Fun with Mama

Its been a really rough week. Ally is a great kid. She is usually very good natured and happy. She sleeps well, for the most part, and usually the hardest thing we deal with is getting her to eat. But this week has been pretty exhausting. I honestly don't know how parents with kids who don't sleep do it. Every night this week and for every nap we put her down Ally starts to sob and wail. Today Ally even "cried wolf" at naptime and yelled "elp elp elp" (help) and Becky had to go in to make sure Ally hadn't gotten stuck in her crib bars. And now Ally knows our names so she cries out for us... Mama, Mama, Mama or Mommy Mommy Mama Mommy... you get the idea. Its awful. We are so exhausted - she does this for almost 2 hours, we go in about every 30-45 minutes to make she she is ok and then we put her back down. I know she is ok, and I am pretty sure its just toddlerhood. Once she finally gets to sleep she stays asleep all night long.
Ally turned 22 months old this week. That means in 2 months she will be 2. How is that possible? It seems like yesterday she almost 1 year old. Where does the time go?
I must admit though that we feel Ally has been at "terrible 2" behavior for a while now. I'm hoping since it came early that means it will end early too.
Tonight after a trying trip to Tar-zhey for diet coke and some cheap toys to keep Ally happy when we fly to San Diego next week we came home ate dinner and played. Here are shots that remind us of why its all worth it. The pure joy and excitement in Ally was priceless. I wish I was able to capture her squeal of delight when she would knock the tower she built over. Just thinking about it now makes me smile.
We have a busy weekend, wish us well as we brave the zoo again to check out the gorillas. I hope to have time to post again tomorrow.

The first thing Ally did was take all the nesting buckets out and "re-nest" them upside down. It was adorable to watch her pick up each bucket from smallest to largest and stack them one over the over so there was no tower. I did not get any pictures of that - it was so neat to watch her do it, she was so serious about it all. Then mama decided to help Ally make a tower of buckets!


Then they knocked the tower down - it was so silly.

Then Ally stacked them up again all by herself. I think she must be brilliant to be able to stack them that high without help. She was up on her tippy toes to reach the top blue one.

Oh they all fell down!

She repeated stacking them and tipping the tower over several times. Each time before she would stack again she gave Becky (mama) a big hug and would sit in her lap for about 5 seconds, then she would collect all the cups and start again.

After the cups it was bath time. Becky usually gives Ally her bath and get the bottle and Ally's room ready for night time. After bath tonight Becky calls to me to ask for help. I came in the room and I saw a very happy Ally stretching her legs while a scantily clad Becky was putting lotion on Ally. Becky said Ally peed all over her so she stripped down in the bathroom and went about the night time routine in her scivvies. It was too funny not to blog about. I even took pictures and blocked out all the sensitive areas but Becky would not let me post them.

Then it was time for bed. I swear in all the world there is nothing better than cuddling a freshly bathed child in her cozy pajamas. Another plus about fall starting is that its fleece pj time!