Catchin' Up with Sadie Lou

At 15 months old...

+ She has 12 teeth in, with three more almost ready to break through.

+ A trail of toys and items from the cupboards follows her everywhere she goes.

+ She still willingly and easily goes down for naps and bedtime. First we snuggle for a minute and sing Dona Nobis Pacem. Then we lay her in the crib, whereupon her right thumb immediately settles into her mouth. Finally, we stroke her cheek for a minute and say goodnight. Her sweet brown eyes follow us out of the room.

+ When she wants water, she madly scrounges around in the drawer looking for the parts of a sippy cup. When she finds the matching parts she chases me down and pushes the cup into my leg.

+ She gets really excited when I hold her up to see the dresses hanging in her closet. She reaches for them, and if I give her a choice between two, she will always pick one.

+ She offers up her feet, arms, or legs when getting dressed.

+ She LOVES playing in the sandbox. She digs, eats the sand, plays with the hose, pets the dog, and must be carefully watched or she will attempt to climb the hill in the backyard. She also picks fruit - both unripe off the tree and rotting on the ground - and will eat it. One must keep a close eye on her!

+ She will climb on and unload anything.

+ She LOVES her big brother. She dove into her car seat this morning because she could see Benjamin in the car already, and she was shouting, "Bee-Jee! Bee-Jee!"

+ She has discovered "playing" the piano. Her other musical interests include running through the house with a shaker in each hand.

+ The rocking horse is a favorite, even if her feet don't reach the footholds. She is also excited to "ride" the tricycle despite her short legs.

+ Our girl LOVES to eat. It doesn't matter if she was just released from her high chair and has a full belly - if she sees you eating food, and you decide not to share with her (as she frantically attempts to grab the food from your hand), she WILL throw a tantrum.

+ She likes to play So Big!, and she will bring a book to you to read to her. She still gets over-the-top excited to see Buckley in the mornings.

+ Tummy zerbers make her laugh hysterically. She's also very into her bellybutton right now.

+ She has started pointing at and learning body parts - nose, eyes, teeth, mouth, hair, and tummy are her favorites right now.

+ She understands what you tell her and will usually follow directions: Close the door, please. Put the sticks down and you can pick up the teapot better. Put the horsie in the basket. Bring me the book.  That sort of thing.

+ Her current list of words:

   Mama, Papa
   Tsssadie! (Sadie)
   Bee-Jee (Benjamin)
   Buh-bee (Buckley)
   dog
   arf-arf (what the doggie says)
   hi, hey
   nana (banana)
   wa-wa (water)
   dow (down)
   dia-poh  (diaper)
   baby
   jeeeeee (cheese)
   haw (hot)
   boo! (peek-a-boo)
   wan diss (Want this. or Want this?)
   soos (shoes)
   ffffffffooooo (food)
   ho-ho-ho-ho-ho and da-dee-da-da (her version of singing in a high voice)

   And she will repeat most things that you say to her - such that someone babysitting her was impressed that she knew "potato," but I'm guessing she just repeated what was said to her.

Good Grief

 Earlier in the week:  I turned my back on the kiddos and a puddle by the orange tree and then...

A Sweet, Sweet Day

Today we took our first trip EVER to the strawberry fields in Carlsbad. For $8.75, your kiddos can fill a styrofoam bucket while eating as many berries as they can handle. We will get to this part later, but Sadie did indeed take the latter part of that arrangement very seriously.

This shot documents the very beginning. Notice how clean they all are? More friends showed up, but for now we have Noah, Benjamin, Julian, and Sadie.

Read the rules carefully. Despite all the rules, they hope, earnestly, that you HAVE FUN. We did have fun.

Still clean! Must have been one of the first strawberries picked.

Ah, sweet Sadie...macking down on as many sweet strawberries as she could get her hands on. It did not matter if they were white, green, brown - she ate them all.

As Benjamin ran-stumbled up and down the furrows, Sadie just planted herself in front of a bunch of berries and stayed there...eating long after the berries were consumed. She even tried leaves and stems. She's not picky, this girl of ours.

Noah, pictured below, is Julian's little brother. Leaving Julian to carry the bucket, he followed a strategy similar to Sadie's, although he appeared to stick primarily with consuming only the ripe strawberries.

Girlfriend made herself right at home.

Just chilled out and munched. In fact, for a while she was just leaning forward and taking a bite out of a berry and leaving the rest of it to dangle from the vine.

And here we have a proud picker.

Our other friends: mamas also trying to capture the moment in a digital image.

Benjamin, Julian, and Brayden - trying hard to avoid the camera.

Someone did say that Sadie looks a bit like a zombie...

We had a great morning!  And we'll surely be heading back there again before the berries are all gone.

How Much Do You Love Me?

"Mama, how much do you love me?" It's an ongoing conversation we have, sometimes several times a day. The quantifying of our love is rooted in the story Guess How Much I Love You, one of our favorite bedtime tales when he was tiny. The little nutbrown hare tries to show his love to his parent, and the big nutbrown hare always manages to outlove him.

Our sweet competition has taken a definitively preschool turn. We no longer compare the amount of our love to things like how tall we can stand or how high we can jump.

"I love you all the way to the sun and the stars. I love you to the furthest planets," I tell him.

"Hmm, that's far," he observes. "Mama, I love YOU to the flames, and the Star Boards, and all the vol-candles!" he breathlessly adds.

"Oh, that's a lot of love," I say.

Star Boards. He has developed a deep interest in Star Wars. Before he even watched the movie, he discovered action figures in other kids' bedrooms. He saw pictures on lunchboxes. He heard about Darth Vader, the ultimate bad guy. But he never got the word "wars." I tried to explain it to him once, long after letting him pronounce it incorrectly just because I thought it was cute. But the term had already crystallized. Despite finally seeing two of the movies (Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back...none of these new versions), he still hasn't put together that there is a war going on. Nor has he realized that Star Boards is not a location, which is why it pops up so often to add drama in our expressions of love.

The "vol-candle" is about the most awe-inspiring thing his little mind can comprehend. The explosion of the tip of a mountain and the fount of lava that proceeds is almost more than he can handle. To compare his love to THAT, well, it's an impressive thing, indeed.

As for the flames - they're good for everything from buildings on fire to decorating fast cars, not to mention the ball of flames that is the sun.

I do feel loved.

Five minutes pass.

"Mama, how much do you love me?"

"I love you to the Star Wars. I love you to the flames and even the VOLCANOES."

He watches me.

"Mama, I love you even more than that."

Little Miss Busybody

Our little girl is all over the place these days. Today it seemed like every part of her that could move was moving...constantly. Arms, legs, fingers, neck, eyes darting about, mouth jabbering away. The slideshow doesn't do her justice, but it's a start:

My Girl

April Visit to the Cabin

In the beginning of April, we made a spontaneous visit to the mountains. Four days of early spring - not so warm or pretty, but still good for uplifting the spirit. Here's a little snapshot: