Oh, Sweet Saint Valentine

Frances had a very nice Valentine's.  She woke up to two balloons that the Saint Valentine's Day Bunny (or whatever) brought her.  Frances was particularly pleased with the Dora balloon, her newest friend.

Then we opened some cards, ate some chocolate - the breakfast of champions, and played Peek.

Frances's Mimi has been in a sewing frenzy lately, luckily for us.  For Valentine's she made Frances this nifty twirly skirt.

To die for, no?

Frances and I gave the library story time another try (after our self-exile last week) and Frances was the belle of the ball, among a lot of girls dressed in pink.  We made it through this week, all the way to the craft at the end of story time.  Too bad her horrid mother didn't let her wear her red squeaky shoes.  Horrid mother.

Another month, another train show

This weekend, we went to the Wenham Museum to "cheer on...the New England LEGO Users Group" as they went "for a LEGO record with the first ever displayed super-sized monorail."  Translation: more trains!  The nerd-factor was uncomfortably high, even for this Haverford alumna, but Frances didn't seem to notice.  Hard to know where to begin describing the scene...The part Frances is looking at below was a carnival.  It took me a minute to realize but the people attending the carnival were actually familiar characters like Yoda and Harry Potter and superheroes I couldn't quite identify.

Notice Frances's red shoes in the next picture.  They were a present from Mimi and they squeak - intentionally - every time she moves.  On the upside, I never lost Frances.  On the downside, her shoes squeaked. Thanks, Mimi!

It got very crowded very quickly.  Frances and I soldiered on to the museum's regular train display and even glanced at a few of the museum's 1,000 dolls.  Frances was a little disappointed that they only had trains in G, O, HO, N and Z gauges, I was overwhelmed by the crowds and Mark was fighting the Mother of All Colds and a back ache.  We were home for 12:30 naps.  Mark spent the rest of the weekend in bed trying to recover.  Between last weekend's Toddler Drum Circle and this weekend's train show, Mark may not let me plan any more weekend activities.

Twenty-Seven Months of Toddler Frances

Frances's twenty-seven months birthday was not great, I have to admit.  We started the day with story time at the local library.  Before she began, the librarian mentioned, (almost) as politely as she could, that there were lots of children who enjoyed story time and children who did not enjoy sitting and listening to stories should be removed so as not to disturb the other children.  Guess who didn't enjoy sitting and listening to stories?  Frances was much more interested in running on the stage behind the librarian.  We left.  The day unraveled from there.  By evening, Frances had earned her first time out for throwing a book at momma's head during dinner.  She did not enjoy it.  After her 30-second time out, she spent about five minutes telling me her doll was sad and needed a hug.  Everyone got lots of hugs, then we finger painted. 

Twenty-Seven Months Fun Facts

• Language: Four-word phrases are almost her norm now.  She's progressed from saying "Daddy choo-choo" over and over to "Daddy ride orange train."  One of my favorite Frances phrases right now is "No, thank you though."  She seems to have a grasp of the basic colors.  And everything takes two minutes; she's forever telling me to "Wait two minutes."
• Counting: She still doesn't start on the number one, but she can make it from two to eleven and often beyond.  She's not quite as obsessed with it now as she was last month.
• Food Wars:  As I've mentioned before, Frances is not a big eater.  I've tried not to make eating into a battle ground, I hope with some success.  She still wins many battles - it is not at all unusual for her to skip dinner completely - but I feel I'm winning the war.  Her ribs are less prominent and it may be time to stop lacing her milk with half and half, and her everything else with butter.
• Favorite game: For months now, Frances has loved to play "Peek."  It used to involve Frances hiding, me pretending to look for a missing friend and then finding Frances and feigning shock that she is not the missing friend.  Then she would tell me where the missing friend was.  Daddy, it turns out, spends all his time on the train and Mimi cooks a lot.  Now, Frances just hides under any available thing and hollers "Peek!" until I find her and tickle her. We do this a lot.  Her imagination is in full swing, too.  She picks apples almost everyday and cooks me dinner about four times a day.  I'm stuffed.
• Locomotion: Her running is getting faster and faster.  It is now actively a problem, as she can get away from me and into trouble in no time flat.  I've decided never to take her to another CVS with a doorway onto a busy street.  Trips to CVS with Frances are the stuff of nightmares right now.
• Obsession: Boys.  This kid likes boys.  Right now, her favorite boy is Henry from the gym's nursery.  She'll also make due with Zach or Charlie, though she may slip up and call them "Henry."  Leaving Henry at the gym each morning involves lots of hugs and "See you later!"s and promises from me that we will see Henry again tomorrow.  Frances is also obsessed with names right now.  She's discovered that we are "Mark" and "Mogan" as well as "Daddy" and "Momma."  We spend lots of time listing the names of friends and family and she wants to know the names of children on the playground.  "What's her name, momma?" is a frequent refrain.

