What's Your Name?

We've been working with Riley on saying her name, for a while Riley was pretty tough for her to say so she called herself "YaYa." But I think she's got it now!

PS: How cute is her hair in a pony tail!?!

They Say 3 is Worse Than 2

I know she's not quite 2 yet but we've seriously hit the terrible 2s, HARD! People have been telling me that 3s are actually worse than 2s and I am afraid, very afraid. I'm reading "Happiest Toddler on the Block" since "Happiest Baby on the Block" helped get us through the colicky stage. I haven't gotten too far, other than to find out that she is a "spirited child," which right there sound scary and challenging. Fortunately, I also hear that if they hit the 2s early, they are often more intense but the phase is shorter and ends earlier but still, Riley is extremely challenging lately, and well if I didn't laugh about it, I would probably cry and go crazy. So here are some stories for you all to laugh about at my expense.

Story #1: Friday, I told Marc that I would pick up Chinese food for dinner for us, mostly so I could give Riley some for dinner and not have to worry about coming up with something for her to eat. Since I've gone to my new schedule I've been working 7-5, I don't get much time with her in the evenings during the week now so I thought it would be nice to pick her up and spend a little extra time with her and take her with me to get our dinner. First mistake!!! We got to the restaurant and got out of the car (after hearing "Elmo" repeatedly for 15 minutes) and went in, she was fairly shy at first so she clung to me despite being asked to be put down. I paid got our big box of food (we like to have leftovers) and asked her to hold my hand while we left. "No," her second favorite word behind "mine." I was like great, here we go, even though it was fairly early, around 5:00, the restaurant was full of people. I put our food down, quickly grabbed her as the tantrum began to take full force and jetted out of the restaurant. Once outside I put her down since she was straight arming and arching her back and I also had a box full of food in my hands, she proceeded to lay down on the ground on her stomach and threw a fit in front of a restaurant full of people. Everyone was pointing and laughing. I don't blame them, it was a ridiculous scene, I was sort of chuckling too, which made her that much more angry. I went to the car (which was like 10 feet away) and put the food down and then headed back to get Riley who was still on the ground screaming and scooped her up and then wrestled her back into her car seat, sweating since it was nearly 100 degrees out!

Story #2: When we got home and after the food was put away I decided to let Riley play out front in her Little Tikes car for a bit since Marc said that morning she really wanted to play with it. We pushed it up and down the street a few times and each time she wanted to go farther and farther. Our garage was open and the house completely open so I told her we had to go back closer to home but that we would still play with her car, just in front of our house. "No!" When I tried to turn her car around and push her back she put her feet down and would scream bloody murder. Well a lot of the neighborhood kids were out playing and their parents were supervising. Massive fit ensued. I pulled Riley out of her car and because she was fighting me I had her tucked under my arm pit like a football with her kicking and screaming and me pushing her car with the other hand. Hello, neighbors, welcome to my life, I'm going in for a HUGE glass of wine now!

Story #3: We were food shopping Sunday and Riley REFUSED to sit in the cart, when we tried to trick her into sitting in it she stood up in the cart and screamed in the middle of Safeway. Her favorite place to scream, the checkout line. Sunday she decided to chuck her pacifier and throw a massive fit. Marc walked off in his zone with me holding her screaming "uppauppa, nooooo, down" bending over, trying to get her pacifier. Lovely!

If I didn't laugh, I would cry! And 3s are really going to be worse than 2s!?! Oy!

Lost Count

We've pretty much lost count of the total number of times that Riley has been wine tasting with us. Marc used to keep a tally on the fridge, it started with her first trip to Mitchell Katz (our favorite winery in Livermore and the place where we are club members) when she was just 2 or 3 weeks old. I had her in my little sling and I walked around a January release party there with her snuggled up against my chest. People didn't know if it was a baby or a puppy but when they saw the itty bitty baby in there they were amazed and so we started tallying how many times she tagged along with us as we made our rounds in Livermore, Napa, and Sonoma. We're even on the picture board in the barrel room at Mitchell Katz, though I have yet to find it, but the photographer for the events tells me that Riley and I are there.

Well fast forward 20 months to a walking, head strong, verbal, active toddler. We've been a bit scared to take her release parties recently. Mostly for 2 reasons: 1) Is it appropriate to bring a toddler to a wine release? (I always think of the line from "Sweet Home Alabama" when Reese Witherspoon's character is back home and runs into a high school friend in a bar and she says "You have a baby, in a bar?") and 2) The tantrums can be out of control if Riley doesn't get her way, which in this case would be running off. But this weekend we decided to brave it, mostly because I LOVE his sparkling wine and we were fresh out. So Saturday after Riley's nap we went to lunch (cause a full, rested Riley is a happy, more patient Riley) and then went over to Mitchell Katz to give this release party thing a go. We just bought the Ergo baby carrier in June because that way we can wear Riley on our backs or on our hip so I stuck her in the Ergo and headed in. They all know Riley over there so they were shocked to see how big she is now (we've missed the last few releases and since Marc can get his favorite wines at Safeway we haven't stopped in for a while), all of the ladies that work there just adore her and we're oooing and awing over her. Even the security guard at the front checking IDs commented on how long it's been and how big she is.

