The Zoo

The first stop on our Spring Break agenda today was the Nashville Zoo. Lily was very excited about going to see the animals, and the weather today was wonderful. However, a whole lot of other people also seemed to think it was the perfect day to go to the zoo. The lines were exceptionally long when we got there; we stood in like for over 45 minutes before we even managed to make it through the front gates. The zoo was certainly busy, but it didn't seem particularly packed once we were inside. The overall outing was enjoyable, but the zoo was a little disappointing -- no bears, no otters, no lions. At least there were elephants, giraffes, zebras...and that was enough to make Lily one very happy little lady.

One Long, Rough Day....

It's been one of those "when it rains, it pours" days around here, except the water wasn't coming from the sky.... We started with a visit from an electrician. We did some work in our garage, and we decided that it might be a good idea to have a professional electrician look things over to make sure everything was done correctly. Everything checked out okay, so that was a relief. After the electrician, spiderman (AKA, the exterminator) came. He sprayed outside and treated the inside of the house, and everything was okay with that as well. However, he did leave the door to the hot water heater closet slightly open when he left. The door sticks a little bit sometimes, and I always check to make sure the cat didn't run into the closet whenever the door's left ajar. When I opened the door, I found a nice puddle of water under the hot water heater. We figured out the the hot water heater had a leak, so we turned off the water, drained it, and went to find out about getting a new one. We ordered a new hot water heater, and it will be delivered and installed on Monday. The bad news is that this means we're a whole week without a hot water heater; the good news is we're to be gone most of the week for Spring Break. And regarding Spring Break, we were originally supposed to leave yesterday, then plans got rearranged so we were supposed to leave tomorrow, and then today (sometime between the exterminator and the hot water heater) plans got changed again and so we ended up leaving today. Amid the flurry of people and things today, there was also packing and preparing to travel that complicated everything even more. At this rate, I'm just hoping that "Spring Break"actually yields some sort of real "break!"

ABCs, ASL, and Ws

Since Lily seems to have a pretty sound mastery of the ABCs (upper case letters, most lower case letters, and basic phonics), I decided to hunt up something else to try to keep her interested in letters...and I ended up with ASL. I downloaded an ipod application that has the ASL alphabet, numbers, and colors and I printed off a couple of little basic sign charts. Lily's doing pretty well with them so far, and she seems to enjoy making the letter signs. Her hands, however, aren't quite coordinated enough to handle sign language yet. It's kinda cute to watch her use her left hand to pull and move the fingers on her right hand to form the letters...

And, regarding the W.... Up until a few weeks ago, she has referred to the letter "W" simply as "double." The later part of the alphabet has long gone "T-U-V-double-X-Y-Z." The "W" is now complete.

ABCs

Lily got a new toy last weekend when we went to visit Aunt Janet. It's a little portable case with a chalkboard on one side, a magnet board on the other, and a set of letter and number magnets that goes along with it. The toy wasn't really something that Lily needed, as she has an easel with a chalkboard and a whole refrigerator full of magnets, but she seemed particularly interested in it and it wasn't expensive, so Mommy gave in. Over the past few days, she's been working very hard to write her ABCs on her chalkboard. She can do most of the letters without help, and she's made considerable progress in the last few days. (And, at this point, none of the letters are backwards!!)

Wonderful Spring Weather

The weather these past days has been unseasonably warm and wonderful. It's been very warm outside, and we've been making the most of it. I've been working outside in the back yard, trying to get everything cleaned up and in order for spring. We have a nice little back porch, so I'm trying to get it all cleaned up and ready for the BBQ and picnic season. I also bought pots and seeds for planting some herbs, but it's too early to plant those out yet. (And I have had to keep reminding myself of that lately!) Lily's been enjoying the opportunity to be outside as well. The little neighbor girl (who is about a year older than Lily) has been over to play twice this week, and Lily's certainly enjoyed having a playmate these past few days. However, she also does well playing by herself and helping Mommy work in the yard.

Lily got a swingset for Christmas, and she's been having a wonderful time playing on it lately.

I Don't Generally Like Rap Music, But...

...occasionally I find something that I like.

Important Life Lessons

There are some things that children should learn early in life. Baking brownies and licking the bowl are among them!!

Cute, or Creepy?

This segment appeared on one of Lily's Seasme Street podcasts. What do you think: cute, or creepy?

Winnter Weather Updates

So, today's 30% chance of snow became a 60% chance of snow which ended up being a constant snowfall from 7am to 7pm.... My, aren't weathermen wonderful....

I essentially ended up with a "week off" this week. Classes and work were cancelled from Tuesday through Friday, and just about everything else has been shut down as well. We had snow on Tuesday -- somewhere between 9 and 12 inches, depending on which news station you prefer to listen to. It's been quite cold, and I don't think we're supposed to have temperatures above freezing for quite some time either. (I'm simply expecting that the gas bill for this month will be considerably higher than usual. Fortunately, we haven't had any problems with power outages or anything like that, so I certainly won't complain!) I'm guessing we had another 4-6 inches today, but I haven't heard any 'official' reports on that as of yet.

