30 June 2014

Alyson brought home a little ball today. When we got out of the car, she wanted to hold it. I gave it to her before I carried her from the car to the house and told her, "Don't throw it." She hugged it close and was good. The second we got inside and I put her down, she threw it across the living room.

29 June 2014

Madelyn to Alyson as she tried to get around her: You have to pay the toll!
Alyson walked around her and blew a raspberry at her in defiance.

28 June 2014

Tony took Alyson to Starbucks this morning. As he was taking her out of the car:

Alyson: Mama?
Tony: Mommy stayed home.
Alyson: Ohhhhh....

27 June 2014

While eating dinner, Alyson started playing around a bit since she was getting full. She lifted her fork straight up with a piece of waffle on it (think all hail the might waffle!) and babbled something. She was staring so intently at the waffle that we're pretty sure she put some waffle spell on the entire world. In her mind, magic was shooting off from the waffle in all directions.

26 June 2014

The girls were playing when it was getting to be time to leave Mom's house to come home today.

Me: Are you ready to go home?
Alyson: Yeah!

She then just continued playing.

25 June 2014

Tony was getting the dirty diapers from Alyson's room before leaving me to nurse her before bed. He was taking a little longer than usual to leave. 

Alyson looked at me like "What is he doing???" and grabbed my shirt to tell me what she wanted.
Me: We'll wait until Daddy leaves and you say "buh bye".
Alyson, turning toward Tony: Bye!

24 June 2014

I was in the living room with Madelyn, and Alyson came in from the playroom. She held up the crayon and paper she was holding:

Alyson: Ehhh?!?!
Me: If you want to color, go to your chair.

Alyson walked off to the table. I put her up in her seat, and she started scribbling. Next thing I know, she is acting like she is done. Nope, she wanted me to color something. So, I drew something and handed the paper and crayon back to her. She scribbled and handed it back to me. This continued for 5 minutes as we each took turns drawing on the paper.

23 June 2014

Coming downstairs this morning, Alyson was scooting down the stairs on her belly feet first. As she scooted down each step, her dress would ride up higher and higher until she was putting her hands down on it as she slid down to the next step. Eventually, she couldn't slide down the steps anymore because her dress was caught and started to backwards cartwheel down the step. I put my hand on her butt to keep her from falling (We still spot her going down the stairs because she isn't that good at it yet.). As she sat there for a few seconds, she realized there was a problem and said, "Uh oh...."

22 June 2014

Me, to Alyson since she was starting to act like she wanted out of the bath: Alyson, are you ready to get out of the bath.
Alyson looked up at me very sternly: Nnnnoo!

21 June 2014

At breakfast, Alyson had a biscuit. She was concerned at first when Tony took it away for a minute. 

Me: Daddy's going to put butter on it. 
Alyson: Wwwwoooww!!!

20 June 2014

We stopped at Cracker Barrel just after crossing the Bay Bridge. Alyson had pancakes with maple syrup. I had pancakes with blueberry topping. I gave Alyson a little taste of the blueberry topping. Apparently, she liked it because she then took her fork and starting scraping the blueberry topping off of my pancakes.

19 June 2014

Alyson was looking at her books in her room. She opened up "Moo Baa Lalala" by Sandra Boynton to the second page that says "A sheep says, 'Baa.' Three singing pigs say, 'Lalala.'", skipping the page with the cow, and said "Moo!"

18 June 2014

While Madelyn was talking about space rocks during dinner, she was having one hand crash into the other to demonstrate a meteor crashing into the earth. Alyson copies pretty much everything her sister does.

Alyson, while moving one hand in a fist into her other flat hand to demonstrate a crash and explosion: Pssshhhuuurrrrrrr!

17 June 2014

A sign that this girl loves ketchup: We had grilled shrimp for dinner. I put some ketchup on Alyson's plate for her to dip her shrimp into. Just about every piece of shrimp was dipped at least twice: lick off the first dip (or two) and then actually eat the shrimp. Once the shrimp were gone, Alyson tried picking up more ketchup to eat using a pincher grasp. When then didn't work, she resorted to dipping her fork in it and licking it off her fork.

16 June 2014

While sitting at the table after eating dinner, we were trying to get Alyson to say our names.

Me: Alyson, say "Grandpa".
Alyson: Gampuh. (Sort of sound a little like "bubble", too.)
Me, pointing to Tony: Alyson, who's that?
Alyson: Gampuh.
Me: What's my name?
Alyson: Gampuh.
Me, pointing to Madelyn: Who's that?
Alyson: Ahpuh (Sort of sounds like "apple".)

Needs some work. She later did call me "mama". It just isn't consistent yet (or maybe too consistent since just about everyone is "Gampuh").

15 June 2014

Before dinner at Joe's Crab Shack, we took the girls on the new carousel at Rio. Alyson hasn't been on a carousel since last summer but seems to know exactly what to do and was bouncing a bit on her horse before the ride started like she wanted to get it going. When the ride was over, she started to whine about having to get off. Luckily, she seemed to understand when I told her that our turn was over and that it was time to let some other kids have a turn.

