A Girl and Her Bunny

Since about 4 months of age, Audrey has shown preference to this little bunny who we affectionately call "Lovey Bunny" around here.

She sleeps with Lovey Bunny, and gets very concerned when we throw him (or her?) into the wash.  She carries Bunny around by holding his ear in her mouth like a little puppy as she crawls around.  She loves this guy!

There's one not-so-great thing about old long ears.  I cannot find this dang bunny ANYWHERE!  I got it as a gift for one of my showers and wish I would have purchased 20 of them but by the time Audrey claimed it as her official "lovey" they were not longer sold in stores.  I've scoured ebay and Amazon to find the cheapest one would cost me $39.99 (who sells a bunny for 40 bucks..honestly..).  As much as I love Audrey, I can't rationalize spending $40 on a bunny.

So far we've been extra careful to leave Lovey Bunny at home and Audrey has a car companion, Lovey Bear (we are so creative with our stuffed animal names around here).  We haven't lost him yet, but I fear the day we do.  Also, Audrey sucks on Bunny's ears and Bunny STINKS.  I have to wash him on a weekly basis, sometimes more.  I just don't know how much longer Bunny will hold up to all of this.

The need for an imposter presents itself.  Today at the store this little guy caught her eye

and she said her word for Lovey Bunny and reached for it.  I immediately bought the thing.  It's a pretty good imposter!  It's like the evolved version of Lovey Bunny.  Like a tadpole that's sprouted it's baby frog legs.  Audrey cuddled and snuggled it the whole way home, and requested I give the new member of our family lots of kisses.  I was hopeful for nap time, thinking we could possibly integrate the new bunny into the routine but Audrey needed her old pal Lovey Bunny.  Luckily I had just washed it in an oxyclean/baking soda/extremely hot water solution so Lovey was clean and ready to go.

I'm not giving up home on our new friend, though.  If she ends up liking this bunny just as much as Lovey, you bet your bottom I'm going out to buy 10 of them.  It's still funny to me how attached Audrey is to her little stuffed friend.  I think it's super cute.  Wish us luck with Lovey Bunny 2.0!

Baby Gate Adventures

We live in an old 70's style split level house with wrought iron railings on our stairs.  As Audrey starting crawling, this made looking for a baby gate quite difficult.  I went to Babies R Us to see if they could share any knowledge about which gate would be best.  I ended up buying this one:

Fancy, right?? It was really complicated and ended up being too tall for our railing plus it was missing the instructions and several parts.  I had to look up the instructions online.  As I packed this back up to return it to the store, I realized that the "banister kit" that came with this was basically glorified posts with zip ties.  My handyman senses began tingling (never a good thing around here, I'm still working on finishing our kitchen cabinet project) and decided that I was going to get a cheaper hardware-mounted gate and do this thing on the cheap, but still safely, of course.

So, we picked up a gate that was $20 cheaper and headed to Lowe's.  I got some industrial strength zip ties and found some wood that I had them cut to the right length for the gate.  The total for these supplies was somewhere around $7.

After I sanded the wood to make it nice and smooth and splinter-free, I secured it to our iron railing with the zip ties.  I had to pull pretty hard to make sure this sucker wasn't going anywhere.  After I cut off the excess, I sanded down the ends so it wouldn't be as sharp.

 

Time to drill!  I just love my drill :)

I attached the mounting pieces.

As much as it pained me to drill in my walls, I did it because I love my little Otter Pop.

Don't mind the mess, but this is what it ended up looking like.  It sure doesn't look fancy, but baby proofing isn't exactly "upgrading".

Unfortunately, there were some casualties along the way.

All done!  Audrey is safe and sound from tumbling down the stairs, and I didn't have to pay out the wazoo for a fancy baby gate with banister adapters.

I am available for hire for baby gate installation, if you were wondering.  I know you were.

Girls' Night

I got to spend the evening with this cute girl while Tony went to the Jazz game with some work friends.  I was a bit hesitant to take her out so close to her bedtime, but it was so much fun and she loved it.  We started off at the mall and then got some frozen yogurt at Menchie's for dessert.  Audrey loved the yogurt and I loved that it was a healthy treat for both of us.

On our way home, I had the Jazz game on the radio and when they made a good play I shouted "woo!"  Audrey repeated me and giggled.  Suddenly Audrey and I were "woo"ing back and forth and cracking up like dorkwads.  She would yell "woo!" then I'd repeat it and then we'd both just laugh and laugh.  It sounds dumb but it was so much fun to hear her giggle like that.

