Toddler chairs!

Layla is a big toddler now so we bought her some toddler chairs when we were garage sale shopping this weekend. The first time she saw them she exploded with screams of excitement, and immediately climbed up onto one chair and then another and another.

She likes to get on the chair and sit, or get on her knees and rock it back and forth (with Mom and Dad making sure the chair doesn't tip over) and she also likes to stand up - she's very brave. Last night as she was getting ready for bed I stacked all the chairs up and when she saw them like that she got mad at me and insisted I unstack them immediately. She said, "don't mess with my chairs!!" and since it wasn't going to ruin my night to unstack the chairs I obliged. The nice thing for us is that the chairs are entertaining her for a lot longer than any of her toys do these days - and provided some much-needed exercise on our rainy weekend.

New cookbook excitement!!

Our house is abuzz with the arrival (from the Amazon fairy) of a new cookbook, 'Deceptively Delicious' by Jessica Seinfeld. Yes, this is the famous Jerry Seinfeld's wife - but it stands well enough on its own. The book was pretty popular when it was released and I can see why - it's laid out very nicely and has a lot of amazingly easy and yummy-looking recipes in it.


The idea behind the book is that you can 'hide' vegetable purees in all kinds of regular food (in particular butternut squash and carrots, which I think are in about 50% of her recipes). Fortunately Layla LOVES vegetables so we haven't had any trouble getting her to eat them. But, she doesn't like every entree we give her and I felt like we might fall into a rut with the 5 or so things we know she'll like (spaghetti, pizza, mac & cheese, quinoa and bean salad, and pulled pork). So, we've been trying some new recipe books geared towards kids - or rather, the Amazing Studly Hubby, who does all the cooking in our house, has been trying new recipe books.

I've discovered that the recipes in this book are so easy I can even follow them. And some of the recipes are so simple you can't believe you've never heard of it. Tonight for dinner, I added butternut squash to our usual box mac & cheese and it was delicious (there is also a home-made mac & cheese recipe but who needs that?). I never would have thought of that! So, the the J & D household gives this recipe book 6 thumbs up.

D.O. - update

Today Layla and I both had follow-up appointments with the D.O., which I have posted about before. I wanted to update on how it's going.

It's going great!! After seeing the D.O., Layla has gotten her full range of motion back in her neck. It took a few months of regular visits, in which she behaved progressively worse and worse... but the doctor was tolerant of her increasingly loud screaming and managed to work his magic anyway. Now, finally, we don't have to take her back until the end of the summer! I have been going pretty regularly too, and since I behave much better than Layla we made a lot of progress on my problems in a short time. My low back has a lot of issues - mostly it's mad about some bad posture and tight hip problems I have - but it has released it's reign of terror on my knees and I've been able to start back up running pretty regularly again. The great thing about the D.O., I've realized, is that the adjustments hold really well. After many years of chronic problems, I am finally seeing some results. I'm so lucky to have found this guy!

Mother's Day

Today I celebrated my 2nd Mother's Day. This year, I wanted to spend some time with the little lady so after breakfast (pancakes, not in bed, but in my robe), the Studly Hubby took me and our little lady out to a spring plant/bake sale in our neighborhood near a spectacular playground and let me spend our last dollar on cookies and pie (don't worry, there's more in the bank, we just haven't had time to go!).

We also got some really good-quality nap time today, since Layla was exhausted from transitioning to the toddler room last week. She slept an amazing 90 minutes this morning and another 2 hours this afternoon. It was mind blowing - although on Friday she had a 4-hour nap at daycare, which altered our reality. We actually came home Friday wondering if we still lived in the same house and were the same people as before. With awesome napping comes awesome free time and I took advantage. In the morning I took a nap of my own, and then in the afternoon I sat on the deck and soaked up the sun and read my favorite magazine, the Oprah magazine. That was a rare opportunity even before Miss Layla took over our lives, and I really enjoyed it.

We took some pictures today but they haven't made their way from the camera to the computer yet. So, I will leave you with another picture of an equally fun time we had last weekend hiking around Discovery Park with some friends.

ORNERY little girl!!!

We have an ornery child on our hands. She was sweet as a sweet pea until about 3 weeks ago, when she started showing her ornery side. Here are some of the wonderful ways our child now expresses herself:

- hollering at the top of her lungs from Green Lake back to our place (~1 mile) because she wanted to WALK HOME BY HERSELF (except, in the wrong direction, and in the street, and with frequent stops at every parked or moving car she saw to try to open the car door).

- shoving a 3-year old friend off of a slide - her friend's slide, at her friend's house. Clearly making friends isn't as important as going down the slide.

- stealing another friend's hat, binki, socks, snacks, and bottle when he was nice enough to share his red wagon with her. Fortunately he was quite tolerant and didn't kick her out of his wagon.

- making quick escapes out from under us while getting her diaper changed - very risky business for her, us, and the floor (we abandoned the changing table due to the height hazard).

- throwing fits over everything, especially anything we say 'no' to... which led to us having to leave a restaurant before ordering food for the first time today.

- refusing to ride in the stroller, the baby-carrier, or in the car in preference for WALKING everywhere, except in unusual circumstances (fortunately she's still good if we're going someplace interesting, or we give her lots of her favorite snacks).

While I find it a bit overwhelming, the Studly Hubby actually likes this new stage because while Layla is getting more ornery she is also developing into a more interactive little person. She can understand and respond to a lot more, and seems to be making a more real emotional connection with us - she even every once in a while will give us some hugs and kisses, all on her own. She has also gotten to be a much better sleeper, both at night (mainly because she hasn't been sick in a whole 3 weeks), and also during the day (she's switched over to 1 nap a day and often sleeps a marathon 90 minutes or more... a drastic increase from her previous 30-min naps). So, I guess it's a trade-off.