A day at the museum

My brother was in town recently, so we all took Elise to the Children's Museum in St. Paul. Anni and I had taken her on her birthday last year and she had a good time, so we figured she would enjoy it again. She did, despite the fact that it was "free Sunday," so the place was overrun by toddlers, their observant mothers and their camera-toting dads.
It's a great place for kids. We'll be back soon.

Elise enjoys the water area.

Elise enjoys the automatic hand washer, perhaps more than the water area.

Pretending to drive the bus.

Driving the bus.

This was pin the body part on Bryan. Apparently, uh, he doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve.

Fitting Tiny Tim and his taller brother for crutches in the museum clinic.

Examining Tiny Tim's and his taller brother's broken legs.

Love those Legos.

The ropes course.

Snakes. (And, nearby, enough hand sanitizer to equip a hospital.)

A window with a view.

Crazy or perceptive. Or crazy perceptive.

Our daughter either can't stand us or is perceptive. Or both.

For the past week or so she's spent a fair amount of time at home being a holy terror of a toddler. Can't make up her mind, melts down over anything, goes bonkers if I even walk in the room while she's crying, acts fine one moment and is running through the house screaming and crying the next.
It's to the point that I'm beginning to think those are horns, not pigtails, on her head.

Funny, though, she snaps into angelic mode the moment she enters the care and supervision of someone else, such as a grandparent, and she's been just dandy at school.

So, as I said, she either has had enough of us or, perhaps more accurately, she is just acting on perception.
Our conversations at home in the past couple of weeks increasingly have been about Child 2, and we've been trying to prep Elise for the pending arrival. We tell her that the baby is going to live with us, the baby's going to be around the house, the baby's eventually going to share a room with her, mom is going to feed the baby -- yadda, yadda, yadda.

We've also started rearranging furniture. Anni's been going through baby clothes. I put up some new closet shelves in Elise's room.
Tonight, after Elise finally went to sleep after another wail-a-thon, we were talking about this turn in behavior. I was stumped, as usual. Anni pointed out that Elise could just be reacting to what's changing around the house ahead of the baby.
Of course. That makes sense. I'll take that as the reason because, frankly, it's going to be a long slog if she's already tired of us.

Smart, but not *that* smart.

There's a nice little family owned grocery store near our home. It doesn't have the lowest prices, but it does have one thing going for it: kid-sized grocery carts. They're the real deal: metal, sturdy wheels, scarred with requisite signs of wear and tear. (Ironically, the kid-size carts here are about the size of normal carts in Europe. Guess we like our jumbo bag of frozen tots.)

Anni, her mom and Elise found the kid carts on a recent grocery outing and now we just use Elise's cart for our food.

We were at the store the other day and the pregnant one among us was looking for some chocolate. (And you thought it was me...) Anni found a box and put it in the cart. Then, she found a larger package that looked like a better deal. She wanted to know which was a better per-ounce value:

Anni: "Elise, how many ounces are in that box?"

Elise: Blank stare.

A hug and some cheese

This is a common site around the house these days. With two weeks to go, Elise is increasingly showing Child 2 the love, squeezing Anni's belly and squealing, "Bay-beeee!"
She shows affection in another way: feeding the baby. Maybe not directly, but she has a good imagination, so likes to offer the baby cheese.
"Would you like some cheese?" she'll say to the belly.

Cabin weekend 2011

It wouldn't be summer without a trip to Anni's family's cabin near Spooner, Wis.

Last week we played the roles of true Minnesotans by leaving work early on a Friday in July "to head to the lake." The weather, though a bit cloudy, was decent all weekend. 

This was Elise's first year sleeping in her own room, the "bunk room." She was thrilled having extra beds in her room, which I'll remind her of a few years from now when she starts complaining about having to share a room with her younger sibling.

