Abby's Booty

As mentioned previously - Abby has a soft spot for hoarding 'special things'. Tonight she stuffed Minnie and Mickey in a purse, carried a shoe lace, a book about Peter Cottontail, and her baby (which she chastised for going somewhere without an adult before she found her on the piano), and her headband to Zoozy and Grandpa's and then asked me to take a picture of her with her baby.

Hence the picture.

This Day?!

So Abby's concept of time is fascinating to me. Nevermind how she tends to run yesterday in with last year or this morning... the thing that is so sadly funny to me is when I tell her something we're going to do (particularly something fun) she always follows it up, "This day? This day I get to go to go to Claire's Grandma's house?"

I imagine tomorrow is the only future she comprehends - forget next week or 'in the fall.'

Leaping Lizard Strikes Again

We had our four month check up yesterday and once again the nurse was taking a ridiculous amount of time with the Doppler (checking the heartbeat). I thought I'd heard it a couple times but expected her to send someone else in to check like they did last time they couldn't find it.

HOWEVER she finally made a frustrated sort of sound and wrote something down in the chart and left. Steve told me (his view was better) that she found it fine, she was trying to get a long enough listen to get the heart rate but the baby must have been moving around too much. She even tried at one point to press her hand down where the top of the placenta should be to try to keep baby from skipping around - but cunning child got the better of her anyway.

How silly is that?

30 Minutes I can't get back...

I have been a complete failure scheduling this week. After checking and re-checking and triple-checking Abby's Summer School information I not only thought it started on the wrong day (it started today not yesterday) but I thought it started at 9:30 instead of 9.

I'm sort of depressed now, ridiculous as that may be. We were ready to go at 9 but I delayed and delayed and delayed and I'm just... ugh.

Reshoot!

They are going to reshoot the 'reveal' of the show which is great in many ways. Mainly because Abby won't have a bloody nose and a fat lip! Also because it gives me the opportunity to redeem myself for choosing the PILLOWS as my favorite thing in the play house (it's where my eyes went first!!)

What stresses me out is:
The flowers are dying already because we are either drowning them or the ground just can't support them.
The floor is pretty dirty in there.
Uh... that's all.

;)

Chaos

Another possible indication that Abby is an extrovert (or is this just obvious to everyone but me):

We went to a different mall and played in their play area and it just struck me; Abby ran into the middle of child chaos and you could just see the joy in her face, her hands tensed and ready to clap with happiness. It was totally a situation which would have made me want to retreat, but Abby just thrived in it.

7-7-7

Why is Hazel the only degenerate friend of mine to tell me how cool my birthdate is going to be this year?

I wonder if any gamblers are going to kidnap me to use me as a good luck charm.

Hat Pictures Redux

I just love the hats... I should mention she had just had a blue popsicle - her teeth don't normally have a blue tint.

First Visitors

The first highly lucky visitors to Abby's house: Daddy & Aunt Samantha for Sunday brunch


Wesley and Julia


(
(Gramma not pictured)

Letters and Songs

Abby dictates letters to me now, insists I write them down for her.

They usually go something like this:

Dear Mommy,
Please give me treats and candy all the time.
Love, Abby.


Abby is also quite the song writer. The newest lyrics go something like this:

Abby on a mountain
with treats and candy
and juice and soup
in a bag!

Abby's New House

Well, we asked for it. Abby has her own house. She likes to wake up early (and therefore wake us up early) to go out to her house and play. She invites me in or says that I need to go back in the house depending on her mood. These pictures are from the first morning after the house was finished (note she is still in her pjs).


Today she informed me she wanted her soup and her juice in her house and suggested I go to the grocery store alone because she had her own house so it was okay for me to go. Of course, when she is in there I hear her hollering now and then because "There's a bee in my house!!!!" or "Now I want cereal!"



It only took a day and a half for the swelling of her lip to go down and she just looks a little scraped up now.

Before and After

And of course imagine grass in there as well for someday.

So... Guess what happened this morning? Abby woke me up ready to go play in her house, so off we went in our PJs.

What I am so impressed with is how many of these things are so perfectly age appropriate. I had no idea she'd be interested in a pulley system or a little communication device from the observation deck down.

