Bogle Family Blog

Tidbits

2012-01-16T22:07:00.001-08:00

To finish out my last two pictures from today’s batch, I think I have forgotten to tell you that Emma is way more cross-eyed than I remember Lily being. It’s totally normal and will correct itself by 3 or 4 months, but we have SO many pictures like this. Bless her heart.

Also, she ADORES the same blinky star (at the top of the play gym) just as much as Lily did.

I ’m pretty sure that if Blinky Star (that’s now a proper noun in our house) could be rigged up to dispense milk, my job would be in jeopardy.

When you’re strange…

2012-01-16T22:02:00.001-08:00

Tonight, Lily was helping me cook.

We still don’t have our act together when it comes to meal-planning, so we’re fortunate to have a stuffed freezer that we’re trying to work our way through. So what delectable treat did Lily enjoy while I was prepping dinner?

I’ll tell you that it was something she took from the dish I was about to put in the microwave.

Because it’s something you’d usually want to defrost AND heat up.

What is it? Well, it is one of Lily’s favorite foods – yellow rice. We froze part of our leftovers last time we had it in individual portions that we can heat up whenever. It’s especially convenient as a side dish since Lily doesn’t eat potatoes for some reason – no mashed, baked, fried, or anything. Oh, I guess she’ll eat chips, but that’s it. Speaking of strange, let’s get back to the fact that she was eating a frozen solid block of yellow rice.

Eventually her fingers got cold, so she tried eating it out of the dish. Still frozen.

Strange child.

She then told us she was “going to freeze Annabelle’s snoozerboozle off with her frozen fingers.”

Yeah, that’s even stranger.

I guess one of these days I need to explain “snoozerboozle” to you folks…

I need a photo assistant…

2012-01-16T21:44:00.001-08:00

Well, that and more natural light in my house, but I think I’ll just have to make do. Forgive the off-center photos (due to the lack of an assistant) and the soft focus (due to insufficient light), but the good news is that I finally captured some Emma smiles for you!

She has been so smiley the past two days! As before, no other news is good news. She is doing somewhat better with going back to sleep in the middle of the night, and has even gone up to almost 7 hours between feedings during the night once or twice. Yay, Emma!

The Bear, 2nd Edition

2011-12-31T18:30:00.001-08:00

You may recall that Lily had a pink bear rug that I photographed her on every month for her first year of life:

Well, my mom got Emma her own rug, so I’m planning on doing the same thing for her. Note that Emma’s rug is just a tad bit smaller, so you can’t compare directly.

Here is Emma on December 3rd:

I didn’t time this picture very well, and she was ready for a nap and not a happy camper. I then forgot to retake it when she was rested, so I just picked the picture with the most classic crying face instead of a mild fussy face – look at that wail!

And here is Emma at one month – much happier!

Pictures

2011-12-31T18:04:00.001-08:00

Just some pictures…some of them you’ll see again in posts with actual content, but just wanted to upload some recent pictures (mostly from Emma’s first week since I haven’t had time to sort yet).

Comparisons

2011-12-31T17:50:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to put up a few pictures of Lily at Emma’s age so you guys can compare. Here is Lily at about 1 month old.

And in case you think you’ve stumbled onto the wrong blog, here she is at 1 year – no, that hair did not stick around!

Hmmm…looking at that makes me nervous, but Emma clearly has WAY more hair, and I would be really surprised if she loses it ALL. Perhaps I shouldn’t go overboard with the hairbows just yet, though, huh?

In any case, here is Emma from earlier today.

The poor dear is still VERY cross-eyed a lot of the time.

Roll Out

2011-12-31T17:05:00.001-08:00

For Christmas 2010, Lily received two tricycles. My mom gave her a Hello Kitty one that was a great beginner tricycle with a retainer bar (to keep her from toppling off) and a parent steering/pushing handle (to save our back since she couldn’t pedal by herself). She loved being pushed up and down the street in it, and got used to the motion of her feet going in a pedaling motion without actually having to pedal to propel the bike since a parent was pushing from behind. This is the tricycle that we used for the first half of 2011, and she really enjoyed riding on it. Her other tricycle was an Ariel (Little Mermaid) tricycle that she was a bit too short for when she first got it. It did not have a retainer bar or parent pushing handle, so it was a great second step for her after she outgrew her Hello Kitty trike. I’ll admit that over the past few months of pregnancy (and during the 1 million degree days of summer), we didn’t get in as much bike riding as we should have, so imagine my surprise when Michael took Lily outside today (December 31st) to ride her tricycle for the first time in a couple of months, and she could suddenly ride it all by herself! Michael spent a short time helping her get the hang of steering, and then she was off like a shot!

Go, Lily, go!

Rumor Has It

2011-12-31T15:01:00.001-08:00

Some of you may have heard the rumor that Emma, while very tall like her sister, has a smaller head. You may even have heard that rumor from me, because apparently I’m the one that made it up.

Oops.

Everything starts to blend together at this point, so I can’t recall if they told me that at the hospital or I read it somewhere, but I somehow thought that Emma’s head circumference was around the 10th percentile. On Thursday, December 29th, she had her one-month check-up, and they gave me our first printout of her growth charts, and her head circumference was around the 35th percentile, and it shows it was in the 36th percentile 4 days after birth. Clearly there was some misunderstanding or hospital measurement (or reporting) error - Emma’s head is proportional to her weight, which ranges from the 22nd to 33rd percentile over her first month. Like Lily, these stats are completely overshadowed by her height – 91.99% at last measurement.

Anyway, this is not groundbreaking news, but I just wanted to correct myself and report on her growth. She outgrew her newborn clothes before Christmas because of her height – her sweet fleece sleepers were straining when she straightened her legs, and her sleeves had become a chilly 3/4 length, so she has moved on to 3 month clothes (although they seem to swallow her up because she’s on the thinner side). As for the rest of her one-month visit, everything is going just fine! You’ll note in the pictures that she’s peeling a lot, but this is just normal newborn skin sloughing. Our most fun news is that she is smiling! She had been making smiling-ish expressions for a while, but on December 28th, the day before her 1-month birthday, she gave me several clear smiles that were truly reciprocal – melt my heart! Over the last couple of days, she has smiled a few more times each day, with her happiest time being right after breakfast. I can’t wait until we get to see her sweet smiles all day long and I can capture one on camera for you. I just can’t bear to put her down to grab the camera (and miss her smiles myself), so you’ll just have to wait! I’m so excited that she’s getting more interactive. She has also enjoyed looking at her toys more, and tries to reach toward them now.

I will say that Emma’s timing for her first smile was wise, because I was particularly tired that morning and needed a pick-me-up. Over the last week or two, Emma has had some trouble at night…wait…I should say *I* have had some trouble at night. Emma is happy as a clam, but I’m the grump. The problem (for me) is that she sometimes doesn’t want to go back to bed after eating in the middle of the night. I’m very lucky because she will go up to 6.5 hours between feedings during the night (woo hoo!), but then won’t go back to bed (boo!). She’s not crying or fussy if you stay with her, but she’s just *awake* for about an hour and a half. I think if she were my first child, I’d be more upset about this (because it IS tiring), but I do have more perspective this time around, and know that this will get better soon. The first four months were roughest with Lily, and we’re already one month in!

In general, Emma is a wonderfully sweet baby and doesn’t cry very much at all except when she’s hungry, has a dirty diaper, or is over-tired. When she does cry, she is usually pretty easy to soothe. When she does fuss with no obvious cause, it doesn’t last more than 10 minutes. She loves to be swaddled, rocked, and will use a pacifier, so I’m not complaining! She generally stays awake for about 1.5 hours at a time (alternating awake time with 45-minute to 1.5 hour naps during the day), and only wakes up once (MAYBE twice) during the night. We try to get her in bed between 11 and 12 at night (yes, we’re still late-night people!), and she wakes up for the day around 9:00 or so. We’d love to get her on the same 9:30 to 8:45 schedule Lily is on, but she just can’t go that long without awake time yet, so we’re trying to at least match up their morning awake times for now.

As for our original bundle of joy, Lily still takes a nap in the afternoon, but has been skipping it some lately with the excitement of the holidays. She usually naps about 2 hours when she DOES take one. When she doesn’t, she stays in bed talking to Annabelle, singing, and talking to herself, and STILL hasn’t gotten out of bed without permission yet. She is such a good girl about that! She has her obstinate moments for sure (especially of the “No, I will do it MYSELF!” variety), but she really wants to please and still hates it when we’re disappointed in her.

Lily continues to adjust well to Emma’s arrival, and has been such a sweet big sister. Amazingly, she doesn’t seem jealous of all the time and attention Emma requires, and is the first one to express concern when Emma starts crying. One of the first couple of days we had her home from the hospital, Emma started crying in her pack-and-play while we were eating dinner. Before any of the adults could even move, Lily was shouting, “Ahhhh!!! Mommy help her, help her, help her!!!” She is always offering suggestions when Emma cries (“Mommy, should you feed her?” “Mommy, does she have a blue stripe on her diaper?”), and will reassure her (“It’s okay…Mommy’s coming, Emma”) if I can’t get to her right away. It’s very sweet, and Lily is sure to praise Emma or point it out to me when Emma is doing a “good job” not crying or being patient. She sometimes asks if I can put Emma down in her pack-and-play or give her to someone else if she wants me to play with her, but she never complains if I tell her I can’t. I’m sure this big sisterly love will be tested when Emma starts crawling and toy-snatching, but it’s all roses for now. She even made a Christmas ornament and card for Emma of her own accord. Lily has wholeheartedly embraced Emma as a member of our family, and I couldn’t be prouder.

Less stellar are some of my own adjustments to having two kids (and sleeping less), such as the fact that I’ve left the house not once, but twice, wearing slippers instead of shoes because I’m too tired to notice (once to take Lily to school and once to take Emma to the doctor). I also took both girls to a birthday party at Gymboree when Emma was about a week and a half old. While Lily played with her friends, Emma stayed in her carseat, looking around and being content for the first half of the party, lulling Michael and me into complacency. Cue my embarrassment later in the party when my friend, Jasmin, gently notified me that the crying baby (who I had tuned out) was my own, and that I might want to go get her. Oops! Yeah, we had kind of forgotten we had a baby with us (this was our first outing other than the doctor’s office). Good thing we were with friends! My mom made me feel better, at least, by telling me about the time she forgot my infant self at home when rushing off (with my brother) to MY pediatrician appointment. Oops!

All in all, 2011 was pretty awesome. We are so happy and lucky to have such sweet girls and wonderful families, and if Michael could kick this bronchitis he has had since October, we’d really be rockin’. Fortunately, it seems to be the same illness I had from October until after Emma’s birth, so she appears to have gotten some immunity to it. But poor Michael has had some sympathy for my middle-of-the-night feedings since he’s dealing with his own middle-of-the-night coughing-up-a-lung fits.

Sorry this post is so long on words and lacks pictures, but I’ll always have the pictures on a disk and won’t always remember the stories in my head. I’ll try to do a separate post with pics in a short while.

Wishing you all the happiness in 2012!

Greetings!

2011-12-31T12:53:00.001-08:00

Just a quick note to let you all know that things are going swimmingly over here! Emma is a sweet, sweet baby, and no news is good news in this case. I don’t want to jinx myself or in any way disparage her sister (who we think is just the bee’s knees), but Emma has such an easy temperament, and everything just seems to be easier the second time around. That’s not to say that having two little girls doesn’t keep us busy – I’ll admit to being a wee bit tired, but overall, this has been easier than EXPECTED so far. Right now, I have achieved the ultimate goal of every stay-at-home mom of more than one kid…the synchronized nap! I’m going to try to wrap up a few drafts I started over the past couple of months and get them uploaded for you over the next hour while the girls (*fingers crossed*) sleep, but be aware they will be in completely random order.

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

“Happy Thanksgiving,” “Merry Christmas,” “Happy New Year,” and any other seasonal greeting I owe you at this point!

NSFW

2011-12-17T21:04:00.001-08:00

Since before she was 1, Lily has been a very verbal child, and people have often remarked that her articulation is very good for her age. While most kids have adorable little mispronunciations (“I’m fwee years old!”), Lily may have only fleeting mispronunciations that she self-corrects after a short while. We don’t overtly correct her – she just seems to hear the difference between what she is saying and what we are saying, and switches from adorable tot-speak to regular speech after only a few mistakes.

Well folks, there is one word that she does consistently mispronounce.

She CAN say it properly at times and the sounds are certainly within her repertoire, and she has gone from mispronouncing it almost all the time to only about 50% of the time. For Lily, though, this is remarkable in that she never keeps making mistakes for this long.

So, you see, there is just this one word that continues to trip her up.

And I’ll be darned if it isn’t a doozy.

[When watching this video, remember that “Annabelle” is Lily’s lovey and she sucks her thumb at night while clutching Annabelle.]

[Also, don’t watch this video if you are easily offended. She doesn’t mean to be so sassy.]

Folks, I can’t make this stuff up.

Despite what it looks like in the video, the last thing we really want to do is encourage her to drop f-bombs, so we try not to snicker or draw attention to what she’s saying – anyone who has ever spent time with a 2-year old knows that telling her NOT to do something is likely to have the opposite effect.

Until she self-corrects, I’m afraid we seem to be stuck with this one. Kind of reminds me when she used to shout “homo!” in public when she wanted to go home.

This, too, shall pass and until then, we might as well laugh.

At least when Lily’s back is turned.

Needs and Wants

2011-12-11T22:30:00.001-08:00

One of Lily’s little quirks is that when she gets an injury, she refuses to hold an ice pack on it. Somehow (and I can’t remember the strange steps that led us here) this has evolved into her eating ice chips when she gets hurt.

“Oh, you hurt your knee, Lily? No need to cry, I’ll get you a bowl of ice chips to eat.”

Strange, but whatever soothes the hurt so harmlessly is fine in my book. It’s mostly about distraction, and she has come to view it as a “treat” since we don’t let her chomp on ice every day.

As an aside, this summer, I tried to make Lily a cherry snow cone, but she much preferred a plain snow cone. As in a snow cone consisting only of ice shavings. I wish my idea of “dessert” was as calorie-free!

Tonight, I tried to school Lily in the distinction between wanting something and needing something.

Lily: I need ice.

Michael: Why do you need ice?

Lily: I need it.

Kristin: You need ice or you want ice? There’s a difference between want and need.

Lily: I DESERVE ice.

Why do I feel like I was the one who just got schooled?

More Pictures

2011-11-30T16:32:00.001-08:00

We also had the hospital take some pictures, and Michael’s parents purchased a CD of the images that we can have printed ourselves. So, don’t order any, but feel free to take a peek. They said the CD should arrive in 7-10 days, so I’ll share then. If I look tired in the pics, it’s because…um…I really am. :-)

Here is the info I think you need to view them (but let me know if it doesn’t work):

http://www.our365.com/NewbornPortraits/BabyDetail.aspx?birthid=6e5a5021-ac70-42b4-8110-412615d9922d&utm_source=wnshare&utm_medium=email&utm_content=wnshare_mom_babylink&utm_campaign=wnshare_button

HERE'S YOUR VISITOR PASSWORD

249101375970448

Emma Catherine Bogle

2011-11-30T15:55:00.001-08:00

Tuesday, November 29th at 4:50 pm, we finally got to meet our second sweet baby girl – Emma Catherine Bogle! I will share more later, but I wanted to get some pictures posted. Labor and delivery were uneventful, and baby is perfectly healthy! Can’t ask for more than that. She weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces, and was 21 inches long. Most surprisingly…she has hair! Of course, we’re already in love with our little sweetheart. Enjoy!

Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater

2011-11-28T21:11:00.001-08:00

Well, in case you didn’t hear, tomorrow morning is the big day. My doctor had no hesitations about scheduling my induction, so we report to the hospital bright and early Tuesday morning, November 29th. We can’t wait to meet our little girl, and will share the good news with you as soon as we can!

Lactose Intolerant

2011-11-27T22:25:00.001-08:00

The dreaded “cheese” face.

It turns this…

into this…

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Pass the Lactaid

Party of Four

2011-11-27T21:45:00.001-08:00

Well folks, I am officially 39 weeks, and 2 days pregnant, and the end is finally in sight. I am due this coming Friday, December 2nd, and I will go to the doctor tomorrow morning where I will get to hear my sweet baby’s heartbeat, hear reassurances about how well she is doing, and make our final preparations for her arrival.

Almost as importantly…I fully intend to beg for an induction. I sometimes feel like I “cheated” real labor when I was pregnant with Lily by getting induced (at 39 weeks, 6 days), and, frankly, I really hope I get to cheat again. And soon.

I. am. so. done. with. this. pregnancy.

Seriously.

I feel like I held it together pretty well this time around. Sure, it was more uncomfortable than I was when I was pregnant with Lily, but I feel like I handled it pretty well and even managed to minimize my waddling and general complaining for most of the pregnancy.

However.

In the last week, I have hit a wall. There is no more room at the inn, and the eviction notice is being drafted. I thought that the papers were being served one day last week, but when it amounted to nothing, I was mostly relieved that I could relax through our long Thanksgiving weekend.

Well, here we are on this side of the holiday, and the turkey is gone. (Well, not entirely gone, but Michael is going to make some sort of horrifying soup out of it, so it’s gone as far as I’m concerned.) The Christmas tree is already up. The baby’s room is ready. The hospital bags are packed. The last two loads of laundry are done. We finally settled on a real name for “baby sister.” There is no way that we’re truly “ready” for what is to come, but no one ever is, are they? I am fully aware that in spite of my personal discomfort, baby sister is certainly much easier to care for now than she will be on this side of the belly, and I’ll freely admit that I was sort of enjoying sleeping through the night.

However, we’re finally as prepared as we can be, and we are ready and willing to give up some of our precious peace and comfort if that means we get to meet our sweet baby very soon. It’s hard to know how it will feel to go from being a family of 3 to a family of 4, but I can imagine that it won’t be long before we can’t imagine anything else.

I don’t think I’d be normal if I didn’t worry about how this might be a rough transition for Lily. She is so very attached to me, and having to share Michael’s and my attention is bound to be hard on her at times. In the long run, though, I know that these growing pains will be forgotten. For as much as she gives up, I know that she is gaining even more.

A playmate.

A confidant.

A best friend.

A sister.

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Hoping to find the “party” in “party of four”

Halloween

2011-10-31T21:37:00.001-07:00

I have said for a while now that Lily has an impressive memory. For the last TEN months, Lily has been talking about the giant inflatable Christmas decorations that people in our neighborhood put up in their yards last December. For entertainment, we would drive or walk around the neighborhood looking at her favorites…the Santa making his naughty/nice list, the reindeer popping out of the chimney, etc. For months after they were taken down (okay, for the almost YEAR after they were taken down) Lily would ask if we could go look for Santa decorations. So, it was not surprising that when inflatable Halloween decorations began popping up this year, Lily was thrilled. Since the beginning of October, we have watched the delightfully tacky decorations spring up all over our neighborhood, often making nighttime neighborhood tours to see her favorites…especially the Mickey Mouse pumpkin and the vampire popping out of a gravestone (her vampire impression is hilarious in that it involves her playing peekaboo…we saw no need this year to correct her misunderstanding of these blood-sucking monsters of lore).

I have always said I would never put one of those tacky inflatables in MY yard.

Here’s the part where I eat my words.

I mean come on, people, it was a CAT. How could I resist???

Lily was a big fan of Jasper, as he came to be known. I do want to publicly state that in spite of my lapse in good taste here, I am thankfully still aware that the 10ft Santa Mickey that Lily covets at Lowe’s would be a bit too much.

However, I see a lot of field trips to Lowe’s over the next two months. Playdate at Lowe’s anyone?

Aside from Jasper, our Halloween decorations consisted of two pumpkins. One Lily and I did a couple of weeks ago with a cute Mr. Potato head cowboy kit…

…and one that Michael and I carved with her yesterday (Michael’s first-ever pumpkin-carving apparently!):

How cute are they?

_______________________________

Halloween this year also included our 2nd Annual playgroup Halloween party and group photo.

To refresh your memory…oh, dang. Seems like I never posted last Halloween’s picture. In that case, introducing Halloween 2010! Only 1 year late!

Hmmm…they don’t seem to be as thrilled as we were about their adorableness.

Here’s a photo a friend took:

Uh oh. Here’s a close-up of the little lady on the end:

That was one sad owl.

So, did this year go any better, you ask?

Well, the party was great. Kristi hosted again, and Seri planned some great crafts that Lily loved.

The picture, on the other hand, involved about the same mix of cuteness and tears. Lily was able to hold it together during the photo shoot prep (i.e. 6 mommies wrangling 9 kids into costumes and then trying to get them to agree to sit on the sofa together).

When everyone was mostly in place, though, she started to want to get down and got a little red-eyed. Almost all the kids were a little overwhelmed and some were not so happy to be in costume, but at least we got our photo!

Don’t they put the HAPPY in Happy Halloween?

Oh, in case you hadn’t noticed, Lily was a cat this year for Halloween. She toyed with a few other ideas (e.g. Roo from Winnie the Pooh), but kept coming back to wanting to be a kitty, so that’s what we went with.

Okay?

If anyone asks, she was a cat.

That’s what she asked to be, and that’s what I got her.

A cat.

Umm…with leopard print.

Okay, so I only LATER realized that she may have actually been a leopard for Halloween, and somehow I never noticed.

If you tell her, we are no longer friends.

Note to adult Lily reading this sometime in the distant future: I’m sorry, sweetie…I didn’t realize it until it was too late, and you didn’t want to wear a costume anyway because you don’t like hoods (or headbands), so there was no point in buying another costume. Please just send Mommy the therapy bill.

Finally (oh, rats…forgot about her school Halloween party…will have to cover that separately), there was the main event – trick-or-treating tonight in our neighborhood. Michael got stuck in traffic on the way home, so Lily and I sat on the front porch and prepped treat bags and glow bracelets while waiting for Daddy.

She was very excited to give the trick-or-treaters their candy, and was a bit perturbed they didn’t show up until it started to get dark.

Then, Daddy came home!

I figured Lily wouldn’t really want to visit many houses for trick-or-treating, but after the first one, she was pretty excited, and visited 8 or 10 houses on our block. Then she decided that she wanted to go back home and see what she had in her bucket. The rest of the evening, we mostly hung out on the porch, and she eagerly handed out bags of candy to all the trick-or-treaters. Once she got too cold to stay outside and came inside, she charged for the door every time the bell rang, and stared longingly through the windows, continuously voicing her hope for more visitors.

Halloween was so much fun with her this year, and I can only imagine what Christmas will be like.

The only question is how we’re going to work an inflatable cat into our Christmas décor…

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

So behind in posting that it’s spooky

First Day of School update

2011-09-09T11:38:00.001-07:00

When I picked Lily up from school this morning, the teacher said that Lily did “awesome!” From what I had time to find out, sounds like she was fine shortly after I left, and had a good time playing, painting, and eating snack today. Lily was happy to see me, and in a good mood when I picked her up. She said she played on the slides and had goldfish and juice for snack, but I didn’t get much out of her after that because I had promised her we’d go get ice cream to celebrate her first day, and she was a little fixated on that. The teacher had mentioned that Lily kept bringing that up at school today, and that is definitely Lily. Once she gets something in her head, she talks about it pretty much non-stop until it happens. Persistence is one of her strongest personality traits, and while this is mostly an awesome trait, it can also be a little repetitive when you have to hear the same thing 50-million times. Oh well! Just glad she was happy, and that she seemed to recover very quickly from being upset this morning. Hooray!

First Day of School

2011-09-09T08:17:00.001-07:00

Greetings, long-lost friends. Excuse the absence, but I’m currently prepping to finally take the Psychology licensing exam and have been a bit busy these days. The end is in sight, though (yay/eek!), as the test is scheduled for October 6th. After I take that (and hopefully pass!) and then take the oral exam, I will finally be a licensed unemployed psychologist, and we can return to our irregularly scheduled blog programming.

In the meantime, I still had to take a few moments to document a rite of passage for all children…the first day of school! Now granted, Lily’s school meets for 3 hours, one day per week, so we’re not exactly moving away to Harvard yet, but it’s still a big deal in our world. Lily started “K2” at Immanuel Lutheran School (yes, we’re Catholic-ish, but no worries), which is just down the road from our house. For the record books, her teacher is Mrs. Joanna Kelly, and the aide is Mrs. Rachel Jason.

Lily met Mrs. Kelly on Tuesday, and was very wary of the whole school experience at first, because she seemed to think I was going to drop her off during our “meet the teacher” session. Once she realized that I was staying, she was glad to check out the toys and puzzles, and seemed very interested in coming back for more playtime and to check out the playground Mrs. Kelly showed her a picture of.

Fast forward to yesterday, when we’re talking about school, and Lily suddenly realizes that Mommy doesn’t get to stay with her when it’s actually time for the first day of school. Poor thing started to get a bit weepy, and kept asking if I could please go with her. Breaks my little mommy heart, but I just had to reassure her and play up the positives.

This morning, we got up early. Y’all, I’m talking 8:00 early. But we did it, and managed to keep Lily upbeat enough to snap some cute photos before school. Unfortunately, the porch was a bit shady, and I wasn’t paying enough attention to my shutter speed, so some of them are blurry. Sorry about that. But here you go:

Check out those glorious locks below! We have made some hair-growing progress in our absence. Not ready for a pony-tail yet, but we’re almost ready for a hairbow, at least!

Would you have expected anything different for Lily’s backpack? Pink with a cat. Doesn’t get much more “Lily” than that. Her shirt reflects her secondary loves…blue and mermaids!

As excited as she was for picture-taking, you can probably guess that the actual drop-off experience wasn’t as joyous. Lily started to get teary in the car as I was getting her out, and kept asking me to go with her. As we walked into the school, she started crying, and was REALLY crying by the time I walked her into her room. As planned, I gave her a goodbye hug and kiss, and immediately ran out the door so as not to prolong the misery of her begging me to stay, and dashed out to the parking lot to commiserate (and maybe get a bit weepy myself) with another mommy friend of mine whose child, Landon, is in Lily’s class. Michael also showed up to see how things had gone, and we had been chatting for only a couple of minutes before the teacher came out and yelled to me that Lily was no longer crying and was just fine.

Hooray!

I’m going to go pick her up in a little while, and I look forward to hearing how her day went. I will update you later, but wanted to get this posted while I had a few moments to myself. I miss blogging and sharing Lily with everyone, and hope that I can get back on track shortly after my exam.

Baby Ninja

2011-07-11T22:22:00.001-07:00

Like most second-time moms, I find myself with not nearly as much time to wax poetic about baby #2 who, fortunately, seems to be growing just dandy without my obsessing over whether he or she (henceforth, “it” until Wednesday…we can’t wait to find out!) is growing fingernails or hair follicles today. To the baby’s credit, it is not content to be ignored, however, and has been a very active baby thus far. Even at that first ultrasound, it was flapping its little paddle-like arms and legs all over the place, and was twisting, stretching, and kicking all around during the 12-week ultrasound.

When I was pregnant with Lily, I felt those first swooshes and flippy-feelings were clearly felt right at 17 weeks. It was gentle and sweet, and it took a couple of flips for me to be sure that I was really feeling movement.

This time, I felt confusing swooshy feelings around 15/16 weeks, and I thought I might be feeling movement. Then, right at 17 weeks to the day, I felt a sharp ninja-kick to my insides. No gentle swooshes with this little tyke – just repeated pummelings to my insides by a tot no bigger than a turnip. For the past two weeks, this baby has made his or her presence known with vigorous kicks, especially when my waistband is too tight or my torso is somehow scrunched up.

Active.

Bossy.

Already making sure he/she will not be lost in the shuffle.

Bring it on, #2!

Can’t wait to get a peek at you on Wednesday!

Growing Up

2011-06-14T19:19:00.001-07:00

Lily made a lot of references today to being a grown-up, and talking about what she “used to” do.

I really don’t know why, but at least most of her talk made absolutely no sense, so it wasn’t too upsetting for my mommy heart to hear.

Except this one in Publix:

Lily: “Mommy, I am growing up SO fast.”

*sniff, sniff*

Too true, babe…too true.

She also played “talk” with her toys in the backseat while we were driving around, and a theme seemed to be, “I can hold you when I’m older” or “when I grow up.”

The there was this:

In a consignment store, she was looking at baby Sesame Street toys while I was checking to see if they had something to entertain her on our plane flight tomorrow (yes, pray for me…I am taking her on a flight by myself tomorrow, and am a bit nervous. Note that I handle nervousness by stalling and NOT packing, which is oh-so-adaptive…)

Lily: When I was a baby and I was younger, I can hold Big Bird and baby Cookie Monster when I am 3.

Me: Ummm…good point, Lily.

And then there was tonight while I was packing:

Lily: Mommy, I am a grown-up.

Me: Why are you a grown-up?

Lily: Because I am looking at Mommy and I am a grown-up.

