Speak Up
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Lauren
Like most parents, we want Lauren to be well-read and well-spoken. I'm sure these two things will come to pass, but we also want Lauren to have what we do not have - an extensive speaking vocabulary. Tony and I are both fairly well-read and well-spoken, however, neither one of us grew up in a house where the members had outstanding speaking vocabularies. A bit above adequate maybe, but nowhere near great. In fact, we are constantly lamenting the fact that even if we know and understand many of the words used by those with great speaking vocabularies, we simply do not put them into practice. The question we are faced with is how do we help Lauren develop a wonderful speaking vocabulary when we don't have it ourselves? Sure we can read, read, read, but I wonder if that is enough. Growing up, I read, read, read and it didn't do much for my speaking vocabulary. Whether this is because I was quite shy or because I wasn't immersed in an atmosphere where the skill existed is a good question. I tend to believe it was the latter. We have been trying to use multiple words for the same thing so she hears, learns, and eventually uses them herself. I think this, in combination with the reading, may help some. If you have any other ideas, please let us know.

Maybe Next Year
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Lauren
Lauren is 4! Last year we did the big party with all of the kids, games, etc. but this year we decided to skip it in favor of a family affair. We spent the day together at the zoo as a family of three and Lauren is so into animals, she absolutely loved it. Most kids have a favorite animal they like to see when they go to the zoo, but for Lauren it doesn't matter the type, she loves them all! If it weren't for the not altogether unexpected excitement, I'm sure we would have visited each and every animal at the zoo. The excitement was the severe thunderstorm that blew in. We knew the chance of rain was fairly high and we even watched the sky as we walked the grounds, but once we were inside the rainforest building, we completely forgot about the weather. Well, not both Tony and I forgot, there was the point at the end of the rainforest where I was looking up at the ceiling with its many skylights and even mentioned not seeing raindrops when Tony talked about windows being open during rain. I thought he was talking about skylights in general not the windows and sunroof of our car. We headed into the final section of the zoo which has areas with windows looking into the cougar, leopard, and ocelot exhibits where I happened to notice that it looked awfully dark. Then we heard the thunder. Uh oh. It hadn't yet started to rain so I grabbed the umbrella and headed for the car. Halfway there the downpour hit and thanks to the high winds and substandard grading of the parking lot, by the time I arrived at the car, I was completely drenched from head to toe. Thankfully the car wasn't too wet and neither were Tony or Lauren. The rest of the day went off without a hitch. After drying my clothes at Tony's mother's house, we met up with Tony's brother and his SO at Lauren's favorite restaurant for her favorite meal - pepperoni pizza with black olives and mushrooms. Lauren played with her grandma while we waited for our table and Tony and I discussed the day four years earlier when it all began. A great dinner, a little cake, a little ice cream, and a few presents rounded out the day.

As we tucked Lauren into bed that evening, I thought about the day. I thought about how my precious baby girl is no longer a baby. She's no longer a toddler either. She's now 4 years old and in the blink of an eye, she has passed into the little girl phase. Feeling sentimental and pleased with how things went overall, I asked Lauren if she had enjoyed her birthday. She thought for a moment and replied, "Well Mom, it wasn't very exciting."

I guess next year we'll have to go back to the big party with kids, games, etc.

Four Years Ago Today
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: Lauren
7am - First call to the hospital to see if they had space and time for me to be induced.

8am - Second call to the hospital to see if they had space and time for me to be induced.

8:45 - While getting ready to call the hospital again, they called me to say we could head over.

10am - We were settled in and the midwife came to check on me. She noticed that Lauren was not head down, nor had she dropped. She could push Lauren into position, but Lauren would float back to transverse. She talked c-section.

11am - The doctor confirmed this birth will be via c-section.

6:15pm - I was wheeled into the operating room and given the spinal. It was so cool how that nice, warm feeling started at my toes and traveled up my legs.

6:32pm - Lauren is born.

6:45pm - Our first snuggle while in recovery.

And so it began 4 years ago today :-)

And The Answer Is...
Mood:  happy
Topic: Lauren
Lauren has a keen interest silly words lately. Well, what she considers silly words. One was sloths and we enjoyed a good 15 minutes of repeating the word over and over followed by giggling. She then began to come up with some of her own very silly words, so I decided to throw a few tongue twisters at her to see if she thought they sounded funny.

Me: If three witches were watching three watches, which witch would watch which watch?

I expected peals of laughter, but instead I received,

L:(without missing a beat) The one with the green face!

I was amazed that she even followed the twister enough to answer the question. We tried another.

Me: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Sure enough...

L: Over there.

The Secret To A Healthy Treat
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Lauren
The other day when it was about 97 degrees and humid, Lauren and I were out running some errands. She wanted to go to one of her favorite places - the indoor playground. We started to head over there but found the traffic to be just too much so I casually mentioned that we'd have to skip the playground but offered an ice cream treat instead. Tony and I have been trying to promote healthful treats and foods and it looks like some of it has sunk in. Here's the conversation that followed:

L: But Mom, we're not suppose to eat junk food.
Me: Oh, you're right. OK. Let's skip it then.
L: (pause) Well...maybe we could just sneak it into our mouths.
Me: (not wanting to unwittingly encourage sneaking) Hmmm. How about if we call it a "once-in-a-while" treat.
L: I know! We can pretend it's broccoli - we can have broccoli in a cone!
Me: (muffled laughter)

So we stopped to get some broccoli in a cone. When we arrived home and Tony asked about our trip, Lauren told him where we had been and that we had had a treat. When Tony asked what the treat was, Lauren turned to me with a panicked look, put her hand to her mouth, and in a very serious voice whispered "Shhh! Don't tell him!". Again, in order not to encourage sneaking, I said we could tell him. So Lauren turned around and with a smile said, "We had broccoli in a cone and we licked it like ice cream!"

