I've been laying down on the job with this thing. Okay, so just 5 minutes ago: Me: Anna, what's your new classroom toy thingy doing? Anna: It's music-ing! So cute. Made my day. Now she's talking to her little brother while he sleeps and calling him "Little Sleepy Sammy." Gotta go. Time to take the trash out and play with the kids.

"We have a moon at OUR house too."

Driving in the car today, Anna going along with Daddy for a busy day of running around for a couple clients, she looks up out the window and says "I see a little thing in the sky."  "There's some little thing up there."

Then again, and she asks me what it is.

"What color is it?"

"White."

"Well, it could be a little cloud, or sometimes during the day, you can see the moon."

"We have a moon at OUR house too," she says delightedly.

Whenever we all get home from somewhere like a family thing or a restaurant after dark, I take Anna to say goodnight to the moon before she goes in and gets ready for bed.  It helps transition her to go inside when she is grumpy (We know how much this kid likes to be outdoors).

It makes for a lot of fun little moments to spend with her.  She says goodnight to the moon, clouds, bugs, tree-frogs and sometimes the trees.  And occasionally, "goodnight airplane-star." 

So, not only was it cute when she told me today that we, too have a moon, as we drove through Lebanon, it was nice to see she is trying to learn and doesn't forget when we say goodnight to the moon.  I was one happy dad today.  

Usually, I explain little things like that to her, but today, I was totally content with her thinking for a little while that we have our own moon that she looks at with her daddy. 

It's a boy!

Well, I'm about three weeks late posting this, but the title speaks for itself.

My little girl still doesn't understand that she will have to share her Mommy with this little guy.  She knows she's going to be a big sister.  She knows she's going to have a little brother.  But she still says the "baby's mommy will come back and get him."

We're pretty excited about it all.  I'm a little overwhelmed, still cleaning out the hoarder room (mostly, Tammy is cleaning it - better organizational skills.  I'm just doing the heavy lifting).  

Our little boy is a kicker.  He likes to try to reach out and respond to my voice when I talk to him.  Just like with Anna, I always end with "This is Daddy, and  I love you."  Anna was really comfortable with her Daddy's voice (as well as her Mommy's, of course) from day one. 


So far, we've found he either really likes the song Heart of Gold by Neal Young, or he really hates it.  Either way, he is very responsive to music and voices.  I'm pretty excited about that.  It's just normal development, but with a little baby, that's exciting stuff.  I'm so thankful to God that our little guy is doing well and is healthy so far, and that our little girl is so excited about being a big sister...even if she doesn't yet realize that she and little bro have to share Momma and Daddy.

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4th of July Weekend

Neither of my parents have ever been the type to invite everyone over for a 4th of July cookout.  And that's okay.  We get to do plenty of fun things with them throughout the year.  But Tammy and I manage to find lots of fun to be had with our little family.  One year, her friend and former college roommate Allison drove out from Ohio and stayed with us for about a week around Independence Day, and we all had a blast going to other people's cookouts and watching small towns blow up thousands of dollars worth of fireworks.



This year, we started off with the usual Friday routine of being tired and eating pizza.  Very relaxing.

Saturday morning, Tammy, Anna and Lillian (Tammy's mom) went shopping, and I visited a semi-reclusive friend and worked on my truck.  We met up in b-burg for lunch and went to our friends' 4th of July cookout/going away party/birthday party for their middle daughter.  Matt (a good friend) and I headed out shortly after we got there to line up for the parade.  Matt was riding in a 76 El Camino that his dad finished restoring, and I was riding my company's float.  After throwing candy and enjoying a small town parade in the blazing heat, I headed back to the party, and Tammy dropped Anna off with her grandma for a nap.



It was time for waterball.  In Pittsboro, waterball isn't a firefighter competition.  It's open to anyone who can come up with 4 players and sign a waiver.  Waterball is NOT what you find if you search for it on Google.  This is a form of backward tug or war with fire hoses.  A big steel ball about 24 inches wide hangs on pulleys from a horizontal cable and teams try to push it into their opponents' territory or their side of the playing area.   You try to have better aim, better angle, and overwhelm your opponent and force the ball onto their side.   You also get a goalkeeper with another fire hose in case you get into trouble.  The team who pushes it into the opponents' side the longest after the match ends (3 minutes in our case) wins. 
It was over 90 degrees, so waterball was the perfect activity/spectator event.  We went 1-1 and had a blast.
That night, it was time to take Anna to the fireworks.   She LOVED them last year, but we weren't sure if she would react the same this time.  She quickly erased any doubts about her affinity for brightly colored aerial explosions.

