My crowning moment of motherhood

On Sunday we went to the Independent Catholic church in Fells Point to watch baby Zoey get christened. It was Hannah's first time in a church, and she did surprisingly well though she became bored with the constant up and down and refused to participate in the subsequent ups (I don't blame her--I get tired of all the up and down that goes on in a Catholic church too, although I suppose it's better than having to sit still for an hour...).  We had to ask her to whisper a few times and also to hold her applause for the organ player until the end, and I carried her out screaming once when she decided to stand up and simultaneously fall over face first into the pew in front of us, but other than that, model behavior! Fortunately it's a really laid back church so nobody gave us any dirty looks.

Amy and Nate provided refreshments after the service, so everyone headed down to the basement room to mingle and munch.  Hannah and I were the first ones at the buffet, me trying desperately to cut a wheel of brie with a plastic butter knife, Hannah loading up her plate with the surrounding strawberries. After clearing away some of the berries, she noticed the "garnish" the brie was sitting on and berries were sitting on and started pulling at the leafy green stuff and putting it on my plate, saying, "Here mommy. Here's some kale for you."

I was so proud. I realize that most of you will think I'm crazy for calling this my crowning moment, but I seriously love it that the little munchkin knows kale and knows that it's not just a garnish.  Not many 2-year-olds (or 32-year-olds) can claim that.

The only thing that would have made me prouder is if she had put it on her own plate and started chowing down. Maybe some day. A mom can dream....

The below pic is unrelated. I took it the morning before the christening while waiting for Clay and Grammy to show up. Hannah has joined me in my ritual of drinking hot water throughout the day (she has hers with honey) and was enjoying a cup while snuggling her Lila doll and enjoying a slow Saturday morning wake up.

Conversations with Hannah: Pee pee shooting out

Daddy: "Can I have a hug?"
Hannah: "No, I can't give you a hug because my pants'll get wet and my pee pee is shooting out."

(She offered him a hug after putting her shooting pee pee in the potty.)

City Rat Sled Ride

When I was little, my dad took us to the hill at Smithsburg high school to sled ride on snow days. There were other hills too, but that's the one I remember most. I haven't found an equivalent hill in Baltimore (I'm sure there's one in the county somewhere--ideas anyone??), but in the meantime, we've got the hill we live on and the hill in the parking lot a block away. Heck, we don't even need snow--a thick layer of slightly melted ice on a sidewalk is all this city rat needs to break out the sled for some winter fun!

I never thought I'd say this, but I'm ready for some snow now....Well, not right not, but maybe after Eric gets back from his dog sledding trip.

Habla Espanol

Eric and I took Hannah to a trial Spanish class this morning designed for kids ages 2-1/2 to 3 years taught by a woman from Columbia who speaks very little English, both inside and outside the classroom. Hannah was the youngest of the three in the class, but probably not by any more than a year, if that. The class was great, and I stand to learn just as much as Hannah. Today's class focused on animals, specifically, pejaro, perro, and gato. We sang songs that I couldn't understand the words to, played games, and did crafts that focused on emphasizing the words for bird, dog, and cat. We also learned the words for fly, walk, and run, and, when one of the crafts involved gluing eyes, ears, and noses on a cat and dog, we learned all those words too, but I forget them now....

My guess is that Hannah will pick it up way faster and easier than me, although she stayed pretty timid, clingy, and off-to-the-sides today. She had plenty of good reasons for being in a bad mood though. She's had a pretty severe ear ache all week and was up screaming for most of last night so she was exhausted today, and it doesn't help that the class is really late in the morning. Most of our activities start between 9 and 10, but this didn't start until 11:20 and it's an hour class. Hannah's other classes are 45 minutes, so about 50 minutes into this one, Hannah was fussy and ready to go, and we were eager to get our over-exhausted and long-since expired munchkin down for a nap.

