Overheard

Stepping onto the new scale in my bathroom, Adrie says "I'm not THAT many!"

[pondering] "Mom, am I that many?"

[steps off the scale, pushes a few buttons, steps back on]

then, "That's better."

I've really cracked down on Adrie saying mean things and back-talking me lately. When she gets mad and knows I will follow through on time out or soap, she pulls out the best non-punishable insult she can think of:

"Then I don't love Jesus."

What can I say to that!?

A New Favorite

It's well after midnight and I just spent a few hours gathering/editing photos for printing; I will be at Costco first thing tomorrow.

In the meantime, here's my newest fave:

again, Raquel is amazing.

Morning Conversations

[getting in the car to take off for babysitter/work]

Alaina: "Alright! Shall we listen to Halo?"

Adrie: "No. I don't want that song."

Alaina: [makes exaggerated sad face]

Adrie: [sweetly] "We could listen to 'Dream' though, if you want to. After Dream, we can listen to Halo."

after a litany of girl music in the car

Adrie: "Can we listen to the "Good Morning" song?"

Alaina: "I don't know that one. What song are you talking about?"

Adrie: "It's a boy one."

Alaina: [thinking hard. We play this 'can-you-read-Adrie's-mind' game quite frequently.]

Alaina: "Oh! This one?" [turns on "Still Fighting It"]

Thank you, Ben Folds, for providing a "boy" song my daughter likes.

Here's the playlist of songs she knows and requests (and even says "Louder, Mom.")

Two blogs in one week? I know, I know.

"What might this bizarre picture represent?" you may be asking yourself. Well, an unnamed 3 year-old decided to drop Princess Aurora down a heating vent tonight. Thank you to prince charming for wrigging up a wire hanger to rescue Aurora, her dress, and her head. Yes, somehow she ended up in three separate pieces. That's one creative little girl.

And below we are checking out dorm living. Adrie kicked off her shoes and climbed into the bed she could actually reach before I even knew what had happened. Pictured: pretending to be a dead princess.

Thanks for the fun dinner Mally, we love you lots!

She's Three!

For the last several months Adrie has been telling people "My birthday's on Sunday" or "My birthday's in a few weeks" - and it finally arrived! We had a little shin dig and pictures are coming thanks to Mallory's camera (my little Elph is in the shop.)

She became obsessed with letters this past week or two. "There's an 'A!' An 'A' for Adrie, and for Alaina!" and "There's a 'C!' a 'C' for Cherri!" She still only knows a handful on her own, but regularly asks "What letter does that start with?" At her birthday party she pretended to read aloud a few of the cards, following the words along with her finger and finishing with a "The END." By sight she 100% recognizes A, B, C, M, S, and O.

The way her mind works is hilarious. Just tonight, holding up my small gold ring, she said "When my head gets littler, and my get shrinks littler, can I wear this like a pretty necklace?"

At bedtime she sweetly asks "Will you lay in bed with me?" which is a funny sight because I still keep her in a crib. Tonight we sang: 1) Savages from Pocahontas, 2) Umbrella (Mandy Moore version) and she begged for 3) Single Ladies (Beyonce). I refused on that one, singing "I love to see the temple" instead. Gotta get a little good mothering in there where I can.

In this picture we were sitting in the "tower" at the top of the slide, so the "bad guys" wouldn't get us. We sat there for awhile listening to the light rain drumming on the roof. Moments like this I revel in being a mom. And I love her to bursting.

Singing

Adrie's started making up songs - it's rather hilarious. Last night it went like this:

A: "Sing the church song, mom."

M: "Hmm. How does that one go? Sing it for me."
A: "Churchy, churchy, church

You're so pretty.

Covered in glitter

and you are pink."

I then sang it back to her, messing up the last line because she promptly corrected me - "It's PINK!"

Her other favorite is to bestow a complimentary song on me when she's pleased with something I've done. It goes like this:

A: "Mom. I'm going to say you are a good girl."

