Helpful

By the time I found the cameras and cords, and got myself together I hear Gwen, she is not officially awake, but she is moving around alot, which I think means she will be awake soon. So today's post will likely be a quick post.
To balance out the rant from the other day, I have been thinking about posting about how sweet and cute Gwen is pretty much all the time. Gwen is super helpful! She likes to help around the house. You can see here she is handing me the trash to put in the trash can. (I was testing out the camera, but the picture is very blurry, I don't know if it was just she was moving or what.) I tease that Gwen has a slight case of OCD, she can not stand when drawers are left open, this has caused a very bad habit for me. Now when I cook I don't bother to close any of the drawers or cabinets, Gwen will always wander behind me and close them. Sometimes this can cause a problem when I am still standing there getting stuff out, or getting multiple things out of the pantry, but what can I say, she's a helper. She also likes to sweep up the floor for me. The last few mornings we have been able to tell Gwen to go get her shoes and she will wander into her bedroom get them and bring them to our bedroom. This doesn't necessarily mean she will hand you the shoes and sit down so you can put on her shoes, but I think we are making progress in the whole follow directions things. Yes, she still picks and choses what she will do. She still really likes to help with the laundry, she has graduated to helping me clean out the lint trap and sometimes she helps me take the clothes out or put them in the laundry.
Gwen also has taken a huge interest in babies, this morning after class one of the little tykes was crying and she kept trying to hug him. We do have to work on her not crushing the babies, this little guy is very healthy, but we are going to have to watch her with the new baby as she was almost laying on the little guy to give him the hug. She has become very loving to other babies, something I am glad about in some ways, but who knows how it will turn out when baby #2 arrives!
It is nice to see Gwen's more altruistic side, I have heard or read or something that children by nature like to be helpful and feel like a contributing member of society, I have been trying to get her to help me with things, like the laundry and we have also graduated to helping unload the dishwasher. I have tried to get her to help me stir things, if she is around when I am trying to cook, but I don't have the patience for that, I don't always have enough time to get her to help me.
Well, she is up now, for real, I just heard her call for Daddy, which means she is ready to get out...I guess she knows who is the sucker in this house already! Busy weekend for us, don't know if we will get many pictures!

