Being Schooled by a Toddler

Working on her car

The other day as I was getting Lexi dressed after a bath, I was singing her "Six Little Ducks" song along to her CD. She starts saying "No, No Mommy!" Followed by "No you cannot sing!" I started laughing so hard and then she thought it was funny too. That's definitely the biggest and funniest sentence she's said yet! Funny how things I didn't even think she knew about she could put into words.

Her newest thing is to say "No Mommy, No!" I think I hear this all day long. However, then she thinks it's a game and will repeat. So if I say "Yes, yes yes" she'll say "No, no, no" and then if I reverse, she does too. The no's are also carried out so it's more like nooooo and sounds really cute.

Wearing Mommy's shoes

She knows how to use tools like screwdrivers. It's pretty amazing actually. A few days back, she disappeared when I was cleaning her room. I asked where she went and she comes back in with Derek's pointer, thinking it was a screwdriver. I told her that was Daddy's so she had to put it back. She said "No, work!" and proceeds to get her laptop, turn it over and try to unscrew the screws in it. When she was done, she put it back. She is so smart!

Being 2

It's been a really long time since I posted on here. Between my business, a 2-year-old and a new puppy, just to name a few, I've been pretty busy.

Lexi learns and says something new every day it seems. In fact, just today I asked her if she was a baby or a big girl. I really didn't think she knew what a big girl was and was expecting her to just say "baby". Instead she said "I'm a big girl." I said "Oh, you're a big girl huh?" She replied with "Yes, Lexi's a big girl." It was so cute and hilarious all at once.

At the parade

A few of her other phrases are:
Hi, how are you?
Where did they go?
No! No talk to Mommy and Daddy - she doesn't want us to talk and wants us to pay attention to her.
(Or if my mom is here it goes like this: No talk to Mommy, Grandma)
No no no! Get down! Down! Good girl Paris!
Get me out!
Yuck! Big poop! Puppy big poop!

Last time wearing this dress

 Some of her favorite things are:
Watching Cars - it's a daily occurrence and she has it memorized.
Walking her toy dog - it even has a ribbon around its neck that she pulled off to make a leash. Puppy goes on walks with us and she tells him not to step in poop.
Cookies and cake. She "helped" me make my mom's birthday cake a few days ago and for two days straight all she would say was "Grandma cake!!" She was so excited when she was allowed to have some.
Anything breakfast! It makes lunch and dinner hard, but she fills up so much on good breakfast foods that I probably shouldn't care.
If You're Happy and you Know It is her favorite song...but only the 'clap your hands' part.

Having fun in Grandma and Grandpa's backyard

 She has her own names for some people and it's funny:
She calls me Mommy most of the time now but sometimes she will call me Mom
Derek has always been Daddy from the time she was about a year old...none of that Dada crap.
Grandma and Grandpa (no matter which ones they are) are Bapa. Somehow, I always know who she is talking about.
Her Aunt Megan is Aunnie, it's SOOOO cute!
Uncle Ty is Ty
Diana was Yaya, but now it's starting to sound like Diana
Isaac was the first friend she called by name
We're still working on some other people that she doesn't see that often.

That catches you up on the cute things she's doing right now. Hopefully it won't be so long next time.

Bed time for Baby

This is too cute not to share the entire story: Tonight, Lexi decided that her Baby needed to go to bed. And not sure put her in the crib and leave, she needed the entire bed time routine that Lexi gets. It was the cutest thing she's done so far! First, she found the cup Dora uses and gave that to Baby, which is perfect because it fits in Baby's mouth (yes, this baby's name is Baby...or Baabee as she calls her). Then she was going to put her in bed, but decided against it, walked over to her door, closed it, then rocked her baby and sang Twinkle Twinkle (ba ba ba ba ba ba ba...in the tune of Up above the world so high), and then she threw her over the crib railing into the crib. Then it was time to get her up, so I picked up Baby since Lexi can't get her out. Lexi then took her clothes off, said "bum bum", looked at Baby's butt and then said "Poop" and proceeded to change her (I was laughing hard by this point). After that she took her to the bathroom, lifted the potty chair lid, shoved Baby in, closed the lid and gave her another drink, which really made me laugh hard! That was basically the end until I was on the phone with my sister a few hours later and she brought a diaper over and tried to put that on Baby. It really was the cutest thing!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I just love Valentine's Day! I love the idea of it, whether it's roses and candy or a quiet dinner and a movie it's nice to have a day set aside to really celebrate the people you love. What I don't like are those people who rant about what a terrible holiday it is. I think those people are truly unhappy beings and feel sort of sorry for them. Yes, I do think it's very commercialized, but what holidays aren't these days? I also can't stand those jewelry commercials that imply if the guy doesn't buy the girl a HUGE ring, she won't love him...now THAT is horrible! What kind of person thinks that way? Well, don't tell me, I know a few haha.

