She Says...

Yesterday I told Staley that I wanted her to go potty before we left for music class.  Very seriously, Staley told me, "Mommy, if you go potty too much, you get a headache."  I decided to take my chances with the headache and have her try anyway.

Today Staley, Adelie, and I were rolling a ball back and forth in the basement.  While we were playing, Staley commented, "I'm the medium.  Adelie is the small.  Mommy, you can be the large."  Ummm...thanks?

Moving Along...Quickly

Adelie is not yet 7 months old.  She has mastered rolling.  She has mastered sitting.  She commando crawls like a champ.  And in the past few days, she has figured out how to transition into sitting by herself and is working really hard on crawling on her hands and knees.  Watching her just makes me tired.  She is on her belly.  Then her hands and knees.  Then her hands and feet.  Then she lies on her side, holding her leg up like some kind of aerobics thigh-master pose.  Then she's back on her hands and knees.  Then she's sitting.  Then she's down again.  It's never ending.  And it makes me a bit concerned about what her activity level will be when she's a toddler.  But since I can't stop her from moving, I'll just settle for being proud of my mobile little gal.

Pretty happy about being on her hands and knees.

Striking a yoga pose.

My happy, active, mobile little gal.

Little Jokester

Staley has recently gotten interested in telling jokes.  She has memorized a handful of jokes that she enjoys sharing with family and friends.  A few knock-knock jokes, a few simple puns.  But there's something about a roll-your-eyes-laffy-taffy joke coming out of the mouth of a toddler that makes it truly funny.  So when Staley asks, "Why is Cinderella not a good basketball player?" and answers with "Because her coach is a pumpkin," it makes me laugh every time.  Staley seems to like the laughs she elicits with her jokes, so last night she decided to make up a few of her own.

Q:  "What does your hair do in the shower?"
A:  "Wet."

Q:  "What does you shirt do in the shower?"
A: "Goes in the hamper."

And I'm not sure that it mattered to Staley that I didn't find her original jokes quite as funny as her Cinderella joke or her knock-knock jokes.  She apparently thought her new jokes were hilarious.  And really, if you can make yourself laugh, does it really matter what anyone else thinks?

My little jokester

Another One

Adelie's top right tooth has officially joined her bottom two.  And since I still don't have a baby book for her, I need to document it here so I can write it into the baby book that I intend to one day have for her.  But I'll add a cute picture to spice up this post.  So here you go...

Good Eater

She likes sweet potatoes.  She likes squash.  She likes peas and apples and prunes.  And apparently she also likes...

...grass and leaves.

At least she's not a picky eater.

Who's the Sucker??

Yesterday our neighbor friends gave Staley some candy.  While I was at the store, she and Zach had this conversation:

Staley:  "Here Daddy.  You can have this sucker."
Zach:  "Thank you for offering, Staley, but we are going to have dinner soon so I'm not going to have a sucker right now."
Staley:  "It's okay, Daddy.  You can have one.  Mommy's not home."

Staley's definitely got us figured out.  I was not home and yes, she and Zach ended up having suckers before dinner.

Worse than the Curse

A few weeks ago, I blogged about the St. Louis curse where multiple attempted trips to St. Louis for my sister-in-law and her family had to be cancelled due to illness.  I thought we had inherited the curse as our planned St. Louis trip at the end of September got postponed when Staley got sick.

We decided to try our trip again this week-end.  Fate tried to warn us.  Tried to intervene.  But we didn't listen.  We decided to go despite all the reasons we were given not to.

Zach had tickets to a concert on Saturday night that he had forgotten about until Thursday.  We decided to go anyway.
There was a big Cardinal's play-off game in St. Louis this week-end.  Our favorite hotel was sold out.  We had to book a hotel way out by the airport.  We decided to go anyway.
Staley fell face first off a 2 ft platform at the park on Friday morning.  We decided to go anyway.
Adelie usually goes to bed at 8.  She didn't fall asleep until 10:00 on Friday night.  We decided to go anyway.
Staley usually wakes up around 7.  She got up Saturday morning at 5:40.  We decided to go anyway.

Our plan was to leave Saturday morning, spend the day at the zoo, forego Staley's nap (that she doesn't take everyday anyway), stay in our hotel Saturday night, either go back to the zoo or to the Botanical Gardens Sunday morning, and then come home during nap time Sunday afternoon so that the girls could sleep on the way home.  Such a nice plan.  If only it had worked out that way.

The drive down was fine.  Staley looked at books, listened to music, and watched some videos.  Adelie played and napped.  Everyone was happy.

Reading in the car

We got to the zoo around 11:00, ate a quick lunch, and then Staley wanted to ride the train to start our zoo day.  Unfortunately her 5:40 rising coupled with impending nap time resulted in a hard-core meltdown on the train.  Why?  Because she wanted to sit by herself instead of sitting on Zach's lap.  She became THAT child.  Our first 'I'm-so-glad-that's-not-my-kid' all out public tantrum.  Crying, screaming, writhing.  So instead of riding the train to go see the sea lion show, we got off the train and did this:

Staley's battle scars on full display

An hour later, our well-rested girls were ready to enjoy the zoo.

Staley's first of 5 carousel rides

Like her sister, Adelie thought the carousel was pretty great too.

Much happier on the train ride this time

Checking out the animals

Always happy to be a part of the action

We stayed until the zoo closed, but Staley requested coming back the next day as we had plenty of things we didn't get to see and do.  We headed to our hotel for dinner and a good night's sleep so we could return in the morning for more zoo fun.  There was only one problem with this plan.  Staley didn't sleep.  And this isn't a figure of speech or an exaggeration.  She simply didn't sleep.  We put her to bed at 8.  She fell asleep around 11 and woke up at 1.  At 4:30 when she was still wide awake, we were out of ideas.  We packed up, loaded the car, and headed for home.  Staley was asleep before we were out of the hotel parking lot.  (Of all the things we tried to get her to sleep, why didn't we think to put her in the car 8 hours earlier???)

So our first attempt for a St. Louis trip was foiled by Staley's illness.  But our second attempt provided us with 3 fun hours at the zoo...and 1 massive public tantrum, 6 hours in the car, 8 frustrating hours trying to get Staley to sleep, 2 tired parents, and 1 very convincing case for avoiding week-end family get-aways for a long, long time.