Pack Leader

The title comes from what Dad had to say about this video - "She really is the pack leader."

The quality isn't great because it was shot with my cell phone. But, hey, it was shot with my cell phone.

Ahhh, spring in Illinois...

Ummm, yeah. This is why we live in Texas...

An unexpected trip

So, as most of you who read this blog already know, my Grandma Jean (mom's mom) passed away on St. Patrick's Day. This, of course, prompted a flurry of activity on our part in order to get up here for the memorial service on Friday.

Since trying to find airfare last minute is a financial nightmare, I decided to go with a "last minute" deal that you can find on certain websites. Unfortunately, this last minute fare had us leaving from Austin at 6 AM Friday.



That wasn't the bad part, though. The weather had a little winter in store for us, and flying into Chicago turned out to be a bit more tricky than planned.



Luckily, we did make it, just 30 minutes late, which gave us plenty of time to get our car and drive to Geneseo. The memorial service was wonderful, and Mom made it through her speech about Grandma without too much trouble. Afterward, we had cookies and lemonade in the church basement, then went over to Grandma's house to say goodbye.




(Thanks to Aunt Linda for the pictures from Grandma's house)

Friday night, we hung out with the rest of the Laleman clan at Grandma Betty and Grandpa Al's house. Since they're in Florida, we had a house party and Rachel got totally trashed.



We'll be in Illinois until Monday...enjoying this lovely weather.

It's Raining....mud?

So, yeah. We went out to dinner tonight and when we came out, all of the cars in the parking lot looked like this.





It's been a weird week...

Goodbye, Grandma Jean.

We sure were lucky to have known you.





Say hi to Grandpa for us.

Proof that I have too much time on my hands...

Twenty One Months

Dear Rachel,

This past weekend, you turned 21 months old. I can't even begin to tell you how quickly it's all going by.

Your Grandparents were here for most of the month. Actually, your Grandpa Rick was here for the entire month. Grandma Connie was here for a couple of weeks, but had to go back to snowy, cold, Illinois in the middle of the month to take care of the book store.


I think that trip back to Illinois sealed the deal in convincing Grandma that Texas is a wonderful place to be in the winter.

Having your grandparents here helped us out a bunch as far as taking care of you, but it also helped you to learn a lot of new things. Having two extra adults talking around you for a month helped open up your world to us as you started saying a whole bunch of new words.


First and foremost, you now have names for your grandparents - Nana and Dodd. Nana is pretty easy to figure out. Your Grandma wanted something easy for you to say since "Grandma" is pretty hard for your mouth to figure out, but you got Nana right away. Dodd came from what you heard me saying all month. Whenever I'd talk to your Grandpa, I'd call him "Dad," so you started saying it too. Now, I'm Dada, and Grandpa is Dodd.


You recognize buses now, and every time we go past one, you exclaim, "BUthhhhh!" and then when it's past, you say "bye bye buth." You even recognize the city busses as a bus. Your Grandma spent a lot of time with you singing "The Wheels on the Bus" song this past month, so buses are something you've taken a liking to.



In addition to recognizing buses, you also recognize our vehicles. Every time you see a black SUV, you say "Mama's!" and every time you see my car you say "Dada's!" The fun part is when you think you see your Grandpa's truck. There's no shortage of white ford pickups in San Antonio and every time you see one you say "it's Dodd!"


Your grandparents also taught you how to say "star," kind of. In the Eye Book, on one of the pages, your eyes see "Stars up in the sky!" so every time you see a star, whether it's on a cup, in a book, anywhere, you'll shout "SKY!" and we know that in your world, that means "star."


Your favorite thing to do this month has been to ask us what everything is. Of course you picked that up from all of us constantly asking you "what is this?" and now every time you want one of us to ask you what something is, you'll point to it and say "is this?"

The other really cool thing you started saying out of the blue was "have a good day" even though it comes out "good day." You just said it one day when I was dropping you off.



You also now have a favorite TV show, Bob the Builder. Every time we turn on the TV, you ask "Bob?" You even have a Bob the Builder hat, and, well, I 'll let the picture speak for itself.


I forgot to mention last month that you've started sitting on your potty. Miss Judy started with you last month, and you'll sit on it for us before you take a bath, but you're still not quite there yet.


