Mommy Recycling

You can't live in Durango for too long without noticing that the green movement is alive and thriving in this here small town. From the bicycle powered blender people selling smoothies at the farmer's market, to the almost daily letters in paper reminding us all how much better reusable bags are for the environment, we are regaled with all sorts of helpful ideas on how to "do our part" which, apparently very few people are doing or we wouldn't all feel so guilty about it.

Don't get me wrong, I think that we should all follow the lessons we learned in pre-school and clean up our own messes. It's important to be good stewards of our resources. And for the record, I love this planet! It's big, beautiful and diverse. There are tons of amazing places that I still haven't seen, and I want them to be around for my kids to see too. Plus, it's where I keep all of my chocolate. So we have to take care of it.

There are probably lots of little things that I do every day that, with a little tweaking, could make better use of my resources (and probably save some money too). So I'm keeping an eye out for opportunities to do just that. In a culture of disposability, maybe I can reuse and repourpose things a little bit more. Here's one teensey, tinesey (and slightly adorable) way that I'm trying to save our resources.

As I was putting away this dress I was a little sad to see it go. You know, because it's so cute and all. Kids grow so fast they just don't get all that much use out of some of their cutest stuff. Then it occurred to me, why not repurpose it?

So....

...last year's dress...

This year's shirt!!

As an added conservation bonus, the sweater she's wearing was mine. I'm pretty sure that it was a hand-me-down to me too. That means I qualify for a big ol' reusable bag that says, "I'm Green!" or something on it. Right?

The First Person

Recently, Norah has started speaking in the first person. This development has given rise to such endearing statements as, "I need it." "I want it." and "Mine!" Awesome.

We've started weaning her from the pacifier, which is when we first noticed her speaking in the first person. When she asks for her "baba" we say, "Oh, you don't need that right now, do you?" Usually we're met with a very emphatic, "I NEED it!" It's not really demanding, just a statement about the urgency of the situation.

The other day she made this little gramatical leap: I went in to get her from her nap, she was talking loudly in her crib to let us know it was time to get up. When I got in there she asked me for her baba. I said, "You had one for your nap, where'd it go?" With no hesitation she responded, "I lost it." Sure enough, she did. We found it hiding on the floor under Elliott the elephant.

Fashion...

...forward?

Obsessed with Shoes

What do you mean my "shoes are so big I might fall"?

Silly mommy. I'm gonna go show Daddy how cool I look in his slippers.

I just...gotta....turn...that foooot.

Woah...these things are heavy.

Ok, I think I've got it now...

Just One More

Here's the first photo we got of Norah in the pool. Jan took it on her cell phone camera. Of course, she can get my kid to look at her for a picture!

It Skips a Generation

When I was little I thought that my mom swam like a mermaid. You know, except for the feet thing. She used to swim laps for exercise 5 or 6 days a week. She's been stopped mid-workout more than once by coaches (including one Jr. Olympic coach) who asked where she trained. She didn't train. She's just a natural swimmer.

From as early as I can remember we did swimming lessons every summer. I think we even did Mommy & Me classes as young as 6 months old. I'm sure that part of the reason was that my mom was eager to share her passion with us. Being a mom myself now, I understand the desire to show this little person who is a part of you all of the things that bring you joy so that maybe it'll bring them joy too.

Unfortunately for my mom, swimming was not a passion that I shared. She swam like a mermaid, I...um...floundered. Don't get me wrong. I'm super grateful for the swimming lessons. I'm pretty sure that if I hadn't started swimming at such a young age I wouldn't know how to swim to this day. I consider myself relatively fearless (though not reckless). I've traveled alone through Europe for ten days. Rollercoasters don't bother me a bit. I've even been skydiving. But when it comes to water, I'm a chicken. I still can't dive in head first. Water goes up my nose and I'm miserable for the rest of the day. I can handle water that isn't deeper than I am tall. I just don't like the feeling of trying to keep myself afloat.

