Little Princess visits...

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

I'm learning to use my fork...

At lunch while the Little Princess was enjoying her Chick-a-lay nuggets I asked Granddaddy if he wanted to eat some of the macaroni and cheese I had fixed to go with The Little Princesses’ lunch. I had put her mac and cheese in one of her little fine china plastic tea set cups thinking she would enjoy eating it more that way. She looked over at Granddaddy and then picks up her little tea cup of mac and cheese and gladly handed it to him. She wasn’t going to eat it anyway. It would just go to waste.

Since he turned down her generous offer she put it back onto her tray and decided to dump the whole cupful of mac and cheese onto her plate. Of course, it was molded to the cup and came out in a perfect mound. She hovered her little hand over the mess like she was trying to decide whether or not to eat it or destroy it. Destroy it was her final decision. That little hand crashed down into the mountain of mac and cheese and she had plenty of fun. I asked her if her food was good and she nodded that little head up and down, slowly and said, "Yum-my". But she will also let me know if it isn't something she wants with a back and forth of her little head and a "No." Most times it's a shake of the head, but I'm pretty sure I heard her say "no".

Later in the afternoon when she wanted a snack she found the bag of marshmallows. She pushed right past me. She was on a mission to get to her Granddaddy because she knew he would give her some marshmallows. And he did. Much to her glee he keeps her filled with cookies, too. Even later when she decided she needed some Cheerios she got them from the table, and I thought she was bringing them to me. Nope, she pushed past me again, bag in hand and proceeded to...open them by herself. Apparently only she or Granddaddy can open and distribute the junk food.

She has been trying to master climbing up into the dining room chairs at her house and ours.
She’s got it at her house, much to her mother’s sorrow and she’s really been working on ours. Our chairs are pretty tall, but that doesn’t deter her from climbing up onto them.

She latches onto the spindles, throws her leg up and climbs right up.

She finally mastered the art today. And one time even stood in the middle of the chair, much to her mother’s horror. Read her mommy's blog to read about her climbing in their chairs. I didn’t get pictures of her once she had succeeded because I was too busy getting the meal ready to feed four hungry faces. I did manage to get these shots of her as she sets about her task at hand.

OK, so these pictures are a little out of order, but use your imagination. Maybe I'll fix them someday.

I tried so hard to get her to take a nap this afternoon, but it was all in vain. She and I would go to her bedroom and sit on the bed and read books, but when it was time for her to get into her bed she was having nothing to do with that.

I asked her was she tired and ready for bed. She would push against me hard, almost standing on the bed and say, “Ummmmp.” That meant no and we won’t talk about it anymore. That little head would go back and forth. She didn’t want to go down for naptime.

One time she was looking at a book called Guess Who Loves Me? And when she came to the picture of the Grandmomma, I didn’t say anything to her about who it was. She looked at me, pointed to the Grandmomma and then touched me to let me know that was Grandmomma. Oh my, I didn’t know I had that many wrinkles and gray hairs, but she certainly was able to recognize me, so I guess I’ve been living an elusion all this time. And I thought we grandmothers were supposed to be looking younger. Maybe not all of us are.

Little Princess even tried to cut off the noise-maker because it was beginning to interfere with her staying awake.

Back to the front to listen to music over satellite. That didn’t work this time. She fought me all the way. Finally Granddaddy said he would rock her to sleep. He took her and in just a very short time she as out of it. I took her from him and put her in her bed without her waking up. And she slept all of 40 minutes. She was up at around 7:30 this morning or maybe earlier. How she can go without sleep, is a mystery, except she inherited it from her Mommy and Uncle. They would never sleep, either.

Earlier in the day we pulled out the little dump truck and some more boy toys she had found. She found a grader-type toy and a big green tractor, but that wasn’t as much fun as the dump truck. But I’m sure she will still have to drag them all out next time, too.

I read the story to her about the man and his dump truck. She seemed to enjoy it some, but it will take her a little more time to get into the story, I guess.

Another funny, I told her she couldn’t go outside with Granddaddy to get the mail because she didn’t have any shoes on her feet. She looked down at her feet. She found her shoes to go on her feet. Another time neither Granddaddy nor I could find "the other shoe" and we were talking about it and looking for it. She looked at us, walked right over to where she had put it and brought it to us. It was a good thing she remembered where she put it because I probably never would have found it. It was in her toys.

She helps us by holding out her arms when we are putting on her coat, and she has tried to put her shoes on by herself. She’s a big helper as long as it’s her idea. She will lie down on the floor for either Granddaddy or me to change her diaper. Mommy said she isn’t so helpful to her, but then again, she does use the changing table and it’s a little high for her to climb onto. At least for the moment.

And I think I forgot to mention that she even helped me mash potatoes for the evening meal. Granddaddy held her up and we told her to take the masher and help me mash them and she did. Granddaddy picked her up and put her down, potato masher in hand, so she could help mash since she's too short to reach the counter. No pictures of that either because it's kinda hard to hold a pan of potatoes and try to make sure Granddaddy and baby don't dump the potatoes all over the floor. (I know, Poor Granddaddy!) And, of course, she was more than willing to eat those potatoes for dinner. She had helped make them.


Now if you can stand me sharing one more OCD moment in our family…The cardreader for removing pictures from the camera to the computer was turned on its side on the edge of the computer. Little Princess walked by, saw it, and promptly picked it up and set it up straight. Not once, but twice because I tested her to see if she would notice it later. And she did.