So You Think You Can Dance

It is official. Amelia is now enrolled in her first ever ballet class. So, if you are looking for me during the next 12 or so Saturday mornings, I'll be watching her strut her stuff.

Mommy Mommy

Amelia decided to sing one of her favorites...and then sing it again with what she thought was hilarious twist.

Dinner Thoughts

Here are some thoughts Amelia had on the baby (at least until my camera cut off)

All Figured Out

With Meggan and I no closer to agreeing on a name, we decided to get Amelia's opinion on things. Luckily, she came up with 3 names for us to think over. I'm not quite sure how we are going to select from them, but we'll figure it out eventually. Her names are as follows...

Mittens (as in the alley cat Mittens from the movie Bolt)

Amelia (as in her own name)

Paci (as in the short form of Pacifier)

Sadly, compared to some of the names Meggan likes, I am actually growing fond of Mittens Paci

What's In A Name?

Apparently, Meggan didn't read the blog post where I said she basically got to name Amelia, so I get to name this one. Tonight, she tried to argue that she gets 51% naming rights because she is carrying the baby. Yeeeeaaaah, that's not happening. I suppose it wouldn't be that big of a deal if I didn't absolutely hate every name she suggested. It would also be easier if every name I suggested didn't make her want to throw up on the carpet. I'm sure we'll eventually come to some form of agreement. If not, we have to resort to the tiebreaker....we let Amelia name him...and the odds on favorite for her choice would likely be: Super Grover.

I knew it

Like I said last night, I knew it was going to be a boy. Now, I just have to figure out how to raise one. I'm guessing it is going to be very different than raising Amelia. She's my little angel. I don't even know this new dude...although, from his ultrasound, he appears to be a rather handsome fellow.

Exactly What I Want

Tomorrow, we find out the sex of our new baby. Obviously, I hope it is a boy. I can't wait to teach him sports, learn how to build things with him, and camp in the back yard. Yep, I am going to jump for joy when the doctor tells me I have a baby girl on the way. I can already picture all the daddy-daughter dates we are going to go on. I can't even begin to run down all the boy names I have going through my head. Meggan basically picked Amelia's name, so I think it is my turn. We are going to do our new daughter's room in bumble bees instead of the sheep Amelia had. I don't want her to have everything as a hand-me-down. Is birth too early to assume your son is going to be the next great Florida Gator football player? I hope I'm not being presumptuous, but I'm pretty sure my new baby girl is going to be a Gator cheerleader. If I am being honest, I couldn't be more excited to have a son to carry on the family name. If I am being honest, I couldn't be more excited for Amelia to have a sister to play with. So, as you can see, I am fully prepared to find out we are having a girl boy girl boy girl ...baby

Pick Me Up

Sometimes, if things aren't going great, all it takes is this little face to make it all seem right.

Be Very Specific

Apparently, Amelia is not only going to be a doctor when she grows up, but an attorney as well. What evidence do I have of this? She tried to catch me on a technicality tonight. After a spirited negotiation over how many more bites of spaghetti she needed to eat before getting a muffin, we arrived at 3. Amelia then picked out 3 short, individual pieces of noodle, ate them, and celebrated. So, she thought found a loophole by satisfying the literal meaning of the term "bite" 3 times. Unfortunately for her, she learned that while she may be an excellent attorney, Daddy is still the judge, jury, and executioner in this house.

Fair?

Prior to Amelia getting her new bed, I used to have a problem with her coming into our bed. We always tried to keep her out, but somehow she started finding herself in it more and more. It started when she was sick, but recently it had started to happen when she'd wake up in the early morning. And while you haven't lived until you've been mule kicked in the face at 5a.m., I was very excited to get Amelia her own bed so she could stay out of mine. However, a funny little thing has occurred. After months of me giving Amelia a hard time about climbing in bed with me and telling her to stay in her own bed, I am now an unwelcomed guest in HER bed. She loves her big girl bed and she lets Meggan snuggle in it, but not me. They have great talks each night, sing lullabies, rub backs, etc. I basically get to fetch water and turn out the light. I'm not sure what I did to get blacklisted, but it seems like I am going to have to be the one who sneaks in to someone else's bed at 5a.m..

Surprise Guests

We found out at 5:30 tonight that Amelia's grandparents wanted to come up and see her tonight. We always welcome visitors, so we are excited. Plus, I gave her instructions for the morning...do NOT get out of bed and come into our room...go in the guest room and visit Grandma and Grandpa. If she follows that, I'll be a happy sleeper.

