"I HAPPY!!!"

Last Friday we drove down to MB for the weekend. Our plan had been to call and order pizza as we got closer to the condo so that we could pick it up on the way there. Best laid plans… The wait for pizza was 90 minutes for pick-up. So, we decided to eat in. Apparently the wait for sitting there wasn’t much better. No one told us this however. So, we ordered some garlic knots while we waited for our pizza. We didn’t realize that our pizza was going to take more than 90 minutes to come out of the oven. (The garlic knots, by the way, are the BEST I’ve ever eaten in my life! For real! I could eat a whole dozen by myself… Stephen and K know you better get it fast or I’m going to eat them all. I have NO self control.)

K and I muddled through but *someone* (no names) was er, um, not happy. K on the other hand, for the first time in her little life expressed a positive feeling through words: “I HAPPY!!!!” Neither of us had ever heard her say this before and I really do believe she meant it. She was smiling ear to ear, playing with a piece of pizza dough. We did “magic” (I hid the dough in one hand and had her guess where it was – very popular game) and sang songs. After waiting 80 minutes we decided we’d get the pizza to go as it was getting very late. K had eaten enough (pre-pizza) to be okay and the not-happy one needed to get out of there.

Little did we know that would start a week-long request for “I want pizza.” Tonight we finally fulfilled little miss’s wishes. She was QUITE happy. Of course as soon as she finished that she said “I want ice cream!!!” Girl knows what she wants.

Over the weekend we took Katherine to the SC Children’s Museum which she enjoyed although there were a lot of rude children and parents there. One little girl insisted on taking everything Katherine was playing with. We kept moving, she kept following us. We finally went to another part of the museum to get away from the little bully.

Sunday we took Katherine to the beach. It was our first time at the beach with rain. Off and on for the 3 hours we were there. It worked out just fine and Katherine had a great time. She LOVES the water and “jumping” the waves. I got a good arm work out!!

We had planned on staying till Monday but our stay was extended when Katherine and Stephen started to get sick on Sunday evening. Katherine started running a fever and Stephen wasn’t feeling well either so we ended up staying till Tuesday.

On our way home we stopped at a Mexican restaurant (i.e. location for a margarita). Stephen needed a little help in order to manage through the ride home. (Note: I was driving.) Margarita’s were $1.75 and they had fried ice cream. It doesn’t get much better than that.

While we were there I tried to teach Katherine some Spanish. I taught her “que pasa”. Two little words had an entire restaurant of servers eating out of her two year old hands. They thought she was the funniest thing! She LOVED yelling QUE PASA any time a server walked past. They’d yell QUE PASA back and she’d get into a fit of laughing. She even taught the southern hostess how to say it. (The servers believed Katherine said it better than she did.)

It was Katherine’s first time having fried ice cream. To be honest, I’m not sure how much she got of it because I was all over it. Stephen and Katherine had a discussion after dinner that the next time we got it for the family they needed to form an alliance against me. Apparently Survivor: Fried Ice Cream is ON! Whatever familia. Bring it on!!! =)

I’m still working on K’s 50’s poodle skirt/dress. Tonight I was able to find the finishing pieces. Tomorrow or Sunday I will work on the goods. The Sock Hop is on Tuesday. Clock is ticking so I need to get to work!!!

Some other miscellaneous Katherine facts:
- Her favorite color is purple.

- She’s still in love with the yellow boat that she went in while we were at the Wildwood boardwalk. Last weekend she asked if she could go on them and I said they were far away. She said, “we go in the car”. So wonderfully logical.

- She loves turtles. The school had someone come that brought small animals with them for the kids to see/touch. Katherine (shockingly) touched every animal, including a snake, hissing cockroach, bunny and turtle. The turtle continues to be a hit. She will repeatedly tell you “I touched a turtle.” Sometimes this will be the first thing she says when she wakes up. And I mean from snore, to stand up in her bed saying “Mommy, I touched a turtle.” There are turtles in the pond in our condo complex. Last weekend she played peek-a-boo with them. Quite cute. And she was totally in love with them.

- She can count to 10 well. 11-20 is iffy. 21-30 we’re good again. She loves 30.

- She can say her ABCs. Last week she sang her ABCs in an opera voice. Quite entertaining.

- She LOVES to race. We race often. Down sidewalks, through the house, to her daycare classroom. Amazing how this one thing can stop a total melt-down from happening. Last weekend I had her “racing” herself for about 15-20 minutes. She didn’t tire. I did, just watching her.

- If allowed her menu would consist only of pizza, hot dogs, cheese, chips, ice cream and cake.

