Baby in belly

For awhile now, I have told Lilly that babies grow inside their mommies bellies. There are a couple pictures she has seen of me pregnant with her and I tell her that she was inside my belly. She also likes to look at our wedding pictures and she will say "Mommy and Daddy getting married." One day when she was looking at a wedding picture and when I asked her what mommy and daddy were doing, she said, "Getting pregnant."

Lately we seem to be surrounded by pregnant women. Two of our story time ladies are pregnant and a couple of moms in our playgroup have had their second babies. At least once a week, Lilly will announce, "I used to fit on mommy's belly then I pop out!" If only it was THAT EASY!!

Today we were in a store in the baby section and she was looking at the infant swings. I told her the swings were for babies and she used to have one. Lilly said, "i be in swing when I am little baby crying." We kept walking and then she stopped in front of some infant seats and said "I get baby in belly when I get married in a day." I'm not sure what plans she may have for the rest of the week but mine certainly does not include her getting married and having a baby.

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Lady Godiva rides again!

Lilly riding her Rody pony (a gift from Santa) before her bath

The Christmas Post

Yes, I know it is no longer Christmas but our neighbors still have their decorations up so I am finally posting Christmas pictures.

Lilly had a good Christmas although she was very overwhelmed. She has three days of presents (Christmas Eve with extended family, Christmas with us and Granny and the day after with Joe's immediate family.) We actually had to wake her up Christmas morning at 7:45 am - she is normally up around 6:45 - 7:00 am. Next year we will let her sleep in. She was very grumpy for the first hour and-a-half she was awake and had several fits during the opening of gifts. We all were just so excited to have her look at her presents. Once she got some food in her she was much better.

We made sure we left some food for Santa and the reindeer. When we asked Lilly what we should leave for Santa to drink with his cookie, she said hot tea. So Santa had a cookie, hot tea and the reindeer had carrots. Santa was even nice enough to jot down a quick note for Lilly:

Lilly with her kitchen:

A whole new meaning to mommies favorite expression to Daddy - Sit n' Spin:



Pushing Diane in her stroller:
The kitchen quickly get converted to a restaurant when Lilly sits down and says," Where's my menu?"

Modeling a Christmas present - Baby Legs

Chocolate is good!



The Ayscue cousins got together again for the Christmas pajama photo. Not so easy with four children. Lilly was not into sitting still for the pictures and kept fussing which would then make Cameron start to fuss. So it was real easy to pick out which pictures to get: this was the ONLY ONE that all four children were looking in the same direction:

Boys vs. girls

For some time now, Lilly understands the most basic differences between boys and girls. Over the summer she realized that daddies can not breastfeed. She knows boys have a penis and girls have a "bagina." The other night I was taking a bath with her and she said "mommy's leg rough, hurt Lillian." It took me a few seconds to realize as she was rubbing my leg that she was referring to the stubble on my legs. So I then explained that mommy needed to shave and that she was feeling stubble. Lilly later saw daddy's legs and said that daddy had stubble on his legs and we said daddy' shave stubble on their face.

A few days later in the car Lilly was chanting "girls have stubble legs, boys have stubble face, girls have bagina, boys have penis." She will bring this up through out the day and we play along. It is especially funny to hear her say "boys have penis - don't touch it!" which she has learned from bathing episodes with daddy.

While we are on the subject of bathing with Lilly, she will now take a shower with you. This is a great development since that means I don't HAVE to shower before Joe leaves for work in the morning. Of course the shower with Lilly is not that great - you have to deal with her running all around in the tub and pulling her bath toys out but it is fun at the same time. When she showers with me, I hold hold while we get in the tub and let her get wet in the shower spray and then put her down so she can play. We tend to leave each other alone for the the most part and do our own thing in the shower.

Over the weekend, she decided to take a shower with daddy. A shower with daddy is a much different experience for Lilly. I walked in the bathroom to give them fresh towels and pulled back the shower curtain. I found Joe sitting down in the tub with the shower spray still running and Lilly behind him with a bar of soap and a washcloth. Joe was actually putting her to work by having Lilly scrub his back. She looked at me and said "Mommy go, I still shower with daddy." Joe told me Lilly also washed his leg and helped shampoo his hair. And yes we do know there is a drought and we do soap up with the faucets turned off (which is NOT a pleasant experience for me) but this was just too cute to miss!

Since she obviously does not mind this type of work, I want to know when I can start teaching her to give me a massage and a pedicure.

Time Out

Lilly has been on a bit of a violent streak lately so mommy has instituted time outs. I say mommy because I am the one that takes the most abuse from her and I got fed up with it a couple of weeks ago when she bit me (in a store no less) and drew blood. That made the second time she bit me hard enough to draw blood and I was done. So time outs have become a regular occurrence.

When she does something bad, we tell her two times not do it. The third time we say "Lilly, if you (bite/hit/throw things) again you will go in time out." For time out, we place her in the hallway and make her sit there for one minute. Once the minute is up, we go to her and sit down near her and make her walk over to us. We tell her why she got put in time out and we wipe her face off, make her say she is sorry and then we hug.

The Friday before Christmas Lilly spent a record five times in time out. The first two times on this particular day, I had to place her back in the hallway several times. She would wander out and find me and say "Hi mommy." Of course when you put her back in the hallway, she starts screaming and crying. On the third time out, Lilly got wise to the plan. She did not come looking for me, instead she sat/stood/lay in the hallway screaming, "mommy give me hug, mommy wipe tears away!"

When Joe got home that night he got to witness a time out. Lilly is screaming and I am in the kitchen laughing. The time out is really taking a toll on Joe and he wants to get her out before the minute. He asks me if the sight/noise of her doe snot make my heart break and I said no. This was the fifth time out of the day and it no longer made me sad to put her in it - she has to learn.

Fortunately we are down to a couple of time outs a week now. I have noticed that when it is time for the time out to be done and you ask her to come to you, she does so with a big grin on her face and tonight at dinner, she was asking to go into time out when she would attempt to throw her plate. She eventually did throw her plate onto floor and said "I go time out now," but I did not grant her request. I'm not sure that means she likes time out or she was using reverse psychology on me. I just went a poured a glass of wine and made her sit at the table until I was finished with my dinner. Does that mean I need a time out?