Wits end

For the last couple of weeks I have had some problems with Gwen, not major problems, just problems that involve a 1.5 yr old and not understanding that no Mommy does not want you running away from you so you could possibly be hit by a car. Actually this is a problem I have had on and off with Gwen for a couple months. Sometimes she will be great and stand by me and then sometimes she will want to play and run away from me. As you all know there is no reasoning with a 1.5 yr old. How do you explain to her that she will get hurt by a car is she runs out into the street, I am not sure she gets the concept of hurt yet. Today we got home from a play group and running errands and I didn't have enough hands to grab her hand, usually I can tell her to go to the steps and she will dutifully walk to the steps and wait for me. But today, the wind and the fact that it is 39ish and I have some stuff in my hands I guess means lets go run away. The only problem with this is the neighbors have a behemoth of an Expedition and so I can't actually see her if it is in the driveway, which it is today. I let her run off today and then she cried and came back and crawled up the steps by herself. Fast forward to nap time, for the last couple of days getting Gwen to focus, sit and read books doesn't always go well. Today I asked her if she wanted to read a book or get in her crib, she went to her crib and started to climb into it, as if she could! So we said her prayers and I put her in the crib. She laid right down, but she did not go to sleep right away of course. She is now sleeping, thank goodness, but I am not sure she will understand that Mommy loves her, but doesn't want to encourage this misbehavior!
Yesterday after swim class, Gwen's friend's father was there and he watches the girls while his wife and I get changed in the smallest pool bathroom known to man! Seriously, the college kids must have somewhere else to change, 'cause there is no room in that bathroom. Justin says to me yesterday Gwen listens so well, Sophia just ran off on him, but he would tell Gwen to come and stay and she did. I responded with well, she is not your kid, kids are often better when their parents are not around. Sadly, Gwen was upset when I finished changing, apparently Sophia ran off, Justin chased after her and Gwen was upset, Justin thought maybe Gwen felt abandoned. I suspect he was right.
Eric and I have not discussed baby names, and being the frustrating couple that we are, we most likely won't tell you when we do decide. I like that we don't have anybody commenting on the name and giving us a bad opinion on the name that we chose. We lucked out with Gwen I think, it is a nice name that most people like, but certainly I feel that most people you know aren't rude enough to say that's the worst name, strangers on the other hand, give their opinion freely.
My other dilemma is the stroller. Ugh! I do not want to have tons of strollers, we just don't have the room. My dilemma involves that we do the exercise group so I really need to have something that is like a jogger but that will accommodate the car seat since babies under 6mons can't ride in joggers, something about bobbing heads and whatnot. This stroller, seems to be nice compact and has several cool features. I like that it is light, easy to push and will fit in most shopping aisles. It also seems to be the only stroller that will accommodate the car seat. Several of the Moms have this stroller and one of our Moms is using it with her 2 kids. This is really hard to explain, but the top seat goes all the way down and you can use it as a bassinet, the child just slides in and out from the back, the child that is sitting in the bottom, that seat actually pops off and sits on top of the bassinet. What I don't like about this stroller is that it doesn't seem to have much storage space underneath, the child in the back can't see what's going out in front and most important it doesn't have a tray, which Gwen loves to have. She loves to sit up in the stroller and hold onto the tray. The second stroller which is not shown with the tray has the tray, but is hugely expensive and technically our car seat is not approved to fit in there. It is also a very light stroller, but would be a real pain to use in stores and what not, but I also know people with that stroller and it has TONS of storage space underneath. This actually stresses me out more than the fact that we don't have a name picked out, don't really know what we are going to do with this baby (as in where the child will live in the current TH) and that we haven't actually decided if we are going to buy a new car and/or look for a new house. Oh, and what we are going to do with Gwen when I am labor, we haven't figured that out either! Maybe I will be like Beth and have the baby at home (I am not really hoping for that, as I will most likely not have drugs, like last time, but I do like the idea of having Drs on hand if I need them)! The fire station is maybe 2 blocks from our house, so we wouldn't have to wait so long for the ambulance to arrive. If you get a chance go vote for Beth's birth story here. I wanted to participate in the contest, but unfortunately I never put together my birth story!
It seems that since Gwen took so long to get down for her nap it seems that we will not be picking up the camera today, which has finally arrived back at the store. Pictures and such non-wordy posts probably will conclude once the camera returns to our home. It is nice to get some of my rants out, since I know Eric is probably tired of listening to them. But I know how you enjoy the pictures and stories of Gwen.

Water babies wk 6

Wow, week 6 of water babies, such a difference 6 weeks make. Gwen actually leaned into the teacher when she came over to have Gwen swim with her so I let her and then she realized she wasn't with me and started crying. But when it was over (it is all of 10 sec of "swimming") she was fine and gave the instructor a high 5. She did also swim through a hoop to her later in the class, that is progress!
Yesterday was a long day for us. Eric had to leave early to go to a conference, he carpooled, so he couldn't sneak out early and drive back, he got home after Gwen was asleep. She was so tired yesterday she just conked out and slept until 7:30, a full 12 hrs, she has been waking up at 6:30a. Usually I think she chats to herself, but I think she was slightly confused last night because I haven't done the bed time routine in quite sometime. She was so funny, she made me put on her slippers and she kept asking me to take out her bow. Both things we do before her nap.
She is talking up a storm now, not really saying much more but babbling with a few words sprinkled her and there. She LOVES to talk on the phone, so people if you call me and she is not napping, be prepared to talk to us on speakerphone and be prepared to listen to her say something to you that you won't be able to comprehend, also be prepared to really listen, because she uses a very quiet voice when she talks on the phone. Now if I could just get her to do that in Church! Maybe I should tell her to use her phone voice!
This weekend was rather uneventful, Eric had to study so he went to the library. Gwen and I went to the store and she picked out her Easter dress, I had a couple of options for her and she grabbed the one I think she wanted, fortunately she isn't capable of telling me that she really wanted one of the other dresses. We also went to the park and let Gwen run around on Sat, she really enjoys that, you might ask, well what was the temperature, it wasn't actually warm maybe 40s, but it was sunny. Not much else excitement around here, Eric is working a lot, his boss is leaving the company which means a lot of last minute meetings and extra work.
Gwen's eating has improved greatly, sometimes she doesn't eat a thing, but often she does try stuff, and if we are at a restaurant she eats a ton. I think it must be because she gets her food first and we let her move around more, we let her pick at her food and change seats and whatever. Saturday at dinner she ate 1.5 chicken fingers, some french fries, 2 corn muffins and I think something else. She was quite funny because we were in this very funky shaped booth that half way through the meal she walked around. Embarrassingly enough we didn't realize the booth had "window" and she could actually talk to the people behind us. Oops, sorry to disturb your dinner guys! Overall, I would have to say my stress level about the eating has gone way down. I try to make at least one thing she will like, but sometimes don't realize that I shouldn't necessarily season Gwen's pieces. Last night she put a piece of turkey in her mouth and I think got a bit of pepper and wouldn't touch it again. Gwen still loves her fruits, unfortunately she signs for apples when she wants pears, which confuses Eric and I greatly!
Our camera appears to still be in route from the repair shop. It is only coming from St. Louis, I wouldn't expect it to take this long!

