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!

Easter Sunday!

We spent Easter weekend up in NoVa with Dave's family. It was great to see everyone! When we got home mid-afternoon on Sunday, we had to get very creative about playing Easter bunny! We took turns distracting Delanie so we could do baskets inside and hide eggs outside.




As you can see, this basket is completely full! And everything (except a few pieces of candy) was from last year's Easter clearance! Apparently, I was excited to "spave" in the clearance aisle last year.




One of the few pics where you can see Delanie's face under that mop of hair. We are not willing to fight that battle. We have also dropped the whole "wear one of your 5 new Easter dresses on Easter" thing, and instead opted to let her choose this lovely ensemble.

Since she had just done an Easter egg hunt the day before, this time around was a little different. Delanie proceeded to open each egg as she found it, to see what was inside. She was very bummed to find only Cheerios and goldfish. :)

Not a new Easter gift, but a new talent! Delanie started pedaling her bike in the last week or so!

Other quick news from us:

Delanie has added lots of "interesting" words to her vocabulary, which are making it difficult to set limits and establish routines. Some examples:

"Delanie do you like hot dogs?" "Maybe."
"Delanie you need to get dressed before breakfast." "NOOOOO! After!!!"
"I am making dinner." "Mommy, Come NOOOOWWWW."

The flip side is all the funny things that we hear coming out of her mouth! One of the best things about her experience at school is that she surprises us with what she learns. Regularly she will sing a new song in the car that we have never sung at home. And she is now speaking in paragraphs, giving so many details about what has happened at school or what she sees outside the window.

It is also nice to hear her talk about her relatives. She has distinct memories for so many family members, even if she can't see everyone regularly. She often tells us that she misses someone or loves someone. This week, she longs for her Mimi and Mamo to return, as they spent the first part of last week with her and everyone had a blast. Today in the car she said, "Go visit Mimi on airplane, Mommy."

Another new development: she has started to tell us she is "scared." She said it for the first time over the weekend when her Aunt Kate brought out a scary looking puppet. And again, she said it today when she heard a firetruck. She just looked at me and said, "I'm scared Mommy." Of course, after identifying a fire truck siren and a police car siren, she told me whe was going to wait for the pizza man to come.

Her 2 year appointment was last week. Delanie is an asounding 38" tall. This is again above the 97th percentile, and graphically, it is further above the normal growth curve than she has ever been. Her weight is roughly 30 lbs (she refused to cooperate for that part), which is the 80th percentile. Developmentally, of course, she is right on target, too.

Egg Hunt at Great Grandma Clemons' House

At the starting gate...and GO!

Initially, Delanie had no clue what she was doing! We kept giving her hints about where the eggs were hidden. Good thing the older boys took off in the opposite direction!

Brady is taking it all in!

The Clemons great grandchildren!

Happy Birthday Delanie!

Here is a clip of Delanie blowing out her candles at her birthday party!

Happy Birthday Delanie!

For me, the most stressful part of the birthday party is the presents! So, we took them home from the party and had Delanie open them after her nap. As you can see, pants are optional on your birthday. Are are a few pictures of the present opening, but it was hard to get any pictures because in her excitement, she kept turning her back to me!







Thank you Lukas and Ryan for the garden set! I am very excited to have my own!

Thank you Nana, Papa and Patrick for the Care Bears! They were a big hit with me - I am sure they will be sleeping with me tonight!

Thank you Caleb for all my great gifts - I was especially interested in the bath crayons!

Thank you Reid and Wrenn for this neat sprinkler - we'll have to invite you over to play with it this summer!