Just Like Me

Have you ever had one of those days when you felt like your child (or children) existed to drive you nuts? Now, don't take this the wrong way. I love my daughter dearly. She is the apple of my eye, but this morning was just one of those mornings. If the definition of a toddler is a two year old who gets into everything, then she has truly played the part.

Now, I will have to preface this by saying that I did see this coming. I just wasn't sure when and didn't anticipate it to happen this soon, but she is my child, so I don't know why I should have expected anything else. I suppose that she is just like me, or so my mom would say. I tend to wonder though if it is so much that she is just like me, trying to be just like me, or just being a normal toddler. If she is trying to be just like me, I wonder in what other ways will she try to imitate me. It does make you stop and think about what you do and what you say and realize how impressionable these young minds are.

With all that said, this is what I found this morning when I got out of the shower:

Trying to stuff the evidence back into the bag.

Makeup? What makeup?

End to End lip gloss and perfume covered in cream-to-powder blush.

Hmm, looks like someone decided to do some "coloring".

I knew all of this was coming soon because one morning when I was putting on my lipstick I had her sitting on the counter and she was taking my lip liner and lipstick and pretending to put them on. This was right before her birthday and I thought that maybe we ought to get her some pretend makeup to play with for her birthday, but we didn't. Just a few days prior to the incident, I caught her with crayon all around her mouth. Evidently she decided to use her crayons as lipstick. She has also done this twice in addition to finding other creative surfaces to color on.

As you can see from the pictures, Taylor found my Mary Kay inventory and decided to help herself to it, but didn't bother to ask or pay me for it first. :) LOL. Funny how two year olds are. What you see in these pictures is a lip gloss/perfume combo that she used to “draw” on a compact of eye shadow, blush and lipstick. If you look closely you can see the remains of the blush still on the end of the perfume and all over the carpet.

Usually I can put on a video for her and get my shower without too much worry, but from time to time she will get into something that she knows is off limits (like the Qtips in my makeup drawer). If this had just been the first time she did this I would not have been so annoyed. I keep my inventory in a plastic drawer unit in her closet. I keep the door closed, but she has learned to open doors now. I see that I am going to have to put a child proof cover on the door knob. The first time this happened she opened her closet door and got into the makeup when I was not paying attention. I managed to get it away from her before she did too much damage. This time she got the same makeup as before from the counter in my bathroom. At least it wasn’t more makeup from my inventory.

Part of my annoyance was with myself because I had not put it far enough out of reach, so I wasn't too hard on her since it was partly my fault (or at least my responsibility). I couldn't let her off without any discipline, so rather than spanking her, I decided to try and put her in "time out" while she watched me clean up the mess. I guess in hind sight I should have made her help me – that is what Daniel did whenever she colored on the walls and the tables - but she probably would have thought that it was fun to use a big machine that squirted water and vacuumed it back up. My instinct was to make her sit in her chair and not move until I said it was okay. She was really good about going to her chair when I told her to. She did get up a couple of times to follow me and see what I was doing, but she sat back down the second I scolded her. She sat there the whole time with this look on her face like she knew that she was in trouble while I cleaned up the mess. When I was finished with the floor I cleaned her up and explained to her what she did wrong. She gave me a smile. OK, so maybe she didn’t fully understand. I made her apologize to me and then I gave her a kiss and told her she could go play. I am not sure if the time out did any good at her age, but I think she definitely knew that Mama was upset with her and that she was in trouble. I couldn't be mad at her. She will probably get a spanking if it happens again though.

"Hats Were Made for Your Head"

Today we cleaned out the spare room to get it ready for Taylor. We have decided to move Taylor in there and give her a "big girl" room and let Katelyn have her old room when she is born. You might be wondering why we decided to uproot Taylor instead of just getting the spare room ready for Katelyn. Well, the spare room is a bigger room and we would like to put some of Taylor's toys in her room. We thought it better for her to have the bigger room. We bought her bedding online. It is called Tiger Lily by Kidsline. Here is a picture of it.

It is a pretty small picture from the internet, so if you want to see a larger picture, just click here.


While we were cleaning out the spare room we pulled out some old hat boxes with some hats in them that I used to wear in high school. They are still in really good shape, so I am going to try and consign them. Taylor found them and decided to put one on. Up until now, as I have said of the bows, she has not liked ANYTHING on her head, so this came as a shock, but she picked up one of the hats and put it on her head. She then started walking around in it being prissy. It was so cute! We captured a few pictures to share with you.