Climbing pt 2

Remember how I made that post yesterday about my child not being able to climb...I still stick to that claim, but I amend to say that she has figured out how to get up on the chair, finally. These pictures were taken Thurs. Can you see how proud she is of herself?

I am proud of her also! It seems that I might not have to help her "up, uP, UP" anymore, at least on these chairs. I didn't actually catch her in the act with the camera, so you will have to take my word for it. You do believe me, don't you!?

In other more exciting news we have the laptop back and the camera is shipping back to the store. Apparently they had to replace the motherboard on the laptop. Seems to be working fine now, we will see. Have a great rest of the weekend.

Climbing

I have this theory that there are some children out there who can climb and some who can not. Beth's kids are climbers she has several posts involving the girls on sofas and such. Not our Gwen! I never worry that Gwen is going to climb out of the crib, climb on the sofa, or coffee table or anything else for that matter, because her brain is not wired that way. One of my girlfriends from SS just sit back and laugh because we don't have to worry about our kids climbing up and walking on the chairs in the play area, they try but they just can't. For the last several weeks, possibly months Gwen has an obsession with doing this.

It was kind of funny because we went out to dinner with some friends a couple weeks ago, actually probably more like a month and a half and Gwen "climbed"-more like pulled herself up with her arms, onto the bottom shelf of a metro rack, do you know what I mean, those metal shelves, and then she put her feet up in the air like the above picture. Eric is like, what is she doing...I said she is flying, at least that is what I call it, the closest, my child is going to ever get to climbing. She can crawl up the stairs with the best of them and if something is a relatively short distance off the ground she can climb up it, but chairs and sofas are something she can totally not get onto by herself! (these pictures were taken on Tuesday)
We were "wintry-mixed-in" today, the kids have off of school, I didn't have my exercise group and the canceled MNO! :( But, we did make it to baby #2 Dr appt today, we taped the heartbeat, cause we are dorks, and that is what we do. Everything looks good and I have the dreaded glucose test in 3 weeks, you know where then make you drink that non-carbonated tasting orange soda and sit in the waiting room for an hour while you try not to pass out from the sugar high! UGH!

Monday

Around here Monday was a warm day, in the 60s, so warm, I took Gwen out back to play in her house. Unfortunately for us how the town house is situated, cold days are too cold to play in the house, so we don't often go out there now that it is winter. But Monday, we went out there and Gwen was SUPER excited!

I took this picture so you could see how nice the back of her hair looks now that it has been cut! It was so straggly before and I think Angela did a great job!


Gwen has a good time in her house but I get rather bored, b/c in this state I am not going to crawl in there with her, and even though I really should pull some weeds while I am out there, I am not allowed to do yard work unless I am wearing gloves, one of those lovely pregnancy side effects. Who can remember to do that!?
Gwen is also apparently making up for her lack of nap the other day by taking 2 long naps, today and yesterday. Right now we are looking at 3+, yesterday was a solid 3 hr nap! Poor kid. It seems that we might be winter stormed in tomorrow, which would be bad, not because I would be stuck inside with Gwen all day, but us ladies were going to go to the movies tomorrow night and see a chick flick! How long has it been since you've been to the movies to see a chick flick?
Remember when I mentioned baby #2 doesn't move at all compared to Gwen, well in the last couple of days baby #2 is starting to exert their authority, I swear last night the child was either conducting a orchastra I seriously felt like what the bag of popcorn must feel like while the popcorn is popping. I am hoping that means baby #2 will be defending itself, but I wasn't hoping that it would have to do that inside my uterus. Does this mean I am destined to have 2 high energy children, that go non-stop? Well, I guess since I am used to it, it won't be too much of an adjustment, at least that is what I am telling myself!

