Big Girl Bed

The Boogie did so well in a regular bed at the hotel that when we came home My Man took apart her crib and we put her in her Big Girl Bed. The first night was actually just the mattress on the floor since we didn't have enough slats to support the mattress on the bed frame. She did pretty well the first night -- I think she only got up 3 or 4 times before falling asleep. Having the mattress on the floor made me feel comfortable that if she rolled off in her sleep she wouldn't have far to go.

 

The next day My Man cut more slats and we set up the bed itself. This bed is part of a set that my mom's parents bought for her when she was little. She passed it on to me and now the Boogie gets it! There is a dresser with a mirror (that I'm using), a nightstand (that is on My Man's side of our bed), and a desk (which is holding up the very computer I am writing this on.) Eventually the Boogie will get all of the furniture.

 

Taking the crib apart and replacing it with a bigger bed meant that some things were displaced and the furniture in her room needed to be rearranged. This is how it looks right now (and I do mean RIGHT NOW since I just snapped these photos about ten minutes ago -- HE is here this morning and as long as both girls are happy and content I don't care how many books and toys are strewn about.)

 

 

 

We are hoping to acquire a different dresser soon -- it's taller and narrower than the one she has now so that should free up some more wall space. There are three bins full of out-grown clothes that fit perfectly beneath her crib so I have to find somewhere else to put them now. Meanwhile we stack two of them right next to the bed at night in case the Boogie tries to roll off. Having just the mattress on slats instead of a box spring makes it the perfect height for her to climb on and off.

 

When I used to look at her sleeping in her crib I would think that she looked so big. Now seeing her curled up on a regular mattress I think she looks so small! That's okay with me -- she is growing so fast and learning so much. It makes me sad that my baby is just not a baby anymore. Good thing I'm getting another one!

A Trip To The Shore

I've been remiss in posting lately. My Man has been home all week which has been lovely. During his furlough last month he helped his dad build the new deck at 52, so he was gone most of those days. This week has been more of a "vacation" for him.

On Tuesday we packed up the car and headed south. After driving for a little more than an hour we discovered the hard way that the Boogie gets car sick when she can only see out a side window. A stop at McDonald's gave us a chance to clean her up and eat some lunch. Our afternoon was spent at the Cape May Zoo -- it is a very nice zoo and admission is free. The Boogie loved seeing all the animals!

Snowy owl

Llamas and alpacas

These turtles sunning themselves cracked me up

These tortoises were enormous!

After the zoo we drove to Wildwood and checked into our hotel. We had a fabulous view from our room! The Boogie was excited about the "lotion", as she called the ocean. We corrected her for a while then gave up.

We had a suite with a living area, kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. The boardwalk was very quiet and hardly anything was open.

While the Boogie was enthralled with the "lotion" from a distance, she was less than enthusiastic about it up close.

I made the mistake of letting her get her feet wet right away instead of having her play in the sand for a while. She did not like her shoes to get wet and sandy. She didn't like to take her shoes off and have her feet touch the sand. She didn't like the waves. I took off my own sandals and waded -- she kept trying to bring them to me and asked repeatedly to "go in da car." The longer we stayed the more upset she got until she looked like this!

So we gave up on playing on the beach and went back to our room where she was perfectly content -- excited, even -- to view the "lotion" from the safety of our balcony. We found a local pizza place for dinner and had some great pizza. The Boogie slept in a regular bed for the first time -- we surrounded her with chairs so she couldn't roll off.

The next morning we woke up early so we could watch the sunrise. It was a little overcast but still really beautiful!

I feel compelled to confess that after watching the sun come up we crawled back into bed for another hour. :)

We kept the door to the balcony open all the time and we had a little visitor during breakfast.

I kept chasing him out but he was persistent! We didn't feed him but he must have known we had Cheerios.

After we checked out we walked down the boardwalk for a little bit. There truly was hardly anything open, but we passed several people running and on bicycles. The double-seater surreys looked so fun -- we decided that the next time we go we'll rent one.

We drove down to Cape May Point State Park where lots and lots of people were birdwatching!

They were very still and quiet and we felt like our presence would be disturbing, so we checked out some of the other things at the park. There is a beautiful old lighthouse.

The beach there was amazing!

We walked out to a World War 2 bunker -- it was a lot farther than it looked! Of course we couldn't push the stroller over the sand but the Boogie was a trooper and walked all the way out and back again.

We didn't want to pay for all of us to go up in the lighthouse since we would have had to CARRY the Boogie up all those stairs, so we settled for some pictures.

By then it was lunchtime and we were getting hungry, so we drove around Cape May for a while (there are some amazing houses there! I'm going back someday to explore.) We found a pancake house where the Boogie got hold of the camera.