It really is a special thing to have. Even if there is no grass ;)

Hammerheads Day Four

Not the best of pictures, but there were complications with my time today. It'll look amazing in a nice picture - don't forget to note the spanish tiles and little pipes at the top that mimic our actual house. How cool is that?

Nothing at all to do with Hammerheads, but I can't talk about it right now. Hard day for an emotionally unstable pregnant woman. Abby fell face first into a stepping stone and busted her lip.

The show people were great though.

Abby is amazing. And I love her with a painful intensity.

Hammerheads Day Three

Whelp, moving right along here. Another filming day which slows things down. On the other hand, it gives Abby a great outlet for being cute. Today she did a lot of painting on film which I know they liked. She also gave them a little window into what it's like to be around a child that knows their own mind.

They got two slides to test out and were only planning on using one. I'm not sure why but the host was really hilariously trying to get Abby to pick this one slide over the other. However, Abby had made up her mind and she chose the opposite. So the host decides to give her both and get rid of the fireman's pole (which she wouldn't have used anyway) but he wants her to say on camera that she wants both or she doesn't want to decide. However, she didn't know "both" was on the table so whenever he'd say, "Well, guys it looks like Abby is having trouble deciding..." Abby would pipe up and say, "No, I want this one."

It was pretty hilarious. They will cut it so that she does seem indecisive but it was hilarious to be there.

So, we are really starting to be able to see what its going to look like. They have real tiles for the awning type thing, shutters that will match our windows (the same as our trim color), the suspension bridge is up and the railings are going in for protecting the kids...


The inside has a loft type area and a wall of blackboard paint and they have all sorts of little things like pillows to decorate it nice for the reveal...


It is 9:30pm and they just left. We should have the reveal tomorrow!

World's most useless Premonition

Sunday night I dreamed I found a flea on my leg.

Today I found a flea on my leg.

I have been worrying that it's being Summer time and all and everyone with doors open and disturbing the yard and tromping dirt etc through the house that we were going to have a problem.

I'm just praying praying praying that our Terminex membership is going to pay off here because I really just might lose it if we have to go through the same flea horror that we did last year.

Hammerheads Day Two

Since you asked, Hammerheads is a new show for HGTV so you will not have seen it yet. If you are an HGTV junkie you may recognize our host Steve Hanneman from Design to Sell and... Weekend Fix or something like that?


Today a good amount of time was spent by the carpenter's at perfecting the leveling of the foundation and the measurements. To their detriment really - they were here til 8pm trying to knock the slide landing out and get the suspension bridge sorted.


Since we weren't really expected to work today Steve and Abby just spent a few hours priming the walls. Abby had a nice long adventure to the Farm where she rode around on Janie the Mule! MarySue apparently has pictures but I don't have them in my hot little hands.

So even though I only had to oversee the munchkin for a few hours today - well... 5... any amount of time trying to manage a four year old in a construction site is exhausting fyi. I don't want to be too crazy strict or else she'll take it out on the project plus they want her to be comfortable enough with the people and the project that they can get her doing funny things on film. Not to mention by tonight she was just plain exhausted.

As am I. They do keep mentioning the sod but still not in a 'we're going to do it' way as much as a 'we wish it wasn't an issue' way.

Back to the project - they worked very very hard today and there were no cameras to document it. They want this series to work obviously which is nice really because they are very invested therefore in the work they are doing for us.


It doesn't look like much yet, but I think it will be really really nice.

Coconut Anyone?

In case you have Abby without a translator present Coconut=Coca Cola

Hammerheads Day One

Okay, well, not much to say. Everything is going well. Everyone is nice and extremely kind with Abby and about Abby. Things started off slow because they wanted to get a shot with Abby and there was noise and everyone was waiting and blah blah, but once they let go of some of that, she loosened up immediately. The only issue really was her wanting to play with everyone and getting in the way and all that sort of thing. BUT tomorrow she'll have an adventure with MarySue and Thursday we'll have some issues again, but we'll see if we can prepare better now that we know what it will be like. Abby really was very patient and eventually set up her own private screening area through one of the windows.



