Wordless Wednesday: Learnin' About Bugs with Daddy

Stall tactics of a toddler

Lately, Norah has really be into stalling everything. Mostly at bed time but other times too, like when it's time to eat.

It starts most nights when it's time to go to bed. We let her pick a show (which sometimes can take forever) then we change her diaper and get ready to take her medicine. This is where the stalling usually starts. She HATES her medicine. I can't blame her. It looks toxic and even though we get it flavored grape I'm sure it still doesn't taste all the great. First it's: I no take my medcine night. Then it's: I wanna sit in mommy's lap. Ok so she sits in my lap. Then it's: I wanna sit in daddy's lap. So we switch. Then no I do it MYSELF! Really child? Just pick a spot to sit. Once we get her to sit then it's all with the flailing of the hands in front of her face blocking the medicine dropper. Ugh!

Once that ordeal is over with we watch a show. Most nights we automatically give her a snack while she watches a show. But on nights when we have a late dinner we usually skip giving her a snack unless she asks. Well on those nights she waits until her show is over and THEN asks for a snack. Really? You couldn't ask before now?

Then it's the teeth. First she wants the toothpaste. Then she doesn't. Then she wants to stand. Then she doesn't. Then it's a another 5 minutes standing there telling her to stop messing around and just brush. I know she's a baby and can't really brush but she won't even chew on the toothbrush. It's so frustrating. My SIL is a hygienist and she says that Norah doesn't need toothpaste. But her breath is so RANK in the morning we're trying to help that a little. Any suggestions on keeping baby's breath fresh please let me know.

After we get through the teeth it's time to put her down. She likes us each to sing her Twinkle Twinkle. then we jointly sing her You are my Sunshine. But this all takes another 10 minutes. She wants to run around and hide from us. She wants daddy to tickle her. She needs to "get the sillies out" Then she starts singing that song from Yo Gabba Gabba.

 Oy Vey! Just lay down already child! I timed it one particularly bad night and it took 30 minutes. THIRTY MINUTES! It should not take that long to put a two year old to bed. I can't keep doing this every night. Some one please send help....and wine...

Pretty Little Liars

I have been obsessed with the Pretty Little Liars Series. I first heard of them from Tiffany at TiffanyDTV. It sounded interesting so I got the first book on my Kindle. That was back in like January. I just started the sixth book last night and I don't wanna stop! I thought I might read one or two and then take a break and read something else in between. Well forget that! I must know who A is!

My problem is I get all into the book for days and then I get so exhausted from everything else in my life that I just can't read for a couple of days. I want to finish them so bad I just don't have the energy. Damn having to work full time! I just want to sit in my pajamas all day and read and spend my nights with my family. I should get paid for that.

I have all these theories as to who A is. One of my thoughts keeps popping up in my head as the obvious choice. But I'm wondering if it would be so obvious. Probably not. Or maybe I'm making things too complicated. I tend to over think who it could be.

I also really want to watch the show now because I see tweets about it. But I'm afraid that if I haven't finished the books it might spoil things for me. I've seen some tweets that allude to things I haven't read yet. More reason to keep reading as fast as I can.

I think I might have the first eight books on my Kindle right now and I'm hoping to finish those in the next few months. Then I think there are another four more I need to get yet. Ugh! Why does this series have to be so long!? And so damn good?!

I'm hoping to finish the books by the time the show is on Netflix instant. I checked a few months ago and it wasn't there. But then I did some more research and found out it's only in it's second season (I think they just had the season finale) so I'm hoping that the first one will be up soon.

This is seriously my new obsession. Anyone else read it?

Dinner converstaions with a Toddler

Last night we had the most interesting conversation with Norah. She started out by talking about how the cats get sick:

"Mia get sick. Mia get sick on the floor. Eeeeeewwww. That's gross." (This is all said with a scrunched up nose).

"Yes. Mia gets sick sometimes and throws up on the floor. It's ok. Everyone gets sick sometimes."
"Oh. Yeah. Mia not get sick anymore. Stanley not get sick."

Then she started talking about how she got sick a few weeks ago. "I not sick. My belly feels better. I drink my water, my milk. Make my belly feel better."