Sunday, we relaxed, got some house work done, and then kept Anna up late again for some backyard fireworks.  She was delighted.  After she went to bed we visited with some friends around the fire and the grill until around 3 AM.  Lots of noisy story telling and goofing off.  I'm glad I don't live in one of those neighborhoods with houses all around.  The few neighbors we have know they can be noisy on the weekends whenever they want  as well.

Right back up on Monday, the actual 4th of July.  Tammy, Anna, and Lillian went maternity clothes shopping and came back for nap time.  Then Matt and I headed up to Kokomo to look at a 64 F100 from California for sale (I can't help it).  We got back and went to the Downtown Indy fireworks show: Tammy, Anna, myself, Ben, Lillian, Matt, Marie, Jennette, Jeff, Clive, Travis, and Clayton.  What a way to put an exclamation point on an already awesome weekend.

July 4th weekend set the bar pretty high.  Next Saturday, Anna might be a little disappointed that not every weekend henceforth is going to be so packed with fun.

Well, off to bed I go.  I've gotta go be a work from home dad in about 6 hours.

7-1-11

Posted from the phone, haven't proofread yet.

Well, I got a little lazy this week. We didn't go on as many "adventures" as we normally would. Today, with the threat of rain looming all day long, Anna and I just stayed home. We watched Curious George cartoons and she helped me feed the birds and do some light yard work. Yesterday, we went out to McCloud, talked to the park employees, played with smokey (the cat), and met a bunny named Oreo. Then we were of to the woods to play in the rocks with Anna's bucket an sand shovels. I took lots of pictures, but I can't upload them straight from my phone.
Tuesday, we went to Ellis Park in Danville, the granddaddy of municipal parks (although Washington Township Park is growing on us too). Anna played on the shady playground while I ate my lunch from Hardees, but the place was crowded with a bus load of day car kids. So we moved on to the creek where we ran into Liz from church and her three kids; Cole, Peyton, and little baby Emelia, whom Anna has been talking about since Tuesday now. We played in the water til well past naptime, and headed home. Anna fell asleep as usual, and I got to carry my sweet little girl in an tuck her in to her big girl bed.

Dear 1964 Ford F100 from California with "no rust" that's for sale in Kokomo,

I think we're meant to be together.  You're surface rusted hood and roof are nothing compared to the rusted out basket case classic trucks roaming around here in Central Indiana.  If I can find a way to get my 1976 blue scrap heap ready to sell before you're gone, I just might drive up there and get you.  I'm trying to talk myself out of it, but I'm having trouble talking any sense into...me.  Maybe someone will come buy you and save me from spending a big chunk of my savings on something that depreciates, let alone a truck that could probably get it's own AARP card.

Cordially,

Marcus Dugan

pics

at Jamestown Nature Park, looking for dandelions

We like going outside and all, but Indy has the biggest Childrens Museum in the world. 

playing in the water at the Childrens Museum

Anna LOVES the water clock.

McCloud Park

playing in the rocks

still playing in the rocks. 

One of Anna's favorite past times.

Anna and Daddy picnic

wagon upgrade.  The little solid push mower tires it came with didn't do so well on trails.  The wagon needed to be more nature park-ready. 

ready to go off-road

playing in the sand at Ellis Park

So many parks, so many "adventures," not enough time to write about it all

Almost every day during the week, I take my little Anna Rose on an "Adventure."  Sometimes, we go to a park.  Sometimes, we combine it with a trip to my office or going out for lunch somewhere cheap.  Sometimes, especially in iffy weather, we go somewhere like Lowes (her favorite store - especially the garden section and the lighting section with the chandeliers and the disco ball) or Frazee Gardens (not to buy anything - they charge a 100% mark up over full retail on most things because they know their wealthy shallow clientele will unwittingly pay it).  And occasionally, I'll take her to the public library, another one of her favorite places (she gets so excited, she won't sit still for a book, but that's another post for another day).

