Mommie’s Little Cupcake

La La flies her kite

It was so hot on Saturday.   I did not want to cook, so we went out for Sushi.  La La had tuna roll, tons of edamame, and the rice from a tuna sushi.  She took a bite of Caterpillar roll, but did not like it. (I don’t blame her, it was Daddy’s roll, not mine. )  She also liked the ginger, which surprised me.

On the way home, we decided to go out for ice cream (froyo, really) and head up to Signal Hill where it should at least be breezy and cooler than our house that was so still and muggy.

La La was so excited for ice cream, and got it all over herself, but it was fun anyway. We have wipes!

Then, when I finished my froyo, I broke out the kite and it took right off.  There was plenty of wind, like we hoped,  and it even got a bit chilly a few times.  We let Brobee fly for a while and a little girl came over to ask if she could have the kite.  I told her to ask her mom or dad to get her a kite and then we could both have kites.  (No, kid, you can’t have La La’s kite.)

After a while, we packed up the kite and headed back home for books and bed.  We put the fan on and tried to stay cool for the night, and snuggled without moving too much so we wouldn’t get sweaty again.

Dear La La,

As we lay down for sleep, you wanted a “mommy minute” before I put you in your crib, like you do most nights.

And like you do most nights, you did your lala-robics where you climb all over the bed and all over me if I let you. Then you snuggle under my arm and move around some more singing little songs like “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” or it’s variations: Baa Baa Black Sheep, ABC’s, Rainbow Rain(you made that one up yourself!).

Tonight though, I didn’t recognize the melody of the song you were singing… right away. After a few minutes, I started hearing words poke through the toddler-speak. “…no deer… i love you… take away… mr. sun…” What in the world?

So I kept listening and realized that you were singing “You are my sunshine” in your own little way and it made me squeeze you extra tight and sing along.

You must have learned the song at day care, because I hardly ever sing it, since I only know the chorus and get bored when the song doesn’t change up a bit.

That was about the sweetest end for a day that had some pretty big ups and downs.

Ended up, my baby.

Love, Mummy.

Sleepy La La

This morning, we were rushed as usual.  I was rushing to get my lunchbox packed, so I put La La’s shoes on the coffee table and asked her to put them on, fully expecting to have her spend a few minutes futzing around and then when I was done with my lunchbox I would go into the living room and put her shoes on for her.
Well, I got a great surprise when she came into the kitchen wearing one shoe (the right one on the right foot even!) all velcroed closed and everything.  She brought me the left for help opening it so she could put it on.  I opened the velcro and gave it back to her and watched her put it on too.

Such a big girl!

Here’s some photos from the end of the day with La La showing off how strong she is on the trapeeze in the backyard.

eta: server issues, no photo upload right now.

edited again:  lost that photo, so here’s a different one.

La La climbs her wall

La La had her last swimming lesson a few weeks ago, so I had Daddy take the camera and take some photos of her in the pool, in case I need to convince her in the future that she likes it and not to be afraid.  (We are in the afraid of things phase, I guess). 

As we were heading out to the car, he snapped this photo, and I thought it looked so cute, like a surfer pose. 

So, I had to do it:

I know, wicked silly, and I don’t have the mad Photoshop skills, but I’m working on learning!

We are so excited that it’s coming up on Summer around here!

I think, between the three of us (mama, La La & papa) we read every book La La owns, even the French ones (daddy books). Our living room looks like the children’s section at the library. Her vocab is growing every day, and she wants more, more, more.

Today, we went up to the mountains to see some snow.   She was so excited to wear her mittens, since she’s only worn them in the house so far. She picked up some snow and showed us “snow? Snow? Snow?”. So cute. But it was cold and windy, and mama didn’t think to bring her own hat, so we didn’t stay out long.

When we got back to the car, it was book, book, book. She actually takes our hands and puts the book in so we’ll read to her. So sweet, especially when coupled with a “peeease read”. Who can say no?

La La is home sick today with conjunctivitis.  She is bored, bored, bored and we have watched all of the episodes of Yo!  Gabba Gabba that we have saved on the DVR.  I’m about to see if there any on-demand episodes we haven’t seen lately. 

