Tree Hugger

For Earth Day last week, Vanessa decided to show us her desire to go green . . .

Now if we can get her to refrain from ripping up tissues into millions of pieces so they become useless, writing on every piece of paper in sight, and using 2 or more feet of toilet paper . . . I guess it's not that easy being green!

Toddler & Toad

Poor toad . . . but what a happy little toddler!

Let's begin with a joke:

"A lonely frog telephoned the Psychic Hotline and asked what his future holds. His personal psychic advisor tells him 'You are going to meet a beautiful young girl who will want to know everything about you.' The frog is thrilled, 'This is great! Will I meet her at a party?' he croaks. 'No,' says the psychic, 'in biology class.'

And before we were smart enough to get the video camera out, we took some still shots. Vanessa has studied toad linguistics and spoke to him in an eloquent manner --"Ribbit! Say ribbit!" We explained to her that he was replying so softly that it was hard to hear him. Daddy directed her to look at the toad's throat to see his attempts to ribbit. Did you know that toads and frogs speak in different languages? :) In Japanese they say kerokero.

Toad was a tough little guy who put up with a lot in a very engaging kind of way.

Vanessa was very understanding and cooperative when it came time to set the toad free. It was raining outside when she helped her daddy release him. She agreed that he had to go look for something to eat before his nap.

Feed a Cold

Since Vanessa will hardly eat anything (which sadly saves some time cleaning up) let's take a moment to document and reflect on the recent months . . . I'm sure it will provide food for thought later . . .

This morning Vanessa initiated a picnic of Character Soup. We usually play games where we match big letters with little letters. We put letters in order and find things that begin with particular ones. We sometimes work on spelling small words. She orders the numbers too, and counts on and back from various. We'll draw a number from a cup or sack and count out the same number of any given items. Today our picnic involved using our sporks to eat a soup of letters and numbers. This led to a game of letter sounds and more counting. It was yummy and Vanessa ate lots and lots.

Perhaps her way of feeding a cold is helping . . . her creativity doesn't seem to have suffered. She's also been good to take one or two moments to rest. She insists she's feeling fine but every so often she pauses, like here -- she leaned against the ottoman and stayed there for several minutes, surely causing her feet to fall asleep:

Currently I'm trying to bribe her to eat by allowing her to watch LazyTown -- her new fave. I told her that if she would come downstairs to eat cottage cheese (still one of her faves), she could watch LazyTown. She happily accepted and assured me that she would feel even better if she would eat: "Mommy, you feeling better? I'll eat and feel better too." Seems to be working.

My sporadic eating and recent aversions to many things have made her picky eating habits even pickier. Thank goodness for vitamins and her love for carbs and dairy! And you can get food in her if you're willing to play the Repeat Game over and over: "Mommy, orange juice please." "Not till you finish your cottage cheese." "Oh, OK!" She takes a bite and asks again "Mommy, can I have orange juice now?" "No, not until you finish ALL of your cottage cheese." "Oh, OK!" Two or three bites later . . . "Mommy, I need orange juice!" I think you get the idea.

And as a complete sidebar but I'm enjoying a lot at this very moment -- recently her conversations have become more interesting, beginning many with and repeating "You know . . ."

Poor Vanessa has had to accept the fact that Mommy hasn't been as much fun these last couple of months, but she's noticed my recent visits of energy and seems to be leveling back out as a result. She used to fret so much and cry when hearing Mommy get sick. She would stand behind me, patting me on the back while crying loudly "Mommy, you're okay. You're okay, Mommy." She can be so compassionate and sweet . . .

She spent lots of time these last couple of months cuddling in my lap and learning to do things herself. Her cleaning habits have improved greatly, especially for a toddler. It takes negotiating and patience, but she'll put things back before moving on to the next thing. Just before we came downstairs, she asked to go to Mommy and Daddy's bedroom to clean up the mess. She opened the door as I followed and waved her arm from left to right: "Wow Mommy. Look at this mess. Time to clean up!"