But our favorite kind of adventure always includes a park.  

So far this Spring/Summer, Anna and I have been to McCloud Nature Park, Scamahorn Park (Pittsboro), Ellis Park (Danville Park), Williams/Blastoff Park (Brownsburg), Arbuckle Acres Park (Brownsburg), Pleasant Acres Nature Park (Jamestown), and Washington Township Park (Avon).  I thing I'm gonna start posting some ratings and descriptions of them all so we can remember which ones are the best...and if anyone ever reads this thing, they might benefit as well. 

In the spring and early summer, every time we headed out to a park or nature park, it was all about the dandelions.  Anna HAD to have a yellow flower and a green leaf every time we went outside.  In the pic, she was focused on going after all the dandelion seed things and saying "We're blowing BUB-bles!" each time she sent the seeds floating through the air.  It was awesome, adorable, and fun; though I'm sure I would forget someday if I didn't write it down, hence the blog : )

As the summer continues, it's been more about going on an adventure and exploring. In this picture, she was playing in the dirt at McCloud Nature Park, the Grand-Daddy of all local parks.  For all it lacks in playgrounds, it makes up for in explorability (not actually a word).  246 acres of wilderness with two creeks, most notably the main fork of Big Walnut Creek, a really cool bridge, and tons of wagon friendly trails.  It's a tough place for a stroller, but not impossible.  You just have to stay off the trails with looser gravel.  Anna calls this "The Big Nature Park" and always looks forward to seeing the nature center, a cat named Smokey who lives there (Anna always calls him a turkey: "You're a TURKEY! Hey, cat, you're a turkey!" just because), and of course the creek.  She always asks to "see the kitty cat?", then moves on to "go down the water?".  She calls some of the shorelines "the beach," which is really cute.  We've spent as much as four + hours there at a time (packed a lunch of course).  Sometimes, we just find a spot on a gravel trail where Anna can sit and play with the rocks.  Sometimes we go off the trails and explore the woods. 

Anna was actually chasing my phone around in circles in this picture.  I had the reverse lens setting on the iPhone on so she could see herself in the picture, which is the only way to get her to smile for a picture so far.

This was the day I got hurt carrying her down to the water.  We decided to go down to the water from the wrong side of the creek.  I got banged up pretty badly when I fell down on a steep hillside carrying her, but I actually had a little pride in my abrasions and bruises because I was able to protect my little girl from getting hurt at all. We found a cool spot on a rocky sandbar with almost no mosquitoes (There was so much rock, it was like being on a large concrete pad) and spent about an hour and half there throwing rocks and playing by the water.

Lots of these pictures are at McCloud, but it's not the only place we've been this summer.  I've got lots more to add.

Nature park again

Finally, for the first time in 2011, we're t McCloud Nature park. And for all the exploring we could possibly do through the hills and woods out here, all Anna really wants to do is play in the gravel that makes up most of the trails. She likes going off trail to check out the undergrowth in the woods, and she loves riding her stroller up and down the hills. But for her money, nothing beats a sand bucket and some loose gravel. We could've just gone to play in a gravel driveway somewhere. The scenery wouldn't have been as nice though. This place is beautiful. I only brought my phone, but I'll try to post some of the pics soon. Ooh 25% battery. Time to shut this thing down.

Test post

Just testing to make sure that my lovely Tammy can get new posts emailed now. 
Tammy, there are some ramblings down below this on the main page.

I love you,


Marcus

One Room Hoarder

So we started cleaning out the spare bedroom to get ready for little baby on the way due in November.  And, I think that, at least in that room, and the garage, I am a hoarder.
I have thrown away:

a stack of college notes and binders.  There were some 12+ year old things in there as I began finding things I had clearly written in high school.

no less than four WALKMANS (or Walkmen?), yes, walkmans (Tammy was guilty here too): three that played TAPES (that's right) and one that played CD's.  Of course most of us know that a Walkman cassette player was the most infuriating, inefficient, devourer of batteries money could buy.  So, I didn't mind letting go of the little machine that I used to take on family trips only to find that without a huge bag of batteries, ol' Tom Petty was going to start to sound pretty tired by the end of Side 2.  So goodbye, Walkmans.  We'll always have that one childhood family vacation where you made it through Billy Squire's Greatest Hits twice without dying. 

A couple of old toy trucks that I repaired as a child after they were crushed by a backhoe (apparently, piles of fill dirt were NOT a great place to build a whole town to the scale model of one's Nylint and Tonka trucks).  Back then, I thought it was pretty cool that I was able to unbend all that metal back then and basically make them look like a couple beat up old trucks.  However, from a father's perspective, they had now become a tetanus shot waiting to happen.

a box of friggin magazines; Now if that's not a hoarder thing to have, I don't know what is. 
a box of GI Joes which had already made their way out to the garage before Anna was born in which a family of mice had decided to have some kind of extended party (I hate mice, even in cartoons)

There is more cathartic junk removal to come in preparation for our second child.

I'm hoping to talk Tammy into getting rid of my rather sizable and her gigantic cassette tape libraries.  I have a ridiculous amount, but Tammy's collection easily doubles mine because she was reluctant to change over from tapes to CD's.  She may be a software designer, but she really doesn't care about the newest and best technology (as evidenced by the box of VHS tapes I recently boxed up for Goodwill).

NCAA Championship

Yuck.  That was one of the worst basketball games I've ever seen.  Naturally, since I really wanted to watch it to see how Butler's second consecutive magical run to the final four would end up, Anna decided she was too wound up and too scared of the dark to go to bed. 
Fortunately, I was able to watch some of the game on my phone while I got her settled in. 
Unfortunately, I ended up watching the rest of the game as well.  I should've turned it off at halftime.  Butler decided in the second half that they would play zone defense which they never do...and now we all know they are awful at it.  But I don't know if any kind of defense would've made up for the way they shot the ball.  I just felt bad for those kids that they had to end their season on such an embarrassing note. 

New baby on the way

 

Baby number two.  Due on November 2nd.  We're so excited.  Anna is excited about being a big sister, although I'm not sure she totally understands it yet.  We have a few months yet to keep reading her big sister book to her. 

No type of weather can stop my little girl from wanting to go outside.  It was actually 50+ degrees when we took this picture.  There was just so much snow and ice, it took about two days that warm to melt it all away.  This was one of the most fun days she's had yet in a park.  She got to swing, slide, and walk around in snow for two hours without getting cold.

Anna LOVES "birdies," so I built her a bird feeder.  That's entirely built out of scrap materials (excluding screws and wood stain).  It turned out pretty nice, and doesn't look like it in the picture, but it will hold about 10-13 pounds of birdseed.  So we don't have to fill it very often.  I also used some galvanized roof flashing on the bottom surface to help prevent wood rot.  Hopefully, it will last for a long time.  Strangely enough, since we've set it up, it attracts birds like it should, but also brings...rabbits.  Turns out Anna likes watching rabbits graze on the all the seeds that the birds drop on the ground. 

Anna and Daddy at the Nature Park.

"Doctor Anna"

She put on one of my dress shirts and went around saying "I'm a doctor."

What a fun day.

Williams Park.  She loved this thing.  I would lift her up and balance her on my knee so she could look through the opening and say "hel-lo-o" over and over.  I was actually back there with her and stretching my arm around to the other side of the wall to take the pictures.

Williams Park again...We did this for quite a while.

"Hel-lo-oooooo!"

Yes, this park is "toddler friendly."  But that little tunnel thing was not exactly Daddy friendly.

The cold weather has been back for most of the past week and a half or so, but when we had all those nice days in a row last month, Anna and I spent as much time outside as we possibly could. 
We went to the Pittsboro park one super warm day (Anna came home covered in sand.  After her nap, I had to give her a bath and change her bed sheet)
Arbuckle Park (Bburg) - where she found the most dangerous thing (some kind of strange bouncing thing with metal bars and old tires, much cooler than it sounds) on the playground for a two year old and decided that was her favorite.  She also got to play with some other kids
Pleasant Acres, aka the Jamestown Nature Park - She is usually disappointed at first about the lack of swings, but she loves to go exploring in the woods.
Williams Park (Bburg) - Anna had so much fun on their giant toddler-friendly maze of a playground, which was full of other kids for her to play with, that she was too tired to argue or throw a fit when we went home.  She fell asleep in the car and took a nice looooonnnng nap.  Btw, there are some really cool pipe chimes that the kids can play at that park.  Anna could've stayed and played those for hours. 

Now, other than yesterday, it's been pretty chilly out.  We've been going to Lowe's every now and then, and she just thinks that's the coolest place on Earth.  She loves to explore around the garden section (and gets to be kind of outside with a good wind block), likes hanging out in the lawn furniture, and could literally spend a whole afternoon looking at all the different lights and ceiling fans.

Aaarrrgh!!!

Blast it.  She's waking up again.  1:40 a.m.  This will be her second time tonight.  I'm guessing her gums/impending new molars are bothering her. 

NATURE PARK!!! and cute quotes

Yes, I'm catching up on the last few weeks at darn near one in the morning now. 

We've finally had a few decently warm days for an Indiana spring: 40s and even some 50 degree weather.  So, I finally got to take little Anna back to the Jamestown Nature Park, one of our favorite places.  We walked on trails, and she rode in the wagon some and just had a great time.  As usual, I had trouble keeping her out of the water, despite the somewhat chilly temperatures.  She really wanted to go throw rocks in it the way we had when it flooded along the railroad tracks a few days ago (I need to post a short video of that day.  It was quite cold, but lots of fun), but I was able to keep her focused on hiking, enjoying the trees and looking for birds, another of her favorite things.  We checked out a couple of bridges, ran around in the gazebo a little, and sat on a log under a big tree at the edge of the woods (a delightful first for Anna), then had a snack at a picnic table.  We finally saw some birds before we got back in the car; a flock of sandhill cranes overhead.  Anna thought they were pretty neat, but she really wanted to see some of the little birds she's used to watching out the windows.  Still, we had a good time.  I hope she never grows out of her love for hiking with her Daddy. 

I'm really thankful the weather has been nice enough for us to go to some parks again.  

And now some cute quotes from a two year old:

"Go see a disaster house?"
"Walk in the disaster house?"
"Look at ANOTHER disaster house?"
 This isn't a stretch for the girl who used to say "Disaster loves you," one of my favorites.
Tammy and I are looking for an old house to fix up and sell.  After hearing me predict one day that the house we were going to see might be a disaster, she started calling them all "disaster houses."

That's a question: How many ______ are ______?
     - for example: "How many leaves are outside?", when she wanted to go outside, or "How many shoes are on Anna?"
   

"I have an idea"
"I have another idea"
Most of the time, she doesn't tell us what her idea is.  And she says it in a happy, almost sing-songy way that only a toddler can pull off.

"I have a tail."
"It's my tail." [spoken as if declaring something that should make everyone happy and proud]

Me: "Don't get in that water, it's cold and yucky."
Anna: "[very upset that I won't let her play in flood water on a windy 42 degree day] Get a NEW water?"

"That's a doondoo bot."

"Uhwellowellowellowellow"

"Give me a NUBBINS!"

The tail thing continues

So it seemed that after my stepmom, Mary gave Anna a long, narrow mink pelt with a clip on one end to use as a "tail," the whole tail thing would be resolved.  Not so.  Anna was petrified of the furry clip on critter. 
She kind of lost interest in it for a little while, until, last week, while she was sitting on the potty, a.k.a.: the duck toilet; named as such for obvious reasons.  We were looking at a book where she saw a baby and two parents.  She pointed out the Mommy and the Daddy in the picure:

Me: "That's right.  Other kids have Mommies and Daddies too."

Anna: (with a huge excited smile) "And other kids...HAVE TAILS!"

The all-caps emphasis is for enthusiasm, not anger.  She was back on her mission to procure a tail for herself.  
She later proposed that a short string with a cloth leaf and two cloth butterflies on it (part of an old baby toy, but was integrated in a way so it wasn't a strangulation hazard) could be her tail.  I believe she even used the word "pretend."  So, I tucked it into the back of her pants, and until I can come up with something better, that will be her de facto pretend tail. 
She spent the rest of the day talking about it
"I have a tail" and "My tail" and "Anna have a tail"
I would compliment her on her lovely tail and she would say something like "butterflies on it."  It was a good week. 

Potty Training, Toddler Bed, 2 yr Molars, and Separation Anxiety

You would be correct to assume by the name of this post, that we haven't been getting much sleep lately.  Anna Rose has decided she is scared to be away from Daddy all day, and she wants her Mommy to sit in a rocking chair by her bed all night. 

We've been able to ease her off of having Tammy sit in the chair til Anna goes to sleep at night, but she of course spends her whole day with me.  Stay-at-home moms have networks and contacts, and they have play-dates for their kids all the time.  Not so for the stay-at-home dad.  There's no group of dads with kids Anna's age for her to socialize with.  It's just me and the kid.  We have a great time, but it kind of reinforces her separation anxiety.  Almost everywhere she goes, she goes with Daddy.  The other day, Tammy tried to take her to an ice cream party with some moms she knows and their kids, but Anna would have none of it.  She spent over half the time crying and throwing a fit because she wanted her Daddy. 

She'll grow out of it, but I wish I had some opportunities for her to get to know more than just the realtors I work with and the occasional client, when I actually have active clients. 

Some Winter pics. Plz excuse the screwy formatting

Anna lying on the couch with her Mommy.  Just a note, they don't sleep like that.  It's not particularly safe or comfortable.  It was just a cute moment with my two favorite people.

BLOCK TOWERS!

More block towers, try not to notice the lack of trim in the background.  All remodeling projects were halted two years ago when...well, you know.

Anna, surveying her surroundings on a snowy day from inside her little plastic playhouse.

...and playing in the snow.  She would walk around making tracks and shuffling her feet in the snow all day, if nobody stopped her and brought her inside

Well, the two year old has decided to boycott bedtime and naptime this week.  Tammy and I have prevailed in most cases, but it has been a tough battle, especially at night.  Anna has said some of the cutest things this week, but I'm having trouble remembering any of them because of the lack of sleep.  This is the age when a lot of parents give in and let their kids sleep in Mommy and Daddy's bed.  We have no plans on joining those people in their collective bedtime discomfort.  Anna is going to keep sleeping in her own bed. 

In the meantime, Anna and I went to a thing at my office this week called "Agent Appreciation Day," where they give all us realtors some free food, a few pats on the back, and some awards.  It's a long-winded and dull even for a two year old (though I was having a decent time), so we didn't stay for the whole thing.  She was a little overwhelmed by so many talkative strangers in one room.  We sat next to Anna's favorite person at the office, our friend Monica, and her husband Dave.  Anna LOVES Monica and looks forward to seeing her every time we go to the office, but she doesn't know Dave very well. 

I sat her down in the chair between myself and Dave and got ready to give her the lunch I brought for her (yellow rice, broccoli, and dice ham, three of her favorite things in a bowl to make up for taking her to something positively boring for a two year old).  But when Dave turned, smiled, and said hi to her in a kind voice, Anna's response was one of shear terror.  She took one look at her situation and in an instant, it started:
----------------the silent cry---------------------
mouth open, eyes almost closed, red face, tears just starting, and the quiet before a big scream.  It's the scared, separation anxiety-ridden cry she gave the first time I tried to leave her with her grandparents for an hour, the first time she realized a stranger was holding her, and both times she has been subjected to the sitting on santa's lap ritual before Christmas. 
Needless to say, I spent most of the remainder of the even holding her. 

Quote of the day

A few minutes ago, I told Anna we were going to go for a ride and look at another old house.  She looked at me, smiled and said happily, "It's a be a disaster?"  I don't actually know if it was a question or a statement, but almost everything she says sounds kind of like a question. 
The kid used to think disaster was some kind of fun, exciting word (She used to say, "Mama loves you, Dada loves you, Grandma loves you [etc], disaster loves you").  Apparently, she still feels that way. 

Birthday party odds and ends

Well, we survived Anna's second birthday.  Throughout the week and on Saturday, Tammy made the icing and baked two cakes to end up with the cool Elmo cake in the picture.  I might share her super delicious icing recipe later, except the only person who follows this blog thus far is Tammy.

I stayed up late Saturday night cooking two crock pots full of chicken breasts and thighs in broth for the chicken and noodles the next day.  I boiled the frozen noodles Sunday morning after I got done thickening up the broth with cornstarch.  We were just finishing it up as people started to arrive.  I got tons of compliments, so either my family and friends really liked my chicken noodles, or they are tremendously talented at bending the truth. 

