Pumpkin Patch 2009

Make a Smilebox slideshow

TX State Fair~ Oct 2009

Make a Smilebox slideshow

The amazing Jumping Bean..

Elyssa loves to jump. I guess all kids love to jump, but I just think Elyssa is sometimes obsessed with jumping. She even at 2 years old wants to jump rope. I hold the jump rope for her and she will jump over the rope. Now I only hold it about an inch off the ground but the girl loves to jump. Recently, on one of our many trips to Collin Creek Mall, Elyssa notices a new play object. They have something new that allows a person to be strapped into a harness and jump as high as they can. Elyssa of course when she first saw it, begged to go on the “jumping bean”. Jumping Bean is what she so loving calls anything she can jump on. The first time I saw it I told her no that she had to be “bigger” to get on it, to me it just looked a bit to dangerous for a kid her size and I honestly did not think they would allow her to go on it. So she was happy to do what we always do; ride the train, play in the play area, and ride the coin operated cars on the way out. Well the next time we went a few days later daddy was with us. Of course as soon as daddy saw the new “jumping bean” he was intrigued. As Elyssa was riding the train (it is in front of the area where the train is), he walked over and talked to the gentleman who was running the “jumping bean”. He found out that Elyssa was no only big enough they had actually allowed kids smaller than her to jump. Apparently the weight limit on the “jumping bean” was 20-150lbs and Elyssa is 30lbs. So after the train ride we walked over to the “jumping bean” and discussed what to do. As Eddie and I debated whether or not to allow her to jump Elyssa was standing beside me pleading “want to mommy, want to, please mommy want to” so of course as I looked into those adorable blue eyes and could not refuse..she got to ride the “jumping bean”. I won’t lie, I was scared to death that she would start bawling and hate it, but my little Elyssa was a real trooper. She not only did great, she loved it. The gentleman who ran the “jumping bean” was great with her and helped her the whole time. She was giggling and laughing as she jumped at least 10-13 ft in the air. All I could do was laugh with her and of course take a ton of pictures and videos of her first amazing experience on the jumping bean!

Of course since that first time jumping on the “jumping bean”, we now have to ride on the jumping bean every time we go to the mall, but I have to say her giggles and laughs make it all worth it…

Skateboards and Roller Skates...

Yes, I said a skate board and roller skates. I know she is only 2 but she was watching one of her favorite cartoons (Max & Ruby) and they were roller skating and on a skate board and she sooo wanted them as well. We did not exactly buy them at the same time. We actually went to Academy and got her the skate board first. We bought her a helmet, knee and elbow pads to go with it. In fact she insisted we buy them when we got her the skateboard. Of course it is a princess helmet with matching elbow pads and knee pad, what else would you expect? She did not do real well on the skateboard and pretty much just sits on the board and lets us push her around. We got her the roller skates about 2 weeks later at Target. They of course are princess roller skates and also came with matching elbow and knee pads. The kid is set for safety that is for sure. She did so much better with the roller skating. In fact reminded me of myself when I was learning to skate. She wears the skates all around the house. She does great on the carpet (does not roll as much…lol) and when she goes in the kitchen she does great as long as she is holding on to the counter and such. I’m really proud of her on the skates. In fact we took her roller skating at a real roller rink a week after we got the skates. She absolutely loved it and did a great job for a first time. Daddy was home so he went as well and Aunt Lisa went with us to. I actually think we could start skating more often … time will tell.

First Family Vacation...

Well we finally broke down and took our first and much needed family vacation. So we worked some magic with daddy’s horrible schedule, got the plane tickets, packed the suitcases and headed for the first Borden family vacation. Now what better place to take a well needed vacation than….WALLY WORLD…oh, wait that was the Griswold’s National Lampoon vacation I’m confusing this with, …we actually went to Disneyland or in the words of Elyssa “Mickey’s House”. Ok, really Disneyland was only a part of our trip, we took 8 blissful days and enjoyed the San Diego Zoo, a bunch of beautiful beaches, and 2 days at incredible Disneyland. Thanks to daddy working his horrible travel job, the plane tickets and the hotel were all free! Ok, since daddy sacrifices so much family time with us because of his job, I guess the tickets were not really “free”. Unfortunately daddy had to pay for all the “free” stuff with time he had to spend away from myself and Elyssa. There truly is a tradeoff for everything in life, nothing is every truly free!

We started the trip off by flying into Las Angeles and driving to San Diego where we spent 2 days. We went to the world famous San Diego Zoo where Elyssa had an incredible time visiting with all the animals and got to take her first Gondola ride over the Zoo and a tour of the zoo in a double decker tour bus. We also went to Mission Bay Beach, Ocean Beach and Dog Beach. At Dog Beach Elyssa got to run on the beach with all of the puppy dogs. She had an incredible time visiting with all the dogs. Dog Beach is an off leach beach that pet owners can take there dogs to play in the water.

After leaving San Diego, we made our way to Anaheim, CA to our hotel, Hilton’s Embassy Suites. We spent the rest of our visit there where we spent 2 blissful days at Disneyland, Downtown Disney and the rest of the time at Huntington Beach and Crystal Beach.

Elyssa had a wonderful time at Disney, and I have to say the most incredible way to see Disney is through the eyes of an inquisitive 2 year old. I had never been to any of the Disney parks so this was a first for me as well. The joy of seeing it through the eyes of Elyssa was more than any mom could hope for. At first she was a bit afraid of the characters but quickly warmed up to them and ran to great each and every one of them! She even really surprised us and rode all of the rides that she was able with us.

All I can really say to sum the whole trip up is….. MAGICAL!

I speak Elyssa, and other idle ramblings...

Elyssa is just talking and singing up a storm. She is her own little jibber jabberer, she is either talking to me or talking to Pooh Bear, or talking to her baby, but she is always talking or singing to something. Now, to me, everything she says is almost completely understandable but there are several times that others and even Eddie look at me as if to say “what the heck did she just say??” So I realized that I indeed speak “Elyssa”. Now what this means is that I am the only one who can decipher some her “not so perfect enunciations” of some of the English language. I’d have to say for the most part, she does pretty well with most words but some are just a little less than perfect. I’m sure it will work itself out in the end and she will be speaking more clearly but for a 2 year old I think she is doing just great. I still think it is absolutely adorable the way she makes up words for things she has no idea what they are. One example of this is that she likes to ride “Coooch” What is “coooch” you ask? It is the exercise equipment (a stair stepper and stationary bike) that is in our room. She saw Eddie on it one morning and decided she wanted to try so she said “ride coooch daddy, ride coooch”. We explained to her it is exercise equipment, a stepper and stationary bike. She can very clearly say stepper and bike but the 2 collectively are not exercise equipment, they are “coooch”. So she will wake up in the morning and ask to ride “coooch” and it is something only myself and Eddie would understand.

We have been spending a lot of tome making new friends. We have been having lots of play dates with kids of all ages lately and it has been a real blast watching how Elyssa interacts with all the new kids. I used to think she would always be very shy and never play with other kids but it seems she is starting to come out of her shell. Usually she is very shy in the beginning, like the first 10-15 minutes, and then she is out of her shell and playing just fine. It is so cute except when she starts the “mine” stage. We are working on sharing still and from what I hear it can take kids till they are almost 5 before they completely grasp the whole idea of sharing! We have been using time out a lot. I have set up her old pack-n-play in the downstairs guestroom and when she gets totally out of control she gets a timeout in her pack-n-play in a room separated from us. I do not leave her in there long and I check on her but, she does not get to come out till she a) stops crying and b) apologizes for what she has done. I have no idea if it is working but it helps at the moment!

We got some bad news about Elyssa’s Stage II renal reflux. She had her VCUG procedure a couple months ago and the results showed that her Stage II has progressed to Stage III. Her urologist is ok with putting off surgery till after she is 3 or potty trained. He said if she gets potty trained they will do another VCUG and the reflux is still present they will have to do the surgery anyway. He did tell us that potty training will be more challenging. Apparently she has a lot of pressure on her bladder and even when she goes pee-pee and thinks she is done a few minutes later she may go more. It is very difficult for her to understand. I can say she is doing wonderfully with potty training but a bit discouraging also because it seems she is never going to just get it. She used to be only 50% potty trained now I’d say it is about 70% …she has started going potty when we are out places. In fact I’ve probably visited every public potty in every public place I’ve been and sometimes, several times. She of course does not go every time, but she does get to visit a new potty, which is I guess the whole thrill. On a positive note, she is no longer afraid of the automatic flushing potties. The noise does not bother her at all!!

