Elaine is now one

Yesterday was Elaine's birthday. It's hard to believe she was born just one year ago. She was less than 7 pounds and cried and slept a lot. Now she's crawling and scooting everywhere, pulls up an every eligible object, doesn't like to nap, and enjoys being silly and interacting with people.

For the birthday party on Saturday, all four grandparents were able to make it. Both girls got a lot of good attention as a result. In the late afternoon, we had friends over for Elaine's birthday party. The weather was just good enough to take it outdoors for a little bit. Sadie did well with all the kids and adults running around and yelling. She's been with us for less than a week and is already comfortable and settling in.

Elaine got a birthday cake, of which she had no real interest in partaking. She did some cake smashing, however. Her dad and sister did most of the unwrapping of gifts.

Just in the past week, Elaine has gotten noticeably more verbal. Their are fierce debates as to what constitutes a bona fide word. The alleged vocabulary now includes dada, mama, buba (baby), it-tay (kitty), dah! or ah-dah (that), duh! (dog), turt (turtle), and frah (frog). She is making a lot more non-word verbal communication too. Elaine understands more than we probably realize. I sang the words "clap your hands" and without any other visual cues she started clapping her hands. One of Elaine's favorite things now is to initiate peak-a-boo and clap her hands.

For your viewing pleasure, pictures of the past weekend:

Annoying Troll

With the weather changing, recovering from a cold, not getting enough sleep,getting a new dog, and grandparents visiting, Meredith was a bit manic this last weekend. Add some sugar from Easter candy and birthday cake, hilarity ensues.

I don't know where she got the idea of an "annoying troll," but Meredith randomly pulled out this attention-seeking routine this weekend.

Introducing Sadie

So the dog now has a name: Sadie. Here are some pictures taken after we picked her up and on her first day with us.

Sadie is adjusting to her strange new home well. She's learning where to sleep and where not to sleep. (I have to teach her to get off the couch.) She is learning the neighborhood on multiple walks and trying to figure out who (both dogs and people) are friendly. All squirrels, to my approval, have been deemed enemies by Sadie.

Sadie is good at taking direction. She likes everyone, but seems to follow me around the house a bit. It's not so much needy, as it is "Hey, I'm here. Let me know if we're going to do anything."

Still having some piles of snow outside, Sadie will roll and rub herself on the snow as if it is the best thing in the world. We'll see how much she'll roll in the mud this spring.

Canine

Our household just added a new member of the pooch variety.

She's a three year old beagle-lab mix. Her former name was "Lady." We're trying to think of a new one.

A name that sounds similar to Lady might help a little bit in the transition. Some ideas:

• Daisy
• Mattey (as in a pirate's first mate)
• Sally
• Sadie
• Rascally
• Olivia
• Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
• Snowy
• Spot
• Sparky
• Pesky
• Captain Licky Face
• Wendy
• Georgie Girl
• Rhapsody
• Noodle
• Belle

Any thoughts or additional suggestions?

Bunnies and Eggs

Meredith has been looking forward to Easter the previous week. She was counting down the days. We had talked about the Easter egg hunting a little bit and the Easter Bunny's role in it, but it hasn't been a big focus around here. Nevertheless, Meredith has been talking to someone because the day before Easter she gave both us parents a long speech about all the things she knows about the Easter Bunny. Among many tidbits was that the Easter Bunny can't talk.

We found ourselves the day before at the Midtown Global Market. We ended up staying longer than planned with the unplanned, good fortune of seeing the Easter Bunny come in to take pictures with kids. Well, amend that. Meredith told us afterwards that it wasn't the real Easter Bunny, but a grown-up dressed up. She knows because the fake Easter Bunny had gloves on. Meredith still enjoyed having her picture taken with the pretend bunny and Elaine didn't freak out for a couple of seconds of picture taking.

On Easter we spent much time with the neighbors and connected friends and families. Six kids went about an excited egg hunt through one house and two snow-covered yards. My hope is that next year, due to a later in the year Easter and a warmer early spring, that we'll be able to conduct an egg hunt without snow and cold. I think it was March 26 of last year when we were able to walk at Minnehaha Falls in shorts with the thermometer passing 80! We got ice cream that melted faster than we could eat it!


PICTURES!

Elaine explores the slide. Meredith tries to help.

More info from Meredith

Recently I received one of those email forwards with lots of personal questions from my sister Sonja. I decided to have Meredith answer them for the purpose of the blog. I deleted all of Sonja's responses, but there was at least one answer that was identical to Meredith's. I'll keep it secret though.

Meredith's [mostly] verbatim responses:

1. What time is it? Daytime

2. What's your full name? Meredith Lael Reise

3. What are you most afraid of? Bears

4. What was the last movie that you saw in a theater? Bee Movie

5. Place of birth: At a hospital

6. Favorite food: Chocolate and cheese

7. What's your natural hair color? Kind of browny-tanny

8. Ever been to Alaska ? No.

9. Ever been toilet paper rolling? I don't know what that means.

10. Love someone so much it made you cry? No.

11. Been in a car accident? No, I dont' think.

12. Croutons or bacon bits: Bread bits.

13. Favorite day of the week: Christmas or Friday.

14. Favorite restaurants: The Indian Restaurant.

15. Favorite Flower: Sunflower, because it's so tall.

16. Favorite sports to watch: Football and basketball.

17 Favorite drink: Orange juice.

18. Favorite ice cream: Chocolate and vanilla.

19. Disney or Warner Brothers: [After explanation] What's Bugs Bunny?

20. Ever been on a ship ? What ship? Rocket ship or sail ship? Okay, neither.

21 What color is your bedroom carpet? Kind of bluey and a little gray--I don't know what kind of color that is. Orange? White?

22. How many times did you fail your driver's test? What does that mean?

23. Before this one, from whom did you get your last e-mail? I don't know.

24. What do you do when you are bored? Sleep a lot, cry a lot, eat a lot.

25. Bedtime: I don't remember.

26. Who will respond to this e-mail the quickest? Mommy?

27. Who is the person you sent this to that is least likely to respond? What does that mean?

28. Who is the person that you are most curious to see their responses? Everyone.

29. Favorite TV shows: Dragon Tales. Nothing else.

30. Last person you went to dinner with: Grandma and Grandpa and Daddy and Elaine.

31. Who do you think will be President? Which one is the girl one? Clinton.

32. What are your favorite colors? Red and purple.

33. How many tattoos do you have? One. [?]

34. How many pets do you have? One.

35 Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The egg?

36. What do you want to do before you die? Always eat chocolate?

37. Have you ever been to Hawaii ? No. I don't think so.

38. What countries outside the U.S. have you been to? I don't know what that means even.

39. How many people are you sending this e-mail to? I don't know, lots?

40. Time this survey ended: Daytime?

Outer space

Today Meredith learned about outer space at school. She has agreed to give me a lesson.

• Astronauts have to wear special clothes; otherwise if they don't, they'll float in the air on the moon or their rocket ship.
• Shooting stars are made of rock.
• The rock hits the air and that's what makes the light. Then they try to find a place to land.
  
• There's not very much air in the sky.
• There are four different planets that go around the sun and one is our planet.
• Our planet is the Earth.
• The astronauts need to wear their helmet and mask to protect against the sun and the stars.
• The sun is the brightest star.
• The Earth looks different when you're in space.
• The sun is in space.
• People can get to space in a rocket ship of course.
• People can walk on the moon but need special clothes for different reasons. Their clothes have different things for different reasons.
• People can't go on the sun.
• The other planets are smaller than ours.
• We can't see the other planets.
• You can see the Great Wall of China up in space or on the Moon maybe.
• When you're going up to space it's hard to say goodbye to the Earth we live on.
• Teachers need to be well trained to go into space.
  

Spring break in Green Bay

Last week was Meredith's school's spring break. There was nothing spring about it except for some melting of snow that revealed our long lost friend: grass. Jen's law firm does not have a corresponding spring break, so I took Elaine and Meredith to the exotic locale of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

We spent some time with Grandma Cathy and Grandpa Dave, and got to see Aunt Sonja and Uncle Chris and the cousins, Kayla, Natalya, and Zach. Meredith enjoys being around her cousins! They are nice, friendly, fun, interesting kids. Even better, Meredith likes playing with Zach. He's a big kid, but he also lets her boss him around. What could be better? In all seriousness, Zach is simply a good sport who plays very nicely with a sometimes pushy four year-old. (She just knows what she wants I guess.)

