August 9, 2012

It’s story time!  Tonight I did the play/dinner/book/bed routine alone as Stu was driving home from Jersey.  The girls were tired, but generally good.  Ashlin toddled around with sidewalk chalk, rubbing them in her hair, saying bubba! bubba! while Teagan blew lots of bubbles.  Each girl devoured nearly two whole eggs.  Each!  Bedtime came a bit early, they were both so tired, but not until they finished off the cherries.  I know it wasn’t a pound of cherries, but man, they both had hollow legs tonight.  I’m sure that the cherries will be an issue tomorrow with Ashlin.  And we’re out of bananas!

In the hopes of appeasing Teagan while I got Ashlin down for the night, she got to choose how the bedtime routine would go.  Her choice was pj’s for her first, then have me read a book to both her and Ashlin, in her room.  Teagan would be left with books while I took Ashlin to her room to finish her off for the night. Then, if she was good, Teagan could pick another book, and I’d read her one last story, all by herself.

Ashlin is fascinated by Teagan’s toddler bed, so that made the whole thing easy.  And she’s also quick to initiate hugs with her older sister.  Teagan isn’t quite sure about the reversal, but she does like getting hugs.  It’s awesome.

They were both good while I read “The Ducking Has a Cookie,” Teagan leaning forward, interested in the book, and Ashlin pointed and tried to say duck.   While putting Ashlin down, Teagan was very good, so got her reward.  She ended up picking a counting board book, so I had her count.

We all had a great bedtime.  We may need to try reading books to the two of them again tomorrow.

May 7, 2012

Tonight Teagan read me a book.  “The Duckling Gets A Cookie?!”  Stu got it as a treat for him yesterday, and only read it to her once.

She has another in the series, “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!” and she loves it.  She will read that one too.  But this was impressive, as it was the first or second time Stu read this book.  I lucked out and had the iPhone ready.  I’m not sure why there are so many ants in her version.  They aren’t actually in the book.  She is quite taken with ants lately.

Teagan playing with the ants

At least she says please.  And! No!  No cookie for you!  And no screaming.  If only she listened to herself sometimes.  The poor pigeon is crying, because [sic] him want a cookie.  All his feathers and all the duck feathers fall off because him [sic] crying.  And then the duck doesn’t have a face!  Oh, wait! There it is!

Teagan’s version of the story ends well, with the pigeon getting a cookie.  Everyone should have a cookie.  Even the ants.

We may need to get more of these books, if only for her versions!

October 6, 2011 ~ Puppy, Pumpkin Chomp Chomp

LaLa and PopPop sent Teagan a book for Halloween.  It had her picture in it.  She loved it:

I think we need to get a pumpkin this year :)

September 7, 2011 ~ Save the Dodos

dodocase in green

Yesterday, finally, I ordered a case for my iPad.  Stu wasn’t sure what style I would want – sleeve, wallet (book), hard case, soft case, blah blah blah.  When he gave me the iPad, he had the protective skin for the face, but said I should go look at what I wanted.

I hunted around.  Tried to window shop at Target, but they had all the iPad cases locked to the stand, and the sales people did not want to take them off.  There was better luck at Best Buy, where you could actually look at the back of the boxes, but they only had the main contenders there, nothing different or truly interesting.  I did like that some of the boxes were opened, so you could touch and see what the cases looked like, see how they worked.

So, that left Google.  I found a bunch of reviews of cases, and came up with a short list of what I liked that reviewed high.  Go figure, they were all portfolio style or looked like antiqued books.  Since I couldn’t get past the zipper on the BookBook, (though it looked awesome!), I was down to two similar styles.  Google/YouTube search for reviews and a flip of a coin later I went with the DodoCase.  In green.

It’s only been a month and a half.  Not bad!

Can’t wait for it to get here!

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Update 9/8:   It shipped! Woo woo!!

Related articles

• iPad Saves Bookbinder (blogs.forbes.com)
• iPad Revives Old Art Form (blogs.forbes.com)
• On Dodos (manbehindthecurtain.ie)
• This gorgeous case for the iPad 2 sets the bar high, very high (thenextweb.com)
• DODOcase Debuts Handmade, Book Bound Kindle Case For The Holidays (prweb.com)

June 14, 2011

Friday:

We had a thunderstorm move in quickly.  The sky turned pitch black in minutes.  You could see the storm line.  I rushed home and was able to get the baby in before the sky opened.  Stu dashed out to get Teagan.  We were a bit concerned that she may freak out if one of us wasn’t there.  There were at least two roads blocked with large, broken, tree branches.  There was hail – out by us it was very small.

We needn’t have worried.  Teagan was fascinated with the storm.  She loved it!  “Boom, boom, boom.  Mr. Brown is a wonder!  Boom, boom, boom!  Mr. Brown makes thunder!”

“Dibble, dibble, dibble dop!”

She was upset there wasn’t another storm on Saturday and Sunday.