The cabin weekend usually includes a trip to the blueberry patch at a nearby farm, but we missed the beginning of the season by about a week. We're hoping to squeeze in at least one more weekend at the cabin this summer/fall, and maybe we'll time it right for blueberries. (If you've eaten a blueberry pie made with berries you've picked, you'll understand. If not, by now you probably think I'm obsessed with berries -- strawberries, blueberries, etc.)

Elise definitely is a fan of water. She had a ball swimming in the lake, sitting in the lake, "pedaling" her feet while riding a foam noodle through the water, jumping into the lake -- pretty much anything having to do with the lake, she enjoyed. After swimming at the cabin two days, we stopped at Shell Lake on the way home to test the beach there. The review: It was a great beach and it probably will be part of our cabin weekend in the future.

The trip wrapped up peacefully enough: All of that fresh air and swimming socked Elise and she slept the whole way home. 

 

What this picture doesn't show is that Elise left the table shortly after this and about a half-hour later I realized that I had just spent that half-hour mesmerized by water-color painting myself. I also realized I have no painting talent.

This is Elise. She strips a corn cob better and faster than a combine.

Pay attention to me.

Goofball wrapping herself in her blanket and calling herself "babooshika."

Find hats, will party --even at 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday at the lake.

Looking for fish -- or, for those of you who know the story, ol' man Dunn.

Convincing her not to fill her belly with lake water was a challenge.

Four weeks to go.

Elise liked jumping off a dock.

We haven't done water wings, but "the noodle" so far has been a great swimming aid.

She is learning to lay forward with her feet out behind her. She kicks, but calls it "pedaling." Guess that's what happens when you introduce a toddler to a trike and swimming in the same summer.

Yum.

Strawberry season is nearing an end, though I'm jonesin' for one more trip to pick.
Meantime, Anni turned part of the last batch of berries into a fantastic pie.

Give her a frumpy apron and it's like something right out of Good Housekeeping.

Not something out of Good Housekeeping. 

Elise: Yeah, whatever, take the picture and let's get this thing cut up and covered with whipped cream.

How does 8-8-11 sound?

That date better sound good because that's when Child 2 is expected to be born.

Like Elise, Child 2's arrival likely will not be determined by surprise obstetrical whim. Rather, it's a scheduled C-section, and that's just fine considering the alternatives. 

Not knowing whether it's a boy or a girl leaves plenty of excitement -- and ample consternation over baby names. (That being said, I'm 99 percent convinced it's a boy, and have been since the beginning. My level of confidence probably means I'm wrong.)

For obvious reason we're preconditioned to think of a baby's arrival as unpredictable, so scheduling the birth of your child requires a bit of adjustment. But it was fine with Elise, and it's just fine this time around. Besides, it should be the best start to a Monday morning that I can remember.

Lost in translation -- again.

The other day Elise did something after being told not to. I was tired and apparently didn't feel like trying to turn it into some grand disciplinary moment, but still thought it shouldn't go unnoticed. This is the brief exchange that followed:

Me: "I think you need a consequence."

Elise, in an honestly curious tone as she looked around the room: "Where is it?"

Pickin' time

We made our first strawberry picking trip of the season last weekend and it was well worth the long wait. (You'll remember that our season was abbreviated last year due to a nasty storm that wiped out the crop and limited our frozen rations over the winter. You laugh; a sufficient berry supply does wonders come February in this wicked tundra.)
As you probably can imagine, Elise was content beyond belief when we got into the berry patch. Well, first she peed, but that was the result of poor planning on our part (mental note: next time get her to the bathroom before we go out) and not a sign of excitement. But after that incident, it was all good. I'd pick a berry and put it in the tray -- and Elise would promptly pick it up and eat it. Somehow there was room in that little belly for dozens -- dozens -- of berries. She does really well not picking unripened berries, although that's easy to avoid when she's picking from the TRAY and not the plants.
It's a blast to see a kid so happy with nothing but a strawberry.

 Busted.

 I have no idea what Elise was looking at.