Earlier, we were watching the episode called "Weather" and in it, Paul Williams sings "Rainbow Connection" in a really trippy sequence.  When it started, La La started saying "No more. No more. No more. …" until I finally skipped ahead to the end of the song. 

My girl has good taste!

It was a beautiful Saturday.  Mummy had gone to L.A. for the day, leaving La La home with Daddy, who thought it was a good day for the beach.  The previous week had been rainy and cold and La La had been cooped up for a few days at school, so this would give her a chance to run around. 

La La had just rediscovered her ball, a blue super bouncy clear ball, and Daddy thought she would love to bring the ball to the beach too. 

At the beach, La La ran around a lot, tossed the ball back and forth (sort of) with Daddy, and went down close to the edge of the water.  The waves were noisy and a little scary, so La La stayed close to Daddy until she knew it was safe if she stayed on the dry part of the beach. 

La La found something interesting on the beach.  She picked it up and showed it to Daddy.  She told Daddy what it was, over and over again, but Daddy didn’t quite understand what La La was saying because she was holding a seashell and Daddy knew she had never found shells at the beach before, so La La didn’t know the word "shell", but slowly he realized that was exactly what she was saying.  "Shell?  Shell?  Shell?" La La asked.

"That’s right!" Daddy replied, "That’s a shell!"  La La was pleased and carried the shell in her hand, until she wanted to pick up her ball again.  Then Daddy remembered where La La learned the word shell, it was six months ago at Yia Yia’s wedding, where she poured sand from a seashell into a heart-shaped bowl with all the guests at the wedding, to symbolize the merging of our lives going forward.  Daddy was amazed that La La remembered something from so long ago that she only saw that day.

"Ball?  Ball?"  La La asked Daddy, while pointing out towards the ocean.  Daddy looked on the ground in the direction La La was pointing, but he didn’t see La La’s blue ball over there.  He soon found it behind them and showed it to La La.  Again she pointed to the ocean and said "Ball?  Ball?" 

This time Daddy looked all the way out to where La La was pointing, and then he saw what La La saw.  It was the building that housed the Spruce Goose!  It’s a round topped building that looks just like a ball.  Daddy picked La La up and showed her the building and told her it was a house for an airplane.  La La looked puzzled, but said, "House?"

"Yes, that’s right, house!" Daddy replied.  La La was happy and ran around some more and found another shell and brought it to Daddy. 

"Shell? Shell?" La La asked. 

"That’s right!" Daddy replied, "That’s a shell!"

La La looked at the ocean for a minute, then pointed to the water with the shell in her hand.  "House?" she asked. 

Daddy was puzzled this time, until he realized that La La was telling Daddy that the shell lived in the ocean, it was the shell’s house. 

"That’s right!" Daddy replied, "The ocean is the shell’s house!"

La La was happy and ran around some more with her ball and her shell and her Daddy, and they played and ran away from the scary waves and then La La had a snack and took a nap.

Dear La La,

I thought you’d like to know a little about your 17 month old self.  You love yogurt.  Now that you are no longer allergic to dairy, you have been enjoying "yay-yoa-t" almost every day.    You usually start the day with a banana and a strawberry fruit bar, or some blueberries, which are your favorite berries.  You also like raspberries and blackberries, just not as much as blueberries.  You also love watermelon.  You once bit into a valentine’s cake that you must have thought was watermelon because you spit it right out, before reconsidering and taking another bite. 

We had pierogies and spinach for dinner the other night, and I thought you’d like the pierogies because they are doughy and you love pasta, but you actually liked the spinach more, and ate all of it and didn’t eat the pierogies.  You are such a funny little bug. 

For the past week or so, you seemed to be on a milk strike.  You would not drink your milk, or you would take a sip and spit it out.  I think you wanted apple juice, but we don’t have juice in the house, so you went on strike.  Your teacher said you were drinking milk at school, but you sure weren’t drinking enough and none at home.  I’m glad you changed your mind, because mummy and daddy were worried about you.  We want you to be big and strong, and you have to drink milk for that. 

Today, we went out for sushi and you had beef yaki soba and a California roll and fruit cocktail and lots of milk.  You enjoyed the noodles for a little while, but were distracted by the fruit and the dragon on your cup. 

