Blankie Detox

For 2 weeks now, we have been in deep Blankie Detox. When she has Blankie, she sucks her fingers, and the finger sucking is making her teeth crooked, so the goal is to only have Blankie for sleep. Over the summer, the Blankie habit has gotten very bad, and we are having to work very hard to undo it. Parker isn't a 'cold turkey' kind of kid (we tried, repeatedly), so we're doing a chart. The categories are, No blankie with TV, no blankie in the car, and leave blankie upstairs. We have succeeded with not having blankie with TV, but the rest aren't going so well. Blankie in the car isn't an option any longer, and she isn't coping with it well. Car trips longer than 10 minutes begin with complaints and requests, and end with hysterical screaming and crying. By the end of all this, Parker will be detoxed from Blankie, but mommy will be in Betty Ford.

Fun with Parker

A fun Parker trick is to tell her something at bedtime, and she will remember it in the morning....she takes up right where she left off. The night before my birthday, Bob instructed her to tell me "Happy Birthday" in the morning. About 5am on my birthday, Parker woke up and called me up there, as is her normal routine (then we sleep until 7), and the first thing she said was "Happy Birthday Mommy" and went back to sleep. (!)

Another day, she was having trouble sleeping and kept calling us upstairs. Bob told her "if you us up here again, Daddy is going to be very upset." Luckily for both of them, after that she went to sleep. The next morning, she called me up there when she woke up. I crawled in her bed and she looked up and said "Good thing you're not daddy!".

PS, for my birthday, Bob surprised me with a nice fancy shiny laptop computer! I've been trying to get the hang of what I do on which computer, but I'm loving it so far!

Bathroom remodel progress

Last weekend was tile install weekend. Bob's brother Jeremy (and family) came over to assist and loan us tools. Jeremy was a great teacher, and laid part of the tile while Bob watch the Horns. Bob finished up on sunday evening after a LOOOOOONG day. It turned out very nicely although we still have to do the grout. Bob's taking a break this weekend from backbreaking labor to watch the TX/OU game.

So independent

Nearly any time I start to prepare anything in the kitchen, Parker yells "I wanna help!" . Here she is making her own peanut butter sandwich. She's not doing a bad job either. It's hard to tell, but underneath the apron, she's wearing last year's Halloween costume. We also did little quiches this week to, with Parker assisting in the dough cutting. She's really good with dough.

I think I've mentioned it before, but EVERY NIGHT before bed, she asks what we have planned for the next day, and then picks out an outfit and undies (looped on the hanger), socks, shoes and accesories, and then hangs it on her dresser. And then every morning, she has me bring it downstairs when we go down for breakfast. It really does make the morning go smoother. Maybe I can train her to do the same for Bob.
She also dressed herself completely yesterday. Top, skirt and undies. The top she picked out of the diaper bag and wanted to wear, she went upstairs by herself (that's a BIG DEAL, she never goes upstairs alone) and selected a coordinating skirt, unclipped it from the hanger and put it on. She's been capable of all that, but has never taken the initiative before. That picture is still in the camera. I'll post it next round.

Visit from Gigi and Papa

I'm catching up on posting pictures. Last weekend we had a visit from Bob's parents, Parker's Gigi and Papa. They stopped in and spent the afternoon on their way back from a trip.
Parker was thrilled to have an audience and captive participants in playing baby dolls.

Muffin making

Tuesday we made some banana muffins. It's a recipe from my friend Holly, I'll post it at the end. Parker tried them and loved them, and wanted to make some, so that was our task after a run w/ the jogger. At about mile 2 Parker decided muffing making sounded fun, so we chatted about it the rest of the way, and went right to it after we got in, which is why I'm in running gear. I bought a tripod the other day so I can get more pictures of her and I doing stuff. To look at her photo album you'd think she had a single parent household because I'm always the photographer and it's her and Bob in the pictures.

Dumping in brown sugar...

Slicing bananas w/ butter knife

tasting fresh squeezed orange juice. Mmmmmmm.

I let her smell all the spices when I put them in, vanilla, cinammon, and nutmeg. She had a little brown smudge on her nose at the end that I left there because it was cute.

Finished product. Heart shaped, of course.