So, take a minute, or a day, and love those you love. We're excited to celebrate this weekend since Derek has a big meeting tonight and won't be home until pretty late. Can't think of anything better than spending three days just him and me then an additional two days after that with us and our girl.

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Third Times the Charm

Taken 6 months ago

 Sweet success! Today is day 3 of Lexi sleeping in her crib for naps. It may be little, but for us, it's a huge accomplishment. Her swing stopped working a little over a week ago and I think sleeping in it while it wasn't swinging helped her make the transition. She's gone back to 3 hour naps which she hasn't taken much in several months. I decided to keep the swing up in her room for a little while, she likes to rock her baby.

Rocking Baby

Potty Training 1.0

The only naked pictures you'll probably ever see!

 So, we've been kind of dabbling in the potty training area the last few weeks. Nothing serious. And by nothing serious, that's exactly what I mean. We've had two naked baby sessions where she'll run around the house naked and then we sit on the potty from time to time. She doesn't want to go outside her diaper at all, which is good and bad. Good because it means she really gets upset when she has an accident and she'll hold it for a very long time; bad because it means she's a bit scared about going in the potty. We've started sitting on it after baths and I think because of her shaking from being chilly and the sound of the tub draining, we've had some success. She's now gone twice in the potty and the other day she ran into the bathroom yelling "bum bum" and sat down. So, took her little jammies off and she had just pooped (this is why I have a blog, nobody wants to read this stuff on Facebook lol). So, she knows what she's supposed to do. Once I have a week where nothing is going on, we'll get down to the nitty gritty. Not bad for a 20 month old though.

Keep on Truckin'

Totally how we felt walking on Sunday

Okay, hopefully back on track with exercising. I did so good the week I came back and then it got knocked back last week because I just couldn't find the power cord lol. We did take a nice brisk walk on Sunday, but didn't realize how cold the wind really was. We walked pretty fast and came home frozen. Think we'll wait until March to start walking again.

Today I did 56 minutes on the tread climber, maxing out my speed at 3.6 mph, which is the fastest I've gone. I burned 465 calories and feel good! This should push my body back into energy mode and help me stay awake later at night again.

I've still been holding steady to 117.5 lbs and I'm quite happy with that. Once I get down to 115 I'm really going to start focusing on toning my stomach.

Happy running!

Lexi's Cruising Towards Two

Lexi and her Daddy
15 Months

 So, I'm pretty sure my last post about Miss Lexi Roo was when she was a year old. I may have done one at 14 months, but that was still over 5 months ago now. She will be 20 months in just 10 days, which is so hard to believe! She's a little ball of fire and fun and we adore her, as do all her grandparents, aunts and uncles - she's quite spoiled.

Her newest things as of the past week are saying tractor "da du" - basically sounds like tractor but with d's, saying ball "bow" - like a hair bow, and experimenting with potty training - we've done two half days and even though she hasn't gone in the potty yet, she's really good about sitting on the potty for m&ms haha! And she tries everything in her power to hold it if she doesn't have a diaper on. She hates going without one.

Lexi on her tractor
January 2013

 Even though she's not quite putting words into long phrases yet, she has a huge mouthful she says, which include some of the following:
juice, doggy, kitty, bye bye, hi, daDDDDDDYYYYY (yes, that dramatic), Mama, yes, please, ooops, uh oh, hot dog, cheese, beep, choo choo, vroom, bump, woof, rawr, quack, duck, meow (but only for her Aunt Heather), all done, I did it, what's that, baby, good good (or something, it means her favorite snacks), yogurt (yo go), cracker...and plenty more that I can't think of at the moment.

She will get into things she's not supposed to, like the plant soil, and then run to me yelling "bad bad" and show me her dirty hands and then run to the kitchen to get her hands washed. She also tells Winnie's she's a bad dog lol.

She loves her books and will bring them to us to read her. Usually, out of probably 50, she brings us the same 5 or so every time. It's pretty cute she already has her favorites. And she has parts of them memorized already too. She also loves music and will turn it on herself and dance to it. We plan on enrolling her in one of the toddler dance studios in late spring or early fall. I think she's going to love it!

Lexi at 16 months

 Her favorite song is Twinkle Twinkle, which I find fitting considering that was the room I recovered in after having her. I sing it to her every night as I put her in bed. 

