The almighty bottle and some book recommendations

Bottle weaning is killing me!!! Ok, not really. The almighty bottle is actually proving to be much easier to break than I thought. As I said yesterday, I stopped any and all daytime bottles and as of today, she no longer gets her "after breakfast" bottle. The toughie will be weaning the night time bottle. I may give it a whirl tomorrow because the day time has gone off without a hitch.  What did I do? I just put milk in a sippy cup only and she was fine with it. I still don't give her cold "right out of the fridge" milk yet. I do warm it up just slightly or let it sit out so it's room temp but either way, she drank from the sippy all day, no issue.  Yes, it's me who misses it more. Clearly.  Gone are my little 5-10 minute breaks throughout the morning and day when she'd snuggle up against me and quitely enjoy a bottle while I recharged my batteries. Now we're full on all day. She's "wide open" as one of my former (southern) bosses would say. Wide open! (insert southern drawl to truly get that one across.) It fits perfectly here because she's truly non-stop these days. Hence my bottle addiction.  Anyway, this really has been a much more pleasant experience than I imagined. And perfect timing with shutting down the breastmilk operation because that is almost officially done. I only ever pump if I'm completely dying uncomfortable, which has only been maybe once every day and a half or 2 days. That to me means I'll be packing up this pump in a week or so. Awwwwweeeeesome! I can't tell you how nice it will be to no longer be tethered to that thing. Hooray!

For today's playdate (I told you I was really cranking it up this month) we met at the Chantilly Park for "Mommy and Me" class. It was hosted by some local organization that has a studio on Tyvola. But for today, they came to us and set up shop in our park. I thought it was pretty cool. They danced and marched with the kiddos. Blew bubbles and gave them all ribbon sticks to play with. It went on for about an hour and apparently, they'll be back if enough of us enjoyed it. Other than the gnats swarming all of our heads, I'd say today was fun and we'd do it again.

For pics today, I share two "must have" book recommendations for the kiddos.  First is a book called "Trucks" as seen here when Eloise opened up some birthday gifts from Mommy and Daddy. She LOVES this book (and saved me from the traffic jam we were in coming home from visiting the Proctor twins.) It's officially called a "slide and find" book because the Monkey can slide open and find 4 different kinds of trucks per page. For any kid as obsessed with trucks as Eloise, this book is a big hit.

Next follows suit with Eloise's (new) obsession with Curious George. She realizes that he looks just like her monkey lovey (is what I surmise) and therefore, she loves him. And it also may or may not be helping the situation - her Dora the Explorer sippy cup has Dora on it, of course, and who is Dora with?? Her monkey, Boots. To Eloise, everyone has a monkey in their life.  My mom got Eloise the next book and at first I was afraid to give it to her because it has paper pages. She's learning to be gentle with paper pages but every once in a while she has a crazy streak and therefore, I'm afraid the book will be the casualty. As of now, this particular book has weathered the occasional Eloise storm. And what book is it??  Curious George's Big Book of Curiosity. This one is really cute and is a fantastic picture book with all sorts of fun stuff to look at. George is of course all over the place as is his frog friend that the kids can find hiding on each page. Every few pages is dedicated to a new theme and labels every thing on the page for the kiddos to learn. It's nearly one of my favs, I love it so much. Eloise cruises on over to this book multiple times per day and will spend at least 10 minutes with it each stretch therefore, the Monkey and I highly recommend this one!

The Lady with the Alligator Purse

This is the cutest book - The Lady with the Alligator Purse. I highly recommend it. It was sent to us from Grandma and Grandpa Vail and has landed itself right into our regular book rotation. It makes the Monkey giggle and I'll admit, me too.  Another great one to add to your "Must Read" list:)

Tooth number 3

Another tooth popped through this weekend for the Monkey. I believe it's called a canine. It's on the top and it's not one of the middle two but sits right beside one of those middle two. Tooth status - nearly 3 teeth at nearly 10 months.

