Pretty

See?!?

EVERYONE thinks you are cute! :)

Audrey,

Lately you have turned into SUCH a girly girl!!! You have a jewelry box of bracelets that you like to put on your little arms and then you twist them back and forth with your little hand out and say "pwetty!" as we all admire how good you look!

You love your sparkly pink glasses and bows and hats on your head. You LOVE pretty shoes and that's one of the words you use very frequently as you coo "SHooooooo" and try to jam the pretty thing on your foot. You usually get very angry when it doesn't slide right on due to the interference of a buckle or something, but this doesn't tarnish your opinion of the shoe - it's just something we need to be hollered at about.

You are overall a very happy baby except if - for any reason whatsoever, I have to put you down or attend to something else. You really hate it when I am not with you - even if it's just putting you down so I can pour something to drink or empty the dishwasher. It's all just completely unacceptable. What kind of Mom needs two hands? A good one can make due with one, right? :) I am both loving this close stage and anticipating it's demise. I know it won't last and I'll yearn for your closeness. I wish I could stagger it in wonderful doses! :)

Jack,

You are growing so fast now, it blows my mind. You are also ADDICTED to computer games and would be satisfied to spend the entire day sitting in front of the computer. You are SO addicted that the process of getting your attention when you sit in front of it is simply impossible. We have to put it away for you to listen at all and that only comes about after a screaming fit because the computer is gone and then angry yelling as you make us pay for taking it away from you for at least the next hour.

The house lately has been increasing in volume, but there are so many wonderful things to say about that, too! You are also loving to read chapter stories with me - right now we are reading the Captain Underpants books that are written apparently JUST for you! The jokes are right up your alley and some of the strike you so humorously that we repeat them for days - it's actually quite funny. The two you have enjoyed the most recently is when the boys changed a sign to read: "I shake my big butt when I swim in the toilet" and "mommy, my airplane is swimming in the piano!"

These jokes are SOLID GOLD. You can go from seriously pissed to laughing in seconds if I should utter one of these SOLID GOLD JOKES. :) Good to know, right?

Oh, and another thing - your friends are always right. If they ever state something as fact and you repeat it to us and we dare to try to correct the obvious error in communication, you will tell us so definitively that we are WRONG - that it hardly leaves any room to argue the point with you. You are certain that every one of your young friends are like a million times smarter than your parents.

I didn't expect the teen years yet.

Love,

Mommy

Same Dress

Audrey,

Same Dress - at one year of age. What do you think?

Audrey - 12 months

Bridget, 12 months

I think we might be related... :)

Love,

Mommy

Itty Bitty Baby

Audrey,

I am such a baby. I'm so proud of the little toddler you are growing into and yet I still want you to stay my sweet little baby.

You are one!

How did that happen?

Was the last year on warp-speed?

Sorry - what a predictable question - every Mom asks herself that question after the first year because you can still remember what it was like to carry you in my belly and those middle of the night feedings and all the ways that made me so necessary to you.

You are so capable already. The doctor said at your one year visit that you didn't need bottles anymore so you are on sippy cups only and doing just fine with it. You are trying and succeeding incredibly well with using utensils at the dinner table and eating like a big girl.

As if feeding yourself wasn't enough of a sign that you aren't my itty bitty baby anymore, you are also feeding your baby dolls with pretend plastic bottles and hugging them to your breast and patting their backs with such care and concern. In the very next breath, you will carelessly toss them over your shoulder as you head off to explore the next thing.

Like your brother Jack before you, you LOVE to climb. You will climb anything and you have absolutely no fear of it. Stairs, pushing boxes or containers over to the sofa and climbing up on them, climbing on the chairs/boxes and standing up and grinning the biggest cheese-eating grin anyone ever saw because you are just so proud of what you can do. It's a very "LOOK AT ME!" pride and I do have to stop and admire you - your determination and the way you beam in your successes. On the reverse side, when you try something and you just can't do it, it absolutely breaks your heart. You either throw yourself backwards in desperate frustration - with no regard to your own safety - or you curl forward in a sobbing ball on the floor, like the collapsing of a dying star.

You love to talk. You are so proud of your developing communication skills. And not surprisingly for a daughter of mine - one of your first words is "Dah-gee" which you generally say to the dogs with your little arms outstretched reaching to pull their hairy faces to your little face and generally with your mouth open to give them a kiss which they always willingly oblige much to your ecstatic joy and to my absolute horror. I dive towards you and the dogs to try to keep them from licking the inside of your mouth and you must think I am a very peculiar mom to be so worried about the transfer of LOVE! Because that's what you are doing - you are loving your "dah-gee"s.

You can also say "bahl" for ball and "aaack" for Jack. You are constantly trying new words and succeeding. Today I was telling you that "Dah-gees" say "RUFF RUFF" and you deliberately tried it out: raaaaaaaaah raaaaaaaaaah to which I squealed and clapped YEEAH, AUDREY! THAT'S RIGHT! DOGGY'S SAY RUFF RUFF!