Girly Girl

Taylor is finally wearing bows!!!! I know that this sounds really silly that I am excited about this, but ever since Taylor 'found' her head, she would never let me put a bow in her hair or a hat on her head. The last picture I have of anything on her head was on Halloween when she was 8 months old and was dressed as a butterfly. This year I had to come up with a costume that did not have something to go on her head. Two days ago Daniel decided to just try putting a bow in her hair again. We had not tried for a long time and just gave up thinking that it would be a long time before she wore anything on her head. When we would try in the past we always told her how cute she looked, but she didn't seem to care. This time was no different except that Taylor now understands what pretty is and she can see how cute she looks with bows in her hair. Who knew that we could appeal to her vanity to get her to wear bows. Ha ha! That day she ended up wearing it for a couple of hours or so and then taking it out. The next day she wore one all day long. It is amazing how much it changes her appearance. She looks so much more girly. I love my little girly girl!

The Power of the Tongue

Today I was reminded about how easy it is to communicate something that you don’t mean to. I have been reading a book called Conversation Peace by Mary Kassian. So far I am about 6 chapters into it, but I have already learned a lot of things about how we communicate. Kassian says that there are 8 potential problems in communication: A’s encoding (his/her message is packaged through his/her personality, feelings, attitudes, assumptions, habits, past experiences, and current environment), A’s behavior or body language, B’s observation, B’s decoding (how he/she interprets A’s message based on his/her own personality, feelings, attitude, etc.); B’s encoding, B’s behavior, A’s observation, and A’s decoding. Because encoding and decoding are affected by so many variables that are different for each individual, it is easy for A to encode a message very differently from the way B decodes it and vice-versa.

Kassian gives this example: If John is in a hurry to leave the office, he may give a short, clipped response to the idea that Sandra proposes. Sandra, who struggles with insecurity, hears the impatience in his voice. She assumes that John has rejected the idea and that he does not value her abilities. But conversation is not usually one-sided. Both parties are communicating to each other. As John responds to Sandra he observes her responses. He sees her lean back, shrug her shoulders, and turn slightly toward the door. From his observation John assumes that Sandra is just casually presenting a random thought and not looking for serious feedback. He glances at the work on his desk. Sandra sees him drop his gaze and assumes John wants her to leave.

Neither John nor Sandra communicated effectively. Based upon their observations, each made faulty assumptions about the other’s thoughts and attitudes. It is even easier to misinterpret the written word because you cannot hear tone of voice or see body language. All of this reminds me how important it is to think about what I say before I say it and to choose my words carefully.

Not only does Kassian write about the potential problems with communication, but she also discusses the comparisons of the tongue in scripture to the rudder of a ship and the bit in a horse’s mouth. She says that what we say can make or break a relationship. It can send us into calm waters or troubled waters. She also discusses the biblical principle that what flows out of the mouth is an overflow of the heart and focuses on change of speach through a heart change. Even though I am only about a quarter of the way through the book I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their relationships.

Weekend Getaway

Saturday was Grandpa Bud's 55th birthday. Daniel and I wanted to make it special for him, so we decided to kidnap him for a weekend getaway. Daniel's dad has a timeshare in Villa Rica on Lake Tara near Atlanta. He had the whole week from Friday to Friday, but we don't have the liberty to take a whole week, so we just wisked Bud away for the weekend. He was totally surprised and loved it! He said over and over that this was the best birthday ever. I am so glad that he had a good time. The 5 of us, Grandpa Bud, Grandma, Daniel, Taylor, and me headed up to Lake Tara on Friday afternoon and had dinner on the way in Columbus. On Saturday we enjoyed the day at the Georgia Aquarium. Taylor LOVED it! It was especially wonderful to see the beauty of God's creation through the eyes of a child. I think her favorite part was the big wall of fish. There were so many different shapes, sizes and colors. God truly is awesome and creative. Unfortunately we forgot to take our camera to the aquarium, but we got some pictures on Grandma's camera. I will post those as soon as we get copies.

Poe Look-Alike Meter

One of my friends, Stacie, had one of these on her blog and I decided to get one since we have our family tree on this site. Besides, I thought it would be something fun to do. I must say that I was a little surprised by the results.

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Family tree templates - Old photographs

New Words

Sometimes it seems like Taylor is degressing in her clarity of speech on some words, but she is also learning new words. She is starting to tell me more and more what it is that she wants. One problem is that she sometimes just says "more" and "please" and I then have to figure out what she wants more of. She sometimes confuses more with eat, so I have to figure out if there is something that she just had or did that she wants more of or if she is hungry and wants something to eat. I think the reason she confuses the two is because when we first taught her the sign for more it was in relation to wanting more food and the signs for more and eat are somewhat similar.

