My favorite picture is of Eleanor giving Henry a kiss. She's such a sweetie. If you ask her for a kiss she leans in and plants her whole face on you and then smiles really big afterwords; so proud of herself. I also really love the shot of her two little teeth.
I included a picture of the pomegranate tree in our front yard. The weather this winter has been very wacky. It's like one long extended Fall. It's been in the 60's and 70's. The leaves have been incredibly beautiful and they are still not all off the trees. I raked the front yard today.
[slideshow]
Friday, December 31, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Friday, December 24, 2010
13 months...
Hello, Diane!
Whether your toddler's been walking for months or is still happy just cruising, one thing's for sure: She's not about to slow down. With great delight, she'll soon learn that walking frees her hands to unroll reams of toilet paper, knock glasses off coffee tables, and empty your bedside drawers. What to do? Spend lots of time at the park, and notch up your childproofing efforts so your toddler has plenty of space to explore without getting hurt.
I just got this in my inbox today, right after seeing Eleanor remove all of the Kleenex from the box I just bought today. She is giving me one good work out. I am constantly putting back the books she unshelved, the clothes she removed from the drawers, the laundry she removed from baskets, the shoes she removed from the shoe-shelf, the rags from the rag drawer, and so on. Henry did not prepare me for this. He never one time took a book off the shelf. He never unraveled toilet paper, he didn't rip things, knock things over, throw things, etc. He was perfectly content to just be.
I vividly recall being at my friend Liz's house and watching in horror as her son Josh did all of these things and thinking how lucky I was to not have to deal with that. Ha! I do now! When Henry was a toddler I did notice he was not like the other toddlers. He was not rambunctious. He was uber-compliant. He sat in my lap and liked to be read to for over an hour (I still have yet to be able to read one single book to E before she rips it out of my hands and tosses it). I just can't get over how different they are. It's actually cool. It sounds like I'm complaining but really I'm just pointing these things out so the kids can look back one day and know about their early years. I know this will all be over so quickly. I am just trying to ground myself in the now.
Sleeping and eating are not worth noting at this time due to her week-long cold. But needless to say, neither are good. Eleanor has shed many of her former words (haven't heard her say mama in forever) and now she just says, "This!" and "That!" pointing at things for us to take her to or get for her. She also says "Up" a lot and then "dog" . She will say "Yes" and "da-da" but not often.
(Update: By the end of today, Yes and DaDa were said frequently. Da-da when I showed her pictures of them together and "Yes" in the same manner she says "This" and "That". So now we have three words from her that mean exactly the same thing= "Give me".
Whether your toddler's been walking for months or is still happy just cruising, one thing's for sure: She's not about to slow down. With great delight, she'll soon learn that walking frees her hands to unroll reams of toilet paper, knock glasses off coffee tables, and empty your bedside drawers. What to do? Spend lots of time at the park, and notch up your childproofing efforts so your toddler has plenty of space to explore without getting hurt.
I just got this in my inbox today, right after seeing Eleanor remove all of the Kleenex from the box I just bought today. She is giving me one good work out. I am constantly putting back the books she unshelved, the clothes she removed from the drawers, the laundry she removed from baskets, the shoes she removed from the shoe-shelf, the rags from the rag drawer, and so on. Henry did not prepare me for this. He never one time took a book off the shelf. He never unraveled toilet paper, he didn't rip things, knock things over, throw things, etc. He was perfectly content to just be.
I vividly recall being at my friend Liz's house and watching in horror as her son Josh did all of these things and thinking how lucky I was to not have to deal with that. Ha! I do now! When Henry was a toddler I did notice he was not like the other toddlers. He was not rambunctious. He was uber-compliant. He sat in my lap and liked to be read to for over an hour (I still have yet to be able to read one single book to E before she rips it out of my hands and tosses it). I just can't get over how different they are. It's actually cool. It sounds like I'm complaining but really I'm just pointing these things out so the kids can look back one day and know about their early years. I know this will all be over so quickly. I am just trying to ground myself in the now.