Until next month!

Thank you, Auntie Lindsay

Frances's Auntie Lindsay gave her some finger paint for Christmas.  Frances and I tried it out the other day.  The whole adventure began very tamely.  Frances worked the yellow over for quite a while.

She slowly branched off into other colors, though for a bit she wanted me to wipe her hands between each color change.

Then, this finger painting session went the way of all finger painting sessions: Frances started painting herself.  She began with her arm.

Then moved on to her torso.

Then she moved on to her diaper.

Things went downhill from there, and ended in the bath.

Thank you, Auntie Lindsay.  Only several more months of indoor activities to go until summer!

Life with Frances

A place for everything...

...and everything in its place.

As I've said previously, Frances, dear, is very concerned with arranging things these days.  So the first picture is of my water bottle, Frances's glasses, the salt shaker and a bowl in the laundry basket.  Of course.  And the second picture is of the rocks Frances arranged at the playground the other day.  I was impressed with their array of colors.

Thank you, Frances.

Trains, trains, trains!

God bless advertising.  Back in November, I saw an ad in "The New Yorker" for the New York Botanical Garden Holiday Train Show.  Our resident two-year old happens to be fond of trains.  There wasn't anything in particular that Mark and I wanted to get Frances for Christmas (that's what grandparents are for) so we decided our Christmas "gift" to her would be a trip to the train show.  I am so glad we did.

We had such a good time.  We drove down after Mark's work on a Friday night, arriving around 11 p.m.  Frances stayed awake almost the whole time and was shaking like a leaf by the time we arrived (that's what she does when she's really tired).  But she was up and ready to go at 6:30 Saturday morning.  We met up with our friends Beka and Dan and headed to the Bronx.

The train show was in the Botanical Garden's conservatory.



I'd say almost a dozen trains were going around the room, winding their way amongst replicas of famous New York City buildings, recreated from all natural materials, like bark, twigs and leaves.  The buildings were fantastic.

There were also two (or three?) large bridges spanning the room, again replicas of actual New York bridges.  I'm not so good on my bridges, but this may have been the George Washington Bridge (Dan, Beka, Dad - am I right on this?)

Here's Dan, bonding with Frances.

Here's Beka, doing a little better with the bonding.  (See, Dan, you hold the child's hand.)

And here's the reason we came: to watch Frances, giddy with happiness, waving at Thomas the Tank Engine.  And she didn't just do this when she found Thomas.  She waved at him every time he came around the bend.  Every ten seconds or so.  Until her mother lied to her about going to look for a Percy train.  In my defense, I thought I heard another mother talking about a Percy train.  In retrospect, she may have been lying too.

That's Yankee Stadium in the bottom right corner.  Bark was used in the stands to suggest the crowds.  It's surrounded by a waterfall and miniature pepper plants.  The vegetation around the trains and building replicas was my favorite part.  I had worried that the dioramas would be showing their age after about two months of display, but the vegetation was completely lush, full of miniature peppers and tiny Christmas cacti.  And I don't think Frances was too traumatized by being tricked away from Thomas.  She was willing to wave at anything on tracks.

And then we loaded Frances up in the car and she slept all the way home.  I'm so glad we went.  I bet we'll do it again for Christmas 2012.  When, exactly, do kids start remembering all the wonderful things their parents take them to?  Surely, by the time she's three...

Twenty-Six Months of Toddler Frances

Running...

 ...running...

...and running!

I've been putting off composing this until I had some peace and quiet.  I'm giving up.  Here it goes:

Twenty-Six Months Fun Facts

• Counting: An on-going project.  She's gotten very clear on five through twelve, but somehow counting one through four still evade her. She can identify two objects. For instance, she knows she has two colors of play dough and we talk about the play dough a lot. Which brings us to...
• Obsession: Play dough.  We generally have a ball of it with us at all times.  It even goes to the play ground with us.
• Language:  She tries to sing along with us to familiar tunes like the Alphabet Song and Ring Around the Rosie. She's convinced there's a song for everything - a play dough song, a daddy song, a snake song - so I've been making up lots of awful ditties. She's using longer phrases, but I think it would be hard to follow her without context.  She went through a fleeting stage of saying "Thank you, mama," usually for no particular reason.  It made me sooo happy.  She could have asked for anything and I gladly would have given it to her just to hear her say, "Thank you, mama."
• Locomotion: See pictures above.  Frances still has a touch of the toddler-stiff-legged run, but she's getting more and more nimble.  And faster.
• Frequent Conversations:  "No eating play dough."  She reminds us of this frequently.  I think our friend Michele told Frances that there's no eating play dough.  It made an impression.  Sometimes Frances will even say, "Chele says no eating play dough."  Such wisdom.