Saturday:

We had a birthday party to go to.  I forgot my camera.  Imagine a picture of Teagan in a blue polka dot dress.  We had a great time!  Ashlin slept in her car seat, which we put under the appetizer table.  Teagan had a blast playing with N’s toys.  She figured out how to work this night light thing to make it change colors.  She fell in love with this fold up chair he had – with a fox design on it.*

Just about cupcake and singing time, she asked to go take a nap.  A moment to record, “no nap!” is her new theme song.  When she wakes up in the morning, she will say “no nap!”  Any time we tell her that it will be nap time soon, “no nap!”  She will nap, but this is one of her mantras.

After her nap, she played for awhile, then asked to sit on her potty. I took her bloomers and diaper off and sat by her.  Stu got us a bunch of books and we sat and read for a bit.  Her dress kept getting in the way, so I took it off.  After she decided she was done (and didn’t go), she refused to let me put the dress back on.  Ok.  No big deal.  We let her play in her diaper and sandals.  Yes, a blackmail picture was taken.  There is also video.

Sunday:

A local nursery had a butterfly release that we went to.  Teagan’s been absolutely obsessed with bugs – buggies! – lately.**  It was a bit cold and overcast so the butterflies weren’t very active, but they did fly out and Teagan was excited and clapped.  We looked for a few more butterflies, as the nursery had a bunch of butterfly-attracting plants around.  Teagan got super happy when she found one, or found a bumble bee.  Yay buggies!  Ashlin slept.  Again.

 

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* I found a child’s size fold up chair at Target, but it didn’t have the cute fox on it.  Her head exploded with the happy.

** So, it’s more like a personality tick.  It started about two weeks ago or so.  She’ll say she has buggies on her feet, legs, arms, hands, food tray, floor, wall.  We have to assure her that there aren’t any bugs on her or in the house.  That those are crumbs or lint or something.  It’s not fear, she’s not scared of them.  She tripped after her birthday party and instead of crying got distracted by an ant.   LOL!  She just doesn’t want them inside – they need to be outside (“yes, ouside.” nod, nod, nod).

January 21, 2011

So, we finally let Teagan out of her cage.  LOL.  We’d get home from day care, give her dinner.  When she was done, she’d get sent to the “cage” and she’d go right to the blocked off area in front of the sofa.  She usually didn’t try to escape either.  It was great!  Worked for us for a while, especially for the little bit she’s awake during the week, and at times when we’re home on the weekend.  She does have the entire living room, (it’s really her toy room!) that’s baby safe, and we’d let her have access to the kitchen and the rest of the room while we were there supervising her, but we’d been holding off on finishing the family room and lowering our supervision – hovering – a bit. 

Well, I finally got extra-wide gates and set them up, blocked off one tiny area at the end of the large sofa, moved all the grown-up books and stuff out of the side table/bookcase, off the coffee table.  Now, she has run of the family room.  We still need to move the coffee table, but I haven’t found a cabinet that’s tall (and thin and heavy) enough to put the lamp on.  There’s still time though.

So, anyway.  She loves pulling all her books out of the side table.  Today, she did help put them back, but that could be seen as a bribe for a bath.  Day care says she’s a great cleaner-uper.  We have yet to see the “great” part of that, though she will help if you ask.  She’s having a great time testing the boundaries of her larger area too.  It’s fun to see her go up to one of the gates and rattle it, trying to see if she can get it open.

We do have to get used to her having so much”freedom” now.  Stu still doesn’t know what to do with his tea – hot – when she’s still awake.  Or his laptop when he’s not there using it.  I need a new hiding place for my iPod (the sofa arm is no longer out of reach).  The remote needs a new place to hide as well.

I know we’ll figure it out. 

She’s loving it.  It’s worth it.

PS.  She loves her hop-hop shoes :)

PPS.  I’ll have a Teagan’s Tunes – One Year up shortly.  I might even get links to audio samples of the songs too :)

December 16, 2010

Image via Wikipedia

So, Teagan didn’t do too badly last night – only woke up once around 5am.  She was cold and a bit tangled in her small blanket.  Stu got up and set her to rights, and she was back asleep quickly.  Unfortunately, though, she did get up a bit earlier, before I got to start my coffee.  I didn’t get more than two sips or so while it was still hot.  Not the normal e-mail over coffee morning we usually have.  Still, she slept well.  And Stu had made the coffee, so it was there :)

Anyway,  lets just do some fun bullets today…

• The people that made the Zombie game that Stu got me for Christmas last year  has a new game – Invasion from Outer Space.  LOL!  Looks like fun!  You can have zombies and aliens in the same game!
• Although I knew it was based on a true story, it’s nice to see The Big Blue referenced in a news story, that Jacques Mayol actually did have a record.  And that it’s been “beaten” recently.  Trubridge’s story is amazing – 100 meters down, with no apparatus like Mayol used.  He basically held his breath for four minutes.  Incredible.  BTW, The Big Blue is one of my favorite movies.
• It’s nice that Lisa Ling has started a website to help women cope with miscarriage.  It’s not something to be embarrassed about, or whisper  behind closed doors.  It’s not something that is the woman’s, or anyone’s, “fault.”  I hope this helps take some of the stigma off of miscarriage.  Makes a few women feel better about themselves.
• I totally love The Bad Moms Club.  This was one of their entries.  LOL!  “Good night blue-eyed Fremen who call Arrakis home.”  And you have to love the idea of the Very Deadly Bounty Hunter book.  I wonder if it’s more like the Hungry Caterpillar or Brown Bear.
• Mama Pop counters with awesome movies that didn’t need CGI to kick ass.
• Oh, and Teagan has asked for this video two nights in a row:

She’ll put her hand to the side of her face when the dancers do.  The second it’s over, she will ask for “moh peesss” while signing a very emphatic “More” and “Please.”  You can also distract her with YouTube videos from Riverdance, or well any Irish Step Dancing.

November 27, 2010

Book Nerds :)

So, I got tagged by Tina and Nina in Facebook, on this internet meme…  I think I’ve done something like this before, a few years ago, but there’s always time to improve the counts :)

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here.   Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Bold those books you’ve read in their entirety.    Italicize the ones you started but didn’t finish or read only an excerpt.
 
Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so I can see your responses!

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling   
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee – saw the movie
6. The Bible  
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman – Really enjoyed the Golden Compass
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare  
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier – saw the movie
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell – saw the movie
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23. ~~ Number is missing?? ~~
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy – TWICE!
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26. ~~ Number is missing?? ~~
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky – TWICE!
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy – in French and in English.
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34. Emma -Jane Austen – saw the movie
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe – CS Lewis  – Isn’t this part of the Chronicles of Narnia?  Maybe they should have listed another CS Lewis book here, like That Hideous Strength or Till We Have Faces?
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
41. Animal Farm – George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery – loved the movies
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52. Dune – Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen – saw the movie
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas – I feel like I must have read this in French.
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie – I read Satanic Verses, does that count?
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville – saw the movie with Captain Picard :)
71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett – saw the movie
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses – James Joyce
76. The Inferno – Dante
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal – Emile Zola – I also feel that I read this in French
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray – saw the movie
80. Possession – AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens – saw MANY movie versions
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker – saw the movie
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro – saw the movie
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert – in French
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – I’ve read many Holmes Adventures, not sure if they were “the” Adventures :)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery – in French.  I read this almost every year.  LOVE this book.
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas – probably in French
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo – in French :)

So, looks like I’ve read 46 of the above, started or read excerpts from 8 more and saw the movie for 9 more.  I know that doesn’t count, but still :)

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Looks like I did do this in March 2009

September 14, 2010

Another cool entry from the Bad Mom’s Club.

The Kessel Run

This guy has awesome art.  And such a nifty idea – combining two of my favorite things!

The Hunt

If I was up to date on my blog reading, I would have seen this (on my own!) about the same time Stu showed it to me.  It was sweet that he did.  He knows that I love Pooh.  He’s seen my copy of Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, as well as Eeyore’s version.  I’m sure he know’s I have the Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet.  We even call Teagan Piglet half the time.  I also have the original Star Wars movies (VHS!!), as well as Special Editions (DVD, and Han Shot First!!) and the Boxed Set (DVD!)  I may admit to owing the first trilogy, even though it sucked, mostly.

I’m going to have to check to see if I even have Winnie-The-Pooh or House at Pooh Corner.  I do think I have a few board books for Teagan, maybe those will work as well.

August 9, 2010

Another fun entry from the Bad Mom’s Club.  Dr. Seuss. <sigh>  Who doesn’t love Dr. Seuss?  I used to love Hop on Pop and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.  Teagan hasn’t done too many of the Dr. Seuss yet – she’s still on Sandra Boynton’s Barnyard Dance!,  the Very Hungry Caterpillar, and the Baby Einstein Touch & Feel Animals.  We do read to her just about every night.  Stu does most of the bedtime reading.  Sometimes, if the monitor is set just right, I can listen along.  Sometimes, I’ll go stand in the doorway, (just waiting for my turn in the nighttime routine,) and listen. 

My mom has never let me forget how I made her read me my new Dr. Seuss books.  While she was in labor with my sister.  Oops.  The books had Just. Arrived. from the Dr. Seuss book club that she signed me up for.  The day my sister was born.   I was two, I’m really not responsible.  They were NEW. BOOKS!  I’m sure I had no idea!   I can’t remember how many books showed up that day, or even which ones they were.  For my baby shower, she made a lovely basket up with a bunch of Dr. Seuss books and some stuffed animals that look like the characters.

 

 Teagan is currently running around the house with the grey/white guy from If I ran the Zoo, though she did eye the giraffe last night.

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On a cooler note, we finally got the air conditioning fixed!  Woo woo!!