Two Days, Two Sides
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Lauren
On Mondays Lauren attends a park and rec activity at the nearby elementary school. Normally Tony brings her and he has never had a problem with dropping her off and retreating to the car for 45 minutes of reading. This past Monday, however, I had the day off and took her over. Earlier that morning she had firmly stated "Now Mom. I'm used to going by myself. You can sit in the car and read." which I wholeheartedly agreed to do. The rest of the morning she kept repeating that I should walk her to the shack and then go back to the car to read. I think she was, in some way, trying to make herself more relaxed by reassuring herself that this was the routine and there was nothing to worry about. We arrived and walked to the shack. We entered and Lauren was greeted by the "girls in blue". She went over to start coloring a picture and I told her to have fun and I would see her later. Boom. The tears started and she was attached to my leg in a minute flat. I tried to get her started by helping her pick out a color for the flower picture, but she would have none of it. I looked at one of the girls, shrugged, and mouthed "must be a mom thing". Finally one of them came over and took Lauren's hand while I walked out the door. Of course, she was fine and enjoyed her time there, but oh the agony.

On Tuesday Lauren and I stopped at the indoor playground to get out of the 95 degree heat. Not long into play a girl came over and asked Lauren to play only to find out she had to leave. Lauren decided she was going to find someone to play with. She asked another girl to play and ran back to me to tell me she thought the girl had said no. She asked a second girl who turned and walked away. She asked a third girl who replied that she was with her sister, but Lauren could play with them. She began playing with them only to have the grandmother scold the girl for not playing with her sister (which what's up with that?!) Three times Lauren ventured to ask someone to play with her and three times she ended up with no one to play with. I was getting worried it was going to cause a reversion back to not playing with anyone, but Lauren surprised me. A fourth, younger girl came in and Lauren asked her to play. Bingo! They played a follow-the-leader type game where the other girl was the leader and Lauren the follower. Lauren was happy and proud that she was playing with someone. When they came around near us parents, Lauren would beam and ask "Do you see me playing with that girl?" or "Look at me. I'm playing with that girl!" This continued on for about 15 minutes until the girl became upset that Lauren was copying her. So I had to explain to her that the girl didn't want to play follow-the-leader anymore. Since that's the only game that's ever played by the kids at the indoor playground, Lauren didn't quite understand the girl wanted to play, just not that particular game.

So there you have it. One day shy, the next outgoing. Sometimes I wonder which will win. I have a feeling it will turn out to be a combination of both with a slight tendency toward outgoing and I say Yeah! for Lauren.

Really Big Shew
Mood:  silly
Topic: Lauren
Lauren and I frequent the Goodwill in our area to "look at the pretty things on the shelves" and when we do, Lauren always wants to visit the "kid's section" with all of the toys. The other day as she looked around the toy area, she spied a horse head on a stick just like one her grandmother has (it plays music when you squeeze its ear). She grabbed it, then spied a microphone and a chair and she was off. She positioned the chair just so, sat on it, and spoke into the mic like a pro. "And now...ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to my beautiful horse"

She doesn't have the "great stone face" of Ed Sullivan, nor the wooden stage presense, but she's been known to utter a few malapropisms in her day and she had one heck of a novelty show lined up with the horse :-)

Oh My God!
Mood:  surprised
Topic: Lauren
Where did the time go?!! One month from today, my beautiful, precious, little girl will be four years old!

Look At That One!
Mood:  happy
Topic: Lauren
This 4th of July, we had intentions of finding a parade to attend, but just never got around to it. So, we prepared for the fireworks show as we do every year, by doning our long sleeved shirts and long pants and coating them with Off. Thankfully, this year it wasn't quite so hot and there was a slight breeze to keep the bugs moving so we settled in to wait for the fireworks to begin. Two years ago we found a great spot where we can see the show along with 5 more from surrounding communities. Normally, even though a nearby parking lot is packed with cars, there aren't many people gathered on "our" hill, but this year there were quite a few more families. It bothered me at first because one group had five very loud kids and another had a baby that cried for a half hour straight. Of course, all was forgotten when the fireworks began because this was the first year Lauren showed real excitement during the fireworks. She enjoyed them last year at the age of 2, but back then it was more following our lead with the oohing and ahhing. This year every time she would see one, she would yell, mostly to her grandma sitting right next to her but sometimes to us and sometimes to no one in particular, "Look at that one!" or "There's another one!". She also came up with ways to describe her favorites - worms, fire flowers, and the gold ones that go pop pop pop. What fun we had and I'm certainly looking forward to next year when we definitely will hit a parade during the day.

The Apron Strings Go Both Ways
Mood:  special
Topic: Lauren
Lauren and I just spent a great week with my side of the family at the Outer Banks in North Carolina where she and the other kids had an absolute ball playing in the ocean waves, the pool, and the hot tub. After returning from that week of fun and having mom around 24/7, Lauren is slowly getting back into the groove of everyday life. To go from constant togetherness back to mom being away from the minute she wakes up all the way to dinnertime has to be hard. It’s hard for me too because while I look forward to getting back to work and having a break from constant 3-yr-old-ness, I long to be able to stay home with her. Yesterday when I left for work, she woke up and cried, "Why do you have to go back to work so soon?" It just about broke my heart. On the plus side though, there are rewards for both of us that are helping the transition back to reality be a bit more bearable. After being away from her dad for a week, Lauren gets to play with him all day. And every day when I get home I’m greeted by Lauren running to me arms outstretched, yelling "Mommy!" and falling into my waiting arms. It just doesn't get any better than that.