Saturday, August 7, 2010

Parade!! and updates

All kinds of first-time fun has been happening recently. First trip to the zoo. First trip out of state. And, first parade! I didn't bring my camera but used my Mom's. However, once pictures get on her camera, they don't get put on my computer. Maybe I can finagle the pictures somehow, someday, maybe.

But we had fun! We were up at my parents' for about a day with more things to do than time to do them all. Regardless, we managed to squeeze in time for a parade. Ben and I also found our way to Harlan Days for a lemon shake-up after Abby was in bed Friday night, but, as expected, it wasn't as good as I remembered. Why is that?

In order to go to the parade, we made a parental executive decision to ignore the morning nap, knowing that we were going to be driving about an hour at lunch time and then another hour later in the afternoon whereupon if she would cooperate, she could nap each time and perhaps not be super grumpy. She complied once but was still sometimes grumpy. Ah well. She had a BLAST at the parade, so we feel like it was worth it. It lasted for a solid hour, and she was super well behaved until the last 10 minutes when she wanted to play with rocks behind us. Not bad. Among other things, we saw:

*lots of police people--motorcycles, cars, a dog, a SWAT tank, etc...lots of noise. Abby waved (and clapped).
*horses...Abby waved.
*my old high school marching band...Abby waved.
*cheerleaders...Abby clapped.
*our niece riding on her preschool's float...Abby waved.
*politicians...Abby waved.

Abby likes to wave at people. :-)

We also had the opportunity to meet up with one of our best buds from college who has recently returned from living in Scotland for 2 years and had a great visit. She asked us what I thought was an interesting question--how would you describe Abby after getting to know her so far. I kinda like this question because no one else has ever asked me this; we think that she's mellow, curious, a nature/animal lover, silly, and a cuddler.

She's kind of going through a learning spurt it seems. Just these past two weeks, she's learned "no," "bye," and to identify her head, hair, belly, toes, eyes, ears, and nose. We're still working on her to use her "all done" sign to show us when she's done eating rather than to throw food on the floor. hehe

On a different note, our babysitter decided to not watch Abby this upcoming year because of family reasons. This is really hard for me, especially. We had a great situation where she was before, and we have no one else that we know/trust at this point. I go back to school Wednesday, and undoubtedly, this is just as emotional for me as it was when I first started working again after my maternity leave. I've been asking for a lot of faith and peace lately! Unfortunately, with both adults in the household being teachers, neither of us can afford to not work given our salaries. It will be a big adjustment in the next few days, which I'm dreading. It will undoubtedly be more expensive as well (which Ben is dreading!).

What a fun summer it's been!! So much better than last year when we basically stayed home and inside most of the time. Even more fun to look forward to next year...??? Yes. :-)

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