose the cup.
We paddled to the opposite side of the lake and had a wonderful picnic. Lea loved the picnic and said so. Its very nice now that she can hold a conversation, even if it is a one word at a time conversation, she gets her point across. Lea says "boat" and we say what did we see on the boat? "turtle" what else? "ducks" (by the way somehow we've regressed to a point where ducks say "FAT!" Some how Lea makes the word believable as a quack, but it is clearly a fff at the begining and a ttt at the end... very bizarre duck noise) what did you have in the boat? "rocks" and what did you do with the rocks? "wahder" (as in "I threw them in the water.") and with "SPLASH!" she sums up the day.
I didn't take the camera on the trip because of my aforementioned fear of tippage, but this is pre trip prep! Lea was such a good girl in her life jacket. She didn't complain at all and wore it well.
Then Sunday we continued our celebration of home by turning on the sprinkler pooh bear and frolicing. Lea enjoyed the buckets of water and spay. Lea and I played Monday too, but as the weather was threatening to storm it was a bit breezy so it was shorter lived than our original wet frolic. These photos are from Monday.
I was playing with blocks with Lea last night and I said "We have to build it from scratch." She ran around me and began to scratch my back! It was so cute. Then she'd stand in front of me in a "I scratch your back, you scratch mine" scenario. She did that a few times, but when she'd stand infront of me she didn't always have her back to me, so I said "turn around." She then proceeded to twirl in a cirlce. I found myself in an adorable trap of symantics.
Also yesterday while riding in the truck with Dan and waiting for a train to pass Lea was singing to herself, not unusual. But Dan realized she was singing a whole song on her own. She sang: Bah Bah Sheep ...Wool YES SIR! ... Ffffull Master Dame LllllANE!
The last word is the most sing songy.
This morning she was singing Bah Bah black sheep again. Its a first... and just when I feel like I'm running out of firsts, here comes a pleasantly surprising one.
We've seen her try to do the itsy bitsy sprider on her own and she says "itsy bitsy" and does her hands in a very cute little spider like move, where she puts her two pinched fingers back and forth against each other. She knows all the last words and will sing along, but she doesn't sing the spider words by herself... or maybe just not that we've heard!
I did this backwards! The oldest photos are on the top right now and the newest are 3 posts down. But here's a glimpse of our March. One day that I had Lea all to myself while Dan was visiting his dad in the hospital (he is well on the mend now after a ruptured appendix and 3 weeks in the hospital). But while we had a girls day out I did Lea's hair. Our first sucessful ponytail attempt.
Then we had a great weekend of St. Patricks day. We went to the parade with some friends, including Wilder (3 month's younger than Lea) They were so adorable. Wilder wore his clan's tartan kilt. Very handsome! Lea on the other hand wore beads, a belly shirt (unintentional, she just kept showing her belly) and some styling glasses. Lea enjoyed much of the parade, but this first photo shows that she was a bit overwhelmed when we got there and the first thing that passed us was a fire truck with sirens at full blast. She did however get into the spirit with lots of beads and hands outstretched for more more more!
March then brought some sad days for us. I lost my Uncle Bud... to many Uncle Don, but to me Uncle Rat Fink. He was a fabulous and fun man. While he had been sick and through a lot for a long long time, he seemed invincible and continued to overcome all that afflicted him. So losing him was hard. Mom, Dan, Lea and I drove to Minnesota and for a funeral trip, we still had a nice visit with Dave, Marie & Joe. Lea would say Joooooooe! He became Lea's battle cry. We had a very nice dinner at Nye's Polonaise... a Polish steak house with gold sparkly booths and waitresses with seniority. Its got a beautiful 60s charm. What you might call "A real classy joint." You can see Lea liked it. It got a thumbs up from her!