Given the time of this class, we probably won't register her for this semester. I liked the program and see the importance of exposing her to another language while she's young, but that time just doesn't work for us, and the only other time frame for her age group is during nap time on Mondays. There are a lot more options for classes once she actually turns 3 so we'll revisit the idea then. Of course, we're leaning toward a Montessori education right now which will mean that she'll start learning French as soon as she starts.

If you're in the Baltimore/Towson area and interested, check out Fun with Foreign Language. They teach Spanish and Mandarin Chinese to ages 18 months to 10 years.

As for the ear ache, no clue what's going on there. Thinking it was an infection, I took her to the doctor on Tuesday. Apparently there's a ton of wax lodged in her ear canal, some of which the doc pulled out, and there's a little water in there, but no infection. Certain that it would turn into an infection in a few days, the doc wanted to put her on an antibiotic anyway. Although I'm pretty anti-antibiotic, I allowed it because her waking up screaming all night is getting exhausted, and also because she's had mucous coming out of every orifice since the beginning of December. I don't think I made the right call though because if it were an infection, she shouldn't still be in pain after 4 days on an antibiotic, right?  Swimming yesterday was probably a terrible idea...We tried to get her to sit still with peroxide in her ear today, but she freaked out within a minute which is not enough time for it to clear out all that gunk. We tried a little alcohol too, the main ingredient in Swimmer's Ear, but by then she was freaked out and wouldn't let us anywhere near her ear. Eric said he used to get ear aches a lot and that Grannah put drops of sweet oil in his ear. I have no clue what that is but am thinking I should look into it....Any other advice anyone?? Peroxide always works for me...

Quirky, quirky Hannah...

I managed to sneak Hannah into her underwear and pants today before she realized that I was dressing her at which point, she promptly put an end to it and insisted on keep her pajama shirt on. She took the shirt I'd picked out for her to wear and went tearing off into my room where she found an excellent hiding place for it, so excellent that I was unable to find it. While in my room, she pulled this hat of mine out of the closet and put it on her head before going downstairs to put on her slippers and fill her backpack with stuffed animals. This is how she looked when I came down:

I eventually talked her into showing me where she hid the shirt by praising her excellent hiding skills (which really were excellent--I seriously couldn't find it) and asking her to pretty please help me. She gave in, and I brought the shirt with us in case I was able to sneak her into a normal outfit, and I was. She change shirts after gymnastics and even put on her shoes so she looked less interesting walking around Whole Foods. What can I say? I was embarrassed....Sigh. I'm going to have to get used to it because my guess is that she's going to come up with far crazier ensembles come high school...

In other quirky Hannah news: yesterday I was making dinner and Hannah was losing brain cells staring at the boob tube when all of a sudden she came running into the dining room singing the "I gotta pee, I gotta pee, I gotta pee, hey, hey, hey, hey" song (am I the only one who sings that or do you guys know what I'm talking about?). She grabbed her little portable potty that we keep on the first floor and ran back in to the living room. I walked in a minute later to check on her and was startled to find her on the potty on the couch:

It's a bad pic, I know. I grabbed my camera as fast as I could but she was in the process of standing up when I snapped it and since I don't use flash, blurry is the result. I had to share it though because of the sheer ridiculousness of it. Who does that?? Today I caught her trying to do it again and asked her to please leave it on the floor to pee. This is not a habit we need to get into. I mean, really?? Fortunately, no pee was spilled in the taking of this picture.

Hannah's first visit to Earth Treks!

Hannah's first visit to the climbing gym was awesome!! Within minutes of being there she was running around the soft blue mats (empty at 9:00 a.m. on a Saturday) giggling excitedly.  Jess and Todd got there shortly before us, and Erin and Brody showed up a few minutes after us. After getting everybody checked in and signed off on, we took the kiddos upstairs where there are rooms with clusters of super easy routes.

We ended up inheriting two kids' climbing harnesses a few months ago from the family I used to babysit for (score!!), so we're all set up. We suited up the kiddos...

...tied them in...

....and let 'em roll! Hannah took off pretty well (with a teeny bit of help from me pulling on the rope). She had one freak out when she climbed about halfway up the wall, out of Eric's reach, and then wanted to come down. She didn't want to let go and cried out for daddy to get her. Eric climbed up (hurt back and all) just far enough to support her feet on his hands. That was all she needed to let go. He had to do that one other time, but then she was fine.

