The Mitts

… you do whatever it takes. You know how it is… you try to go to the mall just ONCE every now and then to actually look at clothes (instead of just the playground and food court) and maybe even try on a thing or two. But that ONE time, your kid is way too antsy to sit in the stroller and wait. Today was definitely one of those times. We went to meet Amber and Avery at the mall for lunch today, and I figured I’d go a bit early and hit the sale racks in the Gap maternity store. (We don’t have one near us, so I needed to make the most of the opportunity). Sitting in the stroller was the last thing Ada wanted to do, though, and I’d already used up all my tricks… snacks, drinks, books, toys, my sunglasses, her sunglasses, my phone, and the camera. She wanted out.

So once I picked out a couple things for the dressing room, it was the perfect opportunity to let her loose to run around in there while I tried things on. That too was a bit boring for her, so I grabbed the most interesting thing I could find. The fake, strap-on pregnancy belly that they have in the dressing room. I strapped it around Ada’s little waist, and that did the trick! Yep, I am a genius. At first she just walked around all funny, and even put her hand on her back like a pregnant lady would…

She was completely amused by this thing, and once she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, she thought it was HILARIOUS. She was laughing, I was laughing, and every thing was great (until it was time to get back into the stroller and move on, of course).

… looks like this…

Glad she woke up in a great mood, but some times it’s exhausting just watching her!

This weekend we headed to Gommy and Poppa’s to celebrate Poppa’s birthday and hang out with the rest of the fam. Mary and the kids came down as well, so Ada was able to run around (and scream) with her cousins all weekend. They are hilarious when they’re all together. But I’ll admit, it gets really loud and crazy some times, and I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have three children. They had a blast, though, and it’s really cool seeing Ada and Ethan play together so well now. The playing consists of a lot of following and copying, though. So when Ethan would run, Ada would run. When Ethan would scream, Ada would scream. When he would climb some thing, she would climb some thing. Fun times indeed. She even sat for a little while with Blythe and drew pretty pictures (which meant trying to taste a few markers, resulting in blue teeth). I’ll be so happy the day I don’t have to say “ADA!! NO MOUTH!!!” any more. For now, she can’t be trusted.

And since it was just too dang hot to do any thing else, we hit the pool for a while on Saturday. Ada did great swimming around on her own in her Puddle Jumper. I still think it’s gotta be one of the best toddler inventions. It’s awesome! She was even kicking around really well in the water. We’re working on jumping into the pool, and wonder if she’ll be able to do that this Summer. Usually when we stand or sit her on the edge of the pool, she sees that as her opportunity to take off running (usually in the direction of the water slide).

Here’s Ada hanging out with Poppa (who she called “Poppy” the whole time, even though she used to say “PoppA”…. sorry that you’re called the same thing as a potty now, Bruce). Note Ada’s choice of toys in this shot…. bottle of prescription medication and a pencil. I know….Parents of the Year!

Ada also picked up a new trick over the weekend…. saying “cheese!” every time Gommy had her camera out. It was pretty funny, and made for some cute shots…

She even grabbed my little camera this morning and was carrying it around saying “cheese….. cheese…. cheese” (although she actually pronounces it “teese… teese…. teese”). Pretty funny. It’s amazing all the things she picks up on lately. Like last night when we got home, she grabbed her Puddle Jumper from the pile of stuff we’d carried in, put her arms through it, and said “pool!” Then she made her way over to the door and told us “Byeeee!” Hilarious.

Ok… so maybe right before lunch and nap time isn’t the best time for a photo of all the cousins together!

I’m not one to publicly bitch about TOO many things… only those that really just drive me insane. The thing this week…. kids doing things they’re TOO BIG for.

