warning: sentimental post ahead

Little miss turned 15 months old today.

She loves shoes, necklaces, balloons, music, playing outside, reading and Minnie Mouse. She couldn't believe it when I bought her Minnie Mouse shoes. Her very favorite animals are cats and birds.

 

She can say about 20 words, knows 7 or 8 words in sign language and can say grandma in French. She's basically trilingual. The other day I ate one of her hash browns and she said, "That's mine!" 

 

She loves to eat. Both the babysitter and the daycare lady commented on how much she eats after taking care of her the first time.

 

She loves swimming in her little pool. Sometimes she goes out after breakfast and climbs right in with her pajamas still on.

She's been giving hugs for a while but she recently started giving kisses. She kisses whatever she likes. Our friend gave her his phone so she could see pictures of his cat and she kissed it over and over. She loves waving and blowing kisses at everyone.

 

I tell her 15 times a day that she's growing WAY too fast and she needs to stop.







back to regularly scheduled programming

Apparently I took a 13 day blogging break.

I didn't mean to take a break, it just happened. I can barely even remember what happened between last time I blogged and now. I do remember that I sat Annabelle down on the edge of the front porch to take her picture and she fell over backwards into the bushes. Yesterday she got half a plastic Easter egg stuck in her mouth. Look for my book on child safety coming out next month.

Joanna, one of my best friends from home, has been visiting for the week. We went to Walmart and the splash pad so I'm sure all her dreams of a wild and fun Nashville vacation were fulfilled. She keeps saying she doesn't mind hanging out at home or doing Annabelle things but I still feel bad it's not more exciting. I scheduled AB to go to daycare today so we could spend some time alone but poor Joanna got the stomach bug and spent all day in bed. I wasn't going to cancel daycare at the last minute so after I dropped Annabelle off I went to the car place to vacuum out my car. All was going well until I accidently started vacuuming up my shirt and couldn't get it to stop. My shirt got lifted so high I'm sure the bottom of my bra was showing. Speaking of awkward moments. At church on Sunday I was wearing my new wedges and I lost my footing and fell over. You can just call me Grace. Naturally I didn't fall over in an empty room. I fell over in front of a crowd. I didn't know what to say to I blurted out "Sorry! I'm so sorry!" WHAT WAS I SORRY FOR? That they had to witness what appeared to be a drunken mother leaving the nursery? I might need to find a new church.

Since we're already all over the place here I might as well discuss daycare. After much anguish and tears I decided to send AB to daycare a few hours a week while I go to appointments, do errands, paint my nails and sit around eating bonbons. A lady the next street over runs a little home daycare and since available babysitters are few and far between around here, I signed her up. Last week was her first time going and I almost threw up in the bushes outside the lady's door, I was so nervous. You may be thinking I'm a helicopter parent who doesn't let her child out of sight. You would be wrong. I've hired babysitters and left her plenty of times but I never dropped her off with someone I don't know. I've seen the news. I know what can happen. That's why I picked a place close to my house. I can practically see it from my back deck so if there's a fire I can be there before the first responders. I wish I was kidding.

In other news, we celebrated Father's Day. I ordered Christopher's gift late so it didn't arrive in time for him to open Sunday but he got no less than 7 cards to make up for the lack of wrapping paper. He stayed home with Annabelle while Joanna and I went out to paint pottery. It was his special day so it seemed only fair he should have the privilege of changing the many diapers of his favorite offspring while the one who brought her into this world relaxed.



time to add 'pooper scooper' to my resume

We've had some odd happenings around here lately. The most memorable is that I found two piles of what appeared to be cat or dog poop on the stairs inside my house.

We don't own a cat.

Or a dog.

Obviously this is very disturbing.

