Toddler Talk

I keep meaning to document these toddler (I guess she's technically a preschool aged child now) ramblings because misused words and mispronounced words are one of my very favorite things about growing up.  Not only that, but, my husband hates to hear mispronounced things that he's quick to coach her through them a few hundred times until she can say it correctly and then the word as she said it is no longer.  Words like Tarm (Farm) Papple (apple) Grandpa Lariat (Grandpa Larry) and Gramma Ham (Grandma Pam) are already long gone from her vocabulary.  So before I forget her current/most recently corrected slip-ups I thought I'd dedicate a quick post to some Addisims.

One day she asked me about her pig "Puffet" and I had to make her go get it for me because I didn't know what she was talking about.  She came back with a puppet

"Hooper Slide" - Tube Slide :) "I wanna go down the hooper slide 5 times!"

At Christmas time she talked about "Candy Can's" and she knows that the letter J is shaped like a "candy can".

"Notbake" - "hey mom can I have one of those cookies you made, one of those notbakes?"  That would be Nobakes, because I told  her they were called that because they are not baked.

It's not- What did you say?, its "What did you said?" 100 times a day.

She has a doll who will hold a pacifier in its mouth and she knows that this works because there is a "magmet" in there!

She knows the difference between a guitar and a "vikolin".

At the grocery store the other day she asked me in the produce section to buy some "pinecone", not the cut up kind the ones with the green stuff on top of them.  Pineapple.

She enjoys a "yogret" in the morning for breakfast.

We eat in a "Diving Room".

She knows how to draw a "hawrt" to write I love you.

She loves to steal Poppa Larry's "Vinoculars" to look outside.

She says that "adacado" are one of her favorite foods.

She loves to play under the covers or in the dark with a "flashin' light" it's one of her favorite toys.

She's discovered the fun of "Talkie Phones" and wants to use them every time we go to Grandma's house.

And the girl will never walk past a bowl of "Wawwermelon" without eating half of it!

 

My Latest Project...

About a year and a half ago after I finished my table makeover I started looking for a buffet/sideboard (whatever you'd like to call it) to redo.  I found this gem on Craigslist for $75 and fell in love.  I love the legs/floral details of a French Provincial!

Pardon the fact that I never got a before shot other than the craigslist picture...Also I posted that photo a year and a half ago all gung-ho to get this project started.  I managed to sand the finish off the top of it before putting it into our garage where it sat until the floors were redone in the dining room this past fall.  Then we pulled it into the house and it sat untouched again.  See having a child, a full time job and a photography business plus being pregnant for 9 months of that time = Amber accomplishing NOTHING.  I was having a hard time deciding what color to paint it also, I didn't know if I wanted it to match the antique white of my chairs or the turquoise of my table with a wood top.  It took me a while to decide and commit to which way I was going to go with the color. Anyway while I sat here on medical leave before Alex was born I got sick of looking at a half finished project one day and decided to bust out the paint brushes and get my butt in gear.  As much in gear as an overdue pregnant lady can get. 

I did a quick wipe down of all the surfaces that I was going to paint with the liquid deglosser before adding a coat of primer (I used Zinsser Bulls eye 1-2-3)  After primer I went for my trusty quart of Cozumel (turquoise) which is getting pretty low these days after a table, dresser, large photo frame, large mirror and now buffet.  I applied two coats and then went back and did a third touch up coat where needed.  I'm not sure why I bothered seeing how I planned to distress this piece anyhow but the OCD in me just couldn't handle not making it perfect.

Then because I was ginormously pregnant (see OVERDUE and miserable)  I put the drawers back like this so that it could have days to dry and I decided that sanding/staning/poly should probably wait until after I had the baby.  For some reason it just sounded like a bad idea to do those thing pregnant.  So it sat like this for a few weeks:

 After Alex was born, and about 4 weeks old I again got sick of spending my day in a house with an unfinished project and I decided to get it done.  Of course this is Michigan and it's like perpetual winter...I usually use my palm sander to do my distressing on projects but since I seemed to have left it out in the shed and couldn't find it quickly enough to not be freezing or ran off by he squirrels who have taken over my shed this winter..grr.  I gave up and went to town with some sanding blocks and sand paper....

