MC Howard

Maggie's name is Maggie Claire Howard so we think it's really funny to call her MC Howard (M C like her initials and MC like a dj, get it?). We especially think it's funny to call her this when she puts on head phones. This is on the floor in Grant's office.

Maggie has picked up on some "grown-up" things that we say and is repeating them. Here are a few of our favorites:

• "It sure is!" Today we went to my Grandma's house and Maggie was looking for Grammy's cat, Missy. Grandma/Grammy said she thought Missy was in the living room. Maggie looked in that room and said, "She sure IS in here!"

• "Can you believe it?" She'll say things like, "I don't want to eat cereal for breakfast. Can you believe it?"

• This last one she said when we were with family the other day. She gets so excited in large gatherings of people she knows and she was just running around, giggling, and every few minutes she'd exclaim, "You're all so cute I just want to eat you up!"
  

She also has a book she likes to read called "Popcorn." It's actually one of Grant's books from when he was little. There's one very specific line from this book that Maggie likes to quote, from memory, every couple of days. She'll say, "'I don't care if I never see another piece of popcorn in my life,' said Buster." It just cracks me up that she also quotes the "said Buster" part of that line! It must have made a big impact on her somehow.

Cole & Maggie

We had our friends Marc and Elise and their son, Cole, over for dinner a few weeks ago. Cole is at an age now where he and Maggie can play together pretty well (he's about a year younger than her). They are very sweet together and love giving each other hugs and kisses. They're both in pajamas here and I thought it would be fun to put them to bed together in Maggie's crib but I know that would not turn out well... they'd either play and never fall asleep, or they'd be cranky about sharing a bed with someone else.

Dress #4 (Final dress...for now!)

This one is my favorite! Like I said before, she was having so much fun twirling around in her dress that it was hard to get a good shot.

I actually kind of like the motion of this shot...

Dress #3

This one is from Carol (Grandma Howard to Maggie). I love comfy play dresses, too!

Dress #2

Here's the second one! I think it looks almost like a baptismal gown. This one is Uncle Steve's favorite. The shoes are the ones she squealed over that Grandma Howard sent her. In other news, Maggie hit ANOTHER milestone yesterday (all right, this one may not go in the baby book): laughing until she cried!

A dress a day!

Maggie has lately been getting these wonderful packages in the mail from her Uncles Steve and James and her Grandma and Grandpa Howard. They're full of fun things like dresses, pajamas, and shoes! In fact, when Maggie saw that she had a new pair of shoes she actually squealed with delight. She is such a girl. So that her generous patrons (ha ha) can see their gifts on her I'm going to post a picture of different dress each day for the next few days. Here is the first, a cute white dress from Steve & James. She was having so much fun trying them on that we couldn't really get her to stand still long enough for a good photo - there was too much dancing going on. Here's a full view (check out her house slippers!)

And here's a close up!

In other Maggie news, she has achieved a new milestone. Since my sister Lindsay is in town this week I was trying to get her to nap at my other sister Erin's house. Erin and Lindsay went to get lunch and I stayed behind so Maggie could nap. I was sitting downstairs, reading a nap, and I kept hearing bumps and other noises. I thought I was hearing things so I didn't get too worried. After about 30 minutes I heard the door open upstairs and my first thought was, "Someone's breaking into Erin's room!" One second later I heard Maggie, standing at the top of the stairs, saying, "Hi Mama! The sun is awake!" I was just stunned and I ran upstairs to her. I just kept asking, "What did you do? How did you do this?!" I didn't think it was possible for her to climb out of her portable crib (pack 'n play for you parents reading this) and she's never attempted to climb out of her regular crib.
I went into Erin's room and saw that Maggie had pulled some books off of Erin's bed into her pack 'n play and then climbed out of it onto Erin's bed. She had also been courteous enough to turn off her noise maker before she came out of the room.
Needless to say we did not attempt another nap at Erin's house but she did fall asleep in the car an hour later! We're now getting ready to move her into a big kid bed so that she can nap at other people's houses since the pack 'n play is out of the question. But it's an exciting transition! Hopefully she'll stay in her bed. I wouldn't be surprised to find her up in the middle of the night watching tv or getting into the pantry or having a party or something.

BANJO!