There were three possible explanations:
1. Christopher had gotten AB up that morning and I thought maybe he had let her run around without a diaper on and she'd had an accident. It would be highly unlikely that he wouldn't clean up the mess but you never know. He's never been a dad before. I texted him to confirm or deny that the poop belonged to my child and he denied.
2. The babysitter had been over the day before and said that Annabelle was playing with a cat outside and she didn't know we had a cat. It was the neighbors cat but I thought maybe she had let it in our house so I texted her as well. She said the cat stayed on the deck.
3. Finally, the most likely option of AN ANIMAL WAS ROAMING OUR HOUSE.

Now I can't confirm that it was a cat or dog, but it certainly wasn't a bird and I refuse to google squirrel poo. I searched the whole house for signs of an animal intruder but didn't find a thing.
I haven't seen or smelled anything unusual but I live in fear of finding gross piles around my house.

But look! I've found kinship with 24 people in the same boat. God bless the internet.



I'd like to thank Goodwill for providing us endless summer entertainment for only $19.99

This weekend packed all the excitement we've come to expect around here.

Christopher mowed the grass, I did laundry and weeded the garden, and AB unrolled the toilet paper all the way from the bathroom to the kitchen and threw all my makeup brushes into the tub. Try not to be too jealous of our wild and crazy life!

Sesame had her first popsicle. She paid very close attention when I showed her how they're to be eaten. She ended up eating her popsicle and mine, but I would have let her have six more if it meant she forgot about falling off my lap and landing on her head. 

The biggest event of the weekend was setting up Annabelle's new pool. It's the Rolls Royce of the baby pool world.

It's a big step up from this time last year when she was swimming in a cake pan.





it's all fancy and formal until your bobby pins start popping out

A few weeks ago we were discussing the location of Christopher's battalion ball. He said, "I think it's at Bruce Jenner Hall." Excuse me? I told him I HIGHLY doubted any hall in our area was named after Bruce Jenner. Turns out he didn't have any idea who said individual is and I'm ashamed to admit that I was able to give him a detailed Kardashian/Jenner family tree. Between watching the Bachelorette and knowing about the Kardashian family I'm almost can't look at myself in the mirror. (This was before the recent developments concerning Bruce Jenner that I can't discuss without feeling the need to gag.)
 
The ball was this past Friday night. Everybody knows I love a good ball. Some people (not to name names but Christopher) go half-heartedly but I'm all SIGN ME UP for any event to wear a fancy dress and see people with all manner of paraphernalia on their uniform.

Quick stroll down memory lane. Look how young and thin we were at our first ball.
Not a gray hair in sight.



Normally I have my hairdresser do my hair but this time I decided to attempt it myself. I'm not stupid. I'm terrible at any semi-difficult hairstyle so I knew there was a chance it was probably an awful idea but I tried anyway. Unfortunately all the tutorials said to "tease the hair" and this is what I look like with teased hair.

I'm not exaggerating when I say I did my hair for more than an hour and a half (two Friends episodes!) only to end up with it straightened and in a ponytail. My hair is in a ponytail every single day of my life so it hardly screamed SPECIAL OCCASION HAIR.  I was so frustrated I almost threw in the towel and changed my mind about going. I was this close to giving the babysitter my ticket and spending the evening writing negative reviews on all the "easy 5 minute updo" videos. Short story unnecessarily long, I ended up with my hair in a bun. Not that you can even tell.

Part of the enjoyment I get from balls comes in the form of giving a running commentary on the appropriateness, or lack there of, of dresses I see. It's not annoying at all. Clearly I ride a very high I've been to four balls so I'm an expert horse.

 

In other news, I sat next to a sweet woman I met last October. She loves Annabelle so I frequently text her pictures and we've made plans to get together multiple times. She's a tiny Chinese lady who has a thick accent and speaks about as loud as an ant so conversation is difficult. That explains why I don't know her first name. I didn't understand it the two times she told me the day we met and now we're nine months into our friendship and I refuse to as. I was hoping her husband mention it but no such luck. Mrs. No First Name Thompson she shall remain. 

 





At least I can rest secure in the knowledge that I'm her best friend if she ever needs her hair teased.