Tabby at 4.25

June 4th ticked off a quarter year of the way through Tabby’s fourth year. I’m still shocked and dismayed as these milestones fly by. Wonder if it will ever slow down a bit?

I’m really loving this little girl. I know she’s not 100% perfect, but the small battles we have over this and that (she’s a bit prone to drama and sometimes she doesn’t mind) are so small that it’s almost not worth mentioning. Sometimes this freaks me out a little. She’s too good. Too easy going. What am I in for with the teen years? Major payback? Oh well I won’t ruin this by borrowing trouble.

I notice the changes more slowly with Tabby these days, but she still does change. Just recently, she’s stretched out a bunch and seems to be all legs and arms. I’m sure that’s where all the food she’s been packing away is going to. She’s been eating like a horse and still hovering right around 35 lbs. She wears everything from 2T to 4T and I need to measure her again soon because I’m sure she must be inches above her last mark on the kitchen wall.

She seems to have abandoned some of her picky eating ways. We’re having more success with not gagging on “no thank you bites.” She’s also succumbed to my marketing campaigns for this and that. Quiche is gross but egg pie is tasty and delightful. Seaweed? Repellent!! But nori? SO YUMMY!! She will pretty reliably eat meat and cheese (but not string cheese – prefers bleu cheese or sharp cheddar or some of that delightful Wensley-Dale) and most carbs. She just recently discovered grits and I think Matt about burst with pride.

She is becoming a master at the art of negotiation. Some of her favorite phrases these days are, “but Mommy …” and “actually, Mommy …” It’s quite killing to hear her talk in her little girl voice with her adult-like vocabulary. She says almost all words perfectly, though ‘R’s give her some trouble still. Three=”fwee” for example.

Her newest interest is video games. She and Ben have a computer in their playroom. He loves it because it plays his beloved “Buzz!!” but Tabby loves it because she can play all the latest Dora and Kai-Lan games and draw and Skype with her family in Nashville. She also acquired a Dora Gameboy game (you take care of Dora’s puppy) that she is much in love with. We have to strictly limit access or she would play nonstop.

She has also recently overcome her fear of the waterslide at our rec center pool. This is huge for her and wonderful for us. You can only sit in the shallows of the kiddie pool guarding against disaster for so long before you want to scream. Now we can make the long trip up the stairs eleventy million times which is a vast improvement, believe it or not. I think we’ll get to take the kids to Waterworld this summer!

In many ways I am so sad at how fast her childhood is going by, but I dearly love the incredible little person she’s become. She is my little buddy and we both love doing things together … reading, cooking, making things … and the older she gets, the more stuff we can do together. Definitely a silver lining.

A Very Nice Weekend

We packed this weekend to the limits!

Thursday night: Took the kids swimming at the rec center. They both went down the slide about eleventy million times. Ben got water up his nose and decided snuggling was more his style.

Friday morning: Went to a killer workout with H. Triceps still a little sore.

Friday afternoon: Visited the Denver Botanic Gardens with my parents and my aunt and uncle, in town from AZ. Beautiful day. Kids played forever in the little river. Tabby asked a million questions about plants. Ben ran amuck.

Friday evening: Went out to dinner with everyone. Behaved myself admiarably and shunned such treats as margaritas and enchiladas. Had excellent shrimp tacos.

Saturday morning: Ran errands. There is a great shopping center with my two most oft-visited stores right next to each other (instead of 10-15 min apart like near me), too bad this area is more than 25 minutes away. Boo. Had Chick-Fil-A for lunch. 8 nuggets is actually fewer calories than 1 chargrilled chicken sandwich. Who knew?

Saturday afternoon: Manic mode as we prepped for two parties in the evening. I was baking a very complicated cake (and spilling batter all over myself) and then hopping on the treadmill for a run while it baked. Matt was running errands, wrapping presents.

Saturday evening: Went to our sitter’s daughter’s graduation party. Kids had a great time playing in the back yard. We chatted it up with mostly strangers. Then we high-tailed it back to the house to pick up the cake and then to my parents’ to celebrate my mom’s birthday. Dad fixed amazing dinner (salmon) and kids got to ride their plasma cars all around Dad’s newly re-floored garage.

Sunday morning: Loaded the kids in the stroller (way too early) and went for a run/walk with H. Beautiful day.

Sunday afternoon: Had INDIAN food with H and her boys and then checked out pieces of land Matt has been scoping out. Followed by NAPS.

Sunday evening: Had dinner outside. Kids had a bath (I supervised) while Matt worked in the garden. We skyped with all of the Nashvillians for Grandpa Sandy’s birthday. Kids passed out, I did photo management, mourned the end of the weekend.

Oh the Places You’ll Go!

One of our many babysitters (our full-time sitter’s daughter in this case) is graduating from high school. Actually, come to think of it, she’s probably already graduated … but her party is this weekend. We are giving her the graduate standard … money. But I never like doing JUST money. So I decided a nice framed quote from another graduation standard, Oh the Places You’ll Go, by Dr. Suess.

I just typed it out in Photoshop, and using some excellent ding fonts and a couple of graphics decorated it. Praise be to our awesome color printer at work, it came out very nicely. Knowing her style, I think she’ll like it and at very least, she gets a nice 8″x10″ frame to put something else in!

Running Around

I’ve been going through my back posts trying to get some WordPress problems worked out and I just read the post where I made resolutions for the new year. Remember that? Yea, me neither apparently.

One of those resolutions, which I’d COMPLETELY forgotten about, incidentally, was to run a half marathon in under 2:15. I know when I made it I really thought it was pie-in-the-sky, but now, just 5.5 months into the year, it’s DONE. I ran the Colfax Half at 2:12. I’m still a bit in shock. I guess it’s good to be able to surprise yourself.

The really good thing about running is that there is always a new goal. You can always shave more time off your personal best, especially when you’re relatively slow like me. So now, of course, I want to run a sub 2:00 half marathon, which is right around 9 minute miles. I’m doing better sustaining that sort of speed, but I am guessing it will be a while yet.