Belle's Life

Picture therapy

So someone in my office has a serious case of the "you-somehow-messed-things-up-and-now-I'll-make-snide-comments-and-try-to-ruin-your-day/night/weekend."  It's not my boss, which is good, but is a coworker who is known to blame the messenger and get defensive.  I had nothing to do with a decision yet I'm somehow the devil.

Whatever, I am turning for a few minute to picture therapy to improve my mood by posting what I like to call "A Selection of Pictures of Sam from Over the Holidays, Mostly At Parks Because of the Unseasonably Warm Weather We Had":

At a party

Our friend Jo invited us over for a post-New Year's Wine Tasting/Sharing party on Saturday in her adorable condo near Ballston.  We attended with the marvelous Miss Sammie who wore one of her party dresses (this one courtesy of GrandmaRe and Grandpa) and then Jo offered the ultimate accessory of a hot pink boa. I don't think you can understand how much fun she had with Gary being such a good dad and Scott unflinchingly helping along the craziness that was Sammie standing, dancing, sitting/climbing/frolicking on a couch and causing the boa to lose about half its feather-weight. Jo was a sport about it and we had a blast at the party (and were introduced to a new game called Quirkle(sp?)) which is a sort of shape/color version of Scrabble and loads of fun.  Jo also offered some new books courtesy of her work at National Geographic and let Sammie take one home that is all about rocks.  Such a fun night!

 

The artist at work

In one of these, I look like the world's worst Mom because she appears to be guaranteed to fall out of her chair but she didn't so I'm not.  Or something.

You all are going to get tired of the hair thing, I know...

But here she is again:

Pick a card Daddy, any card

Cuter than cute in pink jam jams.

On being unable to stop picking at her lip(s)

It's the time of year that ones' lips get chapped, despite copious amounts of balm and what not applied. 

Sammie has always been one to pick at her fingernails, cuticles, toenails, scabs, and especially now, she picks at her lips.  She goes to sleep looking reasonable (because hey, your lips heal super fast actually) and then wakes up with big bliffies where she picked during the night.  Upper, lower lips, doesn't matter.  We talk to her, we tell her there will be consequences, but it's hard to execute during the middle of the night when she apparently goes to town.  But we're getting there.

In the meantime, along with wavy hair for the fourth day in a row, she has a bliffy:

What's that you say?  She has a doll in front of any bliffy?  Ok, let's try this one:

Yup there it is.

Hey Sam Sam...leave those lips alone!

Hair

Sammie and I were hanging out on Saturday night after a nice family dinner (we'd let Gary go off to hang with the boys down at the Post).  It was just about bedtime and Sammie had had her hair combed out by Gary while I finished cooking.  I looked at her hair and looked at her, snuggled up with me reading a book, and asked if she wanted me to braid her hair (which was still a bit damp) and then she'd have curlier hair in the morning.  She was excited by the idea and so I did a french braid.  It was a little crooked and loose in places but it didn't matter since this was all about the results, and mind you, that's the first time I'd ever tried to french braid someone else's hair that I recall.  I have done my own french braid a very few times but otherwise, no practice.  So here's a picture of her hair braided (btw a huge thanks out there to Sydnie Beckman's mom who showed me how to do this eons ago, though she did it better of course, having braided back Sydnie's hair for iceskating lessons etc. for years):

Sammie happily trundled off to bed and woke up in the morning expecting, apparently, her hair to have gone all Little Orphan Annie or something.  Instead, I was quite pleased with:

Sammie insisted that it wasn't curly but asked that I do it again, this time with two braids to make it even curlier.  Gary said "Well, that actually wouldn't make it curlier."  I said he was crazy, that it would of course (he has never braided hair so let's cut him some slack) and Sammie sat patiently while I did the braids.  No pics of the braids but here are the results:

Sammie insists it isn't curly but she really loves it so we did it again last night and here's her ensemble at school:

It's funny because what the waving/curling hair does is really make her highlights stand out even more than usual.  It also keeps her hair out of her face better because it has dried back from it and tends to try and stay in that shape. 

I'm happy to keep braiding her hair.  It doesn't seem to make a difference either reducing or increasing the tangles and she really likes the alternative.  What do you think?  Gary & I agree it really does change her look.

