Conversations with Abby, continued

Sorry I've been so quiet here lately...I'm on uber-deadline and it's like pulling teeth for me to write anything besides the scenes I should be writing. But I should be done around Sept. 2, and then I'll be posting a TON! Until then...

The other day I was trying to get Abby clicked into her carseat. She was dawdling, playing around with something, and I said, "Abby, come on, I'm waiting."

She turned to me and said, in a tone that sounded oh-so-familiar, "And you're doing a great job waiting, Mommy."

This morning Abby was drawing and I showed her how to draw butterflies. She did a bunch, then made a long purple oval that was sort of flat on one side, and scribbled it all in. "What's that?" I asked.

"That's a raccoon."

"A raccoon? Really?"

"Yes. I loooooove raccoons. Because that's what butterflies come out of when they're born."

:)

Bison Park

I met a mom at Centennial Park the other day who told me there was an awesome park in The Meadows that had great stuff for little kids. The Meadows is a huge development on the west side of town--similar to Ladera Ranch, for those of you in Orange County--and we don't go there much because it takes about 10 minutes to get over there (or more, depending on where you're going) and the only thing they have that we don't is a movie theater, and you can guess just how often we go to movies.

So today I bought the girls to this park, and yes, that mom was right--it was awesome. Very new, and huge, with four large pieces of play equipment, a sand pit, a special section for ids 2-5 years old, and a lot of stuff that moved--like these wacky little items:





It didn't take much to get them going--PJ was flying; I had to slow hers down or it would go totally out of control.


This is actually a climbing structure--or, more accurately, a climbing bison.


PJ was happy because she cold actually get up onto everything--though there were still quite a few open areas that made me a little nervous. Granted, they're made for 2 year olds and she's still got 7 months to go.



Abby had a good time on both the little kid stuff and some of the big kid stuff--though the tube slide on the biggest of the big kid structures was scary fast. Poor girl came shooting out the bottom so quick she didn't have a chance to land on her feet.

The only downside to the park was the lack of shade--NONE of the equipment is covered in shade at all. There's a shaded picnic area, but who spends their time there!? Actually, there was one other negative--there were no benches at all next to the 2-5 year old section, and very few near the 5-12 section. Oh well. I'll bring a beach towel to sit on next time and park myself on the grass.

Milestones

The past couple days have brought us to some remarkable milestones. The first occured on Friday when I took the girls to the rec center. We'd gotten our passes on Thursday and Abby had been looking forward to going swimming that day. Unfortunately the kids' pool is closed for maintenance until next weekend. "How about you go swim in the pool for mommies and daddies, and Penny and I can go to the toy room," she suggested. I about fell over from shock. The "toy room" is the daycare room we'd visited when we'd toured the facility the week before. Parents can drop off their kids there while they use the rec facility or take a class. We'd gone in and looked around at the toys and kids there that day, and Abby had seemed surprisingly amenable to going in there someday. I just hadn't expected her to suggest it herself!

So on Friday I took her up on her offer. We went over in the morning and the girls ran in as though it was their most favorite place to go. I signed them in, said goodbye, and off I went to swim.

This was the first real exercise I've done since Abby was about 4 months old and I was walking daily around the RSM lake. And I think the last time I went swimming PJ was about 4 months old, too. I had to rest for about 2 minutes after the first lap, I was so winded. I did that for a while--lap, rest, lap rest--and after about 10 minutes I was able to do two laps at once. I did laps for about half an hour, then water walked for 15 minutes before going in to recover and get dressed.

When I got back to the daycare room (I had to keep myself from running up there, I was so nervous that they'd both be basket cases when I got in) the girls didn't even notice I was there! No watching the door in anticipation, no looking forlornly through the window. I got them checked out and all their gear gathered up before Abby noticed I was there, and even then all she did was wave! My shy little girl who never wants to be left behind did just fine! In fact, she showed me all around the room once I went into the play area, pointing out the paintings on the wall and the fun toys she'd discovered.

PJ, however--my sociable little PJ--cried like I'd broken her heart. It took five minutes for her to calm down. The workers assured me she'd been fine the whole time, which I don't doubt at all. In fact, when I told them this had been the first time I'd ever left them somewhere without a parent or grandparent, they were stunned. "You'd never know it," they said. "They played the whole time and never even got fussy!"

Abby has been asking to go back. Hallelujah! PJ, on the other hand, I fear will freak out the next time we go in. We'll see. At least she has her sister there with her. I won't be doing it often--it's a little over $4 for child care every time I go--but maybe once every week or two. I'd like to swim 2-3 times a week, but Dan will watch the girls the rest of the time--much cheaper!

The other milestone occured yesterday. In short--Abby is potty training! On the advice of some of the moms on GentleChristianMothers.com, I just took her diaper off and let her run around naked. For the four hours she was like that she used the potty three times--all on her own, without any prompting from me--and never had an accident (well, save for a little "spill" that cleaned up no problem). We went out to Denver in the afternoon to explore, and when we got home I kept her in a diaper purely out of habit. But she's bottom-half nakey again this morning and has already run off to the potty once. TOTAL SHOCKER. I figure we'll just do this when we're home, and hopefully in a week or so she'll be able to recongize better when she needs to go when we're out and about, and I'll move her into pull-ups for those times. Dare I dream she'll be potty trained completely by the end of September?