Example one: I take Ada to the playground at the mall pretty often (the one with a clear “you must be this tall or UNDER to play” sign as you walk in). Still I occasionally see six and seven year old boys running around like wild animals, nearly trampling the toddlers and new walkers trying to play in what the moms thought was a baby-safe zone. UGH. I hate that!!! I sort of get it if a mom is there with her little two year old and also has a five or six year old… they can’t just leave the big kid at home or tell them to go walk around the mall while the little one plays. I get that. But at least tell that huge kid to either sit with you or at least play nicely and carefully if they insist on playing on the playground (even though it’s baby-ish and clearly not meant for them in the first place). The running around uncontrollably and jumping from the tops of the toys there is just unacceptable.

The other day Julie and I took Ada and Jake to play, and this one kid in there was seriously 7 or 8 years old. He was tall enough to be 12, though. He was running and jumping all over the place, getting WAY too close to kicking these one and two year olds in the heads. He even got up in a couple of their faces to try to scare them. What the hell!!?? Where is this kid’s mom!!?? Oh wait…. there was no mom. Yeah, that’s right, the kid was totally unsupervised IN A BIG MALL FULL OF STRANGERS. Not sure if his mom or dad worked at the mall, or if they were walking the mall or what… but this giant kid wasn’t just annoying the crap out of me and the other moms… he was UNSUPERVISED. UGGGGGHHHH! I wish his mom or dad HAD been there, because I think I was annoyed enough this time to actually say something. I would have AT LEAST given them a really mean, disapproving mommy glare. Since the glare works so well and all.

Example two: (A whole lot like example one) We took Ada to the pool again last night. We spent almost the entire time in the “big pool,” but right before we left, Ada was pointing at the “baby pool,” and since it was empty… we figured it wouldn’t hurt to play for a few minutes. So we take her in there and let her walk around in the tiny pool, playing with a few toys, having a nice (and safe) time by herself. Then enters a seven year old boy (we know his age, because we asked). He was, of course, without a parent. Awesome. He wasn’t really being all that wild in the pool with Ada, but he was clearly too big to be in there in the first place, and he was kind of obnoxious too with his random splashing, fake falling, and fake drowning (which of course splashed Ada in the face… luckily she didn’t mind). Clearly the kid was just bored because it was “adult swim” time, so he’d wandered over there to pass the time. Whatever… I can get over that. It’s the other kids that decided to join him that put me over the edge. Three more kids come along… two of them are probably seven as well, the other a little younger.  Now there’s FOUR big kids in the baby pool, splashing, yelling and running around. All without parents. ARE  YOU SERIOUS!!? Usually parents at our pool are really good about watching their kids like a hawk, but I guess it was just a group of parents who didn’t give a crap what their kids did last night. The kids were just too rowdy, so luckily it was already time for us to head out any way. I know they didn’t HURT any one, but still. They could have. And it’s not our job to keep an eye on these big kids that shouldn’t be in the baby pool to begin with. So that’s my bitching for this week. I feel a little better now. The end.

Next time I may cover my thoughts on child leashes (also sparked by a recent trip to the mall). But I’ve got too many other things to do right now than get fired up over that one. Maybe another day….

Ada LOVES animals! And she has doubled her list of animal sounds in the last couple months. Now she’ll do all sorts of sounds. I think this is all of them, but I’m probably forgetting some thing…. pig, monkey, dog, cat, horse, cow, sheep, snake, dinosaur, and as of this week, an owl. She’s making some pretty funny fish faces now too (since we haven’t taught her an actual sound for a fish). When she sees an animal she knows in a book, she makes the appropriate sound as we’re reading along. I never catch them all on camera, but I did manage to capture a few the other day…

As you can tell, horse and cat are currently the same. She used to “neigh” for a horse” and “meeeeeeee” for a cat, but for some reason lately, they make the same sound?? And cow isn’t “mooo,” it’s “mmmmmmmm.” Some times she’ll get going on her animal sounds, and will do all the ones she knows one after the other. This is hilarious when she’s gotten up from a nap, and I hear her upstairs going through all the sounds. Once that gets old, she’ll say “Mommy Mommy Mommy Mommy” fifty times. This is usually followed by an insane amount of jumping up and down and giggling in her crib until I go up there. Back to the animals… I did get her to “quack” once and “tweet” once, but since she hasn’t repeated them, duck and bird haven’t made the official list just yet!