Pics from the Ducks game

Pictures

No, that's not a goatee, it's frosting :)

Sobbing

Sammie is learning how to write her letters at school and we're working with her on it.  She has a pretty wide streak of perfectionism when it comes to writing things down.  She was sort of like this sometimes when it came to drawings (wanting to crumple them up sometimes when she "ruined it") but letters are exponentially more of a stress apparently.

So this morning she weighed herself on the scale in the bathroom and I said 42.4 instead of the 42.6 she'd had the last few times.  She announced she wanted to wake up daddy to tell him.  I said no, we need to let Daddy sleep.  She said ok, then will you write a note to tell him and I'll put stickers on it?  I said that I would help her write a note.

So we went to the kitchen table, grabbed a piece of white paper and I asked her to write letters spelling Daddy (I would spell it and she would write).  Now, she knows how to do a D and an A pretty well and I figured we'd try the Y. 

She burst into tears, sobbing that she didn't know how to write the word and couldn't do it.  She cried while I explained that I would spell it out letter by letter and that all I wanted to her to try was Daddy.  She cried while I said that I would help her.  She sobbed and said she couldn't write small letters she couldn't do it she couldn't couldn't couldn't.  I told her again that I would help her, that it didn't have to be perfect but that she needed to try before announcing she couldn't do something.  I hugged her and said that practice is the only way to get better at something and of course she was just learning her letter so she hadn't had a lot of practice but that this sort of thing would help her learn.  I also said that I wouldn't ask her to do something she couldn't do and I wouldn't tell her to do something like this and then not help her.

Eventually the crying calmed and she picked out a pencil.  She grabbed my hand and wrapped it around the pencil above her hand.  I barely moved it on the D, A, D and D.  I talked her through the Y and helped a bit on that.  Then she let go of the pencil like it was on fire and we talked about what I would write for the message.  "I wanted you to know that I weigh 42.4 lbs. From, Sam."  I had her giggling over how silly our language is that To is spelled like that and other ways and the number 2 also sounds the same.  Know with a K also blew her mind.  Then I helped her with her S, A, and M and we folded the note and she stickered it up and asked if she could put it under Daddy's door.

We'll just keep working at it in as low pressure a way as possible.  I asked her if she got stressed and cried at school when her teacher asks her to write letters and she said No like I was crazy. 

Parenting. 

Zoo Lights

I highly recommend Zoo Lights if you are ever in DC from mid-December through early January.  The National Zoo sets up all kinds of light arrangements and then you and a thousand other families troup through it looking at everything and let your children ooh and aah and shriek and giggle and what not.  The fun can actually start up the street when you meet up with your friends and get ready to go:

It's pretty super awesome how the bossiness of young girls comes to the fore as you all head back up the Hill towards the entrance and out while they yell/chant/sing "Follow Us!  Follow Us!" at the top of their lungs.  Bonus points for peeking in the monkey exhibit and seeing virtually no monkeys but quite a few small mice taking advantage of the grains left behind when new hay is thrown down for the big animals.

Metro ride home might look like:

And you are practically guaranteed a good night's sleep while your munchkin recovers from the huge amount of energy she used up enjoying herself so darn much :)

Christmas seems so long ago

We did have a great day--present opening and bacon & eggs for breakfast courtesy of Gary "The Chef" Woods.  Most of the time we spent playing with new stuff Sam got and admiring her new clothes.  She was thrilled that Santa brought her a snowglobe and she has new boots, paint supplies, coloring books, books, puzzles, clothes, toys, toys, more toys and pretty much had the ultimate day for a 4 year old.

Here are a few pictures:

Christmas Eve recap (DO NOT READ IF IMPRESSIONABLE CHILDREN WHO BELIEVE IN SANTA ARE RIGHT BEHIND YOU)

Someday Sammie will read this and know but not today or anytime soon so, here is the story of the snowglobe.

On Friday, December 23, I had the day off work and Gary and I went puttering around picking up things for the stockings and what not.  Sammie's one wish, one wish, for Santa was actually a snowglobe (she also wanted other things but there was only one thing she asked Santa for out loud in my presence).

So we went to CVS and among the candy and knicky knack things, we found a little bitty snowglobe with Princess Cinderella in it.  Sammie would love it.

We finished up our shopping there and went to Target to get a couple more things and looked at the snowglobes they had there too but none were as cute as the itty bitty one we bought.  We did get her a Mickey/Minnie Mouse cup with a sort of snowglobe in the bottom.

