Meredithisms

So, Meredith just said, "Mommy, when can I have a new mommy and daddy?" !?!
I told her she was stuck with us. What in the world?

The other day she also said "I'm a Princess, Mommy's a Princess and Daddy's a Queen". So darn funny!

Bad me

Ok, so I've been beyond bad about keeping up lately! So, I'll try to give an update without going on and on forever!

We recently had a neat opportunity to have some great photos taken of Meredith. My neighbor across the street is a stay at home mom and is starting up her own business as a photographer and wanted to take some pictures of Meredith for her portfolio as well as for a website she was partnering with that sells tutus for little girls. So, Meredith got an adorable tutu, we were thrilled with the pictures and my friend got some great pics for her website! (Meredith is on her April blog as well as he website and she is also on the tutu website- she is 'modeling' the 'birthday diva' tutu)(http://elainebellaphotography.blogspot.com/) (http://ballerinabells.com/)

At the end of March, Meredith and I took a road trip with my sisters Hillary and Allison to meet up with my other sister Elizabeth and her family in Florida. Her in-laws have a house in Homassassa Springs, which is near the gulf and they were planning on spending their spring break down there and invited us along! Meredith was wonderful in the car, especially considering we were seriously into potty training at that point. I still kept her in pullups in the car, but she stayed dry almost the whole time. We had some great sister time and Meredith and her cousins, Abby & Jessie, had a blast together. We stopped back through Savannah on the way home and has some awesome low country boil (we tried crawfish for the first time!) and just wandered along the river. All in all, it was a wonderful time and I'm still amazed that it all worked out so well!

Speaking of potty training, we have made some huge strides in the last month or so. I'd say she's 98% trained on #1 and 85% trained on #2. I'm not even going to try to do anything at night for awhile, so a pullup overnight is fine by me! She still wakes up dry quite often, so that's not too far off. Let's say that I'm not totally worried every time we leave the house...I remember the first night we went to a restaurant without her wearing a diaper. I was convinced a puddle would appear under her chair at any minute, but alas, the child managed to pull through and has really done well (for the most part) since. I guess it has taken a full 3 months to get it really controlled.

Meredith spent a week in April in Tennessee with Chris' mom and step dad. Last time Meredith went up there for a week, the week just kinda flew by and we didn't do too much fun stuff. So this time, we promised that we'd do a lot that we normally don't do with her here. We went out almost every night to happy hour or a movie or a a nice dinner. We probably spent too much and ate too much, but it was worth it to really enjoy our time as just us.

Work has been keeping me very busy and things still seem to be quite stable there other than some basic budget tightening that everyone seems to be doing regardless of how business is or isn't. Chris is almost done with school for the summer and he will be the chauffer dad this summer carting Meredith to her busy summer schedule of events! She is starting with swim lessons at Meredith College (her first 'classes' at Meredith :), then a two week dance camp, then a preschool camp at the place my mom teaches at in the summer (yeah!) and then we're off to the beach. She has a calendar all her own!!

I'm really looking forward to the summer and vacation even though my schedule isn't nearly as fun as Meredith's!

Hope everyone is doing well!!

Have you ever...

Have you ever looked at your child's legs and thought she had a horrible skin rash because it looks like there are red lines just creeping along her legs....only to realize it was the red slurpie from the night before that had dripped all down her legs!!?? (Also, please note the slurpie was purchased by her father at approx 8pm while Mommy was on the way home from church. hoping to find a bathed, pj'd, ready for bed child!)

Florida Trip

So, I'm increasingly bad about updating this blog. I admit that Facebook seems to be using up my 'extra' computer time lately.

We had a nice trip to Florida to see my older sister and her family. Hillary, Allison, Meredith and I took a road trip and it was quite a success. The little girls played really well together and there was a pool at the house (my brother-in-law's parents house near Tampa) and we went to the beach one day and also went to this great wildlife/zoo type place to see the manatees and tons of other animals. It was really good to have girl time and Meredith did incredibly well beyond never wanting to sleep. Her earliest bedtime was 10:15 one night...yeah, it was great. We stopped through Savannah on the way home and got some yummy low country boil and walked along the river front. Other than some terrible stop and go (more stop than go) traffic on the way home, it went really well.

