We pulled out Little Bear’s (second hand) Calico Critters town house, creatures, and furniture the other day. I wasn’t sure how they would go over but she was immediately impressed and spent at least a half an hour playing with the little pieces. Sure, she tried to step on all the furniture, but stopped pretty quickly after I told her “no.”
Grandma and Grandpa were nice enough to let us borrow their brand new bike trailer today so we could go for a bike ride. I say “go for a bike ride” like it was no big deal, but really it turned into a half-day excursion. Papa couldn’t find a piece to the bike rack for his car so we decided to take mine, which meant we had to move the car seat and put some of the seats down. Oh yeah, and find all our bike stuff after the long winter. Then, we had to get my bike and the trailer from their house, so we drove over there and let Little Bear sleep in the car while we assembled and packed everything. I had the car half way on, you know, where you can listen to the radio but not drive? When we left to leave, the car was dead. So we got a jump from a friendly neighbor (who actually ended up giving us a cargo cover for free that was made for my car type, so it worked out). Then we had to get gas. Then get Little Bear a bike helmet which caused a major meltdown in Babies R Us. Then, we had to go get lunch food and finally show up at the park.
But after that, it was a great ride. Little Bear’s helmet didn’t fit that well so she only wore it half the time. Yeah, I know, I’m a horrible mother. But we rode slow and stayed off the streets. Anyway, now that we’ve got everything together, future bike rides will be easier to take. And since the weather is finally nice, I fully plan to.
Notice how she’s not wearing her helmet in ANY of these pictures? Yeah, it’s because she hates it. Also, we may have snapped her chin in it once. Oops.
Today was Little Bear’s first experience with finger paints. As it turns out, we don’t actually have an easel, so it was more “toe painting” than “finger painting,” but who’s counting. Anyway, despite her general distaste for novel tactile sensations, she seemed to like the activity. At least, she liked painting herself. I’m not sure how much of it got on the paper.
Little Bear has been growing and changing so much lately! She has seven, almost eight teeth (four on top and three on the bottom), she loves trying all sorts of foods (but chews them up and then spits them out most of the time), she says “BA” to everything she sees, and is signing more, help, milk, eat, water… um, I can’t remember what else. No real words yet, except “bye,” “hi,” and “water.” Not even mom or dad. Well, I guess we see where we stand. She knows what we’re saying, though, and responds to “Come here,” “Get your jacket/shoe/baby” and other things. More than anything, we are just reminded every day how much we love her and how big she is getting. I can’t wait until this summer. I have so many projects to do and will finally have the time (and energy) to do them. Stay tuned!
With the nice weather FINALLY here, we spent Saturday at a friend’s house playing in the backyard. Little Bear was a bit hesitant about the wading pool at first, but warmed up to it quickly and didn’t want to get out.
So tonight we bought one at the store. This is the “Hippo Play Center” version so it should be exciting to set up. I hope tomorrow is as warm as this weekend was!
