Some Stuff

My ability to keep this blog updated has been about as successful as Michael Jackson's recent comeback tour. To those who find that statement in incredibly bad taste, I say, "beat it."

I don't have any complete, cohesive thoughts to share, but I wanted to have a place to record some of the cute things Tierney is doing - more for my sake than anything else. She turned 19 months yesterday and has just about 280 words. Yes, I do keep track. I write them all down.

Here is my criteria for a new word to make it in the baby book: She has to say it more than once, without hearing us say it first, and it can't happen on the first day that she's learned it. For example if I say, "Look Tier, a bicycle." And then she says, "bicycle," that doesn't count. However, if the next day she see's a bike and says, "bicycle," then it goes in the book.

How can I possibly be this anal? Good question. I probably need some psychotherapy to figure it out.

Some fun things: The crib has become a slide for Bear and Ella (her lovies.) This was cute at first, and now is a little bit annoying. Getting her up after sleeping now takes a really long time. She says, "Bear slide," "Ella turn slide," "Bear slide." And if you don't promptly return the said objects she says, "Where Bear?" "Where Ella?" And then you have exactly five seconds to return them if you don't want her to throw herself down in utter despair and scream.

Today Trevor took her to the park, and the stairs and slide were hot. Tierney said, "hot!" Trevor agreed - "yes, they are hot." So Tierney bent over and started to blow on the slide to cool it down - just like she does with her food.

She's using sentences more and more, though they are fairly simple, such as "Mommy, all done chair!" and then she gives me a shove so she can sit down. She also says, "two monkeys jumping on the bed - BONK!" Because she likes the song "Five little monkeys jumping on the bed," and two is her favorite number. She can count to two all by herself, and then if you say three, she will say "four, five, six" and then you have to say seven and eight, then she'll say "nine, two!" Or maybe she's saying ten and doesn't pronounce it well.

Her ABCs are coming along. She can consistently recognize A and usually W (her two favorite letters.) She recognizes C more often than not, and then all of the other letters are EFG. She can sort of sing the ABCs - "a, b, c, [D??] e, f, g" and then you have to fill in the rest until she chimes in with 'l, m, n, o," if you continue she'll often say "s" and "v" and of course "w" and then "x, y, and z."

She can sing a few words of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I'm a little teapot, 5 little monkeys, Ba Ba Black Sheep, Clean up Clean up, and . . . that's all I can think of for now.

Today she kept saying "Bear . . . feet" and she would point to her feet. She did this repeatedly, got extremely frustrated while we racked our brains for the possible meaning. Turns out she was asking to listen to Bearfoot Bluegrass - a CD we own. I was floored that she knew the name of it.

Despite her decent vocabulary, her word for music is "wa wa" (FYI: Does not count in the baby book.) No idea where she came up with this word.

Though she can say "Tierney," she likes to call herself "TeeTee," and likes to label everything as hers. "TeeTee's car, TeeTee's chair, TeeTee's EVERYTHING."

It's hard to believe that a few months ago I was blogging about her rolling over for the first time. These kids grow up fast.

Potty Mouth

We bought Tierney's first potty today. She was really excited and said "open potty, open potty" approximately one million times (and that was just in the parking lot.)

After our trip to Babies R Us, we stopped at Target to buy a new blender since our last one went on the fritz. As we carried the blender out to the car, Tierney pointed at the box and said, "poop and pee, potty! Poop and pee, potty," apparently equally as excited at the thought of taking a dump in our new blender.

I promptly told her that if I ever caught her using our new blender as a bathroom, I would lift my personal ban on corporal punishment.

Mexico, Nebraska . . . Tierney hits Puberty

Seriously, it has been so long since I've blogged, that I should be writing about Tierney's first period. They do grow up fast! But luckily, we haven't advanced beyond diapers yet, and Tierney is still in the process of learning basic English, so those of you hoping for a lesson on tampons are going to be sorely disappointed.

It has been an incredibly busy summer. We spent a week in Mexico in June, a week in Chadron in July and even though we've been back for a week, I still feel like I'm in the recovery process. Probably doesn't help that I caught a summer head cold, Trevor is home sick from work after throwing up all weekend and Tierney is cutting her bottom canines. No rest for the weary.

