The simple things

This weekend wasn't exactly relaxing. Our praise team from church somehow got asked to sing for the Western NC Conference United Methodist Men's Rally. We really enjoyed singing during their general sessions, but we had to head home Saturday night instead of staying the whole weekend because our church would have missed us Sunday morning. Translated into "adult scheduling" language that meant that we packed up sound equipment, the drum set and other instruments, luggage, and 15 people and headed to Lake Junaluska (about a four hour drive) to be there for less than 24 hours.

Oh, and did I mention that one of those 15 people was our adorable two year old? Despite spending so much time strapped in her seat in the church van, she seemed to quite enjoy herself! After all the trip brought an opportunity to sleep in a "big girl bed." That was somewhat of an accident ~ as we pulled into the hotel parking lot I said to Ian, "Um, we didn't grab the pack'n'play..." I was envisioning a LOOOONG night with the three of us in a queen size bed, but luckily our room had a full and a twin. First thing Kylie said Saturday morning was, "I seep bi gur bed!" So far we haven't had to fight the crib since we've been home, but we're holding our breath for the arrival of that battle and are frantically trying to find our little girl a cute "big girl bed" that isn't ridiculously overpriced because it has the word "kid" in it!

She also loved taking a walk around the lake (2.6 miles ~ she walked a good bit of it, but also spent some time riding on shoulders and then sacked out in my arms about 3/4 the way around), stopping to smell the flowers, and using her Hannah Montana (no, she doesn't watch the show, that's just the only microphone my mom could find for her at her birthday) microphone to sing along with the praise team on Saturday morning.

But perhaps the highlight of Kylie's weekend was an 89 cent purchase I made for her at the Mast General Store in Waynesville. I don't know if you remember your first candy necklace, but here's Kylie's...

"So you are saying that this is candy around my neck?"

"And I'm supposed to put it in my mouth and eat it?"

"Hey, this does taste pretty good!"

"Holy cow, what will they think of next? Candy I can wear on my finger like a ring?"
Can you imagine what she'll think of Ring Pops?

I love how a fast trip up and back to the mountains brings moment after moment of wonder in my child's eyes. Is it possible that I could love her more?

A Kiwi evening

It was one of those gorgeous NC spring days today that literally beckoned you to come outside. (We have to get out while we can before the curse of humidity hits us full force in mid to late May!)

Kylie and I spent almost all afternoon outside. After I folded a load of laundry (by the way, can someone explain to me how such a small family generates so many dirty clothes???) and unloaded the dishwasher (same question, just insert dishes) I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk or in the backyard. She responded with, "Ah wok! I get May-yah lee-sh!" And so the three of us walked. And walked, and walked and walked! Back when I used to run ~ a few years back I had the pipeline dream of running a half marathon ~ I knew the mileage for most of the routes through the neighborhood. What Kylie walked this afternoon was about 1 1/2 miles! And she did it all while proudly holding Maya's leash. When we got home she sucked down a pretty big cup of water and then headed for the back door. Dinner was mostly left-overs, so I figured, "why not?" and we spent some time checking out the garden. Kylie wasn't too impressed with that, most of the plants are still quite small, but she lingered at the raspberries as if she remembered them from last summer...

Speaking of remembering, Ian and I have been wondering out loud lately how the toddler mind works. We've decided that there's lots of information floating around in there and that bits and pieces must cross over each other and suddenly provoke a "flashback memory." For example on our walk today Kylie found a "blow flower." She stopped to blow on it and the seeds floated away. Some landed on Maya's nose and she pointed to Maya's nose and said, "Maya ha noe, no Maya hone." (Maya has a nose, no Maya horn). Then she told me that "Rhinoses ha hone! It wa BIG!" So I asked her if she remembered seeing the rhino at the zoo. And she practically screamed (with glee) "Go zoo wi Dahby! (We met Darby's family at the zoo in March) I see Dahby!" And for the rest of the walk home she kept saying that she wanted to visit Darby...

You know something funny, I was a teacher in the public schools for 10 years and I have now been teaching preschool for 2. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I spend a good deal of time going over letters and the sounds they make. You'd think that I'd do it at home too... One of these days I'm going to start, but for now I'm just letting her take the lead. Ian and I have been watching her and think that she may have a knack for spatial relations, she's really good at puzzles and she's just started becoming interested in this letter set. Not for letter recognition or the sounds they make, but for finding the missing letter ~ she gets so excited when she recognizes the one that fits! (And she knows which ones fit before she actually picks them up and she's always right...)

