That 2-year-old 'tude

Eeek! Most of the time we have a happy loving good child but certain times someone takes that child and replaces her with a screaming mad flopping fish. And there's no warning. Fun times with my toddler! Its termed the terrible twos for a reason, I know. But I've also been told that threes and fours are worse!

We've been working to teach her to say "please" and "thank you." And she's good about that. She even says "bless you" when we sneeze. But now we're trying to teach her that she doesn't always get what she wants just because she says please.

We're starting to institute some discipline tactics. This may or may not have a correlation to the increase in tantrums. It seems like most of the time the threat of a time out is enough to make her change her behavior. But then we had to put her in timeout twice in succession yesterday to get her to bring her coat to Dada to put it away. She had just taken it off and thown it on the floor when we got home.

We don't have a ton of rules. The main one right now is just that she can't leave her toys or other objects on the floor in the kitchen or dining room, that she give her food to Mama or Dada when she's done eating instead of throwing it on the floor. The other issue we're dealing with is her efforts to delay bedtime. We've had to threaten to put her to bed without reading a book for the past two nights. The biggest problem though is the toys in the kitchen. We're leaving the gate open more often because she likes to hang in the kitchen with Mama, but its so hard to step over the toys!

Of course its hard to stay mad and institute the discipline when the happy loving good child comes back and showers us with kisses and hugs! She is a good kid. We just have to stick to our guns and take heart that eventually this stage will pass.

Gimme my phone

Allie loves phones, and she prefers the real thing. She brought this play "real" phone home from daycare yesterday.

When we were in the car, I had taken out my phone to look at something. She kept saying "gimme my phone," referring to my phone. I asked her what happened to her phone, I couldn't see it on the floor or on the car seat next to her. She didn't tell me where it was.

Soon after she started talking about butts.

It turned out she was saying butt because somehow her phone had ended up under hers.

She's so cute with her phones. She dials the numbers and talks to people like Bridgee and Grandpa. This morning she was being silly and didn't want to look at the camera when I was taking pictures.

On another note, aren't those penguin jammies so cute?

Recovery weekend

Allie's been sick all weekend. She came home early on Thursday and we thought she was better before she went to bed, but she woke up Friday with a fever and didn't eat much for breakfast. That was the start of two days' worth of throwing up, more than one incident where it landed on Dada, saltine crackers and several baths. The poor kid was so hungry and begging for milk and food, but all we gave her was water and saltine crackers. There were plenty of snuggly and together moments too.

Happily for all of us, she woke up this morning all better! She started out in a rough mood because she was so hungry. But she had a nice big breakfast of pancakes and is more active than she's been all weekend.

Allie wasn't sick much at all in her first two years, but it seems like she's made up for that since turning 2! I hope we can all be illness-free for awhile.

See Grace

Last Sunday we met Allie's friend Grace and her Mom and Dad, Teresa and Doug, at the children's museum. They live across the street, but we hadn't seen them in awhile because of the winter and then being sick. Allie walked right in like she owned the place. It took Grace a little longer to warm up. They had a good time though!

Allie tried the slide! The first time she tried it, it was really fast and I barely caught her on the bottom. Now that didn't phase her and she didn't even need me to catch her.

Allie liked riding the "horsey" by the museum entrance.

She put shoes on the baby, but the shoes were kinda big!

Mama made a pie for Allie.

And then Allie baked it in the oven... along with the ketchup and mustard.

We meandered into the art studio, and Allie was still holding onto the ketchup and mustard. She was very determined to get ketchup out of the bottle.

As time went on, we could tell both girls were getting tired, though niether of them would admit it. So we headed up to the rooftop before heading home. It was an absolutlely gorgeous day for hanging out on the roof.

First stop was the chickens. Allie really loves looking at the chickens.

On the opposite end of the roof has a nice water garden area. I had to watch Allie like a hawk because there were other kids whose parents were letting them take off shoes and put feet in the water. I didn't want Allie to do that.

