Snow Day!!...Well ok... Snow hour!!

So we had a little snow. The crazy media coverage, which preempted Good Morning America to show 5 hours of melted snow, would have you believe we were the first people in the history to get snow.

Despite temps in the high 40s today there were many closings.

Northern reaches of the Metroplex (Denton) did get 6" or so of snow, but all we got was a dusting in the middle of the night. Since no one really expects me in to work early on a normal day, with the media hyped snow day, we took advantage of a late morning and played in the snow that accumulated in the back of Dan's truck.






We made tiny little snow men with baby carrot noses and rasin eyes.



Lea LOVED throwing snow balls at Daddy... snow balls that daddy made, handed to Lea and then got hit in the face with. Way to take one for the team Daddy! Mommy got a snow ball or two.


And Dan had some fun. We both had frozen hands. We made sure to put gloves on Lea, but neither of us were smart enough to put gloves on ourselves.

Our First Real Boo-Boo

Lea fell over the weekend while playing "water the rosemary." Only Lea can make gardening a contact sport! 7 bottles of water and half an hour later she got a real, true-to-life scraped elbow. She cried and needed blankey and a band-aid. I kissed it and gave her a band-aid, but inside all I could do was beam with pride over her first scrape.

And the photo looks like she went more than one round with the rosemary plant, but on her face is just a winter mosquito bite or something. Such a look though. If I were the rosemary bush I'd keep my distance, tee hee.

Happy Bed Day!

February 29 was an extra day for us all, but a very special day for Lea. It was touted all week long by mom and dad as "Bed Day!" TaDa! The day that Lea moved into a big girl bed. For us it was just removing the rails on the crib.
Off come the rails.


In climbs the big girl.



We celebrated Bed Day the way all things should be celebrated... WITH CAKE! Lea asked for pink cake, so we made a strawberry cake and put a fruit roll-up on as a blanket with some marshmallow pillows.

It wasn't quite as beautiful as I imagined it would be, but it got the family's approval!


Bed Day was perhaps a bigger moment for Mommy than for Lea I think. I kept saying it was the last remnant of her being a baby, and Marlena at work said "Oh so she's potty trained?" It took someone without children to point out the obvious that I was overlooking... I cherish the sweet baby bits (rocking and reading stories, putting her to bed, the tiny little socks... the cute stuff) but the unpleasant baby bits (diapers) just get over looked by my sentimental eye.



But Lea and I have both adjusted to the change very well. There were a few bumps to work out, quite literally. Lea fell out of bed twice. The first night I was already asleep, but Dan heard a THUMP. He went to check on her and she had rolled on to the rug we placed to soften just such a blow. He said she didn't really wake up and didn't cry, but had the "cry face." He put her back into bed and she slept through the night. Until the morning when I was awakened to "Mommy, I rolled out of bed." I went and check and she was out of bed, no worse for wear. She has not, to our knowledge, rolled out of bed since the first night. She has however gotten into a habit of waking up at 3am to tell me things like "I want to listen to Elmo" or "I need a drink of water." She got the drink of water, but not the Elmo. Last night was the first of 5 nights that she slept all the way through in her bed. She has gotten comfortable getting out of bed to tell us she's awake. The first two nights she stayed in bed and waited for us to get her, but then I woke on the third day to the patter of little feet in the hall. My mommy sense dulled by sleep deprivation and the forth morning I was awakened by a warm little face in mine, "Mommy I'm awake." "Yes, sweetie, I see that, lets go sleep through ... I mean watch Strawberry Shortcake on the couch."

So Lea now sleeps in a big girl bed. She is very excited about it still. Almost a week later she is still excited. She couldn't wait to show Grandma her new bed.

Story time has been cut down to only two stories, from four, and Lea eliminated the rocking chair. I will miss that. I loved holding her and rocking, but in truth story time could drag on, because as we all know (and Lea will tell you in as many words) Mommy is a sucker. So with the excitment of the big girl bed came "Mommy sit in my big girl bed." So I sit in her big girl bed, read two stories (plus a small book like Boynton's Going to Bed Book and/or Wiskerville School for Mice... see I told you I was a sucker). But in the empty space the rocking and reading stories has left, a REAL good night kiss on her forehead all tucked into bed has taken its place to keep Mommy's heart warm.

Below are 4 movies that should play consecutively chronicling the removal of the rails.