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Banana Bread Recipe

1 cup brown sugar

1.5 C smashed bananas (about 3 large ones, very ripe)

juice and zest of 1/2 of a med. orange

3/4 cup apple sauce (mine was at room temp - don't know if that matters. Technically, it was two or three of the ind. serv. containers. Whatever comes close but doesn't overflow 1 cup)

2 eggs

2 C Whole Wheat Flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1.5 Tablespoon vanilla

.5 teaspoon baking powder

.5 teaspoon of salt

1 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp nutmeg

1/2 cup of nuts if you like nuts

Mix it all together, pour into muffin tins and bake.

about 20 mins at 400.

First portrait

Here's a picture Parker drew of Bob eating a salad on sunday. He and I were both shocked and how well she did. Looking at it now, maybe it's not that amazing. On the left is Bob, a circle head with circle eyes, colored in. And she specifically said "and no hair". A colored in triangle shirt, legs and feet. On the right is his salad bowl, and the colored in salad inside it.

Princess beadstringer

Here's another picture from Parker's very happy day last week. She was making a necklace and singing in her falsetto princess voice while wearing her dressup stuff. Her idea for this came about while I was cleaning the kitchen. She came running in the kitchen and said
"I'm having a good idea of something I can play by myself! Do princesses do beads? That's what I can do, I can make a necklace! Will you get me the beads please?"

Some Parker quick hits

Here's Parker, examining a dremel tool set, standing on a chair so she can see the top of the counter. She knows this area is a clutter 'hot spot' so she knows to check there often for new and interesting things. I have no idea what the deal is with the sunglasses.
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A funny:
(stop me if I've posted this already)
Parker thinks it's soooo funny to sing:
"A, B, C, D, E, F, banana.
H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, foot..."
etc etc
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At school, they are singing "This is the Day" during music, and practicing it to sing during chapel, whenever that is. I downloaded the song and put it on her kiddie MP3 player and she was THRILLED. I showed her how to replay it, so she did, singing out lout, over and over again, for 3.5 miles this morning in the stroller. It got a little monotonous, but I prefer it to "mooooooooom, can we go hoooooooome?"

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The aforementioned MP3 player was left laying around while playing, so I confiscated it and put it "up". When she found out, she of course had a large 3 year old fit. About 15 minutes later, she comes in to the kitchen and hands me my cell phone, and says "Here's your phone. You left it out".

Mani-Pedi walk

I painted Parker's fingernails and toenails this weekend. She walked about like this for a long time.
No real news. We are getting used to our school schedule and such. I am hosting a baby shower this weekend, so we are doing a lot of cleanup and whatnot to get ready for that.

My blogging has slacked off a bit because I've been making Bob's lunches and getting his coffee pot ready during my normal blogging time. He's working long hours lately, and going in super early so he gets home in time to play with Parker a bit, so I'm helping out with that stuff so he doesn't have to bother at 5am or whatever crazy time he leaves for work.

singing letters and counting

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Here's some video of Parker. She's been in a super good mood the past 24 hours. If it continues, I'll have her looked at. The most shocking part of this video isn't what she knows, it's that she's eating a muffin for the first time ever!

At the start, she is picking out letters from Bob's shirt and singing the sound they make ("the E says ehhh, the E says ehhh, every letter makes a sound, the E says ehhh"). She knows many of her letter sounds, again, from watching a DVD (the LeapFrog Letter Factory).

At preschool, she has Spanish class, and I guess they're learning to count. She's could count to ten in spanish when she was 18 months old from watching so much Dora when she was sick, but now she's doing the fingers with it, so I think she understands what she's saying. She says it very quickly because she's being silly.

At the very end, Bob asks her "what's one plus one" and she shouts "two!". She has that one memorized.

quick pic

Here's a quick picture so the junkies don't go into withdrawal. We found a fun game: Roll The Cap To the Red Pepper Flakes Back and Forth Across the Table. The lid is chamfered just slightly so it won't roll totally straight.

School continues to go well I think. She has made a new little friend that likes to play dollhouse too. Her teacher reports that she has a good sense of humor...I'm afraid to ask what she said though. Every time I go to pick her up she is totally zonked out asleep, as are all the kids. She has been napping especially hard lately, I think she might be growing. She especially difficult to wake up...but if I let her sleep all afternoon, then she's up half the night.