[singing] "Momma's not a bad girl, Momma's a good girl, Momma's a good girl foh-EV-er..."

(just watch out, when she wants to piss me off she sings about me being a 'bad girl,' watching for my reaction...)

A typical morning around here

Alaina (walking into her room): "Good morning beautiful! I missed you! Time to wake up. Are you ready to say a prayer?"

Adrie: "Nah, I just want to talk to you for a minute first."

Alaina: "Okay. How was your night?"

Adrie: "Good. The sun came up. What are we gonna do today?"

Alaina: "We're gonna go to Tanner's house while I go to work, and then go to the park for a dinner picnic and kick the soccer ball..."

Adrie: "Okay! Let's pray."

Potty Training & Other Adrie FUN

My how time flies. My little angel has turned into a back-talking, bossy, yet hilarious little girl.

• "oh-KAY Mom, oh-KAY!" and sometimes it goes on - "Okay okay okay okay okay oKAY!"
• Don't forget "I won't do it again!" Anytime I even hint I'm unhappy with her, it's "I'm sorry mom! I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! I won't do it again!"
• In response to ANY request I make (like 'please stop hitting that wall') she responds "I was JUST ____" (fill in the blank.) "I was just swinging him around." "I was just touching it." "I was just trying to see if it would do that."
• "I'm just teasin' ya." or "I'm just kidding." -OR- "You're just kidding about taking a nap mom, right?"
• "It's just pretend. It's not real."
• Annoyingly, she needs everything she sees and points out acknowledged, and if I don't say "Oh, yeah" or some acknowledgement she starts to cry. This is really difficult when I can't tell what the heck she's pointing at. "Look at that mom! Look at that thing! See it? What is that?"
• She is oh-so-curious about the world around her. Driving home in the dark the other night, she was so concerned about where all of the clouds went. She wants to know where the moon goes in the daytime, why Cherri's hair is curly, why I can't sleep in bed with her, and more. To hear her making sense of her world aloud is pretty awesome.
• Her tendency to repeat sentances over and over without seeming able to get out the last word or two is becoming pretty apparent. I'm hoping it's because she's such an advanced talker for her 2.75 year-old brain power and not a true stutter. I'm not worried about it, in fact I feel my own patience with her growing exponentially.
• She is getting to an age where I often worry what will come out of her mouth for the embarassment potential it holds. She asks random people in public their names, tells everyone at the store she's a big girl wearing panties now, and the usual toddler jib jab. Two great moments this month, though - at the family dinner of a boy I like, she walked into the room in front of everyone and said "You marry him, mom." I didn't really acknowledge her, hoping it could gloss over, so my darling Adrie grew louder and pointed with her whole arm extended: "You marry HIM, mom." When said boy came to visit yesterday with gorgeous flowers, she said "You brought my mom married flowers? Are these married flowers? Why aren't you married mom?" Oh, my child. She is a crack up.
  
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A couple of weeks ago we tried a few experimental days of wearing 'panties' that were not a full attempt at training. But her awareness became heightened, and through the priceless help of my sitter Cherri, Adrie has spent every day this week in underwear, with only a few accidents. Her whole face lights up with surprise when something actually happens in the toilet, and she says "You're so proud of me mom! You're so proud of me!" It's actually pretty fun. I am glad I waited until she was ready and excited about it, because it really hasn't been a battle at all.

Life is good. Have I said that lately? Life is grand.

Adrie's First Camping

I know, busy life = sporadic blogging. My apologies.

I never got around to camping last summer, so it was on my must-do list this year. First pic: I had to document the making of a proper tinfoil dinner. Every time I make a tinfoil dinner my Dad's voice is in my head, coaching me on the perfect way to arrange the ingredients and seal it tightly. We had a great spot up Provo canyon at Big Springs, with running water just a stone's throw away. Adrie would beg to go "swim" - it was freezing. My legs went numb after 5 seconds. She'd wade to her knees, and also put her hair in (middle pic). She also wanted to go on frequent walks, begging for us to pick gigantic dandelions. We explored a beaver dam and she enjoyed riding on shoulders and also 'hiking' on her own.