I must say, it was a much better experience than I anticipated. Riley was fairly cooperative in the Ergo as long as I kept moving and giving her cheese. A bunch of random people stopped us to say hi to her and talk to us, people were very open to us being there with her. We even saw one of Riley's friends, Isabella, from day care and her parents who happen to live right by us. It was fun to get to know her parents a little better, we often run into them at Peet's or at day care and say hi to them but never really got to know them. Isabella is getting ready to move up into Riley's class and Riley was super excited to see her. She did quite well in the Ergo though she started to get antsy after about an hour so I headed out front, where they have a huge grassy lawn, and let her run around (despite it being like 100 degrees out). There were a bunch of other kids (boys ranging from about 6-8 years of age) playing football out there and immediately Riley took off to get involved in their game, I'm sure that's just what they wanted, a not-even 2 year-old girl joining their game.

Off to join the boys. She has no fear!

As you can see, I lost the hair clip battle this weekend!

Waving goodbye to her friend Isabella!

Wine release party was a success!

Sunday we headed up to Vacaville to check out the new True Religion outlet, I scored 2 new pairs of jeans and Riley scored some new pj's since the last few nights we've put on her sleepers and it looks like the flood waters were on their way! She has really sprouted. They also had a bunch of footless, fleece rompers which are hard to find so we stocked up for winter. We also scored big time at lunch. Not only did Riley eat but it was a tantrum free dining experience for us! Double score!

Rare Form

Riley was in rare form tonight. She has a little bit of a cold so she's been a bit cranky, which is unfortunate because we appear to be in a little teething lull right now, so while she was entertaining herself with her books in her room I escaped to go change out of my work clothes. When I returned this is where I found her; in her closet, sitting on a sand bucket. with every single pair of shoes that she owns around her as she tried one on at a time. At first she didn't know if I was going to get mad at her or not but when I started laughing she continued trying on her shoes for me and was even kind enough to pose and smile for the picture (unfortunately her "meme" is blocking her smile. I know, I know I need to break her of it but her teething has been so bad over the last month that I haven't had the heart to break her of the one thing that provides her comfort and peace and quiet for Momma and Dadda!).

Riley loves putting on her own shoes and she's actually quite good at it, she usually gets it on the correct foot and can loop the straps through the loops, probably because she likes to help with her "night night" shoes so she has lots of practice. This video isn't a great example of her mad skills, I think sitting on the bucket in the closet was throwing her off.

After trying on her shoes she decided that she needed to put a swim diaper over her clothes (and normal diaper), which she did by herself, somehow she even managed to put it on correctly (with the front in the front) and walked around saying "poopoo." I guess sometimes two diapers are needed and you can never be too safe! At one point she asked to go outside and I told her I didn't think it would be appropriate to go outside dressed like this.
























Then she needed to check for "poopoo"





















Just making sure...





















Yes, she was definitely in rare form tonight!

Broke Down

Well, we finally broke down and joined the rest of suburban families everywhere and made a trip to Chuck E Cheese's. We woke up to a rainy Saturday and decided it was as good of a day as any to check out Chuck E Cheese's for the first time. That and we wanted to do a little reconisance work for her birthday party. After Riley's nap we headed over, we hyped it up pretty well but she still had no idea what we had in store for her. Riley LOVED it! She loved watching all of the older kids, she loved all of the rides but most of all she loved the fact the she could run around without us telling her that she had to hold our hand! This girl has no fear, she wanted nothing to do with the slow, little kid rides, she wanted to ride the big kid faster rides. Her favorite of the day was the carousal! She was a little afraid of the band but I don't blame her!

Riley did like this ride in the Toddler section, I think she mostly liked the mouse, but you can decide for yourselves:

Riley also liked the slide in the Toddler area, Marc also liked it, it didn't cost us any tokens. :)

Marc and I showed off our skee ball skills to Riley and we left with 23 tickets, not too shabby for her first time! We're saving them for something really cool!
Now for some pics -
On the carousal for the first time:

My view of Riley during lunch, she was so busy watching all of the other kids running around that all I saw was the back of her head! :)

Actually eating! I post this because between all of the teething over the last 6 weeks (she cut 3 molars last week alone and now has a total of 10 teeth, she only had 3 at 18 months) and a stomach virus this past week it's been a while since she ate. I was a little worried that with all of the action around her that she wouldn't eat but she chowed down on her pizza.

