This Blog Has Moved!

I should have done this a while ago! Sadie has a new little sister and I have a new blog (for anyone who doesn't already know!). It's A Woman's Place Depends on Her Vocation! So if you haven't already and you'd like to, come over and visit!

Self Time Outs...

Sadie was playing at her sand table a few days ago when she decided that the sand looked much better on Nani’s porch than it did on the table top. The conversation that followed went like this:

Me: “Sadie, you know the rules. Keep the sand on the table.”
Sadie: Looks up and makes sure I’m watching before dumping another cup of sand on the deck.
Me: “Do you want a time out.”
Sadie: Turns back to the sand table and then stands still for a second before saying in a very clear voice- “Yeah!”
Me: “You want a time out?”
Sadie: “Yeah!” She then turns and looks at me.
Me: “You like timeouts?”
Sadie: “Yeah.” She then goes and walks over to the front door. When Paul opens it she goes inside and stands in the corner with her hands up to her face against the wall. I follow her inside.
Me: “What are you doing?”
Sadie: Stands silently against the wall, waiting for a timeout.
Me: “Okay… one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.”
Sadie: Continues to stand against the wall. Most of her timeouts are twenty seconds.
Me: “Sadie?”
Sadie: Turns around and giggles and runs back into the living room the play.

So… timeouts are fun… I think I’m going to have my hands full before two long!

Trucks and Butterflies

Sadie was horrified today when we got to her favorite Aquarium/Museum. Last night they had hosted a private graduation party and someone at the party had smashed the windshield out of the classic, full sized truck that Sadie loves to play in.

She’s also having to get used to the idea of sharing the Museum with other kids. Now that it’s summer there are a lot more people there and Sadie isn’t able to race around the place, which is almost empty most winter mornings.

Yet the most stressful part of Sadie’s day was rather unexpected. The park has a butterfly enclosure during the summer months. We’ve noticed lately that whenever Sadie is worried about anything she’ll start to get hives on her arm or leg. As soon as whatever she’s worried about goes away, so do the hives. Today I had dressed Sadie in bright pink shirt and a brown skirt that was covered with a brightly colored tropical flower print. The print was very popular with the butterflies. While they avoided most people they swarmed Sadie and kept landing on her skirt trying to drink from the flowers. Sadie, who chases butterflies and birds at home who fly away, wasn’t sure what to think of these bold butterflies and immediately started itching. And she wasn’t buying my (or Nani’s) reassurances that the butterflies were nice.

But I guess that’s better than having to protect the butterflies from her grabby little hands. A few parents definitely had there hands full with that!

Busy, Busy, Busy!

It has been a busy month! We've been moving into our first family apartment and moving while 34 weeks pregnant, while chasing around a toddler, is not an easy task. Things are going more slowly than I'd like, because I can't do as much as I want to, but are coming along. I'm stepping back a bit more than I would if I weren't pregnant, and letting people help (Paul hung the pictures this time, which is really making the apartment look like "home").

Sadie wasn't quite sure what to think about the new apartment. As her toys migrate over from Nani and Grumpa's (and there seem to be enough toys to fill both houses) she has been warming to it. She wasn't sure what was so special about the place the first time she came over with Nani and saw Mommy scrubbing the bathroom floor. Now that half of the Wonder Pets are in the living room, it's a little more welcoming.

Sadie is such a sweet mix of girlie and rough and tumble. She loves Grumpa's tractors and ohhh's and ahhh's over every truck we pass. She's thrilled each time a big rig drives by on the freeway and points and squeals. But she also loves dressing up. Two days ago we went through two and a half boxes of baby clothes and Sadie was excited to find a box of her fancy church dresses. She "ohhhed" and "awwwed" each time she picked up a dress and then carefully handed it to me and stood and listened as I'd tell her about how cute she looked in it and, for some of the special dresses, explained where she'd worn it. If I asked if she thought a dress was pretty she'd say "ya."

In fact, while I've always heard of toddlers saying "no" to everything Sadie's response to most questions is "ya." Occassionally, if she's really excited she says, "oh yaaaaaaa!" Although I was surprised once when I asked her something and she said "no way."