In Green Bay, Meredith got to go to her first basketball game with her grandparents. They saw the UWGB Fighting Phoenix Women win their first conference tournament game. Apparently she had lots of questions to pepper at her grandparents throughout the game. We went to the Wildlife Sanctuary and saw a bunch of animals. We saw eagles, owls, snakes, giant fruit bats, and an eagle nest; but Meredith's favorite part by far was feeding corn to the geese and ducks.

All in all, it was a fun trip to Wisconsin. The five hours of driving both ways went relatively smoothly, with the girls sleeping most of the way back. It would have been perfect had Meredith not struggled with nightmares every twenty minutes in the car.

For your viewing pleasure, some video and pictures from the last week!


We won't have Elaine babysit anyone anytime soon:


Meredith had a bit of sugar on this day:


PICTURES (More pictures from Wisconsin will be added in the coming days)

Mid-winter pics

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks. They include shots from the visit from Grandma Gail and Grandpa Kerry, the art show at Meredith's school, and last weekend's trip to the Minnesota Children's Museum. We also have evidence of Elaine pulling up. She's doing it a lot these days, with ever-increasing confidence and stability.

First, a clip of Elaine's new trick: clapping.

Queens are bossy

This afternoon, Meredith gave me a primer on the world of kings and queens. Among other things, I learned:

• Queens are very bossy because they are in charge of the castle.
• Kings are in charge a little, but not as much as the queen
• Princesses are not in charge at all.
• A prince is a little charge.
• Princesses are not at all bossy.
  
• A prince is not bossy either.
• Queens like to be bossy. She doesn't know what else queens like to do.
• A king's job is to take care of the princess, but the queen's job is to keep the princess safe.
• The princess is kept safe by stopping her from doing things she is not supposed to.
• A prince is not kept safe.
• Kings are the dads.
• The queens are married to the king.
• If there were queens, there would be 100 queens in the world.
• Princesses like to dance and soft and gentle music. Ballet music.
  
• Princesses don't like rock and roll music, but Meredith says she does.
• She bets that princes like rock and roll.
• Queens listen to rock and roll and kings listen to gentle music because rock and roll music is "in charge" music.
• Kings and queens drive cars because they are the mom and dad. They don't ride horses.
• Kings and queens live in kind of pointy castles.
• There are 100 princesses in the world and 100 princes and 100 kings.
• Princesses go to school. She doesn't know what they study.
• Princesses put on a dress, put on a crown, and put on little fancy shoes--not normal shoes.
• Princes has a little kind of fancy style of thing on him and then a little crown.
• She doesn't think there are any pets in the castle.
• Princesses eat whatever there is for dinner, breakfast, or lunch.
• Fairies know princesses, but not every princess has a fairy, but a lot do.
• Fairies have wings on their back and magic wands and they put up magic spells.
• Fairies are helpful.
• Fairies don't live in the castle.
• Fairies are girls.
• Fairies don't have crowns. They have a little any-colored clothes.
  

Traveling girl

I've been delaying a post in the hopes to get a couple of corresponding pictures and/or videos. But no luck thus far! They will have to come later.

Elaine has pulled out a few new tricks this week. First, kids her age like pulling things out of other things. So Elaine likes to pull books from the bookshelf, pull papers out of the printer, grab anything out of a drawer (she'll spend 10 minutes trying to get a drawer open for this purpose), and pulling toys out of a bin. In the last week, on several occasions, she has started to place items in containers. Very soon, I know, we'll have her cleaning up after herself!

Elaine also began clapping. It's a little on the later end developmentally for clapping. She's done other sophisticated stuff with her hands for a while (waving, pointing, wagging her finger, etc); but the clapping hands are brand new. She uses it to celebrate, to get attention, and I think as a modified sign for "more." When she wants more food she seems to clap. It appears she also used it to request being picked up.

Incidentally, Meredith has been practicing snapping her fingers. It's a difficult and frustrating task for a preschooler. Meredith is doing pretty well at it! She has the movement right and often makes a good "snap" noise with her right hand. I try to encourage her, in part, by telling her I don't snap very well with my left hand either. Every once in a while she practices winking too.

Lastly, Elaine is "traveling." She's been able to pull up on parents' hands and other things for a while now; though, she hasn't been all that excited by it. This week, she has pulled up on the bottom stair and a couple other objects, and "traveled" a few steps over, unassisted. Today, she did this a couple times, as a means to trying to figure out how to go up the stairs when a parent or the cat went up. It won't take her long to realize that walking (and climbing the stairs) are necessary for keeping up with her big sister.