Valentine's Day

I know, you are thinking, Melanie, you are so behind, that was last week. I know, but I am behind! This is the first chance I have had to get on the computer all day...I will get to that later. I originally thought I should just post about the day and then I realized I had these back logged pictures. (BTW please don't blame me for typos, blogger spellcheck seems to be down and I am doing this on the big screen, which seems to have affected my ability to spell/see!)

I made Eric some muffins for V-day. I am very proud of these muffins, so I took a picture. The top part is white fondant that I bought from the store and then I kneeded in the red food coloring. I wanted to put decorations around the sides, but couldn't find what I was looking for, so I ended up "painting" some of them with silver pearl dust. I am not so happy with the silver, but that Eric obviously didn't care (cause he has eaten them!) The idea came from one of my Christmas presents, which has 500 cupcake recipes. So far we have tried 4 or 5 of the recipes and they are all good! (we haven't ventured into the salmon muffins yet, so I can't vouch for them). They are jumbo muffins, I sent this picture to my girlfriend, who made the cake seen here. She was on the phone with me while I was kneeding the fondant, giving me encouragement, she called after I sent her the picture and told me if her cake making business takes off she is going to hire me as her assistant! I guess I will never send her this picture, just in case! (you have to scroll down to see the cake I am talking about)

Eric and I were lucky enough to secure the godfather to babysit on Tues of last week so we could go on a date, and try something new, having someone besides us put Gwen to sleep. Gwen was not so happy when we were leaving, we were told she eventually calmed down and one funny story that she had a running nose so he decided to make a break for the bathroom to get a tissue and she clung to our bedroom door and just cried. Poor kid! All was quiet when we got home and since it was the night of the terrible ice storm, we had the whole resturaunt to ourselves! It was lovely!

On Thursday, Eric and I decided to go to dinner again, with Gwen and then pick up the webcam. As I was discussing plans with Eric, this is what Gwen was doing!

She decided it was time for fingerpainting. She went to her drawer, got out all the stuff and put it on her table, where we now do crafts. Needless to say it was 4:30 and I wanted to meet Eric at 5p for dinner so we wouldn't have any V'day craziness. And we didn't, surprisingly enough. Gwen ate like a champ, we had no wait and we were in and out in less than an hour...we weren't even at a fast food resturaunt. I did let Gwen fingerpaint on Sat morning, while we were waiting for Eric to get up. She had a grand time!

Gwen appears to have had a tummy ache this afternoon when I put her down for her nap. Possibly a diary overload incident, what can I say, I get excited that she is actually eating/drinking diary, maybe I give her too much. I imagine one day we will have the same post about her and vegetables one day! I was just finishing my shower and getting dressed when I heard Gwen crying, which is very unusual, when I am in the bathroom with the vent on I can't hear her, but I could hear her over the vent, so I turned it off and listened and she was crying and coughing and then I heard it, throwing up! So, I went in there to get her and found her laying on her back very upset, but seriously, who wouldn't be. She had a mess in the crib and on herself. We cleaned her and her room up and then it was too late to put her back down so I've had a whiny 19 mon old for the rest of the day. I still had to make my grocery list and go to the store and while she was great in the store, when we got home to make dinner, not so much! I do not like the whiny displeased state, she went down for bed very quickly, lets hope it doesn't take several days for her to recover from today!

First haircut

Yesterday we went and got Gwen's hair cut for the first time. Now you can see how she reacts when she encounters something new! This is much the same reaction she had when we went to swim class for the first time, except she was curled up on me, which is obviously getting harder to do!

Here is the damage!
I think Eric was worried we would be chopping all her hair off, but he agrees that she actually looks so much better now, her hair still curls in the back and doesn't look so straggly and looks fuller. We went to the girl that went cuts my hair she does it in her unfinished basement. She is due in 5 weeks! I feel about 10 inches bigger than her around my waist, but some people are blessed carrying their babies better than I do, she complains that the baby is low, and I think I carry pretty high.