- She loves water. Regardless of where it is. One night I took her outside to play in the rain. We had SO much fun running through the rain, jumping in puddles etc. Now when she sees puddles she wants to jump in them. If there’s water – Katherine wants to play in it. Fortunately she doesn’t equate the toilet to playing water. The sick, bathtub, puddles, pools, ocean, etc. are all fair game though. When she “swims” she says, “look!!! Shamuuuuuu!!!!”

- She’s still terrified by dogs. The girl has Dog-dar. She can see a dog from a half a mile away. If she says MOMMY, DOG – I have NO doubt there is a dog. Somewhere. Even if I don’t see it. She’s fine with them until they come into her cone of safety (which is about 5ft around her). We’re trying to work on it little by little with our neighbors’ little dogs.

It’s amazing how much she’s changed in just a couple of months. I think Stephen and I are both enjoying seeing things through the eyes of a two year old!

Pictures for the week:

This scrapbook made with Smilebox

"I chshoo"

If you ask Katherine how old she is she’ll tell you, “I chshoo” and try desperately to hold up two fingers. She just can’t seem to master that part yet.

A few weeks ago we took Katherine for her 2 year check up. If you haven’t noticed by now, they are consistently about a month behind. Apparently my mess up in scheduling her check up back when she was oh, about 6 months old will follow me through her childhood. Or so it seems. It’s part of my parent “permanent record”. There’s all these rules about how you can’t have the next shot in a series until a full 6 months after the previous shot. Since I messed up early in her little life I’ve condemned her to one month late check-ups. I’m hoping this is the worst thing I do as her parent… but I’m doubting that to be the case. I mean who of us doesn’t have some food scaring? Those little old Italian Grandma’s who are amazing at everything are few and far between… and certainly aren’t in my house. *sigh*

During our two year and one month old appointment Katherine had all of her “stats” taken. A growth update for our girl:
* Height: 34” (for those of you doing the math, YES, that’s 25” shorter than I am) This is up 2” from her last appointment at 18 months.
* Weight: 23lb 9.5oz This is up about 2lbs since her last appointment.
* Head: We don’t measure that anymore. Apparently noggin growth following the 2nd birthday becomes inconsequential.

Katherine had a couple of shots during her appointment. She took them like a trooper. I’m pretty sure she consistently takes a shot better than I do.
Dr H allowed us to ask our questions. Of which we always think we have none and then somehow ask him stuff for 10 minutes. This time we learned that she no longer needs her full fat milk. “fat intake is important for the first two years of life and then we spend the next 80 minimizing our fat content” Says Dr H. Girlfriend is slurping on skim milk now. Woot woot!!! Only one kind of milk in the house again!

Katherine’s adjustment to the new school is… going. While Stephen and I were away on vacation she did great. Tootsie reported no drama at drop off and pick up was fine.

I get back and take her to school and I get leg clutches and full on crocodile tears. What the crap, I say?! My girl knows drama. “And the Emmy goes to….. Katherine Aleksza for Best Daycare Drama Scene” I get comfort from the other Mom’s in the hallway saying, “don’t worry, it’ll get better. My son/daughter did the same thing.” Hm. I wonder to myself if they won an Emmy.

The new school has brought on other challenges for our family that I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting. There’s a lot of very cool, very fun stuff that they do with the kids. I’m waiting to see if this is a year-round kind of thing or whether this is for “summer camp” as they refer to the summer months of school. The first time I realized I was out of my league was at the Fairy Ball. Mmmhhhmmm. The boys were to dress in their best prince attire and the girls as princesses. I thought I was doing a pretty rock star thing by dressing Katherine up in a pretty little dress with a crown that lit up. (A gift from my 2006 Conference & Expo team… Thanks team!!!) Well, when I arrived at school to see Arials, Cinderellas, Sleeping Beauty and heaven knows all of the other princesses I felt as if I’d dressed her as Fiona from Shrek (AKA Mrs. Shrek). Lesson learned… I gave Tootsie the next challenge for Cowboy/girl day. Tootsie ROCKED it out. Katherine LOVED her hat and cowgirl boots.

Next challenge: 50’s sockhop is next week. I feel a need to be Suzie Homemaker and MAKE Katherine’s outfit. We’ll see how it goes. So far I’ve looked at the sewing machine sitting in our spare/empty room. I glared it down (given that the last time I used it – taking it out of the box – it hurt me). I’m considering hot glue and iron on tape for her outfit. I suppose the real first step would be identifying either a pattern or some fabric. I keep thinking – how hard can it be? She’s two… it’s a little skirt with a poodle on it. I have about two weeks. Amazon ships in two days. Pray for me… Better yet, pray for poor Katherine. Her Mommy’s gonna dress her up funnyyyyy! ;P

Instead of an album of her birthday, an album of the 4th of July, etc. I decided I would just put together one album of some of my favorite pictures from the last two months. Hopefully you’ll enjoy like these pictures as much as I do!

