ETA (Enjoy The Arts)

This steering wheel doesn't work...?

River had a great day at school yesterday. For many reasons:

1) She was almost completely naked.

2) She got paint all over her.

3) She got to paint with her favorite color, what we call River Green.

4) No restrictions, just fun.

What Artist Phase would you call this Cathy?

She belongs to a place called Children's Express Child Development Center. They are less than a mile away from my office. Miss Monica (the owner) and Miss Shannon called to let me know that they had sent me some pictures to my email account and they were a surprise.

Notice how she is resting her chin on her hand...

Understand that sometimes I am given a hard time because I refuse to say that my child goes to daycare. Now this is not an insult to people who say that or send their children to daycares. I honestly and truly believe that River goes to school. Children's Express is not a place where I feel like I drop off my little girl and they just keep her from choking, feed her a little, change her diaper the required amount of times (which they do all of these things too). I know that when I drop her off in the morning that they are glad to see her. When I pick her up every day they have what they call a "Cuddlegram" waiting for me so that I will know the basics of her day but almost always their is something in the comment line like:

"River got to go outside and play on a swing today"
or

"River loves to paint"

They told me later that she even had paint IN her diaper

When I had to take medical leave for the month of February I still had to pay for her spot in her class, but even though you would have thought that that would be great and one less child to watch and still get paid for it I honestly could feel that they missed her terribly.

Our Heart and Soul

We live in an area with no other babies. Literally. She is the only child not just of our household but of our entire community. I knew that I would need and also want to return to work after she was born. I also knew that dropping her off every day was going to be one of the hardest things I ever did. However, River needs to go to school. She needs to be around other children. She needs to interact with other age groups and learn a structured day just like elementary school will be. I consider this preparation for society.

Did she learn how to eat thighs from me!? OMG

Their were a few really great milestones this week.

She now splashes her hands when she takes a bath. Rob will splash back and she will mimic him.

She moves better every day in her walker. She was mostly moving backward until the last two days but now she is starting to get the hang of it.

She loves paper. Especially wadded up paper. I sometimes wad up a sheet and hand it to her to keep her occupied if it is time to make a bottle or do laundry. It works like a charm. She will also move it from one hand to another.

She has started to "drop" things. She will drop a rattle and then look at it until you pick it up for her. This is still funny so far. I'll let you know when this gets old (for me).

We are still waiting for a tooth. We swear that you can feel something under there but they are still in hiding.

We ate at an honest to goodness restaurant yeasterday. OK, it was Bob Evans. But it was great! We were so nervous about being one of those parents that brings the screaming child out to eat and making every one else's dining experience a nightmare so we have pretty much avoided anything that couldn't be eaten in the car. Imagine how we felt about going to a sit down place. Like we were fancy or something. They set her up in an upside down child seat so that her pumpkin seat would fit (although she almost doesn't fit in it anymore) and I fed her food from the menu. Don't freak out. I ordered applesauce and low fat strawberry yogurt. Can I even describe in words how much she likes yogurt? I think that it also had something to do with the fact that it was Bob Evans yogurt. It was so smooth and didn't have that bitter taste that some fruit yogurts have. She ate her applesauce too but she had that for breakfast that morning so she wasn't as excited. She would actually wiggle and dance in her seat when you would give her yogurt. She was an absolute peach the entire meal. I even got to eat my dinner while it was still warm! (PS. You must try the blueberry bread. It is seasonal so won't be around long but it was soooooo yummy, I danced in my seat too.) Everyone there thought she was the Cutest Thing Ever.

We have a long but good weekend ahead. Meemaw is coming to visit. Rob should have his motorcycle re-registered and since Mom is coming I can do Spring cleaning. I won't tell you how long it has been since the upstairs carpet had a really good vaccuuming. I have to have fluffy carpet and it is not.

Have a great week!