Blog on hold

Blog updates will be on hold indefinitely. The writer needs more than 4 hours of continuous sleep. How did I do this a year and a half ago? I'm going to negotiate a siesta break with boss if this continues much longer. Since I've adopted the "Sleep when the baby sleeps", I am going to bed while it is still light out...yawn!

Mom advice please: Sleep

Ever since we had the tornado sirens go off last week Penelope has not been a good sleeper. Up until this point we just set her in bed, say good night, and don't hear a peep until 6 am. Now if I’m not sitting in her room when we put her to bed she screams her head off. The little booger takes over an hour to go to sleep. It is amazing. I think she is asleep and then a minute later her eyes pop open and then slowly drift down again. I get about an hour reading in and I love watching her sleep so it isn’t bad. Then last night she woke up at 2 am and screamed daddy daddy daddy. Being the good mom, I rolled over and woke Chris up so he could go in there. He sat in the rocking chair. She quieted down, but she never went back to sleep. He came back in our room after an hour and she yelled “Mama…please…I get down now…” for an hour and 15 minutes. I’m so torn on what to do. Part of me wants to snuggle with her, but I hate the idea of her not being able to put herself back to sleep anymore. The "cry it out" was much easier when she was smaller and didn't have these pleading words. Plus, we only did it for a couple of days and it never lasted longer than a half hour. According to my toddler book the worst thing to do is to go in there if she has been crying for a long time because that just teaches her that the longer she cries, the better chance I'll rescue her. Yet I feel so bad for her crying for an hour like her mommy doesn't care about her. Sigh...this is tough.

(I'm hoping if I put this out in cyber land she will all of a sudden go back to her old sleep habits. That seems to be what happens. Hope I didn't jinx it!)

Career Day

Since Penelope doesn't have a toy stethoscope or a business suit, we decided "ballerina" was a good career for a toddler. Reading Twinkle Toes to get into character.
I worked from home this afternoon so I was able to ride my bike to pick up Penny. She had stayed dressed up all day long. She didn't think I was very funny when I told her she would do the tour de france in a tutu. That's her "Mom, you are sooooo dumb!" look.
Playing with neighbor Brenna's car.
Brenna and Penelope smelling weeds...I mean flowers.

Another visit to Como

It was a nice cool summer day so we ventured over to Como Zoo again. It is just the perfect size for Penelope's attention span.

Penelope and I rode the carousel for the first time. It is over 100 years old and all the horses are made of wood.

She didn't want to ride the horse so we sat in the chariot. Good thing...I think I would have gotten too dizzy to hold her steady the whole time.
"Hi Daddy!!"
Waving to Daddy as we go by.

Isn't the mommy and baby orangutan so cute? She was actually angry with the little one for stealing her leaves. At first I thought this was pretty mean, but then I remembered at breakfast how Penelope licked all the jelly off her toast and then took my toast and licked it too. Then I felt bad for the mom. She doesn't get to head off for a mani/pedi or go to book club when she needs time to relax. And the dad did not seem helpful at all. He was cracking a coconut with his bare hands and pushed the mama away when she asked for some.
We also went into the butterfly exhibit for the first time. It was amazing!! They also had these little mesh bags with butterflies. I thought people were buying dead butterflies. The zookeeper explained that the butterflies had come out of their cocoons that morning. The zookeepers put them in the bags before they tried out their wings. Then for $1 zoo patrons get to use a little stick to pull the butterfly out of the bag and free it. I guess any butterfly can survive in these little bags for 24 hours. Not sure of the life span of the butterfly, but that seems kind of long, doesn't it? Chris and Penelope freed the butterfly. In the photo she is trying to keep butterflies away from her. Kind of funny that she loved watching and touching caterpillars in the spring, but was pretty scared of butterflies.
I wanted to take photos of Penelope enjoying the seal show, but it was at 11:30 and lunch is the only thing Penelope is interested in at that time.
Me, Penny, and the giraffes. Every day friends, family and strangers comment about how much Penelope looks like me. I only see it sometimes...this picture we look a lot alike!
Another pic of the little guy. I'm sure his mom's hard feelings were over by the time the leaves were eaten.