Sneaky Sneaky

Amelia's latest prison break attempt came tonight shortly after Meggan put her to bed. She still hasn't caught on to the fact that we can watch her on the monitor and make sure she stays out of trouble. However, she has apparently figured out that we somehow might be waiting on her once she breaks to freedom. So, tonight, instead of bounding into the hall, she crept to her door and slowly cracked it open. Naturally, Meggan was standing there, so Amelia gently closed it back. A few seconds later, the door slowly cracked open again. Unfortunately for Amelia, her mother was not thrown by her initial door closing trick. The little prisoner was then calmly escorted back to her bed. I am pleased to report she made no further attempts at escaping.

7 days

When I wake up in the morning, I'll have 7 days until I find out the sex of the new baby. Everyone asks me what I hope it is. I have to admit it goes back and forth some days, but I have a definite preference. That said, I'm going to wait until after I find out what it is and then I'll come on here and say it was EXACTLY what I wanted. That way, when Child 2 reads this blog later in life, (s)he won't be offended. Now, I have just have to figure out a way to break it to Amelia that in 7 days, her blog time is going to become shared in a very big way.

Misunderstanding

Something about this jumping blur makes me think that Amelia doesn't FULLY understand what her big girl bed is for. I also think the new ballerina bedding set is throwing her off as she may find it okay to dance on the bed between jumps. At least that is what I gathered from her jumping up and down and saying "I'm ballerina".

Success

Tonight was the first night Amelia slept in her big girl bed without one of us rubbing her back and pretending to go to sleep with her. It wasn't without incident. Meggan secretly watched her on the monitor and saw the exact moment she realized she could get out of bed. After that realization, she crawled out of bed, slowly walked towards the hallway, and quietly opened her door. As she sauntered into the Hallway of Toddler Freedom - undoubtedly either to get the IPad or get into Mommy-Daddy's bed - she was greeted by Warden Meggan, who calmly escorted her back to her cell. After this, she cried a bit and kept saying she didn't want to go night night. Eventually, she gave in and is now sleeping like a baby....uhh, I mean big girl.

Muzzle

I love that Amelia is at an age where she can talk and share her feelings with us. It makes everything so much more enjoyable. However, I'll be even happier when I don't have to worry about what she is going to say or to whom she is going to say it.

Tonight, while she and I went out for an ice cream, she saw a woman from another country (in which I will not insult by guessing which country) who was dressed up in a long wrap of some kind. Well, Amelia kept saying "She's a PRINCESS!!" and I kept trying to divert her attention. Yet, each time I would say "No, baby, she's not a princess" she would just say "Oh, yes she dooo (which basically substitutes for yes I can, yes you are, yes she is, etc.). PRINCESS!" Luckily, I think the thought was so preposterous that the "princess" didn't even know we were talking about her. However, as we exited the building, Amelia almost ran into a woman and her daughter. After the woman said "well, hello pretty girl", Amelia replied "I have to go see my mom. Her name Meggan. I'll see you in the morning." So, apparently, Amelia is now setting up coffee dates with strangers.

Silly Goose

Here are Amelia and Meggan being silly at breakfast. Occasionally, we do something as simple as change one of the words to her favorite songs (in this case, we change "go away big green monster" to "go away little doggie" as an ode to Sophie being a nuisance) and Amelia just eats it up. She'll just die laughing and then we laugh at her laughing and then she starts fake laughing. I hope we can always be this funny to her.



Disclaimer: I'm sure Meggan doesn't always appreciate me putting videos of her singing kid songs in a weird voice on the Internet. So, truth be told, she is actually an excellent singer and a piano player. She also probably doesn't want me telling people on the Internet that she is an excellent singer. Oh well, can't win them all.

Long Arm of the Law

You don't want to be caught on the wrong side of an Amelia punishment. Bolt had to learn that lesson the hard way after he hit Mittens (a.k.a. "Mitts" by Amelia)

Pick Your Poison

As we are now two days away from setting up Amelia's big girl bed, I have started wondering which of the following two methods to handling it will be less mentally damaging to my daughter and my marriage. Now, many of you may be wondering what I am trying to "handle". Well, lets just say I am 99.99% sure we have no chance of keeping Amelia IN her bed and OUT of ours. So, I can only think of two options - either I put up a gate to keep her in her room or I let her in our room and I sleep in her bed instead. The first one seems a little damaging to her. I don't particularly want her to feel like her parents lock her in the dungeon at night(albeit a very pink, fluffy dungeon). However, me sleeping in the other room, while it would provide a great night's sleep, is a little sketchy. I mean, how long until I'm eating at the kid table while Meggan and Amelia break bread at the big table? I guess we'll have to wait and see how she reacts, then we will counter. All I know is I lost the battle of the bed with Sophie and I will not add a 4th to the mix.

At Least It's Padded

Bounce houses are Amelia's favorite things on Earth. I'm not sure quite has the hang of "bouncing" down, but she is an expert at falling.

Worrisome?

I'm a tiny bit worried that Amelia is starting to understand the ramifications of having a new baby in the house and practicing ways to get rid of it...such as...cooking it on her stove

The Fighter

Amelia is nothing if not stubborn. Tonight was no exception to this rule. All her mother and I wanted to do was brush her teeth. All she wanted to do was tell us to bend over and shove our heads up our rears as far as they could possibly reach...or for all she seemed to care, we could have shoved our heads up each other's rears. She just knew she wasn't brushing her teeth. Meggan claims she gets this stubbornness from me. Well, I disagree and I'm never going to change my mind on that no matter what she says. Okay, maybe it is a little true. Either way, I tried to explain to Amelia that I have 30 extra years of stubbornness training on her so she should just give in now. I'm not certain, but I think she started trying to take her diaper off to throw it at me. However, before she could do that, we left her in her room - no books before bed, no pacifier (which I swear we can't bribe away from her), no lullabies, no back rubs. She would have preferred to take a beating. It took over an hour of screaming, the start of a night of coughing, and multiple walks into her room to see if she was ready to brush yet. And while she never went with the plan very enthusiastically, we did get her teeth brushed eventually. Afterwards, she said "now, you rub my back, daddy". So, I lived up to my end of the deal and rubbed her back and sang her lullabies. On my way out of the room, I swear I could hear a little whisper that was something about me winning the battle, but her winning the war. Oh, it's going to be a fun ride.

Bye Bye Rapunzel Pt. 2

Sophie just wouldn't stand for Amelia being the only girl in the house with a new look. So, she ordered up a bubble bath, a new hairdo, a manicure, and a pedicure.

Doesn't she look relaxed?

New Look

Here is a grainy cell phone picture of Amelia's new hair cut. It's not a drastic change, but she's probably the only 2 year-old on the planet that had to get her hair "thinned out" by a stylist. Luckily, nature has taken care of that problem for me as I've gotten older.

Bye Bye Rapunzel

Amelia's school was closed for a teacher workday today. This left her and Meggan alone with no plans and no rules. They texted me these photos today to let me know what they were up to...

The Many Faces

Amelia is a real Renaissance Toddler.

Sometimes, she's a princess (Potentially Rapunzel given her freakishly long hair for a 2 year-old)...



Sometimes, she's a rough, tough Barbie Jeep girl (Although not tough enough to hold down the pedal)...



And sometimes, she's a rock star lost in the moment (making sure it is perfectly in tune)...


You just never know who you are going to get.

Parenting Time is All Relative

Approximate "feels like" time for 1 hour of the following activities:


Playing with a toddler (awesome): 10 minutes
Playing with a baby (boring): 2 hours

Hanging around the house with Amelia (healthy): 15 minutes
Hanging around the house with Amelia (sick): 2 days

First hour after Amelia wakes up (snuggling, Sesame Street): 10 minutes
Last hour before Amelia goes to bed (bath, blow drying hair): 6 hours

Listening to Amelia laugh while being tickled: 1 minute
Listening to Amelia scream when we do ear drops: 1 week

Playing with Amelia at the playground(Fall/Spring): 30 minutes
Playing with Amelia at the playground(Summer): 3 hours

Watching Barney: 2 hours
Watching Teletubbies: 6 weeks

Changing a dirty diaper: C'mon, even I don't take an hour to change a diaper!

Who Cares About Being Sick?

Do you think a little virus is going to keep Amelia down? Nope! She just got up, put on her Princess costume, and began doing medical procedures on all her animals...just a normal day* for Dr. Princess Mimi.




*Disclaimer- Outside of this picture and doing some artwork, she essentially whined and cried all day.

Tomorrow is Another Day

You ever have one of those days where you are not feeling well, your dining room window is leaking in rain water, you spill your root beer on the floor, your daughter has a high fever that turns out to be "hand, foot, and mouth disease", and your wife is pregnant so you desperately don't want her to catch it? About all you can do is get your best furry friend, curl up in your finest Snuggie, and hope tomorrow will be better.