We have finally planned our first family vacation! We are going to California! We are going to take Elyssa to Disneyland for a couple days, to the San Diego Zoo and of course several beautiful beaches since she LOVES the beach. We are so looking forward to it. Poor Eddie has been working a lot and has not been able to spend a lot of time with Elyssa and I so we are looking forward a whole week of just family time!

I think that sums up what has been happening in our world, time to get little princess some dinner!

June 29, 2009

I know I should be happy about this….

But I must confess I am not. Let me start at the beginning. Elyssa is 2 years 3 months old and for the last 27 months she has slept in my room in her crib beside my bed. That is where I wanted her, where I could keep an eye on her and be there in a second if she woke up in the middle of the night and needed me. I have always wanted her to know Mommy is always there and will always be there for her. We tried letting her sleep in her crib in her nursery one night after converting it into a toddler bed but that was very, very, short lived. Well, I started looking at all of the cute “toddler” beds that they have for kids and she would see them as well as I was looking at them online. She would get so excited and say “mommy, me bed?” and look at me with her beautiful blue eyes. So I set on a mission to find her the perfect bed. Although they make a really nice “castle bed” I just felt it was too big and to much. I even at one point considered a Thomas the Tank Toddler bed that was shaped like a train, but I just got to much flack from everyone including Eddie that is was not a good “little girl bed”. So finally this past weekend we found an adorable “cottage” bed made by Little Tykes. I showed it to Elyssa and she proclaimed to me that it was a “house bed”. Ahhhhhhh, to see the world through the eyes of a child. Anyway, we went on Saturday morning and picked up her new bed and to make a long story short, she loves it. She played, and played, and played in her bed and would pretend she was sleeping and look at me and say “night-night mommy”. It was so cute yet so sad to me in a sense. My little girl was telling me she wanted to sleep in her new house bed but mommy wanted her to sleep in her crib in her room. I know it is selfish but that night when I was rocking her to sleep, I was so tempted to put her in her crib beside my bed but in my heart I new the right thing to do was to allow her to spread her wings and sleep in her new big girl “house bed”. So instead of making the turn at the top of stairs to put her in my room, I went straight ahead to her room and laid my sleeping princess in her bed for the first time. I had to stand there beside her bed for a few moments and make sure she was ok and not going to roll out onto the floor. I kept hoping she would jerk and wake up and know it was not her crib and want to come to bed with mommy, but no luck. I know was a selfish way of thinking, but somedays I just don’t want her to grow up. She slept through the night that night. A part of me wanted her to wake up. The part of me that could not sleep that night, as I lay staring over at the crib knowing she was not in there. All I could hear was the sound of the baby monitor as it waited to tell me she was stirring. I heard her wake up in the morning and she was playing in her bed. About 5 minutes go by before I heard her yelling “mom, mom, Mommy”. I got out of bed to find her at the baby gate across her door all smiles, I walked to her and she said “mom, mom, house, night night” and ran to her bed and climbed back in. Although it broke my heart that night not to have her in my room, it was so sweet to see the happiness on her face as she showed me where all her Pooh Bears had slept the night before. She now asks to go night-night and loves playing in her room. I know we did the right thing…even if it was so heartbreaking for mommy!

In other areas, on Sunday Eddie was carrying her down the stairs in the morning, playing around as he was doing so, and missed 4 stairs! All I heard was the screaming and crying of my baby and Eddie screaming for me to come quickly. He thought he had “protected” her and I had hoped he was right but within 15 minutes we knew that was not the case. After calming Elyssa down, I set her down and as she tried to walk on her left foot, cried out in pain and would not, and could not stand up. I did not over react; I figured we would give her a while to get over this. Maybe it would go away in a couple house with ice on it to “make it feel better”, but 4 hours later, she would still not walk on it and would cry out in pain when trying to walk on it. We finally decided to take her to Care Now and have it looked at. I was so afraid it was broken, but after an hour visit with Care Now dr’s, it was determined it was just a really bad sprain. She could not walk on it at all yesterday and we had to “carry me mommy” all day. Today she was not walking on it for most of the day, but later this after noon, because I think she was just so tired of not being able to move or do anything, she learned to limp on one foot or do a crawl around the house on her knee’s dragging it behind her. Very pathetic looking but she made it work. I really think she will be walking on it tomorrow, she is a pretty tough girl and with a daddy like hers she has to be!

Well it is late and I better get some sleep or at least try to, I’m still having trouble sleeping without her in my room….sad, I know, but true….