Here or not

I know that there are going to be countless times over the course of my life that I sit back and wonder how my children have learned everything they know, but I'm honestly so surprised to realize it's already happening. I thought that at not-quite 2.5 years old I'd still pretty much have the ball in my court when it comes to what Sylvie is learning and processing. Wrong. Again. Luckily for me, this one is just ridiculously adorable, even if I have to admit that she probably learned it from watching Caillou or some other random cartoon. So what you see up there is Sylvie playing Hide and Seek, she's "it". She's standing at the foot of our bed straining oh so very hard to keep those eyes closed, it's so hard not to peek!

Maybe if she covers them it will make the counting a little easier:

Maybe not:

Definitely absolutely not:

And after counting to whatever random number she has assigned (it's usually 8), she shouts "HERE OR NOT, HERE I COME!!"

These are the exact moments that you dream about when you imagine what having a child will be like. I love these moments!

Evening Sky

John took Sylvie outside tonight and took these pictures of her against one of the most beautiful evening skies I've ever seen.


Super Baby!!

Nap Schmap

My mother has found a way to get back at me for those bratty years.

It seemed innocent enough, she stayed home from work today and thought it would be fun to take Sylvie to visit Grandma Winnie for lunch. I'd get a nice easy day at work without a toddler running around, how could I say no? Little did I know that many many hours later, my mother would pull into my driveway with what can only be described as a rabid, miserable, EXHAUSTED little monster. My mom actually chuckled, giggled almost, when she breezily uttered "I don't know, she just didn't want to take a nap Kace!"

Hmmm....I wonder why she wouldn't want to nap? Could it have been all the grilled cheese and french fries and probably cookies and chocolate milk? Or how about the visit to at least one toy store, where I've been told that at one point Sylvie had an entire shopping cart full of CRAP loaded up (2 or 3 bagfulls of which came home with her!)? Or I know, maybe it was the hour or two of chasing Sassy the cat around Grandma Winnie's house, one of Sylvie's favorite obsessions, that she still asks me about?

It's all fun and games with Grandma! Grandma, who gets to cheerfully drop this insane clown posse off on my doorstep and then scoot off to her quiet and peaceful house. SHE JUST DIDN'T WANT TO NAP. Pfft.

Dance Party!!

Surely I've blogged about Sylvie's dance parties before, right? For a long time they were a daily occurrence in our house, as soon as we'd turn on the music she'd drag her basket of musical instruments out into our big room. Somewhere along the line I guess she decided to invite some friends.

Every one of her stuffed animal "friends" gets dumped into our room and flung all over, with as much energy and enthusiasm as one might expect from a puppy on speed. I think over the course of the minute or two it took me to take these pictures I was hit in the face with about 15 different stuffed animals.

Airborne!

Empty Beach

Can you spot me and Sylvie on this empty beach? The Tuesday after Memorial Day was a quiet and low-key day. It was the 2nd or 3rd day of what would turn out to be one of the nastiest sinus infections I've ever had, which I'd like to think is part of the reason I have fallen so behind on this blog. (I've been fine for a good 2 weeks now, but the damage was done and it's been hard to catch up!)

So on this day I was so sick and cranky and miserable that I basically forced John to stay home and take care of Sylvie so I could stay in bed and mope. John obliged (who can refuse a 4 day weekend, afterall?) and convinced me to take some OTC drugs, which INSTANTLY helped. I felt so good that I ended up feeling really guilty about making John call out, and tried to make up for it by planning a little beach outing. We got there and the place was totally 100% empty. It would have been a perfect little paradise, if not for the invasion of gnats about 15 minutes after we arrived. Those first 15 minutes were heavenly though!!

She found this dug out pit as-is, I'm assuming the result of a very crowded beach the day earlier.

Burying my feet in the sand:

Hilarious!!

John and Sylvie raced almost the entire length of the beach, back and forth, 3 times! Okay, so it's a teeny tiny beach, but still, I was impressed.

Hello Little Friend!