This was a pretty kid-centric visit so us grown-ups didn't get too many climbs in, but we managed a few.  Hannah was mesmerized when Jess went up the wall, and when Jess got to the top, Hannah reached up her arms and said, "I got you Jess!"

I should note that Eric was on paparazzi duty today since his back is too hurt to climb or belay so a lot of the photo creds go to him. Check out this fun action shot:

We took lots of snack and juice breaks too.

They both seemed to like watching the people bouldering below.

Jess had the bright idea to teach Brody to traverse which was genius for him since it enabled him to hop on and off the wall with ease.

More miscellaneous climbing shots...

Hannah climbed up just far enough to touch the hold shaped like a red frog and then just hung out there and looked around for a while. I convinced her to put her feet on the giant red hold you see below her knees in the pic below, but that was a mistake. That extra inch caused her second freak out. Once again, Eric shimmied up and put his hand below her feet.

Since Hannah was freaked out those two times, Jess offered to belay Hannah while Todd belayed me so that I could climb on the rope next to her.  That was super fun, and she made it up pretty far that time.

After about 2 hours and probably six or seven climbs (for Hannah), we started packing up, but before leaving, I insisted on a posed shot.

Hannah loves Brody so much that she didn't want the fun to end. She suggested that he come back to our house to play with her new toys and cried when we said no.

We had so much fun that we're considering getting a membership and making this a regular Saturday morning activity. My only hesitance is that we're also talking about removing the goalie in the next few months and taking that next plunge...It's days like this that make me want to just stop with one kid. We're finally able to do stuff like this again. We've got some freedoms and flexibility. Do we really want to start all over again???? I really want Hannah to have a sibling, but man, the idea of starting over again is just daunting. Fingers crossed that hypothetical child number two is laid back and easy and capable of sleeping anywhere and anytime...What are the odds of that???

Potty Talk

Last week I was trying to diaper the kiddo prior to her nap and she resisted, insisting that she would wake up to pee. (I don't know where she got that idea; I haven't thought to suggest it yet. I figured we'd be in this phase of wearing diapers when sleeping for a veddy, veddy long time, which is fine, really, because it's only when she sleeps.) I figured, worst case scenario, she pees the bed, and I do a load of laundry when she wakes up. No biggie, right? So I gave up, put the diaper back in the drawer. And guess what happened?  She woke up dry. No wet sheets to wash. Crazy, right!!! Ever since then, she's been "waking up to pee" during nap time and so far, no wet sheets. Now, to be fair, she only napped 4 out of the last 7 days, but still, 4 no-peeing-the-bed naps is pretty amazing if you ask me.

I love it that she's telling me when she's ready because I otherwise would have no clue how to make some of these leaps. I was really hoping she'd be potty trained by 2, but other than letting her run around naked and pee all over the floor, I had no clue how to make that happen. Fortunately, I didn't have to. I don't know if I ever told this story or not, but one day in June, I was trying to get her dressed for gymnastics and she refused to be diapered, so we left the house in underwear, and we made it home without any accidents so we tried again on Thursday (the other day that I'm with her all morning). That worked out so I started leaving her in the kids room at the gym in her underwear, and lo and behold, that worked too. With the exception of the flight to and from Michigan, she hasn't worn a diaper out of the house since the end of July.

And now, here she is telling me she's ready to "wake up and pee" during nap time...What's next?? Bedtime without a diaper??? Crazy. And totally awesome. I'm running out of reasons to post-pone another pregnancy....

Out with the old...

Guess who managed to stay up until midnight last night for the first time since Hannah was born! That's right, this early-to-bed, mostly loser-ish mama right here.  It helped that Laura was here making life fun, and it also helped that Eric volunteered to stay home so that I could walk down to 34th Street to see the ball drop, something I've wanted to do for years but somehow never got around to doing in all my 5-1/2 years of living here.

