dream item

Yes I know it seems there is always a dream item I'm lusting after, but this one I have had my eye set on for the past 4 years. Maybe for the summer I can save up. I feel baking would be so much easier and cleaner if I could get my mitts on one of these. A girl can dream...

Hide your children, hide the tequila, hide the goods! She's gonna find you, so you can run and tell that!

Emma has figured out that she knows how to open doors. On Sunday E started opening and closing doors with such ease, Ant and I just stood and watched. I noticed that she was doing it very automatically and I could tell she was not yet aware of her newly acquired skill. It wasn't until Monday night that the fun began. I saw the look in her face as she opened a door, stood there and paused. She slowly closed the door and reopened it and closed it and I could see the gears in her little head a turning. She proceeded to do this movement over and over and from room to room. Her free will had just expanded a little more.

Well she was actually pretty good about not opening the doors past her bedtime, until Weds. That night she was brave enough to test her limits and started opening her bedroom door over and over but never actually stepping outside her bedroom. She would stand there and say "good night mama". With each new phase a child goes through, there are guaranteed sleepless nights where you work on reconditioning them, and creating a new schedules/routine/discipline. I knew my sleepless nights were around the bend. This morning, 3am to be exact, I feel these little arms and legs trying to fit in that small space between me and the edge of the bed. I am too tired to argue so I let her be. I think she will fall right asleep, but she decides she doesn't want to sleep...after 30mns of her hitting me in the face I put her back in her room. She then proceeds to further test her limits and actually steps out of her bedroom to go play in the living room. I lost count, but I probably kept putting her back in her room about 4 times. Then she would open her door a crack to see if I was there and I would see one little foot step outside and when she saw me and she would shriek and run back in her room,slamming the door. This went on for a while. Eventually I was too tired to physically stand there so I would just say her name from my bed and I could hear the door slamming.

My only consolation from this 2 hour ordeal is, one, Emma is showing more fear of me and two, she is telling me more when something is bothering her. At 4am she kept the door shut but was crying "mama, yuck yuck, Emma yuck yuck". I went in and saw her in the midst of taking off her PJ's and diaper. After a clean diaper and a quick read and snugs, I left her on her own and asked her not to cry. She fought hard not to cry and it broke my heart but after that there was silence and I was able to sleep a whopping one more hour!!

Emma the enforcer

I've been very nostalgic lately, I can't believe how fast it goes.

It cracks me up when Emma knows she has done something wrong and corrects herself. In Tampa she was in a jumping fit and her dad and I just said "Emma" and she stopped jumping and looked right us and said "no jumping". The other day she was in her room and the door to her play microwave was open so she proceeded to do a rockette kick to close it. She turned to look at me and said "no kick". I try not to laugh but it is hard. I wish she would just stop bothering the poor cat. She loves straddling him as if he were a horse and is now into carrying him into her room.

ice storm

Foiled again. My plans to take Emma to a music and movement class have been canceled thanks to this lovely weather we are having. So instead I will make brownies and shake it with Emma indoors and pretend this is me with my loved one.

Book of the week-Children Make Terrible Pets

This book came out last year and I must say that I had to have picked it up and flipped through it several times, always putting it back. Each time I really wanted to like it but for some reason I would just walk away. It wasn't until this Xmas when I was at Inkwood Books that I read a blurb about it and realized that the author and illustrator Peter Brown is the same Peter Brown who wrote Chowder, one of my all time favorite kid's book. Well I actually took the time to look at and read each page and I just love it. The illustrations are quite different from what I had come to expect. Brown also wrote this other delightful book called the Flight of the Dodo, (worth the read). Well, Children Make Terrible Pets is a sweet tale of a little bear named Lucy, who I must say looks like a cross dressing bear in a tutu and makes her all the more lovable. She finds a little boy in the forest and asks her mom if she can keep him. Her mom proceeds to tell her that "children make terrible pets" but agrees that Lucy can keep him if she is takes full responsibility of him. Lucy is determined to prove she can tame the little boy whom she calls Squeaker. This is a very humorous tale that has teaches a lesson in a very sweet manner. If you love Peter Brown and are interested in learning more about him, please check out his website. It is a lot of fun to navigate through and his illustrations are quite unique.

ahh

I just realized I'm falling behind. It is Feb 1 and I really want to make linzer cookies by Vday and I haven't even made a practice batch. I've done my brownies and lemon bars and I came to find out that the lemon bars were an actual success. Apparently I am just a hard critique. My sitter ate about 6 bars and Ant said he really enjoyed them. I went back to taste them and they were indeed yummy but not where I want them to be. I upgrade them to a B+ or A-. So I need to get on with my cookies...there is never enough time!

great idea-Color the same picture every year

idea and image via Oh Dee Doh

I wish I had heard about this sooner, but I guess starting at two isn't too late into the game. Tonight I am going to print 10 of the same image and give one to Emma to color. I will give her the same picture next year and so on and so on. I can't wait to see them side by side at the end of 10 years.
It seems she wakes up with more knowledge each day. She is much better at putting the caps back on her markers and has mastered one particular game where she needs to match shapes up. This morning she had walked away from her breakfast and when she came back her spoon was missing and she started saying "kucharaw", which is spoon in Spanish. She further asked "where is kucharaw" and it took me a while to translate what she was asking for. She is growing up way too fast