This one is my favorite. It tickles me that she thought to take a picture of under the table.

We took the scenic route home (read "we forgot to change the GPS so it sent us the toll-free route") and in one small town I noticed these houses. There are three of them exactly alike, except the one in the middle is a different color.

Not really your traditional tract housing, is it?

We had a really wonderful and relaxing time. It was the perfect way to celebrate My Man's birthday!

Happy Monday

It's happy for me because My Man is home this week. Hey, if being laid off for a week is the equivalent of a week of "paid" vacation, I'll take it. I do have to work two afternoons but we are going to take a couple of days and go to the shore! I'm very excited. We're going to stay in a hotel and swim in the indoor pool and walk on the empty boardwalk and play in the sand ... it's going to be great. When My Man called the hotel last week to make a reservation the desk person said, "You know there's nothing open here, right?" My Man assured him that we only wanted to get away and didn't care about nothing being open. The desk person didn't even make our reservation because he said there are plenty of rooms open! I can't wait to wake up to an ocean view. Better go charge those camera batteries!

What You Talkin' About?

That's the Boogie's latest phrase. "Whatchu talkin' about, Daddy?" she asked him tonight, though he hadn't said anything.

Last night he wasn't home when she went to bed. She gave me a kiss and asked, "Where's my daddy?" I thought it was cute that she said my daddy instead of just Daddy.

She is showing more and more interest in sitting on her potty. This may or may not be because she's made the connection between doing something in the potty and getting an M&M which, of course, she calls an "enimen."

The other day in the car she told me a knock-knock joke. It went like this:
Boogie: "Knock, knock."
Me: "Who's there?"
B: "Donald!"
M: "Donald who?"
B: Donald! [pause] Ha ha ha ha!"
Though she doesn't grasp the concept of a punch line actually being funny, she does realize that a knock-knock joke is supposed to make you laugh.

On Monday her cousin HE was here. You need to know that HE is pretty quiet. She doesn't say a whole lot, but what she does say often comes out in a deep voice that is rather surprising to hear coming from her small self. She and the Boogie get along very well and Monday was no exception. At one point I went into my room to find the Boogie fake-trembling next to my bed.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I scary!" she said.
"What are you scared of?"
"Da monster. In dere," pointing to her room where HE was playing contentedly by herself.
"There are no monsters," I told her. "That's your cousin. She's not a monster."
"No, i's not a cousin! I's a monster! HE is da monster!" she insisted.
"She's not a monster! There are no monsters. HE is your cousin." I told her again. At that she ran into her room and asked, "HE, are you da monster?"
"Yes," HE replied in her deep voice.
The Boogie ran back to me. "Honey, honey, HE is da monster!"
Great. Not only does she think there are monsters, she thinks her cousin is one.

The Last Day Of Summer

I can't believe summer is officially going to be over tomorrow. I sort of feel like we got cheated out of it -- it was so short this year! Oh well. Maybe we'll have a nice long pleasant fall. So far we've had nice September weather.

My downstairs neighbors are smoking out on the front porch and it is coming in my windows. I can close my windows when I smell it, but then it's trapped inside. I can keep my windows closed all the time but then I never get any fresh air. Plus if they aren't smoking outside, they are smoking inside and it comes up through our furnace into our apartment. There is no escaping it. I really hate cigarette smoke. I especially hate when it comes into my own home.

Yesterday in the car we were listening to a children's cd. During "Old MacDonald Had a Farm" the Boogie would correct the singers over every animal. If they sang, "And on that farm he had a cow," she would say, "No, no, no! He had a pig!" and so on and so forth.

On Friday we watched H-man and his little brother whom the Boogie calls Toto. His name is NOT Toto but I think it's funny that she calls him that. They were both so good. H-man stayed all night though Toto went home with his parents when they got back. He is the cutest little thing with the chubbiest cheeks you ever saw. He didn't really want to take a bottle though I did my best to coax him, and even though he went a long time without eating much and I knew he was hungry, he never cried more than just a tiny bit of fussing here and there!

HE is here playing with the Boogie this morning. They get along so nicely. It's a good thing today because my stomach feels as if I've been reading in the car while riding backwards. I think I'll go back to the couch for a little while ...

Baby On The Way

Thank you to everyone for your congratulations. We are very excited about the upcoming arrival of Baby #2! I'm not sure how far along I am but I'm guessing a due date of late April/early May. It is just a guess, however, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find that I'm due around our anniversary and the Boogie's birthday! I felt pretty well until about a week ago -- I have some good days and some not-so-good days but thankfully the not-so-good hasn't been any worse than a constant feeling of motion-sickness.