Despite feeling like a clogged up drain today, I have to say that I am blessed. I mean BLESSED.

Mexico was perfect. We stayed at an all-inclusive resort, no one got swing flu, the pools were fabulous and we rented a car for a day and visited two Mayan ruins. We traveled with our close friends, Lee and Sara and their son Ethan. We couldn't have picked better friends or better traveling companions to share this experience with.

Here we are in front of Chichen Itza. (Sara, Ethan, Lee, Tierney, Trevor and me!)

And a couple from the beach.

We only had one week of recovery time after Mexico before leaving for Nebraska. I was able to take Tierney 18 month portraits in my mom's backyard . . . a couple of my favorites:

I encouraged Tierney to start early on kissing all those frogs . . . you never know which one will be the prince.

While I can never see myself living in Nebraska again, it's always wonderful to visit home and spend time with my mom. It's sad to me that we live so far from home and Tierney's Grandma has to watch her grow up from afar, but it certainly makes the moments they spend together all the more special.

Here's a pic of Tierney and my mom at Storybook Island. My nephew Shane is peaking in the back window of the giant pumpkin.

And finally, what blog is complete without a picture of Tierney eating yogurt? (Obviously spoons are still a work in progress.)

Just Like Titanic

Embarking on our anniversary weekend, I think Trevor and I felt much like the passengers of the Titanic. We felt secure in our adventure, sure we would have a fabulous time and sail through our celebration. Since we were going to have Tierney with us, we decided to keep it simple and stay in a hotel about ten minutes from our house.

I know that seems like a silly notion, but it's a fancy hotel with a pool, hot tub, golf course, nature trail and excellent food. And because we didn't spend money to kennel our dog or to buy gas for the car, we were able to splurge and get a suite. Sounds sweet, right?

We checked in at around 3:30 p.m. and headed straight for the pool. Last summer Tierney could not get enough of the water. She loved so splash, kick and glide. The pool at our hotel was indoor, which was nice because then I didn't have to worry about putting sufficient SPF on the kid. The plan was for Tierney to swim lots, get tired, go to bed and allow Trevor and I to have a glass of champagne.

But, then we hit the iceberg. Only our iceberg had a meltdown.

Tierney decided that she was absolutely terrified of the pool. I don't know if it was because of the echo of an indoor pool, or if she was certain that she would drown. Whatever the case, we were only able to stay at the pool for about twenty minutes, because we could not tolerate screaming beyond that.

As for dinner, Tierney was continuing to meltdown in our hotel room. Her gum was swollen where she was cutting a canine tooth and she was a complete mess. We decided that going out to eat was not going to happen. So Trevor left the hotel and went to get some takeout sushi. We were able to eat without too much fuss.

Then it was time to put Tierney down. This is usually a simple process that takes five minutes. We sing her two songs. We put her in the bed with Bear, Ella and Blanket and then she rolls over and goes to sleep. Of course on this night, she screamed for two hours. Trevor had to bounce her and sing to her for about an hour and a half before we just let her cry it out. By then my nerves were so frazzled that I had no desire for champagne (or anything else for that matter,) so I fell asleep.

I drank a glass of flat, warm champagne the next morning when Trevor ran home with Tierney to let the dog out and get the kid some fresh milk. Woo Hoo.

At least the breakfast was pretty impressive - a big, hearty buffet with smoked salmon, pancakes, an omelette station and about a dozen other choices. We decided to stuff ourselves to the gills in order to feel like we got our money's worth.

Anyway, at least we can claim to have had an unforgettable weekend. Tomorrow (Tuesday, June 2), we will celebrate our official 8 year anniversary. We are going to stay home and plan nothing.

Here are a couple of pics from the weekend. Notice they are all in the hotel room, because that's where we spent most of our time with Miss Fussy Pants McGee.

16 Months

Tierney is up to 80 spoken words, a dozen signs, can do all the movement to the Itsy Bitsy Spider and most to Head, Shoulders Knees and Toes. She will sometimes tell me when she needs changed, and a few times has brought me a diaper. She amazes me every day.