Check off on your developmental list that she understands the concept of zero. When there are no cars in the garage, she announces there are zero.....and when we pull in, there is one.....and when daddy comes home, there are two, etc. I'm not sure if knowing zero is any different than counting, but I thought I'd mention it.

Playdough skills and bathroom update

Up until now, I've been against having playdough at home. I figured Parker could play with it enough at other kid's houses and at school. But she found some in a goodie bag and played with it, and then PUT IT AWAY, so I thought I'd get her a bit more. I was really surprised to see how easily she learned to roll out the dough (using a piece of PVC) and cut out shapes with cookie cutters. Who's wealthier, bakers or ceramicists?

Bob continues his work on the bathroom. The drywall was quite damaged from the wallpaper removal, so he's had to do lots of work to get them smooth again.

I'm sure our 'potty in paradise' thrills the neighbors. Parker was really confused by it as well.

And lastly, here's a picture of crazy Bob trying to race the rain and get the lawn mowed before a downpour. He's wearing a flesh colored shirt - running behind a mower in the rain is one thing, doing it shirtless is just over the top.

First day photo shoot outtakes

If you click on these, you should be able to see them larger.

First day of 3's preschool

I'll post the picture real quick, and be back shorly with the update.



For fun, here she is last year and this year. I tried to make the pictures the same size so you could compare her height. Her hair is sort of wet in this year's picture.

More later, I'm being kicked off the computer so she can play Barney.

First Day Report:
I think things went really well. As with anything, you sort of have to piece together the info over time. She woke up 45 minutes earlier than normal, and quizzed me a little bit, "do the mommies stay? " (no) "Do the mommies stay and watch through the window?" (like at ballet, also no).
I packed her a lovely lunch (hotdog, ketchup/mustard, carrots) and snack (cantaloupe,crackers), with lots of labels.


She made me a lunch too, with instructions that, if I eat all my (plastic) spaghetti, I can have a (plastic) popsicle.


Dropoff was no big deal at all, she sat down with the other girls and started playing dollhouse, and gave me a hug and kiss goodbye. She didn't cry, and there weren't any other criers in there either.
When I went to pick her up, she was sacked out. They all were, I guess they played really hard. And yes, Grandma, she takes her Blankie to school, all the other kids bring a Blankie or stuffed animal or something. She seemed very worn out after we got home and needed a lot of couch and cartoon time to recover.

Meet the Teacher

Just a quick report on Meet the Teacher:

It went well and was pretty uneventful. Her teacher is very nice. She has a daughter a year older than Parker, and she's been teaching there for a while. She is a native of Poland, so she has a thick accent - this will be Parker's second year with a teacher with an accent. That should be interesting, since she will mimic the teacher's accent, or worse, correct her pronunciations.

There are 2 kids in her class that she knows already, so that's nice. I think she'll really be happy.

New this year is that she'll have Spanish. She knows tons of Spanish from watching Dora and Diego, so that should be an easy subject for her.

So stay tuned for pictures tomorrow (Friday), her first day.

Building a fort

I don't know why being bored at home = removing couch cushions, but it does. Some days she pulls them all down and builds a fort on the ground, and recently, she crawls behind them and makes a fort that way. This day she had all the babies with her. New Baby and Little Baby are in a purse for some reason. Hopefully when she's a real grown up mommy, she won't carry her babies in her purse.

Funny phrase:
"I just knowed it up", meaning something she already knew....instead of "I just made it up".

Tomorrow is Open House at school. We get to meet her new classmates, new teacher and see her new classroom. Her friend across the street is in her class, but that's all the friends in there so far. All her other buddies from last year have different teachers. I hope they didn't seperate them because they were trouble.

Candy Magazine

All doll house play stopped the other day when Parker discovered the Oriental Trading Company catalog, the Halloween edition. She can't believe there is something as wonderful as a catalog full of candy and toys! When it was bedtime, I was walking her upstairs to go read her books for night night, and she came running back down yelling
" Wait! I have a magazine I want you to read! A magazine about CANDY!!"
and she ran and got the catalog, which I 'read' to her. I'm surprised all the scary halloween stuff in there didn't give her bad dreams.