She’s also been saying several new words this week. I was hoping “please,” would be a new regular, but she’s only said it once for Doug when she really wanted some more dessert. She’s said “more,” as well, but still no “thank you.” We’re working on it. Other new ones include owl, school, pool, and potty (currently pronounced “poppy”). She likes to join me in the bathroom pretty often, so I’m always telling her what the potty is. Now she runs in and says “POPPY!!” Nice.

In other news, we’ve been reading SO many books with her lately. She even knows a few by title now and will get the right one when you ask her to. And it amazes me when she remembers certain things from books. A couple favorites right now are “Lllama Llama, Mad at Mama” and “Llama Llama, Red Pajama.” We love reading those! When she gets up in the morning, she gets to come into our room and hang out on the bed, where we read a handful of books while she drinks her milk. Love that time in the morning! Seems like we’re always reading the most right after she’s gotten up from bed or a nap, instead of reading BEFORE going to sleep. That’s because when Ada’s ready to sleep, she’s ready to SLEEP! If she’s too tired, she just won’t tolerate a book before bed… she’s ready to hit the hay. We’re happy to read them whenever, though… I’m just thrilled she loves books so much and will sit through so many at a time. Hope she always loves books this much!

Oh yeah… totally forgot that I was going to share the rest of the basement with you a few weeks ago. You’ve seen the bathroom and the bedroom, so here’s a peek at the rest…

Here’s the view from the bottom of the stairs. I love love love these stairs, by the way. They’re so pretty and so creaky… I love it. So, the concrete used to start right there at the edge of the stairs and went down the hall and throughout the basement, but now it’s a nice, comfy and durable carpet. That first door on the right is Doug’s workshop, which we left with concrete floors, followed by the bathroom. And it’s hard to see here, but there’s a tiny, half door on the left under the stairs, that is currently housing big toys and other randomness. It used to just hold all our buckets of paint and other supplies, but now it’s for toy storage. Pretty sweet. It did just blend right into the wall before, but we added a little pull knob so that Ada can get in there to get toys out. It’ll be the perfect hiding spot for hide-and-go-seek one day. We’re actually considering building a temporary door for it with a little window built in, and turning that closet into a playhouse for the girls. Just one of the MANY projects on the “maybe” list, so we’ll see if it ever happens.

View from the end of the hall…

Turn around, and there’s the “bar” area. Complete with the NC State light that we got for our wedding and originally hung over our ping-pong table in our townhouse back in Raleigh. Fits perfect in this little space, though. And that sign on the wall is one that we picked up at the flea market a while back. It reads…. “Beer will change the world… I don’t know how, but it will.” We think it’s funny.

And here’s the “bonus room,” or whatever you want to call it. I’ve been calling it the playroom, since we go down there to play all the time. It’s nice change of scenery once playing in the living room or Ada’s room gets boring. And when it’s too hot and humid to bother going outside. We have a plastic slide that’s currently stored in the closet under the stairs, so we get that out a lot. Ada then proceeds to go down the slide about 30 times in a row. Surprised that hasn’t gotten old yet. In addition to all the playing, it’s also nice to go down there to watch movies after Ada’s gone to bed on the “nice tv.”

View from the far corner…

And the view from the back door… That little table is the one Doug built a while back for Ada and friends. We thought about building chairs too, until I ran across these at Target that work perfectly. Ada sits there all the time to color and look at her books (aka: draw ON the table with her crayons, then try to eat them). And that’s her little baby pram there on the right. She’d gotten it for her birthday, and is finally tall enough to push it around without too much trouble. We may eventually put the other end table in its place (the one that goes with the other over in the corner). And if you ever hung out in our basement back in the day, you may notice there’s no foosball table any more. I guess Doug was tired of getting BEAT all the time!! Actually, it just didn’t seem practical to keep it, and getting rid of it really opened up the usable space down here! We still have some organizing to do, but I think it’s coming along very nicely!

