Adorableness

Tired baby.

After our weekly lesson at Romp n' Roll the little one was tired and needed a nap. She had woken up early, then went to play, and she was tired.

She refused to lay in her crib without crying and telling me that she wasn't tired and daddy gave in. I got her out of the crib and brought her into the living room.

Where she promptly crawled into the box and fell asleep.

Today Is About ME, Daddy!

This is what happens when I tried to take a photo of Laura opening one of her presents on Christmas day. I thought Lois was down the hallway, about as far away as you can get in our house. Looks like I was very, very wrong both in that assumption and in trying to take a picture that didn't involve her.

BOO! (I feel like this is the scene right before she crawls out of the screen in some Korean horror film.)

Christmas Update - Her Favorite Present (For Now)

This is how she spent most of the day.

Christmas was a real hit.

I would post photos of present opening but they would be of me and Laura opening the presents while Lois wanders around the house, completely uninterested in whatever it was we were doing with the boxes and wrapping paper.

There are also pictures of her playing with the wrapping paper, as all young children (and big kids too - *ahem* LAURA) are wont to do but those aren't really that interesting either. Instead, let me show you her current favorite toy:

Even in the box she just kept playing with it all day. All. Day.

This is the Leapfrog "My Own LeapTop," which Lois hasn't stopped playing with since Christmas - excepting when she is sleeping or eating.

Grandpa and Grandma gifted her with this toy (along with a bunch of other stuff) and she absolutely loves it.

There's a keyboard and screen: If she types one of the letter buttons it will tell her what letter it is, what noise it makes, and an animal that starts with that letter*.

Shh. She's working!

There are other settings too but she hasn't quite figured out how to get those to work. She will, eventually, but right now we get to hear that "A is for Alligator" and "S is the first letter in Scout's name" and all the other letters. Over and over and over and over.

And over.

I love that it makes her happy, regardless of the fact that her mother and I are starting to hear it in our sleep. I love that she sits with it like we sit with our laptops, fingers poised to type. It's awesome.

It's a picture of the picture that I got made from a picture.

For now it's her favorite toy. Tomorrow her favorite toy will be something else. The next day something else. She sure did get a lot of Christmas presents from mommy, daddy, friends and family, so I doubt she'll run out of favorites any time soon!

And almost every single one makes noise. Lots and lots of noise.

How much are ear plugs?


*"Ox." Apparently the animal that starts with an "x" is "Ox."

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, to you and yours from us and ours.

But It's Not Even Christmas Yet!

Her favorite toy ever: Shipping paper.

It's five days until Christmas.

The living room is dominated a large tree with roughly seventy bajillion wrapped presents under it and the table we have put in front of it to block the little baby from unwrapping her presents and ours a few days early.

What's left of the living room is flooded by leftover shipping paper from Amazon. We would get rid of it but the both the cats and the baby find it to be the best thing since forever.

Operation Nobody Gets Into the House is a success.

The entryway into the house is dominated by boxes piled high, ready to go out to the truck and be brought down for recycling. In the meantime I'm trying to find out if the little one is afraid of the dark or of enclosed spaces by taking large boxes and throwing them over the top of her. Thus far I'm pretty sure she's not afraid of the dark or tight spaces but is starting to wonder what the hell is wrong with her daddy.

We'll get this stuff out of the house today, no problem, but it's crazy to think that it's not even Christmas yet and we're already overrun by boxes, crinkly paper, and new toys.

Lois, of course, is loving every minute of it. The piles of boxes are new things for her to climb (even if they fall over on her) and the shipping paper/wrapping paper from the presents we opened during Grammy and Poppy's visit are just the best things ever!

Seriously; she spent an hour the other day just walking on the crinkly paper.

I'm pretty sure we used to have a dining room table.

But honestly, I can't wait for Christmas, regardless of the mess the house will become. I'm sure the bright and sparkly wrapping paper will be everywhere and boxes will be piled even higher than they are now. Toys both new and old will dot the landscape of our house like small inter-continental ballistic missiles. Feet will be injured when we step on stray Lego or Mega Bloks. The mess will be absolutely epic, sure.

But the fun? That will be legendary.

Friday Picture Post!

It's our Merry Christmoose.

I'd like to start a new tradition for the blog of posting up pictures every Friday. I mean, I know I post pictures every other time I put up a new post but Friday would be mainly just for pictures.

Since most of the people I talk to say they only come here for the baby's cuteness, I don't think anyone will mind.

Here are a few pictures from this week. Enjoy!

She's a bit of a gamer, right up until she starts eating the controller.

She really loves the YBike.

The controller is a constant fight that she wins far too often!

Poppy and Grammy were here for a visit this week.

Present Presents Presently!

Both her and the Y-Bike are smiling!

Much as we had Second Thanksgiving so that we could have friends and family over for a large meal and good times, Grammy Pammy had Second Hanukkah and had us over for a great dinner and a bit of a present exchange.

One of the presents that Lois received was Pewi Ybike, a cool walking-toy that she can either push around (which helps her with her stability) or sit on and push herself around with her feet.