Remember how we said Maggie was into rhyming lately? Now she's into the name game song (Anna anna bo bannna banana fana fo fanna...). Yesterday she was being a little wimpy after her nap and constantly wanted me to hold her. She said, "hold me! hold me! hold me hold me bo bold me banana fanna fo fold me..." How could I say no to that?!

She always has to sleep with her pink Nalgene bottle Grant bought her for her birthday but last night we couldn't find it at bedtime. We had guests over for dinner and so we were trying to be hospitable with them but also take care of her urgent need to have her water bottle. Finally we gave up and I was alone with Maggie in her room, trying to convince her she could sleep without it, and I was succeeding. We talked about something else for a minute, I put her in the crib, turned out the light, patted her her requisite number of pats, and was walking out when she said, "Oh! It's in the dishwasher!" It took me a minute to even realize what she was talking about and then the lightbulb went on. I told her to hang on a minute and I'd get it and as I walked out of her room she hollered at me, "Don't forget to put water in it!" Good thing she reminded me :) I don't know if this story is even funny at all in the retelling but it just cracked me up when it happened.

We've found some really great kid music lately and it's been really fun to hear her singing along and also to sing it herself throughout the day. She recognizes all kinds of instruments and during a song will shout out, "HORNS!" or "BANJO!" It's so fun!

I know I haven't put any photos up in a while but I'll try to post some this weekend. I may even TAKE some new ones this weekend since my favorite little sister is coming to visit!

Happy Earth Day (tomorrow) everyone!

Chunky Monkey, Anyone?

I just wanted to make sure EVERYONE knows that Ben & Jerry's Annual Free Cone Day is coming up on April 29. I will be there, going through the line at least once. Did you know they'll let you go back through the line as many times as you want (and have the patience for?). Last year the line was long but it moved very quickly.
My favorite flavors are Oatmeal Cookie Dough and Phish Food. What are yours?

Waving a white flag

Sorry I haven't posted in a couple of days. If it were possible to be dying from a cold/flu/I don't know what, we would be. On Saturday I begged my mom and sister, Erin, for a mercy killing :) I guess I still haven't gotten the hang of caring for a sick child and husband while being sick myself. I think we would be getting better but none of us have been sleeping very well (mostly thanks go the lack of sleep from the shortest member of our family). Maggie woke up at 4:30 this morning and so we've been up since then, too (well, Grant and I each took a little turn watching Maggie while the other one slept).
Hopefully we'll be better very soon and back to posting more interesting stuff.

Kid Cooking

I just made some cookies with Maggie and they turned out great so I thought I would share. This recipe is great for kids b/c they can help roll out the dough and (depending on age) cut out shapes with cookie cutters. It's also made with two-thirds whole wheat flour, honey, and brown sugar, so it's not quite as refined as regular cookies. They're mildly sweet and Grant says they taste like a combination of sugar cookies, graham crackers, and gingersnaps. So there you go! And here's the recipe:

Alphabet Cookies

1 cup graham flour
1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t baking powder
½ t baking soda
¼ t salt
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
¼ cup honey
1 t pure vanilla extract
½ cup milk

1. In a medium bowl, sift together flours, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
2. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and brown sugar on low speed 1 minute. Add the honey and vanilla, and beat to combine. With mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in two batches, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour.
3. Divide dough into three pieces. Roll out each piece of dough between parchment or wax paper to 1/8 inch thick. Stack the packages of dough on a baking sheet, and freeze for 1 hour.
4. Preheat oven to 300. Remove one-third of dough from freezer, and gently remove top parchment paper. Peel off and discard the top parchment paper. Cut out cookies using 3-inch alphabet cutters. Remove excess dough. Reroll any dough scraps between parchment paper, and cut out cookies. Bake until lightly browned, 20-25 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.

Bamming

As I've mentioned before, Maggie LOVES coffee- hot, cold, black, with cream, in a latte - she just plain loves coffee. We only let her have the tiniest sip every now and then. This morning she said, "Can I have some coffee? Not pretend, just regular." I think she spoke for everyone in the house with that question.

Maggie has a toy hammer she loves. When she wants to use it she calls it "bamming" as in, "Daddy, can I come into your office and bam some things?"

Who needs sleep?!

As I type, Maggie is in her crib. She is supposed to be napping but she is currently making the sound of a chicken. Now she's saying, "The sun is awake!"

