Oh and one more thing...

As most of you know, Anna is potty trained.

What you might not know is that Anna is potty independent!

I worked today and came home early because Curt is out of town. I invited "Gama" to stay for dinner. I was whipping up some spaghetti because A) It is Anna's current "favit" meal other than bananas B) Curt is not that fond of it so it's a good meal to have while he's gone and C) It's super easy and super fast.

So there are the three of us ladies: Grandma, Anna and I enjoying our spaghetti and some good conversation. Anna suddenly looks up and says, "Anna need go potty!" I said, "Well go ahead, missy!"

While Grandma watched, dumbfounded, Anna squirms off the chair, runs (because she hardly ever walks) off to the bathroom, we hear the toilet lid slam, tinkle come out, flushing, and see Anna running back to the table. I remind her, "Anna, don't you think you should wash hands since you are coming to eat?"

She says, "Oh!... Oh tose (of course). run, run, run. Oh tose" run, run, run. She washes her hands and returns to the table.

She's 2 years and 2 months, people. And I ate my spaghetti uninterrupted.

Girly Week

I have to admit, I was looking forward to Curt being gone just a bit due to the potential for lots of good, girly, non-dinner cooking, clean house fun.

(For those that don't know, Curt is in New Orleans this week. Eating seafood. Not wearing a coat. Looking at the ocean.)
(My only consolation is that he had to fly halfway there on an itty bitty scary-looking plane.)

But this week has flown by. Anna and I have gotten lots of good snuggle time, but not a TON of time together.

Tonight, at least, I got one of those heart-filling, intimate moments with Anna as we danced together in the living room. I put on a CD and Anna put on her Cinderella dress. We had just cleaned her room and she insisted I call her "Pincess" as she helped me clean up. Then we just danced and swayed to the music and I feasted my eyes on her loveliness. She told me about her week "Put. back. on. chocho twack. Mawy Helin tissed it." (I hurt my back on the cho cho track and Mary Helen kissed it.)

Truly, I am AS excited to see Curt as I am sad that our time together as a duo is coming to an end. I think Anna is ready to see Daddy. She talked about him a few times today.

It's been a lovely week but it has gone really fast. I just can't get enough of my girl!

Just found out...

That Anna's DOCTOR has a blog...

About his recent work...

In Haiti...

With earthquake victims...

I knew he was good-looking but I didn't know he was an angel!!!

Sweet Dreams, Anna!

She's making that $40 I spent on that down comforter worth it!



And that pillow - what a nice cup holder!

Let me tell you about Anna...

She's gotten even more cute lately. And oh yea... she's potty trained!!! (as of about two weeks ago). In fact on Monday, she kicked me out of the bathroom completely. No kidding. She got those pants and panties down all by herself, used the potty, wiped, flushed and got the pants back up all. by. herself.
(Being a supportive mom, I didn't mention the few drops evident on her pants from a not-so-thorough wipe but I DID remind her to wash her hands.)

She has been really into taking care of her babies, lately. She's very concerned that they "feel told (cold)" and will occasionally feed them. They should feel lucky! ;-)
On the other hand, two members of the household might not feel so lucky... the cats. She has taken to torturing them. One of them (I won't mention who) is not smart enough to stay away from her so at least once per day she lays on the poor kitty while the kitty whines. Today, she read them both the "tato (potato) book" and she was pretty offended when they did not listen.

She sings many songs:
-ABC's
-Washing hands song
-Shark song
-Turkey "dimmer" (dinner) song
and a few others. The ABC song was a surprise. We don't sing it very often but I think she learned it from a toy. She knows it all the way through!

She has begun climbing out of her crib, much to my dismay. We are reluctant to switch her to the "tobbler" (toddler) bed for many reasons. But I think the time is not far off. I really hope I'm not kissing my restful nights goodbye. The hard part is, she climbs out once every three days or less and she's never gotten hurt climbing out of the crib but I'm stuck asking the "what ifs". She's also fighting her naps and good gracious I hope that's just a phase. I am SOOOO not ready for her to be nap-less. You'd find one depressed momma if that's the case.

Also recently she's been on a bit of a daddy strike (poor daddy). Mommy is queen to this little one right now and this mommy hates it (NOT :-)!

Thankfully, she's still an itty bitters but in her long sentences and streaks of independence I see the signs of a some day fully independent girl. (Sigh.) I want those times to be far, far off. I don't know what I'll do when I can no longer get her dressed, rub post-bath lotion all over her cute little bod, snuggle with her, kiss her on the mouth as much as she'll let me, squeeze her cute bum, etc.

These are precious times.

Happy Anniversary Weekend to Me!

Curt and I just spent two kid-free days this weekend celebrating our anniversary.

Here's a run-down.
Saint Mimi picked Anna up close to 5pm on Friday and I picked Curt up from work with a suitcase in the car. We stopped off at the library to begin our weekend of rest and relaxation right, with books and CD's. Then, I drove Curt to our special place: HOME.
He laughed and appreciated the joke. I decided (and it was my weekend to plan so I was the boss) to save the money we would've spent on a B&B and use it to have fun all weekend, which we did.