Riding Bob the Builder Ride:

Getting ready to slide!

And doesn't she look stinkin' adorable with a clip in her hair??? I decided it was time Riley start accessorizing (that and her bangs have been in her face but she's not ready for a haircut yet!) Good times, I'm sure this is the first of many fun times at Chuck E Cheese's!

ROCKED IT!

Friday Marc and I took Riley up to Dr. H for her quarterly clubfoot checkup and as you can probably guess from the title, Riley ROCKED IT! Friday was a pretty cool day all around, it marked my first of many every other Fridays off. I've switched to a Flex Schedule and now work 7AM-5PM with every other Friday off. The evenings are a little hectic, especially since Riley still goes to bed at 7:00 but I'm loving having a weekday off (every other week) with Riley. I'm going to sign her up for Gymboree again, I can't wait! But I digress. Now on to the important stuff, our perfect feet!

Marc worked at home and we headed up to Walnut Creek, Dr. H said that Riley's feet are doing amazing, she looks great, and they are right where we would want them to be! Hurray! He did comment on how small Riley's feet were, I think he referred to them as miniature versions of feet. I told him he should try finding shoes for her, my new mission is to find rain boots for her, not an easy taks for size 3.5 feet! :) Riley's started fighting the brace a bit at night and with my new schedule getting them on by 6:00 is a bit tough so I asked him if it would be horrible if we put them on at 7:00 when it was time for bed and take them off at 6:00. I guess the way I worded it he was afraid I was going to ask to quit the brace, I was like "come on, this is me we're talking about!" So he was totally on board with us bracing 11 hours during the week, saying that we have to live in reality and 12 hours is best but he knows this is real life. The weekend she's usually in them 13-15 hours anyway so I think it will pretty much net out. After her appointment we went to downtown Walnut Creek to go shopping and got home pretty late and Riley actually asked for her shoes to be on. Tonight we actually made it until bedtime without a meltdown and put her shoes on, read her story and then off to bed. I'm liking this new schedule. And our next appointment...drum roll...when Riley is 2!!! Ay! I can't believe we can even talk like that!

Of course Beverly, Dr. H's office manager, LOVED seeing Riley. I've been working with Riley on saying her name for the past few days and it comes out something like this "bweverleelee." But it was good enough cause it earned her a Ty Beanie Baby Bunny, a gift from Beverly!

As we left Riley ran to Beverly and gave her a hug and kiss. They are so good to us there!

Napa

Marc wanted to check out the Lucky Jeans Outlet this weekend so since Napa was the closest one we decided to head there and since you're in Napa, you have to hit a few wineries. We hit two excellent wineries, Etude and Bouchain. Super tasty wines, Bouchain had 2 excellent Chardonnays! Riley was quite good and had fun walking around, Etude had a nice outdoor patio where Riley and I spent most of our visit.

Holy Cow!

How can it be that Riley is already 20 months old!!! Holy COW! For a couple of weeks now friends have been telling us how big and grown-up Riley is starting to look and this month's trend photo really let's me see it! Don't get me wrong, she's still small for her age but we can tell developmentally that she's grown leaps and bounds in the last month and her pants/shorts are definitely creeping up her leg, I've actually bought her a few tops in 2T that fit her pretty well though she's still in 12-18 month pants. It's hard for me to see the changes when I am with her every day but looking at her picture from last month really shows how she's changed.

Riley is talking up a storm!!! She pretty much says everything and loves to point to things and tell us what they are - "door," "open," "truck," etc. This morning she felt something and told Marc it was wet, it's amazing to see how much she knows now that she can communicate it. Now I guess we are waiting for her to start saying sentences. Unfortunately, Riley's current favorite word - "mine." And everything is hers, even the fountain at the park down the street. We're so ready for this phase to be over!!! She now has 7 teeth, including a molar and most of them have popped in over the last month, so needless to say, it's been a sleep deprived month. Riley still loves her baby and she LOVES shoes! She also loves to get into the car, point to the ceiling and say "Elmo, Elmo, Elmo" over and over, I have to explain to her every morning that Momma's crappy company car can't play Elmo like Dadda's and we are lucky it gets us to and from school/work! She doesn't find that acceptable most mornings! :)

Monthly pictures are very challenging, Riley is like a moving target, I can't wait until she gets that if she cooperates we will be done quicker. But I did get a "watermelon dance" during our "photo shoot." And she insisted that her backpack be next to her, so most of our monthly pictures look like a Pottery Barn Kids ad!

PS - Make that at least 8 teeth! I felt that a top molar had popped through tonight when I put her down to bed.

Labor Day Fun with the Koch's

Sunday our friends Greg and Lyndsay came over with their 2 kids (well really 2 1/2 kids since Baby #3 for them is due the end of December), Xavier and Clara. We set up the Girafalaf pool and the slip n slide and threw some hot dogs and hamburgers on the grill for some Labor Day fun. The kids had a blast and it was so fun seeing Riley and Xavier (who is pretty much exactly a year older than Riley) interact and play. Riley is going through a "mine" phase so we definitely had to work on the sharing without throwing a temper tantrum but the kids had a blast. Riley and Xavier loved the slip n slide and Clara was super cute hanging out watching the big kids and sitting on Riley's chair, she crawled into the family room and climbed right onto Riley's chair and just hung out, it was super cute.

Xavier told Riley that he wanted to show her something, after Riley looked at him with a blank look, I told him that Riley didn't understand because she's still a baby but if he took her hand and led her to what he wanted to show her that she would go with him, so he took her hand and sure enough Riley got up and they went off hand in hand to play on the jumper, it was the cutest thing. Of course neither Lyndsay or I had our cameras handy to capture the cuteness.

Riley was excited to get her Labor Day festivities under way:

The three kids in the jumper before playing in the water:

Slip n Slide!!!!

Beautiful Clara:

Playing in the pool:

Xavier's turn to slip n slide!

What a great weekend! I wish every weekend could be a 3 day weekend!

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Saturday, we ventured down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, it's about an hour an a half/2 hour drive from our house, which in case you are wondering is 3 Elmo DVDs later. We had every intention of getting a hotel room down there and spending the weekend in Monterey and maybe hitting a beach but the room rates were outrageous (I won't go into the part about my husband waiting until the week before Labor Day to look for a room) so we just went down for the day. We packed up bright and early and drove down and got to Monterey just before lunch. We had a little lunch at a brew pub before Riley had her "I'm hungry meltdown" in the aquarium. After lunch we headed to the aquarium, it was quite crowded but we were very impressed with the whole aquarium and Riley loved looking at the fish. Her favorites - the seahorses - we went home with a pretty pink seahorse that she has hardly put down since our trip on Saturday. In fact yesterday she insisted on napping with her seahorse and with YaYa (her baby). The second biggest hit was the Splash Zone where Riley got to touch kelp, starfish, and a sea cucumber. I loved watching her feel all of the different sea animals and delight in it. My dad used to take us to La Jolla Shores in San Diego during low tide when my brother and I were younger. We would walk about a mile down the beach to the tide pools where we would find all sorts of sea life - crabs, starfish, octopus, sea cucumber, sea anenomes. Some of my fondest memories were our trips to the La Jolla tide pools so watching Riley explore of the ocean life was super neat, even if it was from behind glass. And of course Riley LOVES water so it was basically heaven for her. She even loved standing on the viewing deck and looking out over the Bay. Here are some pictures from our day set to one of Riley's favorite songs, I thought it was fitting. :)

In true Zimmerman Shenanigan style we stopped at the Gilroy Outlets on the way home and did some shopping...Riley scored most of the clothes, including her Halloween costume, which will be revealed at a later date! :) She was a good sport, riding home in her "night night" shoes (which she hasn't done in nearly a year) and going to bed well past her bedtime.

Habitot

On Saturday we headed into Berkeley to meet up with our friends Jenny, Josh and their little boy Jake. We haven't seen Jake since his first birthday and he has started walking since then, he's actually now running so he and Riley ran around the entire Habitot. Unfortunately, Riley demonstrated what the "terrible 2s" are all about and had a few temper tantrums while we were there, we have entered the "mine" stage which I could have done without.

Riley was so tired from all of the excitement that she fell asleep while eating.

Hump Day

Riley and I had a little Hump Day fun this afternoon since it was warm out!

Lunch with Duckies

Sunday Marc and I took Riley up to Blackhawk Plaza, an upscale outdoor mall about 15 minutes away that has a huge pond with ducks and lots of cute restaurants that line it. I took Riley there with Shari and Ryan one Saturday afternoon and she had a blast feeding the ducks so I figured it would be a fun time for her. The weather wasn't too hot and not too cool so it was the perfect day to sit outside, have some margaritas, lunch and let Riley feed the duckies. Riley of course loved feeding the ducks, although for every piece of bread she gave the ducks she had a piece herself.

Riley minions, the geese were a little too aggressive for my liking so Riley ended up finishing up the feeding process on my lap since they kept snapping at her little fingers. It was also sort of a bully and kept snapping at all of the cute little ducks, I didn't like the Swan:

Me and my RiRi:

Since she finally has more than 2 teeth (we're up to 6, maybe 7 depending on whether or not the final front bottom has cut yet, it's just about there) we let Riley try a chip for the first time. Of course because we were eating salsa, she insisted on having some salsa even though I told her it was too spicy. She couldn't suck up the milk fast enough!