Recent Quotables and Random News

Clara Anne is becoming quite the little chatty girl. She is talking and singing her own little songs all the time now, and sometimes the things which come out of her mouth make me laugh! Here's a few examples:

"Where is Mommy, where is Mommy, get Chloe dressed, get Chloe dressed, Is she coming back? Is she coming back? I don't know. I don't know." sung to the tune of "Are you sleeping, Brother John while I had left Clara Anne in the tub and was getting Chloe dressed after bathtime

"Mommy, did you hear that noise? I heard a noise! What's that noise?" after any sudden loud noise, like a car honking outside or if I drop something in the kitchen

"Did you hear me talking, Mama? I was talking to you. . . (brief pause where she realizes I have spaced out and am not responding) . . . Why won't you talk to me?"

"I want to sleep in Mommy's bed . . . because I don't love Dora." protesting the need for her to go to sleep in her Dora sleeping bag and tent

"May I have please sing a VeggieTales song Mommy? May I have sing Happy Birthday to Uncle Josh Mommy?" requests for me to sing are a regular part of our day

"No, Chloe! Don't touch! Ahhh! Mama, Chloe's a menace!" spoken when Chloe was trying as usual to get her fingers in whatever Clara Anne is doing--grabbing the crayons, pulling the puzzle apart, etc. Occasionally John or I has jokingly called Chloe a "menace" but I can see that is going to need to stop now!

and this one blew me away, I thought she had forgotten all about it . . .

"I want to go home to (Asia), Mama. Let's go to Emma's house." this was out of the blue, we hadn't seen pictures or talked about "home" or anything

And finally: "I need help with this book! May I have to read a book please Mama?" Spoken after trying to read a book to herself and not being able to "read" it like she wanted, this is a regular occurence

You can tell that we're going to need to work a bit on grammar--the "May I have" construction is getting used for everything but usually not quite in the right way. We'll keep on top of that one!

In other news, I am very happy to report that the retraining of Chloe was almost a non-event. The first night she cried about 1:45am, and even as I braced myself for hours of crying, she settled down after about 15 minutes! The second night she woke up just at about the same time, but only took 10 minutes to settle down. And the last two nights she hasn't woken up at all. PTL!!! Maybe, just maybe, we are making some progress in a good schedule again! And of course, part of me is kicking myself for not doing this a month ago . . . oh well. I'm just glad it's working out well.

The second week of my running training is going quite well! I'm really enjoying it, which is a small miracle! The weather has been perfect, so of course that doesn't hurt! This morning was not my day to run, but it was cool, cloudy and pleasant after a rainy night, so John and I set off on a walk to the local park which is a five minute drive away and about a 30 minute walk. We managed to get ourselves lost and make it there in about 50 minutes, but it was still a nice walk. We figured by the time we got home again we had walked about 9 miles! So we'll see if I feel like running tomorrow . . .

We celebrated John's 33rd birthday on Monday with a brief trip to the zoo and lunch out. It made me think, wow, you know you are parents when you spend your own birthday at the zoo! It was fun times, though, and gorgeous weather, so was a nice trip despite the hundreds of school kids on their field trip. John doesn't care too much about his own birthday celebration, doesn't want me to make a cake or buy him a gift or anything, so we enjoyed our outing in lieu of other things. We had a nice dinner with some new friends that evening and they made brownies and sang happy birthday to him--that was good enough for him! But, I'd like to say a belated "Happy Birthday" to John's twin, Sarah--I hope you had a great day! We're looking forward to seeing you again soon!

That's it for the random news from our house tonight! Good night!