My Name Is Now Mom

TerraDactyl got to go to the zoo again last week, but this time with a friend.  The kids liked seeing the animals, but it seemed like the best part for them was playing in the dirt.  We spent more than 5 hours there and the last two or three were spent with the kids digging around in the bark and stomping in a puddle.    TerraDactyl had her 3 year check up last week.  She's 30 lbs and 36" tall.  The doctor was happy with her developmental checklist and very pleased with her verbal abilities.  The checklist asked about whether she is using 4 word sentences, but she'll often make 7 or 8 word sentences.  The most difficult part of the visit was getting TerraDactyl to wear a mask the whole time.  She got tired of wearing it pretty quickly and kept trying to take it off.   The part of the checklist where TerraDactyl was borderline behind was on fine motor skills, but that is because I haven't thought about having her do certain activitie...

The other day we had a bald eagle in our backyard.  We were out there doing yard work all day.  And it wasn't quiet.  DH chopped up the chunks of lilac that I had to cut off the bush, messed about with the hedge trimmers, mowed the lawn...  And the eagle just hung out in the tree the whole time.  I couldn't get a great picture of him up in the tree with the zoom on my phone, so we improvised.  This was taken through our binoculars.  To be honest, it turned out a lot better than I expected it to.   TerraDactyl was very interested in the binoculars, of course.  DH was trying to look at the eagle and TerraDactyl kept sticking her face in front of them.  She was quite pleased when she got her turn to look through the binoculars.   TerraDactyl was playing around with some alphabet stickers and she held up the two "o's" and said, "these are mynoculars".  She's got a pretty great imagination.  It's always interesting to...

TerraDactyl got to go on her second Easter Egg Hunt.  Last year she hunted for eggs all by herself.  This year, she had competition.  We were at a friend's house and they have a little girl who is 4 (a year older than TerraDactyl).  She's one of TerraDactyl's three friends.  It's tough being a kid during a pandemic.   The little girls (and adults) got to dye and decorate hard-boiled eggs.  Then the little girls got to look for the eggs we'd decorated, as well as the plastic eggs with the fun stuff inside.  TerraDactyl definitely had fun.   But TerraDactyl definitely needs to work on her strategy.  She spent most of the time following the older girl, so she didn't get nearly as many eggs.  But she didn't seem to care that they didn't have the same amount of eggs.  The only time she protested was when the other girl seemed like she was going to take one of the eggs that TerraDactyl had found.  Which is a fair ...

TerraDactyl absolutely loves climbing on things.  If it's possible to climb, she'll try it.  The last time we went grocery shopping, she spent 20 minutes climbing on the cart return before I finally convinced her that we needed to get the groceries home.  It might have been just as difficult to convince her to leave that parking lot as it usually is to convince her to leave the park. My parents have a photo of my brother doing a plank with his feet on a dining room chair and his hands on the table while he looked at the comics.  I'm not sure how old he was when they took that photo, but I think TerraDactyl would like to try and outdo him.  She's already practicing... TerraDactyl also enjoys climbing all over me.  I was trying to eat breakfast while she was doing this.  She's also got a really good grip, so her headlocks are pretty decent.  It can be overwhelming to have thirty-ish pounds pulling on you while simultaneously choking you.  And y...

TerraDactyl saw a music video the other day about a pizza party (which she listened to nonstop for like an hour).  They described (and showed) how to make a pizza in the song.  She then spent the next 20 minutes begging me for a pizza party.  I told her we could eat pizza for dinner, but we'd need to go grocery shopping and make the pizza first.  She wasn't happy about waiting until dinner, but she finally relented.  So here is TerraDactyl putting her pizza together.   TerraDactyl was not great at spreading the toppings out.  Also, She ate a ton of olives and pineapple while working on the pizza.  Good thing we had way more than we needed.   She was actually pretty good about not making a mess.  We should probably be doing more cooking together.  She ate two pieces of pizza that first night.  But to be honest, I think she liked making the pizza more than eating it.  I think I've eaten more of the pizza at this p...

  TerraDactyl is just a nut!  (And I've got the video to prove it.)  That's today's blog theme.  This first video is TerraDactyl showing off her new laugh.  I don't think DH and I do this, but she picked it up somewhere... And here is TerraDactyl showing off her moves at the park.  She's a big fan of the monkey bars.  And the merry-go-round.  And the see saw.  And the swings...  OK, she pretty much loves everything at the park.  Pay attention at the end to how much notice she gives me before leaping into me.  I'd like to make a note here that I successfully caught her.   Next up, prayer.  I'm pretty sure she's saying "God bless us every day.  Amen"  Of course, she might also be praying for protection because she's ripping stuff off the bottom of the chair as she's chanting this.  Somehow she manages to balance the "terrible two" with adorableness.  She's really quite gifted.   TerraD...

TerraDactyl was playing quietly in her room, so I came in to check on her.  Because she doesn't usually do that unless she's pooping.  She wasn't pooping.  Instead, I came in to find that she had removed all four tires from one of her matchbox cars (you can see the tiny tires by the baby bottle).  TerraDactyl requested that I "fix" the car.  Thankfully, this was a quality car.  It had rubber tires that fit over plastic discs on the axle.  It was a pretty easy fix.  When I handed the car back to her, TerraDactyl immediately removed all four tires again in less than a minute and placed them all in my hand. Up until now, I've just let TerraDactyl brush her teeth by chewing on one of those infant finger toothbrush things.  She'll run around playing for 10 minutes while chomping away on it.  I finally decided that we should probably start working on the actual mechanics of tooth brushing, so I got her a different style of tooth brush.  I...