I better run... nap time is coming to an end!

The Ocean Bunny

Sadie loves to dance (if you click here that's a clip and if you click here there's another one). But we've found one thing that she loves more than dancing: playing in the ocean... the very, very, very cold Pacific Ocean:

Mustard.

Sadie bunny has always had interesting tastes. She likes onions (cooked and uncooked). She loves pickles. And spicy barbeque sauce is on her list of favorite foods. Yesterday, however, she discovered the joy of mustard.

I’m not sure which she loves more, the fact that mustard is yellow and comes in a spectacularly yellow bottle (that she loves stealing from the fridge) or the taste. And what was served with the mustard?

A hot dog, cut into four pieces (so they were like tiny, unchokable triangles) and then sliced into tiny slivers.

Sadie liked the hotdog. But she loved the mustard. She spent a good deal of time dipping her fork in the mustard and eating it.

The mustard obsession actually began long before yesterday. It began months ago, before Sadie had ever even tasted mustard. She fell in love with the yellow bottle in the fridge and from anywhere in the downstairs section of Nani and Grumpa’s house she could hear the fridge open and make a run for it, stealthy sneaking around whoever opened the fridge to grab the mustard off the bottom shelf of the door and make a run for it out into the living room before anyone noticed. This happens on a daily, if not twice daily basis (and sometimes more than that). People watch for her now, but she still has great timing and seems to slip in just as you let your guard down.

Now that she’s tasted mustard I have a feeling her attacks on the fridge are only going to get worse…

Adventures in Nap Time...

Sadie is having a bit of a struggle with her sleep patterns. I think she may be going through a growth spurt, or maybe she’s just exhausted because the weather’s been nicer so she’s been doing a lot of running around outside.

Whatever the reason, we have had a tough couple of days.

Sadie usually wakes up at 6:30 on the dot each morning, takes a nap from 1:30-3:00pm each day and then falls asleep at 7:30 at night.

This arrangement had worked well for us for quite a while.

Suddenly though, she’s exhausted by 10:30am. The other day on the way home from morning Mass she even fell asleep and didn’t wake up until halfway through lunch. Unfortunately, even the early nap didn’t seem to be enough, and she was very cranky by bedtime (and I didn’t really want to put her down before her bedtime, because every time I’ve tried that she’s ended up wide awake and ready to play at 4am).

Is she suddenly back to two naps a day again (I’m going to try it out and see if it works)?

She even slept this morning until 7:15, which is very late for the princess bunny.

As we work out her new sleep schedule, things have been pretty cranky around here. And she’s frustrated with Mommy for not figuring out what’s going to work next more quickly…

Tomorrow I think I’ll try out two naps again and hope that it works. Otherwise we might have a few more days with the grumpy little princess storming around the house.

More Time Outs!

We had yet another funny time out the other day.

Sadie had another incident that involved pushing a cat (Delilah, of course, because she’s the only cat that’s brave enough to spend a significant amount of time with Sadie) off of the ottoman in the middle of the living room. She knows that this is a major no-no.

So she wasn’t surprised when Nani and I both said “no” at the same time, as Delilah fled across the room, and I followed it with, “Sadie, go to the time out corner. You know you don’t push cats. It’s time for a time out.”

Sadie turned, walked across the room and walked over to the hallway corner. I was sitting in a chair in the living room and decided I would give something new a try. The time out corner was just out of site from where I was sitting, but I could hear Sadie walk to it and sit down. When she sat down I started to count. I got to six before I heard Sadie stand up and start to walk back into the room. She proceeded to walk over to me, grab my hand and lead me back over to the time out corner. Then she dropped my hand and sat down, content as I stood behind her and counted to ten. Then she got up and went back out to play.

She giggled through most of the time out though… and seems to think that being sentenced to a time out is pretty hilarious…

I have a feeling she’s going to be able to count to twenty pretty soon… she hears those numbers so frequently…

Time Out!