My mom said that she knew pretty early that I wouldn't be a water baby. The summer I was two I fell into the baby pool (maybe 12" of water) at the beginning of the summer. For the whole rest of the summer I refused to go in the water, no matter what. This was a pretty resolute decision for a two year old since we went to the pool every day.

Every.

Single.

Day.

Fortunately for my mom, it looks like my fear of water (and her passion for it) have skipped a generation. My friend Jan blogged about their Spring Break trip to Phoenix last week. From the looks of the pictures, they stayed at a water park that had cots by the pool to nap on between the hours of midnight and 5 am. There may have been a hotel involved, but I'm really not sure that they needed one. I was inspired by her posts to see if Norah enjoyed swimming or not, so I invited her to bring her twin boys, Kyle and Reed and the pool with us yesterday. They're used to the water, having lived in it for a week. I was hoping their confidence might rub off on my girl, since I assumed she might take after me.

At first Norah was just excited to see her friends, to whom she refers collectively as "boyss" and individually as "Kyle". We think Reed might be too hard to say. She was a little overwhelmed by all the noise and kids running around at first, but after about five minutes she got into it. And once Kyle (the actual Kyle) took off for the Giant Froggy Slide of Doom, she proved that she could keep up with the boys just fine.

Norah and the boys getting used to the shallow end.

Norah and Reed playing in front of the giant crab. Kyle had already run off to the slide by this picture.

This series proves that Norah does not share her mother's fear of water in the face.

This is Kyle at the top of the Giant Froggy Slide of Doom. Get a load of how big that thing is! She climbed up there all by herself at least 10 times.

And here she is! My little daredevil!!

Every time she landed she got a face-full of water, and still came up smiling. In fact later (after I'd put the camera away), she went on the slide for big kids (you know, for 5 and 6 year-olds) all by herself. I was so proud! You'd better believe that she and Grammy will be visiting the pool a lot this summer.

One More Brag

I know I've been bragging on my kid a little lately, but that's what moms do right?

Anyway, I wanted to share the nicest compliment I got from one of Norah's teachers last week. She said that Norah is the best sharer in the class. How sweet is that! The teacher said that she's especially sweet when someone is having a bad day. When another kid is sad, Norah will go find their favorite toy and bring it to them to cheer them up. Then she pats them on the shoulder or gives them a hug. Say it with me people: "Aawwwww!"

Let's just hope this behavior continues when she one day has to start sharing Mommy and Daddy too.

Good News, Bad News - Spring Edition!

It's time for another edition of Good News, Bad News. If you're wondering what the schedule for these posts is... good luck with that. Since the weather was so nice today I've decided to do a Spring edition. So break out the sunscreen, rain (and mud) gear, and make sure to bring the camera for all those flowers. Alright kids, let's go!

Good News - Breaking out all the warm weather clothes means discovering all the things I forgot I owned!

Bad News - Breaking out all the warm weather clothes means discovering all the things I forgot I borrowed.

Good News - I get to put the snow boots on the shelf and sport the sandals!

Bad News - Putting on the sandals reminds me that my toesies have been seriously neglected over the past few months. Do I really want to subject the general public to that mess?

Good News - The cheery sunshine encourages me to seize the day and wear some cute (close toed) flats!

Bad News - Early spring means I still can't find a parking space that won't force me to step into a pile of snow or a giant mud puddle. In my cute flats. Awesome.

So there it is folks. Spring hasn't sprung just yet, but it's giving us just enough hope to start shedding our winter coats. Sadly we'll probably have to put them back on at least once in the next few weeks. Happy Spring everybody!!

She Knows Our Names!!

I was picking Norah up from daycare and they wanted to show me some new stuff that she learned. *Note - names have been changed to protect the preschoolers and their overworked mommies (and because I didn't ask permission).* They asked her, "Who is Annie's mommy?" She responded, "Bekka" Right! "Who is Kenzie's mommy?" "Kelly" Right again!