Customize a photo album

Katherine’s vacation with Tootsie and Pop

This week we have a guest blog writer: Our very own TOOTSIE! Last week while Stephen and I were away on vacation my parents came up to play with K for the week. I offered the blog up to Tootsie for the week to tell her story... =)

Thank you Tootsie & Pop for giving Katherine such an awesome vacation! And now... onto the story:

It was more like Tootsie and Pop’s vacation with Katherine but since this is Katherine’s blog it’s only appropriate to give her top billing. hehe We were given the honor of staying with K while Mommy and Daddy went on their cruise to Alaska.

Since Pop had the pleasure of airport shuttle duty at 4 a.m. on the first morning, I went upstairs to get Katherine up for school. She was standing up in her crib expecting I’m sure her Mommy to come into the room and the minute she saw me she laid down and hid her face! I asked her if she was ready to get up and without showing her face she shook her head no. So I said, “ok, I’ll come back later”, and I left the room. I went back in about three minutes later and zoom, down she went hiding her face. Again I said, “ok, I’ll come back later”, and I left the room. This time I waited about five minutes and I went back in and while she didn’t jump up she didn’t hide again. Progress! I sat down on the floor beside her crib and talked to her and played with her until she warmed up and was ready to get up. Whew!

Arriving during country week at school, we got to dress Katherine up as a cowgirl, complete with pink boots and hat! K can totally rock this look!!! And Pop made an awesome horsey all week for her too!! 

Since Katherine loves her new beach condo, she wanted us to take her there for the weekend so of course we agreed! We had a blast on the beach playing in the ocean with the water baby. Katherine thoroughly enjoys water! The only time she was out of the ocean was when she ate her pb&j sandwich! Seriously, she loved the waves splashing her, filling her bucket with water, feeling the sand move under her little feet when the water whooshed out, sitting down in the water… water, water, water!!!

Most of our days through the week started with dropping K off at daycare, finding a new park for a run, heading back to the house where Pop was usually just waking up and relaxing with our morning coffee and tea. A couple of days we picked K up early and a couple of days she stayed to have ice cream fun and water fun days.

Aunt Nikki requested an audience with the Princess K and of course was granted access! That was an early pick up day so we could all go to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch. After K ate a huge bowl of macaroni and cheese, Aunt Nikki made her an ice cream sundae that was also huge, complete with jimmies. Katherine was about to burst… as was Sofi since Nicole made her a sundae too! After lunch it was raining and while we were waiting outside for Pop to get the car, the rest of us had to sing the raindrops are gumdrops song… ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah!!!! Katherine loved it!!!

Pop worked diligently one morning while Katherine was in school, setting up her swimming pool and putting together her new water and sand play station (birthday present from Mommy and Daddy). So after school we put on our bathing suits and went outside for an afternoon of super duper fun!! I think that was the day Pop won K’s heart! That was the day she started calling him Poppy. Aawww...  We spent a few hours at the big pool one day which K also loved. Have I mentioned how much K loves water?!?! At water fun day at school Katherine and one other little guy were the only ones to put their faces in the sprinklers!! hehe

Katherine became a pro at Skype during vacation. We Skyped Aunt Jacki a couple of times and Mommy and Daddy almost every day. She loved it! The first couple of days, we heard “mommy daddy bye bye mommy mommy daddy bye bye daddy mommy daddy bye bye”, many times! Seeing mommy and daddy and talking to them helped both K and Mommy I think! Gotta love technology.

Bed time is surely one of my favorite times of the day. Little K relaxed, sitting on my lap during story time and snuggled up with her arms around me during music time melts my heart.

Oh and there was one little incident with the drivers side mirror hanging off the truck when we got back from the beach, but Poppy swears he had nothing to do with it. And the ride to Myrtle Beach using Stephens GPS was another adventure. The dirt road through Deliverance was as fast as we could make it and didn’t mean to leave a dirt plume behind us. Honest, we did not take K baha-ing!

We enjoyed every minute of our vacation with Katherine. She is the sweetest granddaughter any Tootsie and Poppy could ask for.

Pictures of the week with Tootsie & Pop:
http://smilebox.com/playBlog/4d5467794e5463314d6a593d0d0a&blogview=true