Need A Good Cry?

I fell in love with Steven Tyler last week. Here's why.

I have to face it...

it's all my fault.  Stella can now stand up from the floor without using a leg, table, wall, shelf, etc to pull up on.  She can also stand for several seconds before lowering herself to the ground.  On Thursday night she was standing and tried to move towards the t.v. stand.  Yo Gabba, Gabba was on.  She fell face first into the t.v. stand.  I'm sure it was one of the saddest days of my life.  
Here's the aftermath...

Luckily, she still seems to love me.

WARNING: Keep this plastic bag away from babies and children

I realize that playing with plastic bags is a big "no, no."  There's a warning printed on the bottom of the bag and all.  But I'm always right there.  Supervising.  With the camera.  And surprisingly, unlike paper and cardboard, Stella isn't interested in eating these.  She just wants to throw them around.

At least once a day she crawls over to our entryway dresser, pulls herself up, and begins unloading the bag drawer.  At first, I tried to redirect her.  And then it dawned on me that this was a perfect 15 minute activity.  Go for it, girl!  She started by pulling bags through a tiny crack. 

 

Then she realized she could open the drawer and eventually perfected tossing each bag to the ground and then pulling the drawer to the ground.  She's nothing if not thorough.

A Little Bit Of This...A Little Bit Of That.

I'm sick.  Not for real sick, "just" a cold.  The kind that makes your ears hurt, your throat itchy, your nostrils ache, and your nose run.  The kind that makes you do a double-take every time you pass a mirror.  Seriously, am I that pale?  We've basically stayed in all week and I've taken a few long naps with Ms. Stella.  On the up side, Stella finds the constant sneezing hysterical and I've lost interest in Diet Coke.  No. Really.  Three days coke free and I'm almost ready to just call it quits.  If I go for it now, I won't have to endure the withdrawal headaches later.  Tough decisions.

 Stella finally started holding her bottle.  Sort of.  She hasn't quite figured out how to tip it up for those last few ounces.

This week we had a play date with Michelle and her cute babies.  Michelle also had babies 12 months apart but what you can't tell from this picture, is that the second pregnancy produced twins!  Madison is 17 months and Morgan & James are 5 months.  James napped through this picture.  Stella was in heaven.  She spent most of the time following Madison around and pulled herself up on Madison's leg...which meant knocking Madison over. 

A few friends have requested bump pictures.  We haven't taken any.  I'm finding the second pregnancy to be quite different from the first.   I haven't been reading books to find out if Brother can open his eyelids or suck his thumb yet, or documenting every flutter and kick.  We aren't obsessing over names.  I'm not even sure how far along I am.  26 weeks?  As soon as we get on the ball, I'll post some pictures.  And for now, lets just say 1/2 my weight gain happened in the first 20 weeks and the second 1/2 happened in the past 5 weeks.  I definitely look pregnant now.   Better ease up on the Oreos.    

Major Life-Update Oversight

Before catching up on holidays, our visit with Deven in Vegas, New Year's, or pregnancy updates, I need to go way back.   I missed a very big announcement (we got the news right before Thanksgiving).  This guy...

is going back to school.  Jason started his MBA at St. John's University last night.  Which means he's going to get smarter and Stella & I are going to miss him like crazy two nights a week.

SNOW DAY!

On Tuesday night, Mr. Bloomberg declared a weather emergency and my friend's at the Dalton School got a snow day.  Then the "major" snowstorm left us with 5 inches.  (Long Island, Westchester, New Jersey and Connecticut were buried though).   My parents were telling me how they just shoveled another foot of snow off the driveway.  I was telling them how funny it was to see plow after plow coming down 5th Ave without any snow to push.  That orange tractor is actually speading snow on to the road to melt it.

"Well, [city officials] couldn't get caught with their pants down again." explained my dad.   

So we had a snow day.  Most days could be treated like a snow day for us...hot cocoa, sweat pants, indoor games.  But it is more fun with snow on the ground and Jason working from home. 

 

We went out for a walk.  The puff isn't waterproof and we don't have a little pull sleigh (lame, right?) so we were limited to looking at dogs playing in the snow.  She loved it.

Stella had soup for lunch, watched t.v., practiced drinking from the Camelbak, unrolled the toilet paper and emptied the drawer of bags (one of  her favorite past times). 

We had tunnel time.  

And I was forced to acknowledge that I can no longer comfortably chase Stella through the tunnel.  My role has been scaled back to peeking in the windowns and peek-a-booing at the ends.  

Now that we've enjoyed it, I hope the snow melts away asap.  I don't want to watch the world go from blanketed in white to blanketed in dirty gray or slosh through the sidewalk slop.

Attention World

 

This little girl just stood by herself for 5 seconds (I was counting...with Mississippis).  Afterward her joyful expression looked a lot like this.  Minus the pastina. 

*I had plans for a more legit blog post today...where we've been, a December recap, Christmas, etc.  But I also had plans to be a lot more productive in general.  Today was a wash.  I'll try again Monday.