Fast forward to the evening, she and I had had a great videochat with Bun Bun and Pe Pe while Gary made potato salad and she got to open some presents from my side--adorable dress, super adorable capelet among other things (she pranced around in the capelet for quite a while actually).

To bed, to bed, with the clear understanding that she could not come in and wake us up til the sun started peeping over the horizon and she could not go into the living room til we went in with her.

Some stocking stuffing begins.  Then we look around.  Where's the snowglobe?  It's 11p.m.  Do you know where your snowglobe went?  The one that was the only thing Sam asked for from Santa?  Hmmmm?

After looking freaking everywhere and not finding it (I probably left it at CVS or something when we were checking out), Gary saved the day by making the midnight CVS run to the all-night CVS which we knew from prior experience buying a humidifer to help with Sam's croup at 4a.m. on Christmas Day 2007 was going to be open.  There Gary found comrades in the late night Christmas Eve run (all men) including one gentleman who appeared to be buying for his entire Christmas list.

Home with the snowglobe (which is neat, you can put a picture in it yourself) and in went a picture of Sam from her brand new school photos.

We have laughed about this so many times already but there's always something isn't there?

And Sam was THRILLED when she came out and saw that Snow Globe.  Never wondered how Santa got her picture.  Just happy he got her message.

Some holiday recaps are on their way, I promise

But in the meantime, I present the cutest hat thief (it was Gabe's) known to mankind:

So sometimes the Sam-ster can be cranky as anybody and a bit mean

We all remember a few days when our little friends said they didn't like us anymore, didn't want to hang out with us, didn't want to hold our hands, didn't want to...

Well, at the winter festival party that Sam's daycare had last Friday, Gary got to see Sammie act the meanie. 

She and her friend Talin were near each other and Talin went to sit near Sammie on the floor.  Sammie said she didn't want to sit next to Talin.  I think she probably wanted to have Gary next to her but in any case, Talin was taken aback.  Now I know Sam does this, I've seen it, but she's also been the brunt of "you're not my friend anymore" from other kids so she KNOWs how it makes her feel and yet she does it too.

Here are the two pictures of her sitting apart from Talin (the blond blond blond one), complete with cranky mad face in the first one:

More from Saturday...

So down to the Post and the silliness began...Winter and Sammie were coloring in a little Christmas decoration that Lola got them at first and then well, Ros agreed to be a jungle gym at some point and I shared champagne around so it seemed very festive ;)

Weekend recap and some pics :)

We had a Post-filled Saturday with me arriving on Saturday morning to help pack up the Christmas dinner boxes for the USO families, then Sammie and Gary came over for the children's Christmas Party (when the USO families come and eat lunch and see Santa).  Sam got a bag too though she wasn't part of the needy USO families of course.  Here she is before the festivities got into full swing:

(Headband courtesy of Lola)

Sammie was quiet patient waiting for all the other kids to be called before her and then when Santa and Mrs. Claus called her name...she zoomed up and leapt into Santa's arms:

Here she is with her bag of loot slung over her shoulder:

We headed home after that and she and I got naps.  More from the rest of the afternoon tomorrow...

Last weekend decorating the Post for Christmas

More pictures of Sammie...you guys, she is learning to actually look at the camera and pose without a pained grin...

When someone (Lola) gives you an empty cardboard tube...ya gotta...

Pose with it behind your back (pssst, we can still see it Sam)

Blow in it

Blow in it some more from a different angle

Pose again

And then end with a coy smile and head tilt. 

More recent pictures...cuz I'm still tired

Landing at Dulles at about 2a.m. on Saturday...

...Meant a rather slow weekend was just fine with me.  Some laundry got done, the Christmas tree was purchased, we had a pig roast at the Post, brunch there too, and then we decorated the tree last night.

Here are some pictures from last week I think...she has started really embracing the "pose" thing (and yes, I'm still lacking a bit of sleep):

Pictures from Thanksgiving Part IV

Several shoes

One of her shoes.

Warren took a snooze too--Sammie caught him.

She must have managed not to giggle too much--he kept sleeping.

One of Josh's tattoos

Whose mouth is that?

Josh snoozed too at one point.

Gary mugged for the camera.

Little Gary

Snoozing Warren

Daddy is always good for a silly smile.

And that's it for Thanksgiving folks!  There are oodles more pics she has taken in the car over the past year--I'll post those over time.  Hugs to all, B