She was very interested in the water's inhabitants, but didn't seem too interested in putting her feet in, so that was a relief.

The last fun thing was a marker window that we'd never noticed before. Its like the paint wall that we like in the art studio, but on the roof and with markers... and less risk of mess!

All fun mornings must come to an end through! We had two tired kids on our hands. Allie slipped up and admitted that she wanted to go night night. It took her awhile to go to sleep later, but once she did she had a nice long nap. Theresa told me Grace fell asleep in the car right after they left.

Allie's been so cute since this day with Grace. Every day since she keeps repeating "see Grace, see Grace." We haven't been able to to see her again yet because we've been busy this week, but hopefully we'll be able to soon!

Such beautiful weather we're having

I've had to scramble to find lighter clothing for Allie. Luckily I've found enough things that fit, though we're low on pajamas as always. Its a good thing Allie didn't grow a ton over the winter!

Mama has enjoyed running outside. Allie enjoys playing outside every day, sometimes all day. It sure tires her out! Yesterday we went for a family walk around the block and Allie wanted me to carry her for most of it. So Mama got a weight workout in addition to the walk. I think we'll take our family walks on the weekends when Allie has more energy. Or else use the stroller because Mama's arms are still not happy with how much they had to carry yesterday!

We're so happy winter is over. Even though it wasn't a terrible winter, it gets old after awhile dealing with the cold. The prevalent brown of the grass and trees is turning green and leaf buds are appearing on the trees. The Durso pack's calendar is gloriously empty so we're looking forward to all sorts of springtime adventures.

March madness

This year we made March Madness a family event. Allie picked her own bracket!

How did she do this, you may ask? Well, it was very scientific. We gave her all the matchups by mascot (though there were a few Dada didn't know). She overwelmingly picked kitties and the Bucky Badgers, but she was also a fan of Wolfpacks, Huskies, and Bonnies (St. Bonaventure). The result was a final four with the Missouri Tigers, UConn Huskies, NC State Wolfpack and the Bucky Badgers.

Unfortunately her bracket isn't do so hot. She's lost two of her final four teams, including Missouri. We were all sad when Missouri lost. She was also a big fan of UConn, who was eliminated in the first game. But she picked the Bucky Badgers to win it all, so there's hope after the Bucky Badgers squeezed out the victory tonight!

A day for baby Tyler

Sunday was a special day in our family. It was baby Tyler's baptism!

The baptism was during the 9:30 service at Jeni and Dave's church and afterward my parents hosted a brunch for guests. Allie had lots of fun showing off for all the guests. She also had fun playing with all the knick knacks that she was well aware she wasn't supposed to play with! But it was hard for me to stay mad at that silly face.

Grandma Swanson made the baptismal gown from Jeni's wedding dress. There was an old family gown, but Jeni wanted to start a new family tradition. It turned out great! And Tyler was great too.

With all the cameras out, Allie had to get in a few of the pictures. Tyler found her pretty entertaining.

Later Aunt Jessica finally got to hold baby Tyler! I wasn't able to get close to Tyler at the baby shower two weeks ago because I was sick. I had to share him, so I didn't get to hold him very long, but I think he liked me.

And Allie liked him too! The pictures of her with him are precious.

Baby Tyler is 8 pounds 14 ounces now, meaning at two months old, he's the size Allie was at birth!

Allie also had a good time playing with her other cousins. Katy is a year older than her and had fun hugging Allie. Allie wasn't into it at first, but then she started hamming it up when she realized the cameras were out.

There's mama Jeni and tired out baby Tyler! He was really good all day, but falling asleep before it was over.

Some more hugging cousins. Allie was really excited about the baptism because Mama told her she'd get to wear a pretty dress, her pretty shoes AND a hair pretty.

She also gave her Aunt Jeni some love. We had a nice day with family celebrating baby Tyler and we can't wait to see him again.

