Leia Week 98: Mother's Day Miracle! - 5/13/2015

Leia's bout with the word "Yesss" was short lived; she's moved on to "aaahh huhh."  Still very cute, but not as sophisticated sounding.  Also, the testing of the "rules" is in full effect (and has been for a few weeks here).  She knows that she only gets one cup of milk before naps and bed, yet every time now, she's asking for more.  And more books, and more songs, and this that or the other.  It's absolutely maddening.  And of course we try to say no, but then she starts whining and crying and tantruming.  So now we've started saying, "If you stop crying and say please and use your nice voice, you can have what you are asking for."  And she totally complies.  Now she's even figured out that it's probably better if she calmly asks "please" and doesn't tantrum at all.  How can I say no to that, especially for something as harmless as milk??  So tough for me to give her everything she wants just because she's being polite, and yet, everything she's been wanting is really not that big a deal and I can hardly justify NOT giving it to her.  Hopefully we aren't creating a monster!  She sure is smart though...we are really in big trouble!!

Mother's Day was this Sunday.  I was a little bummed in the days before because Josh had a stomach flu and was totally incapacitated, and Leia had some pretty bad bowel issues (but didn't act sick at all), and I wasn't feeling so hot myself.  Didn't seem like much celebrating would happen.  But then we had a Mother's Day Miracle!  Josh recovered enough to give me my only wish for the day...so sleep in!  He got up for the early shift with Leia, but then in the end, she decided to snooze and sing and play quietly in bed.  So when I got downstairs around 7:20 (couldn't actually sleep in since I got woken up anyway when she and Josh first got up at 6:30), she was still in bed and he was relaxing on the couch..lucky son of a gun!  But the miracle went on from there.  My little princess was a total angel child all day...she didn't tantrum, she didn't test our boundaries, and when I felt sick and had to lie on the couch, she actually let me without trying to drag me up to play.  We also had a fun family afternoon busting out the new paint set to paint pictures out on the deck.  And when we were painting, Leia looked up at me and said in a quiet little voice, "Happy Mommy Day."  It was so sweet, I was in total shock!  And later I got my very first "Mommy, I love you!"  Another heart stopper.  Josh had actually got the very first "Daddy, I love you!" on Wednesday, which was so special for him and made me happy, and so it was sort of funny that I got mine four days later on Mother's Day.  Seriously, she's so advanced! Plus, my awesome husband cooked all the meals, did a lot of cleaning, and did the brunt of the childcare for Leia for the day!  So even though I felt pretty miserable all day, it was actually a fantastic day...Love those two!  We finished the day off with a very nice dinner with Nana and Poppy courtesy of Josh.

The last thing I'll add for this week is the fact that we have ourselves quite the little actress!  I've talked about it before with her "heavy routine," but Leia the little drama queen was at it again this week!  We got the best little video of her pretending to be scared of the ants and spiders she found in our bedroom.  The facial expressions, the hands over the mouth, the fake screams of distress when she's clearly not really distressed at all...it's absolutely hilarious!

Ok, I lied, a few more things...  She totally impressed us the other day singing along to the alphabet song; we had no idea she knew all those letters already!  And she's been doing this for a little while now, but she can count up to 8 (although sometimes she does get lazy and skips a bunch in the middle, but I have heard her do all of those numbers in the right order)!  It's so cool!  And when I was taking her to school one day this week, she totally shocked me by being insanely cooperative!  I always give her her glasses in the car because the sun is in her eyes, and this day she had her "telephone," and none of these things are allowed to go to school with her, but normally I have to hope she gets distracted and just tosses them (which usually happens), or sometimes I have to fight her a little for them.  But this day, when we parked and I put my glasses away, I turned around and asked her if she wanted me to put her glasses away, and she said "put glasses away" and handed them right over.  She didn't want to give up the phone so easily, so I told her she could carry it to school but  then I would have to take it away.  We walked through the parking lot to school, stopping to check out all the tractors (her favorite thing!), and before we got moving again, she stopped, handed me the phone, and said "mommy, take it away."  I about fell over in my tracks!

Happy to be warm and snuggly in her new sweat suite.

Chug!

Refill please Dad!

Oh dear, that was a lot of water!

Mother's Day art projects.

She was so excited, painting is her favorite!

Calling Grandma to wish her a happy Mother's Day!

