Lunch With Daddy

Today I had lunch with Mommy and Alyce. When Mom picked me up from work Alyce was tickled to see me. She was all smiles. After we ate Alyce came over to my chair, I picked her up, and she put her head on my shoulder for a while. I think I got a few "aw's" from the people around us. Lastly, when Mom dropped me off at work Alyce waved by to me as I walked back into the building. What a great kid. Thanks for taking me to lunch Mom.

Big Girl Bed Part 2

Mom and I are again picking up the struggle of getting our daughter into a big girl bed. This time around Alyce is doing a bit better because there have been a few changes in our routine. This time around we are reading her a story while in bed and then pretending to sleep. Doing all of this wil get her to lay in bed, but we can't get her to fall asleep. If we leave the room a few minutes later she is up and wanting to go into her crib.

Mom and I are thinking that getting rid of the crib could get her to stay in her bed as she won't have much choice. This will probably have to wait until we get done redecorating the front room (Alyces future room). It will lead to some tears as well.

Slowest Cookie Eater Ever

I'm not sure if you know this but Alyce is a slow cookie eater. Not all cookies just Oreos. She is very methodical with every one. She pulls the two sides apart, eats the cream, and then nibbles each cookie. By the end there is just as much cookie on her mouth as there is in her mouth.

Bye Bye, Daddy, Eat

I heard a cute story today via Mom. Before lunch Alyce had a request for Mommy. She went up to her and said in a round about way "bye-bye daddy eat". While this might not make a lot of sense to someone who doesn't speak Alyce's language, but to those that do it means that she wanted to go and meet me for lunch. Isn't that cute? My little girl wants to have lunch with me.

That is pretty much all I have about the cuteness and maybe I find it cuter than anyone else.

Alyce, someday you will look back on this and you should know that you made my day.

New Comforter

We are starting to redecorate what eventually will be Alyce's new room. One of the first steps taken is to get a new comforter for the bed that will eventually be hers. I think Alyce is a fan of the colors.

Family in town

Weekend before last Mommy had some family in town. Her cousin Keith, wife Karen, and their daughter Brooke and her Uncle Doug and Aunt Julie were all in town to celebrate GiGi's 89th birthday. Alyce and Brooke played all weekend long.

On Saturday Mom and Karen tried to put both kids down for a nap at the same time. This didn't work so well because they stayed awake talking to each other. Mom wasn't sure what they were talking about but it must have been pretty engaging; neither of them fell asleep.

We also dressed up Alyce in cute outfit for a lunch outing.

Slide at Chick Fil A

This past weekend during our quest for a new dish washer we stopped by a Chick Fil A for lunch. Mom and I are big fans of this restaurant chain as the workers are high caliber and the restaurant is always spotless. We haven't been here in a while and this is the first time Alyce was big enough to play on the play ground.

For starters the Chick Fil A playground is the cleanest indoor playground I have seen. It looks like they vacuum it out every night. I didn't see year old french fries in the corners or dust under the slides. During lunch all Alyce wanted to do was to go play on the wee! She calls slides and playground equipment either slides or wee. After I was finished I gave Mom a few minutes off and took Alyce into the playground.


Whenever we are at an indoor playground I keep a close eye on Alyce. I guess I am always afraid she will get lost in the maze of tubes and not find her way out. Over our past few trips to McDonalds I think I can probably relax on this. One thing she would never do is go down the slides attached to these big tube mazes. I'm not sure if she is afraid to do it without me or if she is scared since she doesn't know where they lead. At Chick Fil A, however, she got over this fear. I let Alyce go into the playground by herself and kept an eye on her and like I always do and sure enough she didn't go down the slide. After a few minutes of watching I could no longer see her in any of the windows. Looking down at the slide here comes out my little girl with a gigantic smile on her face. From this point on she was hooked. She took three to four more trips on the slide before it was time to go.

Just Chillin

Here is a picture of Alyce chilling out in her stroller. She is starting to figure it out. Walking through the mall is for the birds. Why walk when you can roll in style?

Dish Wasser

Mommy and I had a big day today. We got a new dishwasher! The new one has a six hour delay so now we won't forget to turn on the wash. Typically we waited until we would go to bed to start the washer. We did this because it was so loud we couldn't hear the tv. So how does this relate to Alyce and her world? Well other than she should have more clean cups something cute happened during the installation.

As the installer guy was taking out the old dishwasher Alyce was in my arms. As the guy was moving the old washer out of the slot under the counter top Alyce pointed to it and said "wassur". She was trying to say washer, but we knew what she meant. To our knowledge Alyce didn't know the word washer but out it came. After Alyce's nap she walked into the kitchen and saw the newly installed dishwasher. This time she said "dish wassur". I think Alyce approves of the new applicance. It has lots of buttons that she can press. I know that Mom and I like it. It's quietly running the background while I am writing this. It also has a lockout so Alyce's button presses won't matter a bit.