The big issue wasn't so much, whether or not we could feed a whole slew of people, it was more about where the heck all of them would sit.  Our house is small, and inviting Tammy's parents, 5 or 6 close friends, and my immediate family added up to 32 invitees counting the kids (We ended up with 24). 

We have two couches in the living room, so the two longest walls are taken up with furniture that seats a total of 6 people. 

The party was at 12:30
10:30 - I was pulling apart and de-boning chicken while I thickened up the broth into a gravy like consistency for the chicken and noodles

11:30 - Boiling noodles and asking Tammy to keep an eye on them so I could go get some of the plastic lawn chairs from outside that were frozen to the ground from the ice/snow storm that hadn't melted away in two weeks.  One of the chairs did not survive.

11:45 - I was knocking the ice of some more lawn chairs to bring inside and wiping them all down with towels.  Checked on the noodles, still boiling. 

12:00 - There was still not enough room, so as expected, the dining room table had to go.  Tammy and I moved it into the hallway.  I rolled it down to the spare bedroom where I had to quickly unscrew and  disassemble it to fit it through the doorway.  It would've been a nice time to have a full charge on my cordless drill.  Checked on the noodles, still boiling. 

12:10 - More chairs, this time from the garage, no melting snow or ice : ) 
Noodles, blah blah

12:15 - The noodles were boiling over.  Tammy to the rescue.  
Two more chairs from outside, snow, ice, towel, blah blah. I raced out and moved our cars out of the way. 

12:20 - The noodles are done.  We strain one pan, and Tammy's parents arrive.  I strain the other pan and mix them all into the crock pots, and my mom and Bob arrive. 

12:30 - Hung up the happy birthday sign and started greeting the barrage of family and friends, my favorite part.  Thankfully, no one was getting stuck in the snow and ice in our driveway. 

12:40 - It's a party.  Anna was so happy.  Last year, she was intimidated by the big crowd of people, and maybe a little on edge from missing her nap.  She was much happier this year, and we scheduled it before her nap, to avoid the same problem all over again.  

Birthday Week

So I asked Anna what she wanted for her birthday.  At first, she just named things she got for Christmas.  She said she wanted letters, a little house, big heavy house, with "peoples inside," and she wanted to close doors.  I asked again, and she said she wanted presents.  We settled on sand, a shovel, and a bucket.  She told me several times that she wanted a bucket, so I guess I ought to get her another bucket.

At least a bucket is a realistic gift.  On Monday, she wanted a tail, on Tuesday, she wanted her Mommy to have a tail, and yesterday, she wanted a mustache and a tail.  She started out with "Anna have a tail?," and moved on yesterday to "Anna get a tail?"  She was very disappointed about both her and her Mommy's lack of tails or the potential to acquire them.  She was very upset about the lack of tails.  When she's older and wants to wear makeup and talk to boys, I can't wait to tell her she used to wish she had a mustache and a tail.  In the meantime, I need to come up with a couple of toys to go along with that bucket.   

I'd also like to find her some kind of clock that she can't easily break.  She loves clocks.  She talks about them, stops and studies them, and cries, yest cries, when we leave the aisle with all the clocks at the store.  I don't know if a toy clock will do, but it might be my only choice.  But with just a few days til her birthday, and serious issues about space and seating for my family at her little party, I guess I'll just get the bucket and a couple toys. 

This is my little girl, Anna Rose, who at a little over a year old, could identify her colors just well enough to demand green and yellow everything, who asks what EVERYTHING is by saying "right there?," and who seems to believe that every word of the day on Sesame Street means "party," whether it's arachnid, octagon, unanimous, or about anything else she's too young to understand but not too young to say.

She desperately wants to know her ABC's, even though it's just too hard for her to learn them yet.  She can tell you what a multitude of animals "say," as well as a race car, which says "vroom."  She tries to count, she tries to sweep, she tries to change the channel,   figure out the baby monitor, say "hi, how are you today?," to everyone on the phone unless prompted to do so, and she's gotten pretty handy with Daddy's iPhone.  She thinks she's a grown up and all the other toddlers are either babies or kids.

In a few days, Anna will be 2 years old.  The first two years have gone by like a police chase.  I have forgotten more amazing little moments in the last 23 and 3/4 months than I had in almost 29 years before that. Lack of sleep almost certainly played a part.  But now, hopefully, I can start keeping track a little better and share some of the fun our family has along the way.