My little scaredy-cat freaked out about the popping of the fire. She cried nonstop and chose to stay zipped up in the tent for the first hour. Kendall came up with the genius idea of a "safe" blanket, which coaxed her to actually sit with us for awhile. By about 10:30 pm overtired delirium had set in, and she forgot her fears while entertaining us with her chasing the "light bug" (flashlight spots on the ground) and catching & killing "butterflies" (moths). The largest moth I have ever seen landed right on her foot, and she calmly tried to kick it off as we all screamed in horror/delight/hilarity (depending on who you ask). She's a mixed bag of fears, that one.

After it got dark she started saying "Let's go home now." However, she did surprisingly well at sleeping a full night (well, midnight-6 am I suppose). She cried again over the popping fire for breakfast, choosing to eat (yet another) cold hot dog. Maybe next time she'll be a little braver...

Corduroy

Remember this book?  A classic as I grew up that I couldn't resist at Borders a few months ago (despite the $9.99 price tag for a soft cover book!?).  It has become one of Adrie's standard night time stories.

Well, tonight the very last thing she said as I placed her teddy bear by her chin (night time routine, you know) was "This is Corduroy!  and I am Lisa!" I laughed and then she shocked me by giving that bear a big squeeze and saying 

"YOU are my VERY - OWN - BEAR!"

If my heart grows any bigger I don't think I'll be able to contain it inside of me any longer :).

As for me, since I do have a life outside this beautiful daughter of mine:

• I ate enough junk food at work to compensate for my grocery store temptations.
  
• I also started the "Biggest Loser" competition at work - my team consists of 3 other huge guys, so I've got to carry my weight!
  
• Therefore, combine grocery hiatus + diet = I am gonna go forever without shopping again.  Awww yeah.
• I am throwing my own birthday mixer.  If you are (a) local and (b) looking to expand your circle of friends, you are officially invited.
  
• I am mentoring with a photographer I blog-stalk (Jess Kettle - see here!) and I'm really excited.

Life is GOOD!

Yet another Adrie update - and round 2 with the camera

This girl does new things every single day, and I NEED to document all the things swirling around in my head before she's 24 years old and I forget them all:

• She's been singing "You don't never know..." (from Colors of the Wind)
• She realized that we have about 10 good movies at our house, and she now watches a different one at each sitting (Cinderella, Pocahontas, Barbie and the Nutcracker, the Lion King, and the Swan Princess are in the top categories this week. She also sat through all of Snow White the first time.)
• She continues to say "I'm gonna get married. In the temple. But I need to get bigger first. In a white dress. With married flowers. And a married ring!"
• With church songs and lullabies at night she requests "Odette's song," "the Colors song" and "Cinderella's song."
• She is really curious about directions, and extremely accurate about where we are. For example, any non-babysitter time we get off on 1600 North she starts a panic "We're not going to Tanner's house!? We're not going to Tanner's house?!!!" She knows when "We're almost home!" and "My Dad's house is that way," "The Church is that way" and more!
• She's become a big climber lately - I walked into the front room to find my dining room chandelier swinging even though she knew enough to get down before I appeared. She climbs all over the couches and asks me if she can sit on the end tables.
• For the curious girl she is, I am SO LUCKY she really doesn't "get into" things. She'll find something she knows she's not supposed to have (like a box of candy) and eat maybe one until she brings it to me.
• She's started the "Pleeeeease! Puh-leeeeeeeazzzze!" I will admit I am not immune to this tactic :)

Here she stood saying "Let us in! The gates are locked! Oh no!"

