Annie My Pal

Tori spent much of this past weekend with her aunt Annie while her parents and big brother Ollie attended a funeral. She went to McDonald's to eat with Annie as well as shopping at Target where she walked around. She was a busy girl and slept through Monday and Tuesday night. Let's hope she is going to continue this sleeping trend.

The Words

The house has become more noisy lately. Tori has begun speaking and mimicking words. She has 4 regular ones. Hi (while waving), Yeah, No (the most popular) and Here. These are repeated over and over until she gets tired or distracted. She even seems to be getting Mama down as she demonstrated tonight while getting out of the bath. Mama mama mama over and over to let her mama know she was done. In no time we'll have to ignore 2 chatter boxes.

Quick Pics from our Last Trip

Finally, the scary dude.

Not Feeling So Well

Due to the change in weather, Tori has a cold. She is also teething again, gritting her teeth whenever possible. Last night was rocky at best. She woke up at 12 and I gave her a bottle. She slept on my shoulder but cried when I put her down. I brought her to bed with us because she was cold and she slept there until 4. Then she woke up again and her dad tried sleeping with her in the recliner but that didn't work so well. She was up by 5:30, raring to go but sneezing a lot. I dressed her in a hot pink outfit with black fringe. She spent the rest of the morning playing with her fringe.

On another note, Tori loves Aunt Annie. She spent most of last night banging her head on Annie's door to be let in and let out. She also likes to sit with Aunt Annie and watch her play games and talk to Uncle Dale and Darin and Grandma Vickie.

Looks like Tori will have a new playmate in March when the babysitter gets a new grandchild. Tori won't be the baby anymore. I hope she takes it better than Ollie did, who did not like sharing Sharon with two babies. Ollie told me all about it, of course, and when I asked him if he would like a new brother or sister some day, he said he would rather us take Tyler his cousin!

Mom onboard

If you have read the post for Ollie's blog today, then you already know that Tori's mom has jumped onto the bandwagon and will now be contributing to the blogs from time to time.

Tori is Ollie's opposite, more outgoing and daring than he. The folks who came to our yard sale this weekend did not bother her. In fact, she followed a lot of them around. She enjoys walking up to people and watching them. She also likes to walk around and say, "Hi." Yep, when she is in the mood, she will now say hi to you. She might even say no if compelled. The jury is still out on that one.

Tori's other passion is walking. That child will walk everywhere, in the store (unlike her brother whose legs always seem to be broken), in front of the house and maybe even around the block. Tori loves to take off walking down the sidewalk in front of our house. When it gets warm again, I am going to see how far she can get around the block. I know she can walk to the corner of our street with no problem and down to the house with the train mailbox. I bet she can get farther. The only problem will be her attempts to turn around and walk the other way. She likes to go in both directions and gets distracted easily by stuff on the ground and people's driveways. Wish me luck when I take her on this venture!

2 Nights

Tori made it 2 nights in a row. We don't know why, but we aren't rocking the boat. Last night was definitely due to being tired. We had a garage sale yesterday and Tori spent most of the day playing outside with the merchandise. She was a great merchandise model and displayed all the toys for the potential buyers. She was particularly adept at displaying the kids chairs. She spent most of the day sitting in them. Discouraging potential buyers. Despite this, we still sold one of the two kids chairs we had for sale.

During the day, she took a 3 hour nap. She went to bed early, but still almost slept 12 hours. I'm sure her other routine will return tonight since we are going back to work tomorrow.



Tori also has 1 full molar in. The rest are suspiciously missing. Maybe we'll see them soon.

Special Powers Returned

After Tori sent Tyler her special message, he sent the same message right back to her for this past weekend. She is getting teeth and was up moaning or crying about every 20 minutes the last 2 nights. Nothing soothed her and we slept together in the recliner for a little sleep. Sunday night was better, but she's still crabby, but not as bad.



Her worst night seemed to be Friday night and it seems to have been a little better last night. She actually was quiet from 2 to 5. Hopefully that streak continues. These teeth should make 10 total, but we really can't tell for sure, because every time we try to count them, we get a digit bitten off. I'm sure the rest of her teeth will be just as bad of an experience for her and worse for us. The eye teeth are supposed to be the worst, unfortunately, they are also the last. The momentum seems to be building towards that crescendo.

Trip

Tori went a travelling this past long weekend. She was fairly well behaved for someone who doesn't like being couped up in her car seat for long. The first day of our trip we went to the St. Louis Zoo to tire the kids out before the rest of our trip began. Tori LOVED the fish and all things under water.


She didn't like the bird that stole her french fry from her hand while she was eating. We also went to a farm park and saw many animals, but Tori was mostly tired and didn't enjoy this much, but she stayed awake for the entire trip to the park.




