Caroline's B's

Caroline has started calling her blankets "bees" or "Bs". She actually has about five Bs that she sleeps with and she usually leaves the house with one or two Bs (and her dolly). I caught her with all her Bs last month after a nap and thought it made a great picture. The blue B and that greenish one she's holding up on her left arm are two of Peder's old blankets when he was a baby. The yellow blanket was Peder's gift to Caroline when she was born (I wanted him to get a pink one, but he insisted on this yellow one and she does like it). One of the pink blankets is from my brother. Thank goodness she has more than one so I can wash them and rotate them around if I need to do that. Right now she prefers the blue blanket.

Peder's Valentine to His Mother

Peder has been embarrassed to show me any affection lately (won't say I love you to me because he says he's "too shy"). On Friday when I picked him up from school, he gave this Valentine to me and I loved it. He kept saying, "Don't embarrass me! Don't embarrass me!" (translation: don't tell me how wonderful this Valentine is)

Hope you can read this, if not, here's what it says (misspellings and all):
Rozes are red viles are
blue Dad is so swete but
not as swete as you.
Happy Valentine's
Day!
To Mom
From Peder

Happy Valentine's Day!

Caroline Counting

On Sunday evening, Peder and Mark went to a Stars hockey game, so Caroline and I had some quiet time together. She's now counting! Well, I was prompting her a little, but it was fun to watch. Laurie, the wonderful woman who watches her, says that they practice counting during the day while Caroline is over there. Caroline is also putting two words together, she's using some articles (a), a few pronouns (I, mine), and of course, lots of nouns and some verbs. Okay, that's the speech therapist coming out, but I can't help it. I know that Peder wasn't at this stage when he was about to turn two. He had so many ear infections and two sets of tubes (I'm a total advocate for tubes in ears for kids by the way). He just wasn't hearing as much as he should have and it took awhile for him to catch up. Now we can't keep him quiet.

Gerber Daisies

It was my birthday on the 5th and I turned 38! I love Gerber daisies and these were given to me by one of the sweet teachers I work with (thanks Megan!) and her special ed. preschool class. I'm not a photographer but I'd like to learn more about how to take pictures, so here are my attempts at showing how pretty they were. They also gave me a card and sang Happy Birthday to me (well, some of them are nonverbal but they were there trying). The other class I work with (3 and 4 year olds) gave me a huge bag of chocolate kisses and M&Ms. Yum!

Mark made dinner for me and the family. We haven't gone out for dinner yet, but that's the plan.

Peder at the Piano

Peder hardly ever wants me to video him practicing piano. He gets embarrassed. But, this evening I was sitting there listening to him play and decided to get the video camera out and secretly video him playing. He has a favorite tune called "The Toy March" which is what he's playing in this video. I think it's funny how he scoots down the piano bench at the end of the piece as the notes get lower. He was not happy when he discovered that I had gotten it on tape. Oh, well. I had to do it!

Teeth Teeth Teeth!!

I finally got Peder to show off his front two teeth coming in. (As a side note, this blog seems to contain more pictures of Caroline. That's because Peder doesn't always like to have his picture taken and Caroline usually loves the camera). Peder's teeth are coming in nicely and was willing to show me tonight. His denist indicates that Peder has lots of spacing between his teeth so he should have plenty of room for those permanent ones. Yippee! I think he got his teeth from his father's side. Nice straight teeth, no braces hopefully.

Caroline is finally getting her canine or cuspid teeth. And no, we weren't torturing her to get the picture. She's actually laughing. Those canines I think have given her the most trouble. It was the same for Peder. After this, Caroline will have all primary teeth except her second molars. Those come in after the 2nd birthday I think. I'm so glad teething is almost over!

Bubbles at Bathtime

Caroline LOVES bubbles while sitting in her bathtub. I usually blow the bubbles because, after all I am a speech therapist, and everyone knows that SLPs are GREAT at blowing bubbles. It's the first item in our bag of tricks. Anyway, tonight Daddy blew the bubbles and Caroline was quite satisfied. I give Daddy an 8 if I had to rank him, with a 10 being perfect at bubble blowing. I didn't see any monster size bubbles and she really likes those big ones. He will need to practice to keep her happy.

Caroline also HATES having her hair washed. (Peder did too) So, I've found that she's somewhat distracted when I pretend that the duckies and whales need to be washed too. I put shampoo on them and give her a little washcloth. She talks away while she washes them. There's still drama when we wash her hair but she gets over it quicker.