The Technique

This is actually an improvement over the first time I asked her to climb in, when she basically just flung herself over the ledge and onto her head. Still, let's hope she gets a bit better at this before she attempts climbing OUT.

The Bowler and the Climber

Bowler
Originally uploaded by carliches

Two days ago, in the morning, I was sitting downstairs eating breakfast with Louisa and Bridget was upstairs with Bill. It was nearly time for me to leave with Bridget, so I left Louisa sitting at the table and went upstairs to brush my teeth. When I got upstairs, I discovered that Bill was in the shower, and Bridget was in her crib. It seemed a bit odd that Bill had put her in her crib while he showered - she's really old enough now to just wander around be herself for that amount of time. She was just happily standing there, though. She smiled up at me and said, "night-night!" with this devilish grin.

At the time, I just scooped her up and went on with my morning. But then the next day, while Louisa and I were out bowling, Bill walked into Bridget's room to find her standing in her crib. So, evidently, she has learned how to climb INTO her crib all by herself. I have never seen her attempt to climb out of it, maybe because she's typically in a sleep sack when she's sleeping. (Although, now that I think about it, she doesn't wear a sleep sack at nap time.) But does this mean it's only a matter of time before I find her standing right beside my bed when I think she's safely tucked in bed? Or will there be a tell-tale THUD (... WAIL) to alert us to her escape? Oh, this girl. She keeps us on her toes.

Today, though, I took Bridget to the doctor because of the angry red rash on her cheeks. It's a simple contact dermatitis, easy enough to clear up. Especially because - surprise! - once again, the doctor found an ear infection lurking in one ear, and she's going back on antibiotics. This is the second sneak ear infection she has had. The last one, I took her in because she was limping the day after falling off a chair, and her leg was fine but her ear was infected. She just doesn't complain about it, which leads me to wonder if there have been undiagnosed infections that we haven't known about at all.

As for Louisa, she and I went bowling yesterday (because I mistakenly told her that her dance class began yesterday, then realized that it really starts next week. Bowling was a consolation prize for getting her excited about dance class a whole week too early.) It was awesome!! They have shoes that fit her and everything. At first she didn't want to wear the shoes but I talked her into it. She uses the 8-lb ball, and the rails (which she calls the "ball hill") to launch her ball down the lane. I told her that she needs to stay down by the seats when it was my turn so that I wouldn't accidentally hit her on the backswing. It only took one more turn after that until she told me that I needed to stay down by the seats when it was her turn. And then - she got a 60! She got 2 spares! (I got an 86, and at one point I thought she might actually beat me.) I think if she had better rails that weren't bent or if she could learn to roll without the rails, she'd be great. Next time we're going to try with out the rails.

Life Is Like This

So I haven't blogged in a million years. Why? Because life around our house is like this:

Yesterday, Bill and I were talking about how our landline phone literally never rings. Never. We really only use our cell phones but it seemed like the land line should ring at some point, right?

This afternoon, as Bill was walking past the phone in the kitchen, he looked down and noticed that the little red light on the phone was blinking. That's when he realized that the ringer was turned off, and had been for... several months? Roughly? So he turned it back on.

Two hours later, I heard what I thought was Bridget's toy phone ring. A couple of minutes after that, I wandered into the kitchen to find Louisa leaning against the counter, phone to her ear, carrying on a casual conversation. Now, she does pretend to talk on the phone pretty often, but typically she holds those imaginary conversations on Bridget's toy phone. At the time, she was holding the real phone. She glanced up at me and kept talking. "Yeah, me and my mom are going to make some cookies..."

"Um, Louisa? Who are you talking to?" I asked.

"Spring," she said, with this look of duh, mom. Spring is our neighbor.

I walked into the living room where Bill was working. "Did you know that Louisa is on the phone with Spring?" I asked him.

"Spring? Huh?" That's a no, then. At the same moment, Bill and I both realized: that was a real phone that rang?.

Right about then, Louisa called out, "mom or dad? Spring wants to talk to you!"

So, let's recap: we turned the ringer off on our only landline phone months ago, forgot all about it and didn't notice until today. Within hours of turning it back on, the phone rang (Imagine!), Louisa answered it, and proceeded to have a conversation with the person calling. So hey! Who needs an answering machine? We've got a four-year-old! She might be the best weapon against telemarketers. She'll be like, "hi, I'm Louisa, I'm four, I have on sparkly shoes! My sister likes to chase the cats. The cats are crazy!! But one of them is black and one is striped. My tights are striped. I ate pancakes for breakfast. There is snow outside! Yesterday I..." and then I'm betting they will just give up and hang up. Brilliant, no?