After dinner the weather reached that perfect spring-time temperature, so we went back outside for another hour. Kylie had a small bowl of vanilla ice cream and I had a WW Heath crunch ice cream bar. When her ice cream was gone she politely requested ~ no, not more ice cream ~ a kiwi. And she was so darn cute eating it that I let her climb up on the table (yes, I know I'll regret that later...) and enjoy.

Now comes the time where I make an apology to Chaucer. I went back and reread my previous post. I added the part about the parsley because in my mind it was a funny story, but I must have been too tired when I was writing. When I read it again it sounded a bit like I was just being grouchy. Let me expand on why the parsley was funny...

I've had a few plants in a large Tupperware tub on the back deck for a few weeks now. Some of them are flowers that I need to figure out where to plant, and some were herbs that I needed an additional planter for. That tub had two verbena plants, two phlox plants, some Mexican heather, and one starter plant each of parsley, rosemary, thyme, and dill. For whatever reason on Monday night when both Chaucer (he comes over to "'play" with Maya during our bible study) and Maya were out back they decided to check out the plants. I can almost hear them talking now, "You get one out."
"No, you pull a plant out."
"I dare you!"
"I triple dog dare you!"
(We all know that no one, human or dog, can stand down from the dreaded triple dog dare...)
And then one of them (actually I have to say that it easily could have been Maya OR Chaucer) dipped their head down into the 35 gallon tub and pulled out a parsley plant. It was obviously not as tasty as they had hoped and it was quickly ~ luckily for the parsley ~ abandoned about 10 feet from the tub. I simply took advantage of a break in the weather on Tuesday to put it along with (sadly the sage wouldn't fit in that planter ~ any Simon and Garfunkel fans out there?) the rosemary and thyme in my new planter. As you can see, (with my kiwi girl in the background) the parsley is going to be just fine!

It was a day

I'm going to be real honest and say that this afternoon was one of those afternoons that was no fun as a mom. My little angel's halo was crooked when I got home from preschool and she and I had a most unpleasant start of nap time experience. Add to the fact that Kylie hasn't been sleeping well in the afternoons (and yes, many have suggested that perhaps she doesn't need a nap anymore, but trust me she does!) and she's really tired. For whatever reason she slept for only about 35 minutes today ~ thankfully long enough for me to hop on the elliptical for a while ~ and then boy howdy was she in a mood when she woke up. Nothing, and I do mean NOTHING was making her happy and she was VERY vocal in that unhappiness. I was just about to lock myself in a bathroom just to be alone for a few minutes when Ian came to my rescue and suggested that we go outside despite the rain clouds hanging over the house.

I pretty much pushed Kylie out the back door and immediately her demeanor changed! Gone was "stormy Kylie" and back was my little sunshine angel. She started smiling and wanted to go get the broom to sweep off our porch. (Apparently Chaucer heard that parsley helps bad breath and wanted to freshen up for his parents ~ the good news is that I think the parsley plant will survive). Shortly after we went out the clouds parted and we had about 30 minutes of sun, so Kylie and I planted a few herbs, watered the herb garden and the porch flowers and played in her rice table.

So "all is well that ends well!" My sweetie returned to me with just a breath of fresh air AND the scale seemed to recognize that weight is something I'd like to see on a downward trend.

It's a good thing too, I had already decided that if it went up again this week that I was going to lie and say my camera was broken or something... I was in need of positive reinforcement!

Classic "Kylieness" and CiCi joined "the wagon"

In random "Kylieness" I present a tiny portion of the evening entertainment. I call it "S-q-u me!"

A funny discussion I witnessed between Kylie and Ian (as she was enjoying her "ear cleaning jellybeans")...

Kylie ~ "Whas dis?" (holding up her second jellybean, asking what flavor it will be ~ last night's random selection by her was buttered popcorn and margarita)
Ian ~ "I don't know, maybe chocolate (guessing by the dark color)
Kylie ~ "Whas dis?" (again trying to figure out the flavor)
Ian ~ "I can't tell."
Kylie then puts the jellybean in her mouth and starts to chew it
Kylie ~ "Whas dis?"
Ian ~ "Definitely grape!"
Kylie ~ "Gelbeen"
Ian ~ "It's grape, I can tell by your breath!"
Kylie ~ "GELBEEN!"
Ian ~ "It's grape baby!"
Kylie ~ "NOOO, GELBEEN!"
Then Ian realized that she thought he was telling her it WAS a grape...

