Refreshed

I have no idea where she learned this action. I'm serious.

Since we're on the topic of being green...

All those years of my mother hanging on to our old stuff has finally paid off.

Last month, when we were in San Diego, Lola took a ride in her Auntie LouLou's old car.



And, she enjoyed playing with the slide that my parents bought me for my first birthday.


(At the time this photo was taken, I was suggesting that she walk around to the steps. As you can tell, she doesn't believe in steps.)

A Gift for Me

For my birthday/mother's day gift, Josh built me a raised bed garden. The amount of time and thought he put into the gift was incredibly sweet and so far, I've done a pretty good job at not killing any of our plants.

We have:
tomatoes,
onions,
serrano peppers,
garlic,
cilantro,
basil,
butternut squash,
acorn squash,
watermelon, and
a super pumpkin.

(The super pumpkin will supposedly grow to be 500 lb. We'll just see how that goes.)



Note, the first five vegetables/herbs are essentials for salsa and guacamole, the two most frequently consumed foods in our house. :)

Lola also loves the garden. She loves to, ahem, help.

A Little House with a Big Boss

For weeks, Josh and I talked about picking up a playhouse for Lola. I spent many nights going back and forth between amazon and craigslist, oo-ing and awe-ing over the varieties of potential. At one point, I even added a plastic kingdom to Lola's amazon wish list, hoping that, just maybe, I would be able to shift our monthly budget around and be able to splurge.

(It's incredible what sort of things you dream of, once you have a kid.)

Then, a few Saturdays ago, I decided that Lola and I would walk to the Farmer's Market. It's about 3 miles from our house, but due to the ridiculousness of our suburb's belief that sidewalks are unnecessary, I mapped out a 4 mile route, determined to only walk on busy roads that had sidewalks.

About two-thirds on our way to the market, I saw signs for a yard sale. Being that I was on a mission, I usually would not have stopped, but when we reached the corner of the street of said yard sale, I saw the corner of a little green plastic roof.

Could it be a little tykes playhouse?

I made my way over to the sale, expecting the owner to tell me that he was selling it for $50. When I inquired, he smiled and told me it was free. Their family was moving and he didn't want to take it with them and he didn't want to take it to the dump.

FREE!

Then, he offered to deliver it.

FREE PLAYHOUSE. FREE DELIVERY.

Once he dropped it off, Josh cleaned it up and now, L has a little house of her own.




She loves to (repeatedly) open and close the front door.



And, playing peek-a-boo with the windows is entertaining too.




As for the farmer's market, well, that was a total bust. After finding the playhouse, we continued to walk to the market, only to discover that the market had moved to a new location 2 miles away. At that point, I called Josh and he picked us up in the car. :)

Silly

Lola loves to make us laugh. It seems like just about every day she is trying something new, something totally silly, to see if it will crack a smile. For example, Exhibit A:



Lola with her Baby Beluga whale shoved under her shirt.

She loves the song "Baby Beluga" by Raffi and grabs her Baby B every time she hears the tune. This particular time, I had taken the stuffed whale and stuck it under her shirt. I told her that she could carry Baby B around like that, if she wanted. The sight of her with the whale tail made me laugh, and as a result, she walked around the house for 20 minutes, saying "Ba-by Bbbbbee. Ba-by Bbbbee" over and over again, glancing back at me to make sure I was still smiling.

In my pregnancy scrapbook, I remember Josh writing that he hoped our baby would have his sense of humor. I pretty sure he is right.

Sunday Afternoon

This video is a little long, but I took it over the weekend and wanted to share because it pretty much sums up our average, albeit it a little strange, day in the 'burbs.

Tush in a Tub

Sometimes Lola does the sweetest little things. Like the other day, when she drug out her baby bathtub and filled it with her stuffed animals.







At first, I thought she was pretending to bathe them. But then, she climbed in with them, captain of their ship. She played for a long time in the tub, talking to Raggedy, repositioning Sock Monkey to the front, occasionally tossing them over board.


After a while, my maternal nose picked up a poop scent. As I pulled Lola out of the tub (who, in response, was flailing because in her world poop is no excuse to stop playing), I realized that this was no ordinary poop. This was a poop that knew no boundaries. Stuck to the side of Lola's leg, it covered her onesie, and spread across the bottom of the plastic tub. This was a full-blown SITUATION.

In the process of removing my screaming, flailing, poop-covered child, I ended up, you guessed it, covered in some poop. Once I de-poopified Lola, I de-poopified myself and then, de-poopified the tub. As I cleaned it, I thought to myself, "I really lucked out. She got poop on a plastic tub, something easy to clean. This isn't that bad."

Fast forward 24 hours.

"OMG! VALENTINA!" Scroll back up and look at the photo. See that red and white stuffed animal underneath Lola's legs? That's Valentina, the plush dog my parents gave Lola for Valentine's Day.

Yes, after what I believed was a thorough clean-up, Valentina was found, a full 24 hours later, to have a leg speckled with poop. Do you know what happens to toddler poop when it rests on a soft furry surface for 24 hours? LET ME TELL YOU.

It works its way onto each individual fiber. It sticks. It sticks so much that the only way to remove it is to physically, BY HAND, pull the poop off the material. There is no throwing it in the washer and removing it 25 minutes later. Even leaving it in a bucket of water to soak is fruitless. (Trust me, I tried.)

So ultimately, I was faced with two choices: use my bare fingers to pluck the poop or throw Valentina in the trash.

After taking a moment to think about it (and yes, Mom, I did actually consider throwing away Valentina), I chose to clean the stuffed dog.

Standing at the kitchen sink, de-poopifying the pooch, I realized that while giving birth may make you a mother, there are certain things, like removing encrusted poop off your daughter's beloved stuffed animal, that make you a mom.