When I dropped the kiddo off at school today, one of her teachers told me that she was one of their best at pronouncing their own names. Talk about making a mom feel proud!

She also recognizes her name when it is written down or spelled out in magnetic letters.  Her daddy was instrumental in teaching her that.  Go little Miss Smartypants!

The Kiddo stays overnight at her grandmother’s house now and then.  Before our vacation in August, it was every other week. Then Grandma decided it was time to revamp it to allow the youngest grandchild the opportunity to spend the night at her house, too.  Which is only fair and everyone was ok with.  So there are three grandchildren, so she has each one staying over night over the course of three weeks.  For the oldest it is on a Saturday night, and for the Kiddo and the youngest, it was a Tuesday night.

Well, then she started preschool, and my husband and I figured it would probably be a good idea to see if Grandma would be OK with moving the Kiddo’s night to the weekend, too, on the same pretense as the oldest grandchild – who is in preschool, and the idea is to avoid having them miss school.  Grandma agreed to the change.

Ordinarily, the Kiddo would’ve stayed at Grandma’s last night.  Now it will be this Saturday.  After she got up this morning and I got her dressed, and we were laying on my bed waiting for my husband to finish getting ready for work, she asked about seeing papa and grandma.  “See Papa? See Grandma” she asked.  I told her we’d see them again on Saturday.  “Noooooo!  See Papa! See Grandma!”  I just kind of let it go rather than pick a pointless arguement with my toddler.  She also let it drop since I didn’t continue to remind her that she was going to have to wait until Saturday.  I’ll have to remember that tactic for future reference.  Heh.

I didn’t expect that she’d notice she hasn’t stayed over at her grandmother’s since before our vacation in the middle of August.  But it’s apparent that she does remember.  I think she also wants to go over there because they just got a new puppy, that we had visited on Monday night and she wants to see it again.

On Saturday, sweetie. 🙂

So last night, we went to dinner at Red Lobster with my husband’s mom & step-dad, to partake in RL’s Shrimp Fest all-you-can eat dealie.  Yummy!  Well, that also meant we got home a little later than we anticipated.  The Kiddo really needed a bath, but 1) it was already bedtime when we got home, and 2) it was starting to storm outside with lightening, so there was no way I was putting her in the bathtub and risk getting us both fried.

So, I decided I’d try to give her a bath first thing in the morning.  My husband usually showers in the hall bath, so he said he’d just use the stall shower in our master bathroom, and I could use the hall bathtub for the Kiddo at the same time.

First of all, she’s cranky in the mornings.  Kind of like both me and my husband.  Usually she likes taking baths.  But first thing in the morning? Not so much.  When I woke her up and asked her if she wanted to take a bath, she pouted and said “no!”, and threw herself back down into her pillow, complete with thumb-in-mouth.  A clear signal – go away mommy, I’m going back to sleep!

I said “Fine,” and walked into the bathroom and shut off the water, and started getting dressed.  Being cranky myself, I also told her she can go to school stinky and with her hair gross if she wanted, no skin off my back.  Not my finest moment, for sure.

Finally with a little more coaxing and some tears on her part, I got her into the bathtub.  Then she didn’t want to get wet (any more than just her legs).  *sigh*  More coaxing, more whining and tears, and we got her quickly soaped up and rinsed off.  She likes to help wash so that helped change her mood a little, which made washing her hair (which was the entire goal, since it was quite icky from running around and sweating yesterday) much easier.

I think that will be the last morning bath for her for a while.  Next time I’ll just wet her hair down and comb it out, and save bath time for night like usual as long as there aren’t any storms.  Lesson learned.  

Cranky toddler + morning bath = even more cranky toddler + a cranky mom

Earlier I was looking through the pictures in my gallery to make the badges for my Entrecard widgets, for a specific picture of some flowers my husband gave me for my birthday right after I found out I was pregnant with the Kiddo.  This of course meant I was scrolling through hundreds of pictures taken between then and now since I was going backwards from the current date.

Pictures from the Kiddo’s second birthday, second Christmas, the first time she met my sister’s youngest daughter, and then her second Easter.  Her first birthday, then her first Christmas.  Her first bout with the flu, which she caught after her first holiday pictures with her other cousin (my husband’s brother’s daughter).  Her first Thanksgiving.

