Phone Number

I think I may have gotten Calleigh to one up toddler me.  She knows her phone number!  Mom, did I know my phone number at 2 years, 9 months??  It was quite simple to do actually.  The key to getting a kid to learn something is to put it to music.  So we learned the phone number by singing it to the tune of Mary Has A Little Lamb and after a few tries, bam!.  Now if you ask her what her phone number is she'll just start singing it.  We just about have the address down pat too but she flubs up the street number every now and then.  

I would normally have posted an entry last night but Rick came into town late yesterday afternoon.  Now that he is in South Carolina for the semester, it's only a little over a five hour drive.  With the long weekend, it seemed like a good opportunity to come down.  Calleigh has been very happy to play with Uncle Ricky especially since he'll do whatever she wants and with his full attention.  Her favorite question for anyone that comes to our house is "Will you play with me?" and she's so excited when the answer is "Yes!"  

This week was the week of playgrounds.  We went to different ones on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (indoors at the mall).  Calleigh immediately made new friends at each one.  And she has no qualms about going up to the first kid she sees, leaning over intently into their face and saying "Do you want to play with me?"  Doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl - - she's an equal opportunity friend.  It's been so nice with the cool weather to be outside.  It did get quite cool here again this week and I could stand it being a little warmer (the heat's back on) but I keep reminding myself about the heat that will be here soon and we won't be able to play outside for long.  The real downside has been my yard sales, which for the second week in a row, have been a no go.  This darn rain.  

Tuesday we went to story time at the Winter Park Library since Casselberry had the week off.  I must say that the Winter Park story time is a little better than Casselberry's not to mention that they have a better kid play area.  I hate to dump Casselberry since we know so many of the people there but since they're at the same time, we may have to start rotating.  

On a non-kid related item, Duncan and I were excited to get out last Saturday night.  It was our first outing since our anniversary on 12/22.  We went to the Elephant Bar Restaurant and then the outlets.  We were thinking about a movie but for me to spend two hours staring at a screen, it has to be something I'm really interested in and no such movie existed.  I have to chuckle because I remember back to my college days and when I was a senior, I think my friend and I went to the movies several time a week and rented a bunch more. I think I literally saw everything that came out.  Boy, how your priorities change.  Anyway, it really was a relaxing evening and of course, the kids had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa watching them.  

Sunday, of course, was the Super Bowl and we had a few folks over to watch the game and eat some food.  As it turns out, I didn't see much of the game but that's okay.  I saw Peyton walking off the field with his head hanging and that's all I needed to see.  I heard that he didn't congratulate the Saints and I can't say I'm surprised.  Anyway, Magally and Tim Putt came over so that Magally could borrow some maternity clothes which I was very happy to loan out.  I was hoping I could hit someone up for some when I was pregnant with Calleigh but alas, everyone I knew either was pregnant at the same time or hadn't been yet.  But I'm glad I could pass the favor on to someone.  There seems to be a big crop of people pregnant right now mostly with girls.  The same trend as last year.  I have no idea where are all the boy babies are!  It's also strange that all the babies down here seem to be born in the time period of March - July.  I don't know what the says about people's reproductive habits but there you have it.

                                                 Calleigh watching a commercial

                                           

Aubree has added some new menu items this week.  She's now eating real peas, carrots (as opposed to from a jar) and mandarin orange pieces.  She gobbles it all right up.  I've been giving her breakfast now too although it usually just the orange pieces rather than a jar of baby food.  I've been a little concerned about her weight so I'm trying to fatten her up.  I weighed her on Thursday night and she was about 16 lbs, 4 oz.  That was a week away from 9 months.  Comparatively, Calleigh was 17 lbs, 4 oz at 9 months which was the 25th percentile.  I'm certain Aubree will be less than that so she's clearly going to be on the low end percentile wise.  She's nursing 5 times a day and eating cereal and just about a whole jar of baby food at two of her meals plus snacks.  We'll see what they say.  Because of her smaller size she's still in size 3 - 6 months for the most part.  But she's happy as a clam so that's the important thing.  

The morning nap is becoming shorter and shorter which I don't mind a bit.  I have/had been following the plan of putting her down two hours after she wakes up.  But she's been taking a while to fall asleep the past week or go using that time frame.  So it's become more like 2.5 hours after she wakes up.  By that time, it's about 9:30 - 9:45 when I put her in the crib and then it takes her around 10 minutes to go to sleep.  Usually Calleigh makes too much noise and Aubree will be awake in less than half an hour.  But I'm happy because by that time I'm ready to get out and do something.  Plus, it means that her afternoon nap is longer which makes for a very happy mommy.  I'll be even happier when the morning nap is completely gone although I'll probably have to do some schedule adjustments.  No doubt she'll want to go down for her nap earlier than the 2 pm (or 2:15 for Aubree) that they both go down at now.

Calleigh gave me a good chuckle the other day.  Recently I've started to use the phrase with her, "I'll assess the situation."  An example is when we're going to go outside and we're wondering if we need a sweatshirt on or not.  So I say to her, "Let's go downstairs and open the front door and I'll assess the situation."  I think she must understand what I mean because a few days ago when she was eating her lunch, she said to me "Mommy, I want some fruit.  Can you come assess?"

Another thing she's big into is helping.  Whenever I'm in the kitchen making food or cleaning up or whatever, she asks if she can help me and drags her little chair over to stand up on.  Of course, it always slows down whatever I'm doing so I sometimes have to remind myself that it's fun for her and I need to let her help.  It did work out pretty well though when she put all the clean silverware away.

                                                   Helping to clean the table

On Wednesday we took Dewey and Marlee to the vet to get their teeth cleaned professionally for the first time.  They're almost 10 so we couldn't put it off much longer especially since we noticed Dewey had a loose tooth.  At more than $600 for the two of them, you can understand why we were procrastinating.  All went well although Dewey did lose the tooth.  The interesting thing has been seeing the bruising they both have gotten.  They put them under general anesthesia to do the cleaning and apparently they give it to them in the neck area.  Both dogs have horrible bruising on their necks - - all attributed to their paper thin skin.  If you didn't know the circumstances, you would be quite concerned about what is going on.

Here a few more pictures in closing.  I particularly love this one picture of Aubree.  We were leaving church last week and Duncan and I were obviously in a deep discussion because Duncan all of a sudden burst out laughing when he realized he had buckled Aubree in Calleigh's car seat without a second thought.  Clearly Aubree was quite happy with her "new" seat!