Photo courtesy of Ms. Laura Mae and Jon

I've gotten terribly behind in my blogging this month and don't feel like dragging December's memories into the new year with me so I'm going to create a monster of a post catching you up on everything you didn't know you missed in December (which, as it turns out, is not as much as I thought) starting with Christmas day and working backwards. Get your reading muscles ready!


1. Christmas (as in Christmas day)
Hannah took her time opening her presents, playing with each thing she opened for a while before opening another, so the present-opening lasted all morning which was really nice.

As I said before, I'm not much of a shopper, and I don't want Hannah to get used to having a ton of stuff under the tree, and we spend a lot through the year on various classes (getting ready to add Spanish classes to her weekly routine which already includes gymnastics, music, and kids fitness fusion) and memberships (just bought a Port Discovery membership and renewed our membership to the aquarium). That said, the only things we put under the tree for her were two packs of Dinosaur Train figurines and a book, but those figures combined with the Megabloks Dinosaur Train that Grannah and Granpah got her made her day. I don't think I've mentioned Dinosaur Train before, but it's awesome, and Hannah loves it, and I love that she loves it because it's a seriously great kid show. You should check it out if you have kids.

Grannah and Granpah got Eric this crazy face/head warmy thing and some nice socks and flannel pants, all of which will come in quite handy when he takes his crazy self to Minnesota this month to dedicate an entire week of his life to dogsledding and camping in below freezing weather. Ugh. I'm cold and miserable just thinking about it. You couldn't pay me enough money to go on a trip like that!! I can think of few things more miserable than spending 7 minutes in below freezing weather, let alone 7 days. No thank you!

Grannah and Granpah also got Hannah an indoor gardening kit. Grannah helped the munchkin plant the seeds that afternoon, and a few days later, they sprouted! Hannah's having fun watering her plants and watching the green shoots get bigger every day.

After a nap we walked to the playground for some fresh air.

Hannah's got a new game where she stands behind this little play bar thingy and pretends to be a waitress of sorts, asking us what we want and then running off to the grass to retrieve it the pretend smoothie or sandwich or whatever was asked for before bringing it back to the customer. Here's Grannah placing her order.

2. Holiday parties
We got fancied up for Eric's holiday party at the beginning of this month, and sadly, the pics (due to my inability to take low light pics) turned out pretty terribly, but I thought I'd post one for posterity's sake anyway.  I got my hair cut the following week so it no longer looks so incredibly, ridiculously terribly thin, though I do find that I have a lot less hair these days than ever before which totally sucks.

Amy babysat for us that night (and also did my hair and makeup and provided that super-sweet push-up bra) so we got to relax and enjoy the night knowing that Hannah was more than fine. She was so excited to have Amy to herself for the night that she repeatedly asked us to leave--it was fantastic! So we went out and had some drinks and even danced! It took me four drinks to get to the dancing point, and I suffered a bit the next day, but it was worth it.

Eric was hurting a bit the next morning too so when Hannah woke up early, the two cuddled up on the couch and watched videos on the internet. I love this pic.

We went to my holiday work party the week after but didn't get any pics which sucks because my hair looked awesome that night. Oh well.  Mary Cate babysat for that so once again, Hannah ushered us out of the house, and we were able to totally relax and enjoy getting to know my new coworkers.

3. Meeting baby Zoey!!
The first exciting thing that happened this month that I never got around to blogging about was Zoey being born to Amy and Nate next door. This means that Hannah is no longer the only kid on the block!! It's going to be so fun watching Zoey grow up and watching her interact with Hannah.

We went over to meet her and take some pics about a week after she was bornp Hannah was mesmerized.  She has been asking for a baby sister for some time now, and meeting Zoey made her more insistent. We keep trying to explain that we have no control over whether it's a boy or girl and wouldn't she be happy with either a brother or a sister, but at that, she just pauses, narrows her eyes at us and says, "No. I want sister."

Alright, you're caught up now I think.  Whew!! Sayonora 2011!!  Happy 2012!