Lexi loved her bottles from Day 1, so when she turned one year old, it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be to just take them away. She didn't want sippy cups at all and really didn't use them until she was around 14 months, if I'm remembering correctly. My goal was to have her off them by 19 months. When she did hit 14 months, we took them away cold turkey due to a friend's recommendation. It was terrible! She just wasn't ready. Her bottle was her only comfort item. After she was three weeks old she didn't want pacifiers and only sucked her thumb a few times. She has favorite toys, but nothing she can't live without. So, we decided she wasn't ready and her waking up multiple times a night crying wasn't worth it, especially when she was way past needing to have a bottle in the middle of the night anyway. So, out came the bottles again, but now it was only right before bed and right when she got up. I started worrying when she was 18 months old that it would be a battle. I know some doctors recommend up to two years old and even my aunt and uncle said she would have no problems if she held on to it that long, but I wanted it gone before that. Well, she was 18.5 months old and started to only have a sip here or there. And then much to our amazement and happiness, she was completely done!! She weaned herself off them by herself! Never asked for her bottle again and I packed them up a few days later. Now we have about three different sippy cups at a time in the fridge! Oh, and our island cupboard has 12 different ones! That's how many I had to buy in order to find ones she liked. Of course now, she doesn't care and will drink from any and all of them.

Lexi feeding Winnie her bottle
17 Months

She's quite a picky eater much to my dismay, but she's getting better each month it seems and will eat new things from time to time. Like today, she decided to eat the rest of my egg salad sandwich when just a few weeks ago she cried and spit it out when Derek gave her a sample. She loves breakfast, so that's an easy meal. She eats bananas, yogurt, breakfast bars, cereal, muffins (she loves bread!), but lunches and dinner usually consist of macaroni and cheese, pb&j (sometimes without the p), or hotdogs. And unfortunately, trying to give her the good quality, real meat hot dogs won't work because they are too greasy and make her pretty sick, so she eats the 8 for $1.00 ones. She loves dipping her foods whether it's hot dogs in ketchup or crackers in spaghetti o's - oh yeah that's a new one she loves. The last few weeks though, we've discovered that if we have cooked vegetables, she'll eat them with ranch. Yes, my kind of girl!! That's the only way I'll eat veggies too. She also loves pasta, so that's become a good one for dinners. When she has the occasional snack they usually consist of apple sauce and teddy grahams. Teddy grahams are her absolute favorite and she refers to those as her good goods, at least, that's the only thing we can translate from whatever she's really saying.

 She loves dogs of all kinds, which I think is very good, but also not always good. When we see strange dogs out and about I just tell her she can't touch them. One day, she'll understand that. It'll be fun to see her with a puppy this coming year. For now, she just loves on old Winnie who is very VERY tolerant of her little person. If anyone tried to hurt Lexi, Winnie would kill them on the spot, no exaggerating there.

Lexi and her baby
18 Months

She's just now starting to be able to wear certain 24 month clothes, as long as they are short sleeved or have shorter long sleeves. The pants though, well forget that, she is just barely tall enough for 18 month haha!

Lexi at 19 Months

Her 18 month checkup was now a little over a month ago and she did so well! Only had to get one booster and her flu shot! We were thrilled it wasn't the normal 4-6 vaccines. And now, other than the yearly flu vaccine, she's good until kindergarten! I was concerned about her eating habits, but when I started listing off what she eats, the doctor told me she's actually very healthy and more so than most kids that age. She was also very impressed with how many words Lexi was saying, she said she's advanced in that area so that made me very happy! I'm so glad we switched doctors. Lexi loves Dr. V!

I think that brings everyone up to date. Hope you enjoyed it!

Starting 2013

I know it's been a very long time since I've posted! I stopped because we had the holidays and I was just having a hard time being motivated to write for two or three people. However, I think I'm going to publicly open my blog up. It's not like a lot of people are going to stumble across it by accident anyway. Hopefully this will allow my extended and far away family to be able to access it now.

So, 2013 should prove to be a great year! Have a few great trips planned, a new show puppy hopefully in the works for the summer, a new business opportunity, just some great things. I'll post another blurb shortly about what Lexi is up to, but here's where I am with workouts and health stuff.

I've been jumping between 117.5 and 119.5, so have been very happy with those numbers. I didn't exercise from December 24 through January 13 because I was so sick most of that time. I started up again on Monday and it felt so good!! I'm surprised I was able to start back where I left off going 55 minutes and having 35 of those minutes be at 3.4 mph. I think getting back into working out will help keep my weight more towards 117 and move down to my next goal of 115. Since I hit 120, I've really noticed my stomach fat is slowly going away too. My hips are much more prominent, in a good way, and I can wear much tighter shirts and be okay. I am now a solid size 5 and was able to get into a size 3 a few weeks ago. Now, that's not saying it looked good and I left it at the store, but they fit and they buttoned, just had a bit too much of a muffin top and that's not flattering.

I'm planning on keeping to my lower calorie intake and exercising on the tread climber three times a week. I do have coffee each morning, but no Pepsi except on the weekends. I only have a dessert item once a day at dinner and it usually consists of some m&ms.

Well, there you have it :) Hope you're happy Megan hehe!