Kylie's Aunt CiCi decided that while I may have been somewhat crazy that there may be something to publicly posting weight. From here on out she and I will be riding this wagon together. Monday will be her night ~ here's the start...

Hey little sis, here's to the days we could eat whatever we wanted and still wear our much smaller high school clothing sizes!

A future in the heath care profession?

My aunt and uncle were in town visiting my cousin this weekend, so they came to Sunday lunch at Mama's house. Kylie loves playing with the Triple A's! She and Abby get along quite well, but Andrew (even though he intimidates her at times) is still probably her favorite. Kylie stayed at Mom's to play with the kids while I went to praise team practice. Apparently while they were outside, Andrew wiped out on the driveway, but my little sweetie was there to soothe him in his misery.


Another funny thing about my girl is her taste buds! She loves to taste new things! My mom has had this little cruet of vinegar on her table as long as I can remember. The kind of vinegar inside changes, but the container is the same. Anyway, Kylie was curious after our supper last night and asked, "Whas dis?" (this is a question that I can hear echoing in my mind as I type ~ I bet I hear it 200 times a day!) When Traci (Aunt CiCi) answered, "Balsamic vinegar," Kylie quickly responded with, "I tahst!" And so what did her loving aunt do? Of course, she dipped her finger in it and let Kylie lick. We expected her to wrinkle up her face at the sour taste, but instead she begged for more. Great Traci, now we'll have to watch her more carefully at restaurants to make sure she doesn't start licking the condiments...

At any rate, even though we don't have an official LID (log in date) yet, the countdown has officially started! Our dossier arrived at the CCAA at 2:04 pm local time (2:04 am as we slept this morning). Kylie woke up around 2:10 this morning, she must have sensed the importance of the moment and wanted to celebrate it! Now we just sit back while God orchestrates matching the right child to our family...

Where in the world is our dossier? (UPDATE)

I've been tracking our dossier. It, along with somewhere between 4 to 6 others (based on weight ~ the package is 10 pounds and ours, including the box, was just under 2 itself), went from DC to Memphis and is perhaps on its way to Beijing from there. After the initial excitement of watching it travel, we will wait for our LID (log in date ~ we expect to know that within a month or so) and then we will settle into the long holding pattern. So life continues as normal, whatever "normal" with a busy schedule and an active toddler means...

We've been spending lots of time outside. The other day when we were scooping rice in Kylie's rice table she started fanning herself and saying that she was hot. She discovered that under the shade of the table it was cooler, but the "stripes" of sunlight were annoying to her, so she found alternate shade as I was putting the lid on the rice table so we could go inside!

At least one of our girls will use the doghouse! Maya won't go in there...

Oh, and the "daisy field" was simply the empty lot next to our friends' (Andrew and Melissa) new house. Kylie and I were watching Ian (yes, I almost had heart failure seeing Ian so high up on a ladder!) help Andrew put on the house wrap and suddenly she took off into the daisies. I love how a child can find the beautiful in the everyday!

Right now Ian is fixing us our huge Saturday morning breakfast and we are going to celebrate having a day with nothing scheduled. Life is good!

***UPDATE ~ as of Saturday night ~ our dossier had a layover in Anchorage, Alaska today. It left there around noon. I'd forgotten about the 1/2 a day ahead thing, suppose it will arrive in Beijing sometime during the day tomorrow...

Oh, and a funny thing was said to me today. Ian, Kylie and I went to visit a friend and as usual, our outgoing little one was being shy yet smiling at everyone she saw (and charming the Snickers bar right out of a grown man's hands). One young guy (a friend of our friend) was quite charmed with her and played catch for a while. He commented on how beautiful she was and kept looking from Kylie to me and back to Kylie. Finally he got up the courage to ask, "If you don't mind me asking, what nationality are you?" To me, not to my child ~ hmm, guess she and I are looking more alike every day...

***UPDATE ~ as of Sunday night ~ Our dossier has cleared the international shipment release and while we were finishing up praise team practice tonight it got on a local truck in Beijing headed for delivery at the CCAA.

We have a number!!!

So this email came in today...

"Group 355,

Your Dossier will be sent to China via FedEx later today! If you would like to track your dossier’s trip to China, the package’s tracking number is xxxxxxxxx. Congratulations and thank you for all your hard work!

Congratulations again on a job well done!

Blessings,

Nicole"

The casual observer can't possibly understand what a relief it is to finally have completed the "paper chase." And honestly, this "paper pregnancy" had many more detours than our experience with collecting the dossier that led to Kylie. Sometime I'll post about all the "inconveniences" we had this time, but suffice to say that despite the experience we had under our belts, Kylie's dossier took us six months even from application to DTC, this time it was eight...

