You can't bottle that!

John reminded me today that we need to capture Alex running on video. I don't mean to imply that she is a star runner. Quite the opposite. She still has that baby lack-of-coordination where she'll start running but then you see she is moving to fast for her feet and she slowly loses control she just moves into wipeout.

And you really do have to capture it quickly- once they turn two you can see them slowly gaining coordination and they just begin to lose the "baby run". The one where their thights have a little too much Michelin Man resembalnced to move smoothly past each other. Maybe too much friction to completely allow a smoth run.

The baby fat has started to melt away- not so much chub in the cheeks. Although I could deal with a little more density of hair around the face- I swear, she has her father's fine-as-silk hair.

Yep, I can see the teen attitude just around the corner. Oh, I know she's still a baby. But you can see it. Telling her "no" now brings on a "hrumph" from her, and she turns her face down so you can't see her face. Watch me ignore you, she is silently throwing back my way.

But she's still got the baby in her. She can't help but peek up to see if you're watching, and get a huge grin when she finds you smiling.

Beware that which hides under the sofa...

Last Sunday after breakfast, PMS a sudden fit of cleaning hit me. It all started with a single missing piece to a game. I looked in the easy places. Nothing. So I began looking in the not-so-easy places. And thus began the Great Clean Up 2009. We pulled out all of the sofa sections. I was amazed at the amount of things, and the size of things, that had ended up under the sofa (see photo). No doubt thanks to Alex's love for pushing things around with her feet.

But the Great Clean Up didn't stop there. We then proceeded to go through every toy bin in the house and remove all broken, missing or outgrown toys. A lot of baby toys ended up in the giveaway pile (get ready, Sandy!). Another pile will be headed to the Island of Misfit Toys due to incomplete pieces or connections that have gone awry and cause music to be pleyed at random times.

And I have to admit, it felt good to do that purge. I think even the kids noted the cleaning warpath I was on as they mainly stayed out of my way. Or perhaps they were keeping quiet after hiding their most treasured possessions, fearing I would come in and sweep them away.

Crazy baby soothing tactics

I was catching up with my blog reading today and hearing all about Amalah's foray into all-night baby screaming and how she finally got Ezra to sleep. It got me to thinking about weird things that I did to sooth my children. You know, Jack was a first child. So he got all the typical soothing tactics. Rocking. Books. Singing. I was sure every extended crying period was MY fault and I would fret and read books about other accepted tactics for hushing the baby. Jack was a creature of habit and his preferred method for bringing him back from the baby ledge was to rhythmically walk back and forth across the room saying the same repeated syllables. I started out with "ba ba ba ba la la la la, ma ma ma ma". That would go on FOR-EV-ER! Finally, when I thought he was just about saleep and probably not listening carefully anymore, I would throw in some new phrases just to keep me awake and rebel against his strong baby grip on my psyche. "you-are-dri-ving-me-cra-zy-li-tle-ba-beeeeeeee" I would say and smile in the dark that can only happen around 3am.

When Alex came, it was a different story. I will not let her run my nights, I vowed when I brought her home. Of course, she did. But I at least thought that if I was going to be awake, I might as well do something I wanted to do. Now I had a DVR and my favorite show at the time that happened to be at the height of its all time greatness was The Shield on FX. Dirty cops, drug dealing, major violence. We would DVR this show and wait for the kids to go to bed to watch it. Well, when Alex was about 1 month old, she started waking up about 10pm when we were heading to bed and would scream and cry until, oh, about 5am. I'm NOT kidding. Nursing didn't calm her, singing was a dud, walking just tired me out. Reflux. But we didn't know it at the time. It would be another 1 month before we diagnosed it.

So when she would start to scream, John and I would wrap her in a blanket, go into the TV room and close the doors so Jack wouldn't wake up, and play our latest episode of The Shield while I nursed her. We could always hear lead cop Vick Mackey and all the gunfire over her screams and I'll be damned if all that cussin', drug use and dirty cops didn't put her right to sleep every time.

Sometimes you got to try something new.

How can it be that she is 2!

How can it be that tomorrow my little baby is 2? She talks, she walks, runs, jumps. She can explain excatly which cheese she wants from the fridge for her snack. She can say, "No!" very emphatically or yell "Hi, Mommy!" when I enter the room. She misses her Daddy when he is not in the room and gets concerned if her brother doesn't come in her room first thing in the morning.

Happy birthday to you, sweet baby!