Taylor is learning some new words and is learning more of her flash cards. I think it is more memorization than anything, but at least she is learning something. Sometimes her speech is not all that clear. It helps to have some kind of context in which to decipher what she is saying. Some words come out sounding like something totally unrelated. She also has trouble with certain sounds like the th sound on the ends of words or the s sound on the front of words. She also has trouble pronouncing r's and l's in the middle of words. She has just recently started saying fork and it comes out like a dirty word. Fortunately she usally just says it when we are eating, so everyone knows what she is trying to say. She also says mouse for mouth. It is really cute and I try not to be too hard on her but just give it back to her with the correct pronunciation so she can hear it. She used to leave off the ending consonant altogether, any ending consonant is an improvement. I am just glad to see her developing. Our next goal with the speech therapist is to get her to start speaking more clearly and to start putting two words together. She does certain words that way, but I want her to be more consistent with that. I think that is a very attainable goal for the next 6 months. She might even be saying phrases by then.

My Little Singer

About 2 or 3 months ago Taylor first started trying to sing. I guess I first noticed it when Taylor was playing with a little school bus in the one year old room at church. It plays The Wheels on the Bus. I noticed that she was trying to sing "all through the town." Since then she has started singing with her Praise Baby CDs and DVDs and now tries to sing with just about everything - even if it is a song she hasn't heard very much. It is so cute. I wish I had some video to share. Sometimes you can pick up on actual words she is singing. She doesn't really sing on pitch much yet, and most of her singing is mumbling gibberish, but she tries to get the syllables right and she is good with her phrasing - well at least she starts and stops at the right times. She is imitating so much now that last night when Daniel was reading her bedtime book to her she was quoting it with him as he read it. It is her routine to let him read to her and then to let me rock her before going down. Well, last night she was particularly wound up. Daniel and read something like 5 stories to her and she still wasn't settled down, so I decided to sing her a little lullaby that I had written for her a while back. Wouldn't you know, but she started singing along! Daniel even heard her. She finally did settle down after all was quiet.

Taylor especially loves songs with motions to them. She participated in the Christmas program with the Morning School at church this year because I always take her with me when I teach music on Mondays. She is only a year younger than the youngest ones and she does really well, so they said that she could sing with them. She didn't do a whole lot of singing, but she did do the motions to the songs and stood in her spot on the stage the entire time. I was so proud of her. I have taught her motions for Away in a Manger, Where is Thumbkin, I'm a Little Teapot, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and Jesus Loves Me. We are also working on Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and Deep and Wide. She absolutely loves it! By trying songs out on her first it gives me an idea of what the kids will do at the Morning School as well. They are 2 and 3 years old (well, most of them are 3 & 4 now). If I am able to keep teaching music next year, then I will enroll her in the 2 year old class. I can tell a big improvement in her speech just from being around the other children. It is good for her to play with other kids too.

Taylor's Birthday Party

We had Taylor's birthday party on Saturday evening even though her birthday was actually on Friday. It made it easier to prepare with Daniel being here to help me. We had Bud & RuthAnn over at 4:00 and let Taylor open her presents first and play a little bit before we ate and had cupcakes.

Taylor pushing around her babydoll in the stroller

Taylor got a Strawberry Shortcake doll and another phone from Grandma & Grandpa

Grandpa Bud wrote the sweetest little poem for Taylor in her card

and Grandma gave her a 2 dollar bill for her 2nd birthday.

Daniel and I gave her the Little People carnival set

and Grandmommy gave her some other carnival pieces too.

We continued the Raggedy Ann & Andy theme from her party in Chattanooga.

Grandma & Grandpa look on as Taylor "blows" out her candle.

(She really did try to blow it out.)

Mmm, Fruit Punch!! The first bite!

I made strawberry cupcakes with purred strawberries in them and whipped icing on top. They were yummy!

Taylor approves.

What's all this sticky stuff on my fingers??

Happy Birthday, Taylor!

Taylor turned two today at 4:20 AM. The past year has absolutely flown by. I can't believe that my little baby is already two years old. Where has all the time gone? I can truly say that I enjoy her more and more with each year of life. I just love this age because she is always doing or saying something cute. It is fun to watch her grow and learn new things. Daniel and I have put together a little slide show of her 2nd year of life starting with her first birthday. I hope that you enjoy it.

"I'm Sahee!"