Oh my Adrie

Here is Adrie contemplating her sucker in tonight's photo shoot, trying to decide if the bribery is worth it:

I don't know what it is about this girl... but she just WILL NOT LOOK AT ME and it drives me a little bit nuts.  Oh well.  Here's what we got tonight with my new camera.  I'm a little overwhelmed with the upgrade but once I can finally get the hang of it I'll be oh-so-happy.

I'm loving the crisp images, even with my tendency to overexpose.  

After a cloudy evening, the sun peeped through for one final goodbye as Adrie sat herself in "time out" - yes, she asked for it - she was in trouble for running away.  Far, far away.  Any suggestions on how to get her to "Stop!" and "Come back!" ?  This here "Mean Mom" would love any advice :)

Sigh.  Isn't she a doll?  I sort of want to go wake her up and snuggle her after looking at her gorgeous photos.  I am a lucky mom.

We live!

I'm a little overwhelmed at knowing where to begin.  Life has been busy, I've had craziness at work, a surprising amount of photo business for this cold season, and my Adrie is amazing.  I spend every free second I can with her.  We've hit up the "hot pool" at least 5 times in the last 2 weeks - her whole face lights up and she becomes the happiest girl in the world when I mention swimming.

For history's sake:

• She alternates between obsessions with Thumbelina and the Swan Princess this week.  
  
• She wants to know the character's names, and often tells me the story in the car.  "Mom, what's the mean guy's name?"  "Rothbart."  "Rothbart, the mean guy, took her!  He turns her into a Swan!  And the prince comes to save her!"
  
• Pretend play is making its way into her world.  At naptime she told me she's Odette, and "You be the prince, mom.  Then you have to dance with me, and marry me."
  
• She still reads "Baby Adrie's Story" at least once a day.
  
• Lately it's "My eyes are blue.  They're gonna turn pink."  She has mentioned many, many times that she wants pink eyes.
  
• "Pink is my favorite."  "Mom, you like Purple.  It's your favorite."  (Hmmm... I didn't know that?)
  
• Sticker charts saved my terrible-two'd monster.  I'll write a whole blog about that soon.
  
• She won't let me "like" anything she does.  When we look at pictures in books and I say "Oh, I like that one" it's not uncommon to hear "No!  I like it.  You can like that one."  (Isn't that like a 6 year-old thing to do!?)
  
• There's a little cyst on her eyelid, and we went to see the eye doctor about it.  After practicing ahead of time "This is the nice doctor, he won't hurt you, he's just gonna touch your eye" she walked right up to that doctor and said clear as a bell "Hi Doctor.  Are you gonna fix my eye?"  He about fainted and the office staff swooned.  That's my girl.  
• She now tells me at least once a day, "The nice doctor fixed the owie in my eye!"
• Band aids are the greatest toy ever.  I have to hide them even more carefully than candy!  Then again, she asked me to rip one off today... hahaha, she might not stick any more big ones on her leg.  She was a little shocked at how much it hurt coming off.

We got to play outside for 30 minutes today... good excuse to play around with my camera.  I had such a hard time getting her to hold still!  "Hug the tree!" I said, and boy she did.

Ruminations of a 2 year-old

We've started mini Family Home Evening lessons by reading from a new Book of Mormon lift-the-flap book.  Tonight Adrie looked at this new book and matter-of-factly said "Jesus gave it to me."

Her frequent soliloquoy goes something like this:  "It's Jesus!  He's in the temple.  Let's go see 'im.  The door is closed.  It's locked!  Oh no!  Open it.  Let's see Jesus in the temple."  She now associates the temple with His House no matter what.  Hope she's not disappointed someday :)

In general she's been asking "Where did Jesus go?"  I tried to explain heaven - all she got was "He's in the sky.  On an airplane.  Or he has wings?"  I tried not to laugh and assured her that Jesus does not have wings.

Secondly,

Our darling sitter Cherri is noticeably expecting, and Adrie has latched onto this idea.  All

 weekend she kept checking out my stomach and saying "Mom, you don't have a baby in there."  