Me: I don’t think you’re a grown-up, baby, you’re still a kid.

Lily: We can call me a grown-up.

Me: I can, but you’re not a grown-up yet. You’ll be a grown-up when you’re older.

Lily: I used to be a grown-up because I am looking at Mommy.

Me: Hmmm…you know, I don’t think that makes sense, Lily.

Lily: I agree, Mommy.

Why does having these conversations with my 2-year-old make me feel like I’m the one who’s missing something?

Interview with a Toddler

2011-06-08T20:36:00.001-07:00

A friend of mine interviews her children at each birthday (starting at age 3), and records their responses.

Because I enjoy comedy, I decided to try interviewing Lily on her 2nd birthday back in March. Below are her responses to my questions, with my notes in italics to record for posterity what her usual preferences are.

1. What is your favorite color?

Answer: Blue

My thoughts: we’re off to a good start! She typically loves pink and blue, so it seems like she might be able to do this!

2. What is your favorite animal?

Cheetah

Are you kidding me? I have no idea where this came from. More consistently, it’s cats of the domestic variety.

3. What is your favorite song:

Yo Gabba Gabba song

This is a reasonable answer…she likes a lot of YGG songs as well as the theme song. Most often, she sings the ABC song or Old McDonald in her bed lately. She also makes me listen to B-I-N-G-O repeatedly in the car.

4. What is your favorite book?

The cat book

She was referring to a library book “There Are Cats in this Book,” which we had just read that morning. Considering we had renewed it 3 times, she really does love this book.

5. What is your favorite movie?

No response.

Definitely the Toy Story series.

6. What is your favorite TV show?

Yes. I am all done.

Yo Gabba Gabba

7. What is your favorite thing to eat?

I am all done, Mommy.

Probably cheese and chocolate.

8. What is your favorite restaurant?

I want to get down.

Gatti-Town

9. What is your favorite store?

Mom, you didn’t get this far in the questions because I was SO over your interview.

Other than the toy store, she loves visiting Miss Mary who sells fish at Publix, and getting a chocolate chip cookie from the bakery; she also loves listening for forklifts at Sam’s or Costco.

10. What is your favorite toy?

Characters of any kind, but especially her Yo Gabba Gabba figures.

11. Who is your best friend?

Let’s pretend she’d say Mommy and Daddy!

12. What is your favorite thing to do?

PLAY TALK!!!!

13. What do you want to be when you grow up?

I’m sure a professional “talker.”

I’m a regular Dan Rather, huh?

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, The Remix

2011-06-08T18:59:00.001-07:00

Talk about a surprise ending. The next M. Night Shyamalan in the making? Who can say for sure.

Great Expectations

2011-06-07T23:53:00.001-07:00

Hello, world.

You know that time that I went for, like, 2 months without blogging?

You know I’m sorry about that, right?

You know I’m about to present several excuses for that, right?

If not, then you haven’t been paying attention. That’s how I roll, peeps.

So what have I doing while I was gone?

Um, just making this:

Shazam!

Yep, just making a person.

Now don’t you feel bad about writing me off?

This little tyke is slated to rock Lily’s world somewhere around December 2nd.

Expectedly, I have been a little tired as of late, and my nighttime blogging festivities have been cancelled by my pathetic body’s need for actual sleep. While my super-human, super-stupid sleep deprivation strategies are tolerable for non-preggo-Kristin, preggo-Kristin, quite embarrassingly, needs to sleep more than 6 hours a night. I also feel at my most nauseous in the evening, and for some reason don’t seem to be getting better despite being past my first trimester. Ugh. I’m 14 and a half weeks at this point and yesterday marked the first time in two pregnancies I’ve actually lost my lunch.

Well, it was my breakfast, to be specific.

But I promise, no more specifics.

In addition to, you know, hosting our precious little energy leech, I’m also in the process of FINALLY studying for the psychology licensure exam (for the next 3-4 months), which makes me feel overwhelmed and sleepy all at the same time. I’m also trying to sort through 11 years worth of craft-supply-hoarding in order to move out of the craft room to make it a guest room so that the guest room can become Lily’s big girl room so that Lily’s baby room can become the new baby’s room.

HELP.

{No, seriously. Help! Anyone who wants to come and play “talk” so I can study or sort crap…er…crafts…is more than welcome.}

In a few months, though, everything will be in a much better place, as I hope to have all these projects completed by the end of October.

So that gives me all of November to enjoy being hugely 8 months pregnant in peace, right?

Then bring on the newborn phase all over again.

HELP.

We’re very excited, though, so the extra work is for a good cause. Lily is excited to move into a big girl room, which will probably feature lots of blue and pink, as well as cats. Interestingly, she doesn’t know why she’s moving rooms yet, as we haven’t told her about the baby. We were going to tell her this weekend, but we just didn’t find the right time yet.

I love how we’re acting as if she’s going to get it AT ALL, and that we need to plan out “the talk.”

Will she understand how a new brother or sister will give her a new playmate and lifelong friend?

No.

Will she understand that she will be responsible for helping to protect and teach her little sibling?

No.

Will she understand that this means I can’t play “talk” with her all the live-long day?

No.

Will she embarrass me publicly on multiple occasions by telling everyone who will listen that mommy’s belly is getting so fat?

Probably.

In all likelihood, she will be thoroughly underwhelmed by the news, but I will try to report back on how “the talk” goes.

Before I get to the meat of why you guys are really here (i.e. what LILY has been up to the past 2 months…not my lunch-losing and sleep-needing), I will tell you that before my last doctor’s appointment, a dear friend had warned me not to let them guess at the gender of the baby. The day of the ultrasound, I would be a day shy of 13 weeks. My friend had also gone in for an ultrasound at 12 weeks, and the technician had guessed “girl,” but my friend later found out that the baby is actually a boy. She said that it was just better not to have a “guess” than to get your mind used to one idea, only to have it changed.

So when, during my ultrasound, the technician asked if I wanted her to guess the gender, I told her that my friend had told me to tell her not to guess and that I didn’t think she should.

Then I told her she could guess anyway.

Because I stink at waiting.

But I still do have to wait to find out FOR SURE, but now I have to wait while trying not to take the guess seriously because it is, after all, a GUESS. She based it on the angle of a particular something, and the research she pointed me towards suggests that at the point in gestation the baby was, there’s an 85ish percent chance that she’s right.

Oh, you want to know what she guessed?

Well, I figure most of my casual readers (at least the ones who didn’t delete me from their blogroll after my shameful absence) have scrolled past all this part with no Lily pictures, so I’ll tell just you few who actually took a few hours out of you day to read this essay. She guessed that the baby is a girl! So…it is possible that more pink is in our future, but we really can’t say for sure, so you can see why my friend was wisely suggesting we skip this whole “maybe girl, maybe not” phase and just stay in the dark until 20 weeks (mid-July for those of you keeping track).

Now let’s bring the blog-reading posers back for a minute with the rest of the ultrasound pictures I’ll want when I get around to printing this out in the year 2031.

Unless I procrastinate.

Then we’re looking at 2032.

The first two pictures are from our first ultrasound at 8 weeks. The baby was already moving it’s little arms and legs around quite vigorously, and you could really tell it was a person. Unfortunately, the still pictures can’t do it justice. I did not expect so much movement from such a wee thing, and it was really fun to see.

Our next ultrasound was at 12 weeks, 6 days, and the baby was also SUPER active during this one. I remember Lily moving around during her ultrasound at this point in the pregnancy, but nothing like this. This baby was all over the place, waving arms and legs, stretching a leg out, putting an arm up over the head. A tiny little ball of energy!

Very exciting stuff, I tell you!

_______________________________________

Well, enough about me and the littlest babe, because for at least the next few months, the Lil-ster remains the star of the show around here, and she has been nothing if not entertaining the past few months. She continues to talk non-stop. I owe you a “2 year summary” post that I started a while back, and I remember that around her birthday in March she was already speaking in maybe 7-10 word sentences. A couple of weeks after her birthday, I remember that we were at the playground, and she was swinging. All of a sudden, she starts talking about how “If you don’t stop swinging, the scary ghosts can’t get you.”

Grammatically complex, imaginative, and out-of-left-field.

That’s my daughter.

She still mixes up her pronouns (I and you) a lot, which confuses people, but she’s starting to correct that. It may just be because I’m her mom, but her articulation seems pretty clear for her age, so that also makes it easier to figure out what she’s saying (Oh, ghosts, Lily?) if not why she’s saying it (Um, what ghosts, Lily?).

I know I owe you a lot more stories and pictures, but I need to hit the sack, so I’ll leave you with a few pictures from the past couple of weeks, with the hope I’ll be able to fill you in on everything else soon. I have to admit that I don’t seem to take as many pictures these days, so there isn’t too much to show. Lily isn’t very cooperative with picture taking (i.e. refuses to look at the camera!), so it’s getting to be a challenge and isn’t as rewarding to get pictures like this.

Okay, just kidding, because that picture is awesome. She really does not like me taking pictures when it’s just the two of us, because that means I’m not playing with her.

Deal with it, Lily! The fans demand pictures!

_______________________________________

Lily’s first hairbow!

Okay, so I just made it because I had been wanting to for a while and she’s always batting at her ears and talking about how her hair is bothering her (now that it’s so long and luxurious, of course). She STILL doesn’t need a hairbow, and she did NOT enjoy wearing it (despite assurances that she looked like Minnie Mouse).

She only smiled for a picture so that I would take it off.

You got your picture. Now take it off, Mommy.

__________________________________________________

She learned how to cut with scissors!

Which, amazingly, took only 3 minutes to teach her. I was impressed, and she enjoyed decapitating many beloved characters on her coloring sheets.

“Mommy, I want to cut Mickey next!”

That’s normal, right?

For you fellow toddler moms out there, I got them from Amazon. I tried these Melissa and Doug ones and a pair by Kidikut, I felt like the Kidikut ones were better at cutting without tearing.

The carnage:

__________________________________________________

Dress up fun!

Ah, yes. The double-cowgirl-fireman-snake costume. A classic. (the fireman hat is sandwiched between the cowgirl hats and the snake mask is pushed up on the forehead)

__________________________________________________

What, is this not how you eat your raspberries?

It’s dangerous work. You should always be prepared for the unexpected.

__________________________________________________

Well, I’m off to bed.

Goodnight, world.

I’m sure you’ll rest easier knowing that we’re still out here.

Oh, you’re already resting?

What do you mean EVERYONE is already resting at 2 AM?

*sigh*

No one call during nap tomorrow…I’m afraid we’re all going to need it!

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

We missed you, too.

Copycat

2011-04-05T21:46:00.001-07:00

Lily has picked up some of Michael’s and my speech patterns, and it’s hilarious to hear our words come out of her mouth. I wish I had some of them on video, but I don’t yet. When you ask her if she wants to do something (like read a book), she will often say, “Oh yes! I would LOVE to read a book!” It may not sound funny in type, but the way she says it is just so sweet, and I hope I can record it before Michael and I forget how she says it.

Just after her birthday, we were playing with some dolls and Lily says, speaking for her doll, “Oh, wow! My hair looks glorious!” We always tell her her hair is glorious, and apparently she has added this to her vernacular. The other day we were checking out at a store and she starts re-arranging my hair, telling the cashier that she was making mommy’s hair “glorious.” I wasn’t so keen on a complete make-over in public, but she has also made my hair “glorious” at home, and it’s something to behold. I should hire her out for proms and weddings, because I looked awesome. (On a side note, she really is a sweetheart, because my hair looks like a hot mess when I get out of the shower, and she always tells me my hair looks beautiful when it’s a wet, tangly disaster. Sweet baby.)

A few days later, we were building with blocks and I was handing her more and more blocks for her towers. She got overwhelmed with too many of them, and told me, “That’s enough, sweetie Mommy.” She has referred to me several times as “Sweetie Mommy,” and it cracks me up.

She has also started to do voices for her characters more often, and also just does silly voices at random times. Last week, the caregiver at the gym nursery said she was admiring Lily’s shoes and told her she had big feet, and Lily responded in a deep, gravelly voice: “LIKE A MONSTER!” We’ve never said that about her feet, of course, but the voices just crack me up!

She also does awesome sound effects for everything. We have a sometimes-enforced “rule” that Mommy and Daddy can’t be things without faces when we’re playing talk. That sounds complicated, but Lily tends to horde the best toys. Although she wants nothing more than for Michael and I to play talk with her, she doesn’t really want to share her favorite figures, so Michael and I get stuck being Plex (the robot from Yo Gabba Gabba who is her least favorite) or some other non-favored toys. She has sometimes tried to make us be toys representing inanimate objects (like chairs or see saws) so that she doesn’t have to share the good stuff. Stinker. So, Michael and I came up with a rule that our characters have to at least have faces. I mean if we’re all being rocks or blocks or something pretend, that’s fine, but she can’t just make us talk for her character’s furniture.

Is she sounding like a complete tyrant yet? Because she really isn’t, I promise. She is just creative at finding ways to get others to play with her without really sharing very well.

Hmmm…still sounding like a tyrant.

Just trust me…she really is a dear.

Anyway, she generally respects our “must-have-a-face” rule, and will even sometimes accommodate our “oh-for-the-love-of-Pete-I-don’t-want-to-be-Plex-again” requests.

The other day, though, she got a little gleam in her eye as we were playing talk. She picked up the fake candle that was part of our play scenario and confiscated whatever figure I had been animating. Then she very matter-of-factly made a sound effect “chpt!” (or something like that) as she pretended to put something on the candle. Then she said, “I put a face on it. Now Mommy can be the candle!”

Slow clap, Lily. Slow clap.

What’s in a name?

2011-04-05T21:19:00.001-07:00

First off, I would love to post tons of pictures I owe you, but I quite literally almost burned up my computer while editing pictures last night, and I’m loathe to over-tax the poor thing before my new cooling-mat arrives.

Yikes.

So instead, I’ll share a few stories of late regarding the names Lily has given new toys and pets.

My dear 2-year-old is, of course, only 2, and so her experience in being allowed to provide things with names was limited for a great long while by her inability to…well…talk. Thus you get the ridiculous naming of her lovey provided by Michael and me at Lily’s tender age of 6 months. Her suggestions at the time sounded something like “gah” or “bah,” so we relied on our own resources to come up with Anabelle (named after my childhood imaginary friend who happened to live in the mirror) Persephone (sounded appropriately ridiculous) Kittykins (well, the lovey is a cat, after all). Absurd, but sleep deprivation and being thrust into the world of drool-filled parenthood causes your sense of humor to fall several rungs on the ladder of sophistication. Am I right? Am I? Is this thing on?