So pretty in her fancy dress from Uncle Cody!

Leia Marian Sopritti Transue!

She was nice to me all day, but wouldn't pose with me for a Mommy's Day Picture...oh well, can't have it all.

On the phone again...this one loves to chat!

33.5 Weeks Pregnant

Still feeling sick and tired, but we're plugging along!

Blowing bubbles with her Nana!

Upside down baby!

My Mother's Day present from Leia...so sweet!

Practicing her splits..."wider, wider, wider!"

Leia and the Spider from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

Leia was so psyched to be walking Kishka, but I'm not really sure who was walking who.

Leia loves hunting for bunnies in the yard.

Our little rock star walking her baby!

New favorite activity...driving Mommy's Scout!

So much fun to play at the park with Daddy!

And make no mistake, this is "Leia's Park"!

Leia Week 97: Leia Drives The Scout - 5/6/2015

Now that Leia is sooo tall (and very close to 2 years old), we finally turned her carseat facing forward.   It's like a whole new world!  I actually did it last week for our drive down to the bay area, hoping that it would get me a little extra peace from her screaming and annoyance of being in the car.  I think it got me about 25 extra minutes, not the 3.5 hours I was hoping for!  But it is easier to hand her stuff when she drops it and starting crying for it, so that's nicer, and it's fun for her to get a better view of all the tractors and school buses that we pass.  However, no more front seat privacy for Mommy...can't sneak my car snacks and not share with her, which is a problem since I don't want her eating in the car!  Oh well, we'll have to work on that.

The other thing that helped on the car trip was playing all her kids songs for her.  And it was particularly fun to listen to her get so excited about the Bumble Bee song: "Squishing up my baby bumble bee...ewww, it's yucky!"  She was singing along at the top of her lungs and got such a kick out of these lyrics.  I think we listened to this one on repeat for 20+ minutes straight.  It's so fun to listen to her learn the lyrics and sing along.

She also made progress with her self dressing this week...we had a successful over the head shirt application.  I was so surprised when I looked over and realized she had put it on all by herself and didn't need me!

Great Aunt Joanne came up to visit with our family this week.  It was really fun to have her around to play with both Leia and Emmett.  However, I am really sorry to say that I did not get any pictures!  It wasn't totally my fault, I did try, but seems like we were all too busy doing stuff to stop and pose that entire week.  Oh well, we'll just have to keep our fun memories.

Leia is also starting to sing so much.  When Josh or I sing her to sleep at night, she's singing along and pretty much knows all the verses to all the songs.  It's really fun to make it a duet now!  Plus, more and more she just starts singing to herself and her baby.  In the morning on the monitor we hear her singing, and she is constantly rocking her baby in her arms and singing her to sleep, just like Josh and I do for her.  All this imitation is so cool to watch!

Hanging out at Nana and Poppy's.

Apparently she was really thirsty!

Poppy has the magic touch to make Leia calm and happy!

This is a girl who needs her stuff...Mine!

Happy Daddy with his little girl!

Leia loves her hot tubby!

You can't tell me that these two don't have any fun together!

When your 2 year old is being really tantrumie, full of tears, and extremely Mommy needy and you don't have time to deal with her, it works out great to lock her in your Scout to drive to her heart's content...perfect baby sitter!

Seriously, driving is her new favorite thing!

So fired up!

She does look good in there!

Leia's in a phase where she needs to take everything she likes to bed with her...tonight that included several of her favorite books and her snow shovel!

Leia and the Hot Tub Trust Falls from Katharine Transue on Vimeo.

Gotta love our hot tub time!

So many laughs!

She must feel really sick to actually want to chill out and snuggle...this never happens...so cute!

Leia Week 96: Zeena, Zane, and Zoo - 4/29/2015

Per usual, watching Leia change, develop, and make advances is so funny!  This week her new vocabulary word of choice is "Yes."  Previously she seemed to speak like a New Yorker with a thick accent, "Yeh," which was absolutely hilarious, but now she's switched to this very definitive "Yesss," with emphasis on the 's', and it's actually both funny and really pleasant to listen to because it makes her sound very proper and educated.  She also started talking about "scuba's" one morning, and I was really confused for awhile until I realized we had passed a big yellow "school bus."  Now she loves to yell out "scu-bas" every morning when they pass by us.

