Daddy-o's Birthday

We had a great time celebrating Daddy's birthday on Thursday. We took him out to eat at his favorite restaurant - Growler's, of course - where he got his free annual birthday dinner. Uncle Nicky-o met us after work, too.

Maria and I made a homemade orange layer cake that afternoon as well. Since Charles got his Wii well before his actual birthday, we got him a Vitale's Bakery t-shirt (love those canolli's!), and a birthday poster made by mommy and Maria (OK, mostly by mommy, but Maria definitely contributed to the effort.) Here is the life-sized poster we made. Note that Maria's right leg is not actually that skinny... it's very hard to trace a 2 year old!

Maria said...

I've been prepping Maria for Charles's birthday tomorrow, and I was trying to get Maria to say "Daddy is 31!" Here's the breakdown:

Mommy: Tomorrow is Daddy's birthday. He's going to be 31!

Maria: No, Daddy 18. He my friend.


Yep, she's a Daddy's girl!

Boy crazy?

Should I be worried that my two year-old has a thing for older men?

Maria has always been a Daddy's girl, but I think the trouble started when Uncle Nicky-o moved to town in January. She immediately preferred him over anyone who entered the room. We'd be playing happily, then Nick would come in.... Immediately the rest of us were chopped liver. Thankfully Nick has endless patience with her, and goes with flow, even when she's bossing him around. He's the only one she actually talks to on the telephone. Everyone else gets the dial-tone. Nicky-o is 'the man' to our Maria.

Our next clue that she was a little flirt was when she lunged for our friend, Mike Miller, when his child-loving, ever-smiling wife Carolyn was right next to him. She wanted Mike over Carolyn? What's wrong with this picture??? Not to mention their son James. Maria actually picked up my cell phone out of the blue and said, "I call James." Huh?? We hadn't seen them for weeks, but James was still on her mind. Yikes, we're in trouble.

Then it was Uncle John. We spent quite a bit of time around Uncle John recently, and suddenly he was the "Flavor of the Week." Maria would grab one of his fingers and drag him around, and he would follow. I'd say, "Let's call Daddy at work!" and she'd reply, "Nooooo. Call Jooooohn!" It's a good thing she's cute.

Then this past weekend, Maria grabbed the phone again and out of the blue said, "I call Josh." (Josh is my sister Jackie's boyfriend.) Josh??? We hadn't seen Josh for weeks, and she payed little attention to him when we did. In fact, Maria used to be terrified of Josh. Once, he instinctively tried to prevent her from ingesting a handful of dirt, and scared the living daylights out of her. This was a while back, but she remembered that incident. Now she was asking for him?? Interesting. By chance on Sunday we happened to see Josh, and her little world stopped. Her whole day revolved around him! She was literally flirting with him - batting her eyes, teasing him, chasing him. It was pathetic. At one point she even banned the entire family from the basement so that she could have Josh all to herself. "Upstairs, Mommy. All the way!" she pointed! Hmmm.... Thankfully, Josh was a good sport and went along with Maria's pleas and bossiness. "This way, Josh! C'mere! I show you!" She had him jumping through hoops the whole day. My sister Jackie even tried to lure her away from Josh with fingernail polish and candy. But that quick-fix only lasted a few minutes, then it was back to Josh, Josh, Josh! I'm betting Josh slept well on Sunday night.

I'm sure this will be poster-sized and framed in Maria's room before long...

Today it's Josh, but who will be next? What's a mother to do...

"More zoo, please!"

Charles's cousin, Amanda, is in town visiting from Oklahoma, so we've been doing the tourist thing for the past few days. (See our trip to the Botanical Gardens below.) Monday took us to the good 'ole zoo. This is our 3rd trip to the zoo this spring/summer, and Maria is really loving it. She knows what to expect, but she's still excited by all of the animals and attractions.

Maria LOVES having Amanda around. She held Amanda's hand walking around (while I shlepped around the childless stroller). And she wanted to do just about everything Amanda did. Even to the point of letting go of my hand in the goat area. But she kept a tight grip on Amanda's shorts!

Maria really got into the activities set up in the Children's Zoo building this time around. She loved cutting up the play food provided, and persistently tried to give it to the guinea pigs until the nice zoo worker said thank you, but they weren't hungry right now.

Then she ran right up to the mini-veterinarian play area they had. She 'fixed' the little toy camel they had (poor thing never knew what hit him!).

And her usual favorites, the water fountains and slide, were skipped over in favor of looking at the animals in the mini-cages scattered throughout the Children's Zoo. She loves owls and turtles right now. She even paused long enough to let me get a picture of her in front of the animal height chart:

We feel pretty cool going to the zoo with our membership this year (Thanks, Nonnie!). We pull right into the 'close parking' spaces that I longed for as a child, ease right up to the counter to get our tickets for the children's zoo, train, carousel, and sea lion shows, and then set off on our day. That's it! No waiting in line, crossing your fingers that you brought enough cash, or sneakily staying away from the carousel because we didn't bring enough money! We bring our lunch, so we have a GREAT day without having to dent the bank account at the same time!

