Two days in one week...

Isn't she the most beautiful little girl you've ever seen?

Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Little Princess was blessed with another day of Grandmomma and Granddaddy. She and Mommy met us at the mall where we were in the middle of doing our morning walk. Mommy was going to be there earlier but she blamed Little Princess and said she was slow in eating her breakfast. I think she changed the time to meet at least two or three times.

Little Princess was her usual self again this morning. Old sour-puss as long as she was around others, completely ignoring us like we didn’t exist, until we got into the car and then….wow, what a personality change.

Granddaddy told me that when she was at our house the other day she had watched him unplug the mouse to the computer and she went right behind him and tried to plug it back in. She’s not intending to be tech ignorant, is she? We will have to learn to hide the plug before she gets here next time, I guess.

A routine with the grandkids always has been to put the colorful foam mats down on the wood floor to protect the wood floors from rough play from the toys. Here is a picture of Little Princess as she goes about her part of helping with the routine.

Isn't she adorable?

By the time we put her hat on her head that fine baby hair was all over her face and in her eyes, so needless to say when we left for Golden Corral she needed a new “do”. Mommy always gets it fixed so much prettier than I do, and today Little Princess decided she would not cooperate at all. She thought it was so very funny to twist, turn and shake that little head just about the time I got a good wad of it up to put into a band. Then it would all fall down. Start over. Repeat. She’s a mess. And that was with Granddaddy trying to hold her. I finally resorted to trying to add a clip to it that her mommy used to use in her hair.

She liked that. She knew it was up there. Later she would find the second clip and had such a fun time putting it in the rocking chair and rocking it so it would fall through the back of the chair. Over and over, she entertained herself with that clip and rocking chair. And thought it was so very funny! And it was, just watching her.

It was finally off to Golden Corral for a good choice of foods for a picky toddler. She ate quite a bit of the choices she had. She loved her macaroni and cheese and black-eyed peas. She enjoyed a few pinto beans. She refused the cooked broccoli, sweet potato and dab of carrots, not to mention she completely refused to eat a bite of chicken. It wasn’t Chick-a-lay, remember. She didn’t care for their green beans. They were a bit seasoned. She crammed herself with cantaloupe and the mandarin oranges were just what she wanted. (A bowl as a matter of fact.)She may have eaten a tiny bit of fried okra, but most of it ended up in my hand. Remember nothing she doesn't want to eat stays on her mat or tray. The end of the meal was reserved for a small ice cream cone. And she ate most of it. That girl can eat when she wants to. Kinda like her mother.

She fought sleep or rather she fought me so she could go to sleep. I did everything I could think of to keep her awake the short drive home. Those little eyes were so very heavy. She perked up a little when we got home until we had a chance to do our routine in her room. She definitely takes exception to being put in the bed to sleep. She wanted to be rocked to sleep and it took very few rocks and that sweet baby was down for a full 40-45 minutes.

She has finally learned, I think, that she should not stand in the little rocking chair since she fell the other day. She’s very cautious now. She puts that little foot up into the seat, but she keeps her bottom on it and twists around until she is sitting right in the chair. And she loves to sit with those little legs hanging out the back side of the chair. That works better for her.

She spent some time this morning rocking her mommy’s Baby doll Carolyn. Carolyn sleeps all the time, but she’s gentle enough not to wake her.
She picks her up by the arm and drags her over to either Granddaddy or me. Hey, the baby doll is pretty heavy for a little fifteen month old baby girl! She really tries to be gentle. Baby doll is just pretty big for her.

She found the plastic dump truck I had bought for the boys to play with.
She decided she didn’t want to keep wearing all that lace today. She wanted to work out in the field, maybe in transportation like her favorite daddy,or maybe construction, even, so nothing would do except we had to bring that truck into the family room for her to play with. She tried to…stand…yep, stand in it. She hasn’t learned she can’t stand in everything, just the rocking chair. Granddaddy was there to stop her and then she and I played dumping the blocks out all over the floor, and picking them back up again, dumping again, picking up, dumping, picking up. Then she decided it might be fun to try to sit and ride on the part that connects the dumper to the cab once the dumper is pushed back.
She would get off balance, but she would catch herself. She had so much fun!

She wanted some cookies and told us by asking for them by name. Then she put on her lace again and then dragged the plastic fine china tea set over for me to set up. She wanted to put her cookies on the tea set so we could have cookies and tea on her plastic fine china. I even gave her a few sips of water out of the teacup. Yeah, that really was brave of me, wasn’t it? I’m sure that was probably a big mistake, because she doesn’t forget a lot. Next time we may have chocolate pudding in one of our teacups. Or we may eat part of our lunch from it. Who knows what kind of crazy things I’ll do with her before it’s over…and regret to see the day I did. I can always pack up that little plastic fine china tea set and send it home with her for mommy to contend with. Hmm, now that’s a thought.

The other day when Little Princess hurt her little hand, I told her I would kiss it and make it feel all better, so today when she fell and hit her head on one of her toys I asked her if she had hurt my toy. She reached her little hand over to me and wanted me to kiss it to make it all better. Then I got the other little hand to kiss. It didn’t matter whether it was the toy or her head, the hand was closest for me to kiss.

Earlier she had fallen and hit the back of her little head on the floor. To keep her from crying I asked her if she had hurt my floor. And I rubbed the floor like it was in pain. She looked up, laughed and wanted to hit my floor all over again with her hard little head! At that point it began to be a hazard to her little head and my floor. I tried to get her to hurt the mats instead. She’s such a little stinker.

She has found my craft chalks and she brings them over to me for us to discuss the colors. Then she wants me to turn the chalks over so she can see the colors on the other side and we can talk about them. She has done this the last few times she’s been here. One of her routines. She’s content to just look at them. I’m not telling her there are a couple of more layers in between the top and bottom ones. She understands those chalks are Grandmomma’s toys and Little Princess can only look at them. But it’s still a routine we must go through each time. Just because. Just because Little Princess wants to. And I’m a good Grandmomma, yes I am,…at least so far.

I got the little potty out again today. She did her usual...trying to stick her little foot in it..., but I think she was just trying to figure out how to get her little body turned around so she could sit. She will sit on the potty for a few seconds. Maybe this is what it will take to get her better accustomed to doing what she needs to do. Oh, and one time I said something about using the potty, and I could swear she pulled her little top up like she wanted me to take her pants down or unsnap them, so she could try sitting on it. Then, again, I might just have made that up. But I don’t think so. Anyway, I didn’t take her clothes off to set her on it.

Another time Little Princess decided to feed me some of her Cheerios. Yes, I did consent to letting her feed them to me. With that slobbered-on little hand she was feeding me. You've got to know how much I really, really love that little girl to put myself through that! She would put a Cheerio in my mouth and her little mouth would open. (It’s all these little details like this that makes her so much fun to observe!) She’s such a cutie. If I get sick we know who to blame for it, though. Cute or not! Cute doesn't count when Grandmomma's sick!

One time she came over to the sofa and actually tried to pick me up! Granddaddy saw her do it, and we both thought that was quite funny. She thinks she can pick ME up. She has big dreams, doesn’t she? She tried so hard to get her little arms under me to lift me. I told her I didn’t know what she was trying to tell me, and Granddaddy and I both heard her say “Die-da” and she walked over to where I keep her diapers and got them and brought them over to me to change her. She wasn’t really all that wet, but she was a bit cool. Did I say she’s a really smart little cookie, too?

She and Granddaddy love to play “Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall” where she sits on Granddaddy’s lap and Granddaddy spreads his legs apart and then he drops her between them while still holding onto her when “Humpty-Dumpty has a great fall.” She loves that little game. That brings on bunches of laughs and giggles. We keep expecting her to surprise us and say "Fall” when he gets to that part, but not just yet.

I have watched that little bundle of energy go back and forth, twist and turn, back up across the floor, and go up and down from a squatting position countless times, using those little knees and legs. She is building up some thigh muscles! No wonder she stays so nice and trim. That's good waist-trimming exercises, too, I'm sure. It is amazing how much energy one little toddler can have, and how much energy they can cause a great big adult to use up. But she was lots of fun today. Just like she always is when we get to see her.

So, there, Mommy is just a brief overview of a bit of our 18.5 hour day with our little Princess. While you were sitting at that office doing nothing or catching up on your sleep! Hope you enjoyed your nap!