Sadie was having a little bit of a hard time being gentle with the kitties today. After one particularly rough moment that involved Sadie pushing Delilah off of the ottoman in the middle of the living room, Nani told Sadie that she was going to have a time out. Sadie got up and walked out of the room over to the corner in the hallway where she has her time outs, sat in the corner, folded her hands in her lap and then waited for Nani to follow her in and count to ten.

A while later she was frustrated about something and swung at me (she’s been so frustrated about talking lately that she’s been having her terrible two tantrums early). I told her that if she did it again she was going to have to have a time out. She stopped mid tantrum, got up and walked out of the room again and gave herself a time out. When I followed her I found her sitting in the corner giggling.

She doesn’t seem to mind the time outs, but they do seem to give her a chance to calm down.

Weather Vanes, Buckets and Tractors

Sadie is currently playing with her red tractor. Her obsession with all things tractor began months ago (around the time she was able to walk around outside and see Grumpa on his tractor) and doesn’t look as if it’s going to end any time soon. This morning Grumpa won extra points by wearing his red tractor t-shirt. Sadie was quick to spot it and had to run over to show Grumpa that she’d noticed the tractor and that she loved it.

Her interest in weather vane continues, but she’s added to it and now is very excited about looking at pictures of buckets. This is also a result of reading barn books (because apparently when I pointed her interest out to Nani she said that it had started with the Big Red Barn book upstairs) and I first noticed it this morning when she kept turning her nursery rhyme book to the Jack and Jill page and then to the front page, which also has a miniature Jack and Jill. She points out the bucket picture again and again, while I repeat, “bucket,” “bucket.”

She can also tell you that the sound that every bird makes is “bwak, bwak, bwak, bwak” (like a chicken). Every non-bird animal says “moooooooo,” which also happens to be the word for “moon.”

And the other very cute phrase that Sadie likes to say?

“Uh-oh!”

Sadie Sleeps!

Sadie slept through the night last night in her big girl bed! I put her down a little before eight and she showed up standing next to my bed staring at me and making little puppy whimpering sounds some time around 6. Ten whole hours of toddler sleep!

I'm really hoping it lasts! We switched over to Pull Ups two nights ago, because the normal diapers were no longer working at night and I'm not sure how the switch is contributing to her suddenly sounder sleep, but there does seem to be a connection. She went from waking up five to eight times a night, to waking up three times a night two nights ago, to sleeping through the night last night! That's really quick progress and it makes me love Sadie's new little pink princess Pull Ups (which she's quite thrilled with too because of the whole pink princess aspect of them).

I remember that third trimester sleep usually isn't the best... but I'll take all the sleep that I can get these days! Sleeping from ten to six last night was a dream come true!

The Smurf Shoes (and other things that are just too small!)

We found a pair of tennis shoes that I wore to kindergarten the other day while sorting through boxes of stuff for the garage sale. Back in the day they were one of my absolute favorite things to wear. They are pink and white saddle shoes with a little blue Smurfette on the side. I was styling.

Yet we knew with one look that they wouldn’t work for Sadie… they’re already too small. While her size 9 shoes are looking a little big on her still, her size 8s are already a little too small. We’ll be searching for a shoe that actually fits later this week!

I also ran across a shirt that I got when we visited Hawaii. I was in first grade when I wore it as a normal sized t-shirt. I put it on Sadie last week and while it was a tiny bit longer than her other shirts, it was still well above her knees (actually it probably came down about half way across her diaper).

And I can completely forget putting her in a shirt that says 2T or 3T or 4T if it’s from one of those boxes. I guess sizes must have changed over the past twenty five years… they are just too tiny for our one year old! In today’s sizes she wears a 3T.

I have a feeling she’s going to be taller than me when she grows up… and I’m not too short at 5’5”.

Weather Vanes!

Sadie is more than a little obsessed with weather vanes. And it’s all because of her “Big Red Barn” book. One of the pages towards the front of the book says: “and on every barn is a weather vane of course, a golden flying horse.”

We read this book pretty much every night before bedtime when Sadie was tiny and she still looks at it most nights before bath time. She’s taken that particular sentence quite literally. Every barn is supposed to have a weather vane. Every barn.