As Lily has gotten older, we have allowed her more liberty to name her own toys. I distinctly remember asking her what she wanted to name a small orange cat figure I gave her, and she wanted to name it “Floor.”

Yes, “Floor.”

A few months later, she got a small, pink caterpillar toy. Her name for it? “Blue.” This is in spite of the fact that she knew her colors at this point, and would tell you that “Blue” was pink.

A few months ago, Lily got a pink flamingo that she named “Zumi” (after my dad and stepmother’s dog). Getting better, right? At least it’s more of a name than “Blue” or “Floor.”

A few weeks ago, Michael brought home a stuffed Hello Kitty for Lily. She promptly named it “Mr. Stefaniekins.”

Seriously?

Mr. Stefaniekins?

So yesterday, I told Lily that we were going to be getting two new goldfish for our patio pond.

It was with great trepidation that I asked her what we should name these fish (who I would have to refer to by name a couple of times per day for the next - hopefully! - few years).

Based on her prior performance, I was expecting “Mommy and Daddy” or “grass and bucket” or “Mr. Penelope-Pants and Dr. Rabbit-Placemat-Head.”

Lily’s instant response?

“Paul and Judy.”

Seriously?

Well, that works for me. She named them, I would assume, after the characters from the book “Pat the Bunny.” I know we haven’t read that book in about a month, so I was also impressed it came to mind so quickly given that the book has nothing to do with fish.

We are now the proud new owners of Paul (a robust-looking orange goldfish) and Judy (a not-so-robust-looking white and orange goldfish who I have already noticed swims like her tail is broken, which surely can’t be a good sign).

Now if I can only convince Lily that Paul and Judy do not want to be held, patted, or in any way snuggled. As the lady at Petsmart was bagging the fish, Lily kept putting up her hands saying, “I can hold them in my hands!” I think the lady was seriously questioning our fitness as fish-parents, and I can’t say that I blame her.

We’re one feeding in, and we already have one sweater soaked to the elbows from Lily’s attempts to coax Paul and Judy to come and get their food.

Wish us luck!

Oh, and Judy. Definitely wish her luck. I’m afraid the poor dear is going to need it.

A Happy Birthday, Indeed!

2011-03-16T23:51:00.001-07:00

On March 5th, we celebrated Lily’s 2nd birthday with a Yo Gabba Gabba themed birthday bash in our neighborhood’s clubhouse. What follows are WAY too many pictures, but I want to make sure I have all these photos in the photo book I will eventually make from this blog. Also, I figured this was the easiest way to share with her friends who were there and might want some of the pictures.

First off, here is a phenomenally exciting picture of me unfolding a tablecloth.

Why, might you ask? Because I wish I had more pictures of my own parents from my childhood, and I’m pretty much always the one behind the lens. See, Lily? This was what Mommy looked like. See the sparkle in the eyes? This is well before “the teenage years.” I was still very cool to you at this point. You were, perhaps, not the most informed on the subject, but your 2-year-old self pretty much thought I was the coolest thing on 2 legs. Crazy, huh?

Before the party started, Lily got to check the place out and give it her stamp of approval.

She was a big fan, by the way, of her personalized Foofa dress.

She checked out the cardboard house we had for coloring and playing, and the dress-up table:

As promised, here is her stamp of approval:

Okay, so you’ll just have to believe me that she approved. I don’t know why she was on the floor.

Here is some of the setup:

Michael’s Mom sewed this incredible banner as well as amazing owl and robot crayon rolls for favors! I forgot to take picture of them unrolled, but I was so impressed!

When the kids arrived, they decorated straw cups to use during the party and take home afterwards.

After that, it was pretty much a free-for-all at the various activities.

Most kids started at the dress-up station:

While a most kids enjoyed the dress-up jewelry, I would have to say Ana B. and Katelyn were frontrunners in the most-accessories competition.

Haha…Katelyn was apparently determined to test the strength of these bracelets.

I did make sure there were some gender-neutral items available, too.

The kids seemed to really like the cardboard house…

(gee…one of the kids has an awfully big hand in that picture…)

Then, there were other random entertaining moments:

And, or course, just enjoying Jack Black.

At a 2-year-old’s birthday party.

It’s not as sketchy as it sounds on paper.

Every 15 minutes or so, I threw out something new like punch balls…

…hula hoops and bean bags…

…and I even made balloon animals to try to keep the tots entertained.

Finally, it was time for some snacks and cupcakes! Lily wanted to sit in her little chairs for her snack, so we chose not to argue with the birthday girl (even though her friends were all in the big people chairs!).

Haha…this one below has a “I refuse to smile for this school picture” look to it.

Lily definitely enjoyed having the happy birthday song sung to her, and also really enjoyed her cupcake…icing. She really didn’t care too much about the cake, but scraped off all the icing with her thumb.

Thank you to all of Lily’s friends for coming to celebrate her special day!

Ana P. and her parents.

Landon and his mom.

Logan, little brother Cole, and their parents.

Lexie and her mom.

Emery and her mom.

Ana B., her mom, and little brother Tate who didn’t make a peep the entire party!

Evan-Marie and her mom.

Katelyn and her parents.

Happy Birthday, Lily!

Trust me, she’s happy on the inside. I am 100% serious when I tell you that she didn’t want to pose for a picture because she wanted to go play “talk.”

*facepalm*

Look into my eyes…

2011-03-10T14:57:00.001-08:00

While Lily is not “stealthy” (as noted in a previous post), she is nothing if not observant. Ms. Eagle Eyes is most observant when it comes time to play “talk.” If she had her druthers, she would play “talk” all the livelong day. If I had my druthers, I would apparently use antiquated words and phrases that would leave my readers wondering what in the world is wrong with me.

Fortunately, I have my druthers.

Also fortunately, Lily does not.

As I have discussed ad nauseam, her favorite activity is taking little toy characters, blocks, balls, food, fingers, and imaginary characters plucked from books and having you “be” one while she gets to act for the other. Do I need to mention that you do not get to pick which one you get to be? Anyway, she often tosses your appointed character in your lap, commanding you to “talk.” Of late, she often adds the name of the character along with a mixed-up pronoun. For example, tossing a robot from Yo Gabba Gabba at you saying, “I be Plex. Talk.” After we correct her, she will, in a very business-like way, say, “I mean you be Plex. Talk. Please.”

Although the situations you play “talk” with continue to evolve, it is still dreadfully boring at times, as you are not allowed much artistic liberty in the part your character is to play. If we are playing “I fell down. Somebody help me!” then your character had better stick to the script. If we are playing “I bonked my head! I need to go to the doctor!” then you are allowed to substitute “Oh, and I also hurt my foot.” It’s confusing, but you will eventually learn your lines when you repeatedly get told, “No” and have your character taken away from you, thrown back in your lap, and are re-commanded to talk.

Doesn’t it sound fun?

The reason I’m documenting this yet again is that the new, and most frustrating aspect, is that she will now stalk you when she wants to play talk, carefully monitoring your activities and waiting for you to slip up.

Mommy: “I can’t play talk now, Lily, I’m eating my breakfast.”

The SECOND I finish my last bite, I hear, “Mommy is all done with breakfast. Mommy can talk now.”

Mommy: “I can’t play talk now, Lily, I’m cooking dinner.”

Lily whirls to find Daddy and stares him down. “Daddy can play talk now.”

We also often here the plaintive, “Mommy can talk now, just for a little bit, please” or “Daddy can talk just one last time, please” that makes you feel like a monster for being bored out of your mind playing one more round of “Plex’s batteries need recharging.”

Her favorite is “Would you like to play talk now?” but oddly enough, it often comes out as a mixed up “You would like to play talk now.”

Ummm, do I now, Lily?

I’m pretty sure that the next step will be a swinging stopwatch as I hear the sweetly-voiced words “Look into my eyes…you would like to play talk now…”

Hmmm…I’m feeling the overwhelming urge to go play talk now. Nobody snap their fingers, or I’m pretty sure I’ll start clucking a chicken.

The City

2011-03-10T14:35:00.001-08:00

Last night while reading books:

Daddy: “Greetings, Statue of Liberty, standing tall for what is right.” [From an over-the-top cheesy patriotic book that Michael bought her while on a trip to DC. She really likes this book, though.]

Mommy: That’s the Statue of Liberty, Lily. [Pointing.] It’s in New York City.

Lily: Like Plex [the Robot]! Electricity.

I know it’s not usually funny if you have to explain the joke and maybe you had to be there, but this cracked us up.

The Wonderful Thing About Lilies

2011-03-10T14:34:00.001-08:00

The other day I took Lily to Toys ‘R Us to pick out a present for her birthday with her birthday club coupon (A whole $3! Woo hoo! The possibilities are endless!!!). They gave her a crown and balloon upon her arrival, to advertise her birthday stardom to all who were interested (alas, no one was).

After talking her out of Prince of Persia Legos and other inappropriate toys that she wanted to buy, we finally settled on a Minnie plush that she was quite excited about. As we made our way to the checkout, Lily spotted a coin-operated ride by the exit that was a boat with a Tigger in it. Of course, she wanted to ride it, and of course, I could not refuse the birthday girl’s wish to wrangle another 50 cents out of me.

As we checked out, Lily yammered on and on about getting to ride the Tigger ride, and the cashier casually mentioned that he wasn’t sure if it was working. Thus, it was with great trepidation that I approached the ride. The potential disaster of an “out of order” sign was looming large in my mind. Well, praise be to the patron saint of inconsolable 2-year-olds, because the thing actually worked.

Not only did it work, it was SUPER loud, blaring the Tigger song at ear-splitting levels, while Lily, in typical Lily fashion, attempted to continue her ever-present narration of her life by SHOUTING OVER THE SOUND OF THE RIDE.

We were, in typical fashion, quite the spectacle.

That’s one thing that has definitely become the norm for me – being a spectacle. Lily pretty much never stops talking, and we meet new friends wherever we go. While she may be somewhat slow to warm up to new situations, the safety of a cart pushed by The Mommy gives her all sorts of guts to randomly accost unsuspecting strangers in the cracker aisle and inform them that “Daddy is at work. He will be home later.” Watching other people struggle to decide how to respond to her unsolicited information is often the most entertaining part. Fortunately, most people will humor her.

I am also happy to report that most men wearing hats with a full brim are friendly. I know this because she usually points right at them and shouts, “He is a cowboy!!!” Like I said, we meet new friends wherever we go.

She really does narrate everything she does and everything everyone else is doing. This is one reason we’re not too worried about her escaping her crib without us noticing. Although she is definitely tall enough and can climb well, I just don’t think it has crossed her mind to escape (although our days are numbered, of course, as she is now 9 feet tall). When it does, I’m sure we will hear clearly over the monitor something to the effect of, “I will climb out of the crib now” or “Lily is about to make good on promises of escape from confinement and run free like the wind” or some other such nonsense. Stealth is not her specialty (as in when she shouted in Chick-Fil-A today, “My poopies are all better now!”).

Well, the dear miss is now the big TWO, and while I will blog later about her birthday party and actual birthday excitement, I just wanted to share a few things while I had a moment during naptime. My house may be a mess of chocolate chip pancake-covered dishes and discarded wrapping paper, but sitting down to record these memories is a more important gift that I can give to Lily and to myself.

Because after all, I gave birth to the stinker two years ago, and gosh darn it I deserve to put my feet up for an hour to celebrate the day!!!

Oops! I meant to say, because after all, today is all about her.

Happy Birthday to the most amazing 2 year old I know on her second birthday.

Deep Thoughts

2011-02-24T14:06:00.001-08:00

by Lily Bogle

_______________________________

After running for a while, she stopped and said:

“My tummy hurts. I ran out of batteries.”

_______________________________

L: Close your eyes. You can do anything. Use imagination. (Pronounced with a hard “g”.)

_______________________________

Lily attends a library program every Tuesday called Mother Goose on the Loose. She loves it, but has really outgrown much of the content and lately has just been running through the middle of the circle of babies yelling, “You runnin’ so fast!” The only thing that holds her interest is a cat puppet that one of the librarians (Amber) lets her hold AFTER class is over. The entire class time, Lily doesn’t see anything wrong with walking up to Amber mid-song and reminding her that Lily gets to hold the kitty after class. When the class was finally over on Tuesday and Lily got to hold the kitty, she said to Amber:

L: Didn’t have a puppy. Just have a kitty. Maybe you get one for Christmas. Maybe I buy you one.

(With Lily’s pronoun confusion, she may have been asking Amber to buy HER one, but I’ll choose to interpret it the way she said it. Isn’t she a sweetie?)

Voicemail

2011-02-21T10:34:00.001-08:00

Whenever I call Michael at work and he’s not there, I try to have Lily leave a voicemail for him to give him a nice surprise in between all the work voicemails. Here are two recent ones that he saved:

I kind of like the “Noooooo!” at the end…it’s certainly authentic!

Challenge

2011-02-13T22:23:00.001-08:00

It has almost become a challenge to me.

Find a toy to play with Lily that does NOT turn into a game of “talk.”

It’s great for her imagination and all, but as I’ve mentioned before, I will go stark, raving mad if I have to play “talk” all day long.

I try to introduce different toys other than toy figures/characters/dolls at times when I’m feeling particularly talked-out.

Thursday, I brought out a mini-light brite I had purchased at a consignment sale for $1. I thought that since Lily likes the jumbo light brite at the museum, she might like this.

It took approximately 2 minutes before the light brite pegs were purloined for use as “crayons” for her characters in another rousing game of “talk.”

Lily – 1; Mommy – 0

_____________________________________

PS. Can anyone remind me again what Lily’s favorite colors are?

I can’t remember.

Pint-Sized Party People in the House

2011-02-13T22:11:00.001-08:00

On Friday, Lily and I hosted her playgroup friends for a little Valentine’s Day party. All 7 of the tots were able to attend with their mommies (along with 3 baby siblings), so it was quite the full house. The kids had a great time exploring with most of Lily’s toys, although her Bigfoot Monster was not quite so popular (i.e. tear-inducing) with some.

I tried to get pictures of all her little friends, but I missed baby Cole (Logan’s little brother) and Ana B. That’s a shame, too, because Ana B. is my photography muse. She’s the only toddler in the group who will sit still long enough for me to take a picture! Here’s a picture I took of her from the week before so we can pretend I have pictures of everyone, okay?

Landon enjoying Lily’s pink cowgirl hat:

The kids aren’t old enough to be really into cooperative play yet, so here’s Lily playing “talk” by herself in the middle of the party. She kept coming up and asking me to play, too, of course.

