Happy Mother's Day

I know I'm almost a week late but I hope all the moms had a wonderful mother's day. A day filled with love and elephants. Adorable elephants, with a yellow shovel and a single glove. No? Maybe that was me.

Derek made breakfast and Maya helped serve it to me in bed. Well mostly she hopped on the bed, mooched my food, smelled my flowers, and asked for milk. They gave me a beautiful African violet, a hat, and a card (Maya even signed it). After church we had leftovers, talked to our mom's (during which Maya at some point donned her elephant attire), and then Maya and I took a nap.

What else have we been up to?
Last Friday morning, I babysat a friend's 9 month old and 2 year old for an hour or so. It better than I expected, especially considering it was during Maya's usual nap time. Maya and the baby bumped heads once. Maya was really upset by it, I think largely because she was tired. Maya's crying kept upsetting the baby after I'd get her calmed down. Maya bonked her in the head with a toy also. Then tried to give her a kiss to make it all better. It was pretty cute but I was concerned she would just headbutt her again. Maya doesn't always give the most gentle kisses and usually leads with her forehead. The 2 year old kept taking the cushions off of the couch and trying to jump off onto them. Not the best activity when you have two little ones crawling around.

Friday afternoon, we went swimming with our library friends. This was the first time Maya had been in the pool. It wasn't heated so it was a little cool but she didn't seem to mind. She giggled about the whole time. She kept asking me to let her down. Unfortunately the shallow end was 3 ft so that wasn't really feasible. Here's a couple of picture from after her swim. Excuse the excess sunscreen and the drowsy look from a missed nap.

Last Saturday, I hit up a community yard sale at a nearby park while Derek and Maya ran some Mother's day errands. I picked up 2 pairs of pants, 2 shirts, a skirt, shorts, 2 bibs, a dress, some pjs, and some other stuff I can't remember at the moment for $11. Then our landlord, who had a booth, gave Maya some books, a stuffed dog and duck, an elephant costume, and some other odds and ends.

Maya enjoys the park but it seems to be an invitation for an accident for her (although maybe most places are for a toddler). This week she ate sand and got choked on it. Then got bonked by a dog and made her lip bleed. Maya also got a new hat this week. She has a matching ladybug shirt but it was in the wash. Here are some pictures from Thursday. Have I mentioned she likes her shovel?

Newish words (some I forgot to list last week and some we've just figured out what she's saying): this, bucket, book, help, uh-oh, bib, stick, tree, chocolate, yogurt (this is more of a yumyum so maybe she just really likes it). This, stick, and help are some of her best pronounced words.

She has a book about colors that has a picture of yogurt on the pink page and chocolate on the brown. We can't read it without Maya wanting one or the other. She's drag you into the kitchen and point to the fridge or the chocolate stash. Pretty funny. Another funny story. Derek usually gets Maya out of bed if she wakes up before he leaves and then brings her to our bed for her to nurse. Last weekend he got her up from a nap. She wanted down, ran to our room, and looked on the bed. She started crying when she realized I wasn't in bed.

I think I have a toddler, a tale of teeth, temper tantrums and tumbles

Over the last few weeks, Maya has really become less baby like and more of a toddler. It's been a while but here's a summary of what we've been up to. On April 26 we went to the park to play. She threw a tantrum because I wouldn't let her carry her shovel while she climbed and slide on the play structure. She's generally pretty easy going so this was sort of new for her. It's kind of funny right now, but I'm sure it will get old soon enough if it is a frequent occurrence. Even without the shovel she managed to face plant into the stair and give herself a fat lip. Her tooth cut her lip. It bled quite a bit and swelled up. Fortunately her teeth were ok. The next day I was looking at her lip and noticed she had finally cut her lower left lateral incisor.

We celebrated Derek's birthday a day early on April 28 with strawberry shortcake. We bought strawberries from the farmers market then made homemade shortcake, frozen yogurt and whip cream. Very tasty.  Maya blew out the candle for him.

On May 1, we went to eat with a lady that Maya and I met at the library and her family. Her husband works at the same company as Derek and her little girl is only a few days older than Maya. As Maya and I were getting ready to leave for dinner, I noticed she had yet another tooth in there. She cut her first molar on the lower right. It looks the upper right one is starting to cut through also but hasn't broken the gum yet.

This past Saturday, we went hiking. We stopped by the small farm in the park to see the animals. Maya fell asleep about halfway up so I ended up with her on my back all the way up and part of the way back down. I was a great day other than one minor choking on pear incident.

On Tuesday, Maya and I went to the library story time. She took her shovel. She is always shy when we go to story time recently. She sat in my lap most of the time. She did get up for if you are happy and you know it. She cracks me up stomping her feet. After story time we were reading books in the kids section. Maya loves to sit in the little chairs or ch chs as she calls them. I scooted her chair away from the table so she wouldn't bonk her head on the table. Somehow though, she managed to lunge out of the chair and hit her nose right on the edge of the table. She had a nose bleed immediately. Then after an hour or two it started swelling and she sounded congested. I called the advice nurse and asked when I should worry and what, if anything, I should do. She suggested we go to the urgent care clinic so we made our first visit to urgent care. Maya didn't seem to mind the nurse taking her vitals. But she started signing milk when the doctor walked in, freaked out when the doctor touched her with the stethoscope and didn't stop until she left the room. Conclusion was no serious damage. Just bruising and swelling. Told me to ice it (haha) and come back if it bleeds too much.

Some pictures from Sunday. In the first one she had just stuck her hands in a spider web.

I tried to get down on her level but she just copied me

What else has Maya been up to? New words: ball, rain, elbow, home, knee, leg, hot, hat. I know I'm forgetting some. If you ask her where something is, she will walk around going hmm. If you try to play chase with her, she gets down and crawls (I think it's because that's how we always chase her). She likes to scoot around backwards on her belly on the tile in our kitchen. She also enjoys walking backwards until she crashes into something. Derek showed her how to use the salad spinner on Monday while I was out playing soccer. All day today she kept getting it out of the cabinet and telling me that she needed help. She is afraid of Derek's guitar. She runs away and signs milk.  She loves to play in the sprinkler when I water the garden, even when it's too cool to really do so comfortably in my opinion. Every time we see or talk about umbrellas, she says rain rain. It's my favorite word to hear her say. Tonight we had pasta and she was a big fan. She's still obsessed with her shovel. She's still not a great sleeper. I think the whole teething thing has been an issue the last week.