Next step after that of course will be the dreaded paci. That, I don't even want to think about...

Six years!

Today is our sixth anniversary! Crazy! Two cities, three homes, six contracted books and two kids later, we're here. Sweet.

My parents were in town until this morning, and last night they watched the girls so we could go out for dinner. It was BLISS. I can't remember the last time we did that, honestly. It was sorely needed and MUCH appreciated. We ate at White Chocolate Grill (parmesan-crusted filet = Y.U.M.) and then bummed around Best Buy since we didn't have time to do much else--drat that PJ who refuses to do anything but nurse for sustenance! My parents said they'd watch them every week if we wanted to institute a date night--I don't know if it's possible for us to pray any harder than we already are for their house to sell, but if it were, that offer would have done the trick.

Today we drove around and did random things--office furniture store (Dan still needs a desk), checked out the capuses for Colorado Christian Univerity and Denver Seminary, just for kicks, took a break at the Brunswick Zone and watched the bowlers and played in the arcade, then drove out to Parker to find two churches we're vaguely considering visiting. Pizza for dinner and both kids down relatively early--and now he's watching TV and I'm blogging. Ahh, marriage. :)

Douglas County Fair Parade

This past week was the Douglas County Fair. The last county fair I went to was in Orange County, Abby's first year, I think. That fair lasts 2 or 3 weeks, is in full swing every day, and has a big-name (or close to it, anyway) musician every night.

Not so much here in Douglas County.

We went on Thursday and the carnival hadn't even started. There were no vendors. The fun food stuff (like, fried everything) was starting that night, but we were there in the afternoon so there was almost nothing to do. We got to tour the small animal exhibits and see the horticulture judging. (Well, we passed by it, anyway, on the way to look at all the stuff kids had entered in the....um...not sure what it is they enter stuff in. But, you know, quilts and cakes and tables they've built, that sort of thing. Really impressive, actually, some of the things these kids had done who were 8 or 10 or 14 years old. There was a quilt done by a 12 year old that could easily have gone for a hundred dollars, if not more. Simply beautiful.) The band on Saturday night--the Sha-Na-Na's. Fitting, since the theme of the fair was "Blast from the Past." But still not exactly super-exciting.

BUT--Saturday morning was the parade, and it was great! (And long--like, well over an hour.) It was Abby's first parade, and PJ's too, of course.

PJ was totally into it and waved to everyone.

The parade was 3/4 over before Abby started waving to folks. Up until then she spent most of her time freaking out that PJ was going to get lost--like, near tears every time I took my hands off her. Poor kid.

There were queens and princesses on horses--some of Abby's favorite things.

Local churches had floats, too--never seen that in a parade before! This church's band did a concert in the library's pavilion last month, too.

This is a local church plant that currently meets in a school and is going to build a community center instead of a traditional sanctuary and office building. That really impresses me. They handed out microwave popcorn packs instead of candy.

Of course there were marching bands--4 or 5 of them, including a middle school from Pueblo that was really good.
As Abby calls him, Old MacDonald!

Abby loved the woman's dress in the Civil war unit.

A whole mess of tractors, including this one from 1906.

No idea what this was for, but it was cute.

One of the local high schools has the saber-tooth tiger as its mascot. Abby was not fond of it.

Does anyon else think it weird that the US Census had a display? I love the quote on the front about it being safe.

I spent most of the parade trying to keep PJ from running out into the street. She wanted nothing more than to be in the thick of things.

We took about 15 pictures of Abby--this is the only one of her smiling. I don't know what it is about cameras that makes her so sullen.

The Morrow girls in their shady spot on the sidewalk. A great find, given the majority of the parade route was in the sun.

One of the few times we were all three looking at the same thing at the same time, instead of me running out after PJ or Abby hiding behind me or my mom because of the noise.

So overall--the fair was kind of a bust (well, if we'd gone over the weekend it probably would have been really cool, but it was definitely not what we were expecting), but the parade was awesome. Looking forward to next year when PJ can (hopefully) be trusted to stick with us and not go taking off after the floats.

Cowgirl in the making

At the local cowboy store we found some cowboy boots that Abby simply had to try on.
There was another pair we liked more, but they weren't in her size. They were hot pink and had stars that lit up when you walked. We didn't buy any but we promised her we would once the weather turned and boots were more appropriate. She was disappointed, but cheered up pretty quickly once we bought her this horse:

A cowgirl ballerina. All she needs now is a tiara and a lasso.

A room with a view...

From my office this evening--though most evenings it looks like this. Before bed Abby always runs to the window of the playroom, which has this same view, and says, "Let's look at the beautiful sunset!" She usually does it to stall, but I always go look with her, because dang, how could you not?!