Get the lights on the way out.

This morning Alyce woke up early again. This time however she didn't surprise me. When I got out of the shower and I heard our little girl in her room making the occasional sound and quietly asking for mommy. Looking down the hall I saw something surprising. The lights were on in her room. Alyce has is now tall enough that if she stands on her tip toes she can reach the light switch. I guess this will bring a new round of baby proofing as Alyce can now get to things like the oven burners and other counter top items.

Alyce continued to play in her lit room doing whatever little girls do when playing by themselves until I left to go to work. I enjoy being able to trust her to keep herself entertained for a while. Too bad in a few short weeks we start all over again.

Little Sweetheart

Tonight Alyce was a little sweetheart. I was cold sitting on my chair. Mom asked if I wanted a blanket. I said I would get it after Alyce went to bed. Alyce looked up at mom and said "Daddy?". Mom told her that I would get a blanket later. Well apparently this wasn't good enough for her. Alyce got up off the couch, grabbed a blanket, and brought it over to me. Wasn't that sweet of her? The blanket was very warm. I am so lucky I have a girl like her.

Waking up early

This morning I was greeted to a surprise. As I was getting ready to go down stairs to go to work I looked over into Alyce's room. Looking back at me is my little girl standing at the baby gate to the doorway to her room. I nearly jumped out of my skin. She didn't do anything scary, I just wasn't expecting her to be there. Once we give her full access to the house I know I am going to wake up some morning to her staring at me. Kids are like little ninjas! They are able to move through house unseen, unheard.

Finished Bathroom

Since I wrote about it last week I thought I would share the mostly finished bathroom with everyone. I think the bathroom turned out great. There were a few setbacks but in all things went fairly easily. I did the painting, drywall, electrical and plumbing while Mom did the decorating and the wallpaper creatures.




This was the before picture of the bathroom. This is probably the bathroom at its worst. Before we started demolishing the bathroom had a nice moon and stars theme. Obviously all of the moon and stars decorations have been removed by this point. In this picture the new faucet is already installed. The old one was ugly and hard to use.

Not Yet Ready For Sledding

Last week Mom and I took Alyce to a local hill for a try at sledding. I'm sad to say that our experience was more failure than success. We went to the hill after I got off work and we arrived with plenty of daylight left. Alyce was bundled for the conditions and looked like a little pink marshmellow.

I took Alyce up the hill for her first ride while Mom was at the bottom taking some video of the event. I setup the sled, put Alyce in my lap, and off we went. We started going down the hill and faster than expected! I guess the snow was already smashed down into an ice like sheath. This would have been ok except for the fact that we were heading right towards Mom! I tried to adjust our path, but holding Alyce with one arm left me only able to adjust a single direction at a time. I decided to bail out so that we wouldn't hit Mom. I skidded on my butt with no damage except for my pride. Alyce took a little topple including a flip. There was no lasting damage, however Alyce lost all interest in sledding.



I took Alyce up the hill for one more try. Hoping that one crash free trip would get her to forget the first. That didn't seem to help. At the bottom of the hill Alyce wanted out of the sled as she was crying off and on. When she calmed down I tried to pull her around the bottom of the hill on a sled, and though she wasn't crying we could tell that she wasn't exactly thrilled.

We ended our little trip at that point. It is too bad that things didn't go better for Alyce. But sometimes things don't go exactly the way you want. Next snow or next year we are going to try again.

Kicking But No Screaming

Earlier this week maybe Monday Alyce had a little tantrum. One of Alyce's favorite past times is playing on the stairs. She likes to go up and down the stairs and opens and closes the baby gates. Note, If the baby gates are locked she can't open or close them so if she isn't supervised she can't get on the stairs by herself. Typically she just plays on the bottom three or four steps.

On Monday Alyce was going up and down the steps the entire length. After a few trips we told her it was time for her to move onto something else. We took her off of the stairs and locked the baby gate behind us. Naturally she was none to happy about this. Alyce's typical tantrum is that she will collapse on the ground and cry a little bit. Then after a few minutes get up and go do something else. This time Alyce didn't cry as much but laid on the ground and started kicking her legs.

We let Alyce kick it out and sure enough after a few seconds she stops, rolls over, and looks at us. When she sees she isn't going to get her way she gets up comes over to me and sits in my lap. Her tantrum ended there, but she continued pouting for a few minutes longer.

I'm sure this is part of the growing up process and will eventually end. Everything I see Alyce doing the things kids are supposed to do I get such a kick out of it. Mom and I both thought this bout of tantrum was hilarious. Maybe I get a kick out of it because I know that Alyce is developing and these bumps in the road are milestones for development.