Right now, you have a big mark on your forehead.  Do you know how it got there?  You were sitting in the shopping cart that YiaYia got you for Christmas.  Even though mummy told you not to climb into it, you didn’t listen.  You tipped it over not once, but twice, landing on your face both times.  You have climbed in again since then, so I don’t think you remember that you hurt yourself already. 

We love you so much and don’t want to stifle your desire to explore every thing you can get your hands on, but at the same time, we don’t want you to hurt yourself.  You love climbing and being "up", even when we tell you to get down. You also love being upside-down, or flying in the air when your daddy throws you.   You are so independent that sometimes we have to keep ourselves from laughing as you try to do something and get so frustrated when you have trouble.  I love that you keep trying, and that you accept when you are offered help. 

You love purple.  You always pick out purple clothes to wear, you always pick the purple crayon, and you love to point out the purple cars on the drive home from work each day.  You point and say "purplecar" very matter-of-fact-ly as we pass the same cars each day and you spot ones you like.  You also like to point out white trucks which you see lots of each day.

You like to go in mummy’s purse or up on the table to grab our iPhones.  You put them to your ear and say "hello."  We want you to put the phone down gently, but we also want to laugh because your are so funny when you say "hello.", you sound so serious.   

Your vocabulary grows by the day.  Recent words are "no" and "mine".  I guess we knew those two words would show up, but we were hoping for a little more time without them.  You are also stringing words together in a way that makes sense, which is pretty cool.  Like "purplecar" or "white socks" or "my daddy" or "no more".  But you still say things that make us ponder… "applebapplehappyapple" and "mummadaddy" and the newest one, "daddamummy".  Daddy has been known as "papa", "dada", "daddy", and now "mummadaddy".  Or lately, "my daddy".  But suddenly, mumma has become "daddamummy"!  We are hopeful that you will become less confused as time goes on, and will settle down to a single name for each of us. 

We love you so much, and love seeing what each new day will bring.

Love,

Mummy and Daddy

We went to the beach for a few hours and La La had the whole beach to herself. 

Then Daddy joined her for some flying.

It was a beautiful day, we could see all the way to Catalina and L.A. which is pretty rare lately with the way it gets smoggy at the port of Long Beach.  But it was about 70 degrees, so we enjoyed ourselves. 

Now it’s two weeks later and we are gearing up for a big storm.  The last storm that was as bad as what they are predicting was in 1998, when La La’s Daddy and I were still dating, and we were living in San Diego.  We were meeting friends at Disneyland and we had planned it for a few months, and they were driving out from AZ.  When we got to Orange County, we found a major road was closed, the 5 at the El Toro Y!  We had to make our way in a place we’d never been on surface streets.  Luckily, I had a Thomas Guide that was only 10 years out of date.  We did end up making it, and there were no lines for most of the rides, and we had a great time with our friends. 

Maybe it will be that bad again, and our commute will be nice and light since no one can make it north of the Y?

We decided to stay home Christmas day, then spend the next day in San Diego with Yia Yia and the cousins, so we decided to get a tree.  We got a small table-top tree that fit on top of the table that Yia Yia gave us a few years ago.

Earlier in the week, Grampy came by with a couple of boxes of Christmas
ornaments that he had been saving for years. Since we had such a small
tree, we just used the kiddie looking ornaments along with a paper
chain that La La and I made the week before. I think next year we can
do a theme color with the colored glass ornaments, some of which are
really pretty. When La La is older, we can really go all out.
 

I started making her stocking last year but finally finished it on Christmas Eve.  On Christmas morning, she reached in a pulled out a couple of books, some bubbles, an apple and an orange.  She LOVED the apple and wouldn’t put it down, even to open presents.  It was pretty funny, like she hadn’t eaten in days or something!

She got a collection of Yo Gabba Gabba dolls, some Little People, a Sesame Street remote control and a doll that I made for her.  Grammy sent some clothes and a cool fridge farm, which we put next to her french letters on the magnet board.  She also got a toy telephone, which she loves to play with and say “hello?”. 

Grampy and J came to spend the day and brought La La some great presents, including a toybox that Grampy made.  He brought a giant doll that speaks French so La La can learn the days of the week and colors and a few other words.
   

Later in the day, La La was too excited to take a nap and got a little cranky.  All she wanted to do was get in her old book-toybox.