Trapped...

My dear baby Alice,
I am currently trapped by you in my office/your bedroom, you are sound asleep, but fiercely object to being unlatched.  I love the way you breathe, how when you are really hungry you breathe really fast, and growl until you get what you want.  I love the way you smell.  I love the total peace I feel as I stare into your beautiful eyes.  I love how you make everyone around you grin.  I love your gummy baby smile.  I love how you are just learning to walk.  I love to watch you waddle as you fall into your Daddy's arms.  I love watching you beat up on the dog.  I love how you will let me hand you to pretty much anyone, and you instantly will win them over, heart, mind, and soul.  I love how if I really do not get along with someone how you will cry every time you look their way.  I love how adorable your diaper bum is.  I love how this morning your Daddy and I watched you petting the kitty cat, albeit you did try to eat her hair immediately afterwards, but you aren't hurting her very often.  I love listening to your heart beat through my stethoscope, it sounds like a hummingbird's wings, I know it's going to slow down as you get bigger.  I love practicing being a doctor on you, and how you fiercely object to anyone looking in your ears.  I love you chubby, fat baby feet and how your toes can't fit in some of the shoes we got you for this summer.  I love how your hair looks like a different color in every light, blonde, red, dark brown.  I love how much I love you.  I love your fierce little hugs, and how you will turn to me and hold on tighter if you feel scared.  Even though it makes me sad, I love when you cry when I leave, and cry when I get home until I pick you up.  I love that you miss me.  I love cuddling up with you every night, nothing can be more precious than waking up to your smiling face each morning, or touching my hand to your chest in the middle of the night to make sure you haven't died of SIDS. (I do this often, as I'm sure you are aware).  I love watching you play with Burbur, and how you call her BaBa.  I find it hilarious how she is terrified of your walking toy.  I love how you will get all mad if you think Daddy or I has some food that you want.  I love how you play with my ID every chance you get, who would have thought pulling on it would give you so much pleasure each day.  I love the glee you feel when you steal my water bottle and shake it over the entire bed.  I love how proud you are of yourself on the potty.  I love how lately you have been stealing all of the baby wipes and trying to eat them.  I love how you somehow figured out how to climb onto the changing table one morning.  I love you, my sweet, precious little one.

Snow Day, so we made Doughnuts!!

Last night, Elliott, Alice, Burbur, and I went for a walk, our dog absolutely loves the snow and acts like a complete loon while she is out in it.  I decided at this point that we were not having school today, there was no way I was going to try to leave my neighborhood, when I got up this morning though, I found out that school really had been cancelled.  Yet, remember that lovely little Tegrity program?  Yes?  Well it also makes it so teachers can save their lectures from years past and just have you listen to those when school is canceled, I guess at least that makes them cram less into their lectures.

Since we had a snow day though I decided it would be a good idea to practice some more cooking, I really enjoy making things from scratch, because then we can control every ingredient that we are eating, no HFCS!  I found a recipe that could work in my bread machine and went for it!  Our bread machine gets quite a bit of use, and was worth every penny, I can make everything without getting sticky fingers, I hate sticky fingers!

While the dough was mixing and rising in the bread machine, I had to tackle the kitchen, it was covered in dishes!  (Elliott does most of the cleaning and he likes to clean on Fridays........)  So there was a lot of cleaning that needed to happen, in the middle of this one of the neighborhood children rang the doorbell...............  He wanted to shovel our driveway!!!!  Now, this might just seem like a way for him to make some extra money, but we don't have a garage!  There is only about 5 feet of sidewalk for him to reach b/c our cars cover most of the rest of it, and it is a very short driveway.  For this he wanted $5, I kindly told him no thank you through somewhat gritted teeth due to what I hear after the doorbell rang!  Alice....  She had woken up from the nap she desperately needed, she got quiet right away so I figured Elliott had put her back to sleep (he was napping as well).  I continued my cleaning, when all of the sudden, baby Alice came into view.  She was fiercely crawling towards me and the open dishwasher...  ah silly Baby, I retrieved the baby, returned her to Elliott, at which point she started crying furiously, and I escaped.  10 seconds later she was sound asleep. 

Elliott and Alice woke up a bit later, after I had gone and finished reviewing a Physiology lecture, and we were ready to roll the dough out!!!

Why am I in this funky suit?

I loved her face here, my mom brought this hat back from when she got my little brother

Daddy?  What is on your face?  Alice does not approve of masks, warning, next picture has Elliott with his face covered in a T-shirt, he looks like a ninja, and I  know I have some friends who have mask phobias.

who are you?  I feel scared

please, put me down, or give me back to Mommy, now!

Alice loves helping!

and she nabs the dough!

Daddy would prefer less helping...

we retreated to the other side of the table, much to Alice's chagrin

consoling herself with the dough she grabbed

the evidence, and she tried for some more

I love her eyes!

plotting her next move...  (Daddy requested that we vacate the premises)

pre-rising

in the pot, they are in olive oil

getting glazed

yummy goodness waiting to be devoured!!!