Baby Blaine (Landon’s brother) in a rare, sad moment – I just love a good cry face, and he’s got a cute one.

Logan enjoying Lily’s kitchen:

After playtime, we tried a few toddler-friendly Valentine’s Day crafts (which should come as no surprise if you know me AT ALL). They made tissue-paper heart tree pictures (which I didn’t get a picture of), felt heart collages, and another picture craft Ana B.’s mom brought.

Ana B.’s mom with baby Tate (or baby Tape as Lily calls him):

Katelyn making a collage with some gluing assistance from her mommy.

Lily making a collage (my friend Jasmin got some pictures of Lily with me actually in the picture – yay!). Lily prefers the all-button-and-rhinestone look on her collages. Fancy!

Emery was really into the sparkly gems, too.

After crafts, it was time for a snack/lunch break, and then we made homemade sugar cookies that the kids decorated themselves.

I love the tongue-out-in-concentration look. Sprinkles are serious business!

That’s Lily’s cookie in the bottom, right. A masterpiece, to be sure.

Ana P.’s mommy made the cookie dough for us.

Ana P. tickles me. She thinks I’m funny, and obligingly smiles for my pictures.

Lily is SO over my picture-taking, and will often tell me to put the camera down. Stinker.

The kids all exchanged valentines, and Lily was quite excited to learn that some contained lollipops. Oh, happy day! She was eager to enjoy one after the party was over and I was busy rounding up sprinkles and wayward feathers.

Haha…her serious “model” look. Blue Steel?

I think she had a good day!

As promised…

2011-02-13T21:06:00.001-08:00

Hold on to your hats, folks, because I am actually delivering on a promise!

A family photo from the circus! (thanks to Seri!)

And there was much rejoicing.

The end.

On a scale of 1 to 10…

2011-02-08T19:48:00.001-08:00

How surprised are you that this is how I spent my free time tonight?

Note that for the purposes of this rating scale, 1 = “I’m only surprised you weren’t already doing this in your free time, Kristin,” and 10 = “Shocked.”

This is my very first attempt and only took about 3 minutes – not too shabby! I’m thinking Lily might wake up to a whole balloon menagerie at this rate…

I’ll title this later

2011-02-07T23:18:00.001-08:00

If you don’t know that I’m embarrassingly famous for procrastination, then you haven’t been paying attention (still waiting for those birthday party posts, aren’t you?).

Michael, while not as impaired as I, has also been known to put off a term paper in favor of a Fiona Apple concert.

Umm…moving on. It was a different era.

You would think that our angelic child, seen here traveling to the playground in style this weekend, would be at risk for picking up her parents’ unfortunate procrastination trait.

Looking through these playground pictures, however, reminded me of a story from a couple of weeks ago that suggested to me that she may not be doomed to repeat the mistakes of her mother and father.

The young one shows promise.

Do you remember my letter to Lily from a few weeks ago? About how she should let Santa know in advance what she wants for Christmas so we don’t have another “maybe Jessie in this box?” Christmas next time. Well, the Lil-ster has taken my advice, and has already begun planning for next Christmas. She saw a swing set in Costco the other day, and wanted to play on it. I explained that it wasn’t for playing, that it was just for sale. She thought for a moment, and then announced “want it next Christmas.” Oh dear. I’d better take some good notes, because she has also asked for a Minnie and a Humpty Dumpty balloon for next Christmas.

Yes, a Humpty Dumpty balloon. I felt this needed it’s own paragraph. She loves Humpty Dumpty (the rhyme), and saw some potato balloons in Publix today (which, I’ll admit, make even LESS sense than Humpty Dumpty balloons, but they were for an Idaho potato promotion). They actually did look like Humpty Dumpty, as they were ovals with arms and legs, and she quickly declared she “want[ed] a Humpty Dumpty balloon for Christmas.”

Hmmm…how about I take care of the Minnie request, and someone else can cover the Humpty Dumpty balloon request?

Thanks in advance!

Circus!

2011-02-07T22:59:00.001-08:00

Last weekend, Lily attended her first circus with Michael, his parents, and me. I wondered if she would be too young, but she really enjoyed herself. She got a little squirmy during some of the less exciting events, but really did wonderfully.

I took more videos than pictures, so there isn’t much to show. Lily’s friend Landon was there with his parents, and they got a picture so I’ll update this when I get it from Seri. Here’s their family:

Lily loved playing chase with Landon during the intermission, and believe it or not, almost-3-month old Blaine slept through the entire circus. What a good baby!

Checking out the pre-show from Daddy’s shoulders. Looks kinda funny from the back, doesn’t it? Umm…that’s why I chose to take it from this incredibly interesting angle. See, Michael’s dad is on the left, Lily on Michael’s shoulders, then Michael’s mom on the right. Great family picture, isn’t it. [Sorry – let’s really hope Seri’s picture of us turned out better.]

My favorite part was when the circus first started, and all the performers were out there at the same time.

Lily was speechless.

Hallelujah!

Well, for a moment, at least. Then she wouldn’t stop talking of course. “Where ringmaster go? Ringmaster come back soon. Clowns come back soon.” She would just repeat that to herself whenever she couldn’t find the ringmaster or clowns. Her favorite part of the show was clearly the first overwhelmingly wonderfully busy act. Individually, the clowns, ringmaster, and elephants were her favorites.

Fun, fun!

Dear Diary

2011-02-07T21:44:00.001-08:00

From my notes over the last few weeks:

______________________

Me: Lily, do you want to be like Mommy when you grow up?

Lily: (after a thoughtful pause) No. Minnie [Mouse].

______________________

When I was doing dishes and she wanted me to cook with her.

Lily: (very seriously) Mommy, take a break.

______________________

Me: Lily, did I tell you we’re going to the circus in 2 weeks?

Lily: 1 minute. Go circus in 1 minute.

______________________

When her toy Jessie doll (from Toy Story) fell down.

Lily: Jessie fell down. I still love her.

______________________

When outside riding tricycles.

Lily: Crash into mailboxes!

______________________

When sitting at dinner with Michael, his parents, and me.

Lily: (looking around and smiling at everyone) Sittin’. Like a family.

______________________

When tasting Michael’s 1% milk.

Lily: Kinda water.

______________________

After spinning in circles on the floor and stumbling around.

Lily: Floor turnin’.

______________________

Unstoppable

2011-02-07T21:31:00.001-08:00

Nothing can stop Lily on her mission to play “talk.”

Baby dolls? Too easy. “Talk. Mommy talk.”

Animals figurines? No worries. “I be lion. Mommy here elephant. Talk.”

Star puzzle? Umm…okay. “This Foofa (pink star), this Brobee (green star), this DJ Rock (orange star), this Muno (blue star but with bumps like Muno). Mommy talk.”

No toys at all? Well… Let’s see. Aha! Crib rails! “Foofa…this one Plex…Brobee…this Muno.”

Yes, Lily was so bored in her crib tonight, we heard/saw her over her monitor naming her crib rails after Yo Gabba Gabba characters.

Just Playing

2011-02-03T09:18:00.001-08:00

Okay, here is another post that approximately 2 of my readers will be interested in. If you’re not related to Lily, you’ll want to skip this one. It’s another “day in the life” of Lily play for anyone who doesn’t get to play with her as often as they’d like. Just a too-long video of her playing “talk” by herself with me trying to clarify some of what she says.

I think my favorite parts are the tantrum-y “keep trying!” encouragement she gives herself, her pretend struggling noises when the parent doll picks up the kid doll (hmm…wonder where she has heard that!), and the fact she clarifies she will have to use the dentist and just pretend it’s the doctor.

24 out of 26

2011-02-02T22:14:00.001-08:00

I don’t know if I have mentioned this here before, but although Lily is quite bright and is often eager to count and identify shapes and colors, she appears to have an active disdain for the alphabet.

If you try to direct her attention to an alphabet toy, draw a letter for her, point out letters in a book, or any other alphabet-learning activity, she will almost always turn away from you, tell you “no,” or just ignore you.

She does NOT want to learn the alphabet, and I have no idea why.

Now before we go any further, please note that she’s not even 2 yet, I am in NO way concerned about it, okay? Don’t get all upset and start thinking that I’m trying to get her to read Wuthering Heights. That’s not the point. I know she can’t and shouldn’t read, but it’s just about trying to incorporate learning into her everyday life.

And the fact that she is actively resisting any ALPHABET learning being incorporated into her everyday life.

It’s very peculiar.

Whatever, it’s no big deal and I know she will eventually get it and now I feel all weird about having written such a long, disclaimer-filled blog post, when all I was trying to tell you is that apparently she HAS been listening, because apparently she can at least sing the alphabet pretty well. So here you go!

J gets dropped, and U is replaced with a second O, but I was pretty impressed considering I hadn’t heard her try to do this before.

No More Monkeys

2011-02-02T22:07:00.001-08:00

Now with more realistic “bonking” action!

Major Milestone

2011-01-15T14:18:00.001-08:00

Dear readers, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for.

It’s Lily’s…

first…

confirmed case…

of BED HEAD!

Some of us are more excited than others.

Kitty-palooza

2011-01-11T00:37:00.001-08:00

Lily LOVES cats.

She loves real cats.

She loves stuffed animal cats.

She loves cats that are really just stuffed animal heads with a blankie attached that are getting kind of a grayish pink and always smell vaguely of saliva.

She loves books about cats.

She loves meowing like a cat.

Cats, cats, cats.

It’s no surprise, then, that her new tricycle was a hit. Grandmom (my mom) and GrandBob gave her a snazzy new pink (score!) Hello Kitty (double score!) trike for Christmas.

She loves it, and I just loved how she squeaked her little horn whenever a car drove by. Just precious.

Color me impressed

2011-01-11T00:26:00.001-08:00

A few weeks ago, colors suddenly seemed to “click” with Lily. Before, she could sometimes name colors when asked, but would just as often call everything “blue” or “red.” It was almost overnight that she started naming colors appropriately (pink, red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, brown, black and white). Yay, Lily!

Around the same time, it has become clear that Lily has some favorite colors. Like singing, this isn’t something I had given much thought to until it happened, but it quickly became clear that Lily LOVES pink. This is extremely fortunate because practically everything she owns is pink. I’ll admit she wears more pink than the average girl, but we get a lot more “how old is he?” type comments whenever we stray from a VERY girl color palate in her dress.

Bless her bald self.

Like I was saying, she loves pink, and it was definitely the first color she identified properly with consistency. She loves to point out items that are pink, and will pick the pink items out of a set of multi-colored items to hold.

At the doctor’s office, she insists on a “pink lollipop,” and will repeatedly remind the nurses and doctor throughout the visit that she wants a PINK lollipop in exchange for her cooperation. If they do not comply and give her an orange lollipop, she will give it back and again ask for a pink one. I have actually seen this happen.

Every time we color, she reminds me that we do not have a pink marker, and she is clearly dissatisfied with our pink crayon that is not vibrant enough to really be worth using.

Her other favorite color is turquoise, it seems. She calls it blue just like any other blue, but when presented with different colors to chose from, she will pick a turquoise shade of blue (provided no pink is available, of course!).

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised she has an opinion on colors since she certainly has opinions about other things.

Like broccoli and huggy strangers, for example.

Two thumbs down for both of those.

“Mommy have baby, please?”

2011-01-11T00:12:00.001-08:00

Let me start by saying:

THIS POST IS NOT ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK IT’S ABOUT.

STEP AWAY FROM THE BABIES ‘R US AND YOUR KNITTING/CROCHET/EPIDURAL NEEDLES.

I AM NOT PREGNANT, NOR AM I TRYING TO GET PREGNANT.

And that, dear readers, is what makes it so awkwardly funny.

Yes, Lily now goes around all the time saying this:

Yes, that was “Mommy have baby, please?”

(and it’s usually more fluid than that – it’s just the only one I have on video since I don’t usually encourage it)

Oh, dear.

I believe it stems from how I try to have her ask for things in complete sentences and without whining. For example, instead of losing her dang mind and shouting “baby! baby!” when she wants to hold a baby doll (as she is wont to do), I have her calm the heck down and repeat “Mommy, may I have the baby/cheese/car/etc., please?” after I model it for her. She usually gets most of the sentence correct, but the goal is really for her to say “please” and to stay calm when asking for something she wants. So now, if she is whining for something, I sometimes start her out on “asking more appropriately” by saying “Mommy, may…” My only guess is that her new phrase is related to this politeness training, but who knows? She just says, “Mommy have baby, please?” out of the blue and grins at me.

Awkward.

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Also awkward.

All I want for Christmas…

2011-01-11T00:00:00.001-08:00

Dear Lily,

I understand that you are young.

This was only your second Christmas.

We did a LOT of cramming between Thanksgiving and Christmas, learning about everything from elves to reindeer to snowmen to Christmas tress to Santa to baby Jesus (more on that one in another post).

You did an awesome job, because you are a brainiac with a scary-good memory.

Apparently, however, we forgot to emphasize that Mr. Kringle needs a LIST of items that you want for Christmas BEFORE Christmas.

Jolly old St. Nick cannot always read minds.

Christmas morning, Lily, is not the time to let everyone know that you desperately hope that one of the packages contains a [Toy Story] big Jessie toy with a removable hat.

Because maybe, just maybe, Santa did not realize that you had your heart set on a cowgirl of your very own.

I’m just saying.

Love,

Mommy

(honorary ambassador for Santa)

Hey, good-lookin’

2011-01-10T23:57:00.001-08:00

Lily got a new kitchen/bake shop for Christmas, and she has really been enjoying it. Her newfound love of cooking can be useful sometimes when I need to cook real food, too, because she can cook next to me and enjoys feeling like we’re still playing together.

Here, she is carefully doling out her tortellini to Minnie, Mickey, and an imaginary Goofy and Donald Duck.

Next thing you know, we’ll be filming “Cooking with Lily” episodes.

Lately, her favorite activities in her own little kitchen are making birthday cake and making “dazzle-berry lemonade” as seen in an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba.

I know adults are supposed to have longer attention spans than toddlers do, but this girl could make birthday cake and lemonade all day long, so I usually feel like I’m admitting defeat when I tell her I just can’t possibly eat any more cake or lemonade.

When I need a change of pace from cake and lemonade, then it’s time to very thoughtfully suggest we make Daddy breakfast in bed!

Wakey wakey, Daddy!

Oh, her mischievous grin reminds me of her favorite game to play while cooking. She loves to make you food or a drink, and then wait for you to eat or drink it. Then she grins like mad and shouts “Hot! Hot!” so that you can act like you didn’t know it was too hot, and have to frantically try to cool your mouth and the food/drink down.