This is the second day in a row that she's not taking a nap. She's exactly 2 1/2 right now and that just seems early to drop her nap! She's been in her crib for an hour and so at least she's getting some rest time. No matter if this is a phase or how it's going to be now, I definitely plan on keeping "rest time" until she goes to kindergarten. Mama needs some rest time, too!

Anyone have any tips for getting her to take a nap? I've really been asking for a lot of advice lately, huh?! :)

Cuteness

One of my favorite writers, Catherine Newman, has a new column up and if you have kids I think you would enjoy reading it.
I love the way she captures the weirdness and sweetness of family life.

(By the way, her daughter's real name is Abigail but they called her Birdy ever since she was pregnant with her before they knew she was a girl, and it has stuck!)

How good is your memory?

I noticed yesterday that gas here is up to $3.30/gallon and it's costing us about $50 to fill up my 4Runner. It makes me think back to the end of my freshman year of college when gas was $.99/gallon. That's the cheapest gas has been in my memory. What's the cheapest you remember it being? (I know of three women who, if they answer, will definitely come up with the lowest price! It's up to you, Nana, Grandma Austin and Grandma Mathis!)

How can she be so sweet sometimes and so infuriating at other times?

Here's the cute part:
This morning she's sitting on her chair with her baby on her knee, bouncing her up and down and singing "This is the way the lady rides..." Do you know that song? It's really cute to hear her singing it.
Also cute is the fact that in the morning, after she eats her cereal, she walks over to the sink and kind of pushes her bowl and spoon into it.

And here's the infuriating part:
She has figured out that asking to go potty is a good way to delay bed or nap time. It's so effective because if she asks to go potty we always take her seriously because we're trying to potty train her and we don't want to send mixed messages. So last night at bedtime she sat on her potty for about 15 minutes while I brushed her teeth and read her bedtime books and finally produced something. Then I did all the rest of her bedtime stuff and put her in bed. Just as I was ready to walk out she said, "I need to go potty again." I was so frustrated by this point (it had been a long night) that I called to Grant and asked him to take over. He came in and put her on the potty and she sat there for about 5 minutes without doing anything. Eventually he said, "Okay, you're not going to go, it's okay, but let's go to bed now." Well, you'd think he told her that we were going to throw all her baby dolls on a bonfire. She screamed and cried and generally freaked out. She basically ended up crying for about 45 minutes before she finally gave up and went to sleep.
Another piece to the story is that she had been having night terrors and what I've read about preventing night terrors is to have a peaceful bedtime. So I feel held hostage by the idea of a peaceful bedtime, almost like I have to let her have her way so she won't get upset. (Night terrors are basically episodes of screaming/crying where she DOES NOT wake up and she doesn't remember them in the morning. If you try to comfort a child having a night terror it actually prolongs them. It's horrible to hear your child screaming and not be able to go comfort her. Night terrors are related to sleepwalking and sleep talking and are very different from nightmares.)
So...anyone have any advice or encouragement!? Sorry for the longish post about this.

Is this an April Fool's joke?

The following is from www.tennessean.com (The Tennessean is our daily newspaper in Nashville for those of you not from here.)

"Trader Joe's, a grocery chain some Nashvillians have long clamored for, is set to open a Green Hills location by Thanksgiving of this year.

The store will be at 3909 Hillsboro Pike and measure 14,000 square feet, said spokeswoman Alison Mochizuke. That's in line with the California-based company's average store size of approximately 10,000- to 15,000-square feet.

The address is the former Wild Oats building."

We had shopped at Trader Joe's in California and actually signed a petition earlier this year to bring it to Nashville and it looks as though our dream has come true! YAY!!!

Wha?

The other day Maggie came up to Grant and I with a ziploc baggie on one hand and a bread basket in the other hand. She said, "This is, like, a huge thing and it doesn't have peepee in it and it doesn't have poop in it." That is a verbatim quote.

It really cracks me up when she uses the word "like." Sometimes she'll tell me these very long stories that consist of her saying, "And then I was like, 'what's goin' on' and then he said, 'I like Elmo' and I was like, 'yeah'."

I just have two questions for you:
1) Do I talk like a Valley Girl? Because where else is she getting it from?
and
2) Do you think she is becoming a Valley Girl?