Miss Independent

Tonight on the way home from work, we meant to stop and vote, but we forgot. So we decided to combine family time, exercise and our civic duty. We walked over to our polling place and voted! It was a fun outing and Allie seemed to like watching us vote. We walked over with her in the stroller, but she wanted to come out to watch me write on my ballot.

On the way home we were surprised Allie wanted to walk. Then it got interesting... Allie wanted to push her stroller! She had some trouble steering, but wouldn't let Mama or Dada help. This slowed the walk down dramatically, but it was absolutely priceless.

We didn't expect Allie to walk all the way home, especially pushing the stroller. Its not terribly far, about three-quarters of a mile, but thats pretty far for a little kid.

It really was fun, though I have to admit I started losing patience toward the end of the walk. Allie had this little hippo that she brought home from daycare tonight. Toward the end of the walk she alternated between putting the hippo in the bag on the back of the stroller and holding it, while pushing the stroller. This made the walk take even longer.

We got home and had dinner and Allie went right to bed. She was so tired, she didn't make a peep. Thats an accomplishment in itself because lately it seems she's been boycotting sleeping.

Friday

How does Allie chill on a Friday afternoon?

Hang in the late afternoon sun with a nice cold sippy cup of milk and take in the latest shopper, of course!

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.