Carolyn Mary

Just a few pictures and a video from the Please Touch Museum

When Grandma Moyer was here a couple of weeks ago, we took Carolyn to the Please Touch Museum. She had fun there as usual.

This was in the Alice in Wonderland part. Carolyn was quick to exclaim: "I'm tall!"

Just like Mommy.

Just like in Big.

Baby baby grand.

And finally, Carolyn experiencing her favorite part of the Please Touch Museum: the carousel.

Odds and ends

Hanging on the rings at The Little Gym.

Both fascinated by the peach trees at Linvilla Orchards.

Riding a pony at Linvilla Orchards. She saw them doing pony rides, and said "I wanna ride a pony." Kristen and I hesitated and told her that we couldn't walk beside her. Then another kid's mom was walking beside him, which Carolyn quickly pointed out to us. So then we gave in, and of course she had to have the cowboy hat. She did great and loved every second of it. This was over two weeks ago and she still talks about it nearly every day.

Video: Peaches

Video: Carolyn's Second Birthday

I'm still catching up on my video backlog. This one is from May.

Video: Sanibel Island

Better late than never in posting this video, but this is from our vacation to Florida a few months back.

Month in Review: June 2010

June was a month with a lot of action, but this blog doesn't really show that. Maybe next month (yeah, right).

Quotes of the month:

"Daddy, what's your problem?"
"No, rabbit! Don't eat my dinner!" (said when she spotted a box of Trix while sitting at the dinner table)

Knocking on wood as I type this, but she is finally sleeping consistently well. Asleep at 9, awake around 6, usually wakes up for a minute or two around 1am, but then right back to sleep. Plus a 2 to 3 hour nap during the day. I really hope I didn't just jinx this.
Being summer, we've been spending a lot of time outside at various places: Linvilla Orchards, Smith Memorial Playground, our own backyard, and Rose Tree Park where we've been going to free outdoor concerts nearly every week.
She's got a pretty amazing memory for a 2-year-old. She can actually recall things that happened weeks ago. For instance, Kristen took her to the Please Touch Museum probably 4 weeks ago. We showed her a picture of herself on the carousel there and she started talking about how she rode on a horse and then cried when she had to get off. She will frequently tell me tidbits about her day when I get home from work, recounting things she said, places she went, etc.
Still getting random temper tantrums. Ah, two. What fun.
As for potty training, still moving along. She'll go on her little potty when we specifically ask her to sit down, but she's still not at the stage where she's letting us know beforehand that she has to go.
Grandma Moyer came to visit for a few days, and Carolyn read tons of books with her, showed her all her toys, played with magnets, and in general they entertained each other pretty nicely.

Superstar!

Video: Carolyn knows everybody's name

In case you need translation for that last part, it's "Carolyn Mary Moyer".

A visit to Linvilla with some rowdy cousins

Last week, Aunt Lauren and her many sons came to visit for an afternoon, so we took everybody to Linvilla Orchards for some blueberry picking. Here's what went down.

Carolyn and a group of troublesome boys waiting for a tractor ride

Declan and Rogan either pretending they're on a golf course, or pretending they are swashbuckling sword fighters (I'll take the latter)

Just a young boy dreaming of a swim in a cool lake on a hot near-summer day...

... until his mother comes along and lays down the law.

They had been to a tank museum earlier in the day

Amidst all of this, we did indeed find some blueberries to pick

A picture in need of no caption

Carolyn: "I wanna smell it!"

Not pictured: Carolyn and the boys throwing pieces of bread at ducks. As Carolyn recounted the incident a few days later: "I said, 'Boof!'"

Smith Memorial Playground is humongous!

A few weeks ago, on an incredibly humid day (whatever happened to that season we used to call Spring?), we all took a trip to Fairmount Park's Smith Memorial Playground. This is the playground that Carolyn had previously described as "humongous". As it turns out, she was right. She had a blast playing there, and I highly recommend it to any of you in the Philadelphia area. Some highlights:

Banging on stuff

Pretending you're robbing a train

Counting

Trying to convince Mom to let you go down a big slide by yourself, and losing the argument

Riding a tricycle in the only refuge from the heat: an old, dark basement

Hobo baby

The other day Carolyn found a small paper bag lying around, so naturally -- all on her own, without any provocation, mind you -- she emptied it, inserted her juice cup, and started drinking out of it.

Month in Review: May 2010

We've got ourselves a two year old now. The weekly emails that I get from babycenter.com have even changed from "Your Toddler This Week" to "Your Pre-Schooler This Week". My little baby is a pre-schooler??

Quotes of the month, in no particular order:

"It was humongous!", said in response to "How was the playground?" after Kristen took her to a massive playground in Fairmount Park. Kristen claims she never described the playground as humongous.
"I'm sending emails", said while sitting at her little plastic vanity.
"Penguin starts with P. Orange starts with zero!"

About half of the time when she addresses me, she calls me "daddy bear". This is because sometimes I will employ my "daddy bear" voice, which is part Baloo from Disney's Jungle Book, part Johnny Cash, and all baritone. She's even been know to call out in the middle of the night: "Daddy bear! Where are you?!" It's cute, to say the least.
Last month I reported that she wasn't really counting in German as well as she does in Spanish and Mandarin. Well, now she can go from eins to zehn with the greatest of ease.
In general she has shown a remarkable ability for remembering books that are read to her. One day after she was first read "Panda Bear, Panda Bear, What Do You See?" she was able to recite it nearly word for word from cover to cover. Of course, since she's in a very repetitious phase, she had the book read to her about 15 times between those two days.
She's added a few songs to her repertoire: "The Wheels on the Bus", "Rock-a-bye Baby", "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb".
Possibly her favorite item these days is a book from Great Grandma Netter and Great Grandpa Ger called "Bad Kitty". Reading it is frequently the first thing she wants to do in the morning and the last thing she wants to do at night, and also 5 or 6 other times throughout the day. Netter wrote a little note inside, and Carolyn has somehow drawn a connection between Great Grandpa Ger and a picture of a chair on the first page. And I quote: "That's Grandpa Chair!"
She cleaned up on birthday presents this year, including a swingset, a tricycle, a fish tank, and a play kitchen.

Video: Carolyn: 1 to 2

Precisely how big is 2-year-old Carolyn?

I'm glad you asked.

Height: 35 inches (81st percentile)
Weight: 25 lbs 9 oz (36th percentile)
Head Circumference: 20 inches (99th percentile)

The 99th percentile for head size is primarily because of her enormous brain.

(As a side note: Greatest birthday picture ever? Greatest birthday picture ever.)

Happy Birthday, Carolyn!

Here are a few of my favorite pictures of Carolyn over these last 2 years...

May 27, 2008 (4 days old)

June 21, 2008 (1 month old)

August 18, 2008 (3 months old)

November 8, 2008 (6 months old)

March 30, 2009 (10 months old)

July 26, 2009 (1 year, 2 months old)

September 7, 2009 (1 year, 4 months old)

November 1, 2009 (1 year, 6 months old)

December 6, 2009 (1 year, 7 months old)

April 4, 2010 (1 year, 11 months old)

May 9, 2010 (2 years old... almost)

Video: Super Lynnie

Happy Mother's Day

What do you mean Mother's Day was two days ago? Not in my house. In my house Mother's Day is every day, especially in the middle of the night when Carolyn screams exclusively for Mommy, or when it's time for bed and Mommy has to lay next to her and she tells Daddy to "go downstairs and turn on the TV".

In truth, I didn't post this on Mother's Day because I was too occupied pampering my beautiful wife.

In actual truth, I didn't post this on Mother's Day because I had some terrible congestion in my head to the point that my hearing was affected and I was dizzy when I stood up, and I didn't move from the couch most of the day.

Video: Carolyn sings the ABCs on the beach

Month in Review: April 2010

We are now less than one month away from Carolyn's second birthday. And sure, we've been telling people (and so has Carolyn) that she's two already, but it's still weird to think about. At any rate, here's a quick summary of the last month.