My Man made a general announcement in church last Sunday night. We talked about it ahead of time and he decided to say that I had a "medical condition" which, while not life-threatening, would take several months to resolve, and that we would appreciate prayer as we had several decisions to make ... like what to name the baby. I thought it was a funny way for him to announce it but warned him to keep it very short as we didn't want to worry anyone. I think he was a little nervous though and dragged it out longer than planned -- after services we had several people congratulate us but a few of them had something to say about our way of sharing our good news. Guess we won't do that again!

The Boogie doesn't grasp the big news yet. We talk about her being a big sister, and a baby coming to our house, and things like that. When I asked her if she wants a baby brother or a baby sister, she said "baby sister" which I found interesting because usually if I ask her if she wants this or that, she just repeats what I said. She doesn't have any concept of choosing between things.

Speaking of the Boogie, her latest new words and phrases:
"Hi, kiddo" when her auntie walked in the door.
"Cutie!" holding my face in her hands as we snuggled in bed.
"It's scrumptious," while eating something.
"I wanna color with a paintbrush," when she wants to paint with watercolors.
"I'm hungry for peanut butter" and "I want a snackie-snack" when she's hungry.
"Yay-uh" instead of "yeah" and "they-er" instead of "there."
"Honey, I'm poopy, right they-er," as she turns around and points to her backside.

"Honey, I'm hungry," she told me yesterday.
"Okay," I said, "what would you like?"
"Breffits!" she exclaimed.
"Okay, what would like to eat for breakfast?" I asked.
"Waffles and sausage," she promptly replied. She's a girl who knows what she likes.

The Boogie Says ...

Boogie Of Oz

Yesterday a package arrived from my sister Vee. Inside it was a lovely necklace for me, and a mysterious package for the Boogie.

As soon as I stopped recording she spread her arms wide and said, "Thank you so much!"

How To Kill A Lobster

While out shopping yesterday we saw that seafood was on sale. Having never eaten lobster, we decided to get one. (At least I'd never had it; from some stories I've heard I think My Man has indeed eaten lobster but doesn't remember.) We chose the one we wanted, had him weighed, and brought him home where we put him in the sink. The Boogie was enthralled.


You know how when you go to the seafood department of your grocery store and see lobsters swimming around in a tank of water? Apparently they don't do that in your sink. If you put them in water in your sink they suffocate. That is to say ... they drown. Lobsters drown. Bet you didn't know that, did you? Neither did we. We learned it the hard way. When we realized that we'd efficiently though unintentionally murdered our lobster we quickly cooked and ate him. He tasted okay. I have to say I much prefer crab. But I can say I've eaten lobster now!

When HE was here the other day I found her like this. I laughed. I asked her, "Are you stuck?"
"Yes," she answered quietly. No fussing. No screaming. No drama. Not like her cousin, the Boogie.
"Okay," I said, "just a minute, let me get the camera." She was very patient. I really don't know how she managed to get in there without tipping the whole thing over! She was wedged in there pretty good, too. I had to sort of pry her out.

The Boogie has discovered how to use the camera. She is happy for a very long time snapping away. Last night she took over 150 pictures. They were mostly multiples of these:







My favorites are the self-portraits and the feet pictures. She took dozens of her daddy and me: "Say cheese, honey! Say cheese!"

Friday And September

We had HE stay the night last night. She is a quiet little thing. The Boogie is delighted to have her here though she dislikes having to share her balloons. Last night we put them both to bed and the Boogie talked them both to sleep. They slept until 7:15 this morning ... which is a great improvement over 5:45, the time the Boogie woke up yesterday morning.

My Man has been back to work all week which is good. We both get three days off for the holiday weekend, which is also good!

August ended and it was as if a switched was flipped -- the weather turned gorgeous. Days are clear and sunny and comfortably warm; nights are cool enough for open windows and light blankets. I love love love summer and am always a little bit sad to see it end. This year especially it seemed to go by more quickly than ever before. However, I can live with this weather for a while.

The Boogie has been saying "smells like birf" a lot. We have no idea what this means. It's the only context in which she uses the word "birf." We ask her similar-sounding words and she says yes to all of them. I've also asked her to show it to me but she doesn't seem to know what I mean. Maybe "birf" isn't a physical thing? It's very puzzling.

She likes to sing "Let's Go Fly a Kite" from Mary Poppins. She doesn't know all the words or get the tune exactly right, so it goes something like this: "Let's go fly a kite, up to the atmosphere, up to the atmosphere we'll send it soaring," and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. It's like "The Song That Never Ends" only with different words. I am impressed with her ability to say "atmosphere" though.

Y'all have a happy holiday weekend! Maybe something exciting (in a good way) will happen for me to blog about next week. You never know what a weekend might contain, right?