But here's the clincher guys. Just for fun (they'd never asked her before) one of the girls said, "Who's Norah's mommy?" She patted me on the shoulder and said, "Shelly!" WHAT!?! Then we asked, "Who's Norah's daddy?" "Mark!" Seriously!?!

We had absolutely no idea that she had put it together that the people she called "Mommy & Daddy" had different names that other people called them. This child amazes me every day.

The Most Excited I've Ever Been About Pee

Wow! Long time no blog. I've had several things I wanted to write about but I just haven't had the time to get anything together. So today we'll start with an easy one. Here are a few of Norah's recent developments:

• When I give her a choice of "this" or "that" she asks for "bofe". So while that can be frustrating sometimes it also shows that she's got the concept down.


• Last week we were talking about going home to her house and out of the blue she said, "Daddy's house too." Why yes, it is.


• She's got all of her secondary colors down. That would be orange, green and purple for those of you who have been out of art class for too long (two primary colors mix to make a secondary color, so yeah, there's that). She has known blue for a long time. She cares nothing for red and prefers to call it pink. Yellow? Well, it's just hard to say. Even harder when you don't have all your teeth.


• We spend the whole drive to and from home saying hi to every horsie she sees. Sometimes she whinnies at them.


• When we drove through a cloud of smoke from someone's chimney she said, "Hot." I'm not sure how she knows that smoke goes with fire because we haven't had a fire all winter. But awesome!

Last but not least an explanation for the disturbing title of this post. on Sunday evening, Norah informed me that she needed to pee pee. So I decided to humor her and sat her down in the potty. Lo and behold, she actually did it!! I threw such a raging party in the bathroom that Mark had to come in and see what was going on. We made as big a deal of it as humanly possible (including texting the grandparents) and she seemed very proud. She did it twice yesterday evening as well. HOORAY!!! I know it's still WAY too early for potty training. The fact that she peed on the bathroom floor waiting for her bath last night was a clue to that effect. I can't help but be a little excited at the thought of no more diapers though. At least she gets the concept, even if it's hit or miss. So there it is folks, the most excited I've ever been about pee.

I'll leave you with a photo from yesterday evening. This is Norah cillaxin' in the car waiting for Daddy to meet us and carpool home. I can't believe how big she's getting!

A Rare Find

What's that I see sticking out from behind my little girl's ear? (This is Norah's "I dunno" face)

Do I see what I think I see? Are those the ever elusive piggy tails?

Why, we've been searching for those for MONTHS now!!

And still, they are so elusive that they were only visible for a few minutes. This is the clearest picture we got of them. (See the second one sticking out against the background of Mount Laundry?)

Or maybe this is the clearest photo... I can't decide.

The Budding Artist...

I'm so glad to know that she'll be able to support us in our old age.

Where does she get this stuff?

Yesterday evening Norah was walking around the house talking to herself. This happens a lot, so I don't usually think much of it. She kept getting louder and louder about it, then she started pulling on her shirt. About the time she managed to strip her shirt off, we figured out that what she was yelling was, "naked baby!" As soon as I repeated the phrase she looked at me and said, "YES! Pants. Pants. PANTS OFF!"

I told her that I was worried that she might get cold. Given that propane costs and arm and a leg we don't keep the house as toasty as we might like to in the winter. I gave in though, because she knows what cold is and didn't seem uncomfortable. She proceeded to run directly to Daddy in the kitchen, yell "Naked baby DADDY!!", put her hands on her hips and stick out her little tummy as far as she possibly could. I was only a little jealous that sticking out her tummy so far could result in so much cuteness.

After about an hour, I convinced her to become "warm baby" and put on her jammies. I cannot for the life of me think of where on earth she learned about this or gotthe idea to try it, but it was pretty dang adorable. And I am not at all biased.