Toddler Indecision

Last night, while mommy was at work, Tenley and I were playing at home when I realized that she had not eaten and might be hungry. When Tenley is hungry she will usually tell you but if you have to ask her it gets interesting. If you say “Tenley, are you hungry?” she will look at you like you are speaking greek. But if you say “Eat?” she will respond. Go figure!

So I looked at her and said “Eat?” and she responded “Okay!” She ate a bowl of potato cheese soup from Marie Callendars. When she was done she looked at me and said “Hicken” and then pointed at her fingers. I said “Chicken fingers?” and she again responded “Okay!”

Whenever you ask Tenley a question she takes it as an offer and responds affirmatively. So you always have to be careful with what you ask her as she may accept your offer and then complain bitterly if you don’t provide the agreed upon items or services.

Now tasked, by Tenley, with providing chicken fingers to eat and given the lack of said chicken fingers in the house, we piled into the car and headed to the nearest chicken finger emporium. Tenley likes the chicken from Carl’s Jr. so I went there. I was in the drive through line, ordering the chicken when all of a sudden from the back seat I hear “NO chicken fingers…yucky!” Too late, I had already ordered. I figured as soon as we got back home Ten would eat the chicken with no problem. Boy was I wrong!!!

We got back home and I cut up a few pieces of chicken and put them on one of Tenley’s little plates for her to eat. Eating the chicken was the furthest thing from her little mind. She took the plate and dumped the chicken on her Thomas train table and proceeded to mangle the chicken and spread it all over her train set. When I asked her what she was doing she replied “Chicken yucky.”

So once again I was duped into action by Tenley. The action I was performing was providing requested food for my child. The actual action that she got me to perform was giving her a ride in the car. I’m pretty sure if we could see into, and understand, Tenley’s little mind, it would have gone something like this…

Hmmmm, I’m bored. Maybe I’ll get that man to take me for a ride in the car.
I know, I’ll ask for food that we don’t have here. He’ll be excited because I might
want to eat something so he’ll do whatever I ask. That’s a good plan.
Tomorrow I’ll go back to planning on taking over the world!

Most people think of themselves as mommy and daddy. The kids just think of us as staff! Good thing she’s so cute.

Language Explosion

Here is Tenley trying out a bike at Wal-Mart and wearing her most coveted item, the bike helmet!

Other parents always told us that when a toddler gets language that they really get it. I am totally in awe of Tenley’s ability to say words and use them correctly…even the words and phrases that we didn’t know she knew.

Last night as Tenley was watching the Wiggles, for the three hundredth time, she made the usual strange face she gets when filling her diaper. All of a sudden she started yelling, “Potty, potty” and she ran over to her potty chair and sat down. It was so cute but not two seconds after sitting down she looked at me with a slightly worried look on her face and pronounced, “Too late.”

Tonight she is wearing her black princess boots, thanks a bunch Claire, and refuses to remove them for any reason. She is walking around the living room telling me and everyone “Wearing boots!”…”Black boots!” She is so proud of her boots.

After the Wiggles I turned on Oobi, another favorite show, and she named all the characters and then told me “Oobi no boots…Tenley black boots, nice!!”

She talks constantly now and it is totally mesmerizing. She is far more entertaining than anything on TV.

Tagged for Secrets

My friend Maren, from Disneyland, tagged me on her blog for 10 secrets. So here goes 10 secrets, or something like that, of Jeff and Tenley….

10. Jeff likes children’s programming on TV. (I guess not that big of secret to most)

9. Tenley eats 5 popsicles a day. (sugar free of course!)

8. When Mommy is at work Jeff & Tenley frequently eat fast food. Yum!

7. Tenley likes boys with tattoos and motorcycles. She is always flirting with them the most.

6. Like Maren, Jeff can polish off an entire box of Mac & Cheese in one sitting. Also goes for a box of cereal like Cap’n Crunch.

5. Some kids like to wear their parents shoes but Tenley likes to wear our socks!

4. Jeff has been watching the entire series of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” from the beginning on DVD.

3. Tenley likes to put DVDs into the cat box. Nice.

2. Jeff says that Tenley is the most fascinating person he has ever known and at the same time can be the most frustrating person he has ever known.

1. Tenley has started taking her clothes off during the night and has started climbing out of her crib.

Now that I look at these I think they are not all that interesting. But I have now complied with the “tag” from Maren.

Tenleyisms

As Tenley becomes more verbal and learns new words she is becoming more entertaining with her Tenleyisms. Some of her words, though clear when she started saying them, have become increasingly degraded as she gets comfortable with them. One of my favorites is “Dumbo” – her favorite ride at Disneyland. When she first started saying it she was very clear. Now it has degraded to “Bumoan” and if you say Dumbo she then lifts her arms up and down while saying “Up down”.


