Delanie Sings The Hits

Camping at the Outer Banks

We spent Memorial Day weekend camping at the Outer Banks. We went to Oregon Inlet campground, run by the national park service. The campground was just a few sand dunes away from the ocean. The weather was beautiful, around 80 degrees each day, around 50 at night. We didn't see any rain while we were there.

Delanie loved her first camping experience. Before we left, she talked about camping the entire week before. And once we got there, she was very excited. She did a great job sleeping in the tent and staying near us. We realized that we could have brought more for her to do at the campsite, but she still found lots of ways to entertain herself. And, she loved the ocean! The first day, she spent almost an hour running around and screaming. The water was cold, so she would run in up to her ankles and run back out, giggling. As you can see from the picture, we had the beach to ourselves mostly. Only on OBX can you go to the beach on a major holiday weekend and feel like you are on a private island.

We are looking forward to going back soon!

Rules for Dressing Delanie

Over the past three months, Delanie has become increasingly difficult to get dressed in the morning. She would scream, run, cry, kick, hit in order to avoid getting dressed. Often, we had to engage in a wrestling match to get out of the house, and even then, she would escape and try to get her clothes off.

Well, we have finally figured out how we can get Delanie dressed in the morning without a struggle. Here are the rules for getting Delanie dressed in the morning:

1) The night before, pick out two complete outfits and place them beside the changing table. One outfit must include a yellow shirt. Also, it helps to make sure that both bottoms work with both tops.

2) When Delanie wakes up in the morning, you change her diaper as normal. Then tell her, "We can't go downstairs and get our milk until we get dressed for the day." Milk continues to be Delanie's #1 love.

3) If she starts to protest, we just repeat ourselves over and over.

4) Ask Delanie which outfit she would like to wear. Inevitably, she will choose the yellow shirt with the opposite pants, just to fully assert her independence. "Noooo! These pants!"

Since figuring this out, we have had minimal tantrums and even some cooperation on the task of getting dressed. We are growing tired of yellow, but I will take yellow t shirts over tears any day.

Before we learned this procedure (hideous choice from Easter Sunday):




After learning how to get her dressed in the morning (and purchasing 3-4 extra yellow shirts)

**And no, we have not yet figured out a way to get her hair out of her face!!

More April Pics!

Delanie updating the blog

Playing with the new diaper bag that Mimi sent for Easter!

"Reading" her book in the corner

April 2009

A picture of Delanie's bed after nap time. The shelf on her headboard typically houses all the stuffed animals, but they all joined her in bed today.

The weather hit 90 degrees last weekend, so Delanie spent a lot of time in her swimsuit! Here she is at Lukas' party!

Another shot, running through the sprinkler!

And swimming in the pool!