This no more high chair thing???  Driving me a little nuts.  YES, it is awesome that she can sit down with the rest of us and get in and out of her own chair and all that.  Yes, she is good about using her plate and utensils and all that.  She just thinks that at meal times, she gets to leave her chair and sit in MY lap and eat MY food.  EVERY mealtime.  I've gotten to the point that I'll barely sit there, take just a little time to eat, and then I get up and leave so she stops trying to worm her way into my lap and taking my food.  It's the SAME food on her plate!  She also will eat two bites off her plate and then look up and say "more rice please" or more of whatever she's eating.  She has a WHOLE PILE of food on her plate still INCLUDING whatever she is asking for.  She just wants the food that is on MY plate.  I think maybe I'll start giving her empty plates and just dish up two bites at a time as she eats.  Maybe that will solve things.

Hmm, let's see... we went for a walk the other day.  I LOVE that it is getting nice out!  Jessie got to go in her giant two seater stroller and the boys biked it.  I'd like to hook up the stroller to the bikes with the attachment and see what Jessie thinks about going fast!   We also got the kids' room painted this weekend sort of.  We did 2 coats of this sand effect paint.  It is pretty nice - but it got lines in it from the roller so I think I'm gonna sponge a thin layer over the really "liney" spots.  (Yes, I just invented that word.)  The other part is that we've got this wall paper border to put in the middle of the room where the sand paint and the regular blue paint meet.  Well, the wallpaper stuff says you can't put it on textured surfaces (which, DUH, if you think about it) so I'm gonna have to mark off where the border goes and sand down the "sand" effect so it actually sticks.  If this wallpaper peels off like the last stuff did I'm gonna scream!  In the meantime, Jessie and Gavin have been sleeping in various places.  She very much does NOT want to be put in the crib so she slept in the bed in the nursery last night while Gavin slept in the top bunk bed in their room.  She was not very happy that Gavin was not in the room with her and she really wanted to be in the bottom bunk bed... but the outlet covers were still off in there so we couldn't leave her in there.  Her bedtime routine has unfortunately started to include "one minute, Mommy, one minute sleep there."  Which means I either lay with her or sit in the bed holding her for awhile and tell her that I have "one more minute" in her room.  She says OK and then a little while later, I say, OK, times up, and THEN I'm allowed to leave.  I did this with Gavin too and it is a PITA to be honest - but it is easier then fighting with them all night long to GO TO SLEEP.  Plus, it isn't really terrible to sit and snuggle with my little one for a bit at night.  Really I only worry now because soon I'll have another little one that will be waiting for the bedtime routine to be over so that I can nurse him one last time in the evening.  What are the odds that Jessie will let me nurse while doing the "one more minute" routine?

 

3-24-06

 

Friday!!  Ya know, I really like getting into work earlier so I can leave earlier and have more time at home with my babies... but I MISS seeing Jessie in the mornings!  I peeked in on her before I left this morning and she's so sweet sleeping.  She really looks like a baby while she is asleep for some reason - not like the big girl she seems like while awake.

The other day while Gavin's tutor was here (whom Jessie just loves for some reason and she always runs to sit in KC's lap) Jessie was playing around being her usual self.  Well, it was time for KC to go and she put on her coat, which is black wool much like mine.  Jessie looks at her and says "Mommy's jacket."  We tell her no, that is KC's jacket.  She says "No, MOMMY'S jacket!"  We tell her no again and she insists we're wrong.  I ask if she'd like to see mommy's jacket.  She says yes so I tell her to go look at the coat rack and tell me if my jacket is there.  She runs over and when she looks her eyes get real big and she gets this big grin and says "OH!" and just starts giggling.  KC (who is a 1st grade teacher with a masters degree so she doesn't have my "mommy" bias!) says "She is just so bright, don't you think?"  Hehe!  Of COURSE!

Jessie is really getting into playing with her dolls.  Last night she brought one downstairs with a bottle and she was feeding the baby "juice".  Then she put the baby on this little plastic kid chair and put this necklace on her just so and steps back a few steps and says "Cheese baby" a few times while she goes back to rearrange her photo subject.  Then upstairs at bedtime she was sitting on the floor talking to her baby "Oh, you want Juice?  Juice?  OK Baby.  Oh, Baby poopie?  Baby want diaper?  OK Baby."  CUTE!

 

3-21-06

 

The Ostara Bunny has visited our house!  I can now tell you that I know how parents keep tradition alive even when they are super busy.  Their children force them to.  Since I am at work today, I figured yesterday that I'd just check with the bunny to put together a little basket for each kid to set out for them this morning.  Well, Gavin really really wanted to do the whole egg hunt thing for our spring celebration so when we got home yesterday we set out coloring Ostara eggs for the bunny to hide.  Jessie thought it was all sorts of fun even though she didn't get much activity with the egg dye.  We did get a picture of her holding a couple of colored eggs and then she whacked them together and cracked Daddy's artistic creation.  Poor guy.  Anyway, the kids go to sleep and the bunny is up and about at 3AM hiding eggs.  Yawn.  This morning was SOOOO funny!  Of course, Gavin was up and ready to do the egg hunt but when we went to wake up Jessie she yelled NOOO MOMMY! and pulled the covers up over her head.  I asked if she wanted to go look for what the Ostara bunny had left with the eggs and the candy and she peeked out from the covers and said yes, but when I tried to get her up she yelled again and scrambled back under the covers.  Daddy did manage to get her to agree to get up, but not without some argument.  Isn't she too young to be refusing to get up??  On the egg hunt, I was mostly pointing eggs out to her so that she could "find" a few but to my shock she did actually find one all by herself.  We only had 9 total hidden so it didn't take too long to get them all.  After the first 5 or so, Jessie had found her basket and was more interested in finding the gummy bears in the "grass" then anything else.  Then I had to go to work and let Daddy deal with the kids and their chocolate. :)

 

3-20-06

 

I'm getting a little nervous.  Why?  Because Jessica is being a TOTAL MONSTER CHILD!  OK, she's actually very nice and well behaived most of the time.  She's just sometimes likely to go insane.  All of the sudden.  Out of the blue.  For example:  I go to pick up the kids at daycare.  Jessie sees me and like normal, comes running all excited yelling "mommy mommy mommy!"  Then she says "coat!" and I put her down to get he coat and shoes on.  Cindy (daycare) grabs her coat off the hook and holds it out for her to put her arms in and this happy enthusiastic child SCREAMS, throws herself down the hall and onto the floor, and yells NO! for a good minute.  Finally she comes back and sees Cindy still sitting there with the coat and does the same thing.  The issue?  I think she wanted to take the coat off the hook herself, although I'm not sure and she was too busy SCREAMING to tell us.  Example #2?  We are in the kid's room and I'm going through this bag of holiday toys that hadn't yet gotten unpacked from one of the grandmother's houses.(can you say spoiled kids? hehe - just kidding grandparents!)  I pull out a little bag with a necklace in it.  Jessie says "Oh, pretty!" and wants me to give it to her, which I do.  She can't get the bag open so she gives it to me and says "Mommy open that."  So I open it and (note my dramatic error here) take out the necklace and hand it to her.  She's goes totally insane screaming and kicking and hitting and runs out of the room and hides behind the chair in the other room.  A few minutes later she calms down and comes back into the room and I hold the necklace out to her and she does a repeat of the above again.  Note to self, do NOT remove the item from the bag, just open the bag and hand it to her.  Yes, the 2s are kicking in.  Where is that boarding school for 2 year olds when you need it?

On the fun side, we pulled out the video recorder this weekend and I managed to get her on video singing her ABCs - but then I accidentally taped over it with more of her when I thought it had been set to the right place to start taping again but I guess not.  Now I'll have to see if I can get that again.  I tried to get her to sing the "sugar" song - but that prompted screaming so I turned the video recorder off.

 

3-16-06

 

We have real sentences!  Yesterday in the van Jessie was saying "You doing Brother?" and she'd say it over and over and over.  (Gavin was playing with this car and trying to ignore her, thus the need to say it over and over.)  Then this morning while I tried to convince Jessie to stay in bed just a little longer, she pointed to her pillow next to her and said "Sleep there, Mommy."  She's been putting words together in baby sentences for a long time but now she's really getting into using those middle words that fill out a sentence.  She is also singing along with the songs more fully, not just singing key words.  It is so fun to watch her learn all of this!

I did end up bringing her back into the bunk bed the other night after she fell asleep.  last night I gave up trying to tell them to go to sleep and just went downstairs where I couldn't hear them talking so it wouldn't drive me nuts.  When I went upstairs they were both asleep so apparently if I just leave them alone they will sleep.

