Bree's Summer Portraits

While my mom was visiting, we took Bree to get some pictures taken. The last time I did this, it was last December and she didn't really last all that long. This time we had much better luck, and great pictures. We had a lot to choose from, and this is the one that my mom picked out. I'll try to put up some of the others, too.

The Beach

I've often thought it very sad that I've not taken Bree to the Oceanfront. Then I saw what she did when she saw the water and all of a sudden I didn't feel too bad anymore. The girl runs headlong into the water, stopping only when a wave knocks her over.

She's been a better listener, so I decided to take her to the beach today. By myself.


I would have to call the trip a success. She left the water when she was too cold, and she played with her bucket & shovel close to the blanket, just like I asked. We went back into the water several times, followed by playing in the sand, and playing on the kid's playset/playground.

She didn't want to leave, but she was tired and only put up a half-hearted fight. I did laugh, though, when we were walking down to the water and one woman turned to her husbad and said, "Watch that little one, she has NO fear of the water. You'll hear her laughing, just watch."

Now it's on to more mundane things, like grocery shopping & laundry for the rest of the day.

More Elmo Park!

I dont' think I've ever mentioned that the park has Clydesdale horses - being an Anheiser-Busch sponsored park, they actually have a stable for the horses. Well, needless to say, Bree loves the horses. She's actually just really into horses, and I think that it was the horses at Elmo Park that spurred this. Whenever she sees a picture of a horse, or a horse on tv or on the video, she says, "I ride THAT ONE." Even with the horses in her wooden puzzles, she says, "Mama, you ride this one and I ride THAT ONE."


There is a horse ride, of course, across from the stables. Without fail, Bree will ride this ride at least five times before we can do anything else. When we first discovered this ride, she rode it for 45 minutes straight. We even lasted through an operator shift change! Luckily for us that day, the park wasn't crowded and there weren't a whole lot of kids waiting to ride that ride. Today we got away with riding it only five times before moving on. Success!

The ladybug ride continues to be a big hit. And now Bree is getting better about getting her picture taken. She will actually say "cheese!" and hold the smile for a nanosecond.

Jumping In Puddles

We had quite a bit of rain here on Friday night - really bad thunderstorms (but really cool once we weren't driving in them anymore). Bree wanted to play in the rain (of course!) but I told her that if there were puddles the next day, she could put her boots on and go out to play. Undeterred, she put her boots on that night with her pyjamas, only taking them off after about an hour, declaring them "too hot!"


Oddly enough the water was gone just about as quickly as it arrived. But trust me, Bree can find a puddle like a pig can find a truffle. Big or small, Bree will find it. And then jump in it. Repeatedly.

One of the benefits of a slow growing child is that things will fit her for a loooooonnnnng time. I'm not kidding - the other day she wore an outfit that's marked "9 Months." Truth be told, it's probably one of the last times she'll be able to wear it, but still. 30 months old and still wearing clothes sized for a 9 month old - that's getting every last penny's worth out of that outfit. (Okay, the "pants" are now "shorts" and I still had to take a tuck in the waist. And I wish I were kidding, but I'm not.) My point was, the boots from last winter still fit. And will likely fit this winter, too.

There is a children's video with a character called "Peppa Pig" that Bree likes to watch. Peppa and her brother George can jump in muddy puddles, but only when they have their boots on. Telling Bree that she can only jump in puddles with her boots on has surprisingly been very effective.

Bree had a good time playing in her boots and jumping in the one puddle that she could find.

Typical Two Year Old

A video of a typical two year old for your viewing pleasure. High energy for about 30 seconds, then she's distracted by something else. And then she kind of forgets what she was doing in the first place.

Blowing Bubbles

Bree has recently learned to blow bubbles. This happened on Sunday. Every day since then, we've had to have "bubble time" outside.



Bree wasn't content to let us show her how to blow bubbles, she wanted to figure it out herself. Even now, 9 times out of 10 she's holding the wand in front of her nose, trying to blow through the ring. Bless her heart, she keeps trying even though air isn't going through the right part!



