Sesame Place

En route to New Hampshire, we made a stop at Sesame Place in Pennsylvania. Sesame Place is all things Sesame Street, designed for 2-7 year olds. We caught the park on a cloudy day, which made for very few lines. The park also has a lot of non-mechanical features, like slides and climbing structures, which is a huge plus for a toddler.




Dave and Delanie went climbing on these giant nets, which are suspended about 25 feet in the air above the park. The entire structure was nets and net tubes.

Here is a picture of the only "ride" we did - hot air balloons that spun around in the air. Delanie did much better than me, I was complaining of motion sickness from the start.

Sesame Street runs through the middle of the park, and it is built to be played in. Storefronts and staircases are real, so kids can use their imagination to explore. This pictrue was taken while we got caught in the rain, Mommy is under the eave at Mr. Hooper's store!

The shows and parade were the highlights for us. During the parade, several monsters went up and down the side, shaking each child's hand. Think rock concert for toddlers. Delanie went between being terrified and being excited, based on how close the monster actually was.

All in all, a very fun day! It was great seeing how excited Delanie was at the park - she wouldn't even sit down to eat! And, what a good way to stretch our legs during the drive. We will try to stop again on the way back through when we head home this week.

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!

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.