I'm All Ears!

What can I say? Isn't she adorable?

Cake or Frosting?

One of Arielle's favorite things is cake! The funny thing is that she doesn't really like the cake...she just LOVES the frosting! She will make sure she gets every last bit of frosting off her cake and then ask for another piece when it's all gone. Ironically, I have never liked the frosting...only the CAKE! Most of the time I am pretty sure she takes after me but apparently not when it comes to eating cake.

This reminds me of her first birthday when she had the Elmo cake frosting all over her face!

More Organizing

Arielle spent some more time organizing over the long weekend. This time she was putting her toys into buckets and trying to color coordinate them at the same time! It is amazing to me that she spends most of her time "playing" just organizing her stuff because according to my mother I did the same thing. I'd have to say that I am a big believer in "Nuture" versus "Nature". She has really taken a liking to little things...the smaller the better for her to play with. She even has containers for her small things and she does a pretty good job keeping track of it all. I love every minute of watching her cherish her most prized possessions even if it only lasts a day or two and she moves onto the next toy.

Sleeping Standing Up

Yesterday Arielle did not take more than a half hour nap and boy was she tired by the end of the day. So much so that when I opened her bedroom door a couple hours after she went to sleep, I found her standing up with her feet on the floor and her head on her bed. She was actually sleeping like this, no joke! It was a little freightening at first and somewhat disturbing but I was really wishing that I could have taken a picture. I thought about calling Zak up to witness it but then decided to quickly move her into the correct sleeping position before all the blood rushed down to her ankles. When I moved her into her bed she just looked around for a moment and went right back to sleep.

We have tried to speculate on why she fell asleep like this. One theory is that she got out of bed to get something and just fell asleep before she could get back in to lie down. Another theory is that she fell out of bed and landed in this position. We think this could have happened because we had just rearranged her room that day to where the bed wasn't up agains the wall and we know she liked to sleep in the crack between the wall and the bed. Whatever the reason is, I still can't believe that she fell asleep standing up!

New Mantra

Arielle taught me a new song yesterday. She told me, remember:

"You get what you get and you don't throw a fit!"

Even though this made me laugh hysterically, what she said really stuck with me and I can't get it out of my mind today. I used to tell her, "We can't always get what we want" but that just wasn't catchy enough and perhaps she never fully understood it. So I want to thank Arielle's teachers for coming up with such a good mantra for me to use from now on!

While we are on the subject, how is it possible that my sweet little three year old daughter can drive me over the edge of insanity in just the blink of an eye? I long for the days when I can get her to do something without bribes and/or threats. And can't I just for once sit down at the dinner table to eat my meal without having to get up two or three times and have to eat my food cold? Is it too much to ask for me to get out the door to go somewhere without having a hundred things to remember and have to go back in the house for something?

I'm not throwing a fit or anything but I'm just wondring if my life will ever be "sane" again...

Weekend fun!

What a beautiful, sunny weekend we had here in Colorado! The weather was the best that it has been for quite some time...temps were in the mid-eighties and there were no rain clouds in sight. The weekend started out great and ended even better. When I got home on Friday after work, Arielle announced that we were going to dinner at Red Robins! She collected all of her goodies in a bag to take to the restaurant and put her shoes on before I could even blink. This was amazing because usually we have to convince her that it is fun going out to restaurants. She is such a home-body and enjoys being at home so much that getting her to leave the house can be quite a chore!

Saturday morning we took a bath early and got ready to go to some garage sales! Arielle loves this because there are always so many things to look at and take home. She scored big with new books, a princess toy and baby-doll diaper bag with accessories. She told me, "Look at all this cool stuff"! Shortly after we returned home from garage sales, we left again to go to Thorntonfest (a local festival). We even brought the dogs along for this event! Arielle didn't mind the crowds, the heat or the lines...she was just so happy that Mommy & Daddy bought her a new tiarra at the fair!

The next morning, Arielle woke up a lot earlier than ususal so I took her into the guest room for both of us to go back to sleep. She did not want to sleep though...she wanted to play with her new toys from the garage sales so this is what she did for the next couple of hours while Mommy dozed off and on. It was the first time I had actually seen her entertain herself for this long of a period. She was talking to her dolls and playing without a care in the world! We finally headed downstairs and decided to make breakfast. Arielle helped me make the scrambled eggs even though she was worried about making a mess when she broke the eggs broke open. She had remembered the last time she helped and missed the bowl! She even set the table for us and loved getting to decide where each person was going to sit. After breakfast we piled into the car yet AGAIN and headed to the rec center for some indoor swimming. We ran into one of Arielle's friends from school and they really enjoyed playing in the pool together. In fact, her friend cried when we carried her away to go in the Lazy River. She kept asking her friend if he would go down the butterfly slide with her. It was funny because her friend is noticeably shorter than her so she would bend down to look at him when she talked! She loooked like such a big girl in her new bikini that I splurged on! At first she wasn't very receptive to this new bathing suit because it did not have a princess on it but then she decided it was great because Mermaid wears a top like this one!