Hot diggity dog

Last Friday night we went with an easy dinner: Hot dogs. Allie is hit or miss with hot dogs, but Friday they were a hit! She didn't want her hot dog cut up like a baby hot dog through. She wanted it the grown-up way, complete with bun and ketchup. She ate it well!

She liked to vary the location of her bites. After awhile she took the hot dog off the bun and just ate the bun by itself, and the hot dog by itself. Whatever works, baby! She ate so well, we decided we'd have some girl scout shortbread cookies for dessert.

Look who's back!!

In true Toy Story fashion, Woody was lost, but then he was found! Remember the tale of the Woody Christmas ornament? When we didn't find Woody after unpacking from our Christmas trip, we thought he was left at Grandma and Grandpa Durso's or, worse, thrown away. But today, Dada found him in Allie's diaper bag!

How did he get there? No idea. But there are a bunch of inner pockets that he must have gotten stuck in. Apparently now three months later the contents of the diaper bag were shuffled enough and Woody ended up on top!

Woody's boot was broken before, and Allie kept talking about that in the car, mentioning the snake boot and "boot broken." In the course of the evening since his recovery, his hat has been broken off in two places. All in a day's work, I guess.

We told Allie at bedtime that she had to say goodbye to Woody, give him a hug and a kiss, and then Woody was going to a safe place so we could put him on the Christmas tree next year, broken or not. This will be a fun story to tell every year.

Bed head and breakfast

Allie's breakfast of choice these days is YoBaby, followed by Chocolate Cheerios, in a bowl and complete with milk. She eats it really well, though it can be slow going. She doesn't like when the cheerios get stuck on the side of the bowl. And she drops cheerios on the table a lot, which she must then pick up and put back in the bowl. And if milk gets on the table, we must wipe it off before she continues. You get the idea.

She always either asks for more YoBaby or a bar after finishing her cheerios. I promise a bar after we get dressed. She always holds us to that, though she forgot about it this morning.

The funniest part of the morning is Allie's bed head. Just look at that mane! We had been considering a haircut, but she's decided lately she loves hair pretties and picks one out to wear each day, so her hair is a little more manageable.

This kid cracks me up

Allie was in rare form tonight. Really, she was in never-before-seen form. Running around, yelling crazy unintelligible things. Playing at the kitchen table, in the living room, jumping around, bothering Monk, watching Mama cook, leaving her toys all over the floor. I was making dinner and she thought it was so cool when I used the food processor to make breading for our oven-fried chicken breasts. And if she thought that was cool, it was even cooler to see me toss the chicken in the bag to coat with the breading and then pull it out and put it all in the oven.

I asked Dada if he wanted to have green beans or peas. He said green beans, and Allie did too... for the next 15 minutes. She was yelling and carrying on "more green beans!!" She seemed really enthusiastic about dinner in general, except that she ended up not eating a single bite. I don't know if she was too wound up or what. She ate a lot during the day and had been drinking a lot of milk since we got home from work.

It was just so entertaining to interact with her tonight! We figured she'd either stay up all night in her crib or go right to sleep, having worn herself out. She went right to sleep.

"Allie open it"

A favorite snack right now is granola bars, specifically chewy peanut butter chocolate chip. But Allie also likes cereal bars too. Whatever bar she's eating, "Allie open it." This means, Mama or Dada tears the wrapper a little bit to get started, and then Allie opens it up and gives us the wrapper, saying its all gone. Its the cutest thing. She sometimes will pluck the chocolate chips out of the bar individually.

Speaking of cute things Allie has been doing lately, there are many. She prefers to eat Yobaby for breakfast now, usually more than one carton. When its done, we have to put it in the trash. She's very interested in making sure the trash goes in the trash! We have two trash cans, one of which is recycling, so we need to make sure she puts it in the right one, and also make sure she's not throwing away something we need to keep.

Her other favorite breakfast item is chocolate cheerios. Some mornings Mama shares her chocolate cheerios, and some mornings I get her own bowl. That takes a little more time though, so when we get her own bowl of cereal, we need to make sure we get her up a little early.