A few funnies

Joe has been teaching Leah that she is our daughter. The other night she pointed to herself & said daughter, pointed to me & said mommy. When I asked her who Joe was she said, "That's my honey." Does she have him wrapped around her finger or what?

On our way back from Chicago last weekend she kept asking where Crissie, Steve & the girls were. Finally, she said "I want to go to Chicago, too!"

Again, on the way back from Chicago we put some crackers & M&Ms in her snack trap. We don't give Leah much candy so she was really excited. "A green one! A yellow one!" With a mouth full of crackers & chocolate, she insistently asked, "What are these?!?" until we told her what they were called.

How do you follow the perfect weekend? With a perfect week, of course! Crissie came down Tuesday night with the girls and Pete & his family were in town, so Wednesday we went to the City Museum. Everyone had a great time. If you haven't been there in a while, the roof is open now. Leah actually sat in the driver's seat of the bus that hangs off the side of the building! She had no idea what she was doing, but I have a picture on my cell phone.

Crissie spent the rest of the week with the girls and Pete and his crew. They went to the zoo and had a water day on Friday. At the end of the week I was able to meet up with Pete, Emma, and Crissie to have dinner & catch up. It was nice to be able to sit down & talk without distractions. Then, we followed up such a busy week with a lazy weekend.

Perfect Weekend

I'm not sure if weekends get much better than this. The weather was amazing so we decided to head to Laumeier Sculpture Park for the day. Leah enjoyed running and playing and all the new sites. She had the most interest in the fish (tadpoles) in the pond.

Friday we went to the park and Leah just ran & ran. She loves the slides and is getting so good at climbing up things by herself. And of course, she would be content spending the entire evening in the swing.

It seems like she has grown so much in the last month. She plays independently now. She tells you things like "I'm hungry" and "I'm tired" instead of crying. She can sing her ABC's and count to 9, sometimes 10. 9 is usually followed by 13, we're still working on that. And Leah's sentences & conversations continue to expand.

Motherly Worries

It is funny the things you worry about as a parent. A month after we started giving Leah table food I started to worry that she wasn't going to know the names of the foods we were giving her. I wasn't telling her what was on her plate. Last night all that was put to rest. I set Leah's plate on the table & she yelled, "Corn!"

4th of July

We had a great weekend. Joe's brother and his wife came to visit. Thursday night the adults went to a Cardinals game & my sister Jenni watched Leah. It was probably the best game I've ever been to. The weather was perfect, the game was interesting and not too long. It was great.

Friday we spend time with Joe's side at his aunt's and caught up with the extended family. Suzy is always a great host. We made it to the local fair where Leah rode some of the rides. She was really happy about that. Joe won her a small penguin and we had some treats from the food stands. We discovered Leah does NOT like fireworks, not at all. But in the end that worked out for the best because it was such a rainy weekend.

Day care is going ok. I am withholding judgement at this point, or at least trying to. I know I have to give Leah time to adjust so I try not to be too critical.

I hope everyone has a great week!

First Day of School

Monday we took Leah in for a half-day at her new preschool. As most of you know, our home sitter is no longer watching children. Joe & I both had the day off, so we both were able to take her in & pick her up.

She looked soooo sad when I walked out of the room and before we made it out of the building I could hear her crying. They said she had a few moments during the day, she expected it to be us picking her up when people would come in & out of the room. They had pancakes & peaches for breakfast & she didn't eat any of it.

By lunch she was hungry & ate all her pizza and oranges. When Joe & I walked in to get her she ran right to us and clung to Joe like we've never seen her. Later I asked her if she wanted to go back to school and she gave me a firm no. We will see how things go Wednesday when we drop her off for another half day.

My Funny Little Girl

These are some of the things that go on at our house.
- Leah has a plastic Cabbage Patch Kid, and of course it has the famous signature on its bottom. Leah likes to play diaper change with her babies & often gets upset because the poop (signature) won't come off the baby.

- I'm not ready to call it an imaginary friend, but twice now I've seen her talk to a frog that isn't there.

- You know the song that goes, Anna Anna bo bana, banana fana... Leah like that song, but she tells you to do it for anything. "Do car. Do cloud." Whatever she sees.

- Leah has started signing. She can sing All the Fish Swimming in the Water, Old MacDonald, and Walter Walter Wagtail. I think the last one is a Jenks family original.

- Leah would empty her water table by watering my jalapeno if you'd let her. I transferred it to a pot to try to save it, it wasn't doing well in the garden. Leah like to tell me how thirsty it is as she douses it with cup after cup.

- Yesterday when Joe went to get her up for the day she had her blanket spread out in her crib and she was sitting on it with her teddy bear & Lamby. She told him they were watching TV. And their legs had to be straight out, she is very particular.

- This week we got Whitey's for dinner and had to listen to Leah say "I farted" for the rest of the night.