Day 159 - June 7

It was a big day here in the Dorval household.

Michaela made the move from her crib to her big girl bed.

Yikes.

I hadn't intended to do this until well after the baby comes. Yes, we'll need the crib for the baby, but not for quite a while (s/he will be either in our room or at least not in M's room until some kind of sleeping pattern is established so as not to disturb toddler sleep), so I figured we'd leave M in her crib for as long as we possibly could. Yes, my almost-3-yr-old was still in her full-on crib because she never figured out to try to climb out of it.

Anyway, while on vacation, she slept on a toddler-sized air mattress and really thought that was the coolest thing in the world. She loved being able to get into bed on her own, and, miraculously, stayed in the bed in the morning, calling for us to get her.

In need of storage for baby things, we figured we'd get the bed (it's a captain's bed, so M's clothes are now in it, leaving the dresser empty for baby stuff), knowing full-well that once it was here, she'd want to sleep in it. It showed up yesterday and Jason got it put together this afternoon, so tonight was the night.

The picture was taken as she was testing it out, before we put the safety rail on it and before it was cluttered up with all her "guys," but she was pretty excited to get the chance to finally sleep in her big girl bed!

I, on the other hand, am sad. My little girl is growing up entirely too quickly for my taste. And even though I get to do all the baby stuff all over again, there's just something so bittersweet about these milestones. And she, of course, made it harder on me by telling me she didn't need us to do rock-a-bye (one of us would hold her like a baby in our arms and sing rock-a-bye and then lay her in her crib), and instead just crawled into bed like the almost-3-yr-old she is.

Sniff.

Day 158 - June 6

We may have a stage-hog on our hands around here.

Our living room floor in front of the fireplace is a stage. The electrical box in front of the house is a stage (everyone knows about our dance parties, right?). The actual stage in the parish hall at our church is a stage (that can be slightly embarrassing as she screams out, "Shout it out, just like a rock star!!" at the top of her lungs during coffee hour). The stool from the bathroom is her "stool stage."

And, apparently, wherever her drum set is currently located is a stage.

I know this because today she told us that we needed to sit down and watch her put on her show. And she told us to hurry up because the next song was starting and we needed to be ready. Mommy got a pass because I was busy writing out bills and stuff. But Daddy was told in no uncertain terms to, "Sit down right here and listen."

So he did.

Day 157 - June 5

HALLELUJAH!!!!

Thanks to peer pressure (two older friends who came to swim this weekend with M), a little Jedi mind-trickery (thanks to those boys' mommy), and old-fashioned bribery (Reese's peanut butter cups), the child finally decided that she could, in fact, swim with her face in the water again.

A little back story - allllll last summer, she was jumping off the diving board, swimming with her face in the water more than out, letting us throw her in the pool, doing bobs, and generally had no fear about being in the pool.

Then she jumped into a freezing cold pool early this season, had a bit of a shock, maybe maybe had some water go up her nose, and all of a sudden we'd regressed to head-out-of-the-water swimming.

To make matters worse, we tried swimming lessons a couple weeks ago, and being "forced" to do things in the pool that she didn't want to made her regress even further. We pulled her from lessons after the second day because she was suddenly afraid to be in the water without both her floaty AND a pool noodle for flotation.

Fast forward to this weekend. We had friends over to swim and have dinner. They have two boys, both older than Michaela, but not so old as to be really big kids. Their boys are on the CG swim team here, and are like little fish. On top of that, Jess (their mom) helps to teach the youngest group of swimmers, so she had a cool little trick of using a dive ring to "talk to the fish" that Michaela thought was pretty fantastic. Between those two things, and leaving my truly stubborn child to her own devices, all of a sudden she was proudly sticking her whole face in the water through the dive ring so she could "talk to the fish."

Two days later, and two more afternoons in the pool, and she ONLY swam with her face in the water this afternoon!!! We're not back to jumping into the pool, but at least now we can pick back up with swimming lessons since she's gone to the next step!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 156 - June 4

Do you know what's fun?

Opening your mailbox and getting a postcard - an honest-to-goodness postcard - from a dear (and dearly missed) friend who gets to travel all over Alaska for work, and sent it from Nome.

Seriously. So much fun.

Day 155 - June 3

I have three pictures today. One of them is by special request... I'll get to that.

The other two are lovely pictures of our new pergola! Although it went up yesterday, it's more appropriate to use it for today's picture(s) because we got to test it out with company and everything!

We had some friends over to swim this afternoon and have dinner with us, and we thoroughly enjoyed the increased shade we have on our patio now. The umbrella that came with our patio set was definitely a big one, but it did NOT provide the shade that this thing provides.

Plus I got to hang pretty lights from it. Next up is colorful lanterns to hang from it to bring a little pop of color to the otherwise very beige patio!

And the requested picture might be a re-run from about this time last year... a little Lupine for my friend, Christina, who spotted some up here way (in Alaska) today and sent me a text to tell me because she knows how much I love it!

Day 154 - June 2

It was relatively cooler out today than it has been lately, so we took the opportunity to get outside for a bit this morning and took Michaela to the park.

Swinging and sliding were on the agenda, and I got a couple cute pictures. Neither of them is the most crystal-clear picture I've ever taken, but the content was too good not to share.

And that's all I have to say tonight!

Day 153 - June 1

Two pictures again tonight. And, again, they aren't related to each other at all. Well, they show the two polar opposites of Michaela, so there's how they're related.

First up is crazy, wild Michaela. When we got back from dinner (which was followed by ice cream, and I'm pretty sure she mostly ate ice cream for dinner), she remembered that she'd left her karaoke machine out and immediately found her favorite Fresh Beats songs and started dancing.

Apparently normal dancing wasn't good enough and head-banging was on the set list tonight.

The second was taken just a few minutes later, after getting pjs on and getting ready for bed, M cuddled up next to me for pre-bedtime storytime. She was kind enough to share fuzzy blanket with me when I told her my toes were cold. She even made sure that I covered up "your knee that's poking out a little." Very considerate girl! (Pay no attention to the quality of the second picture - it had gotten a little darker by the time it was taken, and I handed the camera over to the hubs in the Aperture priority setting, hoping the camera would do the work.... even after edits, I'm not loving how it looks, but I can't be choosey since there are so few pictures of me and the kid out there!)

So we start with crazy dancing and then 15 minutes later we have cuddly, ready-for-bed girl. Two sides of Michaela.