Slaneycue

Slane is so funny. I love to listen to her commentary on life and the things she sees.

Things like:

See the moon! The moon is flying!

Hear that! The bird is singin'!

Flag!

You daddycue. I'm Slaneycue. That's mommycue.

I need to see my (insert name of person of the day)!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I also love to watch her play on her own. Her imagination is amazing!

I've seen her do these things lately:

Saturday we were raking leaves. We had just gotten Slane a toy rake, so she "helped," but as she helped, she was moving leaves out of the piles, all while carrying a purse.

She races her toy cars on the piano or the couch. Sometimes she races her "BIG TRUCK" from Epa!

She carries around a cabbage patch and tells us the baby is crying or sleeping.

She is very concerned about the hungry animals in her barn.

She plays with her hockey guys (and sometimes they get into fights and go to timeout!).

Worth a read

Miscellaneous reflections after an entire week of parenting - Amid celebrating Slane's second birthday and preparing for BabyCue #2, I liked reading Chris' observations. Maybe we should start a baby girl's clothing collection free of pink. Of course, it now seems to be Slane's favorite color. (h/t to Tyler Cowen)

R.I.P. Flip Camera - We love our flip and we don't have an iPhone (yet). It fits us now - quick videos, but able to shoot higher quality, too. MamaCue has used it for her music classes and performances. But phones have better cameras now and if/when we get a dSLR, the Flip may become Slane's camera of choice. (h/t to Jason Kottke, who also notes, "There's an app for that")

Here's looking at two

Slane turned two last week. And this year more than last year I remembered all that went with her birth. The labor, her being stuck, the C-section, the feeding issues, etc. But, all worth it for our healthy, happy, spunky little girl. It was spring break so I even got to spend the day with her. We had lunch with my mom and sister and went to the science center to play for a while. She knows she is two, and if you ask her she will hold up five fingers and tell you she is two. She can't figure out how to hold up two fingers yet. She'll get it. Her party is Saturday, and we'll have birthday pictures then. We haven't had camera batteries for a while and since we rearranged and redid our living room, our computer has been out of commission, so we will get to it. Promise.

infected!

Poor Slane has a double ear infection. This time I called it, about halfway through the Wizard of Oz production that we probably shouldn't have taken a feverish, moany child to. But she loved the show and I knew she would, so we took her anyway. At least we weren't infecting other kids with some horribly contagious disease. But she will have to be on antibiotics for her birthday, which is not fun.

We have cabin fever. It was nice enough Friday to go for a walk, and once I convinced Slane to ride in the stroller that I picked, and not the wagon, we had a nice walk. We headed to the athletic center on campus and watched a bit of the high school indoor track meet. It was crazy packed and there was no way I could let Slane out and run so we only stayed for 5 races before we headed home. But Saturday was not so nice and we only went to the post office. Slane was starting to get sick that afternoon and spent a lot of time just lying on the couch while I made massive amounts of muffins.

We are anxiously awaiting weather that is nice enough to stay outside until the sun sets. Next week is Spring Break, maybe it will be nice for us. Maybe. I intend to get in as much Slane time as possible before we go back to the grind.

May the pants be with you!

Now that the last post is published, I can add this as well. I wrote it several weeks ago.

I vaguely remember playing a Star Wars game in which the word "force" was replaced with the word "pants." This is not about that.

In the fall, when I was pregnant with Hyfrydol, when I had the opportunity to purchase pants, I did not do it. I thought I would be wearing maternity pants soon enough and could make it with just a few pairs of pants.

For Christmas, I asked for pants. I was given a generous gift card with the instructions to buy pants. I couldn't find a single pair at that particular store that fit me (I tried on over 14 pairs over the course of 2 days). I bought a Glee shirt and a hat and scarf with most of the money instead. That was my lone shopping chance.

So, again, here I am with 4 pairs of pants, not wanting to get new ones, because I just need to make it to skirt weather and maternity clothes and things will be fine.

Except that I have before school playground duty and Monday when I bent over to retrieve the football that had been kicked at me, I ripped the crotch out of my khakis. Fortunately, the good art teacher next door had khaki colored duct tape and it held up for the day. Q told me to go to the mall and get pants after school. I went to one store and they had none. They sent me to another store, and they had none in my size. I finally found a pair at the Maurice's in Grinnell.

I hated that I had to get pants right now. I won't be able to wear them again until sometime in November. But I guess at least I have pants. May the pants be with you.

choir and books

Slane loves a good book. She asks us to read many books before bed, and is starting to ask for the story two or three times. Sometimes she even "reads" part of the book to us. She can quote all of "Five Little Monkeys" and almost has "Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing" down.

Q and I have been fortunate enough to continue to participate in the church choir even though we have a busy toddler to entertain. When she was first born, we took a break but then managed to stick with it last year. This year it has been more difficult, due in large part to the fact that Slane is fully mobile and verbal. At first it looked like one of us was just chasing her around during rehearsals. It got to the point that I told Q that maybe one of us should not do choir because we weren't getting much out of it (or contributing much). Just a few days after I said that the church hired a nursery worker to watch Slane while we were in rehearsal. It has been wonderful! Slane loves to play and we love to sing, so it works out.

But, what about actually singing during church? Well.....at first it was easy to just hand a tiny, social, baby to anyone who had free hands. Then it got a little bit harder, and sometimes Slane didn't take being passed off very well. We tend to give her to the same person, Karla, who sits near our spots (yes, we are that kind of church, where we all sit in basically the same locations each week).

This week when I passed Slane off to Karla, Karla showed me that she had been coming prepared to church. She has been bringing Slane appropriate books to church in her purse! Brilliant. Slane is occupied, Karla gets to enjoy the anthem (not always the case with Slane), and we get to sing.

a walk outside

It was warm enough yesterday that much of our neighborhood had escaped their houses and were enjoying the weather. I could smell several grills going, lots of dogs were being walked, runners were out, and everyone was in a good mood. It was muddy, and messy, but no one cared.

Slane and I took two walks. First she wanted to walk, and we did. There was a little boy (littler than Slane anyway) down the block and first we went to say hi to him. As is her way lately, she slightly accosted the poor child with hugs and her constant flow of commentary about life and babies. We then walked back home and cleaned up our driveway a bit (the recyclers did not pick up our stuff, instead I found it upside down in the middle of the driveway).

We went into the sunroom, opened a couple of windows, and played kitchen and cars for a bit before Slane discovered her strollers, and begged to go for a ride. So I packed her up in a stroller and we walked the neighborhood until we came to impassable mud and turned around.

It felt so good to get outside. We have been just going, going, going lately and it was great to slow down and enjoy life outside our house for a bit.

There are several pictures on the camera that I would love to get up soon, but I need to find batteries for the camera first, and then install the new computer mouse, and take care of a few other things first. Pics to come!