On another weekend, we dressed up to go to the park one day. Not mom's brightest idea, wearing a dress to the park, but Lea made due. Its a great park with pea gravel that Lea loves to pour from one cup to another. Its also got lots of alcoves and wooden structures to hide and climb. This dress was bought for $1.50 at a consignment sale. It is so cute and retro 70s. I'm sure I had a dress just like it. I guess she should have worn it to Nye's to fit in with waitresses!
Is this not the absolute best photo! Like Mom, how do you work this thing? She has a digital camera that blew its circuit board or something, so she get to pretend to take pictures. She'll even say "click" But what a face! And finally a recent photo (be sure to keep looking below because I've posted 3 posts today!) But this is at a birthday party for a 3 year old named Anna Harris. We had ice cream and got to tie dye shirts. Lea got messier eating cake than she did with the dye! Her tongue was blue all day from frosting! What a grin!
We had a very nice Easter. The weather turned on us a bit, including snow on Saturday before Easter, but it didn't keep the bunny away. We woke to Easter baskets for the whole family! Lea got some new bubble wands that make giant great bubbles and chocolate. She also got ju ju fish candy that she loved. She asks for fish, which used to mean goldfish crackers and now "fish" seems to mean candy fish please.
Lea said "Bunny" after dinnner pretty regularly for about a week as we finished off the cholate bunny. She was very cute eating the bunny.
When finding the Easter eggs that the Easter bunny so deftly "hid" in our back yard, Lea would squeal with surprise every time she found one. They were filled with cheerios, goldfish crackers and stickers! I think she would have been more thrilled with them if she hadn't had a big breakfast of bunny cakes (pancakes shapped like bunny heads) and candy. Oh so much candy!
We also decorated some eggs on Saturday. Lea enjoyed putting them in the "dip" and had to hit every color so she ended up with some pretty black eggs and green hands so she looked like the Hulk! She broke a few eggs, but what's Easter without a few broken eggs.
Well there is much I've missed on this blog. I've got many pics and videos to catch up on. But for now we're spending a weekend at Grandma's in Emory and I only have access to this weekends pics. We went out to the state park, and while due to the low water levels it wasn't quite what we expected, we ended up finding a small pond where the fish wouldn't bother us and we had a great day. Lea loved throwing rocks in the water and playing with bubbles. We had a really nice day. I appologize for the wind noise.
And a brilliant little girl gives her best shot at the alphabet. She misses a few, but gets them all in the right order! Oh and then is distracted by the ball bobber, but gives a big finish!
Lea enjoyed ... well there's not much better of a word than torture for what we did to that worm, but Lea enjoyed it and worm lived and we set him free in the marsh. He lucked out better than the worms that hit the hooks. No fish, but the worms didn't come back either. It was a great day for us, but a bad day to be a worm! hee hee The worm was in one of the tubs of water and she would pour it from one to the other. I would get the worm out of the water a couple times so she could see him move and the worm headed for cover under the bowl. We left him to rest there for a bit and then Lea would pick up the bowl and say "peek" I think the worm was thrilled to play peek a boo. Then Lea would say "mommy" and point at the worm, which meant "mommy pick up the worm and put him in the water so I can send him back on the worm slalom ride!" Lea also got her shoes muddy. She was ok with that until she got mud on her toe and then our prim little thing pointed at her toe and said "ouch" I tried to explain the mud didn't hurt, but she wasn't happy until I brushed the dried mud off her big toe. She's a real outdoorsie type! She did enjoy holding grandma's fishing pole, but mostly she liked dipping the tip in the pond.
"Deerlick beloved we are gathered here today..." Lea's pun during Punderdome game 5-22
"Boat, Boat, Boat!" = Danger when there was water coming into the boat on Beavers Bend Lake in 4-22 with Kim
Puff Puff Piffle make me sniffle — Lea argues that that is the saying, not make me just as small as Sniffles 2017
Osonate [Aw-son-ate] sauce = Arsenic sauce in the Grinch song "You're a three decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich with arsenic sauce!" 2016
Germ hole to germ hole = a kiss at church during peace be with you when mommy is sick
anti quote = always comes with finger quotes. I believe she means "And I quote" but she is adamant that it is anti quote. 5-12
Sam Philips Hand = Philips head screwdriver after Dan told Lea it was named for a man named Philips.
