Arielle at 17 months

Apparently I am no good at posting on the actual day any more, but at least I am still getting the updates in!

Baby girl, next month you will be a year and a half old. Even though I am done having babies, I still wish you'd stay a baby. You are the most pleasant happy girl I have ever seen and I just want to freeze you in time right now.

The lashes, oh those beautiful long lashes! You can thank Daddy for those later in life, but for now just know that when you do your little blinking thing at me and bat those lashes, I just wanna scoop you up and give you a squeeze!

You are still as smiley as ever but are really starting to exert your will in situations. Your screech will become that of legend and I pray my eardrums survive!

You are obsessed with shoes. Putting them on, taking them off, my shoes, Daddy's shoes, the little girl at the parks Twinkle toe Sketchers, and pretty much any other shoes you see. It probably doesn't help that I have become obsessed with the cuteness of little girls shoes! Nate has 3 pairs of shoes, you have ~13. Some of them were hand-me-downs, but not many.

You are still a great eater and only object about eating a few things. They aren't consistent so I hesitate to call them dislikes just yet. If you don't like something you will spit it right out and promptly throw it on the floor.

Speaking of eating, these are the last pics you will take in the highchair. I got tired of cleaning the thing and having to move it in and out of the corner to clean under it. We borrowed a seat that straps onto our normal chairs and you are really apart of the family meals now!

You are still drinking a bottle at bedtime. I am really not sure how I am going to kick this one. You won't drink a substantial amount from a sippy cup and if you don't get enough food and milk in you before bed you wake at 4am starving!  

You are like a magpie these days, repeating everything you hear. At Easter dinner all of the adults were talking and Nate wanted to say something so he said, "Time out!!" and everyone laughed when you repeated him and then kept saying it the rest of the day.

Your favorite word has become No, but when you say it, it is usually in a sing song voice and sounds something like now. We crack up when you say it and Natey will often ask you questions just to hear you repeat it over and over. The problem is, you will not say yes and you say no even when you really mean yes.

Some of the other words you say that are too cute are, "Moy" (more), "Burdee" (berry), "Up" (which means both up and down to you). You call tomatoes, "apples" and can say cado for avocado.

Your hair is juuuuust barely long enough in the front to clip to the side. Too bad you only leave the clip in for a minute before you are ripping it out. Same with headbands, which is really a travesty considering I have 15 of them for you!

Daddy likes putting a little pony tail in the  back for you, but it looks quite silly since your hair is still so thin! The good news is, with all of the humidity we've been having, I've noticed your hair has started to curl!! I hope it gets more curly as the summer months get here.

You are doing something really amazing that you started doing a couple of weeks ago....You are pooping in the potty! It started because of a gross pooping in the tub incident, but now every time you have to go you say "poopie" and walk to the bathroom. My goal is to have you potty trained by the time you are 2! I look forward to getting rid of diapers!

Your canine teeth are finally half way in. I don't remember your other teeth taking that long to come through.

You have started using a fork and are really good at it. You can poke your food and even get it to your mouth with no problem!

You have an obsession with Elmo and hopefully we can take you and your brother to Sesame Place sometime this summer. I'm pretty sure you will try to kiss the Elmo character to death when you see him!

In a word

There are many things that can invoke a memory. Sometimes all it takes is a smell, a familiar scene, or a song to bring a familiar memory rushing back to the forefront of your mind. You are instantly transported to that time and place. It isn't always a good memory. A smell might remind you of an ex boyfriend or hearing that particular song can take you to a sad time in your life, but most often for me the memories are happy ones.

I love it when, what sparks a memory, is something seemingly ordinary. One of those things for me is the word "interim".

I was in high school, probably a sophomore. I was hanging in my living room with my mom and we were discussing our plans for going to the beach. I wanted one of my friends to come and was waiting for her to call me back. I didn't want to make any decisions until I heard from her because, as a teenager, we all know our worlds hinged on our friends. My mom was still trying to move forward with the plans so she said, "In the interim, let's plan what we do know". I guess I hadn't heard that word before so I immediately started debating the validity of that word. "Interim, that is soooo not a word , mom!" Of course there was no checking Google to prove she was right so we embarked on a 20 minute search for the dictionary. In the end, as we all know, it was a word. We laughed about it and for years she didn't let me live down the fact that her smarty pants daughter (because I so was am) was wrong for once.

I just overheard that word as a co-worker was talking on the phone. I'd thank her for the happy memory she just sparked, but I'm pretty sure she'd look at me like I was nuts. So I will just sit and enjoy it with a few happy and sad tears welling up in my eyes. I miss her.

The price of beauty...

I went to the RI Women's Expo with my friend last weekend. First I'd like to say that was slightly irritated and extremely underimpressed with the types of booths there were. Crappy jewelry, chotchies, and other  items of questionable worth were rampant. Is this crap what we, as women, represent? I certainly hope not, but the people there were eating it up! Of course there were a few good booths, Zumba Fitness, some wineries (we all love wine) and a local dairy that delivers (score!).

Like any expo there were plenty of giveaways. I threw my name in the hat for a few of them, you know, the good ones. One was for all new windows for the house, a finished basement, and of course a $1600 "Grand Prize" for a national laser treatment center with local offices. What they hey, everyone needs a little beauty help, right? And free beauty help, well, what could be better than that?

So, I won. Yes, the "Grand Prize". Why do I keep using quotes for that, you ask? Well, I decided I'd bite. $1600 must buy a ton of beauty, right?? I had a consultation and it turns out that $1600 is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to beautifying one's self. There were a bunch of different treatments available. Botox, microderm abrasions, body contouring (whatever the heck that is), etc. Since I am a Microbiologist (by schooling) I am very anti injecting the world's deadliest poison into my face, no matter how safe they claim it to be. Besides, how will I get Nate to listen to me if I can't give him my sternest frowny face??

One treatment did strike my fancy. It's not surgical. It's not a laser treatment that hurts a lot or makes your face red for days. It's a subdermal treatment that supposedly stimulates your own cells to produce more collagen and elastin instead of injecting it into your face. It evens out skin tone, helps small scars and wrinkles (which I have quite a few of) and would help the hyperpigmentation I have from years of sun damage and the burn I got when I was pregnant with Nate. That sounds awesome, right?? So what's the hang up? Oh yeah, it costs $3,500...for 4 treatments. So do the math. $3500 minus my "Grand Prize" and it would still cost me $1900. Not so "Grand" if you ask me. I guess I will have to grow old gracefully if this is the cost of beauty.

Storm Chaser

I am a storm chaser. No, not the kind you might be thinking of. I don't get into my pickup truck and crazily follow tornadoes across the plains. I chase a tornado of a different kind. This twister lives in my house, and is disguised in the form of a sweet 16 month old girl. Don't let her sunny disposition fool you. This little girl is the rootinest, tootinest, messiest being alive.

Wherever she goes she leaves a path of destruction in her wake. I can't turn my back for a second. A list of her recent crimes include:

• Overturning a basket of folded clothes
• Taking EVERY DVD out of the TV stand
• Pulling all of the books off her book shelves
• Climbing up on the dining room chair just to pull the table cloth off
• Relocating all of the shoes that were neatly in a line by the door
• Pulling items OUT of the garbage can
• Attempting to drown Nate's Kung Zhu pet in the toilet
• Tipping over the cat's food bowl

This list could go on and on. I fear we have entered a very busy and messy phase of toddlerhood around  these parts. Let's hope the house...and my patience survive!