Carolyn had a real blast looking for Easter eggs.
We took a family vacation down to Florida. While we were there, Carolyn had the Quote of the Month. We were out to dinner, and Carolyn was drinking a lemonade. When asked "Is it yummy?" she replied, "It's perfect!"
It's been a while since she used the potty, but she's recently started up again, so we can now say we have a potty trainer again.
She's been sleeping in a toddler bed for nearly a month. She has had no problems falling out, and she has no problem taking full, non-stop naps in it, but overnight is not so hot. There have been less than a handful of occasions where she has stayed in her own bed all night, perhaps due to growing or teething or both. The odd thing is that she doesn't come into our room on her own; she'll wake up and call for Mommy instead.
She sings the ABCs and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star constantly, often in a little medley. For a while she had been leaving out the letter J, but she recently added it back in. Now we just need to work on the "Uhdoh-P" part.
As far as counting goes, she can count in English from 1 to 20 (okay, she fudges a few of the teens), and will then continue on with "eighty, ninety, a hundred!" She also counts backwards from 5 with no problems (thanks, Team Umizoomi!) She'll do 1 to 10 in Spanish and 1 to 5 in Mandarin as well. I've tried to get her to count in German too, but so far not much luck.
And finally, every once in a while she'll discard "dad" and "mom" entirely in favor of either "Chris", "Christopher", or "Kristen", usually when she's trying to find one of us.

Slideshow: Family Vacation in Sanibel Island, Florida

About a week ago now, we got back from a vacation on Sanibel Island in Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. I've taken the liberty of annotating the pictures in the slideshow below to tell an (admittedly poor) account of the trip. There's also a video forthcoming when I get around to editing it. It was a great trip (apart from the plane ride home, although I must say the plane ride down was about perfect - Carolyn slept through half of it).

Video: Easter Egg Hunt

Big girl bed

For about a week now, Carolyn has been sleeping in a toddler bed. We moved her from the nursery into a regular bedroom, and she couldn't be happier. She loves climbing in the bed all by herself, laying on her SpongeBob pillow, and being tucked in. She actually asks to "go lay in my big girl bed" when she's ready to go to sleep. Where has my little baby gone?

She's still not so great at actually sleeping through the night - she's done so only twice in the last week. So far she's only come into our room in the middle of the night on her own once (otherwise she calls out for Mommy and waits for Kristen to go to her). Overall though, it's been a very smooth transition, and she hasn't even fallen out of the bed!

Video: Carolyn sings Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Month in Review: March 2010

Carolyn is now 22 months old. This post is late again, but here's what happened last month:

Most of the time Carolyn calls me "dad" rather than "daddy". No idea why. Mommy is still mommy, but I'm dad.
She surprised me by counting in Spanish from uno to diez one day. I was helping her put on a shirt and counting her arms as they went in and said "uno..." to which she replied "dos" and then continued to count all the way up to 10. I was floored. She also knows up ("arriba"), down ("abajo"), open ("abre"), and close ("cierra"). All that Dora the Explorer watching is paying off apparently. I guess it also helps that her nanny is fluent in Spanish.
She can now sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (video forthcoming), "The Wheels on the Bus", and some words in "He Doesn't Know Why", ya know, that Fleet Foxes song we sing to her at night.
As far as sleeping goes, she's been staying up later, usually til 9 o'clock (she had been routinely falling asleep at 8), and even skipped a nap entirely one day.
Two new young men in Carolyn's life: Diego (of Go Diego Go fame) and SpongeBob (of the square pants variety).
A few weeks ago, she sat down and read a book of hers (Too Purpley) cover to cover. No joke: every single word. Carolyn's also very much into this set of miniature Disney Princess books. There are twelve of them, and she can identify every single one by its cover, and knows a few of the stories in broad terms. Although, to be fair, they're all pretty much the same story: Princess is in some sort of trouble, runs away, meets new friends, returns, kisses prince, lives happily ever after.
This girl will jump for hours, especially in the crib. She'll hold onto the railing and jump away. Same applies to walls, tables, and basically anything else she can get her hands on. She's also gotten pretty good at jumping without holding onto anything as well.
One of her favorite new things to do is to play with cologne and perfume. She has been known to play continuously with these bottles (taking off lids, moving them around, putting lids back on, moving them around, repeat ad infinitum) for literally over an hour at a time. She even has names for each bottle, most notably "Uncle Tommy", which got its name when Kristen said "This one smells like Uncle Tommy." The real Uncle Tommy has been henceforth renamed "Polo Sport."