Bree has difficulty handling both Beary and the bubbles, and this is really the only time that Beary has ever taken a back seat to something else.

As you might imagine, the more Bree tries to blow bubbles, the more bubbles she actually blows! She's really catching on to this and I was actually able to get an action shot of her bubbles right after she blew them. The look on her face is the same after every attempt, like "hey! where'd those bubbles come from!?"

In this next picture, you can see that her hair is actually growing, and that it's still very curly!

I love this next picture of Bree - she's having so much fun!

In this next picture, I'm sure I'm asking Bree some ridiculous question like, "are you ready to go in now?" Let's just say that I'm prepared to be on the receiving end of this look for the next 50 years or so!

Bike Rides

It occured to me that I've never posted pictures of our bike with Bree's seat on it. We got a seat for her right after we moved down here. When we first rode with her (Scott tried it out first) she would throw her body backwards in the seat because she was so excited. When she was only 15 pounds or so, it wasn't a big deal. It can be a big deal when she's throwing all of her 21 pounds around.





Bree loves being up front. So far, I don't think that she's eaten any bugs, but it's a possibility. Beary also comes with us, and I get nervous when she's dangling Beary in the breeze. Because with how the seat is mounted, I can't just get on & off this bike. To get on and off, I use the side mirror of the car. It's hard to explain, but my leg has to swing over the back of the bike to get on and off. And I'm front-heavy, so I have to be braced against something immobile in order to make it all work.

Bree got a tricycle for Christmas but she still hasn't quite figured out how to operate the pedals. To be honest, I'm not all that certain that she really cares to learn, because she does just fine with pushing herself along with her feet. She does have trouble with steering, so often she's just going in circles in the cul-de-sac. Which is fine because she's easy to keep track of. :)

Our neighborhood is a subdivision off a secondary road, so there's not a lot of traffic, which is nice. Lots of dead ends and cul-de-sacs, and only two entry/exit points. So there's a circuit which takes us about 15 minutes, and on nice days we do it twice. We get to see lots of doggies, birds, and even a school bus!

The hardest part about riding with her now is the phrase, "I DO IT, Mommy" as she tries to shove my hands off the handle bars so she can steer. Sometimes I'll try to play along and end up with my fingertips at the very ends of the handle bars. Other times I just try to ignore her. (Not easy.)

And if you're wondering, yes, we have a helmet for her. But it doens't yet fit her head - it's too big. I have some suggestions as to how to get it to fit, and we're going to try it. But for our bike rides right around home, this is how we're riding.

Bree & Beary

After our morning at the Botanical Gardens, we had lunch at the Silver Diner. For their kids' meals, they give the menu & crayons in a cardboard car. Bree wasted no time in making this Beary's "ride."


Beary had a great time cruising around the table top. It is difficult to keep Bree occupied when going out to eat. Our window of opportunity is about 45 minutes. Anything longer than that is just a disaster and it is not a pleasant experience for anyone. Silver Diner generally does a good job at getting us in and out within 45 minutes.

In the next picture, you can see me shushing Bree because she was getting really loud. I guess it was cute for the first 10 seconds or so, but after that . . . . I worry about other people getting annoyed. You know, I know those looks as we walk through the restaurant, "pleasepleaseplease don't seat the rowdy child near us . . . pleasepleaseplease." (Incidentally, I got the same looks when we boarded the plane last year when we went to Kansas City.)

She can charm the waiter/waitress with little difficulty, which is always helpful. So far, we have not had the same experience as Marc & Nina, who got comped a free meal because Nina was so darn cute, but I'm working on it. :) But, truth be told, Nina was a bit older when she got her free meal as a result of being so darn cute, so there is hope still.

The Little Gym

The children of Bree's daycare provider go to a local place called "The Little Gym." They always seemed to have fun there, but it wasn't something that I thought Bree would be interested in. Well, no, that's not exactly true. I figured she'd like it, but I wasn't sure it would be worth the cost.