And then the pictures I took of her after I got home from one of the most upsetting days of my life – the day I had to drive my mom, brother & his girlfriend up north after receiving a phone call from my grief-stricken father that my sister’s son had died during the night.  He was only 9.5 months old, and the only explanation the coroner could give was SIDS.  My daughter was born about two and a half weeks after he was, so I was definitely paranoid after that.  I think that night I checked on her at least a handful of times as she slept just to make sure I could still hear her breathing.  At the funeral, she was an absolute angel, and even though my husband and I were a little uncertain about whether to take her or not, both my sister & my mom said it would be fine, and that she would most likely help bring some light to an otherwise dark day.  And they were right.

Then loads and loads of other pictures preceding that, most of the Kiddo, but a few here and there of her cousins (him and his older sister), taken on my mom’s camera, which I had uploaded to my computer after his death, to make a picture DVD with.

To her first Easter, and then to her birth.  The monthly belly shots preceding her birth.  And then finally the roses I had been looking for.

It seems hard to believe that she’ll be three years old in a few months.  Every now and then when she’s doing mundane things like brushing her teeth, or standing next to the t.v. tray in the living room, I’ll think back to how, not too long ago, I had to hold her over the sink so she could spit water out of her mouth after I brusehd her teeth.  Or how she used to bonk her head on the t.v. tray because her head barely came up to its height.  And now she can lean over the sink without help.  And she practically towers over the t.v. tray now.

And she’s maybe only one inch shorter than my brother-in-law’s oldest daughter who is eleven months older than the Kiddo.

She’s growing up fast.  Slow down there, girl!

(not said in the tone typically used for that phrase – this is genuine)

I got the Kiddo dressed for school, had her give her daddy a kiss on the cheek while he slept, and then got her into the car, with her little sunglasses and her little “Lilo & Stitch” purse, and her “pinnow”.

Rolling down the road, I pointed out construction trucks and hot air balloons to her on the way to school.

When we turned the corner of the street where her daycare is at… she started to cry, saying “no school!!”.

Aww! I think somehow she knew that since daddy wasn’t in the car with us that he was staying home and that most likely I would be too (even though I will be telecommuting for work!), and was suddenly upset that she couldn’t also stay home.  Poor kiddo.  Sorry, girl, but it’s very hard for mommy to work when you’re underfoot with daddy unable to keep you entertained!  The day will be over before you know it, and I know you’ll have fun at school, you always do!!

definition: a mis-pronounced word used by the Kiddo so often that the parent starts to use it, too. Sometimes.

The first one, and my favorite:  pinnow

This is what she says when she means “pillow”.  She has a little pillow lovey that I got for her last Christmas.  It has always been “pinnow”.  Until this week.  I have also been calling it pinnow (just because I think it is cute), but she has started to correct me tonight.  “No, pill-o, mommy!”  I’m kind of sad about this one, really, I thought it was SO cute!

Another:  glub

For, “glove”.  This one, I try to correct her on.   Otherwise it sounds like she is trying to say it with an extremely stuffy nose. LOL

That’s all I have at the moment.  I know there are more but those are the two that stick out in my mind the most.

I don’t take enough pictures of her anymore.  The last ones I took were when we were on vacation in San Diego, and that was over two weeks ago.

Seriously, I used to take pictures practically every day.  But over the last year, I’ve really been slacking.

I think it originated when she started getting “camera shy” and would try to hide her face rather than smile. She’s back to smiling and hamming it up now, so I should just keep the camera handy and start taking lots of pictures again.

Wowee was she ever beeing a drama queen tonight.  Complete with “arm over the face” with forced tears.

Maybe she should be an actress when she grows up. LOL

for the Kiddo when she has to go back to daycare after spending such a long weekend with us.  Moreso when she was sick for part of the weekend.

She was NOT happy about me leaving her at school today.  Poor girl.

I’m sure she was ok within a few minutes though.  Otherwise we would have gotten a call from the center.

…to the barbeque. Her aunt was ok with her coming over.  I just hope the Kiddo wasn’t still contagious in some way.

She had fun though.  She really likes to go swimming, even though she doesn’t really swim yet.

I had to step away for a moment, the Kiddo wanted to go to bed.  I know! Shocking!

That is, until I took her temperature.  !$@*!%&*!  Back up to 102.  I KNEW we should have stayed home!!  AAGGGGH!!!  Now I’m going to have to worry about whether anyone at the barbeque caught this from her – and there were seven other people there.  All but one of which who gave the Kiddo hugs & kisses before we left – and that was only because this person is sister-in-law’s mom, who visits a few times a year but we don’t always see, and she is the Kiddo’s cousins’ grandmother, not the Kiddo’s.

So anyway.

*sigh*

Next time I will learn to trust my gut.  What kind of germ is deceptive like this though??  Her fever was completely gone ALL MORNING!  Only to turn up again tonight??  👿