So our unique idea of normal is returning. And that's great since Mommy's workload will soon increase more . . . and the most important thing -- Daddy has been accepted to the Masters in Health Administration program at OSU! A big YAY!!!!!! We knew Daddy could do it!

This next year should be very interesting! Thankfully Vanessa has been a real trooper . . . and will continue to be, I'm sure . . .

Can it be?

Are we really 1/3 of the way to our due date already?

Vanessa, as she climbed onto my lap and lifted my shirt: "Let me see the baby, Mommy." I replied, "Well, we can't see the baby at the moment because the baby is under Mommy's skin." Vanessa leaned down to look into my belly button, and with certainty she said, "The baby is in your tummy sleeping for now."


I suggested we look at a picture to see what the baby might look like. At 14 weeks the baby might be almost 4 inches long, practicing facial expressions, and exercising his or her limbs. The picture supported Vanessa's claim that the baby is sleeping. :)

A League of Her Own

She won't become the first female professional baseball player, but her skills are still impressive. She's a lefty and has great hand-eye coordination.

She even goes after it when it's a bad pitch . . . we'll eventually work on letting those go . . .

We need to get video of this!

Flying Trapeze

A couple weeks ago Vanessa decided to find new ways to use her swing. She was very proud to show off her new trick. Her execution is perfect. She even repeated the trick while I ran indoors to grab the camera. You can imagine the rope irritates her hands, but she doesn't care -- she jumps off and looks at them, shakes them, and then grabs the rope again. Eventually she stops to give her hands a rest. (We might consider grip gloves for next Christmas. :) She's quite an acrobat, which is really cool when her stunts are performed close to the ground!

Her thrill seeking puts me on edge . . . :)

Explore. Dream. Discover.

Every tree is worth climbing . . .

Every waterfall is worth touching . . .

Every pool is worth splashing . . .

Every rock is worth tossing . . .

Big Sis

Vanessa is happy to now share with the world that her Mommy is growing a new little brother or sister. She's convinced that since Mommy has a baby in her belly, she must too -- "I have a baby in my belly too!" We ask if she would like a baby brother or sister, and more often than not she replies "A sister!" But sometimes she says she wants a little brother, so we're thinking that she'll be happy with either.

So here's what the little guy/gal looked like about three weeks ago. As one friend put it --
"Congratulations on your new baby seahorse!" So funny! And the comment made me think of Vanessa's squirtable seahorse bath toy. So here they are side by side. Minus the dorsal fin and coronet, they do look a tad bit alike. This comment also sparked the thought that seahorses might be a fun and different room theme.

There went Peter Cottontail . . .

Vanessa participated in all kinds of Easter fun . . . here are pictures of just a couple of things. Daddy took her to Grandma and Grandpa's community egg hunt . . .

I have one golden egg -- is this another?

My loot so far . . .

But I need more!!!!

Come on Cousin Audrey . . . time to check out what we got!

Not bad -- after that tough work, we get to ride along and guard all of our stuff!

And wow! -- the Easter Bunny left me more presents! My first BIG chocolate bunny! And of course things to teach me about the true meaning of Easter . . .

Vanessa now expects the Bunny to leave her presents in the yard all the time. And as I was posting this, Vanessa described how a person is wearing the bunny costume. "Person is wearing this. See Mommy, he put that on his head . . ." Gee, you can't pull one over on her.

Magic Words

Vanessa worked her magic to bring us sunshine and warmer temps this week. If you're interested for future use, the words go something like this (it takes about 20 hours after using them to see any results. And yes, you need to be wearing THIS purple dress and swing your body perfectly and at just the right moment):

"Coo foodle . . . hmm . . . foodle . . . cha . . . cha . . . CHOODLE! "


And as a mommy who is embarrassed by the number of messy hair pictures and videos, let me apologize. :) I could brush her hair every 10 minutes or so, and no matter what, she always wakes from night and nap with extra crazy hair. If I had taken the moment (which I have done in the past) to brush her hair to capture this video, we would've missed it. She calls this video "Fantastic!" :)