Never did finish up my bathroom post. Here’s a shot from the tub, looking out. That mirror above the sink was the final touch after the paint job was complete. We used to have this ugly, gold mirror hanging above the trim that only tall people could use. Found this one at Target for 28 bucks… and it was the perfect mirror for the job! You’re welcome, Laura.

So that’s it. Moving on to more house projects soon….

This past Saturday we hit up the museum again (we go a lot if you haven’t noticed), but not just to play and explore this time. But to wait in a ridiculously long line for a ridiculously long time to see “Buddy” the dinosaur from the “Dinosaur Train.” Ada’s only seen the TV show a few times, and she doesn’t really care what we do with our time as long as it involves some sort of playing/entertainment, but I felt the need to take her and see this big, costumed creature. The waiting was not cool. And if you have or have ever had a one-and-a-half year old, you know that they do not WAIT patiently. In fact, they don’t “wait” at all. Especially not Ada. So we took turns… one of us would wait in the line for the dinosaur, while the other ran around and played with Ada, then switch. Seemed like forever (probably about 40 minutes), until we finally got to meet Buddy. All that waiting for probably 45 seconds of dino time. But Ada loved every second, trying to hug him, trying to grab his teeth, and didn’t want to say goodbye. And even though I’m pretty sure Doug wanted to kill me for such a “bad idea,” it wasn’t too horrible, Ada was happy, and she left with this dino grabber that she proceeded to play with the rest of the day.

So after meeting Buddy, we sped out of there and flew down to Gymboree for a class. We’ve been cramming in as much of those unlimited Summer classes as we can before our membership is up in a few weeks, plus Doug hadn’t seen Ada play there before. Oh, and it was too freakin hot outside to do much else. She was her usual self, climbing all over the place and having an absolute blast. The rest of the day was pretty lazy… we had lots of off-an-on storms/rain over the weekend, so we really didn’t do much other than that. Here’s that dino grabber I was talking about… Ada loves it. She’s been playing with it a lot and roaring like a dinosaur since Saturday…

And a sweet smile during bath time…

….because Ada (you know, our kid who doesn’t like meat and has NEVER eaten a chicken nugget)…. ate not one, but TWO CHICKEN NUGGETS last night!!! Let’s not focus on all the ketchup it took to make this possible, let’s just celebrate this significant milestone in Ada’s life….

I can’t even tell you how many times we’ve tried to get Ada to eat chicken nuggets. Whether they were from the grocery store, Chick Fil-A, McDonalds, wherever… we’ve been persistent and offer them to her quite often, just in case she’s had a change in heart. We’d hook them up with honey or ketchup. We’d give them to her when she was crazy hungry. We’d eat some ourselves and make a huge deal about how delicious they were… like that trick EVER works. She wasn’t having it. May have been the texture… may have just been her being stubborn… probably a little bit of both.

So last night I found myself in the Burger King drive-thru, a place I rarely go by the way. Those crispy, french fries were calling my name, and I just couldn’t resist. Any way, I figured I might as well give their chicken nuggets a shot with Ada, even though I had very low expectations. They were only $.99, and I figured I’d just eat them once they were refused by my picky eater. When we got back to the house, I just tore one nugget in half and handed it to her. Along with some ketchup for dipping, of course. And before I knew it, both nugget pieces were gone. She had actually eaten them. WHAT!? So I gave her another, and she ate that one too. That was it, though… then she was ready for some fruit. There are a lot of proud moments as a parent, but let me tell you, this one ranks WAY up there on the list so far. So we’re planning to include some more nuggets on the menu this week, but trying not to get my hopes up.

Had a couple requests for a side-by-side of the two girls’ profiles. So here you go… both around 18 weeks along….

Funny thing is I think #2 actually looks more like Ada looks NOW.