Overall it was a fantastic, fun-filled weekend that I wish had never ended! If only I had taken some pictures to share :-(

Are you kidding me?

Usually when I make Arielle a cheese quesadilla I cut one square and one triangle for her to eat. Last night I felt too tired (or crabby) to cut a square so I gave her two triangles instead. That is when she blurted out the words, "Are you kidding me"? Who knew that one shape could make such a difference in her little world. I had no choice but to give her a square, after all her choice of words was too cute to resist and it did make me smile!

Listening

Today I left work for a little while and took Arielle to the "Cow Place" (a.ka. Chick Fil A) for lunch. We mostly go there because it is Arielle's favorite indoor play spots but the food is good too! On the way there I asked Arielle if she wanted to play first or eat first. It took her a couple of minutes to think about and she ultimately decided that she wanted to play first. Before I could get out my next sentence which would've went something like, "Okay but when Mommy says it's time to eat you need to listen and leave the play area like a big girl". However, Arielle knew that lecture was coming and wanted to avoid hearing it so she proceeded to cut me short and say, "I will listen to you and do everything that you tell me to do, okay?" I replied, "Okay".

She held up her end of the bargain for a little while and I even convinced her that we should eat before we play because there were no kids in the play area yet. Then came time to leave the play area and little Miss Arielle decided she was done listening for the time being and was not going to do everything that I told her to do. Well, there you have it...a day in the life of a three year old!

Mother's Day meanings

What did Mother's Day mean to me this year?

It meant that I had to cut my kidless trip to Target short, wait by myself at Mimi's Cafe for an hour, get wet from the sprinklers, order from a short version of the menu (at least they made me my "usual" even though it wasn't on there), ask my daughter to stop kicking me and sit on her bottom several times at the restaurant, pick up pieces froma a broken picture frame that got knocked over by the wind and discover the scratches and dents that it made on our new, cool bookshelves then color them in with a Sharpie.

But it also meant that another year has gone by that I have been able to spend with the most precious thing in the world to me...my little Bug, Arielle! It has been another year that I have been lucky enough to hug and kiss her, tuck her into bed at night after three stories, sing songs, play dolls and dress up with her. Another 12 months that in that time I have gotten to watch her learn how to use the potty like a big girl, get dressed all by herself, eat corn on the cob, help me fold the laundry and cuddle with on the couch. In that time I have definitely felt like a mother through and through although sometimes I have felt like I haven't always deserved to be a mother. Those are the times that I will look back on and hopefully laugh about without any regrets when I realize how much I have learned about being a mother.

I've also gotten to spend another year with my Mother which means a lot more to me than I can ever say. I love you Mom even though I don't always say it. You mean so much to us, your family.

My little reader

Arielle has quite a knack for "reading" books. Tonight she recited the entire Barbie "Mermaidia" book almost word for word and this is not the first time that she has amazed us with her talent. First it started out with the short baby books that she would read along with us then one day before the age of two, she recited the Dr. Suess "ABC" book. A few months later she rattled off the Golden Books version of "Aladdin" which we promptly videotaped. We can't get over how well she has memorized her favorite books and how easy she makes it look.

Something Arielle said to me the other day has stuck in my mind. She was eating a chocolate chip quaker granola bar and was crumbling it into pieces. I asked her what she was doing and she said, "I'm just picking the chocolate chips along the way!" She was as happy as can be when she said it too. It reminded me that I should really stop to smell the roses along the way (so to speak). Chocolate, roses...if you think about it their not entirely different from one another! Such words of wisdom from my little Bug!

The Cream Corn Incident

Friday night we were watching tv when I thought I heard footsteps above me-this would be unusual because Arielle does not get out of bed once we close her door. As I raced to the steps I saw her standing there at the top of them and heard her start to cry, "I threw up in bed". Poor thing got it all over bed and herself but despite the odor and the mess she seemed very upbeat and somewhat happy, probably to spend more time with Mommy and Daddy as we cleaned her up and changed the bed linens. Arielle proceeded to throw up two more times that night but at least this time we had a trash can in her bedroom and I was there. I actually slept with her all night long for I think the first time ever.

You're probably wondering why she threw up suddenly out of the blue when she had not been sick at all that day. Well that is where the story starts. Zak cooked dinner and decided to open a can of corn but actually it was cream corn. He reminded me of the time he was fifteen and had a bad reaction to cream corn...I guess he too threw up from eating it. I brushed it off and said Arielle will probably like it because she loves regular corn so just cook it anyway. We all ate the cream corn that night and Arielle LOVED it! She had three servings of it that is how much she loved it.

So this just begs the question, did Arielle inherit an allergy to cream corn from her father? Zak didn't throw up that night but he did have bad stomach pains and everything that comes with that. Nothing bad happened to me though, I felt fine all night. And besides being tired from loosing a few hours of sleep the night before, Arielle felt perfectly fine the next day. This just had to be some sort of weird coinicidence, right? Who knows but we won't be serving cream corn to her anytime soon.