The story of a fridge

Once there was a little girl who, unfortunately, was born with the Pack-Rat gene. This gene ran in both sides of her family so her urge to keep things overpowered logic. At age 6 or 7, the little girl was horrified to hear that the family's ugly pea green refrigerator broke down, and the little girl's parents had purchased another fridge. The little girl was distraught! How could they just get rid of the fridge after it kept the family's food cool for years? What would the house be like without that fridge? How would her life change by not seeing the green fridge every day? Her eyes welled up with tears. The mom and dad, both afflicted by the same gene, sighed and put the fridge in the carport where it became "storage" for newspapers. Being "green" before the term existed, the family did recycle many newspapers, but they decided it was handy to have an entire fridge full of newspapers for whatever art or craft project may require it. The little girl learned to keep things "just in case" you need them later. The little girl continued to hold onto objects: at her insistence the old living room chair went into the dog's yard where it fell apart in the weather, the cloth on her pillow became transparent it was so used, dozens of stuffed animals lined her bed wearing her old t-shirts she wouldn't give up and ultimately became large dust bunnies under the bed.

Then one day about 10 years after the fridge incident, the little girl and her family moved across country. She remembered to glance one last time at the pea green fridge, which was now quite the joke in the family. At her new home she cried for days, partly out of fear of her new place, but also the idea of her friends doing things without her, another family living in her house and the places she loved changing. Then the first day of school she realized no one remembered her from the 3rd grade as a freckle faced buck tooth girl that talked too much, or the 6th grader that couldn't keep a friend's secret if her life depended on it, or the 9th grader who had a crush on every boy in her entire english class. She could be whoever she wanted! Well, it turns out, that the very first day of school she met her future husband, even if he wasn't very nice to her that particular day. First lesson: maybe change was good.

Over the years the little girl, now a young adult, became addicted to change and loved moving to new places, switching colleges, meeting people who never knew her. Each time she moved she took less with her and left more at her mom and dads, until the last move to NY everything she wanted fit in a small car. She realized all those things were a pain at this point in her life; although she did leave quite a few boxes of sentimental things. Second Lesson: Things can hold you back.

A few years after their wedding the young couple decided to move again and they rented a small U-haul. The little girl spent a day boxing up all the books and high school/college trinkets that took over their bedroom. The books lined the walls and were even in storage containers under the bed. In the end she gave away over 100 books she knew she'd never read again and lots of sentimental items. All the clutter of dusty trinkets, playbills, and mix tapes annoyed her. The silly little broken Furby that her husband gave her in high school really had no place in their lives. And, anyways, it was really the picture of him giving her the Furby that made her laugh. The broken Furby that she was now embarrassed to own diminished that memory. Her favorite stuffed rabbit would never turn up real because she loved it so much. Plus, her best memories were of their vacations, hours at the dog park, sitting on the beach with books.

Third Lesson: The things don't have the memories. We hold the memories. Everything else is inanimate, and at the very most reminds you of a memory.

Now the little girl faces one more lesson. The ability to give up things that work, even if they don't work very well. And here is how she is learning that lesson:

Yes, another refrigerator. This time it is a faded ugly Golden Harvest Montgomery Ward fridge estimated at 35 years of age. How can it still be working? It is noisy, not efficient, impossible to organize, and food seems to go bad faster than it should, but the little girl reasoned "why should we throw it in the landfill if it is still working?" It felt wrong to throw it away, even though it was using more electricity than a newer model. Turns out that the electric company is paying people $40 to get appliances like this off the grid. The PackRat loses again. On Saturday a gleaming white refrigerator will be delivered. It even has a deli drawer and large shelves on the doors. Who knew a deli drawer could be so exciting?

I know that no matter what I do I will still have that little nagging girl on my shoulder trying to keep the green fridge. And if for whatever reason, the little girl shuts up, my parents are happy to share the story with me anytime I mention that I got rid of something or if I try to convince them to get rid of things I feel they don't need. But I've also learned that some people are happy to have lots of things and they do get satisfaction of seeing them every day. For me though, I think I will keep trying to make the most of my experiences and not clutter up our little bungalow.

(The 25 year old furnace is shuddering as he realizes his days are numbered!)

Penelope Meets Will: Dead and Alive

Last Friday night I picked up Miss Crankypants at daycare. I'm not sure when she had replaced Penelope, but we couldn't do anything right that evening. So with just a half hour before her bedtime, I pulled my ace and said "Do you want to go to the park?" The park is about 2 blocks away so not a long walk when I can entice her to sit in the stroller; however, it is a very long walk when she wants to walk. I really think she knows antish along with spanish and english because she has to speak to every ant we see.

Anyways, 20 mins later we arrived at the park and to my amazement there were about 100 people sitting on the hill. Now we go to this park at least 3 times a week so you'd think I would have seen signs for an event. I asked someone who was attending, and she said that A Midsummer Night's Dream would be starting at 7:30. I was giddy! My absolute favorite Shakespeare play right in my own neighborhood park? It was something I had always dreamed of seeing in Central Park. Now this obviously didn't have big stars, but it also didn't have 3 hour lines either. The beginning started with a percussion/guitar performance with about 30 dancers. It was like a mix of ren fair, woodland urchins, and african dance. Penelope loved it! We only stayed for about 15 minutes of the first act since Penelope was yelling "Bravo" "Yay" and clapping. Although, she got some giggles from others around us, I didn't want to disturb the audience. At home I googled and found that a local theater group called Upright Egg had been performing it every weekend for a month at Matthew's Park. Not a sign to be seen though. I wonder how everyone found out about it. Hopefully, they will continue it next year.

Then Penelope got to hang out with my cousin Will from Kansas. He was actually road tripping from South Dakota. Within 30 seconds of meeting Will, she was giving him high fives. Chris enjoyed having someone to play X-box with him and discuss his whisky collection.

So many expressions

As I downloaded the pictures from the last few days, I realized I somehow caught many of my favorite Penny expressions. I think it is actually because she is becoming more and more over the top every day, and I have more chances to catch her dramatic flair.

On Friday I wanted to take some pictures of Penelope wearing a dress sent by Grandma Chuck. The dress is actually by a company called Penelope Mack. No way to resist when your granddaughter's name is in the label!

"Oh no! The kitty I was chasing ran away!"
"Oh! The tops of those flowers are prickly"
"I'm so sweet"
"Hi mommy! Let's play with the gate."

"Ha ha!! I closed it and now you can't get out!"
"This is too much fun!"

Then on Saturday we went to the Fort Snelling state park beach. It is so much cleaner and nicer than the one we went to with my parents. Once we got used to the planes flying right over our heads, it was quite relaxing. Penelope loved pointing and waving to all the planes so it worked for her.

At 8 am we were spoiled with our own private beach. The airport is just beyond those trees. By 11 am there were a lot more people. There is a great picnic area too. Chris says we will be going here every weekend for the rest of the summer.

Another Penelope expression--- " 'Elp, elp mama" She has an odd cockney accent with english words and doesn't pronounce H so this is her saying "Help me take off my cover up, Mommy!" She also says 'Ello instead of hello and 'ere instead of here.
"I'm going to build a sand castle this big!"
"Mama, what does mischievious mean?"

This is one of my absolute favorite Penny expressions, and I've tried for months to catch it on my camera. I'd describe it as her incredulous "You don't say!" expression.

I wonder where she gets all these expressions...


Oh, yeah. A mama and daddy who met in drama class. That will do it.

Stranger Danger??

My office is on the same floor as a child and family life psychologist's office. In the afternoon I tend to be leaving about the same time as many of the families. Today I held open the elevator for an adorable girl with pigtails, probably 3 or 4, and her mom. As she got on I said "You can push the button if you'd like." She got a big smile and her mom helped her select the correct one. I commented that I liked her stickers. The front of her shirt was plastered with about a dozen stickers. As she started to tell me about one of them, her mother shot me the dirtiest look ever, grabbed her daughter's shoulder and said "Who is this woman?!" the daughter of course replied "I don't know." Her mom said "That's right. She is a stranger. You don't talk to strangers. They are dangerous" At this point the doors opened. I was a little shocked and I gave a somewhat confused smile to the mother. Once again, the dirty look as she dragged her now frightened daughter out the lobby doors.

Maybe the mother has some experience that makes her so afraid of "stranger danger", but it made me really sad for the little girl. I couldn't shake it off my whole way to pick up Penelope. I tend to probably be more trusting than some and believe the majority of people are good. If we all looked each other in the eyes and smiled more I think it would be even better.

It's not that I don't worry, but statistically it really doesn't make any sense to me to spend a lot of time on stranger danger worry. Being snatched by a stranger is very rare and that's why it makes the news vs the hundreds of kids who are taken by people they know. I tend to worry more about Penelope running into the alley when a car comes barreling around the corner or not being watched near a pool or if I'm not buckling her well enough in her car seat. However, just because I'm afraid of an accident of some kind doesn't mean I never let her cross the street. We teach her to look both ways, hold hands etc. Shouldn't the "stranger danger" be the same mentality? My parents told us not to let strangers into the house or get into a stranger's car, but if you know my dad he talks to everyone to the point where we would often be embarrassed. It would be odd for me to see his behavior and be told not to speak with strangers. I had no problem at 10 years old to approach a stranger in a store to politely ask for the time or strike up a conversation with an elderly couple in the airport, while I had friends who were under strict instruction to never talk to anyone. One friend was even afraid to talk to the lifeguard at our local pool. How can all of that fear be good for the world?

Today I took Penelope to swimming class right after this incident and tried to put myself in that woman's shoes. So the dad in our class that gives all the kids high fives, is he a stranger? The woman who picked up Penny's towel when she saw my hands were full? Should I have been upset by that? We left the Y right at the same time as another mother and her son. She commented to Penelope "that's a very cute teddy bear" to which Penelope replied "Dank you." It was perfect! The woman said "Awww! That's wonderful! Don't you just love when the little ones say it without us asking and at the right times? She's adorable. Have a good night" I decided I will always tell my daughter to be polite to people and expect the same in return, while also teaching her common sense about what to do with strangers if she isn't with me or Chris.

Not sure why I felt I had to blog about this. Just one of those incidents that made me reflect on my parenting philosophy I guess.

How to Spoil Your Only Grandchild in One Weekend

Papa John and Grandmama came to visit this weekend. Phew, we kept everyone busy! Penelope had an entire entourage to entertain...or rather 4 adults entertaining her.
We went to the Wabun pool again. As you can see, Daddy was playing with Penelope, while Mommy and Grandmama took photos and Papa John took videos. This is why I only have a few photos posted on the blog. I'll post the other 80 good ones in a facebook album.
On the 4th of July we went to Loring Park. Penelope was able to convince Papa John that he could carry her around the entire park.
Sunday we went to Lake Hiawatha, just a few miles from our house. Penelope loved her first lake swimming experience and making a sandcastle.

Of course, every day Grandmama did arts and crafts with Penelope. Here they are making penguins. At breakfast Grandmama and Papa John made play doh animals. They raised the bar too high. I create Play Doh snakes and balls. That's the extent of my play doh skills, and now Penelope has seen play doh dogs and elephants. Sigh...

The Henry Duo! Book them for your next kids party. Their repetoire includes The Wheels on the Bus, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and ABC. They will not be in tune, but their energy and enthusiasm make up for it. Testemonial: "I couldn't say more more more enough! I wanted them to sing all night" --Penelope Strand

"Me?! Spoiled? No!"

"I'm just a sweetheart!"
"See you in September Grandmama and Papa John."

And a video to show people a glimpse of what my childhood was like with my nature loving mom. Everything is hands on!