"Oh good. Is drinking water making your belly feel better?"
"Yeah. I not sick anymore."

We move on from this topic while she eats the rest of her dinner. We asked if she wanted anything else.

"I waaaaaant....(thinks long and hard) cherries and grapes. Yeah. Cherries and grapes make my belly feel better. You (turns and points at Mitch). You get my cherries. My grapes. Make my belly feel better. You (turns and points at me). You go start my bath."

Yup she's a bossy little thing. After much coaxing we finally got her to ask nicely with a "please." Then she looks at me and says: "I want a purple bath. Purple bath will make my belly feel better."

WHAT!?! Where does this kid come up with this stuff? Seriously I have no idea.
It was lots of fun actually talking to her about things and listening to her remember different things from the past few weeks. Hopefully we can work on the bossy part though.


P.S. We had to settle for a GREEN bath because that was the only color we had left. and her belly seemed just fine with that.

Wordless Wednesday: Current Favorite Lipstick

Is it really March?

The weather has been so beautiful here the last few days, the high 60's, 70's and even almost 80 the other day! It's so nice to be able to go outside. Daycare is only a few blocks form here so we've been able to walk to pick up N after school a couple of days. She really loves the walk. Some nights if we get there at the right time we get to walk home with her best friend D. His house is on the way to ours. That makes her walk even more special I think. They have just been reunited after a couple of months being in separate rooms until D turned 2 and I really do think she missed spending her whole day with him.
Since I had off on Monday we walked to get her. We decided to bring the stroller with us since we weren't sure if she would want to walk or ride home. Well let me just say we must have looked pretty crazy pushing around an empty stroller. Did I say empty? I'm sorry I forgot Daddy promised to bring The Count with us to pick her up. So we walked the couple blocks to daycare pushing this around.

Crazy wagon? I think so.
Tuesday was just as beautiful if not a little warmer so we got to play in the backyard a little. Last summer N really LOVED (yes capitol LOVED) going out back to water the flowers. Which she wanted to do again. But unfortunately we're not quite ready for that. So instead she helped Daddy clean up some. We still had some random piles of leaves so N got out her broom and helped sweep up.

She's such a good little helper.
After cleaning up she needed a break to read on the slide. She found this book in her room that one of her cousins had given her (we thought he was being nice but really he was cleaning out his room to make room for more toys...smart boy).

It's a book with hologram images in it. N for some reason thinks it is ABC's so she just turns the pages and recites her ABC's. Did you know that it goes QRSTUBWXYZ? So cute!
We have been really lucky with this great weather this week which looks like it's going to continue for the rest of the week at least. I'm off again today (since I worked the whole weekend I get random week days off) so we plan to walk to pick her up again. Maybe take a little stroll around town too. N loves to people watch.
I guess that is all for now. Look at that! I started a new blog AND posted more that once all in one week! Go me! I will leave you with one more cute pic I snapped of N in the backyard the other night.

Introduction

Hi I'm Dear...or Mommy....or Hayley to most. Even my daughter calls me all of those names. Yes, my daughter has learned my name and isn't afraid to use it. She also enjoys standing at the bottom of the stairs yelling DEAR! while I'm getting dressed for work. Yeah she's two (and don't ask me how many months because I can't do that kind of math in my head under pressure and it makes me nervous when I have to try).

The back story:

I met my loving husband in college and we started dating in 2003. Little did he know that we had a class together the semester before and I totally thought he was hot. In 2005 we got engaged and we were married in 2006. In 2008 I caught the baby fever and my sassy little red head entered our lives  in November of 2009.

I don't want to label this is a "mommy blog." I've done that and it quickly fizzled out. This will be a place where I do talk about being a mother but also other things. I used to read all the time but slowly lost interest (read: too tired) during pregnancy. I have recently started reading more and would like to do some posts on the books I'm reading. I also like makeup. I'm in no means a professional when it comes to makeup but I sure do love me some MAC lipstick. So maybe I'll do some posts about random makeup related things. I'm sure I'll post other random things that we do as a family as well. This is kind of just my place to dump my mind. Does that even make sense?

So yeah. That's a little bit about me. I hope that you like what you see and will come back and continue reading.