Artsy...

Alex does a ton of painting at daycare. Almost daily we have little treasures to bring home and put on the fridge. She rarely paints at home. Not because she doesn't love it, but because I have issues with mess. I'm a bit neurotic.

Luckily Michele is there to help out the little monkey. So they busted out the easel and the apron...
And they opened up the pre-load paint brushes...And Alex painted. She was very serious and very focused. Just look at her...And, in the end, a modern masterpiece...
I think it really speaks to the plight of the modern toddler. Every brushstroke is like a comment on parental neuroticism.

Perhaps I should get over my issues and paint with her more often.

Terrible too...

People always talk about the "terrible twos". The time in a young life filled with spitting, back-talking, throwing themselves on the dirty floor at Target and have a kicking, screaming fit. But Alex never really subscribed. We assumed she was perfect (equal parts luck and kick ass parenting). Then she turned three.

Light switch. At 8:19am on 12/29/11 she turned three, and at 8:20 she started screaming. She started talking back. She started lying... and then laughing about the lying. She now refuses to nap unless immersed in total darkness and quiet... and not napping just makes everything worse. It's terrible too.

Don't get me wrong, she is still pretty perfect. Just a little more opinionated. Timeouts still work... sometimes. And I think Michele and I have gotten a bit more Zen. We have decided that her screaming does not have to lead to us screaming. We try to giggle at the noise. It works... sometimes.

So, fair warning to all you potential owners of a three year old. Making it past two doesn't mean you won... it just means they're biding their time.

My little helper...

Alex "helped" me shovel snow last year... but this year she HELPED me shovel snow!! She actually moved some and put it where directed!!

Next up? Mowing the lawn.

3 year well visit...

Alex had her three year check up with the doctor this week and, as you might expect, she rocked it! At 36 months she is 37.25" tall (60th percentile) and 33.6lbs (75th percentile). Progressing nicely.

The doc was impressed with her physical and mental state. She was asked many questions to determine her aptitude... how old are you? what color is your shirt? can you stand on one foot? Stuff like that. She passed with flying colors, only having trouble with two questions...

1. When asked who her best friend was, she said she didn't know. She later told us it was Maxwell.
2. When asked to draw a smiley face, she instead drew a fish... and then pointed out all of it's fish features. The doc said that this had never happened and was impressed.

After all that pleasantness, she did have to get two shots. She took it very well. There was a moment of terror followed by a look at us that said "how could you do this to me?"... but the nurse offered animal crackers and all was well.

All in all a very good trip. And now, apropos of nothing including this story, a picture of Alex reading to a sick Michele a couple weeks ago.

Pepe, and Aimee, and Jorge oh my...

Alex loves Legos (Duplos, really), and she has been cultivating an increasing bucket-full for years now. The very first package she got a person in it and she named it (I'm pretty sure the first one was Pepe the bus driver), or rather we named him together. She was barely one and had a limited vocabulary, but she could say Pepe. It was adorable.

Then came more blocks, and more vehicles, and more people. Aimee and Jorge and George. Some of them she names and some we name together. It started to get difficult to remember them all.

Then, recently, she got a slew of new peeps between Xmas and birthday... many new names!! So we had to make a cheat sheet...


So, if you ever come over to play Legos with Alex... study up.



PS - they are all related by birth, marriage, or occupation too... but I'll save that post for a rainy day.

Alex is 3!!!

Alex turned three. She is a big girl now... she says. Her birthday was filled with the things she loves. We went to breakfast, and then picked up Max to go to the Xtreme Bounce Zone. Alex jumped right in...Max was reluctant, but Michele helped him get the hang of it...They climbed some pretty tall slides...


Then home for the best things in the world... cupcakes...and cheese!!!She was quite pleased, and quite pleased with herself... Happy Birthday Monkey!!