She loves it.

I'm waiting for her to use it to surf, honestly.

Right after I put it all together (which only took me an hour longer than the instructions say it should have, during which time I only swore five or twenty times) she started pulling it around the house. It wasn't until after I put her on it that she really started loving it, getting on it, scooting around for five or six feet, and then getting off to pull it for a while. Repeat ad infinity.

Sure, she's fallen off it a few times and cries for a second but when I ask her if the floor is okay she stops crying and immediately looks at the floor to check. She even patted it once where she landed on it.

Seriously, she's adorable like that.

I see a lot of parents at the baby gym who rush over when their child takes a (small) tumble, swooping in, picking them up, and hugging them close as they cry and I'm not saying they're doing it wrong but I don't know if I could do that every single time. Lois falls. She takes tumbles. She even goes boom sometimes.

And that's okay! I used to have a heart-attack when it happened, worried she had seriously hurt herself, even if the fall was just onto her own butt from a standing position. If I reacted to every fall as these parents do I'd shorten my OWN life!

Let's pretend she wasn't actively falling as I snapped this picture.

For now, I'll ask her if the floor that she landed on, the wall that she hit on her way down, and the myriad other things she bumps into are okay. If she doesn't check them and stop crying I'll know she needs a little more love.

Maybe it's the right thing to do, maybe it's not. Parenting is kind of a crap-shoot that way, isn't it? Maybe there's a better way to handle falls that I haven't heard of.

In the meantime, she'll be patting the floor better while daddy surreptitiously looks her over for any cuts, bruises, or bloody noses. No blood, no worries. Right?

Right?

I Win.

Well, you can all give up. Yep, just give up. I win. There's no competition anymore and you're all just competing for second place.

Because parenting a child is a competition, right?

Here's the thing: My daughter, at 16 months old, led me to her room today, knocked on her door to let me know that's where she wanted to go; after I opened the door she walked over to her crib and knocked on that, looked up at me, stuck her thumb in her mouth and waited patiently.

Adorableness

I picked her up, put her down, and she promptly started her nap time.

My daughter put herself down for a nap.

I win.

Taking The Picture

Lois being adorable.

"Stay still, honey!" The outfit was too cute to not get a photo of it, if only she'd cooperate.

"Sweetie, 'stay still' doesn't mean come running at daddy. Now, move back into this position and stay right there, okay?" Everyone will love this shot once I can get it.

And she followed me back to where I was going to take the picture. Okay. This is going to be tough.

"Lois, listen closely: Just stand right here for the next five seconds and then you can come running to daddy. Sound good?" She's doing it! Come on, camera! Wait, no, stop charging the flash and just take the photo!

Damn it.

"You're right, little girl, that WAS more than five seconds. Good job standing still! Want to do it one more time? Just one more time for dad? No? Okay. That's fair." Rassin'-frassin' camera.

Half an hour of trying later:

"Okay honey, let's try this one more time." Well, she's blurry and washed out by the flash but she's smiling and you can see the whole outfit.

"Good photo! All done!"

(Evil) Baby Genius

Merry Christmoose.

"No touch!" A cry heard often around our house as Lois goes to grab the Christmas tree, the lights, or the bulbs. It normally doesn't really help and she needs to be forcibly moved away from the tree but verbally backing it up is the best thing to do; maybe it'll get through to her.

Except.

Today she slipped between the impromptu barrier to get to the tree again. She looked at me and then back at the tree, grabbing an ornament from the bottom branches.

Little stinker and her mommy.

She looked back at the ornamental bulb and started yelling, "No! No touch! No eat! No!" She wagged her finger at it once or twice, and then went to grab another bulb, all-the-while yelling "No!"

What I'm not sure is whether that means she gets it, or that she thinks the Christmas tree and its bulbs are called "No."

'Tis The Season!

Now with 100% less Praying Mantises

Here you see our beautiful Christmas tree with the first officially wrapped present of the season! Our awesome Australian friend Julia (who, if she were closer, would probably kidnap our daughter or visit a whole lot and be called "Aunt Julia"*) picked out a gift from Lois' gift list and sent it our way with a sweet little note.

That sweet little note lets me know exactly what the decidedly noisy present will be when the little one opens it on the 25th.

Thank you, Aunt Julia. Thank you so much.** I'm sure she won't drive us nuts with the noise before New Year's Day. It'll probably take at least one or two more weeks.

Lois is a lucky little girl to have admirers, family, and friends who go out of their way to make sure that she has an awesome life. Parents too, for that matter.***


One thing she doesn't have? A father who knows how to wrap gifts:

I've got this. I've got this. I've got this.
Nailed it.

I would pay someone to professionally wrap all my presents but nobody would believe that I did it. This way any present I wrap has "personality." (Hopefully anyway because they sure don't have "looks!")

*Both. Probably both.
**Read that both sincerely AND sarcastically. I maintain that it can be both at once.
***I'm totally allowed to toot my own horn once every decade.