Just about everything around here seems to have shut down this past week. I ended up with an optometrist appointment yesterday (which was rescheduled from Tuesday), and we saw a couple of horse-drawn sleighs merging with traffic a few blocks ahead of us. We made a quick trip to the grocery store yesterday and then ventured all the way to Wal-Mart today. We've discovered that eggs, bread, bananas, and some medications are in short supply as delivery trucks can't make it in to the stores. However, we did see the Blue Bell truck in the grocery store parking lot. No bread, eggs, or cold medicines, but we have ice cream!! Gasoline also seems to be in short supply at the moment...but we managed to find a station that hadn't run out yet. (Granted, it was the gas station in town that nearly always has the highest price on gas, but under these circumstances.....)

Lily has been excited about the snow, and I took her out to play in it this morning. Although it was cold today, it was also very still so there was no significant wind chill factor influencing how cold it felt outside. Lily had a blast! She trudged through snow drifts and ended up face-planting in the snow several times. She made some snowballs and wanted to play catch with them, which didn't work so well....

In short, we've fared pretty well so far. The only weather-related damage we've suffered as of yet is a cracked windshield on our car. We haven't ventured out much, but we've been able to get out enough to keep from getting to stir-crazy. Ironically, the one of us who seems the most stir-crazy is the cat, and he's an inside-only house cat who never gets to go outside anyway....

Thoughts on Birthdays

I have no real thoughts on birthdays. I try not to think about them. Lily, on the other hand, has been very interested in birthdays lately. She's learning how to sing "Happy Birthday," and she was very excited when we went to the birthday party of a church friend last weekend. Today the following conversation took place in our house:

Lily: I'm three.
Mommy: No honey, you're two.
Daddy: You'll be three on your next birthday. Do you want Daddy to buy you a big cake for your birthday?
Mommy: Daddy bought a cake last year. It's Mommy's turn to bake a cake this year.
Daddy: But the cake is a Daddy thing.
Lily: No, it's a Mommy thing.
Daddy: Well, then what is the Daddy thing?
Lily: Toy shopping.

I guess she's got things pretty well figured out....

My Grammatically Correct Toddler

Sometimes when it's time for bed Lily wants to watch VeggieTales. Given that most episodes are too long for pre-bedtime viewing, we've resorted to watching Silly Songs segments instead. Here's the one she requested tonight:



Tonight was a sing-along night.... When it got the the "he don't got a belly button" part of the song, the little Lily voice beside me sang "he doesn't have a belly button." Mommy was proud!

The Lemon

We got some new kitchen items over Christmas, and we've been trying some of them out lately. One of the things that we got was a microplane, so Jimmy picked up a lemon at the store when trying out a new recipe that called for some lemon peel. After grating a little of the peel, he put the lemon in the fruit bowl with the grapefruit and oranges. Lily, who has been eating a lot of Cuties and oranges lately, was excited to see something new in her fruit bowl. After a day or two of just looking at the lemon, she informed me that she wanted to eat the lemon. I told her that lemons are sour and yucky and that she probably wouldn't like it. She insisted: "I want the lemon. I'll eat it all gone." (And she told me this repeatedly!) I gave in, peeled the lemon, and put a few slices in her bowl. She took one bite, and there were tears....

Tales from the Big(ger) Bed

We converted Lily's baby bed to a toddler bed last weekend, and this past week has been quite an adventure as far as bedtimes and naptimes have been concerned. We've had success with bedtimes, but naptimes are another story....

So, on night one, getting Lily to sleep was a challenge. Both Mommy and Daddy started the night sleeping on the floor in Lily's room. Daddy got kicked out when he started snoring after about 30 minutes. Mommy ended up sleeping on the floor for about 2 hours until Daddy came in and woek her up.... On night two, Lily went to sleep all on her own. On night three, Lily wanted to go to sleep in Mommy's bed, so we started off in Mommy's bed and she got moved to her own bed after about an hour and a half. After the first three nights, she's been pretty good about going to bed in her big bed. Sometimes she still gets up and we have to try the whole going-to-bed thing more than once, but she's doing pretty well with bedtimes overall.

Naptimes, on the other hand, have been an entirely different story.... So far we have not managed to get Lily to take a nap in her own bed. We've had several days where naps were missing altogether, a few days where naps amounted to couch naps with Mommy, and two days where she took 'tent naps' in the little indoor/outdoor tent that she got for Christmas. (It's really cute to see her all curled up with a few pillows on the floor of her little tent....) Though she's fighting taking naps, her attitude at 4pm on no-nap days indicates that she certainly isn't ready to start going without naps altogether....

Boxing Day (Almost...)

I realize that Boxing Day is the day after Christmas, but today was the day of boxes at our house. I took all of our Christmas boxes, as well as the used wrapping paper, to the recycling center this morning. I wouldn't say that I'm a huge recycling advocate, but I do try to recycle what I can so as to cut down on the amount of stuff that goes in the garbage and to the landfill. Anyway, today was also trash day in our neighborhood, and I was a bit disgusted to see a large pile of boxes by each and every garbage can in our neighborhood. Not only was I bothered by the fact that so many recyclables were being trashed, but also by the fact that nearly everyone left their boxes out for the whole world to see, as if advertising what they had received for Christmas. Not a smart move, from what I've been taught. (Props for the neighbors across the street for at least putting everything in garbage bags.) I was just a little bit bothered by the whole thing....

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas morning was exciting for Lily. She was quite happy to get up early, open presents, and then play and celebrate all day....

Merry Christmas!!