We had dinner out Friday night then went to the movie theater with NO idea what we were going to watch. The only one we were remotely on time for was Sherlock Holmes. It was a cute movie and we enjoyed it.
Then it was back to the house for some wine (a 2004 Norton - yummy) and relaxing!

Saturday we slept in (of course) and didn't leave the house until close to 1:00pm, where we promptly went to the spa for massages. Ahhhhhhhhh. Yes.
Then it was off to Prison Brews for a beer and a snack and home for a post-massage, beer fueled nap.
We got some good bar-b-que at Lutz's for dinner and headed home and stayed up late watching two movies with more wine and yummy popcorn.

Sunday we got up early (9:00am :-) and picked Sophie and Michelle up for a starving artist's sale in Columbia. We didn't mind Sophie around on our kid-free weekend for two reasons: 1) She's not our kid and 2) She's ridiculously mellow and well-behaved. Afer scoring some seriously good and cheap art (one for Michelle and one for us) we ate some yummy soup and salad at Pasta House and headed home to drop off the ladies and pick up our Anna Banana Pants. When I scooped her up (as she ran down the hall pants-less) I couldn't get enough of that girl. I kept staring at her face like a school kid with a serious crush. I had to re-remember all her lovely lines and colors and the way she moves and the expression in her eyes. Yum.

Now I would be lying if I said I spent the weekend in a fog of kid-free bliss. I ached for Anna as early as Saturday morning. In fact, both Curt and I wandered around aimlessly Saturday morning, wondering what we were supposed to do with ourselves, until we realized what we were doing, laughed at ourselves, and settled down. On Saturday night when I spoke to her on the phone and she began crying, "Anna tome home, mommy" I almost lost the battle and went to pick her up right then. But Mimi reminded me she was just over-tired (she skipped her nap that day) and she'd be fine. I went to sleep with a slightly heavy heart either way. (Later, when Mimi confessed that she cried herself to sleep for 30 minutes my mom-guilt was on overdrive.) But now my little lady is home. Curt and I are relaxed, refreshed and renewed. We remembered that we can laugh and have fun even with NO little person running around.

We remembered that we enjoyed each other just for ourselves. That we genuinely like each other as people. And we remembered what brought this little family together in the first place.

Anna. You'll thank us later!

Christmas Happenings!

Here is a run-down of our Christmas Hip Happenings:
We did the whole Santa thing with Anna on the eve of the 23rd = making cookies for Santa, pouring milk, placing under the tree, etc.

She woke up and, being a little too young for the full wonder of Christmas, was initially more upset that Santa ate her cookies than she was excited about the presents he left.

There's a good pic in the slide show showing her with an expression of consternation as she carefully studied the empty plate, sorting out her little toddler feelings and wondering if she got a raw deal.

She then opened her presents: the train she asked Santa for, magnet letters for the fridge, a toddler memory game, and a sauce set for her kitchen. Santa made some good choices.

Santa left Curt a special present too: a positive pregnancy test all wrapped up for him. Unfortunately for us, that present chose not to stick around and at five and a half weeks, our family returned to Curt, Maria, and Anna Banana (plus two kitties). Sigh. We've got a WHOLE YEAR ahead of us to remedy that situation so wish us luck.

Then we got into what Anna called our "special car" and drove in a giant, red, Chevy pick'emup truck to Saint Louis to enjoy a beautiful Christmas children's mass with Auntie Em, Molly and Ben. (The truck happened because we thought we were picking up Uncle Joshie and family in Saint Louis and needed a six-seater and all the cool minivans were rented. They didn't end up needing a ride but we had fun being the BIG dog on the road for once ;-)

We woke up on Christmas Day at Granny's ("Gee-nies") and had a wonderful morning opening our presents and eating a delicious Christmas lunch while it snowed all morning. There is a picture in the slide show of Anna and I determinedly sledding on the half inch of snow we got. Our two-year streak of very little snow wasn't going to stop our winter fun! We headed back to Jeff City mid-day to celebrate with the Stokes clan. We were grateful for our super giant truck on the drive home after the snow.

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner with the Stokes clan and finally got to meet the famous Charlie Mae. Maria committed the cardinal sin of racing to the door and holding her first before Great-Grandma Stokes got a chance. She only felt slightly guilty. We got to spend a little time with Uncle Matty, who was leaving at 4am to fly back to Texas and perform TWO shows that day. Sheesh! We got lots of good visiting time with the rest of the clan for the next few days.

Our 7th (yes, 7th - that is not a typo) anniversary was a relaxing day spent at home and we hired a professional chef from Manhattan to cook for us and our whole family!!! (OK, we didn't hire him - it was Uncle Joshy, but the food still rocked.) If I do say so myself, the can of french fried onions I supplied really put the meal over the top! ;-) In case anyone has forgotten, you can find some wonderful cooking advice from scratch here.

For now its back to "real" life. We are enjoying some actual snow outside this evening and hope to finally build a snowman tomorrow!

Here is a slideshow of our Christmas Hip Happenings:

Christmas Favorites

God, Jesus, Holy sh*&!

Forgive me for the Catholic irreverence, but this was too good not to post.

Here's Anna doing the sign of the cross (Stokes style):