Our own Bob Costas of the Playground

Lea and I went to the playground this morning and amid about 4 other families, Lea's voice rang out as she swang. "That boy is climbing. That girl is swinging like me. That lady has a dog. That boy is going to slide, etc." She was so vocal. It was adorable. All the other parents kind of looked at me sideways, probably saying to themselves, "Does she ever shut up?" But they all had to smile at her cuteness. Usually Lea is a chatterbox with us, but clams up among the outside world. In fact my boss, Rick, once asked if she ever talked, I laughed out loud. I joke that she is like the WB frog from the Bugs Bunny cartoons that would sing "Hello my baby, Hello my honey," for his owner, but never talks for the Broadway producer. But on the playground she is over her shyness.

Technical Note from Mommy

Hi. Thanks for reading. I treat this more like my own diary because I really don't know if anyone besides my mom reads this. I would love to hear from you and know that you dropped by. Sometimes I just feel like I'm talking to my future self who won't be able to remember all the glory of toddler days... just like the now me can't remember the wee small baby days.

So let Lea and I know you stopped by for a visit. On the bottom of each post is a comment button. I believe you can post without signing up for anything so say hi or leave other comments.

For those who are truly committed to the Lea updates (like Grandma Lynn) and have a my.yahoo page or other similar home page, I can help you put what is called an RSS feed into your home page. Its a nice feature Blogger offers and it makes it so Grandma Lynn and Daddy know when I update the blog because a blurb pops up on the yahoo home page. So if you're interested drop me or Dan an email and we'll help you set it up.

Again thanks for reading. We love you ... you ... you ... you (that's the echo of the great abyss I sometimes feel I'm typing into, tee hee)

POSTSCRIPT: So my mom said she tried to post a comment and it got lost. So I thought I'd add a helpful tip. Unless you have an account, such as other bloggers like Kris & jerry, select anonymous and then just put your name in the comments. Please let me know if you have troubles. Perhaps that's why no one comments, because they make it difficult. Thanks!

tell me all the things...

So I believe it started the night we took the sippy cup out of the bedtime ritual. I said "You're big girl now who can sit in a big girl chair, help set the table, brush your teeth... You can do a lot of things now that you're a big girl and big girls don't need a sippy cup at night." Well now, months and months and months later Lea still says "Tell me all the things I can do," or for short "Tell me all my things." So we go through lists and lists of things Lea can do... Lea can say the abc's, sing the teapot song, help us unload dish washer, help Mommy make cupcakes, crack eggs, play hide and seek, and the list goes on and on. It changes from night to night with a few standards.

Then a few weeks ago Lea surprised me with the sleepy-time stalling technique of an insistent request to "Tell me all the things YOU can do." All the things I can do? ... well who knew there were things Mommy can do too. Some of the things Lea can do also... I always say "I can brush my teeth. Hey, you can do that too!"
So then after a few days of hearing what Mommy can do we started "Tell me all the things Daddy can do."
"Well... Daddy can Drive a truck, take out the trash" at which time the set dialouge seems to lead to Lea saying "lift heavy things." Yes, Daddy is our lifter of heavy things!

Once Lea learned that she can stall only so long with Mommy and Daddy things we moved on to thing Grandma can do. Then tell me the things Becky can do, Teresa can do... well it was getting out of hand.

We've pared this stall technique down to a pretty regular part of bed time where we list 5 things each for just the three of us.
5 things Lea can do, 5 things Mommy can do, 5 things Daddy can do and when I thought Lea has pretty well covered all her bases, she surprised me once again with her latest: Tell me all the things WE can do. I assumed this meant things like brushing the teeth that we all do (since I highlight the things that us grownups do that Lea can do too). So we listed the things all 3 of us can do: Brush teeth, empty dishwasher, set the table, draw pictures and dance around.

I like listing our accomplishments nightly. Its almost as big of a pick-me- up to this 36- year-old as it is to a wee small 2-year-old! And I have to admit that I started saying as one of the things I can do is "Make curtains!" since they are hanging right there. That makes feel especially accomplished while telling all my things.


And now for an awkward transition to videos that really have NOTHING to do with the "tell me all the things" story, but are cute:

One GREAT thing Daddy can do (and ONLY Daddy can do) is make Lea walk on the ceiling. This is ADORABLE!! I love when they do this, but as you can imagine its hard on Dan.


What can grandma do? Be a soft touch. When Lea is at Grandma's she gets ice cream every night. I think that's what grandmas are for right?


What can Lea do? Well Lea can throw like a champ. I guess she'll play softball in the summer olympics and hockey in the winter games! This is at Grandma's house feeding Mary the donkey. Very fun, here is a shot of Lea hurling the apple over the fence.

And a video of all of us out with the donkey.


And what can all 3 of us do? Drive a car. Well, Lea can pretend at least and she's pretty cute when she does it.