She fell asleep on the way home and had a good nap. In the afternoon, played and played and played more. We even took her to my former elementary school so she could get rid of her cabin fever. She played more there too. After that we went back to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner and more playing.



Sunday we got up had breakfast and headed back to St. Louis in the afternoon. Just in time for her nap. After getting to the hotel, she was tired and crabby from skipping a second nap, so she went to bed early with the rest of us.

Monday wasn't too bad as it was a short trip home. Luckily, she took the day to return to her former glory and be a happy girl. It took a toll on her and she needed some time to recoup. Hopefully her next trip will go a little smoother for her.

I Was Wrong

Apparently, I slept through her second night of sleeping through the night. Her Aunt Annie went in around 12:30 and put her back to sleep. Since then, it has all been down hill. She's been waking at least once, if not 2 times a night. She doesn't seem to be cold, and she's always at the top of the bed. She may be banging her head against the rails, which wakes her up. I hope she figures out how to turn around soon. She's more active in her sleep than her brother ever was.



Her Mama and I will be battered and bruised from sleeping with her on our trip this weekend. She packs a good wallop in her sleep. We are hoping to tire her out so we all can get some rest. Its a good plan, but she usually destroys them, just like the bumper on her crib.

The Key or Molar?

Tori has been sleeping better the last 2 nights. I had turned the fan down the night before, hoping that she was waking because she was cold. Yesterday she awoke at 4:45 am, so with a little warmth and bottle, she went back to sleep. Last night, her Mama turned off the fan and Tori made it until 5:30 am without waking up. The evidence indicates that she was cold, but there could be another cause.

She is getting another tooth. We can feel a molar pushing through her bottom gum on the left side of her mouth. If her pattern of getting teeth holds, she'll have another one on the right side shortly. This could be waking her up, but she hasn't had a real bad night of sleep in awhile. We'll have a better idea if she sleeps through the night tonight. Then again we may never know. As long as she's sleeping through the night (or getting close to it like the last 2), we won't care if we ever find out. If she isn't getting enough sleep, she can take a nap on the way to the sitter's like she did this morning. In the meantime, Tori will just have to claim her teeth hurt to get more ice cream.

Rocker

Tori loves to bounce on things (See here). She loves riding Ollie's horse on the porch. She'll sit on it forever if our arms didn't give out from all the bouncing. She'll bounce in your arms when you hold her. She'll bounce while sitting in a chair. Any motion and she'll be content.

When we went to the Farm Park last weekend, they had a saddle in one of the displays for kids to sit on. Ollie didn't want anything to do with it. Tori didn't complain at all. She even tried to make it bounce like the horse ride at home.


Hay doesn't bounce, so her ride was over quickly. All the bouncing makes me wonder if we'll be purchasing a trampoline in our future. It also makes me wonder if she'll ever sit still.

Little Kisser

Tori has turned into a little kisser. She doesn't have the technique or the aim right or consistent. The technique starts when she opens her mouth wide and comes at you at full speed. This results in her missing her mark most of the time. You'll end up kissing her nose, 1 lip, the inside of her mouth and sometimes for fun the flat underside of her tongue because she is sticking it out at you!

She gave her Mama and Dada plenty of kisses last night, alternating between us. She thought it was a fun game and we only had to towel off a little. It is just another progression in her becoming a big kid like her brother. Its hard to remember sometimes that they were both so small and then they come at you at full speed.


Tori with her cleaning brush and apron on.

Out Like A Light and Sleeping Through the Night

For one night, Tori slept through the night. She complained vocally when she had to go to bed for only 5 minutes. That beats the 45 minutes from the previous night. We must've tired her out with all the activity last night. She walked, played, bathed, swam in the pool and had all kinds of fun.



She finished her bottle, was changed and sent to bed a bit after 9. I was surprised she was out that quickly since the previous night lasted so long. I was even more surprised that she made it all night. I doubt it'll repeat tonight, because she's not good at maintaining habits.

Walking and Sleeping

Tori spent Saturday walking around the Farm park. She walked every where she could. To the animals, down the pathways, in the school, around the porch swings and around the playground. She didn't want to be picked up, she just wanted to walk on her own, picking up things along the way. She fed several goats and came back with all her fingers intact. Apparently toddler fingers aren't on the goats menu.

She was worn out after almost 3 hours of fun, so she fell asleep on the way home and sacked out for several hours.

Sunday night was a test for sleeping. Tori got a late nap on Sunday and wasn't falling asleep to her usual routine. So, we dumped her in bed to let her cry it out. 45 minutes later, she had worn herself out and fell asleep. As good as this was, she still didn't sleep through the night. She woke up at 2 and was soaking wet. After being changed and drinking an ounce of bottle, she fell back asleep because she was too exhausted to eat. She was groggy this morning, but eventually woke up. We are going to try to let her cry it out again tonight and change her diaper before bed. Maybe then her parents can get out of the habit of waking at 2 am.