Last time we were America World's DTC (dossier to China) group 227. It was an easy number to remember because of that silly sitcom from the 80's (that I'm not ashamed to say that I watched rather regularly). Hmm, I'm trying to figure out a fun way to remember the number 355 ~ any suggestions?

Today as practice for a sibling (of course her sibling won't be this tiny) Kylie got to hang out with my friend Melissa's baby Sarah. Kylie sat beside her on the floor and would gently pat her. Then she'd watch Melissa's reaction to make sure she was being gentle enough. Too cute!!! Right before they left, Kylie decided that she wanted to get in on the "holding the baby action" and asked, "Missa, bebe lap?" Melt my heart...

Snack time

I love the mind of a toddler ~ they are not tied down to the practical, mundane way of thinking we adults have fallen into!

This afternoon before we headed to the park ~ it was too beautiful outside to waste the day having an early dinner ~ Kylie had one of her favorite snacks. (I don't know what the joy of plain, cold penne pasta ~ gimme sauce of some kind! ~ is, but she sure seems to enjoy it!) In fact she enjoyed it so much that while I was checking the fridge for milk levels (the grocery is really close to the park) she decided that Elmo may want a snack too.

And when I told her she was silly for feeding Elmo she decided to take it meaning that he may get dirty... Note her concentration while attempting to put a bib on him!

Oh, and a fun picture from Sunday that shows in a pinch your bloomers can double as a hat! (No, she's not Houdini, the bloomers came off at my mom's when she wanted to take off her tights ~ crazy weathermen, they haven't gotten much right around here lately...)

Whoever said that bloomers were only for bottoms?

Wordless Wednesday

Oh well...

...that didn't go quite the way I had planned!


I actually ate well this week and have started using the elliptical machine every other day. Hopefully next week the dreaded number will go down and not follow this trend! (I honestly tried to think about ways I could fake my weight, but decided to go with before bed wearing jeans to give a real comparison from last week). Maybe part of it was all the yummy food we ate at the Kabob Grill (one of my and Ian's favorite local Mediterranean resteraunts ~ luckily Kylie totally loved it too! She ate tabbouleh like it was going out of style!) to celebrate my birthday tonight. The good news is that despite the scale heading the wrong direction, I'm starting to have more energy again. That is my real goal!

Happy Birthday to me...

...happy birthday to me!
Best way to celebrate your 35th birthday? Getting these words from your family coordinator...

"Kristi,

Your payments have been received and your dossier will go to China this Friday- Congrats!  Good luck at the DMV...

Blessings,
Nicole"

**The above photo is just in case you aren't an international adoptive parent and wondered if we exaggerated on HOW MUCH paperwork heads overseas...

Yep, it's official, we are on the (super slow) road to a sibling for Kylie. She looks really excited about holding that box, but I'm sure she has no idea what the words sister or brother really mean... And yes, maybe it will be a boy, maybe it will be a girl, but definitely a child selected for us by God! Even after a year we still are often overwhelmed with the perfect placement of Kylie in our home! Her similarities to us are uncanny when you stop to think about the fact that genetics have nothing to do with us being a family! Please agree with us in prayer over the next several years that our second little one will have a good start to life and will be prepared for the crazy thing called life in our family when the time comes!

We don't anticipate getting a referral for several years, but that's okay ~ I have a sweet angel to focus on during this wait. She never ceases to crack me up. Yesterday morning I was eating a cheese quesadilla (I'm not much of a traditional breakfast eater) with (Pace medium) salsa for breakfast. Kylie eagerly helped me polish it off and then took the spoon from her oatmeal to clean out the salsa bowl. (The video was taken after about 10 spoons full) As you can see, she was pretty serious about her dip. Can salsa be considered its own food group?

By the way, I was in and out of the DMV in 30 minutes flat (that must be some sort of world-wide record!) and even was told Happy Birthday by two employees! I'm back on the road for 8 more years...

Can you guess?

Have you had one of those days lately when you think everything is finally going to go your way for a few days and then you remember something dreadful? Like how about that even though you've known for months (and even got a reminder in the mail back in late February) you've let renewing your driver's license creep up on you and suddenly you recall that it expires TOMORROW! Good grief, I work at preschool tomorrow and then I'll be spending who knows how long during the afternoon with a squirmy toddler in tow at the DMV. Not exactly how I had planned to celebrate my birthday, but it could be a lot worse!