While John and I sat outside soaking in the beautiful Memorial Day weather, Sylvie spotted this little guy hanging out on the 2nd floor deck of our 2 family house. She ran over to us squealing and pointing and yelling so fast and nonsensically that we had NO idea what she was talking about. I finally followed her over to the back of our yard and saw what she was pointing to, at which point she started pleading "I see him? I touch him? I play with him?"

He hung out up there just long enough for me to snap a couple of pictures, at which point he took off running. Sylvie shouted "oh no!!" and "the squirrel flew away!!" (her new go-to explanation for the disappearance of any object, i.e. "my hair clip flew away") but got over her disappointment pretty quickly.

Afterall, she had lots of castles to make and tunnels to dig. (And check out that sweet umbrella canopy that John rigged up. Now no matter how high and bright the sun is, Sylvie's covered. Oh man I love it.)

BBQ

After a busy couple of days Sylvie and I had a nice relaxing evening at Grandma Kathy's house. The weather was absolutely perfect so we decided to have a BBQ in the backyard.

She seemed pretty interested in the hamburgers, but the freshly steamed corn won in the end. Music to her vegetarian mother's ears.

Happy Birthday Ben!!!

Today was Ben's 2nd birthday party, and it was a BLAST. I love the photo above, with Ben looking so serious with those somber little lips. He's such a happy-go-lucky little boy, that the expression in this photo just cracks me up! Ben's mom is my best friend Sue, who I've talked about before in this post. We've been BFFs for over 20 years now, crazy! And even crazier, we have 2 year olds running around and keeping us on our toes!

Anyway, the party was so much fun, and Sylvie was just so excited to go celebrate Ben's big day. She totally gets the whole birthday = party = cake concept, so she was GUNG-HO from the second she opened her eyes. We practiced singing the Happy Birthday song all morning, just to make sure that she would actually sing "Happy Birthday to BEN" and not her usual "to Sylvie". Though I think when it actually came time for the cake she was so captivated by the allure of burning candles and chocolatey goodness that she totally forgot to sing at all.

So the party got off to a roaring start with some jumping in the big bouncy toy:

Sue decided that the kids weren't having quite enough fun and needed her help. And as it turns out, she was right, she had them doing songs and dances and routines in there, while the kids breathlessly screamed "more, more!!" and "again!!" over and over. Here they are playing Ring Around the Rosy, which I think was Sylvie's favorite.

Here's an action shot right after the "we all fall DOWN!" part of the song:

Later on in the afternoon Sue's niece Meghan gave the kids a quick little nature lesson when she showed them a real live caterpillar up close and personal:

There were bike rides...

...and batting practices...

...and even some extreme badminton. Yes, this is Ben's father Alex playing badminton on the roof of the shed.

Later on Ben opened his gifts:


And then while waiting for the cake, he and Syl snuck in a few smooches:


There were trucks piled high with brownies:

And then finally, CAKE!!

Sylvie goes in for a second piece:

Happy Birthday Bennie!! We love you so much!!

Green Thumb

The kids had the day off from school today, so Sylvie and I spent the entire day with them. It's always a little challenging to keep Sylvie occupied during long work days, and I really hate relying on the TV too much. So today I finally busted out the little egg planters that we bought for Sylvie's Easter basket. To say Sylvie was skeptical would be a bit of an understatement:

But she was quickly on board with the plan when she realized it involved punching holes in the eggs with the back of a spoon. Here she gives it a good whack:

Once we got both eggs cracked open we got some water to moisten the soil. Sylvie didn't really get the concept, so she kept trying to scoop the soil out of the eggs with her hands.

I thought maybe she'd have more fun with the spoon, so I told her to spoon some water from the glass into each egg.

She got fed up with the inefficiency of this method, so she picked up the glass and just poured the water directly into each egg. Making a bit of a mess:

I will keep the Daily Syl fully updated with our little egg plants, which should hopefully start sprouting little Impatiens. How fun!

Letters!

We got a really fun package in the mail today, Ben's birthday present! His birthday was earlier this month, on the 15th, but his party is this Saturday. These arrived just in time, and if Sylvie's reaction is any indication, hopefully they'll be a hit with the birthday boy too!





There are 8 letters in total, spelling out B-E-N-J-A-M-I-N: