Monday, March 24, 2008

Eggsactly, Eggstaticly, Eggsuberantly & Fit to be Dyed

Eggs-treme concentration, that's what it takes to put tiny Paas stickers on newly dyed eggs. The eggs died? No they've DYED. It was a quiet Easter, it snowed, no egg hunting took place in the yard. And as cute as it might be to watch kids wrestle for eggs, I just don't think the mass egg hunts are all that fun---plus, Fiona doesn't appear to be all that agressive or competitive, yet. After coloring the eggs with Gary, she decided she wanted to try to carry them in her stuffed-chick-Easter-basket, but it's a bit heavy for her with 6 or so eggs, and the basket quickly took a tumble and the eggs cracked up, a la Humpty Dumpty. So that was the extent of, and end of, Easter eggs for this year. I made some kick ass deviled eggs, of course, those hardly lasted the afternoon.

Sugar is like crack for kids. For holidays I haven't really given Fiona much true candy, it's been Gerber's fruit snacks...and fruit is almost the last thing on the ingredients list. After her big-eyed eggs-itement discovering fruit snacks inside an egg, Fiona made short work of the 2 packages, add the fruit strips to that, and some juice, she was zooming around the place like a, well, like a kid on a sugar high. To my credit I was able to get some eggs in her after the sugar gorge, it doesn't help that Gary likes to share his Jelly Bellys with her though. So most of the day was spent watching what sugar really does to a toddler. It's actually not so bad until the crash. She started searching for more sugar right before her melt down. We knew what she was looking for and put the rest of the sweet stuff out of reach and mostly out of sight. When the Toddleator did actually crash, it was a thrashing, whining, screaming, fit. Immediately she was put in the crib and within 10 minutes she was asleep. Later we had a nice dinner, watched most of "Finding Nemo", which Gary and I theorize was as intense for Fiona as "I Am Legend" was for he & I. (Incidentally, both "I Am Legend" and "No Country for Old Men" are fantastic movies)

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Baby No More

If I thought Fiona was fully into Toddlerhood before, I've realized it's only the beginning. This Fiona is a jumping, galloping, climbing, talking, talking, talking, opinionated bundle of energy. Her first recognizable sentence, "Bah eet-tchoo." I only recognized because it was in context of her actions. While eating lunch, she mimes feeding Little Bear, my deductive reasoning leads me to translate to "Bear eats, too." I'm impressed, and only wish that I could understand more of her talking. During the day there are periods of silence but unless she's up to something untoward, those silences generally last only a moment. This morning I saw her with our camera, explained to her that it isn't a toy, that if she didn't volunteer it to me then I would take it from her, she thought about it, "NO, Mii-e"---a phrase I have heard a lot lately. Of course I ended up taking it from her, instead of the much preferred voluntary relinquishing. I'm not sure where this, "Mii-e" (read: mine) came from, it's not as if Gary & I wander about hording objects and exclaiming, "MINE!". I can only guess the Toddleator adopted it from observing another child, possibly older. GREAT. Now, whenever she has something she wants to keep, well, one can guess her oft-used response.
Fiona is not a baby any more, she's too active to want to snuggle, and too tenacious and opinionated to be coerced without inexhaustible patience. I feel a little sad that her babyhood is over already, still excited about what will happen next though. Part of me wants to see what combination of genes we might create a second time, on the other hand, I'm not sure I want to start the entire process all over again.

Friday, March 7, 2008

Explosive giggles

Last night Gary & I were intrigued by a repetitive loud giggle from Fiona's room last night. I just figured she was on her way to sleep, Gary came trotting in with the baby monitor (the TV kine). We watched The Toddleator make Little Bear fart, and then laugh and laugh. "PPPbbbbbpppbtt!" *giggles* Over and over again. We can thank Gary for the gastric sound track, he's done oh-so-fine-a-job teaching baby girl about loud fart noises mostly involving her favorite bear. I just can't wait until she does this in public or while at a playgroup, I'm SO excited, just rippling with anticipation, I can practically taste the awkwardness. *sigh*
Boys are kinda gross, I guess it was bound to happen eventually.

Monday, March 3, 2008

Things to do in...Staples When You're Bored

In an office supply store with a toddler is no place to be for too long. First we toured the aisles, perusing folders, paper, and the like. There were the office chairs that were fun for a while, the 'round and 'round was amusing, although The Toddleator was not permitted to take a chair on a "ride" she was permitted to sit in them one by one. A few times she tried the over-the-shoulder-is-mommy-gonna-chase-me? I didn't bite though, just smiled benignly and followed her as quickly as possible without running. We had snacks, we colored with borrowed pens, we sat and played with her barrettes...put them ALL in her hair and she pulled them all out only to rearrange them all back in her hair. After a full hour (probably little more) time was UP. It took that long to get the copies done for the newsletter, I'll know better next time to bring a Publisher file instead of a pdf. Props to everyone who was working that day though, and everyone who was waiting at the copy center for work to be done! AND a great big GOOD JOB being patient, to Fiona, from her Mama.

Early last week we visited a library where a Toddleator-sized book bag is available. Fiona Mama'ed me to death that day. She must have said it a thousand times, I'm proud of myself for responding every time as serenely as possible. We picked a few books to borrow, I showed her how they all fit in her super-neato-cute book bag, and she's off. For the remainder of the morning, on the way to the car from the library, from the car to the house, she would NOT allow me to help her carry the bag. Every time I asked her if she needed help, I got a "No". I encouraged her, it was a pretty heavy little bag with 6 small children's books in it. At one point (library to car) I was able to lighten the load for her somewhat and she cruised enjoying her big-girl-ness. I thought maybe she'd be over it by the time we got to our place, and I'd just carry the book bag for her--nope. She half-dragged---ok, well, mostly dragged it all the way from the car to the hallway stairs, where she finally looked up at me and sighed. I repeated my offer of help, and received a "Yeah". Even then, though, Little One would not let me touch the bag for more a second at a time. Just long enough for me to plop it on the next step up, one step at a time, to the landing at our front door. What a tenacious little person! That's expected, I suppose, considering her lineage.

We had simply gorgeous weather for a few days straight, and then it snowed a LOT. Looked blizzard-y to me, but then I've never really seen a blizzard---I'm told it most certainly was not a blizzard. And I'm told that the nice days, snow day, nice days, snow day, will continue until May or thereabouts. We've booked our hotel for Utah in May, and I am training in earnest for my race. It's been a rough couple of weeks getting started, but I think I've finally got the schedule under control. Keep on, keepin' on.
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