But all is not lost on the birthday front, because I'm getting a FABULOUS gift tomorrow. (Of course that is provided that FedEx ~ they've failed us three times now on overnight delivery ~ gets the package where it needs to be tomorrow) Here's the picture, any guesses as to why I'm considering putting a package into FedEx a birthday gift to me?


***As we were waiting for Ian to be ready to go to FedEx with us, Kylie and I went outside to check the mail. When she began requesting dandelions I had to go get the camera because with her speech improving every day, I didn't know how long she will sound as adorable as this...

Couldn't she have at least pretended to be sad?

Our moms (Happy Birthday to my mama!) kept Kylie tonight so Ian and I could go out to dinner and to my sister's drama class production of Little Women. It is wonderful that Kylie feels so comfortable with her grandma (we dropped her off at my mom's), but don't you think she could have faked a frown when we left? Instead this is what we got (I took the picture from my car window as we were backing out)...

...Yeah, that would be the "happy dance" as she chanted, "I go bye bye wit dahma!" Oh well, at least she was happy!

A new look

Let me give a shout out to Carla at Ladybug Designs! I'd been thinking about a blog makeover for a while now. A friend of mine knew I was "shopping" and sent me a link to Carla's site. I liked what I saw and decided to go for it! Carla was quite helpful and very patient with me as I asked TONS of questions. I was amazed at how quickly she got it done too! The best part is that $10 of the cost is being donated to a cause near and dear to my heart, our adoption agency's Orphan Ticket Home campaign. Thanks Carla for the new look!

Words from Kylie

New vocabulary is being tossed around here in our house, and it isn't Ian or I using new words from the dictionary (though sometimes Ian throws in a crazy word that his co-workers use just to keep my mind sharp)...

Our little one is jabbering up a storm and more and more of it is becoming clear to friends and family. Her two word sentences are becoming four word sentences! Today for example, she saw me watering the herb bed on our back deck and quickly said, "I hep wawa fowers!" So we got her watering can from the bathtub and I let her loose. She took her job very seriously and moved on from the herb bed to the flower pot (a sweet gift from Ian for Valentine's Day) and then on to the tomato plants. I suspect she was taking extra special care of the tomatoes because she remembers picking them off the plant last summer. At any rate she kept requesting, "Mo wawa peas Mama!" until she had used three gallons of water. I had to drag her into the house so that I could get dinner going. Other frequent sentences include, "I gots (fill in the blank with anything she is carrying)." "Mama (or Daddy) hode ju." "I hep (fill in the blank with anything she thinks she is helping us do)", and the new favorite after discovering dandelions, "I mo bow!"

Some things she remembers makes Ian and I raise our eyebrows and ask one another "Have you been teaching her that?" Last night she took a crayon, swirled it around on paper and then proudly squealed, "Circul!" The other day it was windy and when she saw the trees blowing about she climbed up in my arms and said, "rock by bebe in tee-top!" And she saw one of my cousins for the first time in several months on Wednesday and noticed that she'd had a hair cut.

The things she says also cracks me up. Yesterday I had to bribe her to change clothes (she had been playing in the yard while I was at preschool and we were going to meet friends for dinner) with promising to take her shopping ~ yes, she LOVES to shop! At that point she quickly changed clothes and when we got in the car I asked her (out of curiosity) what we would buy when we went shopping. She looked up, stalled with "Uhhh..." then got a huge smile and replied, "KIWI!" I giggled and asked her what else we would get. I hear from the backseat, "Mo kiwi and apples!" She's easy to please on a shopping spree!

She's also growing like a weed. She's now almost 30 pounds even, just over 36 inches tall, and wearing a size 7 shoe. That would be up 8 pounds, 6 inches and 3 shoe sizes from this time last year. You know they say that if you take their height at two and double it that you'll have their adult height. Umm, so is my girl gonna be 6 feet tall?

And I just have to share how much I love teaching preschool. After 10 years of eye rolling by 6th graders that thought I was "So lame sometimes!" I've found that teaching three year olds is the place to be! Yesterday when one of the moms brought her daughter she told me that the child told her that I was really smart. She asked her daughter why she thought that and she replied, "Well mommy, Ms. Kristi knows all her letters AND the sounds they make!" And there you go, clearly I'm a genius!

A backyard kind of morning

I think that there was a good bit of truth in Kylie's referral information that said, "She prefers to be outdoors in the sunshine!"

After pretty much a week of gray and rainy weather, she was so happy to be out in the warm sunshine again today!

