Owl in the woods

We took a little hike at Hemlock Bluffs this morning. North Carolina provides us with lots of great hiking weather, especially in the fall when we get cool but sunny days and a beautiful blue sky. Alice was a bundle of joy and energy most of the time, but see if you can spot the photo(s) where she looks a little tired.

She's becoming a pretty good hiker, who often makes her own path. She loves to climb hills, and today took us off the trail and straight up a steep bluff.  She still whines to be carried sometimes when she's tired, but if it's a short enough hike we can get her to do the whole thing on her own two feet.  She also loves to walk on fallen trees and run and jump on bridges.  

Vacuum vs. Tree

We picked out our Christmas tree this morning.  We were the tree lot's first customer of the season, so that made us feel special.  Alice picked out a small Christmas tree, but still seemed satisfied when Zac got a much bigger one.

During Alice's nap, Zac put the lights on the tree.  He also had the vacuum out in the living room to clean up any needles that dropped in the process.  When Alice woke up from her nap, her excitement at putting up the Christmas tree was totally over shadowed by the presence of the vacuum cleaner (normally kept in a closet and only taken out at night for stealthy and futile attempts at having a clean house) . She ignored the tree and kept asking us to "Turn the noise on the vacuum cleaner" so she could use it.

She did enjoy unwrapping the ornaments.  She was not so good at decorating the tree though, because she kept putting all the ornaments on the same branch.  It could hold three successfully, so we would occasionally relocate a few.

For some reason, there was a candy cane in the box of ornaments.  I gave it to Alice to put on the tree, but she immediately broke it.  Then she sort of tried to put it on the tree, but kept breaking it more.  Then she put it in her mouth (still in the plastic).  Zac and I looked at each other a bit bemused and wondered, "How did she know it was candy?"  All was cleared up shortly when Alice, contentedly sucking on the plastic, announced that it was a straw.  That explained why she kept trying to bend it.

 Alice also really liked watching Zac put the Herero woman (a gift from our school in Namibia) on top of the tree.

It was a lovely evening.

Belly Ball Boop

Sera discovers a new game to make Simon laugh.

And some other pictures of our sweet Simon:

Happy Thanksgiving

We went to my friend Amy's for Thanksgiving this year since Tom and family went to Florida. I was nervous about dealing with two kids, Alice's rambunctiousness, and still managing to socialize. But ultimately Zac convinced me that we should go because it would be depressing to not do anything for the holiday.  Plus, we went there last year (Tom was in Paris) and had a good time.

Alice was super shy when we arrived because there were so many people there.  Since she was being antisocial anyway, I took her to the bathroom to show her the potty. (She's still new to this potty training thing, I thought it would help if she realized every house had a potty and knew where to go.)

She was really attracted to the piano that was in an adjacent room (like a moth to the flame), so I told her she could play it one finger at a time (to keep her from being too noisy and pounding on it.)  That kept her busy enough until it was time to eat.

She did OK during the meal, and was slightly less squirmy than normal.  The funny thing is that although she normally eats quite well, she doesn't do that well when we eat at other people's houses, probably because the food is a little different and it's a different environment.  She really liked the rolls and turkey though, so she managed to get enough to eat.

And what about Simon this whole time?  When we first arrived, there were some teenage girls drooling over him, so he was passed around for a while, and then passed out during supper with nary a peep.  Amy looked at me during dinner and said, "You're kids are so good!"  Then she added, by way of apology, "I don't mean to say I think your life is easy right now, though."

The tradition at Amy's Thanksgiving is to take a walk after supper and before pie.  The weather was really cold, so a few ladies stayed behind, and I took the opportunity to nurse Simon.  Zac took Alice on the walk.  She was chomping at the bit to get out the door, and Zac reported that she ran the whole way.  That child has energy to burn!

Sera helps Simon do crunches, while Amy reads to Alice.

The adults, not aware of the impending doom as we neared, then passed, Alice's bedtime, were having a good time visiting, so the pie was served rather late. In the meantime, Amy found some books to read to Alice.  Alice got right in her lap without hesitation. I always like how Alice interacts with other people so easily, and can quickly pick up on who is in to her.  Not having a natural gift for children, I always feel awkward around other people's kids, like I have to do something really special to get their attention.  But I think Alice makes it easy for people.


Later, David, Amy's husband, conjured up a box of toys, and had quite a bit of fun building things with Alice. (He was wearing a yellow shirt so Alice called him "The Yellow Man" the whole time no matter how many times I told her his name was David.)

Well past Alice's bedtime, they finally broke out the pies. Why did we stay so long?  Well, it isn't Thanksgiving without pie, Zac had made one of the pies so it would be awkward to leave early, and Alice was actually holding it together OK.  Alice ate a small slice of sweet potato pie, but didn't seem interested in more.

I took Simon away to nurse one last time before the car ride home, and overheard one of the other guests talking on the phone to someone about how impressed she was with Alice being so lively and well-behaved, and Simon being so cute and quiet.

So on this Thanksgiving I was most thankful that a good friend took us orphans in, and that the kids behaved.  Alice is quite often bonkers, especially during supper, but the gods smiled on us this night.

On the way home, Alice (now a good two hours past her bedtime) said, "I had fun at Amy's house!"  When we asked her what she did there, she said, "I played the piano.  I played with toys.  I ate turkey and pie."

What a happy Thanksgiving!

First ice

Zac took Alice on a bike ride to the pond and to the park on Thanksgiving morning to burn some energy off.  Alice found some ice from a frozen puddle.

