"High" just isn't descriptive enough any more

I noticed on the local news recently that they have started to actually quantify how bad the "high" pollen count is expected to be. Simply calling it "high" is no longer sufficient to describe the sheer misery that pollen allergy sufferers will experience. If my sinuses weren't quite so angry, I might find it amusing. Poor Addy seems to be suffering the consequences of spring as well. Hopefully she'll be less of a drooling, congested, hot mess in time to be gorgeous in her Easter dress!

Blue! Green! Pink!

Addy dyed Easter eggs this evening. Tomorrow we'll make lots of egg salad...


In some ways, it went a lot better than I expected. None of the eggs ended up on the floor, not a whole lot of the dye ended up on Addy. But, man oh man, was she ever impatient when the eggs needed to sit in the dye to take the color (the pink especially needed an extra couple of minutes). We had to do a cool down coloring with some crayons when she ran out of eggs.

Rain, rain, go away!

It's been raining here for the past several days, but the sun finally won out for a while this afternoon. Addy's big request? Go walkin'. So we took her to the park for some time on the swings.



Addy's love of grilled cheese sandwiches had a slight backfire recently. She was told she would be having macaroni and cheese for lunch one day, and was very very excited about cheese and then very disappointed that it was Sprout's macaroni and cheese and squash. Once again, Sprout's implementation of stage 3 baby food is somewhat questionable. The mac & cheese (and squash) is the consistency of drywall spackle and requires a fair amount of milk to reconstitute it (and then a fair amount more to get it to a consistency that Addy will eat).

In contrast to the macaroni & cheese debacle, queso dip from the Mexican restaurant downtown is an Addy-approved form of cheese, especially when it is delivered on a goldfish cracker!

When all else fails, try laying on the guilt

The other night at dinner time, Addy was not very interested in finishing her dinner and I was interested in having her keep working on it.

"Addy, have your apple bite please."

Addy put her arms up. "Eh.. Out."

"Not yet. Please finish your apple bite."

"Up."

"Eat."

"Out."

"Apple bite."

"Hug!"

Well played, Addy. Well played.

Grilled cheese sandwich, where have you been all my life?

We had gone out to eat the other day and, just for kicks and giggles, ordered Addy a grilled cheese sandwich from the kids' menu. She actually ate about 1/4 of it at the restaurant with no problems (yay!). We took about half of it home with us and she ended up eating that for lunch the next day. Today I made her another grilled cheese for lunch and figured we'd call it a success if she could work her way through half of it. Instead she ate all of it. Two slices of bread with American cheese inbetween, toasted on the stove. All of it. 100%. The whole thing. Every last crumb. And she kept saying "Manummy nom. More chee!" the whole time.

Step 1: Coat

Addy pulled up to her knees at the couch this afternoon and reached as far as she could. "Coah [coat]," she said. So Derek handed her coat to her and asked, "What should we do with your coat?" Addy sat back on the floor and tried to put it on her head. "On," she declared. So Derek helped her put the coat on. "Now what?" I asked her. She pointed at her shoes and said, "Shoods." After her shoes were on we asked her, "You have your coat and shoes; now what Addy?" "Go walkin'," she said, rather matter-of-factly. So we went for a walk outside.

Chomper #7

Teething is starting to pay off! Addy's 7th tooth has broken through today. She has the 4 middle teeth on the top, the 2 middle ones on the bottom, and now has the one just to the left on the bottom. They seem to come in twos, so maybe bottom right is on its way?

Also, I realized today that I had formed a false opinion in my head of what would be the most trying stage in toddlerdom. I thought for sure it would be the constant battle between "I do it!" and "I can't do it!" No, no. "Why?" is going to be the stage that requires a much higher level of patience. Care to guess what Addy's newest word is?

Outsmarted by the straw trainer

Addy keeps trying to chew on the straw if you give her a cup with your typical, run of the mill plastic straw in it. So we're continuing to practice with the straw trainer that the OT had recommended (it kind of looks like a reusable juice box, but has more of a hard spout at the end instead of the softer chewable plastic straw). Last night Addy was having some trouble with it and I (foolishly) assumed the problem was with the tot and not her cup. Nope. You have to flip the spout all the way open for it to work.

Today's straw practicing went much better.

The First Two Didn't Really Count

Addy believes herself to be a Big Girl now, capable of throwing a temper tantrum just like a real toddler. Time to work on some more sign language so she can have a better way of expressing herself besides screeching like a vicious bird of prey.


Tonight was Addy's first haircut (depending on whether you count the times she had to have her hair shaved for her shunt surgeries). Her bangs have been tickling her eyes lately, so we gave them a quick trim. She did a very good job of holding still while I had the scissors out (and she was totally laying on the charm pretty thick when Derek got the camera out!)