Sleeping

So, we recently went through a good week or so of Meredith sleeping on the floor. I have no idea why, but she simply would not get in her bed at night. My theory was that as long as she was sleeping, I didn't care where. Then I decided that taking the guard rail off of her twin bed might make her feel like it was a real big girl bed, which actually worked with some prodding for a few nights. Now, she has determined she wants to sleep on her blow up air mattress (we have a toddler size aero-bed). That started the other night when I was too tired to fight (I was really sick this past week) and once again, if she would sleep, fine with me.
Everything is a battle with her. Nothing is easy. I feel like a terrible parent half the time because I 'let' her roll with some of these crazy ideas she has, but if I don't, life would be miserable for us all. Parenting is the hardest job ever.

I thought that maybe just maybe by the time she was 3 I'd be cleaning up less pee and poop. Man, was I wrong. It's actually harder now since it's in underwear and not a diaper that can be thrown away. Heaven help me, this child is pushing me. I mean, she peed on herself twice while we had a playdate at Kelly's house last weekend. I had brought a change of clothes, but still had to borrow some pants from her daughter (thanks Kelly!!). I understand that playing is much more fun than sitting on the pot, but isn't sitting in nasty pants even worse? We've been fully potty training for about 6 weeks and I'm regularly tempted to put her back in diapers. It sure would be easier on me. So, if you just happen to have one of those children who just magically potty trained herself, I don't want to hear about it. It's just one of those days.

Quick Funny

So, I know it's been forever, but just wanted to post something funny that Meredith has been doing.
During the Presidential election, she was educated on who Barack Obama is and pointed to magazines and newspapers with his face on it and proclaimed it was him. I was so proud :)
Well, recently I have noticed that she seems to think that all light skinned, African-American, well-dressed men are our President! We have a reporter for one of the local stations (ABC I think) who does bear a slight resemblance to him and the other night the news was on and she said, "Look Mommy, it's Arack Obama!". She was quite proud and I admitted to her that this man does look quite a bit like the President, but that is not him. There was also a picture of Denzel Washington on the cover of something and she pointed him out as 'Arack' too! I just brushed them off as flukes until yesterday afternoon we were out and she and I were sitting in the car while Chris ran into a store. We were just sitting there and this young black man dressed in a suit walked by (pretty sure he was out of ear shot) and she proudly yells it again! We had a nice little conversation about how the President lives in Washington DC and maybe he will come here sometime, but this man just looks a little like the President!
I'm not sure if I should be proud that she is so excited about the President or a little embarrassed that she is categorizing all of these men as the same person!
I'm just going to get a little chuckle out of my observant child and leave it at that.

Long time, no post

Meredith had an awesome 3rd birthday party on the 7th. It was freaky warm for February. I'm talking like 70 degrees! It was fabulous because almost everyone (and there was a crowd) spent most of the time outside. I think the kids had a blast with the bouncehouse, swingset and her Little Tykes house in the yard. I think the adults had a good time too....let's say that our keg went dry if that tells you anything! Princess Belle came in the beginning of the party and she was sweet, but not sure she really had control of this wild gang! She was a former student of Chris' and pretty much just does this for fun and asks that you donate some money to the Ronald McDonald House...how awesome?!

We were in Tennessee last weekend, over Valentines day. We really never celebrate V day, but since it was on a Saturday we took advantage and went into Pigeon Forge for the night and left Meredith with Chris' Mom. Nothing fancy, but found a great Mexican place with cheap beer, a Mariachi band and great fajitas. Then Chris humored me and we watched 'Mama Mia'...Love it! Overall, it was a quick trip, but it's a must do every few months.

Amazingly, I would say that Meredith is now 85% potty trained! It is the craziest thing how she just decided it was time. She still has accidents, mostly #2, but she has made incredible progress over the past 2 1/2 weeks.

While she has really improved with the potty thing, she seems to have regressed more with bedtime. The child will stay up until midnight if we let her! It just seems to be a battle every night and she also says she's afraid of the dark. I got her a really cute new nightlight on ebay with her monogram, but it hasn't helped. Yesterday I found this kinda crazy looking nightlight that she can actually have in bed with her at Walmart and she thinks that is pretty cool and helped a bit last night. Chris even made her a CD with some great lullabies and that hasn't had great results either.

Her 3 year old well visit was this past Weds and the doctor called her 'perfect' :) She had a hearing test, which I was glad she passed since she has been acting like she is really sensitive to loud sounds lately. She also proved once again that she is a big girl bc she fell in the 80th %ile for height and weight. The doctor even said she was surprised bc when she looked at her she was sure she was older than 3! The only crazy thing was that they wanted her to pee in a cup...I mean come on, the girl barely goes when I ask her, let alone in a weird bathroom with mommy holding a cup under there!! Needless to say, after much pleading and begging she wouldn't do it and they were cool with it since they said most 3 year olds are barely potty trained anyway....

Ok, enough for now...

Are there really fairies?

So, is it possible that there is a potty training fairy and she waved her magic wand over my house on the night of Meredith's 3rd birthday? It is the craziest thing, she woke up on Tuesday and told Chris she wanted to wear panties! She has NEVER asked to wear them and when we did put them on her in the past, it just didn't click at all that it wasn't a diaper. She really wanted them, so he put them on her and took her to daycare where she had one accident, but did really well with them on all day. She had one more accident at home last night, but she made it more than she didn't. We still put a pullup on her at bedtime and she actually seemed semi-bothered about it! Holy cow, is there a magical switch that turns on at 3?? It is by far entirely too early to call it, but I think we are actually really on our way now! People kept telling me that it just seems to happen all of the sudden and I think we may FINALLY be on the verge! Hallelujah!

Happy Birthday Meredith!

Today is Meredith's 3rd Birthday! I'm having a hard time really believing that she is 3! She still isn't potty trained like I had hoped she would be by her birthday, but oh well, it will come. Chris and I are going to go have a little party at her daycare this afternoon, then we're going out for Mexican with my parents and maybe her aunt Hillary.

Snapfish is not cooperating with me today and I'm having a hard time retrieving pictures, but wanted to post a little timeline in pictures. Don't have a real birthday picture, but it is 6mos, 1 yr, 2 yr and last week!

Almost 3 year old funnies

A few funnies.

-Weds night I went over to a friend's house. I had gotten Meredith's dinner ready, but she decided she didn't want to eat anything but her pears, so the mac n cheese & green beans were just sitting on the table when I left. Well, she told Chris a little later that she was hungry, but wanted to eat upstairs in her room (she has a little table & chairs in there and I mistakenly let her have a snack up there one time and determined that was a big no-no on my part). Well, she knew she could get it past her father who was glued to a game on his new flat screen tv in the loft, so he brought it upstairs for her. Well, she proceeded to make 'soup' by mixing her juice with her mac n cheese and then it appeared that she flung it all around the room (no evidence of green beans, so she either ate them or they are hiding somewhere. Fortunately, he had it cleaned up by the time I got home, but this is what happens on Daddy's watch.

-Meredith has figured out that if she puts her fingers in her ears it makes things sound different, so at random times I'll see her standing there, fingers in ears just humming or singing or talking. Pretty funny.

-She busted out with this song she learned at daycare awhile back,
'Arriba's up, Abajo's down,
I speak Spanish and English too,
I like them both, how bout you??' (enter lots of enthusiasm and jumping up and down here)
That just totally cracked me up. She actually knows quite a bit of Spanish. Counting to 10, her colors, directions, some basic commands, but our daycare lady says that when she tells the kids to do something, she will very often only say it in Spanish and Meredith is great about knowing exactly what to do. So, I think she actually understands a lot more than she can actually say. It's just proof that repetition with anything can really sink in! I can't help but think that this will help her later on in life when she's in a classroom learning Spanish.

-She has also recently determined that boys and girls are different. Not in any anatomical way, but just that there are boys and there are girls. She frequently reminds us that Mommy and Meredith are girls and Daddy is a boy. I have to just laugh, but some of the things she says are just totally made up. Like last night her daddy was going to read her bedtime stories and she piped up saying, "No, boys can't read stories!"...that translation could easily read that he almost never reads to her, so hence, boys can't read stories. She does a lot of the boys can't do this and girls can't do that kind of talk, which makes me cringe a little and I have to remind myself that she isn't a right wing Republican, but an almost 3 year old who is a little sponge and I just try to calmly reinforce that girls and boys can do whatever they want if they put their minds to it!!

It's hard to believe she'll be 3 on Monday!