And it's official, she has developed her second cold, which means she's a serious nose drain and is acting quite fussy. This may explain why we had to bail from the park during our playdate on Saturday and also during yesterday's hockey game. Poor Monkey.  And, I've decided we will not attend today's nursing home visit with the neighborhood kids. I'm pretty bummed about it but hopefully it'll be a good time and they'll schedule another.  I thought it was a bad idea to get Eloise and her germs around the other babies and then of course, around the seniors.  But what a great idea that one of the local moms thought of - bring the babies into see some of the patients in a nursing home. Eloise might meet another Eloise! I hope there is a next time.

We have some errands to run today per the Monkey's status. I need to get another noise machine for her room. Hers has all of a sudden cranked up a level and is really loud. Even though it's on the same low setting.  Weird. And to be honest, hers (even when working) was too loud in my opinion so I'm going to try and find a quiter one at Target. I'd like to break her of this habit all together (another bad habit that I created) and so during naps this week, we're going to leave it off maybe every other nap and see how she does. As of this very second, it's off and she's sleeping just fine.  The true test will be garbage day on Wednesday morning.

Also, I have some jeans to drop off at the seamstress for patches. I found the place to take jeans that are still in perfectly good condition but have a tear that is about to take off unless it's patched.  Anna's Alterations on Park Road is money. They do a really great job.

We'll do all of the above and also go running based on how the Monkey is doing. Oh and before I forget, here is her new favorite book - Tarzan - Me and You. It's super cute. Thanks Grammie Judy!

Mike is gone until Friday and Grandpa and Grandma Vail are coming for Easter Weekend. I'm planning an egg hunt for the back yard! (although there are several egg hunts we could go to - I'm contemplating whether that's a good idea since she's got a serious disadvantage over the other kids - she's a crawler, not a walker (scares me that she'd get trampled.). oh and also, she doesn't really "get" finding eggs to score some sweet goodies inside. might be best to rig my own egg hunt in the backyard and have it all to Eloise. stay tuned here...)

If you're lucky, maybe you'll see a snotty pic of the Monkey later today:) Have a good Monday!

Print Edition - join the club!

Are you into reading?  Do you want to share with friends good (or bad) books that you've read?  Join Print Edition on Facebook!

Ok, advertising copy was never my thing so here's the deal. Lately, I've been giving and getting book advice online and just so happened to be getting the best reviews on Facebook (from friends, of course). Then I got thinking and decided we should all have one place where we can easily comment on books we've read (and get new books added to our "Must Read" list). Facebook was the easiest place to do it since that's where most people go daily for chit-chat. So on top of our daily convos, we can also get good book ideas.

This isn't a book club of sorts. We won't all be reading the same book at the same time and then answering a list of questions over wine in someone's living room (although those book clubs are fun as well). Instead, think of Print Edition as a quick and easy place to stop by when you are looking for a new book to read, or just finished one and want to share the scoop.

The name Print Edition is not creative or clever (remember, I'm not good advertising copy) but I couldn't think of anything on the spot and just wanted to get a page up there for all.  So if you are interested, consider joining!

Friday's Updates coming later today.

Friday's updates

Who doesn't remember and love this song? Such a good one. Or how about this one? ...."in the time of chimpanzees, there was a monkey."  Too funny. You know how sometimes radio stations play all songs for a day with the word "baby" or "love" in them? (there are 10 million of both, by the way) I should find all of the songs that have "monkey" in them. Just kidding.

Miss Eloise is taking her morning nap - naps are sooooo much better these days. Yeah for Mike, me and the baby whisperer! As soon as she gets up we are heading out in this terrible weather to a music class called Kindermusik. It's a 4-month class (meets once per week) for infants and toddlers. We're visiting today to see if it's something she likes before we pay the admission fee.  She's still loving music so I'm sure she'll have a good time. And then of course, she'll love seeing all of the other babies per usual. I'm interested in seeing what this is all about. It's today from 11-11:45am. Stay tuned.