Taylor has been doing some really cute things lately. I told you about the opposites thing the other day. Well, I have been trying to teach her good manners as well. She has this habit of throwing her toys down in the car when we reach our destination. That doesn't so much bother me, but the other day I was getting Taylor out of the car and picked up her Cabbage Patch doll (which used to be mine) and gave it to her to carry into the house. She threw it down on the ground. I immediately told her that it was not nice to throw her dolls on the ground. I picked it up, dusted it off and told Taylor to tell her she was sorry. She proceeded to say, "Sahee!". I took her into the house and removed her shoes and her sweater all the while she kept saying, "Sahee, sahee." I told her to give her baby doll a kiss and so she did. As I was rocking her for naptime she still kept saying, "I'm sahee." I told her that it was okay and that she was forgiven.

Daniel's mom and stepdad have this singing Christmas tree that they put out every year at Christmas. It is only about a foot and a half tall. This year they put him in the spare bathroom. It is either light sensitive or motion sensitive because even if you just walk past the bathroom he will start singing Jingle Bells. It is annoying for us, but Taylor thinks it is hilarious. His name is Bruce the Spruce. Everytime we'd take her over there she would go looking for Bruce and call out his name. Well, now that the decorations are put away Taylor still calls out for Bruce. She even talks about him at home. Yesterday we were getting ready to head to their house for dinner. Taylor was on the kithen floor playing and I asked her if she wanted to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house. She jumped up and headed toward the door. I said, "Let's get on your shoes and socks and comb your hair." Immediately she ran to get her socks where she had taken them off and then went into the bathroom for me to comb her hair. This was especially cute to me because lately she has been resisting everytime I want to comb her hair or put on her clothes or anything. Everything has to be on her terms or not at all. If I ever ask her to do something she always runs away or says, "No." Once I got her ready to go, I was putting her jacket on and she leaned down the hallway and cried out, "BRUCE!" It was so funny. I was a little concerned that she would be upset when she found out he was gone, but she seemed to forget about him once we got there and she was playing with other toys.

Likeness

Hmmm, I wonder who Taylor takes after.

Opposites

Taylor has been learning opposites lately. She's learned open & closed, up & down, high & low, and stop & go. Most of these are reinforced by toys that she either already had or got for Christmas. That is very exciting to me that she is grasping concepts like that.

We usually put Taylor to bed around 8:00 and then she lays there and talks until about 9:00 when she finally falls asleep. Sometimes she gets pretty excited and gets a little loud. Last night was one of those nights. Usually when she does that she is laying down, but will have her feet up in the air or something. We decided to look in on her on the video monitor. She stood up in her crib and said "up" and then laid back down and said "down". Daniel and I cracked up laughing. She did this several times. She finally did settle down and go to sleep. I wish that I could have gotten it on video.

Birthday Party

Be prepared for picture overload. Alicia and I decided to have a joint birthday party for Taylor and Joshua on Monday once we had returned to Chattanooga. Taylor's birthday is Jan. 9 and Joshua's is Feb. 20. Since Taylor's birthday is so close to Christmas, I didn't want everyone to feel obligated to come down to Americus so soon after Christmas for her birthday party. I think everyone appreciated that. Alicia decided to do the same thing for Joshua for us, but we will just send him his gift on his actual birthday. We invited a couple of close friends that I hardly ever get to see and just kept it an intimate party with no gifts. My friend Jenny and her 3 children came, but Tina and her little boy were sick and unable to come.

The theme was Raggedy Ann & Andy. I thought that would be the perfect theme for a joint boy-girl party. Daniel had given me the 85th Anniversary edition dolls as a gift a while back and we decided to use them as the centerpiece. Alicia had a cake specially made with a picture on it. Daniel picked up some pizza for us.

Alicia decided to do Hawaiian Punch to keep with the Red, White & Blue theme. As you can see, Taylor really enjoyed it. All the kids liked the cake and ice cream.

Madeline, Anna Beth & Rebekah all enjoying their cake & ice cream

Anderson liked playing with the balloons.

All the kids gathered 'round the piano for some musical fun.

Anderson & Joshua doing their thing.

After our guests left, Taylor opened her birthday presents from the family. Alicia and Darrin gave her a Baby Born doll that actually pees and poops when you give it a bottle and feed it. Rebekah looked on with great anticipation while Daniel struggled to get the doll out of the box.

Taylor immediately started feeding her new doll and then proceeded to feed herself.

My parents (Grandmommy & Granddaddy) gave Taylor some food for her new play kitchen. Again, Rebekah was very anxious for Daniel to get all the play food out of the box.

Taylor and Rebekah having a mid afternoon "snack"

Did no one tell him that doll buggies are for girls???

Taylor gets a devotional book and clothes from Grandmommy & Granddaddy

Cousins at play