I pulled out a scrapbook of pictures of myself pregnant and then Adrie's birth story, and she now begs to read "Baby Adrie's story" several times a day.  "There's a baby in there!  It's Adrie!  She's gonna come OUT!  And get BIG!  She's crying.  She's really tired."

At Sunday dinner Uncle Randy (Grandpa, as Adrie calls him :) said something about Adrie being bored, and she misheard him - her whole face lit up as she said "Yeah!  I was BORN!  I got BORN! I got BORN!!!"

This morning's soliloquoy went something like this:  "Cherri's got a baby in her tummy.  He's not big yet, mom.  He's naked.  He's really cold.  He's gonna come out so I can touch him."  

How can I possibly love this girl any more than I already do!?!?

The Attention of a 2 Year-Old

New Tricks:

• "Keem up!  Keem up!"  (clean up)
  
• "I'll hold 'em" pointing out candy or toys she wants in books.  She grasps futilely at the page, trying to hold whatever it is she wants, and is quite frustrated when she can't 'hold' it.
  
• "Lick 'em" or "Eat it" as she licks at or tastes the page of whatever in her book looks good.
  
• "I'll hold it."  Same as above, but to things like a pretty car, a helicopter in the sky, or anything she wishes she could hold.
  
• "So sorry."  If she even moves to hit me or anything where she sees that look on my face, she instantly turns sweet and strokes my hair and says "So sorry Mom", usually followed with gentle kisses.  How can I argue with that!?

Our bedtime routine has added a new element - "Sing!"  It's quite flattering to have the daughter who yells "No!" when I try to sing in the car songs like "Little bunny foo-foo" or "There was a little house in the middle of the woods" beg me to sing at bedtime.  There are the staples like "I am a child of God" and "I love to see the temple" but we're varying it a little bit with Broadway, high school jazz choir pieces, and other things to broaden her horizons.  

And lastly, here's the ten-second attention span for a prayer.

The Terrible Twos

They're great and terrible.

She starting answering a quiet "Mmm-hmm" or "Mmm-mmm" instead of yes or no, so quickly that I question if I even heard it.  She is patient and says "Mmm-hmm" or "Mmm-mmm" again when I say "What?"

She gets in moods where she says "no" to every single request, ever.  

She also says "Sorry Mama."

When I ask "What's MY name?"  She says "Mama."  Until I tell her, and then she'll say in an excited voice that melts my heart, "A-way-nuh."  

She's decided she hates bedtime with a passion.  She refuses to put pajamas on, she cries for hours in her bed, as soon as it gets dark she starts protesting bedtime.

She repeats words.  Today I heard her practicing "Dang it, dang it, dang it" to her doll.  Last night Kendall said something about "obscenity" in the car and yup, there goes Adrie, clear as day - "Obscenity."

She also says "Halloween!"  Here is the Halloween tree we put up today.  When my mom stayed with me and my newborn baby Adrie she gifted us the ingredients for this family tradition.  Last Halloween was too crazy to get around to it, so it's fun to see it this year and reminisce.

The Birthday Bash

I'll be brief. We had a fun day, she loved knowing it was her birthday, she kept asking "a party?" and "Adrie Presents?" This morning when she woke up I let her see the presents I had wrapped for her, and she cried forlornly (not a tantrum cry, but one that really broke my heart) when I tried to explain they were for "later."

So I let her open one.

She spent the day at our darling sitter's, who had a Happy Birthday banner up and balloons all ready for their daytime celebration. Then tonight we had a little get-together of nearby family and neighbors with Adrie-aged children (sorry we couldn't invite you ALL!) I'll let the pictures tell the rest:






This next picture of Adrie is my very favorite. She was absolutely giddy and astounded to have a group of people singing "Happy Birthday" to her, looking from her Dad to them to me in excitement, sort of like "Are you seeing this!?" Best part of the whole night for me, seeing her so excited in the center of attention. You can see her clapping after the song in the picture after that.

Happy Birthday Baby!

