February 2006

 

February 4, 2006

Lauren cut her 4^th tooth today. Her second top one. She seems to be recovering well from her bout with the flu and she’s crazy as ever. She’s started dancing with her sister and saying “yeah” to any question.

 

February 13, 2006

And they are here. The toddler behaviors are here with a vengeance. Didn’t I say a long time ago that as good as Lauren is as a baby, I’m sure I’ll pay later? Well, I’ve whipped out the wallet and I’m paying. Boy am I ever. She’s got a temper and she knows how to use it. Tantrums have begun. She’s also in to EVERYTHING and to top it off, she’s a climber and a daredevil. Here’s an example of a typical 10 minute period. This all happened today by the way.

 

-Lauren strips off shirt. Now she’s just wearing pants which she can’t yet remove. And that is good because she CAN remove her diaper. That is bad as evidenced by the poop stains on the playroom carpet from a diaper-stripper episode a few weeks ago. It’s never good to hear “Mom! Make Lauren stop putting poop all over the place!”

 

-Lauren climbs into child sized rocker and rocks back and forth while chanting “wok wok wok” at the top of her lungs. Kinda cute right?

 

-I walk into the kitchen and when I turn back around I see Lauren is now standing in the rocking chair, rocking, chanting and giving me the most defiant look ever

 

-I tell her no (and she repeats “no, no, no”) and set her on the floor. She pops right up and follows me into the kitchen

 

-I go to the bathroom

 

-I come back and she has her hand in the cabinet under the sink. There are safety things on the cabinets but they still open just enough to get her arm in there. Go figure. So she’s wrestling something in there and I find it’s the dish detergent thingies. She’s got her hand in the bag and almost has one out. That would have fit nicely in her gaping maw. Perfect!

 

-Lauren poops so I change her diaper and find it’s Oh so pretty. Sparkly sequins dot the poop. I’m actually happy to see that her foray into the craft cabinet last week has finally cleared her system.

 

So, she’s keeping me on my toes. Katherine is being really great for the most part. Today she didn’t nap and we’ve had a bit of a struggle due to that but usually she’s awesome. We’ve been doing crafts & just having fun. My favorite time with her is in the mornings before Lauren wakes up. We sit on the couch and snuggle. It’s lovely. 

 

February 26, 2006

 

Once again, here we are at the end of the month and I’ve written hardly anything. Here is a brief rundown of what the family has been up to.

 

Woody has been working a lot lately. Nothing really new there.

 

We finally broke down and bought a DVR. That’s pretty handy with two kids. One of them starts screaming in the middle of an intense scene? Just pause & rewind when the situation is calmer. Love it!

 

We booked our summer vacation. We will be going to a resort on Sanibel Island, about 3 hours south of us. It looks like fun and I’m really looking forward to it. Katherine is all about the beach these days.

 

We finished painting the living room today. We went from taupe to grey with white trim. It looks really nice. It’s amazing what a new coat of paint (or three) can do. The whole room looks brighter and cleaner. Next up is Katherine’s room. It is currently yellow but she said she wants it pink and blue and yellow and purple with polka dots. <Insert crazy face here> So, I’m thinking pink with some circles in the other colors. I’m still contemplating that one. Once we get all of the rooms painted, we will get to have new flooring all over the house. I am so very excited about that. The linoleum and Berber carpet are both just used up and nasty.

 

We also had the exterior of the house painted a couple of weeks ago. We went from a sunbleached pinky-beige color to a taupe with white trim & a sizzling red door. It’s really pretty. So pretty in fact, our neighbors across the street are painting their house the same color. The funniest part of this whole thing is that the main reason we decided to paint the living room in the first place is that we were unable to get a color match to repair some areas where the paint was having problems. Our sitters next door neighbors house is the color I chose for the exterior because I really liked the way it looked on their place. We got a sample of the color and brought it home. I painted it on a piece of paper to see what it looked like and lo and behold, it’s the living room wall color. So we still have the taupe, we just moved it outside. J

 

Katherine has been awesome lately. Going to bed easily, and just being a really good girl. She was such a good girl last week that she earned 27 rocks! Rocks are her currency. She earns them by being good then she exchanges them for things she wants…tv time, computer game time, extra books, Busch Gardens etc. This week we took a trip to Busch Gardens. She was even super good there…the whole day! I love it when we are in an upswing.

 

She’s also been being really great with Lauren. Last week at the gym, when I walked into the childcare room after my workout, she was sitting on the floor next to Lauren. She told me that a little boy made Lauren cry by taking her toy and she made him stop and say he was sorry. How proud was I? Oh, you just can’t even imagine. Standing up for her little sister? I love it. Then at Busch Gardens yesterday, they were side by side in the stroller. We got K an icecream cone on the way out. Did she give Lauren bites of her ice cream? You bet she did.

 

Lauren is still testing us but dang is she ever cute. She’s saying more and more words like “car”, “touch”, “shoe” and “Mama”. She also has most of the animal sounds down. I like to take her outside for walks but she tries to either run into the street or eat all the junk that’s on the ground. I have to be very vigilant when we go outside.