Sleeping and eating are not worth noting at this time due to her week-long cold. But needless to say, neither are good. Eleanor has shed many of her former words (haven't heard her say mama in forever) and now she just says, "This!" and "That!" pointing at things for us to take her to or get for her. She also says "Up" a lot and then "dog" . She will say "Yes" and "da-da" but not often.
(Update: By the end of today, Yes and DaDa were said frequently. Da-da when I showed her pictures of them together and "Yes" in the same manner she says "This" and "That". So now we have three words from her that mean exactly the same thing= "Give me".
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Meh...
Eleanor is still sick. Justin and Henry just left to go to Dallas to have Christmas without us at his family's house. This makes me sad because I was really looking forward to going.
But what is really really making me sad right now (besides the both of us having pink eye) is we have a cluster fly infestation.
What is this you ask? I have never heard of these in my whole life and even the exterminator we've used for years never heard of them. I've done all sorts of looking on the internet and they are very common up north or anywhere it's cold--and the websites even say they are not found in states bordering Mexico. But, we have them. Badly. So the deal is, they do not breed or lay eggs or any of that indoors, they do that in the soil outside, they carry no disease, and they do not bite or eat anything but flowers (so weird!). But they winter in people's attics, and the cracks and voids in walls, windows, etc. And they emerge when they think it is Spring. Well, since we've had unusually warm weather, they think it is spring. They mostly hang out on the windows, they are larger than houseflies, and they are slow and easy to kill. But we are having to kill about 60 a day to stay on top of them, and this could go on for months.
I try to enjoy my day and then I look over and see one or two or 5 and I HAVE to kill them. It's become a very OCD-like thing for me. I am constantly angry at these things--they're loud--you can hear them, and since they are so big and slow, when they fly in front of you you can't just ignore them. When you leave the house and come back 2 hours later, there will be 20 more of them scattered throughout the kitchen. There's some satisfaction in killing them --like, ah, now your dead, I can move on, but they just keep coming back, and will for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.
If it's not one thing it's another. My new mantra.
But what is really really making me sad right now (besides the both of us having pink eye) is we have a cluster fly infestation.
What is this you ask? I have never heard of these in my whole life and even the exterminator we've used for years never heard of them. I've done all sorts of looking on the internet and they are very common up north or anywhere it's cold--and the websites even say they are not found in states bordering Mexico. But, we have them. Badly. So the deal is, they do not breed or lay eggs or any of that indoors, they do that in the soil outside, they carry no disease, and they do not bite or eat anything but flowers (so weird!). But they winter in people's attics, and the cracks and voids in walls, windows, etc. And they emerge when they think it is Spring. Well, since we've had unusually warm weather, they think it is spring. They mostly hang out on the windows, they are larger than houseflies, and they are slow and easy to kill. But we are having to kill about 60 a day to stay on top of them, and this could go on for months.
I try to enjoy my day and then I look over and see one or two or 5 and I HAVE to kill them. It's become a very OCD-like thing for me. I am constantly angry at these things--they're loud--you can hear them, and since they are so big and slow, when they fly in front of you you can't just ignore them. When you leave the house and come back 2 hours later, there will be 20 more of them scattered throughout the kitchen. There's some satisfaction in killing them --like, ah, now your dead, I can move on, but they just keep coming back, and will for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks.
If it's not one thing it's another. My new mantra.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Lady Longhorns...
A week ago, we took the kids to see the Lady Longhorns look pretty sloppy against the Lady Vols. It was Eleanor’s first game and she was pretty excited by the whole experience. The cheering, the band…the awesome bounce passes…she loved it all. Henry was pretty excited about going to the game until he realized we were going to watch someone else play and that people weren’t coming to watch us.[gallery]
Sunday, December 19, 2010
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