Maria crashed in the car, of course, but this time happily with Amanda, her new "fwend" alongside in the backseat. She woke up when we pulled in the driveway and said, "More zoo, please!"

Don't worry, we'll definitely be back!

Niki Exhibit - fun for everyone!

Today we visited the Niki Exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. I was very impressed with the mosaic glass sculptures throughout the gardens, and Maria was too! It helped that we went with Nonni, cousin Amanda, and Uncle Nick (now forever known as "Nicky-O!" thanks to Maria.) Nick and Amanda showed Maria all the neat 'gardens' and chased her through the Children's Garden as well. This was our first real experience in the kids' area - we were very impressed! Maria loved the fountains, sandbox, and rope ladders, but decided to skip the slides today. She keeps us guessing!

Here are a few highlights from our outing today.

June 2008 - new photo added

Although the month isn't quite over, it's been a very busy one! The biggest happening is my brother John's wedding to Erin. It was definitely a great day for all of us. Maria took one look at Erin in her wedding dress and said "Princess Erin!". We've seen them a few more times this week, and Maria is still using this nickname.

John and Erin with Jackie and Julie:

Here we are at the reception before Maria pooped out and went home to Uncle Nick:

Maria has also been taking an 'excercise class' this month, and she has really enjoyed it. My goal was for her to spend time around other kids and for her to listen and follow directions from another adult. She has done very well in both respects! Her teacher, Miss Vicki, is the new character in her pretend-play at home. Maria pretends to get out the balls, jump on the trampoline, and count her steps - just like Miss Vicki. Here are a few highlights from the class:

In this activity, Maria is supposed to 'control' the ball and roll down to the mirror and stick her tongue out at herself. Needless to say, she was most interested in the sticking the tongue out part!

Trampoline jumping with the famous Miss Vicki.

The 'cup run' relay - again with Miss Vicki! (She gets her own workout chasing the 2 year olds!)

May 2008

Well, it's only been 6 weeks this time! It's busy as usual here. I am officially off for the summer - from May 8 until the 3rd week in July - so we've been cramming in as much fun as possible in the recent weeks. Unfortunately, I haven't been great about taking pictures because most of what we've been doing has been spur-of-the-moment fun. But the batteries are charged and ready to go now!

Maria is such a whirlwind of fun right now - talking up a storm and singing non-stop. Anything she hears in musical form is filed away in her little brain and comes back (in parts) later in her own little musical rendition. Her favorite song of the moment is the ABC's. She fumbles through the L-M-N-O-P like any beginner, and the tune is priceless! We may be forking over some big bucks in the future for some music lessons, because she sure has the interest!!! Daddy has also trained her in the car to identify Bruce Springsteen... just what every 2 year old needs to know!

Her interest in counting everything under the sun is waning a bit. As a teacher with a little background in early childhood, I was a little worried when she seemed 'fixated' on the counting... but she has since lost interest in the constant repetitious counting we saw last month. But she attempts to count past 13, with everything adding a 'teen' to the end... 'eleventeen, twelveteen....'. It's priceless...

She is now into negotiating with us as well. "Just one more" is her current plea when we tell her it's time to stop something. Or, my personal favorite, "I do it YATER, mommy!" (she still can't say those 'L's' very well!) So just one more bite, has turned into "One more bite yater, OK?"

Our big accomplishment of late is getting rid of the daytime pacifier. Maria has been quite the 'Paci-Queen' for a few months now, and I was beginning to worry about her speech/articulation development. So.... after 1 full week of enjoying Maria after my school year was over, I decided to bite the bullet and take it away on Monday morning, reserving it for only the bed. I decided to keep it out of site/reach for her on the shelf in her room. I had been advised to let Maria do the 'putting away' of the paci, and I laughingly said, "Yeah! Sure, that'll work!" But 'lo and behold, after the initial shock of me telling her that yes, we love paci, and yes, we can have it 'yater', she said, "OK, Mia do shelf, mommy". (She calls herself 'Mia') Well.... OK!!! And that was it... seriously! I haven't been more shocked or pleasantly surprised about a parenting 'fear'!! I was convinced that we would have a week-long battle of wills, with both of us crying it out. But she proved me wrong yet again. I need to give her more credit!!

We have also been doing a lot of 'activities' locally to keep ourselves busy and occupied. We attend a weekly "Time for Two's" class at the library, where Maria is beginning to come out of her shell around other kids her age. She still wants to hold my hand when other kids get too close, but it isn't the clinging, grabbing, and panic of the past. So we're definitely making progress! Maria also took a Springtime Music Class at the Community Arts Center this past month. They gave each 'student' a CD of songs, which Maria asks for each time in the car. This week begins our "Mommy and Me" dance and movement class at the YMCA. Coordination hasn't been Maria's strength, so I'm excited for her to try new things, and meet some new kiddos too. And we're doing a few programs through the Conservation Department as well. We should have lots to report on soon! And I promise to bring my camera for more outings this summer!

Hope this update helps some of you who have been teasing me about my 'non-existant' blog!! I'll try harder...