After I was happy with the distressing, I got out my can of Minwax Walnut (I use walnut on EVERYTHING mostly because I like dark wood stain, and I wanted this to closely match my table that I had previously done in walnut.)  Everything got coated with stain and allowed to sit on the painted surfaces for about 10 minutes...a little longer on the drawers (and it was not easy to wipe back off) because an Alex baby needed fed.

After the 10 minutes I used some old rags to wipe off the excess stain that hadn't soaked into the wood/painted areas.  I thought I would need to do more than one coat of stain on the top but it soaked it up so well the first time that I didn't need more.

I allowed the stain to dry for 24 hours and the next day I applied Polyurethane to the entire buffett.  This time I used Minwax Polycrylic, which is not what I had used in the past which was Minwax Oil-modified Polyurethane.  I applied two coats without sanding between to the painted surfaces and to the stained top I did 4 coats sanding with 220 grit in between coats.  I allowed 3 days for the poly to dry before I placed anything on the top of the buffet and before I closed the drawers fully or put the doors back on the cabinet ends.   I didn't want anything sticking because it didn't have adequate time to dry!

While I waited for it to cure I grabbed all the hardware and gave it a good bath in some dawn to remove any grease.  After they had some time out in the sun to dry thoroughly I sprayed them all with Rust-Oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze paint.  I love the way they turned out. 

 And now housing some of my Pyrex collection..

I notice that this color is incredibly hard to capture in a photo I think the second to last photo, the pulled back shot is the closest to true color along with the close up of the drawer pull.

Alex One Month Old!

I'm posting this a few days after his technical One Month date because I was holding out for his doctors appointment so that I would have real stats like weight and such.

First off how the hell has it already been a month?!?  Seriously SLOW down!

Anyway kid number two is a whole lot less stressful as kid number one.  Mostly because I've done this gig before and I kind of know what I'd doing.  At least to the point where I'm not afraid I'm screwing him up for life.  I mean so far his sister is turning out alright. :)

His first doctor visit went well he weighed in at 11lbs 1oz and  21.5" long.  He got 1 vaccination and handled it like a champ (after the initial WTF?! was that crying ended at least :))  He's starting to outgrow his newborn clothing but 0-3 month stuff seems too big on him still...annoying.

There isn't too much to update about a 1 month old.  They eat, approximately every 2-3.5 hours he's wanting to nurse for about 30 minutes.  Which means I spend a whole lotta my time feeding a baby right now.  And when I'm not feeding him chances are I'm trying to feed myself or my toddler or I'm pumping to build up that freezer stash...life pretty much revolves around food here these days.

They sleep, his longest stretches are about 3 hours.  I hate to talk about babies and sleep schedules cause just letting words come out of my mouth about it seems to screw up a good thing.  But so far at night (most nights) he will go down between 9-10:30ish and sleep for about 3-3.5 hours, he wakes up to eat and will go back to sleep usually I can get another good 2.5-3 hour stretch from him before he wants to eat again, then he might go back to sleep for another 2 hours before he wants to eat yet again.  But (huge fat gigantic knocks on wood) he's not up screaming all night like a certain little girl I know was.  So I'll take it.  Giving him a boob is a whole lot easier than rocking/bouncing/pacing around a living room from 10pm to 2am every night!

They poop, a lot.  This one has had some issues with gas, luckily they've only happened during the daylight hours.  I'm not sure what is causing them, I thought it was coffee and it still may be or it could be the creamer that I use in my coffee.  But I'm working on figuring it out.  Woe is breastfeeding me sans coffee.

Just a few days shy of a month if I worked really hard at it I can get him to smile, it's pretty much the cutest thing ever.   As I type this he's smiling a lot easier if you just talk to him a little bit he'll usually give you one.  He lifts his head pretty good, like Addison he had pretty good head control at birth but he's getting to where he can lift his whole upper body off your shoulder when you hold him now.  He hate's tummy time with a passion it's pretty much an instant cryfest.

Overall I'd say he's a pretty easygoing guy.  He lets his sister maul him without a fuss.  He loves to be cuddled, and would happily sit in your arms all day long.