Bottom line – she likes to pretend to trick people into eating food that’s too hot.

Let’s not examine that one too closely either, okay?

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Bon appetit!

Lily Quotes

2011-01-10T23:55:00.001-08:00

I have the world’s worst memory, but Lily cracks me up on a daily basis with the things she says these days. To hear her wandering around saying things like, “Where is he? Oh! Here he is!” when she just started putting words together a few months ago is just amazing to me.

I’m trying to remember the kinds of things she says at this age since it all changes so quickly. We all know this won’t be as regular a feature as either you or I would like, but I did jot down a few things this weekend, so yay for me!

Some of these quotes are just funny to me, some reflect my amazement at her memory and the associations she makes, and some are notable because they are more complex in structure or vocabulary than she usually uses.

Or, um, I just want to remember them, okay? My baby is growing up at lightning speed, and I am trying to hold on to some of it before her sweet “Mommy, hold you, please” becomes “MOM – you’re embarrassing me!”

___________________________

Mommy: What do you want for lunch, Lily?

Lily: Cookies!

Mommy: Lily, we can’t have cookies for lunch. (looking in fridge) How about…

Lily: How about cookies!

___________________________

Mommy: (Gives Lily a kiss on the head.)

Lily: No more kisses!

Mommy: Oh no! What would I do without kisses?!

Lily: Be sad.

___________________________

Two frequent phrases these days : “Whas zat?” [What’s that?] and “Whatcha doin’ Mommy/Daddy?”

___________________________

Lily (while on the floor and wailing): Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!

(On second thought, I think this needs its own post.)

___________________________

Hmmm…it seems that that’s all I wrote down, but I will try to jot down some notes and see if I can get some of the funnier ones.

Saved

2011-01-10T23:47:00.001-08:00

Lily was quite enamored with the two nativity sets we put out this year, and loved to hold baby Jesus (with supervision, as our sets are fragile). She quickly picked up on the major players, often spotting “Jesus, Mary, and Joesus” (close enough!) in stores and books this holiday season.

But, when you see my toddler sprawled on the floor of my den screaming for “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!,” please don’t assume she’s having a religious epiphany.

She’s just having a tantrum because she’s not allowed to let baby Jesus drive a school bus.

Impromptu House Rule #457:

Baby Jesus may not operate heavy machinery.

Singing!

2011-01-10T23:46:00.001-08:00

Singing is a milestone I never gave much thought to before I had Lily.

And before this week, quite honestly.

I knew Lily wasn’t “singing” before, even though she would repeat song lyrics and mouth along to songs.

This past week she has finally started to put more variation in her tone so that it finally has started to sound more melodious and more like actual singing. She woke us up this morning with a medley of Yo Gabba Gabba songs: “Oh so sorry…oh so sorry…What was zat sound?…in tree!…Mommy come in now!”

Okay, so the last wasn’t part of a song, but it’s so much nicer to wake up to when it’s preceded by a serenade.

She’s not quite ready for Broadway, but it’s sweet to hear her try to sing along with us (and even sweeter when she’s singing to herself in her bed or while she’s playing).

I tried to video her singing today, but she wasn’t as into it by the time I got the camera out. Just wanted to document that she’s singing now – will keep trying to get a video.

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

2011-01-10T23:39:00.001-08:00

As I just mentioned (Alert! Looks like it’s another Bogle Blogging Frenzy! Prepare the coffee, STAT!), we got quite the snow today in Greenville. After Michael finished some of his work, we gook Lily outside to experience the snow. Here are her first impressions:

Overall, I would say that she wasn’t that into the snow. She liked looking at it, but doesn’t seem to like walking in it very much.

She didn’t want to sled, so Michael and I tried sledding on our driveway to entice her. We cleared her off a space on the driveway and let her sit on a basket to watch.

She really didn’t seem to like us falling at all, although I particularly enjoyed it when Michael tried to sled on the extremely powdery snow on the grass:

We eventually persuaded her to ride with me in the world’s slowest sled ride, but as you can tell, she still wasn’t into it.

Although she didn’t want to ride on the sled, she was more than willing to let us drag her wagon through the snowy street, and seemed to enjoy the snow more if she didn’t have to touch it.

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Snowed in and loving it!

Cheater, Cheater, Snow Eater

2011-01-10T23:38:00.001-08:00

As you may or may not have heard, South Carolina was seriously dumped on today by a serious winter storm. We got 6 to 7 inches of very powdery snow this morning, topped off with a glaze of freezing rain/sleet this afternoon. As a stay-at-home mom, my pint-sized boss wasn’t accepting my “I can’t make it to the office” excuses this morning, but at least we had a few new activities to keep us busy today.

Michael didn’t have to go into the office, but still had to work from home for part of the day. Since I didn’t want him to miss the fun of seeing Lily in the snow, I cheated and brought some of the snow inside for Lily to explore while he was working this morning.

I think her favorite activity was eating it.

And sharing, of course. She has been very sweet lately about offering to share with Michael and me.

She’ll even share her prized possession with us…Annabelle. (a.k.a. her lovey; a.k.a. stinky kitty).

After a quick “nuggle,” though, you are expected to give it back.

Sounds reasonable.

Of course, then she takes it back and asks you to “Mommy, be sad.”

She also still asks you to be sad as a bargaining chip when you’re asking her to eat something she doesn’t really want to eat. You ask her to eat green beans. She counters with, “Mommy, be sad.” If you accept her bargain, she will eat the green bean, and then wait for you to pretend to cry in a very dramatic fashion (she doesn’t actually like for you to be genuinely upset, so that’s a positive at least). I can’t remember if I have blogged about this before, but it started with just carrots because of a Yo Gabba Gabba episode.

Bottom line – she really gets a kick out of watching people pretend to be sad.

Let’s not examine that too closely, okay?

_________________________________________

Lily’s other highlight from our indoor snow play, which preceded our outdoor snow play once Michael was able to take a break, related to our indoor snowman.

I pretty much did all the work because Lily doesn’t seem to be a huge fan of putting her hands in the snow other than to eat some. When I was finished, she told me I needed to go find a carrot for the nose. I came back with our supplies, and decorated the snowman.

Honestly, Lily wasn’t really all that into the snowman.

Until I had her pose with him for a picture.

That’s when she discovered the bowl of our leftover “supplies,” and asked if she could eat what she found.

OMG, Mommy. His eyes are chocolate.

Poor snowman.

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Home of the original giant, snowman-eyeball-eating baby.

Still Talkin’

2011-01-10T23:31:00.001-08:00

As I have mentioned before, Lily has been really into pretend play involving having toys “talk” to each other.

Yeah, we’re still into that.

Big time.

Just thought you might want an update.

She loves her dollhouse and other dolls/figures that she has. The dolls do a lot of sleeping, eating, and falling down, which sounds about right.

She still tries to turn almost any activity into a game of “talk,” often insisting that the adult take one toy and facilitate this game. She even tries to play “talk” with some of the pictures in her books.

Today, we first enjoyed traditional “talk” with some baby dolls my mom gave her for Christmas.

Then we played some Play-Doh “talk.”

Then, nesting bucket “talk.”

Yeah, you’d think that would be a tricky one to pull off, but she ended up making a staircase for the blocks to walk on while they talked to their friends (the other blocks). A lack of moving parts and faces will not deter her from her goal.

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Talk amongst yourselves.

Two Steps Back

2011-01-10T23:26:00.001-08:00

You know, sometimes Lily seems to be moving forward with meeting new self-help milestones…

…and sometimes, well, we get this:

Mommy, I dare you to try to make me use the spoon…

Oh yeah…you can’t! Bwahahahaha!

Ugh.

Parents of the Year Nominees

2010-12-12T23:34:00.001-08:00

You know, as parents we don’t always think things through.

Take, for example, our entry into the Parents-of-the-Year contest.

First, some context.

Lily likes to clip her buckle on her high chair when she’s not sitting in it.

Michael and I sometimes sing silly songs about whatever’s going on – replacing lyrics from a tune with our own lyrics. You know the kind – “this is the way we eat our peas” kind of thing.

We had a cute little ditty about clipping belts.

No big deal, right?

Until your child is making a reference to “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” in Costco.

Ummm…oops?

Now if you don’t know what “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” is, then you are not currently at your phone dialing child protective services.

If you do know what it is and are able to multi-task reading this and filing a report on us at the same time, just know that we would NEVER let her watch that show. Not even when she’s 40. She DID NOT WATCH the show. But, we just didn’t think things through when we modified an “It’s Always Sunny” song about playing flip-cup (a DRINKING GAME) to make a ditty about buckling safety belts.

And so, instead of “Flipadelphia,” my child chants this in the middle of Costco as I buckle her cart belt:

As soon as it came out of her mouth, the full realization that my 1 year old was referencing a HIGHLY inappropriate show finally hit me. How did we not see that this would be a bad idea? I started shushing her and frantically looking around to see if someone was coming to take my baby away because they thought I was letting her watch “It’s Always Sunny.”

Again, I say to you: oops.

It was the best of times, it was the not-so-hottest of times

2010-12-12T22:51:00.001-08:00

Greetings, readers! Yes, it’s been WAY too long, and that’s a real shame because this has been one of the most fun periods of Lily’s development so far. Do you even remember what she looks like? Here she is from earlier tonight:

Okay, so pretty much the same…but with new headgear! That’s a purse my mom made that Lily borrowed to haul her stuff around in. Also makes a nice hat apparently.

Last time I blogged, it looks like Lily was putting words together, and starting to make short 2 and a few 3 word sentences. Over the last month, Lily has continued to become even chattier, of course, and now regularly speaks in longer phrases and sentences.

And it

CRACKS

UP.

I mean, seriously. We hear her in the morning over the monitor when she wakes up, saying “Mommy. Daddy. Mommy. Daddy. Daddy mow lawns. Come back soon.”

This is all said clear as a bell, and I find it hilarious. (Remember, she thinks Michael mows lawns for a living? Wondering when we need to correct this so she doesn’t get too confused…) Who knows what goes through her sweet little head, but I believe she’s debating to herself who is going to come and get her. Maybe she’s deciding that she may have woken up too late and Daddy is already gone mowing lawns for the day (but will be back soon)? Who knows, but I love it.

I can’t even begin to cover everything I have missed blogging about. A trip to FL to visit my family, lots of football games, Thanksgiving, and lots of pre-Christmas training. I hope to go back and get some of that caught up, but for now, here are some funny things she says that stand out to me right now:

I LOVED it when she came over to me the other day, patted me on the shoulder, and said “best friend.” Melt my heart. However, when you ask her who her best friend is, she knows that saying anyone BUT Mommy is most likely to get a “Hey!” reaction from me, and she loves the teasing “Hey!” reaction more than anything. (e.g. “Heyyyy! I thought that *I* was your best friend!”; “Heyyyy! That’s MY chair!” etc.)

On Thanksgiving, I specifically remember her looking at us and saying “Read book one last time” when we told her it was time for bed. She has only gotten more insistent on negotiating since then. She LOVES to read at night (almost as much as she likes putting off going to bed!), and is always angling for more books. “One more book” and “one more minute” are common phrases. If you pick her up and she really wants to protest, she might escalate with “one more minute, one more minute, one, two, three, four, nine, TEN!!!!!!!!!!” (as she escalates the last into a despairing wail) Not sure why she counts like that when “negotiating,” but it’s almost always 1-2-3-4-9-10. When counting normally, however, she counts to 12 perfectly, and can count to 20 except for skipping over 13 and 15.

Tonight when we put her in bed after her unsuccessful requests for more books, she informed us she would “read all by myself” in her bed. I’m not sure if we were supposed to feel sorry for her or if she was just sticking it to us, but it was funny.

Oh, to clarify the title – one of the more recent reasons for my lack of blogging lately has been my bronchitis – not the best of times, for sure. I’m still not feeling so hot, but oh well. I have to admit that Lily has been catching up on some TV-watching lately on the days that I felt the worst. As you may remember, her favorite show is Yo Gabba Gabba (Nick Jr.), and one of the songs they sing is about how you should “keep trying…keep trying…don’t give up…never give up.” When Lily gets frustrated now (like if she is trying to line up some toys and they keep falling over or if she can’t get a puzzle piece to fit), she might get upset and even cry, but you can often hear her yelling to herself through her tears/frustration “keep trying! keep trying!” Love that persistence!

Oh, and then she throws the puzzle across the room.

I mean, she’s not perfect.

Lily has a few phrases she says oddly, in spite of the fact that she really COULD say them more clearly. For example, “gay gay” is how she says “thank you,” even though if you ask her to really clearly say “thank” then “you,” she will say “dank you.” Give her something she wants, though? “Gay gay.” Who knows. Another one is “way-way” said in a very high-pitched soft voice. She can say “wake up” very clearly, but will usually tell you to “way-way” if you’re pretending to sleep or if someone in a book is sleeping or if toys are sleeping or if anyone in her vicinity is even thinking about trying to get some sleep. It’s very sweet, and we finally thought to tape it the other day before she stops.

When I was feeling particularly awful the other morning, I had my head down on the table while Lily was eating breakfast. She kept telling me to “way-way” and “sit up, Mommy,” but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Then, she gets a twinkle in her eye, leans toward me with a smile, and says very sweetly, “Sit up, cowboy.” Crack. Me. Up.

She LOVES cowboys. And mustaches. We watched part of Babes in Toyland the other day because it was one of my favorite Christmas movies growing up, and this is her favorite character:

Yeah, she doesn’t get that he’s the bad guy trying to do away with our hero and wed his grieving girlfriend, but Lily’s a sucker for a mustache.

Lily often looks like she desperately wants to sing along when you sing something she knows, and she will often dance and mouth the words with you, but won’t usually sing. She has a few phrases from songs that she’ll say on her own (that I think she’s trying to sing), but she’s really not singing yet. She does do a pretty good “ring around the rosie” on her own.

Recently, she likes to make her food play “ring around the rosie” on her tray whenever she’s getting close to the end of the meal. This is all on her own, as it’s certainly not something I encourage. However, it does cue me that her favorite mealtime finale is soon to come if I ignore the fact that she’s clearly “done” with the meal (i.e. something “accidentally” dropped on the floor), so it does come in handy at times.

Well, that’s all I can think of for now – she talks pretty much all the time, and blows my mind with the ever-increasing complexity of her language and the thought processes they reveal.

Lily – you won’t read this for many years to come, but just know that your mommy thinks you are one heck of a smart cookie. (Almost creepy-smart. Stop remembering EVERYTHING! Your father and I haven’t learned yet to watch everything we say in front of you and I’m afraid you’re going to pick up on my “Oh, I need to remember to shop for…I mean SANTA needs to shop for…I mean…Lily, look! A cat!”)