Happy V'day

We hope you have a wonderful Valentine's day. Things are fine here, relatively speaking, Gwen and I were able to get out today, since we had a sheet of ice covering everything yesterday, I think about 1/2in. So needless to say, pregnant clumsy one did not leave the house! The blog might be rather boring for a while, Gwen and I had to drop off the laptop and the camera this morning. The laptop has been randomly shutting down and then not powering up and the camera, although not broken like before, the battery holder thing broke off, who knows if they will fix it, but if they call me and try to say no, they will have the wrath of a very angry pregnant woman! They said we should expect to be without the laptop for 2-4 weeks! Is anyone as upset about that as I am? Probably not! So we hope that you have a great day, we hope that all your electronics are working as expected, oh and Mom, that doesn't mean that we aren't going out to get the webcam, maybe we will call tonight!

Water babies wk5!

I know you have been anxiously awaiting the water babies week5 update! We had another very exciting day. Today we unwillingly swam with the instructor, but we went to her and cried, but then Michelle and I made a big fuss that she did it and Gwen gave her a high five. Progress? Katie and I also spoke to Michelle about the next session and she thinks that we could put both the girls in the next group up, where she could potentially learn to be in the water without me having to get wet! Can I get an Alleluia! I really like Michelle, she calls Gwen 'amazing'. I haven't heard her it say that to anyone else, but needless to say if she said through Gwen in the pool, I'll take care of her, I know she would!
This weekend we went to the car show. Gwen really wasn't 100% yet, but we thought we would chance it. She was remarkably good, for someone who wasn't feeling good the day before. She did have an obsession with Mommy, only Mommy could look at her and talk to her and touch her. NO Daddy! I guess that is how we can test if Gwen is not feeling well, lots of Mommy time, ignoring Daddy=sick! Twas a little hard on me, but we survived. Gwen would walk up to the cars and say car, or door and then you would have to open the door let her in and then she would say door and you would have to shut the door and then she would smile at you and knock on the window and such.


In case you are wondering how tall Gwen is, here is a comparison shot, next time you look at a Escalde, think, Gwen as tall as the wheel!
Here are some pictures from yesterday.

I had some ladies over last night so we could work on some baby books, so I made some Brownies, yum! Here is Gwen eating the icing...I did not give her any of the batter, no raw eggs, I have assured Eric I would not give raw eggs until she was at least 3! I think he was hoping with never, but what can I say, who doesn't like licking the batter!
Oh and I almost forgot to mention, today we tried baked ziti...the noodles and the sauce! I am so proud! I haven't decided if I should make a big fuss over the trying stuff, or just pretend like that is what is expected and give her more. So far I am taking the pretend road and not making a big fuss.

19 months

Wow, on our way to 2! I can't deny it now, Gwen is going to be 2 in less than 6 months, should I start planning her party now? I mean we are going to be slightly busy come June/July. Anyhoo, my faithful readers, what has Gwen done in the last month. First let me say, we think she is feeling much better, she is still rather whiny, but no fever and she really isn't eating, but she runs around and wants to hang out with Daddy. Apparently when she is not feeling well, she only wants to hang with me. You can see from this picture, she is anxiously awaiting Daddy's return from the garage, and not necessarily happy about it.
This month we have seen vast improvements in language and understanding. Gwen will repeat the last word you just said to her. Poor kid though, we had to pick one of the toughest names for her to try and say. Which, she doesn't say yet, but I am not convinenced that is because she can't.
When she sees someone she knows she smiles bends down and says Hi! She gets very excited but we are still very lerry of strangers, it takes a lot of time to warm up to people. I am going to try and work on that with her, I have a book about it.
Eating has still been a challenge, but she is doing much better than I expected, she is still stubborn about trying things, but we know she will eventually try stuff and like it, as she now eats a lot of yogurt and drinks chocolate milk!
Reading books is still Gwen's favorite thing by far, she will always hand you a book and demands a book when we get into the car. She likes when we read her books and she loves to point at books and tell us what is going on. As she gets more and more vocal I look forward to her really being able to tell us what is going on!

Gwen has become more loving to other kids, still no concept that she will have a sibling, but she loves to go over and look at the babies, points them out and several of them she tries to give hugs to! One of the little girls already has a big sister, so she knows how to defend herself, i.e. hair pulling, but Gwen doesn't care she keeps hugging her. I worry that I am going to have to monitor her because she might go "Lennie" on them and squeeze too hard!

Some of the ladies are starting to look into pre-schools and some of them require that you already put in applications, Eric and I have not even talked about it, and since she won't be going for another 1.5yr, should I already start looking? UGH!