This week has been full of all sorts of updates. First off, let's chat about books. I finished The Help by Kathryn Stockett. If you have not read this book, buy it or get it from your local library immediately. It's SO good. I had a hard time putting it down. And this is Ms. Stockett's first book. I'm definitely looking forward to her next.  Also, the next book for me is either Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay or The Kids Are All Right by Diana and Liz Welch. Whichever one comes in first. My mom is my personal book shopper and thankfully so. (who doesn't need a personal book shopper??) She's EXCELLENT at it (since she's a librarian and all, and has some pull at the local library. yeah for me!:). I'm so glad to be back into the habit of reading for pleasure after my long-winded sabbatical (my last job sucked the life out of me during the day - the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was read more.)  But alas, I'm back in action and am loving it. Oh and breastfeeding also helps the reading for pleasure cause - I can read while I pump.  I've gone through so many great books since the Monkey was born so thanks to all of my helpers - my mom and Miss Eloise:)

And for Eloise and books, she is really loving Julie's Jungle by David Crossley. (I've mentioned this book before but it continues to be a household fav.) For parents of other little ones, consider getting this one. It's a oversized board book with lots to look at and touch. It's also a great rhyming book. Unfortunately, I can't find a good link online to show you what it looks like but regardless, it's a big hit around here. We're also very much into Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar by Margaret Wang. Another oversized board book with cookies for the kiddos to touch. Great story and illustrations. Eloise literally giggles out loud over both of these books so I know they are good ones.

And last book to review (also from the personal book shopper) - we started baby sign language this week with Eloise by way of The Complete Idiots Guide to Baby Sign Language. Per the name, it's very simple to do and has been a lot of fun. The baby whisperer and I both do it throughout the day so maybe in like 2 or 3 months this will stick - not sure how long it takes to work. Mike will be receiving his instruction this weekend:).

Crawling is starting to become mastered. She's no longer using her stomach to "cheat" and is getting faster each day at moving around. Very scary.  For now, she's still processing the whole art of crawling so I can definitely keep up with her. It's really cute to watch her think about where she's going to go and then do it. Processing all the time, that one.

As I said earlier in the week, this is the weekend of baby proofing. Poor Mike. He's been gone since Wednesday and has no idea what he's in for when he gets home tonight.  He's clearly on board (after the pepper spray incident) but I don't know if he really understands how much work it'll take to baby proof the kitchen. Agh. I'll help as much as I can. I do know it's going to require lots of drilling and screwing. Our poor kitchen cabinets. For some crazy reason, I'm still hopeful we can find a different system that doens't require us to ruin our cabinet doors. Stay tuned here.

I briefly mentioned this before but I'll say it again - the weather is awful today and supposed to stay this way, if not get worse, on into the weekend. It's cold and down pouring. Agh. It was hovering around freezing earlier today but must not have made it that low because it's just rain. And lots of it.  Making for a very interesting day for me and the Monkey.  Running is out of the question. I can't find the rain shield for the Bob and even if I had it, I'm not sure I want to go out there in this.  So today's another day off. We'll see how tomorrow fares.

Ok, last but certainly not least, we are finally taking Miss Eloise on a driving road trip. I say it now because seriously, I need a week to prepare for this. We're going to RDU next weekend to see Aunt Corinna and Uncle John. They've been to CLT 1 million times and we are so long overdue for a trip to see them. This and I need to get over my fear of taking Eloise for a drive longer than 45 minutes. It's going to be an interesting car ride, for sure. I'm preparing though. Beyond the 7 million things we'll need to pack, I'm also thinking about all that the Monkey and I will do during the drive. (of course we'll strategically map out departure times based on naps.) Reading, playing, eating, etc. I'll have to have a VERY large bag for tricks for that 2 1/2 hour drive.  Please send good thoughts out into the universe for us. We will need them!

Happy Friday and have a great weekend! (hopefully you all have better weather than we do!)

Pics from yesterday in a cute outfit that was a part of a fun hand-me-down bag of goodies we received from some friends in Winston-Salem.

Oh and sometimes when I get really stressed out with this part time gig I have going on, I let Eloise do this....