Compliment = The word Lea kept using instead of Accusation during our first games of clue. As in "I can't make a compliment until I get to room, right?"
Ark el Harold's Angels Sing and And The Jelly Hosts Proclaim= Hark the Harold Angel's Sing and With Angelic Hosts Proclaim
"Wolf gloves" = Fox Glove flowers. In a story Lea asked what foxgloves look like, so the next morning she wanted to look them up and asked Dan to look up Wolf gloves. It took us a while to figure out what she was talking about. 8/10
"mows my teeth" = what the electric tooth brush does
Seener = Venus I think. As in "I love you to Seener and Mars and back again"
Box of socks = what's inside a wrapped package so Lea doesn't give the gift way.
amn't = "I am not" as in "No, mommy I amn't"
Ep-a-cot = Epcot center. On our Disney trip Lea made this word 3 syllables.
Ray-B-C = CB Radio. There is a picture of the pigeon talking on the CB Radio in a book and Lea can never get the name right. You know talking on the Ray-B-C.
Smash 'em Turvy = Smash 'em up Derby. Smashable Turvey is what Lea thought I said, so now when we play cars we play Smashable Turvy.
skull = pirates. Anything decorated with skulls Lea says are pirates, as in "Your shoes have pirates on them."
licky pills = cough drop/throat lozenge
chicken hairs = tiny hairs on mommy. I remember my grandmother calling the tiny mostly invisible hairs on her face "chicken feathers" so I said that to Lea one day. Now even hair on my legs are "chicken hairs" as in sitting in my lap saying, "Mommy your chicken hairs are POKING me!"
Ouchie Lea! = The natural equivalent to "Ouchie Mama" which I say... me being the mama... so Lea figured out she needed to say "Ouchie Lea" Took me longer to figure out why she said it that way. Makes perfect sense if you're 3.
Be Patient, Be Calm Mommy =Lea's calming influence on mommy. Her cute little voice when I've spilled something all over the kitchen floor.
Cotton Ball = Cannon Ball... that's what Lea called Dan's "diving" in the pool, as in "Do another cotton ball Daddy"
schlopp schlopp = ice cream or treat. It comes from The Dr. Seuss book The Thinks You Can Think. "You can eat schlopp schlopp, you don't have to stop." And there is a picture of two people sitting at a table. Lea said that was Mommy & Daddy, so the next time we went out without Lea I said we were going for Schlopp Schlopp and that she and Grandma could have ice cream which then became schlopp schlopp on its own.
Bergen = "Let's find a Bergen" -This means, let's do the Gem Hunt on Webkins which features an old salty dog. After several days of wondering what she was talking about, we heard the dog say in a drawl, "Let's see what Bargains we can find" and we both had an "ah ha" moment.
"Den DC" = Where Godmother Sherry lives. Lea's shorthand for Washington DC.
"Heavy Strong" = chin ups or pull ups. Lea used to do "heavy strong" on the bars of her crib and now does them on the playground.
"If you say so, I say so"= I will relent to doing what you say or you have relented to what I have insisted on for the past 20 min. Very cute in a staccato voice.
Old McDomino's=McDonalds, as in "I want to eat at Old McDomino's"
"ploblems" = problems as in "Mommy I'm having shoe ploblems"
"oat mill" = windmill @ grandpa's house
"floppy nest" = pack and play bed @ Grandma's
"za-cunni" = zucchini — usually as in "No, no za-cunni"
"why cause" = because
"nap thirty" = response to what time is it after lunch?
"attention horde" = extension cord
"as fast as me can"
amn't I = aren't I. I've listed this before but thought I'd note that she still says it at 8 yrs/third grade old even though she reads at a 6th grade level. I still find it cute.
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