I'm sure I've left a bunch of things out, as this past month was just jam packed full of fun things for you. It's amazing to us how quickly you learn new things, and as always we can't wait to see what next month will bring. We love you very much.

Love,
Daddy

My turn

We took the final fishing trip of the month on Saturday. There were a lot of things that Dad didn't get to do on this trip, like go fishing with a guide, but I think that overall, he's just happy that he got to go fishing in February.

After not catching much at all during our previous trips, I finally landed a big one on my first cast.



Even Monica got in on the action, hooking this little guy...



Mom and Dad are leaving Tuesday morning (weather permitting), and we'll all be sad to see them go. I think Rachel is going to miss them most of all. She's gotten very used to having "Nana" and "Dodd" around.

More to come in a few days...

What do you do when it's 15 degrees outside?

Go fishing...




...in Texas, where it's sunny and in the 90's.

Twenty Months

Dear Rachel,

This weekend you turned 20 months old. It's been yet another busy month for you, and we're starting to understand your world a bit better, as you learn how to express yourself. You're putting words together to form small sentences, and it's amazing what that does for us understanding you.

It started innocently enough with a "hi da-da" and has since evolved into full sentences of baby talk that we actually get. A couple of weeks ago, you stood by Sparky's empty food dish and said "Babas papa is bah!" Let me translate for you. Babas is what your mother calls Sparky sometimes...sort of a pet name for the pet, if you will. Papa is short for papita which means food. And bah is baby talk for finished or all done. So, the sentence above, while a mouthful if you try saying it fast, means Sparky's food is gone.

Your word of the month this past month has been "no," which I guess means that we've been saying it too much to you. It started off sounding like "own" but has morphed into a full fledged "no" now. You certainly have no qualms about telling us what you don't want to do, and in fact have been testing us on exactly what you'll let you get away with. The other day, I took you outside with me to get the mail, and you just stopped on the sidewalk and stared at me. After asking you several times to come with me, you quietly said, "no," and shook your head, which did not make me happy at all. I picked you up from the sidewalk and carried you back into the house, and went to get the mail by myself, leaving you screaming in the living room that you wanted to go outside. I hope you learned your lesson, young lady, but you probably didn't.

The co-word of the month has been "up," which you finally started saying. Problem is, now when you say it, we feel obliged to pick you up since we pretended for so long to not know what you wanted when you would pull at our legs or pat a chair you wanted to sit in. So instead of outright ignoring your request to be picked up, we're trying to find other ways to head you off at the pass, like racing you.

You went to the rodeo for the first time last week and got to see a lot of the animals that you like in person. You really wanted to touch the cattle, but when it came time to hop on a plastic horse with a saddle they had set up in the horse barn, you wanted no part of it. I don't know what it was about the plastic horse that scared you, but you screamed and pushed away when I tried to put you on it. We watched about an hour of the rodeo events before we decided that you were too tired and fidgety to take any more (and you were scaring your grandma because we were up so high in the arena). What you saw, you seemed to like, and when we left, you turned around to all of the people behind us and screamed "BYE!" to everyone. When we got outside, we started racing you, and you ran down the entire length of the arena. I don't know where you got that sudden burst of energy, but it was fun to watch.

Your Grandma Connie and Grandpa Rick came back to visit you, and Grandpa Rick is staying the entire month! We took a ride on his boat this past weekend, which you really loved. You even helped me drive the boat. It won't be long before you're fishing with us.

You've started letting your mother experiment with your hair a bit more, although you still pull out your barrettes and rubber bands. Your hair has finally gotten long enough that she can put little pony tails in them, and you look so cute when you have them in. Of course, when you pull them out, you look like a bag lady, but I guess that's part of being little. Your mother also noticed a bright red hair on top of your head this past weekend, proving that you and I are definitely related, in case there was ever any doubt.

We can't wait to see what new things you learn as you go hurtling toward two years old. We love you very much.

Love,
Daddy

Yo updates and stuff

It seems that I have a case of the Sarahs when it comes to updating the old Laleblog lately. I just haven't had the time or the energy to get on here and tell ya'll about how we've been doing.

