The little things

You know you love being a mom when you are happy all day because you took your daughter to the park last night and she had a blast. I took Summer to the park near our house, it is a small park, not a lot there, two play areas - one for small kids and one for bigger kids, and it also has a water area that includes 3 animals that shoot water out when you hit the switch. We didn't go until almost 7 because it is still so hot, and we only stayed 30 minutes, but that means I got to see 30 whole minutes of a smiling happy Summer. She first saw a dog, there was a large dog walking around. The owner was a nice older man, a grandma, who had brought his grandson to the park. His grandson was just a few days older than Summer, and the dog was a friendly large dog. Summer kept walking by the dog just looking at it. Then Summer spotted the water area and was watching the other kids play before she decided to get a little wet herself, the whole time smiling. After she was half wet - with no clothes to change into - we went to the play area for the smaller children and Summer discovered how fun a slide can be. I helped her slide down the slide several times, and since she was wet she didn't slide very well, but she had so much fun and kept smiling. I plan on taking her back tonight and hopefully do things in a different order, getting wet will be last because she will be able to slide better, and maybe we can stay a little longer!

New Things

Summer can talk - sure if you don't know what she is trying to say you can't understand her but she is definitely mimicking sounds and repeating words, at least the first few letters in the word. Last night I was trying to read her a book and she wanted it, and I said no, say please first before I give it to you, and she said ple. YAY she is talking and learning manners all rolled into one. Her new thing this past week is stamp your feet, you know the song "If you are happy and you know it stamp your feet" well she goes around stamping one foot, it does not look pretty, in fact it looks like she has problems walking, but we know what she is doing and she really enjoys doing it. She also likes clothes and trying to get herself dressed, she will open her dresser and pull out all of the clothes, sit in the middle of the pile of clothes and try to put them all on over her head. This can occupy her for a good 20 minutes and is really cute to watch. We had a great weekend - if you can believe her and I can both fit in her pool - we did, and she had fun sitting there with me, splashing, dumping water on her head, putting her face in the water, and we also played in the water hose. I took her for a walk and we ended up around the side of the house in the rocks, she happily sat herself down and loved picking up handfuls of rocks, putting them in my hands, knocking them out of my hands, over and over. She put one in her mouth but spit it out on her own. She is still so much fun and always brightens my day, when I get her in the mornings she is usually just laying there and when she hears the gate and sees me she gets the biggest smile on her face and sits up and lets me pick her up and take her downstairs. I still love being a mom.

Recovering is hard

We had a great vacation, it was just long enough to relax and see everyone, and long enough to miss being home. I somehow even managed to read a book while there, so I feel like it was a real vacation. Summer was perfect, she had one cranky morning but I think it could have been itchy gum's, last night I felt her upper left molar with the right quickly following. Considering how cranky some babies get when teething I am truly a lucky mom because Summer has not been overly cranky, no fever, no rash, it could have been a lot worse. Anyway we had a fun time in Oklahoma, we ate out almost everyday, Summer had a lot of new foods and she did fine, we had several long car rides and Summer would always fall asleep, even without the pacifier. She slept long at night next to me in the pack and play and woke up each morning around 8:30 (which is 6:30 our time) so she stayed on schedule. She had so much fun playing at Frannies house, there was so many things to see and touch. She also had fun playing with her cousins, not so much Alex because they are still too little to interact but Jordyn loved playing with Summer, giving her hugs, brushing her hair, and Summer loved the attention. Summer was fun to be around, the only things she got into were some fake flowers Frannie had, she kept pulling them off, and the dogs water, which she managed to get and spill to morning before we left. She liked all the dogs, and one day stole a dog bone and had it in her mouth, we gave it back to the dog. She had fun with Grandma, one night there was a bad storm and her and Grandma stood on the front porch and watched the rain and lightning and listened to the thunder. I say bad storm because we were watching the weather and the tornado sirens went off. Apparently they went off because of high winds and not because a tornado but I was still crapping in my pants and took Summer into the hall near the bathroom. We went to Chickasha on Friday to meet two other moms from our online group and their children and took pictures. On Thursday we went to Wichita Falls and had lunch with Bobka. Saturday night was the reception for Charlie and Kali, and Summer was memorized when the music started to play and the disco lights came on. She almost started to dance but the other little girl that was out there dancing caught her attention and she preferred to watch. We ended up getting on 4 planes, 2 there and 2 back, and I could not be happier, she slept for most of the flights. On one plane she pooped as soon as we got on and everyone else was on and seated but I was able to take her back and quickly change her on the floor between the restrooms. The flight attendant said there was a changing area in the restroom but there was so much more room on the floor! On Sunday we returned and Daddy couldn't believe how much she had grown up, and Grampa was so happy to see her. Daddy gave her a bath and then took her into her room and she was so happy to see all of her toys that she took everything out and ran around. It was a great trip, we are back and all the laundry is done, things are back to normal and I have no more trips planned.