She's been really into playing with the bottle warmer these days as well.  She loves to put the empty bottle in and pretend to heat up the milk.  And even when she's not using the actual bottle warmer, she's always going back and forth to her BBQ to heat up bottles for her baby.  She always makes sure to tell her baby that she has to be patient and wait for the hot milk, which is exactly what I'm always telling her as she's freaking out, in tears, and having a total meltdown because she can't wait for the milk to heat up!  Baby is much more patient!!  A few times I asked her if she was patient when she waited for her milk, and of course she replied yes...yeah right!

We got her a new book about being a big sister, and it's her absolute favorite.  She makes me read it to her over and over all day long.  Interestingly though, despite her being so excited about being a big helper and a big sister, she's also started to get really needy from Mommy.  Extra hugs, extra uppies, wanting to be held horizontal in my arms while I sing "rock a baby."  The extra loving is nice, except at bedtime when she won't let me leave without getting very upset.  

We went to visit my friend Zeena and her baby Zane this weekend.  Leia was in 7th Heaven "helping" Zeena take care of Zane, so it was more good practice for when little sister arrives.  She did like to put a lot of stuff on Zane's face, and try to take his socks on and off a lot, so we'll definitely have to work on this whole "helping" thing!  She was legitimately helpful when she kept picking up his blanket and recovering him as it continued to fall off him on his swing.  It was really fun to meet Baby Zane, who was so cute, and catch up with Zeena and Rob (aka Robin, per Leia), who were both so great in their interactions with my little 2 year old that she fell in love and felt so comfortable with them instantly.  And the bonus round was a quick visit by Zeina and her new baby Kelvin, so Leia was just beside herself.  She barely even picked up her own baby all weekend!

Finally, since we were in Oakland, we took the opportunity to visit the Oakland Zoo.  There aren't any zoo's near us, so I was really excited for Leia.  When I told her, her eyes lit up and she had a huge grin on her face.  The whole way in the car and on the walk into the park she kept yelling about seeing "Animals!" and laughing and being jolly.  It made me feel so good to make her so happy and excited.  Then we finally got into the zoo, and it was a total buzz kill.  It was so crowded, the map was terrible, and it took us forever to find the first real animal.  Plus, maybe I've been reading too much Curious George, but I just don't remember the animals being so hard to see!  They were all either hiding somewhere in their habitats or the habitats themselves were so dense with leaves and branches and not very see-through canvas walls, that even I found it really difficult to get a good look, much less a 2 year old (guess that's why 2 year old are still free)!  In the end, we did see plenty of animals that made her excited: monkeys (but they were some of the hard ones to see), chimpanzees, sea otters, giraffes, camels, hyenas, flamingos, macaws, elephants, and zebras.  At one point she got over the whole thing and just wanted to find a shady bench to sit on, not caring one bit if it was near any animals or not.  Luckily I found one right in front of the elephants, so we got to sit and relax, eat lunch, and still enjoy the animals.  A good time was had by all and the trip was a success, but I don't think I'll go back to the Oakland Zoo anytime soon, and now I need to figure out if all zoo's are really like that?

Now who's this little diva?

Just love the clothing ensembles she puts together these days!

Don't you do all your gardening in your fur coat?

Little goof!

Come here Mommy, let me see that pretty face of yours!

Diva model shoot.

Hmmm, now let me think about this...

Ok Mom, enough is enough, are we done here yet?

New way to ride in the stroller!

She sure fits in some small places for such a big girl!

Helping Daddy dig holes in the yard for a little landscape make-over.

So fun getting to see Zeena and Baby Zane!

Proud Mama and cute baby (age is just shy of 3 months).

Chillin' in his swing...he was such a mellow fellow!

Leia was on cloud 9 to be able to help take care of the baby...always made sure he had his blanket.

Checking out all the cool vegetation on Zeena and Rob's deck.

Always such a good little helper!

My little sweetie!

Can't get enough of that smile!

Toga party!

So excited for her first visit to the zoo!

We took our lunch break on a nice shady bench by the elephants.

Got to see giraffes!

A little quality Mommy and Leia time.

Insisted she needed all this crap in her lap this morning on our way to school...looks pretty uncomfortable to me, but what do I know!

Finally got to see Leia on one of her school day walks around the hospital...she seemed to have a radar for me so i had to keep hiding!

Drinking milk out of the carton?? Must be a Daddy/Leia Day!