Little Talker

Anna has become quite the little talker lately. I'm surprised at how many words she knows. Of course the key is to decipher what she's saying. Mostly we talk about food. I swear when she says bread it sounds like butt or bud. The other day during lunch she was pointing and saying, "bud! bud!" I couldn't figure out what she meant because there wasn't any bread out. Finally I pointed to the package of tortillas and asked if that's what she wanted and she said yes. So I explained that we call those tortillas and gave her some. A few minutes later she said "ti! ti!" with the same intensity as before. Once again it took me a few minutes but I finally figured out that she wanted more tortilla.

In the last day or so, she's really been into applesauce. But when she says it, it sounds like "I saw" or "aa-saw."

We put up our Christmas tree on Friday night and Anna loves it. We have several Snoopy ornaments thanks to Dan's mom. In the morning, Anna likes to stop at the Christmas tree before we change her diaper or get her breakfast. She also likes to point out the different ornaments and say "Snoopy" or "baa" for the sheep.

Saturday night Aunt Christa babysat Anna. They had a pretty good time. When I got Anna up this morning, I was sure she said, "Where's Christa?"

A few weeks ago, I picked up some candy for a sister I visit teach and I thought it would be a good idea to get Anna a piece of Laffy-Taffy to help her into her car seat. I'm not into bribing Anna, but I love to get a treat whenever I go out and so sometimes Anna gets one too. As I unwrapped the candy, I thought, I better only give her half of this candy, but then I reasoned, she can't get into too much trouble with the whole piece. When I went to get her out of the car, I found a big wad of Laffy Taffy stuck in her hair. Oops! I stuck her hair under running water and it came out pretty easily.
Anna had her first bout of the stomach flu last week. I knew she was sick when she got up from her nap and only wanted to sit on my lap. Eventually she started to perk up and get down and walk around. That's when she barfed. So after changing her, I set her on the couch to watch Sesame Street while I cleaned up her barf. When I came back to find her, I noticed that she was sticking the thermometer in her sleeve, taking her temperature. Too bad it's not that easy when I'm trying to actually take her temperature.

Catching up on October

Well, it's the end of November and I'm finally getting around to October. Here are some photos of what we've been up to.
At the beginning of October, Dan and I took a short, over-night trip down to Cedar City. We saw the play, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) at the Shakespeare Festival and we also went out to see the Cedar Breaks monument.
In this photo Anna is feeding Dad his corn. She thought that was a lot of fun.
Dan's parents came to visit for Dan's birthday. They brought a cheese cake and an amazingly rich chocolate cake to his birthday party. Anna loved the chocolate cake and I know I let her eat way too much cake and way too much ice cream.
We got our first significant snow in October. Lucky for Anna, I had bought her a snow coat, gloves, and snow boots the day before. At first, it was hard for Anna to walk around in her snow boots and big, puffy coat, but eventually she loved it. She also loved being pulled around in a sled with her buddy Ryelle. Benji was nice enough to pull Anna in his sled. At one point I said to him, "Wow! Benji that's looks like hard work." He shrugged and said, "It's just like dragging all my favorite things." I thought that was so cute.
Just before Halloween, my sister Christa came home from her mission to the Belgium Brussels-Netherlands mission. We all went up to the airport to wait for her to fly in and several of Christa's friends also showed up. Erica brought Christa four or five boxes of Reese's Puffs. I guess it's Christa's favorite cereal.
It's becoming a tradition in our house for Dan to carve the pumpkin. I showed Anna this picture and it freaked her out. By the way, Anna loves pumpkins. Every time she sees the color orange she says, "pumpkin?"
I made Anna's costume for Halloween. She was a butterfly, but I really wanted to make her a tutu. I also make the wings with hangers and tights. Her costume was a bit eclectic, but I had fun making it.