Carrots

So, Meredith's stall technique last night about going to bed was 1) she had to go potty (no she didn't) and 2) she was hungry and wanted carrots. I totally just started laughing because here is my child sitting on her little potty with the most serious face ever saying, "Mommy, I want some carrots". Guess that's better than wanting cookies!

Snow pics

Blizzard of 2009!

Well, we survived the big snow! I know to other parts of the country it is rediculous, but for NC to get around 6 inches of snow is a huge deal. We haven't had anything but a few flakes for about 4 years, so it makes it so novel every time it happens! We already had a nice long weekend with the MLK holiday and then Chris (of course) didn't have school Tues or Weds and they are delayed 2 hrs this morning. I had to make my way into work during the thick of the snow (we almost never closed-our HQ is in Boston, so they think this is crazy), although almost no one else came to work. I am responsible for checking the voicemail for people who won't be coming in on any given day so I can make staffing adjustments where needed and we had over 130 voicemails! Yikes, itwas not a fun day. I think the only thing that saved us was that the Inaguration had the country pretty distracted and no one was calling us!

Speaking of the Inaguration, I had totally planned on just watching it online since a TV really isn't necessary to watch these types of events anymore. Well, I just saw that the Triangle area had the highest viewing % in the country; therefore, that would make more sense as to why I couldn't sign onto to any of the websites and see it, everything was either terribly slow or it would just go in and out. I was totally bummed that I missed it live, but it doesn't change the magnitude of the event! I also thought it was totally cool that the next day, Meredith saw the front page of the N&O and said, "Hey Mama, look at that guy. That's Obama!". We're working on the word 'president', but it tends to come out as something more like 'pregiment'...who knows.

To be honest, I have been ok coming to work and being out of the house because my child is making me crazy! She spent the night at my mom's on Saturday bc it was our annual winter party for work. Mom said she had been great for her and she had taken her to Sunday School and then I met them for service. Meredith proceeded to be terrible enough that I had to take her out of church and she then threw fits in the narthex and literally laid on the floor. She is so opinionated and stubborn all the time. There is no talking sense to her at all. She has moments of absolute gloriousness (not sure if that's a real word, but it fits!), but then it's like a switch is flipped and she is so darn naughty I don't know what to do with her. Don't get me wrong, she makes me laugh all the time, but she frustrates me just as much. She is so independent these days too that it makes things like brushing her teeth a nightmare because she 'can do it'. She's really into dress up and being super creative these days. I hear her playing with her dolls sometimes and the conversations totally make me laugh and realize that whether it seems like it or not, she is listening and taking in what we tell her because she regurgitates it to her dolls (with a wagging finger...I promise I don't do that!). On the other hand, she has really improved when we go out to restaurants. She sits fairly still and actually eats her food and doesn't cause too much chaos in the place. I'd say that has really improved over the past several months. Trust me, she's still quite spirited, but it's a little more reigned in when we're in public (most of the time). I remember watching kids who were sitting nicely and eating their food across a restaurant, while I'm literally wrestling with my child, thinking that she'd never do that, but I guess everything passes, huh? They never said being a parent was an easy job!

Ok, I've rambled on long enough. Have a good one!

Pics

Update

I have been terrible about updating lately, so here goes. I'll try to keep it as brief as possible.

Christmas was good. I was able to be out of work for almost 2 weeks, which was really nice, but definitely didn't feel like that long. We went to the children's Christmas Eve service at church, which was nice, but Meredith ended up spending probably half of the service in the bathroom because she had to go potty. Chris conveniently took her and I think he was more of the reason why they missed the majority of the service.....
Meredith went to bed reasonably easily, but was quite concerned that Santa would be too loud and would wake her up with his jingle bells. We left some reindeer food in the backyard and cookies for Santa, so she was pretty excited. She slept so well, that we needed to wake her up by around 8:15 so we could get over to my mom's and then over to Chris' step-sister's house that afternoon. We had a jingle bell ornament that we rang at the bottom of the steps and she woke right up and was amazed that she heard the jingle bells and kept saying how Santa was so loud and his jingle bells woke her up. It was totally priceless.
Christmas day was really nice, but every year we have the issue of not enough hours in the day, so we're already trying to think of a better plan for next year.
We spent most of our vacation doing boring stuff like cleaning closets and organizing. It actually felt really good to purge so much stuff. I took 9 garbage bags of clothes and shoes to goodwill. It was and still is rediculous the amount of crap I have accumlated over the years.
We went out to dinner with Randy and Katy for New Years. Meredith was actually in High Point with her grandparents for the night, so we could really live it up. Well, let's just say that Chris and Randy had to wake both Katy and I up at midnight since we both fell asleep on the couch. It was a wild night!
Nothing else too exciting to report, but thought I'd just get a quick post up about the holidays.