We let Alice have one of the unglazed ones, she loved it!  It is the sweetest thing we have ever let her eat, but she let us know with the constant screaming while we cooked them that she was not going to be left out of this experience.  She then proceeded to walk all over it, and smoosh it, but she enjoyed it

This snow day was wonderful overall, and I actually got to cross more things off of my to-do list than I added to it.

I love Tegrity!!!!

Tegrity is this system our school has that syncs up the lecturers computer with their voice and mouse pointer, so if you have a day where you just have to get out of school you do not have to miss lecture.  The other awesome part with tegrity is you can watch all of the lectures at double speed.  I was feeling behind yesterday, so I decided I would come home, catch up with reviewing a few lectures and then watch Tegrity.  End result:  Finished 2.5 hours earlier than usual, this was with being 3 hours worth of reviewing lectures behind.  I feel so releieved, I will still need to go back over all of the material, but I feel like it is at a manageable level now.  This excess time also included eating lunch and dinner with Alice, and Elliott and feeding Alice a few times.

 

Yes, Alice did think it would be a great idea to grab this candle off of my desk, I thought it would be nice to show her what she was trying to touch.  She happily stuck her entire face in the candle....  our child.. the pyromaniac.  After putting her face in she then stuck her whole hand in, I jerked the candle away, thinking she might have burned herself, nope, she started fussing and wanting to play with the candle some more.

Alice's Lunch, 1 egg, 1 banana, and a bunch of spinach, she had some of the yogurt for dinner.  The child absolutely loves eggs, and bananas.  We just started giving her yogurt, and she really enjoys dipping the bananas in the yogurt.  What is even more fun for her is to dip her hands in the yogurt on her tray and fling it across the room :D

I want more than spinach!  We offer her vegetables first with every meal b/c otherwise she would only ever eat fruit and meat

Alice with her favorite toy of all, her Raz-a dazzle baby toothbrush.   She would happily crawl around the entire house all day with the toothbrush if she could.  I love this toothbrush b/c it is 100% silicone, so no danger of lead or cadmium in it, since I bought it off Amazon I couldn't figure out if it was from China or not.  I think the silicone must feel good on her gums though b/c she chomps on it all day

Alice's shoes are in this basket, Burbur tried for about 20 min, unsuccessfully to pull a shoe out to consume

yum!!!  mango and yogurt, and a tiny bit of tomato soup!  (Did I mention my child is a bit of an eater, she will eat everything she can get her hands on)

bathtime!

Notice her legs?  She is actually squatting down after being standing up

the water, no!!!!!  I'm melting!!!!

I survived?

I think being able to spend this time with Alice also makes me feel happier due to all of the happy hormones that get released while nursing, and this in turn makes that next set of physio, neuro, or biochem notes not seem so daunting.  I love my happy, squishy baby.   Now where is the little one?  Well, she is sound asleep nestled in our bed, where she belongs for now.  If she will let us get things done around the house that's where she will stay.  Another day I'll post pictures of how our bed is set up to give everyone enough space.  On the plus side with me being home more during the daytime she sleeps more at night, last night she only woke up 3 or 4 times, it was wonderful to just snuggle her.

Why is there poop everywhere?

The text I got from Elliott earlier, "the poop never ends!".  I glanced down at it while scribbling down random facts  on my heart notes during physio, and tried to figure out what the baby or the dog had done now!  Amazingly enough they were both innocent, that rarely happens.  Apparently our shower was backing up in the laundry room.  I do not understand plumbing, so have no idea of how this could happen, but apparently it can.  Even more interesting is that the washing machine, toilet, sinks and everything else will drain perfectly fine, so I thought it'd be a good idea to stick Alice in the bathtub as Elliott headed off to class.  I should never come up with any bright ideas......   Right as I pulled the drain on the tub, the dog took off running, I figured she had chewed something up and didn't want yelled at about it...  Nope, she was investigating the laundry room, where the oatmeal filled water was now gathering!!!!!  ARGH, the fluids never end!!!!!!  So, I rush to the laundry room, and stick my foot into my rain boots, and try to hurriedly mop the water up, no go, the mop is saturated from Elliott's previous cleaning job.   This entire time Alice is screaming and crawling around the house naked as a jaybird while I try to figure out how to get the water to not leave the laundry room.  I hear the neighbor's car door, and run to see if she can watch baby while I do some damage control.  She very sweetly agrees, and I frantically run around to look for some more towels.  I find them in a pile on the couch, we had just finished washing all of them!  Poor towels, they may never be the same.  Luckily our laundry room opens outdoors, so I held the door open and threw wet towels out there. 

I booked a plumber for tomorrow, I'm hoping the news won't be terrible, but I never want to try to clean the laundry room again, oh and to continue with the title of this blog post, Alice has left us 4 lovely presents tonight, one of them during the writing of this post!  It really does never end!


I still have to review the Physio heart lectures, and Neuro from last week!  This is going to be a long evening, though theoretically the baby should go to sleep sometime soon....



 Baby Alice with the quilt her Mamaw made

 Baby Alie Telling use she does not like to be placed in a pumpkin!

 And finally Baby Alice demonstrating her crawling skills at the Christmas party