Craft Corner

Now I have no assperations of becoming one of those blogs. In fact I don't exepct to have much entertainment value outside of friends and family (although I hope I do provide smiles for those I love), but we have had a few fun crafts that I'm happy to share.




Craft #1 Ordinary old painting. Mostly included for obligatory cute photos. Over the weekend Lea painted. She took bright beautiful colors of pink and purple and turned them into brown. At one point, as she began to paint her entire arm, she had achieved Hulk green. She would take great handfuls of each color and make big smudgy hand prints and then smear it. She does finally get the idea of finger painting so we will do more of that! Before, no matter what kind of paint we used, she wanted to use a brush. So I'm happy she's finally into getting her hands dirty (I'll regret those words I know!) But I do remember my little one-year-old princess who would get a grain or two of dirt on her hand and stick it out for me to brush off.

Craft #2:
Two weeks ago Grandma saved up eggshells and then helped Lea plant seeds in them. With a small bucket of dirt and spoons Lea put dirt in the eggs and then took the tiny seeds and put them on the dirt and then covered them. We got a bit of dirt on the chair and floor, but really not too bad. Lea put a few more seeds in each egg than I think grandma intended, but the more the merrier.

Lea has gardening experience as she helped me replant our 2 Rosemary plants that we got for Christmas. She was a big help and we talk about Rosemary like they are girls. She is good at taking care of Rosemary, very considerate. Right now she loves to water both Roesmary plants with the big watering can.

This weekend Grandma came in to visit and babysit this weekend and brought a few sprouts for us to replant. They are still in their shell where I think they have room to bloom for another week. But here is a week's worth of Basil from seed.


Craft #3 was much more for Mommy than fun for Lea, but if I can't toot my horn here I'd be darn tootless! So I made curtains for Lea's room. Not the most complicated of sewing project, but it took me almost all day, none the less.
I did much of the work during nap time, but when Lea was around I encouraged her to sew shoelaces through shape cards that we have, so that she could sew with Grandma while I used the sewing machine.

My mom helped quite a bit. The loops that hold the curtains to the rod were tiny (by my silly design) and we had to turn them from inside out, which was tedious and time consuming. So THANKS mom! It was like working on cute little caterpillars. (Plus we had fun watching Tiger Woods play in the desert.)

And if I may indulge in a Lea story (again, what better place!). My mom also used scissors to clean up the stray threads when I finished a curtain. Well Lea has become OBSESSED with scissors. Dan took her with him to a computer job at a church where the woman entertained Lea by letting her cut things out. Well I've told Lea she is not old enough for scissors and she says "When I am older for scissors" which means "I'm not old enough yet," after hearing me repeat it 100 times. So she visited my office on Wed. Lea loves to visit with Kristy in sales (Who under the bribe of toys Lea agreed could be her new mommy [sniff]). Kristy said that Lea tried every trick in the book to get the scissors... "I'll just hold them for you," "I'll put them away." But Kristy did not indulge (Thank you!) And over the weekend, Grandma related that Lea last weekend asked for "red scissors for her birthday." I guess the upcoming 3 years-old is believed by the wee one to be the harolded age of scissors. And we will probably get some of the kindergarten scissors for her to use under supervision. But the obsession of scissors... RED scissors continues.

So back to the curtains....
I LOVE the colors. The sun was shining through as I took these photos so I don't know if does them justice, but the room is mint green and the curtains are mint and pink stripes. I also made Lea a pillowcase to match, but Grandma put her to bed Sunday and said she wasn't having any of it. Pillow had to be just pillow. So , we'll make it a sleeping bag for a stuffed friend or something.



And craft #4 is honestly mostly so I'll remember where I put the recipe. For Christmas Lea got bath paints in 3 bottles with Sesame Characters on them. Green is in the Oscar bottle, Yellow in Big Bird and Red in Elmo. Well I encouraged her to be frugal with the paints or rather dictatorially rationed out the paints for each bath, but the time finally came when they were almost gone. So I found a recipe for bath paints and mixed it up. It works really well, except now I let her use as much as she wants so she uses the whole batch each bath. It makes for a sudsy bath, but clean is good.

Bath Paints
You'll Need
1/3 cup mild clear Joy dishwashing soap [Note from JYN: We couldn't find joy so we used ivory hand soap - the only one without a "keep out of eyes" warning. I think baby shampoo would work too]
1 tbsp cornstarch
Food coloring

Directions:
1. Mix cornstarch and liquid soap in bowl.
2. Pour into ice cube tray, filling about 1/2 full.
3. Put 4-8 drops of different food coloring colors into each section and mix till blended (toothpicks work great for mixing).
5. Give to the kids and let them at it!
6. This washes off your child, and will wash off the walls too!


And that concludes this month's craft corner!