As soon as we finished breakfast and watching Kai-Lan, she stood by the back door until I agreed to head outside with her. Today I couldn't convince her to play with the rice at all, she headed straight for the creek!
After she poked around with her stick for a while, we listened to the birds, walked the fence, and admired all the different flowers. It was so adorable to hear her say, "Dod (God) make fower, petty fower!" And then she (with a little help from Mommy ~ sorry about spreading the weeds honey!) discovered how fun dandelions are! We went on a "bow fower" (blow flower) hunt and helped all the dandelions in our yard disperse their seeds. At least we stood near the fence most of the time...

After she determined that we had found all the dandelions (and taking a break on a rock) Kylie wanted to go back to the creek. She got brave and started trying to jump across it (it is only about 5 inches wide in some spots). It was all fun and games until she didn't quite make it one time. She was pretty upset at first, but by the time I had carried her up to the house she thought it was pretty funny. My little pink girl is starting to love getting messy! Thank goodness for cute play clothes purchased at consignment!

Getting "back on the wagon"

Today was one of those, "Let's celebrate that the sun is shining and that it is warm enough to go barefoot outside!" kind of days. When I got home from preschool Kylie was ready for her nap. That gave me time to load up some stuff that's been sitting in the corner of our room destined for Goodwill (filled the back of the Highlander) for months now. Then I put on some gym shorts and a t-shirt and gave our new elliptical machine (thank you Federal Tax Refund!) a spin. I'm guessing that exercising while watching the Food Network and therefore dreaming about yummy things to eat somewhat defeats the purpose, but at least I'm burning a few extra calories!

When Kylie woke up we hit the backyard and played in her water (still filled with dry rice from the winter) table for a while. Before long she was headed down the deck steps toward the garden so like any sane mommy, I stuffed the camera in my pocket and headed after her. I figured she was headed to check the raspberry plants, but it was actually the "creek" (think neighborhood storm drain run-off) at the bottom of our hill that was calling her name.

(Oh, and if you're wondering about the pants, let me explain... She was dressed smartly in jeans ~ good job dressing her honey! ~ with that top when I got home from school. Shortly after I got home she needed to use the potty. She wanted ~ like always ~ to take her pants all the way off. And she takes off running when she is done, usually completely naked. A few minutes later we headed upstairs with her in a shirt and diaper and her jeans laying in the downstairs bathroom. When she gets chilly she wakes up early, those pants were close by and I was too lazy to go back downstairs to get the jeans...)

At first she cautiously squatted near the edge just poking with a stick...


And then she found what I call "creek ick" (takes me back to days of playing in the "crik" at Grandpa's house with my sister and cousin...)


At first she wasn't too sure about the "ick," but before long she though it was hilarious!

Then it was time to step in with both feet...


And of course we all know that playing in the creek is much more fun when you're with someone you love!


Anyway, back to the bandwagon. I've been seeing little signs ~ a totally unflattering picture of me at Kylie's birthday party, the fact that the new clothes I bought last spring are too tight ~ and today I was winded when I came back up the hill from our creek. I've decided that it's no longer about a clothing size, it's about being around for that sweet little face above (and the sweet face of my loving hubby too!). I HATE weight, but I think that if I post my progress here that I'll hold to it. So here it goes, a picture of my scale before I put on my pj's tonight...

I'll be keeping track each Tuesday!

"Nu nus"

My daughter is an amazing eater. Her current favorites include ANY kind of fruit (especially hot right now is the kiwi), raw veggies (especially salad with balsamic vinaigrette dressing, cut up carrots, cucumbers and bell peppers), jellybeans (they're a food group, right?), chicken, hamburger meat, pork (pretty much any way it comes ~ chops, bacon, ham, tenderloin, sausage...) green beans, ice cream, yogurt, cheese (currently two favorite varieties are Kraft 2% singles and mini Babybel ~ she just loves to open them and peel off the wax coating!), pizza, Pad Thai, tacos, steamed dumplings, and "nu nus" (noodles) ~ any way you can fix them!

Today we had a lunch that was a throw back to my college days. Kylie and I shared a package of shrimp flavored Oodles of Noodles. I should have had the camera on hand to record how her little eyes lit up when I got the package out of the pantry. Once they were in her little Tupperware container it was all I could do to pull her attention away from eating them. And I have one question, how do kids inherently know how to slurp noodles?