I'm just enjoying the heck out of you, Little Girl! Mommy loves you!

**MmmmmmmmWaaaaaaaaaah**

Mah-Mee

Up to Speed

Jack,

You are a smart little bugger. Here are some things that I've been meaning to blog lately about you that I haven't. And I obviously must.

This morning you pooped in your pants. The potty training has been coming along very well but you just don't want to poop on the potty. Under. Any. Circumstances.

This morning, when you pooped in your pants, I must have had a look on my face that I wasn't aware of because you looked at me and said "Mommy? You fwustwated?" (Frustrated...)"

I was amazed that you:

1. Knew the word "frustrated"


2. Used the word "frustrated" in the completely right context


3. Were so adept at reading my emotions that you could tell exactly what I was feeling at that moment.

*******************************

There was a storm this morning and you and Hercy were nervous. Lately you and that little dog are happy as clams together when playing.

You love to throw balls, he likes to retrieve them. It's a love affair, I'm telling you right now.

Until you don't want him to do something and you will holler in a small but very firm voice.

"GETDOWNHERRKEEE!GET DOOOOWN PWEEEEEESE!!!"
"GO DOWNSTAIRS HERKY!! GO!! GO DOWNSTAIRS!!! GOOOOOOOO!!!"

You love to command him and Herky loves to sit right in front of you as you command him and watch you like he's watching his favorite program on TV. You two are really quite the pair.
*********************************
Daddy is travelling and you just know he is going to bring you something back from his trip. You talk about what it would be and so far we have these wonderful options:

• pink jellybeans


• chocolate chip cookie with chocolate chips


• ABCD Chocolate (which is what you call Hershey's bars because they have writing on them)


• cupcakes

You failed to mention the shots you will need for your resulting diabetes, but the sweet tooth side of you is convinced it will all be worth it.

*****************************

You know:

• Daddy works in Texas
• You can find Texas on a map
• You think you work in Illinois and I work in Missouri
• You can put together puzzles on your own
• You can pick out a number of items at a glance. For example: I can say "Jack pick out the row with five cherries" and you'll glance at the options and pick out the right one.
• I have introduced a schedule system to our day and you will go over to it and say "let's check the calendar!" and then you will point to the writing and say "cupcakes!" as though I would fall for that. More than once that is. :)
• You love to talk on the phone with Daddy especially and I usually end up in tears listening to you because it's so sweet.

You are a pleasure!

And on that note, here are your latest school pictures!

In this one, you are showing that you have mastered the art of the fake smile at 3 years old. I'm so proud! :)In this one, you seem bored to death with the process of more pictures....

This one I love even though the smile is a little fake, but you seem to genuinely enjoy being around those big crayons!

Here is the one of you and your class.

Who's the cutest one there? That's right!!! How'd you guess?!? :)

Love,

Mommy

Big Boy Bed

Jack,

We may be one of the few parents who have waited this long to get you a big boy bed. We really made your crib last. We even put it in the lowest position as a converted toddler bed, but it still looked like a crib. Heck - it even still had it's mobile up! But no longer. You officially have a big boy bed now and I think it looks fantastic. We were all over the place in trying to decide what to get you. We looked at lofts first because that's what I ultimately wanted the most.I had these fantastic ideas about using the bed area and putting up bookshelves as the railing around the edges of the upper bed so that you could have your bedtime stories and snuggly animal toys all around you in your sleeping area. Then, I had these plans of making the underside into a tent area with a bean bag chairs and pillows all over the floor and games and toys and all sorts of fantastic fun stuff underneath.From there, my reality evolved to perhaps bunk beds because our house isn't enormous and it would allow us to fit more in your room. I guess I still had thoughts of using the unused bed for snuggly toys and big pillows to decorate your room and make it look fun. Plus, I thought we could have some fun with you climbing on the top while I was supervising you.Truth be told, I think we landed on the best arrangement. The other two ideas were lots of fun in my head, but there are all sorts of warnings about lofts and bunk beds with younger children. I really owe your Daddy for grounding me in reality because I tend to get an idea that I fall in love with and then all I can see is the cotton candy and sugary ideal of my fantastic daydream and not the dangerous realities of it.Bunk beds and lofts aren't really recommended for any kids under 6 because there is a high incident of accidents that occur with them in the lower age groups. You know.... like head injuries and really bad stuff like that. Things you don't recover from.And you went and proved that these worries ARE sound when you climbed into your bed for the first time and then promptly fell getting out and bit your tongue and there was much blood and crying and I thought thank god that wasn't from a bunk or loft....Because we went with a single twin bed, we decided to spring for the Cadillac of box springs and mattresses, so they weren't cheap, but your bed is decidely softer than even our bed.Since we bought it, you sleep longer which I truly hadn't expected and you go down easier. Sometimes I'll be reading to you and leaning on your bed and it feels so soft that before I know it, I'm lying in the bed with you reading to you.Which is okay as long as I don't make the horrible mistake of falling asleep sometime when I'm doing this. Because that is a habit I don't want to have to address down the road.

Love,

Mommy