Excited on Monday

Another great weekend leaves me at Monday, and usually Monday is not where I like to be, but today my mom arrives at 1:30 on a plane that came from Idaho, and while I should be concentrating on wrapping things up at work, I am so excited because tomorrow we are flying to Lawton Oklahoma! That was a really long sentence wasn't it ... Anyway my mom will arrive later today, I will pick her up and we will head home - play with Summer, make dinner and eventually pack. Traveling with Summer has gotten so much easier now that she is older. Now that she can walk, now that she can eat solid food, now that she can drink milk, now that she can enjoy traveling, I am enjoying it too. Which reminds me I need to call the airline and tell them I have a lap child - as soon as I am done I will do that.
We had a great weekend, on Saturday we had a play date with two other little girls, Ana and Chloe and of course their moms were there too Casey and Jessica. They arrived around 8:00 am and stayed until about 11:30 am, which meant Summer missed her morning nap but was a trooper. She did not whine or get fussy but I could tell she was really sleepy. I kept her up since it was so close to lunch and after we ate we went into the room for a nap. As soon as her head hit my pillow, and after about 10 to 15 rolls and flops, she was out, and I was soon after. Upon waking sometime later I discovered it was already 3:00 pm, she had slept at least 2 1/2 hours, well and me too :o) I guess playing with the girls wore her out, but she had a lot of fun and did great. At one point Chloe had pushed her and she slowly fell over onto her back. I think she was a little surprised, or she was use to our dogs pushing her over, so she just laid there, waiting for something to happen. Nothing happened so she got up and proceeded to playing. We also got in the pool on Saturday, well in and out. Later that afternoon we went back in the pool and she stayed in a bit longer. On Sunday we played on the blanket in the water hose, and did I mention she only had 1 nap on Sunday too? She took a morning nap and probably needed the afternoon nap but never fell asleep so we managed to keep her up until 8:00 pm, and she slept happily all night until 6:00 am this morning.
I jumped around a bit, but in summary, we had a great weekend even with only 1 nap each day, we had fun on our play date with the girls, we had a great night last night, and today we are excited about Grandma coming from Idaho. Summer is excited she just doesn't know it yet. Tomorrow we fly to Oklahoma, this will be flight # ... I have to count them real quick, Oklahoma, Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Colorado, Oklahoma - ok this will be 6, throw a 7 in there for me to Hawaii, wow in 1 year this little girl has been on 6 trips. I guess we need to get them all in before she turns 2, then it will start costing me.

as I type

Right now Summer is in her crib, because she wanted to be, we just went swimming and I guess she is tired. She is really cute, we were in her room playing and she went up to her crib and tried to climb in. It is really hot out and I bet we played in the pool for over 30 minutes, plus she had a popsicle, so she had an exciting afternoon. Of course I still hear her so I am not sure if she will fall asleep or if she just wanted some down time, regardless she is such a cutie pie still! Yesterday morning we went to the Shark Reef exhibit with other mommies from the cafemom.com site and had a blast. Summer actually acknowledged the fish, which was more than I expected. However she was not really interested in looking at fish, but she did have fun walking and looking around. Oh before we went I had her in the bathroom sink trying to fix her hair, and you know how it is possible to pull a little bit of hair, oh sorry had to go get Summer, I guess her down time is done, anyway I must have pulled some of her hair while I was trying to get it into a rubber band and she got mad, reached up, pulled the hair tie out of her hair, grabbed my hand and proceeded to bite me really hard. I thought it was funny, I didn't get mad because I figure I hurt her, she wanted to hurt me back. Yesterday she also got mad at daddy because he would not let her get the dogs water or food, and she proceeded to bite him as well because he told her no, so apparently biting is a form of letting us know she is mad, which is not a good way to show it, something I see we will - great I just looked back and apparently Summer can climb onto the futon!!! When the heck did she learn how to do that haha. I guess I better stop this and go watch this monkey before she learns something else!