Energy

What happens when Alice is cooped up inside all day due to bad weather:


She jumped around on these pillows at pretty high intensity for nearly half an hour straight.

Books to remember

I get about 20-30 books out from the library at a time for Alice, and then we read them for a month or two.  Zac suggested we take pictures of the ones that Alice really loved so she/we could remember them.  So before returning the last batch, I documented the favorites:

About a little dragon that learned to fly, this is the book that added "flying" into her crib to the bed time routine.

 About a bossy jungle lion who in turn gets bossed around by a circus lion tamer but escapes and returns to the jungle just in time to save his former animal servants from the same fate, then institutes a more egalitarian society.  This is the book that added "Don't bite Alice's head off" to the things we had to tell the spy camera before bed.

About a girl who outgrows her little bike, and has to be hardworking and resourceful to get a bigger bike.  Alice loved repeating "Sally Jean, the bicycle queen!"

 About a grumpy goat that sees a dandelion and loves it, then becomes nicer to the other farm animals, who in turn comfort him when his dandelion dies (but don't worry, gentle reader, the dandelion's seeds give rise to a whole field of dandelions).  This book led Alice to occasionally report that she was grumpy goat.

 Great meter and rhyme scheme.  Alice would recite parts of this book randomly.

 The mommy monkey keeps her five bored monkeys busy with chores around the house in anticipation of grandma's visit.  All is undone when the muddy monkeys come back from the berry patch and get the house all dirty again right before grandma Bessie arrives.  Favorite part: the book ends with a question about who made the mess.  Alice always pointed to the guiltiest looking monkey in the striped shirt and reported confidently, "That one!"  One time I told Zac Simon was probably fussing because he was bored, not tired, and Alice piped up, "Like the monkeys in the book!" (She is always listening.)

 About a little bear that gets "bigger and bigger" and outgrows his little boat.  He finds another little bear to give his little boat to, then builds a bigger boat for himself.  Alice is keen on the concept of "bigger and bigger" and often declares during supper that she is getting bigger and bigger and will one day sit in daddy's chair.

And perhaps the favorite, The Grumpy Dump Truck was read a gazillion times.  I think she liked the simple storyline of him being grumpy then turning happy after Tilly (the porcupine) got all the painful things out of his tire.  She loved the page with her pulling "a wrench, a screwdriver, a level, a saw, a traffic cone" etc. out of his tire, and could recite the whole list.

Salad days

A friend from work made us a dinner tonight, and it included a lovely spinach salad with some fried onions to sprinkle on top.  Following the idea I heard somewhere that it can take a child 13 tries before liking a new taste, we served Alice a bit of salad.  She loved the fried onions, but Zac convinced her to also eat some of the spinach leaves.  She did, and with only a little brainwashing, she declared she liked them.  She ate all of her salad and then said, "I want more salad, please," but sadly it was a small salad and we had already eaten it all.

We ate a lot of salad all summer long, and although she would occasionally stick a piece of lettuce in her mouth, she never really ate it.  We'll start having more salads again now that she's on board.

Peek-a-boo

Zac plays a game of peek-a-boo with Simon right before changing his diaper.  Simon finds this hilarious.  (By the time I got in there with the video camera, they'd been going at it for a few minutes already, but Simon was still entertained.)

Born to ride

Zac took Alice outside with him so she could "help" him with yard work while Simon and I napped.  While getting rakes and brooms out of the shed, Alice noticed a bike in there.  It was a second-hand little kid's bike with training wheels that we got a while ago from a coworker.  Alice rides tricycles at daycare (although sadly I've never seen it) so Zac got it out and let her try it in the driveway.  She did great, so later (after a snack), we took a family walk and let her ride it around the neighborhood.  I thought she might make it a block, but we ended up going a mile and a half.

Popcorn

Tomorrow is Alice's daycare thanksgiving feast, and we signed up to bring a dessert. Zac googled healthy toddler snacks, and found a recipe for Apple pie popcorn. It has dried apple slices, popcorn, sugar, and Apple pie spices. Stuff like this used to be considered work, but now anything that can be done with Alice is regarded as a fun activity. So right after supper we had Alice don her apron and start washing some apples. Then we used our special apple peeler-slicer thingy to prepare the apples for the dehydrator.

She loved turning the handle on the apple slicer. Then she helped arrange the pieces on the trays for drying. 

Then she got to see how popcorn was popped for the first time.  She helped turn the handle on the whirly-pop.

  The first batch was slightly burnt so we had to eat it. Alice thinks all cooking involves a whisk and a measuring spoon, so after stirring her popcorn with her whisk she tried to eat it with her whisk.

 She quickly resorted to the more traditional method of shoving a fistful of popcorn into her mouth. 

It was a good evening. 

Evening smile

Dinosaur attack!

Well, at least they're playing together.

Simon photo shoot

Simon had to stay home from daycare today because he had too many poos yesterday.  Zac took the day off, and my only request was that he try to get a good photo of Simon.  I think he got quite a few.

Brushing hair

Alice wanted to brush Simon's hair with him sitting on her lap the way we always brush her hair before bed.

The story of a carrot

As told by Alice, while eating ham bone soup with sliced carrots in it:

"The carrot is sad. 

 He wants his mommy. 

I stab him. 

I eat him. 

I'm hungry."

Alice on a pig

The whole way to Pullen Park she talked about riding the ostriches on the carousel because that's what we rode last time, but she ultimately chose the pig. She rode by herself for the first time. 

Here are a few other pictures from the morning: