More about Pip - not Pico (updated blog)

Had a couple more shots of the little dog like creature who is now in his new home.

First, Sheila trying to help him stop shivering.

Then Roxanne looking down from the balcony trying to figure out if that new thing was either a) food or b) a toy. Since she out weighed Pip by about 3:1, it was really her choice. (That would be the other reason Sheila held onto Pip- trying to remove that choice.)

And here are T and Pip almost playing together. What I really think is going on is that Tovina is trying to decide if Pip will fit in the red box the way her other toys do. She likes that red shape shorter because it has a handle that she can carry around and put on her shoulder. It Pip does fit in it then T will have her own personal dog in a purse.

(Just in case you were worried, Pip never had to sit in the red box.)
Update: I just went back and changed Pico's name to Pip. Pip was the dog we brought to Ohio from Texas via gulf shores. Pico was a long hair chihuahua that I had the pleasure of taking care of while in Florida. He was not nearly as adventurous as Pip though also a rescue dog. So sorry for any confusion I may have caused!

Trying wasabi

Tovina had the opportunity to try many a new food while we were in Gulf Shores among them was some wasabi that came with my (mostly) raw tuna.
Here she is taking some off the cracker with her finger and giving it a taste.

And here she is telling us what she thought of it.
Not exactly her fav.
But she did try it again. We were all most intrigued.
In our defense, as she was also eating a plate of raw onions (which she adores - much to the amusement and surprise of our waitress) having some wasabi on the side did not seem like such a stress.
The 13 second version of this adventure is below, but if you wish to see a longer part 1 and 2 they are on YouTube.

Quick explanation

I was told that my photo selection from yesterday was perhaps not my best ever. However, in my defense, Tovina was really doing her best to not let me take any useful photos of her.
Mari and Kris tried to capture her
But this is the closest we came.
And then we threw another person in the mix, but that didn't help either.
Finally we settled on this which really is a lovely shot

Hi Atlanta

On the way home from Gulf Shores, we stopped by Atlanta to see Aunt Mari's house which none of us Ohio-ians had seen before. We also saw Aunt Mari and her friends Kris and William since we were at the house anyway.
We also brought with us a rescue Chihuahua (which is not spelled Chiwawa in case you were wondering) that Aunt Kerri was sending to his new home in Ohio. That's right, Pip was driven from Texas to Alabama and then to Ohio so that he could be safely delivered to his brand new loving family. Along the way Tovina became quite fond of him, but we think that was just because she was excited to have a pet around that was visibly smaller than she is. Mari enjoyed listening to Tovina describe cold little Pip's condition.

Tovina was not exactly in a picture cooperative mood but we did manage to get one of her and Kris

And one of Tovina saying goodbye to William (who is slightly taller than T in case you couldn't' tell.)

Gulf Shores

We just spent the last few days in Gulf Shores visiting Michael's father. It has been great! Unfortunately we are now packing up for the drive home... ah well....
But before we head out, here are some highlights from our trip

Tovina and Grandpop reading stories together. Grandpop was a very good listener

T with Aunt Sheila and Aunt Kerri-Anne


Today was our first sunny day so we took advantage of it by visiting Belingrath and its gorgious grounds.

Then we had dinner with some flying rolls and LOTS of food. Got in a last photo op with family too. Here is Aunt Maureen, Grandpop, Michael, and Uncle Erwin. Oh, Tovina is in the shot too.

Reading to the clean bear

After Tovina finished changing her bear the other night, she then threw it into her crib/pak'n'play and proceeded to read it bedtime stories. You can see her starting off with Good Night Gorilla in this first picture.
She seemed to be concerned that the bear not suffer from lack of pre-nap reading so she then proceeded to read at least 2 more books. I have a bunch of them on video but they are a little shaky as I kept starting to laugh.
Below is the video from Moo Baa Lalala, another classic.
To help you out, captions have been added to the video.
Lines from the book are marked with 'text'
(my comments are enclosed thusly)
In many cases Tovina will sign (with her own special 19 month old accent) while speaking and I have tried to point out when this is happening.

Changing diapers

Tovina was pretty quiet for a bit this afternoon. Using my spidey-senses, I realized something was up and went a'searchin' for the wee one. It turned out she was in her room. She had taken her changing mat off the bed and put it on the floor. She had then taken out a single wet wipe (and I was very grateful that it was only 1), had placed a little beanie baby bear on her mat and was essentially changing its diaper - just without the diaper part.
By the time you read this blog there should be a video on YouTube where Tovina tells me she is getting the bear 'clean.' I'm too tired to wait for the video to publish so you will need to go and search for it yourself.

Big bed

A few hours ago when Michael and I laid Tovina down on the big bed (see: adult size) to change her into her pajamas before putting her down to sleep in her crib something new happened. (Before folks ask, we do not have a change table since we've always had adult beds in T's rooms and that seemed just as easy.)
We took off her coat and hat and shoes and pants and shirt as she tried to decide whether or not to cooperate. (This is not the new stuff. Her nightly decision is pretty standard and tends to have a 50/50 sort of outcome.)
Then she held onto to her feet as we changed her diaper. (Again, not so new though still special since sometimes she tries to stick them in the dirty diaper as it is being removed.)
Then, once she was all wiped and cleaned and diapered and snapped up she tried to get away by scrambling her onesie* clad self off to the other side of the bed. (Still, pretty usual although I do find it shocking how hard it can be for a 140lb adult to stop a 30lb child from crawling away. Especially when you add in the fact that the adult's arms alone are the length of said child.)
But THEN (and here comes the new stuff in case the capitalized letters didn't give it away) she lifted up the blankets, scooted her legs underneath, laid her head on the pillow and clearly settled in for the long haul!

Our little girl was ready for the big girl bed and clearly and calmly let us know since we silly parents hadn't figured it out on our own.

It was shocking how little she looked in the bed - she's still smaller then the pillow on which her head was resting. I wish I had a picture, but as she was getting ready to sleep I felt that startling her with a camera flash was probably not in the best of taste.

Just had a thought. Tovina's normal morning routine is to sort of run laps around the inside of her crib and kind of bounce off the walls as she goes around..... hmmm... tomorrow morning may be verrrryyyyy interesting.


*Now that I just learned that onesie is a trademarked term, I'm not sure she is actually wearing one(sie). She may just be in a creeper! jeepers!

All fired up

In honor of the warmed weather and lack of snow/rain, we lit the fire pit tonight and toasted us some smores. Emma and Brendan helped keep the fire going by collected sticks from around the yard and porch to feed the flames. Tovina thought that looked pretty cool and found a stick (okay, really it was a very, very tiny twig, but its all a matter of perspective, right?) which she could also throw into the fire. Tovina was very impressed with herself due to that particular feat.

T had to go sleep before we actually starting cooking things in the fire which was probably for the best since she would have wanted to cook her own marshmallows. But I'm looking forward to enjoying the sheer happiness on her face when she tries her first smore.

Which reminds me, I need to tell you about her chocolate experience on Shabbat - talk about sheer happiness!... guess I'll just add that to the 'to do' list.

ABCs Take 1

It was over a week ago when we realized that Tovina was singing along with the alphabet song. She has already shown noticeable improvement... but that will be another video

One of my favorite parts is 'L, M, N, O, P'.