Crawling Video

Here at long last is the video of Genevieve crawling!

Asleep at the Table

Genevieve had a busy day. So when we all sat down for an afternoon snack today, she finished her cheese and fruit and then fell asleep. It was adorable.




We only pestered her a little bit. Then we took her upstairs to lie down for a bit.

Crawling and clapping

This past week Genevieve started crawling! At first there were scattered reports, but now today we have video evidence. When she is on the floor and sees something she wants, she sets off to get it.

She is also clapping. When she sees something she likes, and especially when she hears a catchy tune, she claps her hands. It is as adorable to watch as it sounds.

Another super cute thing she has started doing is patting me on the shoulder when I'm burping her. Lately she mimics everything she can.

Pictures and video to follow once I'm back at a computer.

She is so close

Genevieve has been trying to crawl really hard the past few days. She is not quite there yet. But we think in the next couple of days it will finally click.

First Tooth

Genevieve has her first tooth! Front and center on the bottom. Mommy is looking forward to midnight feeding tonight ;-)

Party Girl!!

Tonight we celebrated Dana's birthday with an impromptu pizza party at one of our favorite Fort Collins pizza shops, Positanos. Despite the short notice, Mandy, Ryanne and Lucas, and Kim, Tom, and Dean all made it out.




Genevieve had fun making the rounds, and dancing on the table, of course!

Today was the inspection for our rental house sale. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there aren't any shocking hidden problems the buyers will ask us to pay for.

Today Alex had a half day at school. Then Ryanne and Dana met up and Alex and Ryanne had an afternoon together, while Dana and G had some Mommy-daughter time. Alex and Ryanne had ice cream in Old Town, then rode go carts at Fort Fun and played games. Mommy and Genevieve bought a cake and did some grocery shopping, among other things.

On hitting and biting, and very tough lessons

Alex has recently learned how to hit and bite. We initially thought it would pass, but it has not. We started with gentle admonitions, then time outs, and finally last week we sat Alex down and told him that from now on, any time he hits or bites, he will lose a favorite toy. Permanently.

This morning after breakfast I was cleaning up. Alex and Genevieve were in the kitchen within earshot, when I heard her start screaming. I raced in and asked Alex what happened. Innocent as only a 3-year old can be, he said, "I bit her." "Where did you bite her?" "On her hand." Meanwhile Genevieve is crying and staring disbelievingly at Alex.

I grabbed Alex and took him to sit down on the stairs, when I remembered our agreement. He was already crying, realizing by my stern tone and abrupt actions that he had done something very wrong. His absolute favorite toys the last month or so have been a set of big Tonka pickup trucks, each of which have an interchangeable trailer. So I went and got his yellow Tonka truck from the playroom, and showed it to him. I said, "Alex, you bit your sister, and now you are losing your yellow truck forever. Say goodbye to your truck."

Then he really lost it saying "goodbye," realizing the consequences of what had just happened. The next half hour was very traumatic for both of us. I could not tell if Alex understood completely, and I wanted to make a very big deal out of this situation so that he would indelibly remember it. I asked him if he wanted me to throw away the truck in the garbage, or give it away to some other little boy who did not bite. He said he wanted me to throw it away so I took him and the truck to the kitchen, and I put the truck in the garbage can. Then I took the garbage can out to the alley, while Alex watched from the back door so he could see me throw it away, and brought back the empty garbage can.

Alex was beside himself with grief. I continued to try and remind him that this is a result of biting and hitting, and every time he bites or hits, this will happen.

He was really, really sad. I was too. I never thought a simple little toy truck could be so significant, but it sure was. Dana and I sat on the couch with Alex for 15 minutes or so and helped calm him down and soothe him. By now Genevieve was well over her bite but was upset now because she could tell Alex was so sad. After we got him calmed down he had a glass of milk and went to apologize to Genevieve. Then we read one of his favorite morning books, Cookie Monster's guessing game about Food, and he finally started to settle down.

I'm pretty sure he will bite or hit again. He's three years old and I think it's pretty common. But now that he has a brutally clear experience of what that means, I don't expect he will do it very often. I certainly hope not, because it was really tough on me.

Hooray for Sisters

What a relief it has been having Ali out to visit this week! She is so in tune with Ace! And it's nice to share some trials and tribulations with a fellow tragically-old-home owner. Ali spent the better part of 2 days scraping old paint from the walls of Alex's room. (He's been camped out in the playroom the past couple of weeks). She also discovered that the weird yellow layer we found under the paint is actually ancient wallpaper glue. A little scrubbing with wallpaper adhesive remover yields the much more expected raw white plaster, which is much better for painting or new wallpaper.

Tomorrow we say goodbye, but Ali I and Eric will be back for Dana's graduation in May. Tonight John Dough's had their 6 year anniversary, with $0.99 beer and pizza. Great way to celebrate!

Oh, and at long last our rental house is under contract to sell on May 31!!

And the new roof is almost done being installed on the other house. Looks like it'll take them 3 days instead of 2, but who's counting? It actually hailed today for about 5 minutes. It seems the tar paper is holding up well. (they'll put the shingles on tomorrow)






Alex and Ali at John Dough's




Adventures in Roofing