Sadie has pointed out weather vanes for a long time. There’s a weather vane with an eagle on it at the local grocery store and she points to him every time we go shopping. It’s only recently that she’s starting demanding we notice buildings without weather vanes so we can observe what they don’t have.

Then she started obsessing over her barn puzzle. It has a red barn in the center that is surrounded by animals. And that red barn does not have a weather vane. Last week this caused hysterics. Sadie pointed it out to each of us, with increasing urgency until she was having a full out tantrum every time she saw it. The logical solution was to hide the puzzle, but Sadie would look for it. Finally Nani took a permanent marker and drew on a little stick figure weather vane. Sadie saw it and pointed (and actually seemed a little disappointed that she didn’t have a weather vane-less barn to point to anymore) and the tantrums finally stopped.

Luckily Sadie’s Wonder Pet School House has a big yellow weather vane. The Fischer Price barn she got for her first Christmas, however, doesn’t. This has been the latest drama. Right now there’s a red barn with a pink pig sitting on top of it sitting next to me. Yesterday Sadie has placed “Mater” the tow truck from Cars on the barn for most of the day. These are two of her favorite stand in weather vanes.

A few days ago she started going through her books and pointing out the top of every single building. She’s quite insistent. She’ll keep pointing and squealing until someone says “no weather vane.” And then she’ll get a happy little smile, turn the page and start over, pointing to the next building (or if there’s no building she points to the top of the page) and insisting that someone notice that there’s no weather vane there.

A Cat Scratch

If you ask Sadie where the kitty scratched her she can show you instantly. She flips her little hand over and shows anyone who will look the tiny line that runs across the back of her wrist. It's less than an inch long, but she enjoys pointing it out, as it is one of her bigger "ouchies."

She's lucky that it isn't bigger.

Delilah is the cat version of a saint. Sadie spends all day climbing on her and following her around. I would feel a little more sympathy for Delilah, however, if when Sadie wasn't following her around the house, she would stop following Sadie. The attachment between them definitely seems to be mutual (which is completely beyond me since Sadie doesn't quite have "gentle" down yet, although we talk about it about three dozen times a day). The other cats are much better at staying out of Sadie's reach (mostly). Delilah doesn't even want to.

I rescue Delilah a few dozen times a day. And because I'm not exactly quick these days, I miss a number of cat rescues. And I have thought, every now and then, that Sadie has deserved a scratch or two. For the most part though, Delilah refuses to defend herself from Sadie's "cuddles."

Two days ago, however, I was too slow getting across the room and it resulted (finally) in Sadie's tiny scratch. Sadie was sitting on the couch next to Delilah. She was being very gentle (which is why I'd let my guard down). She'd given Delilah a few hugs, when suddenly, mid hug, she leaned too far forward and fell of the couch. And of course, she brought Delilah with her. Delilah was unharmed and Sadie didn't make a sound. But then she noticed the tiny scratch on her wrist and for the last two days has been showing everyone her ouchie.

They're inseparable again though. I'm just hoping Sadie really gets the hang of the whole "gentle" idea soon!

Timeouts are Fun?!?!

Sadie isn’t phased by timeouts. In fact, she actually seems to think they’re kind of fun. Yesterday, however, was the first day where she did something naughty, moments after I’d told her not to and then turned and gave me her hand and led me over to the corner in the front hall where she has her time outs. She sat down facing out and then scooted around on her bum until she was facing the wall and proceeded to sit still, giggling and playing with her toes.

For some reason sitting still for twenty seconds in the corner just doesn’t seem like it’s a punishment when the little person who is supposed to be learning not to do something spends the entire time giggling. And she can find any reason to giggle during timeout.

Other than the timeout (or maybe including it, since Sadie doesn’t seem to mind them), Sadie had a pretty fun day. She went to Turtle Bay with Nani and Grumpa while I had my one-hour glucose test and then, after she gave Daddy a tour of Turtle Bay and introduced him to the fish and turtles, we headed over to Chuck E. Cheese. Of course, she was so tired from all the playing that she wasn’t the best little shopper in the world afterwards and after only two stores we called it a day.

Maggie’s little legs have gotten quite long and are already fitting up under my ribs. I think she’s going to be tall too, like her daddy!