Two Years Ago

I'm feeling more than a little sentimental today as I realize that my Adrie has been part of my life for two years today. I'm going to reminisce - it's not graphic - but might not be the 'thing' for you so feel free to skip it.

She was due on Sept 14th, and I was disappointed that I was feeling NO contractions or signs to herald her arrival. Saturday night the 16th I went to the University mall by myself and walked around for hours, window shopping mostly. I most vividly remember being in Bath & Body Works, and I think I bought my firstwallflowers air fresheners.

Sunday morning Sept 17th, 2006 I woke up and upon starting to get out of bed, realized my water was broken. I called the hospital, still in semi-disbelief that this could actually mean I was having a baby. I called the ER where Kurt was working and paged for him to call me - which meant all of his coworkers and he knew already what that meant. While he hurried I home I leisurely gathered up my things, washed my face & did makeup, and got ready to go.

On the car ride to the hospital - which was a glorious, sunny Sunday morning - we hit up a redbox outside McDonalds for hospital entertainment. We tried timing 'contractions' but they still weren't very painful and not that big of a deal. Kurt wore his scrubs to the hospital for extra prestige and respect - which really seemed to work! They checked us in to the hospital, and I was still half-expecting them to say "go home" or something - and it wasn't until I stripped into only a hospital gown that I really realized I wouldn't be leaving this hospital without a baby.

We spent the day in a beautiful room with a gorgeous view, and despite the fact I brought books, movies, and lots to do, we mostly sat around, talked, thought, journaled a little. With the help of ptsosin I progressed amazingly fast, and it was fun to have my doctor check in on me every few hours in his suit and tie, neglecting stake presidency duties across the street. With the mercy of my early epidural - about 11:00 in the morning, only an hour or so after arriving at the hospital - I was amazingly comfortable and enjoying the experience. We watched contractions on the screen and I only pushed the "more drugs" button once. I had to wear an oxygen mask because her heartbeat would drop after contractions. I was pretty shocked to have a nurse come check me and say "She's station 3" which I knew from my birth class station 4 meant 'delivered'! I couldn't believe my good fortune!

About 6:00 in the evening with the change in nurses, my new nurse decided we could practice pushing. They helped prop me up in that bed - it was awful not being able to move my legs entirely on my own! - and the most uncomfortable part of this whole experience was sitting scrunched up with my ribs killing me due to the massive baby there. We did one set of practice pushes - which is 3 pushes 10 seconds each - and then she said "We'd better not push anymore, I've got to call the doctor." I tried to adjust because of my aching ribs (seriously, I was hurting - which is really funny to me now, being that my ribs were the worst part!) and she looked over and said "Don't MOVE!" they called a team to deliver because the doctor wasn't there, but he swooped in just in time and at 6:23 pm after one big push and the craziest feeling I've ever experienced in my life as she came out of me - like losing your stomach in reverse - Adrienne Sage was born.

She didn't cry a lot, or very loud, and she was surprisingly clean. I looked at her with interest, sort of like "Huh. That's her. Interesting. She's cute." It was not really love at first sight, which some of you may think sounds awful but I am totally okay with. Kurt was completely enamored and followed her around while being cleaned & checked. As I was still in the process of finishing up I said "Whoa! That wasn't so bad. I could do that again!" and the doctor laughed.

We spent every hour we were allotted in the hospital, and kept Adrie in the room all but 4 of those hours, to get a little sleep the second night. We didn't interact with the nurses much and I didn't leave my room for the full 2 days. It was sort of like our little island.

We came home and began life! She was an easygoing, happy baby who cried very little unless she needed something, or during that fussy period in the evenings. Grandma Wood always said "You're going to spoil that baby by holding her so much!" and Grandma Williams kept saying "You just wait, around ten days old they 'wake up' a little" (meaning she wouldn't always be so good-natured.) They were both wrong, and Adrienne Sage has been an easygoing joy and delight for the whole two years I've been blessed to have her in my life.