Maybe it's been the cold cool, rainy weather we've been having. I've heard folks around here complaining about the lack of sunshine after two days and I was all, "You ain't seen nuthin' till you've lived up north, where it's cloudy, dreary and cold for three freakin' months."

So yeah, it's the weather. I'll blame it on the weather, which works really well as an excuse because the last couple of days it's been sunny and in the 70's which would then explain why I'm writing again, because I've gotten my happy dose of sunlight and warmth.

Anyway, it's been an adventurous week around here. We had quite a little debacle with Rachel at a restaurant last week. We'll just say that she was one of those children. You know, the ones you see and you say to yourself, "I'd never let me kid behave like that."

Then Friday we found out that we had a blockage in our sewer line - the hard way. Which means we spent Saturday morning bleaching the bathtubs and the floors of the bathroom. Fun times!

Rachel updates and new pictures coming soon!

Nineteen months

Dear Rachel,

Today you turn nineteen months old. I was almost sure you'd start talking in complete sentences to us this past month, but you're not quite there yet. You have, however, been learning a bunch of new words.

You're still stubborn as ever about saying what you want to say, and not saying what we want you to say. A good example is when you want to get up on the sofa or chair with one of us. You'll pat the cushion over and over again, giving us a pleading look. When we ask, "Do you want up?" you'll respond with vigorous nodding of your head and "uhn uh" (because you still haven't learned the difference between the sounds for yes and no.)
"Can you say 'up'?"
"uhn uh" (still nodding your head).
"Can you say 'yes please'?"
"Es! Es!"
"Please?"
"(you sign please)"
You've also learned to say "good boy" when you pet Sparky, but it comes out more like "boo boy," you've learned the sound that a horse makes (along with already knowing snake, chicken, dog, cat, and lion), you say "wheeee" when you want to swing, and the other day you started saying "cold" when you spilled some water on yourself. You know "on" in it's various contexts, like when you want the light turned on in your room, or when you want to put your shoes on to go "ow-siiiiiide" which is probably your favorite word. I'm sure there are more words that I'm forgetting because it seems like every week you come up with something new.

You've also started stringing two words that you learned individually together to form small sentences. A couple of times this past month you said "Hi Dada" or when you were trying to tell me where your mother was the other night: "Mama nigh nigh," (even though she just wasn't home yet). You're also stringing together a bunch of Rachel words to explain things, but we still don't quite understand those. In conjunction with all this talking, you've started telling us what you want when you wake up, which also tells us that your little internal clock is working well. A few times over the past month you've woken up crying in the middle of the night. When I go in and pick you up, you'll lay your head on my shoulder and whisper, "nigh nigh" telling me that you're ready to go back to sleep. In the morning, you'll either whisper "papa" which is short for papita, or food, or you'll whisper "da" which is your way of saying you want me to put you down.

Your have started eating more on your own with utensils. In fact, if we try to hold your plate still or help you with a fork or spoon, you'll push our hands away because you want to do it on your own. You're really getting down the scooping and keeping the spoon facing the right direction so that everything stays on it all the way to your mouth. You're still trying to figure out if you're left or right handed, and you do pretty well with both.

You absolutely love reading, and you actually have a couple of favorite books now. The one you bring us most often is "The Eye Book." You have a bunch of small cardboard books, which are great for you because you can't tear the pages, and you love to read those on your own. You can recognize animals in your books, even if the drawings don't look exactly like the real live animal. Sometimes you'll bring us "Are You My Mother" howling "ow, ow" in a high pitch, with the book opened to the page that has the picture of the cat on it. Also, any time you see animals on TV you'll try to classify them by making the sound you think fits.

You've started recognizing letters, or at least that there are letters somewhere, like on a shirt. You'll point to a random letter and proclaim "A! A! A!" Sometimes you'll copy what we tell you, like when there's a letter 's,' we'll point to it and say "S," then you'll start pointing to all the other letters saying "S! S! S!" So you're not quite there yet, but it's still cool.

Grandpa Rick and Grandma Connie came down again for Christmas, and you saw your Aunt Sarah for the first time in a year, too. We also all got to meet your soon-to-be Uncle Britton. They had a great time playing with you and we really enjoyed having them all here for the holiday. Grandma and Grandpa brought you a swing that now hangs off an oak branch over the deck that you try to get into as much as possible.