One morning when I dropped Bree off, Josh was telling Bree all about how much fun he had at The Little Gym. Bree said, "I go to Little Gym," and Josh looked at her and said, "NO. I go to Little Gym." Bree bowed her head, stuck out her lip and just started bawling.

Miss Jenna said to us, "well, you can attend a trial class to see if you'd like it." I asked Bree if she wanted to try it and she cried "yyyyyeeeesssss." So I called The Little Gym and scheduled a trial class for Bree.

Her class name? The Big Beasts.



We arrived early to get all signed in and to find out what we'd be doing. This is a parent/child class, so I get to play at The Little Gym, too. The class instructor, Miss Ann, made sure to tell me that for the first class, not to be surprised if Bree didn't join the class at all. It's a very stimulating environment, and kids often want to just explore on their own. She said that I should just keep an eye on her to make sure that she wasn't going to hurt herself on any of the equipment, and that hopefully she'd come back from time to time and join the group activities.

Oh my word. She totally knew. Bree spent the whole first class just running around the room. Running. At top speed. Non stop. For 45 minutes. If she hadn't have told me that, I would have been horrified and too embarrassed to go back.

But Bree had fun. We ended up signing up for the summer class, but starting the week after the 4th of July.

We went back this week, and Grandma got to come, too. On Tuesday evening, my mom was talking to my dad on the phone, telling him that we were going to The Little Gym on Wednesday. Bree heard this, walked over to my mom, poked my mom in the belly and said, "NO GRANDMA! I go to Little Gym FIRST."

My mom did her best to take some pictures of Bree at The Little Gym. There was an activity where we danced with colorful scarves - and Bree's is hot pink.

The Little Gym incorporates exercises, music, and some basic tumbling skills to group activities to get kids socialized. For the first class, Bree did not want to participate in any of the tumbling exercises that were demonstrated by Miss Ann. It's not that she didn't want to do them, she just didn't want to wait for her turn. For the second class, she was a bit better at waiting to take her turn (although there was a fair amount of line-cutting involved, too) and she did her first sommersault! Yay for Bree!

Bree also loves to race across the balance beam. Her ultimate goal? Jumping off the end. There are three balance beams at The Little Gym, one is on the ground, one is just a few inches off the ground, and one is close to regulation height - which is the one she's on in the picture above.

They also have parallel bars, which Bree is learning to swing from. There was still a fair amount of running around involved at this class, but she did participate with the group more this time.

I have to say, though, that the difference between Bree and other kids her age is startling apparent when all the other kids can sit next to their parents and sing a song, and Bree is barreling around the room, running and jumping on all the equipment. She's an independent child and not afraid to try anything that she comes across. Which makes me happy and terrified at the same time!

Grandma will go with us once more before she has to leave, and maybe we'll get some more pictures from The Little Gym to share.

The Botanical Gardens

Grandma and Papa came to visit for 4th of July - yay! I had asked them if they wanted to go to ElmoPark, but when I went online and saw how much the tickets were going to be, we switched plans to the local Botanical Gardens. (With ElmoPark, we never know if she's going to last 90 minutes or 3 hours, so it would be an expensive gamble to buy Grandma's & Papa's tickets based on that.)

The 4th of July was a beeyootiful day down here - really, high 80s with a bright blue sky. Perfect day to be outside. In this first picture, Bree is on the tram, ready to take the tour.


Bree is figuring out that the children's World of Wonder is likely our third stop along the tour. That's where we were getting off to spend some time!

I had heard that the Botanical Gardens had a water play area, not unlike ElmoPark. So I packed the bathing suit, knowing that Bree would have a great time playing in the water.

It was very nice - a smaller scale from what ElmoPark is - but also not as crowded. Bonus!

Bree played for about a half hour before getting so cold that she couldn't run any longer. Then we went to explore the rest of the kid's area.

In this next picture, Bree is in a little house called the "dirt factory." I'm not sure what it was supposed to be, but Bree was intent on ridding the house of all dirt. Hence the rake. There was also a broom inside, which she played with, too.

We had a great time wearing out both Bree and Papa - both fell asleep in the car on the way to lunch. :)

More to come!