The other day I mentioned to Dan that Anna does a much better job of playing independently if I don't turn on the TV for her. I hate to do it, but sometimes when I really need to get something done quickly I'll turn the TV on. She mostly watches PBS kids. Anyway, that same day, Anna pulled all the books off our book shelf. Then she decided to test out her crayon on a bedroom door, and finally she unrolled a bunch of toilet paper. That was all before noon. I decided to dress her up in the tp so that's where this photo comes from.
I got to babysit a four-month old, Logan for a few hours this month. I was pretty interested in how Anna would react. When she wasn't standing over him saying "baby?," I was holding him and that made her jealous. Still she's getting a little bit better about letting other kids play with her toys. She just needs more interaction with other kids.

Our Tribute to SYTYCD in SLC

Acrobatics

This sweet little girl loves to jump on the couch. Every time we see her stand up on the couch, we tell her to sit on her bottom. We tell her this for three reasons: 1. to preserve our furniture; 2. so she won't jump on other people's couches; and 3. because she doesn't yet seem to get gravity.

Well, last Friday she did her first front flip off the couch. Ironically enough I was talking to the doctor when she launched herself off the couch. She tucked her head just in time and ended up rolling onto her back.

She didn't cry, but neither did she throw up or show any other signs of hitting her head too hard. She did look a little dazed, but mostly I think she was surprised by what happened. Since then I haven't seen her do much jumping. Maybe the idea of gravity is starting to kick in.

Car Seats and Whip Cream

On Labor Day, we piled in the car to meet my family in Orem for lunch, but just before we left, Dan noticed that our car had a flat tire. So we had to switch the car seat to the other car. When we took Anna out of her car seat and then the car seat out of the car, she flipped out. She started screaming hysterically and didn't calm down until the car seat was secured in the other car and she was sitting in it. Then the next day, Dan brought the car seat into the house so that he could take his car to work. Again Anna started crying until it was back in the car (the tire had been patched). I didn't realize that she knew she wasn't going anywhere if the car seat was in the house. She loves to play in the front seat of the car, and occasionally I let her sit in the front seat if I'm just backing the car out of the garage, but if we actually go anywhere, she sits in the car seat. And she does occasionally fight me when I try to put her in the car seat, so her reaction was a bit surprising.

Tonight we went to my parents' house for dinner because my grandparents were in town (did I mention that my family recently left Louisiana and moved to Utah County?). Of course my dad is doing his best to corrupt Anna. He gave her a spoonful of whip cream, but it took her a few tentative touches before she was willing to believe that it was worth eating. Clearly she is a bright child if she knows Grandpa can't be trusted. He is after all, the guy who gave me Tabasco Sauce when I was just a baby. And he gave it to me repeatedly even though I cried every time. He says I kept asking for it, but I ask you, who was the adult in that situation?

As my mom was saying goodbye to Katie and Jamie, Anna pushed my mom out the door, shut it and said "bye bye." So cute!

She's at the stage now where she seems to be learning new words every day. Right now her favorite thing to say is "car" and "cuck" (truck). Lucky for her, we live on a fairly busy street, so there are plenty of cars and cucks driving by.

Half Marathon

So, I ran my first half marathon in Spanish Fork on Saturday and it was grueling. I started off feeling good, but at mile eight, I felt my body start to tingle all over and by mile nine my legs hurt all over. My hips hurt, my knees hurt, my ankles hurt, and all the muscles in between. I admit that I'm starting to think about a marathon, but I was in so much pain when I finished that I don't know how I could run thirteen more miles.

I also learned a few things that I'm anxious to apply the next time I run a half marathon. I have this thing where I like to do something hard more than once so that I can benefit from the experience I've gained and give it another go since I never seem to get it quite right the first time. (The rest of this post is mostly for my benefit, so don't feel like you have to read this if you're not into running.)

Lesson 1: Don't start out too fast. I used to believe that I wasn't competitive because when I first started running, I couldn't really compete. But I'm more competitive than I'd like to think (not that I'm winning any races these days either). On Saturday, I started out with an 8 m. 15 s./mile pace and by mile nine, I didn't have anything left and I had slowed to a 9 min. pace. Everyone I had passed by mile five started passing me and it was discouraging. Plus my legs hurt all over, adding to my discouragement.

Next time, I will start out at a slower than normal pace, so that I can finish feeling strong and I can pass some people instead of being passed myself.

