Some photos of our fall

Looking through these I realize MJ's not smiling much in them. I wonder if she smiles less now, or just doesn't like having her picture taken. Some of both? I'm not sure. She's still joyous, but usually too focused on getting into trouble, which means my hands aren't free to take pictures and her back is usually to me.

Caught in the act

Vito was sequestered to the top floor, so MJ carried that overflowing bowl of dog food up two flights of stairs and fed him, with a spoon, between the bars. I don't think Vito knows how good he has it.

Greetings from the Berkshires.

It turns out I miss mountains more than I realized. We've been in Massachusetts for a wedding, and this place is just blissful. Fascinating rocks. Hardwood forests. Fall colors. Quaint towns. I had forgotten how lovely New England can be. Thankfully we've had an abundance of rude encounters with the locals, which reminded me that Minnesota Nice is more than just a T-shirt. Yep, I miss the mountains and the woods, but I'm still looking forward to going home.

Eeek! A giraffe ate my baby!

I'm guessing PETA would have a field day with this zoo we visited in Florida. Apparently they've already had their Gorilla put on probation. So feeding toddlers to the giraffes might be frowned on.

MJ has been totally in love with dogs and cats. So much so that we've even started bribing her to go places by saying "There might be a kitty there!" which works magically but is probably a parenting misdeed. So I really thought she'd love the zoo. It turns out the giraffes, which we could feed, were the only thing worthy of a smile.

On the up side, we learned that the whole monkeys-love-bananas concept is true!  When we surreptitiously gave her a banana (the signs clearly said no outside food or drink) the monkeys were totally rapt. They kept motioning for her to give them some of her banana and made little "come hither" sounds.  But, like the toddler she is, she wasn't willing to share that banana with anyone, even a monkey.

The packing begins

We have about 2.5 months until we close on the new house. We decided to start packing early, to make sure we wouldn't forget anything important.

Wild Child.

We just returned from a week in Florida visiting grandparents.  Although the Floridians thought it was cold, it was a Minnesotan's dream.  Highs of 70, lows of 50.  No fear of sweat.  Pure bliss.

Following is a video we took of MJ at a local outdoor mall.  She managed to draw a small crowd with her antics.  This child never stops making me smile.

**If you're not a grandparent and therefore don't intend to watch the whole thing, just skip to ~1:10 seconds.  It might make you smile.

A girl and her dog*

I told you the cuteness was indescribable.

* Ignore that uncovered light socket about 6 inches from MJ's hand.

This is how I feel most of the time

Today's picture comes to you courtesy of my friend, neighbor, and fellow blogger.  I have to throw in that "neighbor" part while I can, because we put in an offer on a house yesterday that would make her no longer my neighbor.  I find this inexplicably sad.  The idea of breaking up the girls and possibly their future rock band career has been in the back of my mind throughout this whole process.  However, in the front of my mind is the fact that we no longer fit in our house.  Furthermore, while I might lose two blogger neighbors, if we buy this house I would gain another.  

At any rate, DH has been working a lot lately, which means a lot of one-on-one-toddler-time for me.  Anyone that knows MJ knows that means constant activity, constant defiance and constant energy.  She's usually a barrel of fun, but that is intermixed with plenty of tantrums and lots of death-defying stunts.  This photo pretty much captures it.  I'm not sure why she's been in the habit of sticking her hand down her diaper lately, though it's probably related to the fact that we FINALLY got her back into cloth after fighting off a series of nasty diaper rashes.  And those letters scattered all around?  She made sure I was watching, got a twinkle in her eye and dumped them all over the floor. 

A uniquely human trait.

The use of tools... see that step stool she drug over to climb where she wasn't supposed to?  She tried the big, green ball first.  The step stool worked better.

Also, that look of defiance. Very human. Very MJ.

Square peg, round hole

MJ hasn't wrapped her head around the fact that she can't fit into the same spaces she used to be able to. Which is probably why she keeps trying to squeeze through my neighbor's cat door.

Thanks for listening to me complain.

We're doing better now. I've been sleeping. And, if you can't tell by this smile, MJ's been sleeping.

Stuck Inside.

A few sugestions on how to entertain a toddler while snowed in.

Where'd all the snow go?

Merry Christmas all! Like our Christmas card, this greeting is a little late.


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Cute? Creepy? I'll let you be the judge.

 

Continuing in the vein of omg-it's-so-fun-to-dress-up-little-girls-in-matching-outfits. We added a holiday twist, and our neighbor donned a Santa suit. The girls were a little unnerved by this, and this is one of the few photos I snapped before MJ was over it...

ZOMG-this-toy-has-flashing-lights!!!  Strange man behind me?  Don't know anything about it.

Of course we tried again, but just because we tell her something's okay doesn't mean she believes it.  At least she has learned the stay-away-from-weird-looking-strangers lesson early on.  And now she has more pictures to add to her teenage-grudge-file.

 Plotting her revenge, I suspect.  That's probably what the hourly wakes up that night were all about: flashbacks to her santa trauma and her way of getting back at us. 

Snow.

Same girls, same flail, but I swear they just keep getting cuter.

God, I love my neighbors.  I love their babies.  I love how much they have made this first year of parenthood sane (parents), fun (parents & babies) and adorable (just the babies).  I think I had the best snowed in Saturday ever.  There will be more pictures, don't you worry. 

How can I focus on work...

When I know I have this waiting for me at home? The weekend can't come fast enough.

Tunnel vision

MJ has one of these fun Ikea play tunnels, a gift from her grandmother:

though by fun I mean that I enjoy it far more than she does.  For example, it served as my halloween costume.

I crawled inside and waddled around while holding a mirror.

I was a?  You-tube!

Haha.

But what MJ does enjoy are tunnels that remind her of the blue tube.  Turns out there are these little cat tunnels strangely reminiscent of her play tunnel:

An important question arises:  what came first, the kid tunnel or the cat tunnel?

MJ seems to like the cat tunnel better than the kid tunnel.

As evidenced by her Thanksgiving performance, in which she put the hole over her head and walked around with a tunnel on her head.

God I love this child.  She never ceases to make me laugh.

In addition to giving birth to me, I have to thank my mom for taking this picture.

MJ has learned about the playground. There will be a lot less of that now, since our morning was met with boatloads of snow. But she doesn't get that yet, and when the word "park" is spoken will run to the door, banging furiously, as though she's swearing at me in baby sign language. I tell you, you haven't even heard cursing until you've seen baby sign language cursing. That sh!znat is scary.

But I digress. She loves crawling through the tunnel, but, unfortunately, some poorly paid playground architect decided to put no rails on the far side of the playground tunnel. So that poor (30-year-old) moms would have to climb through them to keep their evil knievel offspring from jumping to their death.  We look happy about it, but our knees are sadly bruised.  Playground architects should really be paid better.

Belated halloween wishes

y c
It's shocking how behind my pictures get when I misplace the camera for a few days (or weeks?) Even more shocking? It turns out there is no greater joy on earth than dressing up babies in costumes. Better, even, than dressing up dogs in costumes.

Teach them young.

For those of you who aren't up on your rock identification skillz, this is pumice. MJ played with this pumice for about 30 minutes, which is longer than she played with my cell phone (a tough act to follow).  

So, although her interpration of the principle of faunal succession may be a bit off, as evidenced above, her geological understanding is still deeper than many of my students.