Mess

I remember reading my friend Kelly's blog awhile back when her son had gotten into the vaseline and smeared it all over the place. I thought about what a mess that must have been and that I should probably move Meredith's out of her top drawer now that she is getting into it all the time to get stuff. Well, silly me I didn't ever move it and I regretted that last night when I walked in her room to see an open jar of vaseline with almost nothing left in it. It didn't take long to see where she had smeared it....all over the wall, artfully smoothed over the top of her plastic stool, carpet, hair, comforter, clothes......oh boy, I was NOT happy! She said 'Mommy, my skool (aka 'stool') is slippery'. I just sent her out of the room before I did something I wouldn't be proud of!

Later that night while she was in the tub, she said 'Mommy, you weren't very nice' and I prompty told her back that she hadn't been very nice either and she agreed. I can be a 2.75 yr old too!

(I also found a tube of chapstick with the contents scraped out...I'm wondering where that will show up)

Fun weekend

A friend of ours is a PGA golfer and he and his wife had a big Christmas party downtown this weekend. They had a great band, great food, open bar and lots of fun friends. My mom and dad kept Meredith overnight, but we were home in bed by 12:30! Even a night out on the town isn't a late night anymore these days!

Mom took some pictures for us before we left. We don't have many pictures together lately, so I thought I'd post them even though I look like a beached whale. Chris also seemed to think our daughter was a sack of potatoes....

My parents brought Meredith to church with them on Sunday and they were the greeters that morning. Apparently, Meredith was right there with them shaking everyone's hands and telling them that Mommy and Daddy went to a big party! Mom said that she'll have to help them next time they are greeters since she was such a hit!

New Pics

The infamous Polka Dot dress. I finally got a long sleeve shirt on underneath it and wanted to take a picture and can you just see how she is wagging her finger at me, hand on hip saying "no Mommy, don't take a picture".

Potty practice. She found the crossword while we were up in TN...just thought it was hilarious.

I put the potty in the tub bc we had people coming over awhile ago and she seems to like it there!

Working hard in the barn!!

Meredith and Aunt Kaci

Meredith and Noah (son of Chris' cousin)

Helping in the horse stall....it's clean!

Thanksgiving 08

Thought I'd give a Thanksgiving update. We left for TN around 1:30 on Tuesday afternoon to embark on the trip that would take what felt like an eternity! We had to make multiple stops for diaper related issues (no, no potty training yet), food, gas etc and then we came to a dead stop about 2 hours outside of Knoxville. We crept along at 2 mph for about 45 minutes and the reason we were stopped was because a Christmas tree truck had spun out and spilled the trees all over the road. Let's say I wasn't feeling the Christmas cheer about those trees at all! Anyway, a trip that usually takes 5.5 hrs ended up taking well over 7 hrs. Meredith was really great for the most part thanks to the dvd player and lots of snacks.

It was a pretty lazy trip in that we didn't really do much of anything. Chris' Aunt and Uncle were there as well as a cousin and his family for Thursday. His two step-brothers and step-sister-in- law came on Friday. The one brother and wife have a 9 month old and they announced they are already 4 months pregnant again! Yikes....they are NUTS! However, you could mistake their little girl for a doll since she doesn't ever make a noise or whimper, so somehow they got really lucky.

We were lazy, but Meredith absolutely ran herself silly. She would NOT take a nap, so by 8:00 she was ripe for bed, but still didn't want to go to bed...you know the drill. She got to help Kaci with the horses, like dumping the bucket of feed into the trough and lugging the hose around etc. I got some really cute pictures I'll try to post soon. She had lots of fun.

Chris actually went to the outlets at 3am with his sister and brother in law on Friday for their Midnight madness sale. I definitely didn't go, but he did bring back lots of goodies for me!! Good boy :)

Thank goodness the week is already almost over. Nothing else too exciting going on other than trying to get shopping done. Our first Christmas is next weekend in Greensboro, so better get crackin'!