Speaking of smarty-pants-ness/nerdiness, I would like to close with a poll for you, my dear readers. Michael and I have a very serious debate that we desperately need your help in resolving:

Which of the following games that our 1 year old plays is nerdier?

Game #1:

Lily (or someone else) tries to make a small PVC animal stand up on a table. Because of poor design, the animal falls over every time, often in dramatic fashion that Lily finds quite amusing. When this happens, she laughs and exclaims, “Oh, tapir!” (You see, because it’s a tapir.)

Game #2:

Lily (or someone else) knocks a stuffed toy off of a surface, causing it to shake and make a trilling noise. Lily laughs and exclaims, “Oh, tribble!” (You see, because it’s a tribble…well, a tribble toy.)

Which of these items is nerdier for our tot to name? You cannot say BOTH, mind you. They are BOTH nerdy, my friends, but which is NERDIER.

Discuss.

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Nerds raising nerds. Someone’s gotta do it.

Missing: One Baby

2010-11-02T13:11:00.001-07:00

About two weeks ago, Lily started really completing her words more. “Tay-tay” became “table,” “die-die” became “dine-saurs,” and so on. She imitates almost any sound she hears, and only struggles with “s” sound blends as far as I can tell (i.e. snake is “hnake” if you can imagine how that is pronounced).

It has been so fun to hear her start to talk more like a big girl, but we’re already a little nostalgic for the baby words. Although she sometimes still calls Annabelle (her lovey) by the odd lip-popping sound, she will also call her “kikky cat” or something that sounds like “airmail” or “amma-hell.”

Well, hold on to your hats, folks, because we are also breezing right through several other milestones. Lily has started using a lot more phrases (like “come in,” “right here,” “dress up,” “go bye-bye,” etc.), but now will even throw out some short sentences (i.e. “Mama draw”). This afternoon, she was putting her fireman’s hat on a stuffed frog named Tad, and told me “Tad wear hat.”

Heartwarming.

Pride-inducing.

Kinda freakin’ me out.

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Has anyone seen my baby?

Dress-up

2010-10-27T22:57:00.001-07:00

Somehow, this is not what I envisioned when thinking about playing dress-up with my daughter.

I would like to start by saying that she picked these items out herself.

I repeat, this is not a photo-op where I put crazy things on her just for a picture.

We really were just going though her dress-up bin, and she asked to put each of these things on.

She dressed me in a pirate hat and a lion mask.

She selected these items for herself.

I have no other words.

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Yeah, we will be having nightmares, too

War Party!

2010-10-18T21:04:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday, October 16th, Michael and I took Lily to a small fall festival at a church just down the road from us. We had seen it advertised earlier in the week with signs for pumpkins, apples, bouncy house thingies, crafts, pony rides, etc., and thought it might be worth stopping by. She doesn’t usually like bouncy houses (although on Friday, she enjoyed going down a big bouncy slide with her playgroup friends – yay, Lily!), and although she loves looking at horses she’s obviously too young for pony rides, but we figured there might be something she could do.

We pulled in, and parked facing the field where they were doing pony rides.

As I surveyed the field with vague interest, I saw an ADULT riding the pony, with her small child in her lap.

It was at that point that I knew I was doomed.

As we predicted, Lily’s first words getting out of the car were about the ponies, and her desire to ride them. With a promise that we would come back to the ponies, we were able to explore the rest of the festival.

Here she is as she arrived on the scene.

She is clearly too cool to be seen with us.

I didn’t get pictures of some of the festival, but she was able to see some bees in their honeycomb and pet a chicken. She also got to see the church school’s mascot which was a person dressed as a cougar (I think it was a cougar – that’s my best guess). If you remember her experiences with McGruff the crime dog, you can guess how this went.

Yep, lots of high fives, and then longing stares as the cougar walked away.

After checking out the rest of the festival, we returned to the ponies’ field for my dreaded pony ride. To my great relief, they also allow parents to hold their child on the pony and walk next to them. I had had visions of my pony bolting and charging down Woodruff Road, so we picked option B with my hope that I could yank Lily off if need be. We bought our ticket for ONE rider, thank-you-very-much, and waited for our pony. Lily was very excited, and kept shouting pony and ride until we were able to get her mounted.

Here is a long-distance action shot. Doesn’t that look like a comfortable position to hold your precious child in while circling a field and trying to prevent them from falling off and plunging to the ground while also trying to keep your feet from getting stepped on by the pony? Yeah…it was as comfortable as it looks.

All in all, it was a cute little festival, and Lily loved riding her pony. They said she was the youngest rider they had had, and that she did super.

Oh, and the pony’s name?

War Party.

Funny how they didn’t tell me this until we were halfway around the track.

About a penguin, a walrus, and a dinosaur we call a parrot

2010-10-16T23:10:00.001-07:00

First off, let me explain that we call the dinosaur a parrot because I thought it would be easier than telling her all about dinosaurs that look like birds. However, we reap what we sow, and if you know me at all, you will probably not be surprised to know that now my inner nerd cringes every time we call it a parrot.

Argh.

Crippling and unnecessary precision – a rare talent of mine.

As to what in the world I’m talking about, I wanted to share what Lily is up to these days, of course! Lily has been into baby dolls and Little People type types for a long time, and enjoyed feeding them, changing them, and putting them down to go to sleep. Her play then progressed to having the dolls/animals/etc. run errands (to get milk), go to the zoo, cook dinner, etc. Lately, she has gotten even more into pretend play, and can more independently act out schemes that she and I have played before, and also things she has seen in book/s or experienced herself. My current favorite is one she came up with on her own after reading a book about being careful. She will have a doll “run, run, run” then announces that they are carrying “scissors.” Then, they usually get “hurt” and we need Band-Aids (I can’t spell how she says that, but she does say it). “Oh no.”

Anyway, please note that way back there I said that she CAN play more independently, and she often does, but that certainly does not mean that she WANTS to play by herself. These days, she loves nothing more than for someone to play “talk” with her. That’s when she gives you some toys, and you make them talk and perform for her. If you have her hold a toy to participate, she can answer for the character when asked “what’s your name?” and will usually correctly answer what the character, animal, or even block would say. The characters she acts out then usually end up chasing, falling and getting hurt, coughing or sneezing and needing to go to the doctor, eating, sleeping, or sitting. As much as it drives me nuts sometimes to play “talk” all day (especially last week, because we were both sick and were stuck at the house most of the week), I am loving this stage and watching her imagination develop.

For you those of you with time to kill, I present a day in the life – a snippet of what bath time with Lily might entail. There is a real lull a few minutes in, but we were trying to let her do her own thing without directing her much, even if it got less entertaining. And although I edit some photos, I am way too lazy to edit videos. We join Lily here after she has already been playing for 5 minutes or so, and we got the camera after she started having the walrus boss the penguin around, telling him to get out of the communal feed cup.

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Teaching important life lessons, such as “Running with scissors = Band-Aids”

Stop, Drop, and High Five

2010-10-16T22:49:00.001-07:00

Lily loves fire trucks, and every day when we leave our house (and again when we come home) she has to choose whether she wants to look at horses or fire trucks. That is because about a mile from our house, there is a pasture with three horses directly across the road from fire station that always has its fire trucks outside, or inside with the doors open. I always warn her when they are coming and ask which one she wants to look at, and these days she pretty much always chooses the fire trucks and talks about how they are “home” (I think she has finally switched from “homo” to “home”).

Lily was VERY excited to see a real fire truck at the library October 4th when we went for an evening story time. (I forgot my camera that night, so all we have are some videos from our Flip.) We showed up a little early, and tried to contain Lily as she repeated announced to everyone that she was trying to find a fire truck. Lily was very attentive while the firefighters talked to the children about not fleeing in terror when they see a fully dressed fireman, and about how to stop, drop, and roll. Then, Lily got to charge outside to view the actual truck. She charged through the library as fast as her little legs would carry her, sprinting to the front door to go see the truck (and, as usual, also turning it into a game of “chase”).

As soon as she saw it, she started saying “turn! turn!” which is a new thing for her, and is meant to indicate that she really wants to ride/do something ASAP. As in, “it’s Lily’s turn now!!!!” She got to walk through the truck, and sit in the driver’s seat. She had a great time, and talked about it for the rest of the week, how she got to drive a fire truck and the “men” (firemen) gave her a sticker, hat, and book.

Something the firefighters said must have made an impression on Lily, because before bed that night when we were reading “Goodnight, Moon,” Lily started pointing at the fireplace in the book, saying “fire” and then, “hurt…hurt” in a really sad voice. I don’t think I’ve ever really mentioned that fires can hurt you, because it just hasn’t ever come up before. The firemen didn’t make a huge deal of it, but they did mention that you should stop, drop, and roll if your clothes catch on fire so it doesn’t hurt you. Apparently she really WAS listening! I reassured her that the fire wouldn’t hurt her, and that she just shouldn’t touch fires (and randomly added that she should always tell mommy if she sees a fire, which I anticipate will lead to a lot of candle-spotting games…I hadn’t really thought this fire-safety talk out – I just thought it was funny how unprepared I am for handling impromptu safety conversations and how much it panics me to think that she doesn’t really know what to do if she comes across a fire or a road or a rabid dog or Africanized Killer Bees or dog poo or serial killers in vans offering free puppies…ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!). Now, when we pass the fire station and the fire trucks aren’t home (or the doors are closed), we might talk about how the fire trucks might be out helping someone or putting out a fire. She then starts saying, “fire…hurt” in that sad voice, and it just makes me want to protect her and lie about how fires never hurt people. I’m not sure why she takes this so seriously, but I guess it’s better than having a little firebug on our hands.

Last weekend (October 10th), the fire station we pass every day had an open house, so we dropped by, thinking she would LOVE seeing all of the fire trucks out on display, as well as an ambulance, a police car, and a real police dog!

Here she is getting geared up for our trip!

She is going to LOVE this, right?

Ummmm…not so much.

She had NO interest in the fire trucks, gave the German Shepherd only a passing pat, and couldn’t have cared less about the ambulance and police car.

She WILL accept a lollipop from firemen, though, thank-you-very-much.

Oops…caught Daddy mid-bite in his hotdog. Hey, it was for a good cause!

So who was the real star of the show in Lily’s eyes?

Yes, that’s McGruff the crime dog.

She thought he was the bees knees, and wanted to follow him around, asking him to give her a high five. She wouldn’t talk to him much, but would wave and ask for “five.” He obliged, and would eventually move on to greet other children, and she would stare him down from across the parking lot until we went over and asked for more high fives. The man in the costume eventually got hot, and went to change. After a while, Lily realized the BIG pup-pup was nowhere to be seen, and started getting a little frantic. We eventually had to leave because her cries for “pup pup! five five!” were getting a little to loud and desperate. (I should mention that we really pushed back her nap in order to attend this event.) The rest of the day, she talked about the dog and giving him five. She actually said, “pup-pup! Big!” (she combined this with hand gestures to indicate “big” at one point when we didn’t realize what she was talking about – may have been the first time I really noted her using an adjective? I’ll have to think about that one.) She still loves to look at the picture of her and McGruff (and give my computer screen “five” with her sticky little hands) and watch the video.

So that you can share in the joy:

Was it all you imagined? If anyone knows of anywhere we can meet McGruff again, please be sure to let us know!

Teaser

2010-10-16T22:48:00.001-07:00

I got some cute photos of Lily the other night after Boo-in-the-Zoo, a Halloween event at the Greenville Zoo we attended on Friday night with some of our friends. I will have to write a separate post about that, with pictures of her costume! But for now, here is a teaser…one of a series of pictures I took when we got home. She couldn’t eat most of the candy we got at the zoo (gee…whatever will we do with the candy she couldn’t eat? I’d hate to throw it away…), but she has had a lollipop before at the doctor’s office after shots*, so we let her have a Dum-Dum after dinner in her high chair. She was a drooly, sticky mess, but she was SO excited to be getting a lollipop that she got super-silly and gave some cute poses. I love having lots of cute pictures, of course, but it makes it tougher to stay up-to-date because there is more to sort through. I also can’t resist tweaking cute photos, which adds to the work. I’m not sure it’s worth the time, but I do think the edited photo is just a little better and corrects for the poor lighting in my house. I’m not going over-the-top, just doing basic edits and it only takes about 1 minute. Any thoughts?

Before:

After:

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

I tease you!

*Okay, so she has had a couple of other lollipops in her short little life (like at the fire station as mentioned in another post I just wrote), but the strangest place is at the liquor store. I brought her in with me to pick up something one afternoon, and the guy at the checkout offered her a lollipop while asking me if it’s okay. Gee, sir, could I possibly say “no” now without shattering your eardrums as the lollipop is already in her hand? Anyway, the most amazing part, is that he then proceeded to tell Lily that she should always tell mommy to come back to the “Lollipop Shop” (which I assure you was not the actual name of the store). Does anyone else think that was a bit bizarre/inappropriate?

Silver Lining

2010-10-16T21:36:00.001-07:00

Tonight, Michael, Lily, and I watched the USC-Kentucky game, which ended in a frustrating loss. Lily obviously doesn’t “get” football, but will occasionally pipe up with “go go go go!” if Michael and I get excited, and often refers to the fact that the players throw, catch, kick, and fall (“Fall! Fall! Kaboom!).

During the last few minutes of tonight’s game, Lily, quite appropriately, decided to play one of her favorite games. It’s called “sad,” and it’s when she tells me to be “sad” and “cry.” If I don’t do it, she whines and repeats herself until I genuinely want to cry, so she pretty much wins either way. She will sometimes do a fake cry herself, but she by far prefers me to be “sad.” Once I start “crying,” she will turn to Michael and start shouting “mom-mom…sad!” (this past week, I became “mom-mom” instead of “mama,” and Michael is now “dad-dad” instead of “dada”) until he acknowledges I am sad. Then, she will pat me on my leg or shoulder, hug me, or share her lovey with me to cheer me up. Then she tells me to be “sad” again, and we repeat this process 5,000 times or until I just can’t take it anymore. It’s quite a ridiculous game, and I try not to focus too much on what it means that her favorite game is watching other people be sad.

I will eventually get to a point here, I promise.

So tonight, I think I did some of my finest “sad” work ever, because I was, indeed, quite sad that the Gamecocks let this game get away from them. Michael and I were both a bit dejected as the football game ended. I convinced Lily that our game of faking “sad” was also over, so we turned the TV off and got ready to take Lily upstairs for bed.