You made out like a bandit at Christmas again, with all kinds of new toys and clothes. We can't wait until next year when you understand a little better what it's all about, and we can start hanging the threat of Santa Claus and naughty little girls over your head.

As always, we love you very much.

Love,
Daddy

Better Late than Never

If you've been waiting with baited breath for the Laleman family Christmas card in the mail, don't hold that baited breath. As I said last year, the likelihood of us getting Christmas cards in the mail is somewhere between slim and none.

And from the looks of it this year, the likelihood of me getting our cyber-cards out on time stood about the same chances.

So here I present to you, the if-I-had-gotten-my-butt-in-gear Laleman family Christmas card choices for this past Christmas, which, yes, I know, was a week ago.

Both are photoshop jobs because the originals didn't quite cut it, but have a look for yourself to see if you can spot any mistakes. I think I did a pretty good job with them.

You can see the huge versions of these cards by clicking on them.

Eighteen Months

Dear Rachel,

I know I'm a bit overdue, but I'm sure that looking back at this, years from now, you'll understand that your Grandfather's 60th birthday was a bit more important than getting your letter out on the day you turned a year and a half.


It's been yet another interesting month. It seems like every time we turn around you're doing something new.

For me, the most exciting thing this month has been the fact that you'll sit in my lap and let me read a book to you. Before this month, whenever we tried to read to you, you'd want to take the book yourself, and turn the pages back and forth, and would never let us actually read it to you. You still don't let us finish a book, but you'll let us read a few pages at a time, and you'll turn the pages when we ask you to, but once you're bored with it, you'll close the book and tell us you're done in your own special way.


And that special way is to sign "finished" (albeit backward) and say "BAH!" which is your word for finished, gone, done, no more. It's actually pretty standard Mexican baby talk for finished, you've just taken it one step further (because you're so dang smart!). When you're eating, even if you have food left to eat, if there's no more on the plate, or you see us taking an empty plate to the kitchen, you'll say "BAH!" Drink empty? "BAH!" We put away your toys - "BAH!" You get the point.


Another thing you've started doing this month is giving kisses loudly. You've given us kisses for months and months, and you've been blowing kisses for a while too, but someone (probably Judy) taught you recently to make noise when you give blow kisses. "MMMMMWWWAAAAH!" That has carried over into other kisses as well. The other day, you were kissing my knee and my hand over and over and over - "MMMMMWWWAAAAH!" It was too funny.


You went on another road trip this month to see your Grandma Connie and Grandpa Rick. You also got to see both of your great-grandmothers. While we were up north, we went to the zoo, and you saw all kinds of animals. You also showed us just how smart you are. When you were playing with your music table at Grandma and Grandpa's, you would spin the thing that sang the alphabet song, then you'd go and dance in the middle of the room, almost until the song was over. Then, right before the song ended, you'd run over to the table, wait for it to end, then spin it again so you could dance some more. Spin, dance, repeat. Another spinnny thing played different music each time you spun it, but you knew exactly how many times you needed to spin it to get to the song you wanted to dance to.


Speaking of spinning you figured out how to spin yourself around and make yourself dizzy. You'll do that as part of your dancing. It's hysterical to watch you spin and spin and spin, then try to dance, or even walk. I just hope you don't ever decide to do that right after you've eaten. I don't want to clean up that mess.
You've also started bending yourself completely in half and looking between legs. We don't have a clue why you do it, and you'll just stop at random points throughout the day, bend over and look at the world upside down for a few seconds.


You're chatting with us more than ever, but we still don't quite get what you're saying. You're so close to sentences, it's scary. You'll play the Mama Dada game with us in the car, but a few weeks ago you were playing that, and then you said, "Mama?" and when she answered you, you went into this 5 minute conversation, with arm movements and eyebrows and the whole 9 yards. And speaking of eyebrows, you've started imitating our "looks" that we give you when we're not happy with you. It makes us laugh so hard that we can't be mad with you anymore. You've also started crossing your arms when you see someone else doing it, except you'll make darn sure we know you're doing it because the motion to cross your arms is so exaggerated, and you do it about 4 times before you finally get your arms crossed and down for good, and you've got this big cheesy grin on the whole time.


You continue to amaze us, and we love every second of it.

Love,
Daddy