This morning Jessie put on her tights all by herself!  Of course, that's because I'm not allowed to TOUCH anything as she gets dressed so I have to sit on my hands while she struggles through it all, but still, she did it!  Also this morning she was sitting at the table eating breakfast with Daddy and I put on my coat, told her I was going to work and gave her a kiss and she said "OK, bye bye Mommy."  No crying or anything!  She's generally OK about me leaving at daycare but with the new schedule where Daddy drops her off and I pick her up, she's less thrilled about me leaving from home.  This morning was fun though.

 

3-14-06

 

Jessie is in the crib tonight.  She just would NOT go to sleep and I got tired of going back into the room so I picked her up and put her in the crib.  She wasn't too happy about that, but man, was she being a pill!  She kept fussing over "jammies" and at the moment she is wearing 1 long sleeved shirt, 1 jersey long sleeved cardigan, 1 pair of pj shorts, 1 pair of Gavin's boxer briefs, and 1 pair of thermal long underwear.  (Yes, the long underwear are OVER everything else.)

We had Gavin's concert tonight so we all went out to his school for the event.  Lots of grandparents and all were there and Jessie was having a ball.  She was coloring a little before we headed to the gym and she kept saying "circle" and drawing, well, sorta circles.  She's quite proud of this new art! 

 

3-13-06

 

Jessie had her first night without me!  This past Friday she slept over at Grandma's house with Gavin while Kris and I went up north.  All reports say that she did just fine, which I kinda figured she would.  On Saturday night she was pretty clingy - she also hadn't had a nap that whole day either though.

On Sunday we went back to Grandma's for Grandpa Jim's birthday.  They had these number puzzles that they were doing and we all were joining in with them.  Jessie wanted to color too so we gave her some paper and a pen.  She was doing some pretty crazy scribbles so I decided to see if she could handle a circle.  I drew a circle and asked her to draw one too.  She drew some scribbles in the same general area that could actually be called a circle if you were looking specifically for a roundish-enclosed-type space.  Then she was so excited about the circles that she was asking me to draw a circle and pointing to where on the page and she had me draw about 20 circles for her.

For Grandpa Jim's birthday they had gotten an ice cream cake and Jessie sure loved playing with that!  I think she thought it was finger paints though, or maybe skin lotion because she was sure spreading it all over everything!

 

3-8-06

 

last night while giving Jessie a bath, I was reading a book while she played around in the water.  Some of the bath toys have a little hole for the mouth and you can squeeze them and then squirt water out of the mouth.  Big fun!  Well, I'm reading away and all of a sudden this stream of water comes out of the tub and all the way across the bathroom, including getting my legs and book all wet.  I jump and look at Jessie and she's collapsing in giggles saying "I'm so funny!"  (Well, the funny part I made out for sure, the rest was a little hard to catch - but I think that's what she was aiming at.)  I gave her the sternest "naughty" look I could while trying not to crack up at her and told her the water stays IN the bathtub.  She gives me her innocent eye blink while still giggling and squirts a few more times inside the tub.  I go back to reading and a minute later she squirts me again!  The little turkey is in the tub just laughing away at me, telling me how funny she is.  I decide to put the book away at this point because she is clearly not going to let me read.

We've got a new song!  A few days back she walked into the room where I was and I said "Hi honey!"  She said "Hi Honey!" right back to me.  It was very cute.  So yesterday I starting singing "Oh honey, Oh sugar sugar, you are my candy girl..."  She loved it and would yell out honey and sugar and candy girl and all that and dance away. Can you even stand how adorable this child is??  Yesterday on the way home from daycare I was singing this though and she yelled "NO! ABCs!"  So - apparently we're not allowed to sing a different song then. 

 

3-6-06

 

We had quite the weekend!  Jessie is continuing her new skill of undressing, completely.  I put her down for a very early nap on Sat, hoping she'd sleep a little before we went swimming with our Friends Michelle and Brianna.  Well, she didn't sleep but she was quiet long enough for me to shower before we headed out.  When I was done, she was in there talking so I decided to scrap the nap and get her ready for swimming.  I open the door and she says "poopies!"  Oy!  Yes, she had pooped, taken her clothes off and her diaper, and tossed the diaper on the floor.  Thankfully, she was in the crib and the mess was really contained to just the crib sheet, blanket, and herself.  The diaper landed closed, poo contained - thank goodness the "peanut butter side down" rule doesn't apply to diapers!  So, mess cleaned up and we head out to lunch and swimming with our friends!