That’s when Lily walked over to her toy shopping basket, plopped it on her head, and announced that she was wearing a “helmel” (helmet). I ran to grab my camera, and:

She was SO proud of herself, and I thought it was just adorable. I was amazed, too, that she thought of it as a helmet instead of a hat – she has known about football helmets for a while, but she has never seen one in person, and we didn’t really talk about them tonight. I just love watching her mind work! The timing was perfect, and gave me the laugh I needed to forget my frustration.

She wore her “helmel” as we went upstairs, and insisted on wearing it while Michael read her some of her bedtime stories.

Thanks for lightening the mood, baby!

You spin me right round baby, right round

2010-10-01T18:31:00.001-07:00

As you saw in the “wiggle no” video clip in Lily’s 18-month post, Lily likes to run in circles around other people, as well as spin in circles herself. The “wiggle no” clip was excerpted from a much longer video of a particularly dedicated Daddy-circling session. This is extremely long, but again, grandparents might enjoy.

I’m starting with the Lily in the mirror

2010-10-01T12:40:00.001-07:00

When we went to the West-Thompson wedding a few weeks ago, we stayed in a hotel room with a mirrored closet door. Lily was fascinated! She loved playing peekaboo, sharing, hugging, kissing, chasing, and hiding from the “Lily” in the mirror.

This is a MARATHON of a video, so most of you will want to move right along. Grandparents, however, might get a kick out of this.

Dinner Theater

2010-09-29T21:44:00.001-07:00

Nothing exciting, but in case you need your fix of Lily giggles…

Rainbows at Mimi and Papa’s House – Day 6 – September 1, 2010

2010-09-29T21:42:00.001-07:00

[From Mimi Bogle:]

This was Lily’s last day and so we just chilled out together. We did have a friend drop by to visit and again play outside in our water tub. Once again Lily had such a good time with this box that Papa brought back from his office. In the afternoon after she woke up from her nap, I had to go to the grocery store then we went to a local Toy Store where she played all over the place. They had a group of small girls (3-4 year olds) having a tea party. This store was one of Michael’s favorite places when he was little. The location and size of the store has changed through the years but still has the very large train with tracks suspended from the ceiling going all over the store. I have know the owner of this store for many years and she so enjoyed seeing Michael’s child for she remembers him coming in the store with his happy smile. Lily was an angel just flitting all over the store looking at everything and of course smiling and talking. Of course her favorite was all the babies (baby dolls on the shelves and 3-4 year old children) NOT to mention a giant stuffed giraffe which she fell in love with. Now, Lily we were all over the zoo shops looking at all of the animals as well as countless sizes and kinds of giraffes where she refused every one of them, of course after she kissed, hugged and held all the versions. NOW you fall in love with a GIANT giraffe and I do mean GIANT. I had my doubts she would leave the store willingly but she happily did her regal wave bye bye and off we were back to Mimi and Papa’s place. Of course at night when Papa came home she fed the fish and we went to the playground after dinner.

That night Mommy and Daddy came home from their wonderful trip to Aruba but as exciting as it sounded it could not begin to compare to OUR wonderful treasured vacation. We fell in love with this little girl the moment our son came outside the delivery room and proudly announced her name Lily Grace Bogle. Mommy and Daddy you have done such a WONDERFUL job with this sweet HAPPY little girl and we do SOOOOOOOOOOO love being her Mimi and Papa!

________________________________________________

Thank you so much for watching Lily for us and for recording all these wonderful memories for us and for Lily. We love you, too, Mimi and Papa Bogle!

Love,

The Bogle Family Blog

Do we get credit for having blogged even if we didn’t write the posts?

Rainbows at Mimi and Papa’s House – Day 5 – August 31, 2010

2010-09-29T21:34:00.001-07:00

[From Mimi Bogle:]

I THOUGHT we would go to the library again but you guessed it, Lily wanted to go and feed the giraffes, who were anxiously waiting for her to come and feed them. So I did what every grandparent would do, I indulged and we happily went again. Lily is so into feeding animals, baby dolls, statues and anything with a mouth. (Who knows maybe Lily will be a famous chief with her quirky lip smacking sounds– all celebrity chiefs seem to have some kind of eccentric motion or saying associated with them.) As did Michael, she never seemed to lose interest in going there. As soon as she got up she would talk about the giraffes at the zoo and ask me “feed” with her hand motions. When I asked her what the giraffes ate she would tell me lettuce. I of course just beamed. What a memory!!! It was a beautiful day with endless things to do and see. This time we spent more time in other exhibits and enjoyed going thru the wallabies and of course she wanted to hug and hold them. Her little hand motions caught the attention of everyone around us and they also enjoyed her sweetness. I of course just beamed with pride. We went home (or as Lily would say homo). After naptime, we went to a friend’s house that had her grandchild (almost 2 1/2) and they played outside with a bucket of water and cups just running, laughing and playing. OF COURSE I FORGOT MY CAMERA. BOOOOOOOO MIMI!!!!

Rainbows at Mimi and Papa’s House – Day 4 – August 30, 2010

2010-09-29T21:32:00.001-07:00

[From Mimi Bogle:]

We went to the Main Library downtown where they have a wonderful children’s library. They have an entire floor dedicated to children. We waited around getting to know some of the children that were gathering for their Mother Goose Story Time followed by a puppet show. Lily was a little shy in the beginning but soon warmed up especially with the animals and toddlers sitting all around the couches in the library. All the children there were in her age group which made it easier for her. We spent a wonderful morning and of course did not want to leave but I told her we were going to see Papa at his office for him to show her off. She had a blast just running up and down the endless hallways in this very large complex. She would laugh and scream with delight asking Papa to “cha, cha, cha” as well as her announcements of “hi, hi, hi” (hide). I was so proud of her for she met a lot of people during these marathon runs and her shyness only came out as “hug” which everyone thought was adorable but we knew what it really meant was, please hold me for I am not too sure about all of these people. After we spoke with them for a few minutes she would do her “bye bye bye bye” accompanied with her wiggle dance (not to be confused with the wiggle dance that accompanies her “no, no, no ) which everyone loved. We of course did not burst their bubbles for we all know that what she was saying is “I need to move on – have you not noticed all of these wonderful hallways.” We rode the elevator to various floors where to her delight, and surprise, more hallways. We rode the elevator to the floor where Papa works and she broke out into a huge smile shouting “fla, fla, fla” (flag). This floor has 3 very large flags on poles which was an added bonus. On all of the floors, she loved to look out the long windows around the rectangle hallway where below was a garden courtyard. We then went back home for her nap then afternoon playtime.

Rainbows at Mimi and Papa’s House – Day 3 – August 29, 2010

2010-09-29T21:31:00.001-07:00

[From Mimi Bogle:]

We went to Ft. Jackson’s Community Center which has a new playground park. We also did some shopping where we bought Lily some more books. Again feeding fish and going to the neighborhood playground.

Rainbows at Mimi and Papa’s House – Day 2 – August 28, 2010

2010-09-29T21:26:00.001-07:00

[From Mimi Bogle:]

Since it was a Saturday, we went to the zoo but this time with Papa, since it was the weekend (meaning no work for Papa). Papa got a kick out of her “bye bye” as to her cue to move on and also loved to see her feeding the giraffes. Needless to say it is A LOT easier to have someone with you to take the pictures, for trying to do it AND hold onto Lily was more than I could do. We went into the ARC (aquarium, reptile complex) where we zoomed thru the reptiles announcing our “bye bye” and were totally captivated by the large aquarium. After some time she discovered that she could “run, run, run” up and down the length of the building and wanted to be “cha, cha, cha” (chased). We also rode the “choo, choo” train while Papa beamed, for he loves that Lily loves trains (it’s a Bogle thing). We again sat down to our lunch then played around some animal statues and lastly the carousel over and over and over again. I think Lily would ride (“ri, ri, ri”) the carousel all day long if she could. We went into the lorikeets’ enclosure where we fed the little birds. Lily was so excited when they would land on our arms as well as on her. Again went into the stores for another attempt to buy a stuffed animal with the same response of just wanting the little animals in the tubes. She of course spent time rearranging the order of these tubes. (Maybe she will become one of those companies that reorganizes your home – Lily please come and practice at Mimi and Papa’s house.) We then went back home for naptime for both Lily AND Papa. Night time we played in our little house (cardboard box) that Papa brought home from his office where she loved hiding, playing and drinking her water. In the afternoon she and Papa had a great time just playing outside in a tub of water with her little animals (that we got at the zoo) and some cups from the kitchen. This child loves playing in water and her giggles, laughs and smiles were priceless moments for us. The cardboard box and simple plastic container of water was a reminder to us that children can delight in the simple things in life. Again feeding fish and going to the neighborhood playground after dinner.

Rainbows at Mimi and Papa’s House – Day 1 – August 27, 2010

2010-09-29T21:20:00.001-07:00

[Alright, blog readers – please give a warm welcome to our first guest blogger – Carolyn Bogle (a.k.a. Mimi; a.k.a. Michael’s mom). She wrote up summaries of the days that she and Michael’s dad (a.k.a. Papa Bogle) spent with Lily while Michael and I were on vacation. She included some of her favorite pictures, and also wanted to include a slideshow, but it looks like that isn’t working for me so I’ll have to try to upload that again later. So without further ado, take it away, Mimi!]

While Mommy and Daddy were on vacation in Aruba, Lily came to spend some time with Mimi and Papa and those days will be treasured moments for both of us. Waking up to a chirping little voice each morning was priceless and now all we hear are the foot stomps of Oreo (you have to know our big bruiser of a cat) down our steps. Not quite the same to say the least! I learned that morning not to respond to her when she first wakes up for she will very clearly tell you “no, no, no” while pointing to her bed, “re, re, re” telling you she has not had the time to play and read in her bed (translation to me is I can go downstairs and enjoy one cup of coffee). We had soooooo many priceless moments and really got to enjoy the treasure that she has become to all of us. It brought back so many wonderful memories when Lily’s Daddy was a child. We proudly went around wherever we went showing her off and enjoying each and every moment. We had some very special times and the first day after breakfast Lily and I went to get dressed then off we went to the zoo where I let Lily be in charge as to how long we lingered or moved on. Speaking of moving on, when we first arrived at the zoo that morning, we went into the penguin house to see them being fed their breakfast. After the feeding was over, Lily announced to all with her regal wave, “Bye bye.” Of course people around us were commenting how sweet and cute she was but then I noticed that her bye byes were getting more and more repetitive. I was still caught up in this sweet moment when she looked up at me and frantically announced over and over again, “bye bye!” I had a light bulb moment – get with it Mimi, Lily wants to leave and she has had enough of penguins. Knowing our sweet Lily, in the past she would announce “go” as her cue to move on but that was then and this was now. Now she has moved on to a more polite way, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye. OK Lily I get it! So now while we went around to exhibits I waited for her announcement of bye bye and off we went. Needless to say many of the exhibits we took at a brisk stride but when we reached bronze statues of animals and she asked me “hug, hug” followed by “hold” (both with her sweet hand motions and pursed lips) what else could I do but stop. She took in every part of all of the animals and especially announced every facial feature (eyes, nose, mouth and ears) not to mention lots of hugs (I stopped the kisses for we all know how birds love statues not to mention the yucky germs). We strolled past the elephants where she did her elephant trumpet which is so cute (actually much better than I could do). Of course it entertained those around us. She fell in love with a baby elephant statue and so had a hard time moving on but since the waiting line for other children was backing up I had to take her off, let’s just say unenthusiastically, while Lily called out “no, no, no” accompanied with her little wiggle dance (maybe belly dancing is in her future). Not to worry, for the giraffes were in sight and so we stopped to feed them lettuce. Lily was totally captivated by them so we fed them over and over and over and over again. I must admit that I was getting a little worried the first time since Lily had her whole hand in the GIANT giraffe’s mouth feeding them lettuce. The zoo attendant assured me that they do NOT BITE. Being over cautious I fed the giraffe and sure enough, it was just a long wet scratchy tongue and l-o-t-s of gum. I even got into this moment. I finally announced to Lily say bye bye to the giraffes and (surprise) Lily went down to a total meltdown (i.e. Lily’s entire body turning into a wet noodle emphatically and LOUDLY announcing “no, no, no”!) I have to admit it was very hard not to laugh. This meltdown never lasted more than mere seconds for she is so easily distracted. Needless to say I quickly diverted her attention to the zebras in the next enclosure while we moved on and she was totally content. She then spotted the carousel and it was love at first sight. We rode the carousel 4 times and still when it started to slow down she frantically voiced her “no, no, no” complete with wiggling dance!!!! (I never seem to get tired of this little dance she does.) Again picking her up, I quickly diverted her attention going into one of the stores where she went thru her “hug, hug, hug” followed by “hold, hold” complete with her hand gestures. It was so adorable and I went through all of the stuffed animals looking for the one she would fall in love with, but she would hug and kiss them then wanted me to put them back. (LILY I AM TRYING TO BUY YOU A STUFFED ANIMAL.) All she wanted was the little animals that come in a tube. So we bought two of them and she was as happy as she could be. Off we went to the picnic tables to eat our lunch, then when we finished some more play time on a large bronze gorilla as well as a family of lions. We also saw some koi fish in a pond where Lily announced that she wanted to feed the fish with her sign for feed. I had to tell her that we couldn’t feed then now but that she could feed our fish at home when Papa came home. (It became a ritual at night when Papa came home for him to take her to the pond to feed our koi. I am not sure who was happier, Lily or Papa.) She was getting tired so I announced it was time to go home (BIG MISTAKE). She announced “homo” repeatedly where lots of people were gathered. I of course said “Yes Lily we are going to Mimi’s home” trying to quell any minds around us to assure them she was not being taught to be politically insensitive. This got a few chuckles from the crowd. (I must admit this episode of “homo” was repeated a few times the next few days). I mentally tried to make a reminder to myself to say “It’s time to go to Mimi’s house” where she will say her version of house (how) but of course I would forget. We drove home for it was close to nap time and for me cleaning up the house and oh yeah, dishes from breakfast.

Then Lily was up and we played in the house till Papa came home where she reminded him it was time to feed the fish outside. After dinner, we then went to our neighborhood park where she loves to go down the slides and swing on the swings with her big beautiful smile, “weeeeeeeeeeeeee”. Could this day get any better? I have to admit this was a birthday I will forever treasure. She was my cake, ice cream and presents all rolled into one sweet package.

I love this picture!

Lily showing the giraffe how to open her mouth! She even clicked and smacked her lips just in case this giraffe needed some extra guidance!