Sleep update ~ Friday Kylie slept through the night again and we were thrilled! But Saturday night she woke up twice. Ian and I were discouraged about the setback, but then I remembered that I had forgotten to remind her that it was okay for her to go back to sleep on her own at night when I put her to bed Saturday night. So last night we gave her the little talk (see the bottom of the Bib licker post) before we put her to bed and she slept from 9:30 to 7:00 without a peep. Of course we reminded her again tonight ~ so far, so good!

Gardening

Several years ago Ian and I planted a garden in our back yard. Yes, we live in a neighborhood, but we lucked out and got one of the largest lots (with no premium cost) and have plenty of room to grow some of our own vegetables. I remember so well spending several hours in early April of 2005 thinking (yes, somewhat naively) that we'd be planting that garden with our daughter the next spring. Obviously we planted it ourselves in 2006, but we had high hopes that we'd plant one together with our daughter in 2007. (We would have, but somehow we never found time for a garden last year...)

So this year we (and by we I mean mostly Ian) were determined not to pay someone else for our green beans, snap peas, carrots, tomatoes, summer squash, zucchini, cucumbers, basil, cilantro, oregano, and sage. Last Friday night we headed to Lowe's and bought seeds, fledgling plants, soaker hoses and some additional top soil. And Saturday it rained all day... Ian was a trooper and headed outside to turn the garden soil over, but Kylie and I stayed in and had a play date with our neighbor, Madison. The girls and I played with rice, Little People, listened and danced to music, and put together puzzles while Ian got soaked.

We simply didn't have time during the week this past week to get the garden planted, so we decided that would be how we'd spend our Saturday this week. And of course it rained again. But the plants were starting to look unhappy and we realized we were soon going to miss our window of opportunity. Ian announced at breakfast that he'd be heading outside with the assumption that Kylie and I would watch from the window. But it was warm, and I used to love playing outside in the rain, so we all put on old clothes and headed out back.

At first I think Kylie thought Ian and I had lost our minds! She kept saying, "It rain Mama!" and pointing up to the house. But when I laughed about getting wet she laughed too. Everything was fine and dandy until we got to the wet dirt in the garden. She didn't want to touch it and kept complaining that it was, "duh-ty!" But she was curious about the rake and wanted to use it, from the edge of the garden...

It was time to bite the bullet and introduce our girl to mud, so we picked her up and put her right in the middle of it. I guess it was wrong to be laughing at her trying to keep her feet out of the mud ~ she kept lifting up her feet super high one at a time ~ but it really was funny. Then Ian showed her how to start making rows...

And she loved it! She caught on rather quickly and helped us dig rows, drop seeds in (yeah, I'm going to have to thin out the beans and peas because they didn't get spaced quite far enough), pull dirt back over and stomp it down. Then it was time to create hills for the cucumbers, squash and zucchini and drop one seed in each hole. She was so meticulous about those seeds. If she accidentally dropped in more than one she'd dig it back out! And all along she'd hold her hands up to us and say, "duh-ty ands!" and then she'd crack up and plunge her hands back into the dirt.

I'm sure the neighbors thought we were crazy, and the day wasn't exactly like the warm, sunny one that I had imagined back in 2005, but at least we didn't have to water the garden when we were done planting! And we were all filthy when we were done, but aren't some of the best memories the ones that aren't "perfect?"

A few other funnies about Kylie this week...

She is now talking up a storm and repeating EVERYTHING she hears. For example, we went to the Charlotte Checkers hockey game the other night and the fans have the habit of calling out the opposing goalie's name and then yelling, "You suck!" And so my sweet little angel looks over her shoulder at me and says, "You sudt!" Classy...

She can roll her tongue ~ and so can her daddy ~ but I've never been able to. Apparently it is a genetic thing ~ Ian likes to claim that she got the dark hair and skin from her mommy and the ability to roll her tongue from him. Anyway, in the car yesterday she was rolling her tongue and I'd play along and try to do it to make her laugh. She was getting pretty serious about it and would say, "Nonono, Mama dis!" and then roll her tongue to show me what to do. I'd try (and of course fail) and she'd again say, "Nonono, Mama DIS!" And it went over and over and over until she rolled her eyes at me to indicate that I was a lost cause in the tongue rolling department.

I know that we spend a lot of time down at church, and that Traci and Adam are usually with us when we are there either for worship services or praise team practice, but I didn't realize how much Kylie pays attention to that. Ian and I went to church Wednesday night for our fellowship dinner and when Kylie saw our sanctuary she yelled, "CiCi's house!"

Bib licker!

Some time ago there was a commercial (I think for some stain fighter) where a guy spilled the inside of his jelly donut on his pants. A woman passing by called him a "pant licker" with some disdain in her voice. It always made me laugh.