At swimming Jessie was being a total nut with the water!  In swimming lessons, they have this part where you stand them on a platform and put pool toys on the bottom of it and ecourage them to reach down to pick up the toy.  The point of it is to get them to willingly put their own face into the water.  She doesn't really do it.  At this pool, it starts at zero depth so the kids could just walk in as deep as they want and hang out.  Jessie would run in until she fell splashing into the water and then crawling the rest of the way to the point that half her face was underwater.  I'd grab her and pull her out and she'd just laugh and keep going.  In the "deep end" (I think it maxed out at about 4 feet, if that) she didn't want me to hold her so she squirmed around and I kept telling her that if I let go she'd be underwater so I let go a couple of times and she sunk and I grabbed her up and she just kept squirming to get me to let go again.  Very strange.  She had fun with her little friend Brianna too.  At lunch Bri had that little highchair thing they have at restaurants and Jessie was sitting in the booth until she saw Bri got a nice chair!  hehe!  Then she wanted a chair too!  In the water Michelle and I helped them give each other high fives and that was a big hit! 

On Sunday we headed out to Grandma's house.  Jessie was being really crabby before we left because I had put on this overalls outfit that she could not take off.  She'd stop every once in a while and just scream and pull at her clothes yelling "Clothes!" while she tried to take them off.  Silly kid.  In the car Gavin had found these sunglasses that Jessie wanted so we found the pair of sunglasses we had gotten Jessie last year and she wore those things nearly the whole ride to Grandma's!  Then she brought them in and was wearing them all around the house.  She'd point to them and say "See, dark."  We had no real nap again that day and then that night we got home pretty late, got everyone ready for bed, and her and Gavin were up goofing around until after 10!  I'd go in there and tell them to go to sleep and Gavin would pretend to be all innocent and tell me to put Jessie in her own room.  Ya, as if SHE'S the one instigating it all!

 

3-3-06

 

21 months!  So, in the past month Jessie has done pretty well at moving into the big room with Gavin.  Gavin, however, has decided he doesn't WANT Jessie in his room.  He's OK with her moving in, he just doesn't want her to do it until the baby actually gets here.  I do feel bad for him that he needs to deal with not having a ladder on his bunk bed but he doesn't seem to mind about that part.  I don't really know why he cares if she's there since he does more to bug HER then the other way around at night.  Last night he left the room to sleep in the bed in Jessie's room while Jessie slept in the big room alone.  Oh - she also removed her pjs and diaper.  I heard her crying in there so I went in and she's got her jammies and diaper in hand trying to open the diaper pail lid to toss them in.  I get another diaper and a pair of jammies that has the snap at the neck which she cannot get off and put her back to bed.  I got a call today from daycare telling me that my nudist has decided to remove her pants and diaper while at daycare twice now as well.  (Ya, my daycare lady calls me just for fun.  We love her.)  Also, while I was putting on her swimming suit for swimming lessons on Wednesday she got ahold of the sesame street stickers on the table and started putting the stickers all over her butt, laughing, and doing it again.  Ah toddler humor... I'm so glad most of us outgrow that!

 

3-1-06

 

Did you know Santa rides the school bus?  He does according to Jessica anyway.  On the way into daycare this morning she was counting the school buses and when we passed really close to one of them she exclaimed "Santa bus!"  I asked if she saw Santa on the bus and she said "yes."  I have to say, it is very cool to be able to hear what's on her mind.  Who'd have ever come up with that but her???

We've had two nights in a row with Jessie sleeping in the big room now.  Things seem to be working out well.  I'll give it awhile but eventually we should be able to move the old bed out of that room and put the new bed that is actually supposed to go with the bunk bed set in there.  That will clear out some space in the nursery.  Now I just have to get Kris to fix that closet so I can put both kid's clothes in there.  The closet in the nursery is getting quite crowded with both Jessie and the baby growing a stash of cute items.  Jessie did wake up this morning when I got Gavin out of bed, but it was really no big deal as I just held her and gave her a hug and said it was still sleepy time so she went back to sleep.  When I did go in later to get her up she was so sound asleep that I actually had to move her to get her to wake up.

Jessie has been really into stickers lately.  We had some reject photos of our self timer family shots that were on the table so I gave Jessie some cat stickers and the pictures and she was happily putting the cats on all our laps and telling me who got to hold the kitties.  It was really cute.