Lesson 2: Wear my Amphipod belt. I have a belt with water bottles and a pouch for food or other small items that I always wear on my longer runs so that I can stay hydrated. For the most part, I really like it, but it does feel heavy and sloshy at the beginning and I thought that going without the belt in the race would be like shaving all my body hair off just before a swimming competition. But I've decided, that it's better to have the liquid I want when I need it, and it's better to start off feeling slow and heavy and end feeling lighter and faster. For the most part, the water stations worked out okay for me, but sometimes the Gatorade was too watery.

Lesson 3: Bring a jacket for after the race. For the most part, the weather was great, and I didn't actually need a jacket, but I can see how I might feel cold if the weather had been just a bit cooler. Without my belt or my jacket, I felt a little unprepared and I think it affected me mentally.

Once I finished my half marathon, I thought I would feel a sense of accomplishment, but instead I've actually felt pretty discouraged the last few days. My legs ached all the rest of Saturday. I probably should have taken some anti-inflammatory pain killers and I know I shouldn't have spent the rest of the day on my feet running errands. Sunday I woke up with sore muscles and that actually felt better. In addition to the pain, I think I have felt woefully aware of my status as an amateur. I like to read books about gardening, quilting, child behavior, etc. but I have no interest in running books. I guess I'm too independent to learn from others, but after my race, I felt extremely ignorant about running something as long as a half marathon. So if anyone knows of a book they like, I'd love to hear about it.

I think I'm also coming to grips with the fact that no matter how well I do, there will always be someone faster or stronger than me. I don't know why this bugs me right now because it's always been this way for me. When I started running in high school, I couldn't even run a mile without walking and still Coach put me with the Cross Country team. But then running a full two miles without walking or knocking a minute off my time became a huge accomplishment for me. Some how, I've got to get back to that mind set, where I'm only racing against myself.

I should also mention how grateful I am to my sister Erica for showing up at the finish line to cheer me on. After such a tough race, I was hoping that someone I knew would be there to see me finish. So when I heard Erica scream out my name at the top of her lungs, I couldn't help but smile and feel encouraged. In fact, I almost wanted to cry when I saw and heard her. Dan tried to make it there to see me finish, but both he and Anna overslept and so he was still in Provo when I crossed the finish line.

Nursery

Anna went to nursery for the first time on Sunday. She walked right in a didn't look back. About half way through, she had a dirty diaper, so I had a good excuse to see how she was doing. I wondered if she might freak out when I took her back to nursery since this time she would know that I was leaving her, but she didn't. I know I should be relieved that it was so easy (at least for this first Sunday), but I'm sort of disappointed that she didn't miss me more. I guess I was secretly hoping to spend a few weeks in nursery while she adjusted and maybe I still will. I certainly don't want to jinx myself. It just feels like she's growing up so fast and there's a part of me that doesn't want her to.

Here are a few other things we've been up to in the last week.

We had a family picnic in Provo Canyon on Friday and Anna loved the Oreos and all the attention. By the end of the evening she would plop down in someone's lap and then almost immediately get up and move to another lap. This kid is constantly on the go. Lucky for me she still takes two naps (most of the time).
Yes, I do believe in child labor and teaching my child how to work at an early age. I saw this idea on a website, to make my swiffer handle shorter and Anna loves it. She doesn't really get the floor clean, but I'd much rather have her doing this than pulling my makeup out of my bathroom drawer or playing with matches like she was today. A few days ago, she brought me a tampon. I guess those safety latches on the cabinets don't work if I don't shut the cabinet.
This kid loves fruit and especially watermelon, even the rind. On our picnic, she kept trying to bite the rind. I figure she'll eventually realize that the rind doesn't taste half as good as the pink stuff. She would eat only fruit if I would let her, but I continue to torture her by giving her other foods to eat. She's great at eating pinto or black beans and pasta with tomato sauce, but she will not allow me to put cauliflower or broccoli on her tray. As soon as I set in on her tray, she picks it up and hands it to me or throws it. Little does she know that I puree the stuff and hide it in the tomato sauce. Bwa ha ha!