Tissues!

So, as I said in the last post, Gwen is not feeling well. After I gave her the Infant Motrin, I noticed she was moving around and off my lap! I took this opportunity to run upstairs and change my shirt. I came back downstairs to this!

As you can see, Gwen actually 'blew' her nose on each tissue before disgarding each tissue on the table. She does actually hold the tissue up to her nose and blow, she doesn't get the full concept of it, but she makes a sound with her nose when she blows and we cheer, 'cause as parents that is what we do! I think she gets the use the tissue once thing from her Dad, does anyone else do that, use the tissue once throw it away, grab another tissue and use it? I have always thought it was a little weird and wasteful not to use the tissue more than once in a sitting.
Gwen is currently napping, I expect the drugs will/may have already worn off, so we will see how she is feeling when she wakes up. I am hoping for a long nap that will give all the germies time to leave and allow her to be all better. I can dream! I guess this explains why she has been rather clingy to me, not Daddy, over the last couple of days. Poor kid! Have a great weekend!

PS I should mention that whenever she sneezes she points to a tissue box and often says 'tissue' and wants to dab her nose with the tissue, we of course have to go back over said area, but whatever, you have to learn sometime.

Lathargic

Gwen is running a low grade fever today and kind of lathargic, but we have given her some Motrin and now she has a least moved from my lap! I have a picture that hopefully I can post later that will show she is some what better...she still prefers to be in my lap, but at least now I can leave for a couple minutes and use facilities withour crying!
Hope you are having a better Friday than we are!

HAT!

One of Gwen's latest words is 'hat', now she walks around and puts stuff on her head while saying hat.
I am sure you know how hard it is to make dinner when you have a toddler running around the kitchen saying hat while using your colander (which you need to use BTW) on her head!
I have been obsessed about getting some stuff together on the computer, which is taking up all my time. Some day I hope to get it all together and then I can start posting again...I only have this obsession while Gwen is sleeping, so you can understand why it interfers with my posting. I hope you'll understand!

Water babies wk4!

Oh my goodness, it is already Feb 5, and I haven't posted since Jan! Sorry about that. I have been not so busy, but apparently busy enough that I couldn't post. No pictures, just a bunch of word mumbo jumbo! Friday was a crappy weather day and Eric was home in time for lunch...short day in DC! We didn't do much, since the weather was so terrible, Gwen and I couldn't even go to class, we had not sleet, oh yes, frozen ice! Mommy, is not so good at not falling when she is not pregnant, so we didn't risk the fall factor/hurting Gwen when Mommy landed on her, accidentally of course. Saturday was a busy day for us, we went to breakfast with some families in the exercise group. Gwen was a little grumpy, but that didn't stop her from trying to lick the syrup off my very yummy French toast! Much to Daddy's dismay it also didn't stop her from trying to drinking the syrup from the little cups they gave us! Daddy was not happy! We went and looked at my dream car and I got some new workout clothes! I have no idea what we did Sun, oh wait, we watched the Super Bowl! Eric also finished the steps...at least as far as he could, we ran out of wood. Monday I apparently decided that the house was not clean enough, and have been cleaning like the house has never been cleaned!
So today, is water babies and I wish I could pictures of how much Gwen enjoyed class today. At one point she pushed my arm out of the way so she could dunk her face back in the water...she was totally secured with the other hand. I totally got my workout today, we do a song where "the people in the pool go up and down" which requires us to bob them up and down in the water, she loved it so much she kept saying up-up, Mommy can only lift Gwen out of the water so much before her pregnant body screams NO! She kicked and giggled and smiled and spent a lot of time with her mouth OPEN in the water! Fortunately she has learned how to cough the water back out if she swallows it. Such a change. We, my friend who is in the class with me, wonders if Gwen will actually let the instructor touch her and swim around with her. We haven't had much interaction with the instructor, well I have, but Gwen seems to be unsure of her and curls up into me. I do think that Gwen will get most improved, if we have that as a category. Gwen talked so much today in class, I couldn't believe how chatty she has been all day, she is not usually so vocal outside of the house, my friends' husband is convinced she was saying his name today, while he watched them while we changed clothes. It is nice to have an extra set of hands. So, now off to write up the grocery list, Gwen is taking another long nap probably because of all the fun this morning. Hard work playing in the cold water while Mommy drags you around the pool and stuff!