SO they were eager to demolish the old structure. It seemed to go really fast, especially getting it to near skeletal condition.
They did some shots where the host's leg goes through the second story floor which was funny. They were also well aware of how and where it would go down so that was nice not to have to worry about that.

By lunch they were working with a clean slate.

They were fascinated with our next door neighbor's underground pool and took a tour right after lunch.

The rest was really just for the show - they may redo some of the stuff they did at the very end just to get it a little more perfect tomorrow. By stuff I mean construction not shots.

Abby was very interested in talking to the host just exactly the way everyone wanted her to, but they didn't really have things prepared for her - so by the time they realized she was talking to him animatedly it was almost too late, by the time they got the camera and sound there it was way too late. BUT finally one of the sound guys had the idea to put a mic in her teddy bear and have the shot all ready when we brought Abby into it and they got what they wanted... EXCEPT for Abby saying "Hammerheads" This ended up being the day's project (Abby knew we wanted her to say it but didn't quite trust WHY) until finally one of the carpenter's had her say it as part of a "Knock, Knock" joke.

It was lucky it was NOT Father's Day though as any time they tried to cajole her into saying something involving daddy she would say, "Daddy's not very good at building." Which was odd really because I never say that sort of thing!!!

So I think for the show the day ended really well. For us it was great too... I'm tired and I did practically nothing!

Tomorrow is a work day only (no cameras) and then Thursday we go again.

It's Important not to hit people with strollers

So we're having this issue where Abby accidentally hits one of us or throws something when we're not paying attention or falls on us or something like that and a good part of the time she really cutely says, "Oops, my fault, I'm sorry about that, that was my fault."

The other part of the time - I think when our reactions are stronger she says it wasn't her - the floor came up and slapped him or a similar sort of thing. I don't think it's a lie to get out of punishment, I think it's a lie because she feels so guilty and doesn't want us or herself to believe that she did it... scared of judgment?? I don't know. But I'm afraid other people will take it as a plain old nasty lie and so I obviously would like to curb her away from doing it.

Anyway, she gets irrationally upset (as if we are calling her a liar - which we aren't) when we tell her that, no, we saw her and it's okay but she did it.

The only idea I've had so far is to point out whenever I accidentally do something that "See, Mommy didn't mean to spill that on the floor, but I did, oh well, I'll clean it up." OR like when we were getting in the car with a stroller I couldn't figure out how to fold up so I tried to fit it in the back with Abby but when I closed the door on it it jammed into Abby's leg... So right then I told her how awfully awfully sorry I was and that it was my fault and I didn't mean to do it and I'm so sorry that I did.

SO we're on the way home from somewhere today and Abby rips a page in a book that we told her to be careful of and she says she didn't do it - it was just a pretend rip. And we started in on the whole taking responsibility even if it's an accident and it's okay blah blah blah. So this is how it went:

Me: Like remember when I accidentally hit you with the stroller? I didn't mean to do that, but I did, and I was really sorry and I told you that.
Abby: Yeah, you hit me with the stroller.
Me: I know, and I'm so sorry I did that. Did I say I was sorry?
Abby:Yeah. You shouldn't hit people with strollers.
Me: I know, it was an accident, I won't do it again.
Steve: So, Abby, you see? It's okay if you do something wrong, you just have to tell the truth about it. It's very important. Right?
Abby: Yeah, it's really important not to hit people with strollers.
Steve: Yes, but what else is important?
Abby: It hurt my knee.


*sigh*

My Daughter, the Pirate

So, here I was, minding my own business upstairs while I listened to Abby happily singing along with Little Einsteins downstairs. She comes upstairs, very excited and says I have to come downstairs. I do.

She is brimming with pride as she shows me what she's done: create pirate lions (lines) for a map to a treasure!

D'oh, one problem. She did it on the rug... in permanent marker. Yeah!




I have now medicated myself with half a pouch of Grape flavored Big League Chew I found abandoned in the cupboard and made myself muffins.

Steve will be proud to see that she actually tagged the map. There is a nice "A" and "B" and a "Y" not pictured here. She did the whole 8'x10' rug. It was quite a map. Some days I just wish I liked alcohol.