Tonight as I got dinner going I let Kylie have her very favorite snack, a Yo Kids yogurt (Banilla flavor). I looked up from putting the salmon in the oven to witness my very own "bib licker!"


Guess she really likes it ~ and it's not like she's never seen us lick a plate (Ian when we have real maple syrup and I'll admit that I'm likely to pick up a plate if there is chocolate on it!) Let's just hope this behavior stays at home...

On a totally unrelated note, we're celebrating two nights in a row of Kylie sleeping through the night! (She had been doing quite well for months with maybe one or two wake ups a week, but starting with Ian's trip to CA the first week of March, she had been waking up at least twice a night. We both had dark circles under our eyes and March seemed like it would never end!) Tuesday night we both hugged Kylie before bed and told her that if she woke up she should remember that we are in the room right next door. We told her that we loved her and that big girls go back to sleep by themselves. I heard one five second whimper Tuesday night, but she didn't start screaming and the whimper was followed by the sound of her rolling over. Last night there wasn't a peep. We're praying that we're on to something...

Reflections

There were two things about my dad that still make me laugh today. One was that he had a serious weakness for ice cream. Even though he had a heart attack when he was in his early 40's and quickly had double bypass surgery following that, he never did quite give up that sweet vice. There were many times when I'd visit him in Maine over the summers that we'd stop for ice cream not once, but twice in one day! Dad would just say with a twinkle in his eye, "There's always room for ice cream!" And while Kylie never met dad, I think they had a lot in common...

The other thing was Dad's attraction to trees. I'm serious, I can't tell you how many times over the years Dad would pull over when we were in the car for us to stop and admire a unique tree. And many times we'd have to wait minutes or even an hour or two for the lighting to be just right so that he could photograph it... (But his dedication to conservation, lighting, and nature got a beautiful book, To Save a River published before he died) Anyway, when Alexander, Kylie and I were walking around Reed Gold Mine last week I suddenly remembered a spot Dad used to like to visit while we were there. And so I set off determined to find the tree. (It is one of the only surviving trees from the days that the gold mine was in operation). And the three of us sat on the bench and admired it just like Dad used to. This time it was my turn to explain the specialness of the tree with Alexander. And I couldn't help but remember the many times I sat there with Dad.

I think he would have been proud...

The house sure is quiet...

Yesterday during Kylie's nap I went through clothes that have been given to me (I have huge Rubbermaid tubs filled with great "hand-me-downs" from cousin Abby in sizes 2T, 3T, 4T and I'm now starting to get her 5T stuff!) trying to remember which brands run small to pull stuff out for this spring and summer. I was busy the whole time, so I didn't think about how quiet the house seemed (and weekends are usually a whirlwind for us) without Alexander until today.

Logic says that Alexander and Kylie shouldn't get along. Alex has been the "top dog" in his house all his life and pretty much digs being an only child in his house. Kylie isn't accustomed to sharing her caregivers and sure likes having mommy & daddy to herself. There are eight years between the two and their interests are worlds apart ~ Alex likes to study his New England Patriots cards and Kylie wants to bend them; Alex wants to play a modified version of 4 square and Kylie wants to roll the ball back and forth; Alex wants to play Ohio State "Buckopoly" and Kylie wants to wrinkle the money, move the pawns randomly, and throw the dice. Alex hates it when she cries, she hates it when he ignores her. I could give so many other excuses why the two "can't get along," but I have pictures to prove that despite the logical reasons that this young uncle and niece love each other dearly!

Kylie catches a ride up the hill at Reed Gold Mine.

"Can I have a scoop of that rice?"
Alexander helped cover and dig out several of her small toys.

"So do you think Baby Einstein videos made you smarter Uncle Al-e-dander?"
The farm one is the ONLY one Kylie will watch ~ they were both pretty worn out after spending the morning walking around the gold mine and chilled while I made dinner.

"What kind of bird is this one?"
Alexander patiently pointed out the birds in each enclosure at the Carolina Raptor Center.

Lost in the joys of ice cream...
Alexander kept saying, "Yep, she really is a Shultz, she loves ice cream just like Dad did!"

I loved spending an entire week with my little bro! Kylie enjoyed it too and by the end of the week had gotten pretty used to him being here. We had to call Alex on Saturday morning when Kylie realized that he wasn't here anymore. She got the biggest grin on her face when she heard his voice and said, "I woo ya Al-e-dander!" We hope he'll be back for another visit soon!