As if being picked up and carried everywhere wasn’t enough, Izzy has now discovered another form of transportation (or parental humiliation). It all began when she decided that climbing in and out of things i.e. boxes, baskets and such was fun. She has a little cart we gave her for her birthday. The concept behind the cart is for the child to load it with various treasures and for said child to push it to its destination. What a great concept! She can practice walking by pushing something! She can put toys in it since she loves placing and removing contents of, well, pretty much anything. Great toy. Until she figured out how to climb in it. And Mom in one of her less enlightened moments pushed her around in a loop going, “Choo! Choo!”

“How is that a bad thing?” you ask. Give Izzy an idea, and she runs with it! She deduced that if she climbs in the cart and gives the royal wave, she’ll get a ride. Otherwise she gets a little more demanding. This was fun the first eighteen rounds. However, as I am about to have another kid in less than a month, my back and general physical aptitude isn’t quite up to bending over a child’s toy pushing a 25 pound lump around several times a day. So I did what every desperate parent does when faced with a child’s obsession; I hid the Royal Chariot. Out of sight; out of mind right? Wrong! She takes an idea and RUNS with it! The next day or so, I see her sit on her red food tray (now named the Royal Carpet Glider), give the royal wave, and look at me expectantly. “Mom! I’m waiting here!” I push her back and forth with my feet, while sitting on my medicine ball. My aching back was spared. . .this time.

Downstairs she has a little tray with wheels that holds her building blocks. That tray has not seen its building blocks for many a day now as they are scattered throughout her kingdom. The tray hadn’t received much notice from her, until her agile mind discovered its true calling: a Royal Carriage! Yes, she sat in it, waved, and looked around expectantly. She was pulled around the living room by its child’s length rope and a hunched, harried parent, and disembarked satisfied.

Fast Forward to a couple of days ago with my first post “An Introduction.” As I had been typing, I heard her paging me to another room. I located her in the master bedroom. We usually keep it closed off from her, but the air conditioner works better if the air can flow through the house and I had left the door open. I didn’t expect too much destruction since she is never alone for more than a minute or so. No, not too much destruction; she had acquired a Royal Sled. Izzy had taken the clean clothes out of the laundry basket, climbed in, gave the royal wave, and looked around expectantly. I guess when she looked around expectantly and saw none of her entourage awaiting further orders, she had a moment of panic. Until she remembered how to raise her voice to summon said entourage. I pushed her about six feet, picked her up, and carried her out-closing the door behind us. Oy.

Now she’s on to bigger and better things: walking, trying to talk, and all the while keeping up with her Destruct-O quota! She’s a busy Izzy Bean. . .

The Royal Chariots

From left to right: The Royal Chariot (Original), The Royal Carpet Glider, The Royal Carriage, and The Royal Sled

It’s been a while since went outside to relax.   The day it snowed, we went outside to play in the snow, but it was hardly relaxing.   We’re Californians, and in a way, we’re a lot like Superman – we need sunlight for energy.   It’s been gloomy and cold the past few months.   Trees are bare, the sky is grey, and everyone stays indoors.   I love the cold and the snow, but I love the sun and 72 degrees a lot more.   I’m sure a lot of it has to do with how things just look so sad during the winter, but during the Spring and Summer, everything is alive.

Sunday was such a beautiful day that we had to go out and enjoy it.   It was warm enough that we could finally turn off the heater and open the windows.   You don’t realize how bad a house smells until you let in some fresh air, lemme tell ya.   We decided it would be a good day for some grilled chicken and some lemonade, too.   I fired up the grill threw some seasoned chicken and some onions halves and let them sit there for a few minutes while we made some strawberry juice.   We decided the strawberrys we bought would go bad faster than the lemonade.

Izzy was also able to relax outside with us.   She played for a long time, too.   Just her, her mommy, and a few of her toys.   I was soaking in the sun and breathing the fresh air.   Spring is upon us…

After dinner, we tried out the swing that grandpa and grandma bought Izzy and Ciri for christmas. Izzy really enjoyed it, although the she would freak out when she saw the ground move by so quickly.

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When we went to sleep, the bedroom smelled soooo fresh, it was like having your lungs massaged as you fell asleep.   Good times.

Fresh Powder

You may have heard of the east coast getting hit with this arctic blast. It was cold enough to cause some freezing temperatures and eventually some snow. Actually, as I type this, it is still snowing. The neighbor just cleared his drive way and in a few hours, it will be covered in snow again.   Ciri got the day off due to the road conditions – I think she’ll probably get tomorrow off as well, or at least go in late.

Snowy roads

I drove to the grocery store at Ciri’s friendly request – she was craving homemade chili. I tried to take the truck, but because of the inclined driveway, I couldn’t drive out; the wheels would just spin over the ice. I was able to get the Sentra out, though. Kind of emasculates my poor little Pin-stripe Alpha. .

The roads weren’t too bad – we’ve driven under worse conditions back in Germany.   Once I got back to the house, I started building a snowman.

SnoRS

I tried to form bricks from a bin of kitty litter, but they would fall apart.   I was going for a robot snowman.   In the end I gave up and just mish-mashed the snow, the kitty litter bin, and some planters together.   I call it my Snowman-robot-sentry, or SnoRS.   SnoRS sits near the walkway, making him the perfect sentry for the house. (I just went to check on him and poor SnoRS is dead.   He fell apart.   Sigh.)

As I was building SnoRS, Ciri came out with a bundled up baby.   We had a quick snowball fight, that ended short of declaring a winner because of very, very cold hands.   It was fun, though.   The last time Ciri and I had a snowball fight was when I first visited her in Germany.

Bundled baby

Izzy had a great time as well.   Some snow fell on the tray of her stroller – the entire time Ciri and I were chucking snowballs, Izzy was trying to scrape some snow into her mouth.   It was funny watching her lunging for snowflakes as they fell in front of her.

After our snowball fight, we broker her out of the stroller and bundled her under our sweaters.   We walked around the snow and took pictures.   Finally, I laid on the snow and made my very first ever snow angel.   It came out looking very angel-y, even for a snow newbie like myself.

Check out my Flickr page for the rest of the pics.   Got lots of ‘em.