We got home right at Audrey's bedtime and so she got into PJs and I made her a nice warm bottle.  I decided that I would try holding Audrey while she drank it (usually this is not a good choice and results in a mega fit.  Audrey likes to drink her milk in. her. bed.)  Audrey laid contently in my arms as I rocked her and sang to her.  It was AMAZING.  Audrey's never been a super-cuddly girl, but while I sang and she ate she played with my hair, rubbed my face, took my hand and held it against her face, and even took breaks in her eating to sing along with me.  I almost cried I was so happy, ha ha!  After her bottle we brushed her teeth (all two of 'em) and she dozed off to dreamland quicker than normal.

I'd say she enjoyed girls' night as much as I did. :)

Like Father, Like Daughter

We've been preparing to wean Audrey off of her bottles completely as her first birthday approaches.  I have been reading a lot about it and even though she's still pretty young to "choose" a cup I decided I would take her to the store and let her pick a new fancy straw cup.  She doesn't like regular sippy cups but does really well with straw cups.  So, off to Walmart we went and I found the cheaper cups to show Audrey (I'm not paying 8 bucks for a cup, thank you very much!)

Of all of the choices, these were the cups Audrey reached for as the finalists:

A dinosaur cup

Pink with monkeys and bunnies

I held the two up for Audrey to pick and after thinking long and hard about the decision--it really looked like she was weighing pros and cons of each cup--she chose.....

The spectacular dino-mite cup.  She's definitely Tony's daughter!  I love that she picked this cup.  Who says girls can't have dino cups??? :)

Audrey Says

Audrey may not be able to crawl yet, but she's a talker!  I wanted to write down all of the things she can say and understand before I forget!

(As of 4/28)

Words Audrey can say:

• dad
• mom
• hi!
• no
• banana
• light
• uh oh
• what is it? (she'll hold up whatever she has and say "what is it?" It's probably the cutest thing ever.)
• more
• cat
• "meow"
• "ruff ruff"
• outside (says "site")

 Words Audrey can understand but can't say:

• lovey bunny
• go bye-bye
• bottle
• milk
• food
• lunch
• give kisses
• give hugs
• and lots more

and here's a picture, for good measure :)

Sunny Sunday

We took advantage of the record-setting temperatures this Sunday and had a picnic at a park!  It was almost *too* hot by the end of our stay, and it's only April!  Audrey loves this particular park and had a blast exploring their "tots" playground.  I, of course, was standing by with a camera :)

Refusing to smile for the mamarazzi

She's a big girl now!

Hamball

Proudly showing me some weeds she picked

Her favorite!

My Mommy Workouts

I try to get on my treadmill, I really do.  I have every intention of lifting weights to tone my arms and doing crunches to get rid of my post-baby belly pooch.  Do these things ever happen?  Rarely.  By the end of the day I'm so exhausted from my day that all I feel like doing is eating ice cream on the couch while I watch Biggest Loser.

I signed up for My Fitness Pal and when it came time to put my activity level in, I wasn't sure what to put.  Most people would consider a stay-at-home-mom to be "mostly sitting" but the more I thought about it I realized that I'm more active than just sitting.  Audrey constantly needs my attention and wants to be entertained.  If she's too quiet, I have to get up and see what shes doing making sure she's not eating cat food [again].  There's never a dull moment with this girl around aside from nap time.  Oh, how I cherish nap time.

The biggest workout of my week is our weekly trip to the grocery store.  Audrey *loves* the grocery store.  There is so much to look at and touch.  Unfortunately for her, she has a horribly mean mother who won't let her grab everything she wants.  This means I have to provide other forms of entertainment.  Snacks, toys, sippies, and singing songs, which always gets us some strange looks.  Maybe I should learn more kid songs instead of singing "Living on a Prayer."  These distractions buy me a total of about ten minutes.  I try to go as fast as possible and usually end up sweating just from walking so fast, pushing the cart, and constantly bending over to pick up things Audrey is throwing.  But we always get through it and we both like getting out of the house so overall it's a pleasant experience.  Just physically demanding :)

Today was one of my more interesting grocery trips.  Audrey has started saying words and one of her favorites is "banana" (nanana, actually).  If we point to a picture in her book, she'll excitedly shout "NANANA!" She also knows cat, dog, dad, mom, and uh-oh.  I don't know if she knows what any of them besides dad, mom, and banana mean, but she'll say them if we point to the picture.  Anyway, when we were at the store, I picked up some bananas to buy and Audrey shrieked "NANANA! NANANA!"  I was so proud of her, so I decided to let her hold her precious nananas.  She was really excited about this and giggled throughout the store holding her favorite fruit.  Then things turned sour.  She started whining.  "We're almost done, love!" I said.  She didn't care.  She was getting mad.  Next thing I know, I'm reaching for trash bags and I hear a very angry "NA NA NAAAA!" and feel something hit my back.  Yeah, she threw a banana at me.  My sweet little girl can turn on you so fast!  I thought it was hilarious and couldn't stop laughing, which made Audrey crack up, too.  Hopefully she doesn't think I was okay with having fruit chucked at me, but it was just too funny.