14 June 2014

This is typical of our shy little girl. When we first got to the park today, Alyson didn't want me to put her down and was being super shy around Billy and Lindsey. After the park, we went to get dinner. By that point, she was giving Billy high fives and teasing with him.

13 June 2014

Madelyn and I were working on something at the table. Alyson wanted me to lift her up so that she could see. Unfortunately, to write neatly enough, I couldn't have Alyson on my lap. She started to fuss a bit. I tried to distract her:

Me: Where's Horton?
(The small stuffed Horton was behind her on the floor.)
Alyson, pouting and looking around: I dunyo!

12 June 2014

When I put Alyson's dress on her today:

Alyson, pointing to her skirt: Fower!
Me: That's right, that's a flower.

Tony came into the room.

Me: Alyson, tell Daddy what's on your skirt.

Alyson refused to say anything. "Mommy, I am not a trained monkey!"

11 June 2014

When we were going through the Atlantic Reef Exhibit at the National Aquarium today, there were six divers or so feeding the fish, taking photos/video, and cleaning the exhibit. Two of them noticed Alyson watching them from the Ergo.

The divers waved to Alyson. The sleepy and shy girl put her head down and sucked her thumb.

Me: Alyson, wave to the divers.

Alyson kept sucking her thumb while the divers waved. I took Alyson's hand and put it to her mouth to blow the divers a kiss. She blew them a kiss and smiled. One of the divers took a breath from his regulator, put his hand to his mouth, and blew her a bubbly kiss. Alyson smiled even more as she put her head back down on my shoulder. All of the adult women around were aww-ing over the whole thing.

10 June 2014

Alyson gets three short bedtime stories every night. After the second one tonight, Tony was taking a little too much time to get another book.

Alyson, reaching toward the books: Ehhhh!
Tony: What? You think you get another book?
Alyson, very insistently: Uh huh!

She then got her third book.

09 June 2014

While the girls were in the bath, Madelyn laid down on her tummy in the water as usual. Alyson took the opportunity to start tickling her sister on the butt while giggling and saying, "Tittle, tittle, tittle."

08 June 2014

Alyson was playing Peak-A-Boo Sesame Street on the iPad. Cookie Monster was behind the door holding a giant cookie. Alyson bent down and put her mouth on the iPad trying to eat the cookie.

07 June 2014

After I put her shirt on this morning:

Alyson, pointing to the whale on her shirt: Durduh!
Me: Nope, that's a whale, not a turtle, but good try.
Alyson, pointing to Testudo on my shirt: Durduh!
Me: Yup, that's a turtle!

06 June 2014

While I was getting some veggies out of the freezer for dinner, Alyson grabbed the ice pack we use on her for boo-boos and wouldn't put it back. She also went over to the stove and grabbed a dish towel to try to wrap it like we do when we give it to her, but she couldn't get that to work. I kept trying to get the ice pack away from her without making her too mad, but it wasn't working. She was really tired, otherwise I wouldn't have tried as hard to not upset her. 

Finally, she got distracted by something outside, put the ice pack down, and ran to the door. I snatched it up and quickly put it back in the freezer. About a minute later, she came in to the kitchen with a concerned look on her face, put her hands up in the classic "I don't know" pose, and said "Ehhhh!?!?" as if asking "Where is the ice pack?" I told her that I didn't have it and she ran off circling the living room and kitchen a couple of times in search of it. She gave up quickly and moved on to playing with something else, thank goodness.

05 June 2014

The girls were playing with some alphabet blocks after we got home. Madelyn was trying to build towers, but Alyson kept knocking them down as expected. Madelyn finally got tired of it and decided to pretend that she was a monster that was going to go knock down the towers. She stood up and growled. Alyson thought this meant that the monster was coming to get her, so she ran away giggling.

04 June 2014

As I was putting Alyson down into her crib for bed.

Me: Alyson, can you say "I love you"?

Alyson waved "buh bye" and started sucking her thumb in response.

Me, laughing: I love you, too, sleepy.

03 June 2014

As part of clean-up time, the girls were putting the blocks and other toys in the living room into a bucket they had out. Then, Madelyn carried that into the playroom to put away, but left the bucket just inside the doorway as she put things away. There were a few things left in the living room that we asked Alyson to take back to the playroom. She took them back, but instead of putting them away, put them inside the bucket that was obviously waiting for her. (And, of course, her sister yelled at her for it.)

02 June 2014

I'll be honest, I don't have much detail on this one because it was when I was sleeping this afternoon. Tony would know better.

Alyson was in the living room playing with some pots and pans from the play kitchen. She also had a plastic container. The plastic container was her measuring cup and she used it to pour things into the pans while making a pouring sound: "Sssshhhhhh...."

01 June 2014

While at the grocery store, Alyson was being a typical grabby toddler. First, she was reaching back into the cart from the seat and trying to grab things out of the bags.

Me: Alyson, if you grab it out of a bag, you have to eat it.
Alyson put the bag of baby spinach back in the cart.

Then, she started reaching for things on the shelves.

Me: Alyson, if you grab it, you're going to have to buy it.
Alyson looked at the two bags of chips she had grabbed from a display as if thinking about it and put one back. We then both put the second bag back and she was suddenly much better about grabbing things.