Lately she has been learning to string words together and this comes out in some funny word combinations. I’m sure she knows what she is saying but half the time I have no idea.

The other day she had me just rolling on the floor with laughter from the statements she made. I had a large coke sitting on the counter and Tenley decided she needed some of that. She jumped up on the couch and pressed her nose to mine and said “Daddy’s Coke?, Daddy’s Coke?, Me Some, Me Some, Share!” She was so insistent and it was the funniest thing ever.

Tonight she started throwing water in the air during her bath and saying “Shower” every time the water hit her in the head. I asked her what she was doing and she said “Taking shower”.

A while back both Michelle and I stated it would be nice if she would just start talking so we would know what she wanted. Of course now she never shuts up and it is really, really cute!

Pumpkin Patch Particulars

Last Sunday we took Tenley to Tanaka Farms in Irvine to roam around their pumpkin patch. Toword the end of October last year we hit a patch in Yucaipa with the Inland Empire FCC Play Group. At that time Tenley had only been walking for a few weeks and was toddling around and falling down a lot. This year she has been walking for more than a year and she was still toddling around and falling down a lot.

Tanaka farms was really nice. It had a very large field of u-pick pumpkins, a hay bale maze, a couple of hay bale towers to climb on, a u-pick vegetable patch, petting zoo, snack bar and tractor wagon rides. Getting into the pumpkin patch lot was a total disaster as they share a driveway with a golf course that was having a luxury auto show, and apparently if you owned a car that cost $100,000 or more it was compulsory to attend. Their $15 premiere parking lot was full and backing up out to the street so the Irvine police shut down the driveway just as we got there. After driving around through the ridiculous traffic twice, we settled on a spot a few blocks away and walked.

When we arrived we found the entrance and paid for the petting zoo and our wagon ride. Then we chose a wheelbarrow and took off into the patch to get a pumpkin. We were looking for something small to medium so Tenley could enjoy carving her first pumpkin. All three of us were climbing through the patch in different areas. Michelle and I were looking for pumpkins and Tenley was looking for anything to pick up and rip apart. Occasionally she would stop and yell for me to look at her. When I did she would lift up one foot completely tangled in pumpkin vines and say "Help!" or point to some decaying piece of vine or her dirty hands and say "Yuk! It was too funny.

There were lady bugs flying all around and we kept pointing them out to Tenley who like a typical toddler was too slow to see them. Finally one landed on her upper arm and then walked all the way down her arm to her hand before flying off. As soon as it was gone she smiled real big and said "More?"

Eventually we found a picture perfect round bright orange pumpkin, and after I talked Michelle into using a can of Libby's and out of buying a second one to make pumpkin pie, we decided to go check out the maze.

I pointed Tenley toward the start of the maze and off she went running along. About 3 or 4 turns into it we decided the maze was boring and we were getting hot so it was off to the petting zoo! We grabbed Tenley and jumped onto the wagon ride to the other part of the farm.
*Note: I would recommend doing this itinerary in reverse- petting zoo, then pick pumpkin so you don't have to haul the gourd with you. It was a good thing ours was pretty small. Also, don't bother with a stroller unless it has 4wd.

The petting zoo was two pens that were enclosed and were full of goats, pigs and a llama. Michelle and Tenley went into the zoo armed with two cones of feed ready to pet the animals. Unfortunately, Tenley still doesen't get the concept of cup your hands, put feed in, hold out to animal. Eventually Michelle ended up feeding the goats the alfalfa pellets & Tenley just held out the empty ice cream cones. The goats, for their part, were remarkably un-helpful. None of them were that interested in being fed- so odd for petting zoo goats.

We got a chocolate dipped strawberry, a huge popsicle, and a soda for our hike back to the car, and then it was back to home having happily kicked off the harvest season and a very busy October.

Quirky Tenley

So as Tenley is getting older her little quirks are really starting to crack me up.

Example #1: Tenley received an American Girl “Bitty Baby” for her birthday from Scott, Gaynor, Lauren and Amanda. I’ve never seen her show much interest in a baby doll before but when I opened the package she oohed and aaahhed over it. Once the package was opened her face lit up and screamed “Baby!” She immediately grabbed the doll and started hugging it and talking to it. The very best part of this is that this doll is the kind where the eyes close when it lays down to simulate sleep. As the doll is lying on its blanket, Tenley runs by and yells “Wake Up Baby!” She continues yelling at the baby to wake up until I finish laughing and tell her she needs to pick up the baby to watch it wake up. She does this with the joy and glee that only a 2-year old can have. She giggles, drops the baby and runs away only to come back five minutes later yelling for the baby to wake up. She is hysterical!

Example #2: I take Tenley to the park and run off some of her excess energy. This seems to work quite nicely most nights. Tonight on the play structure she ran from one side to the other crossing two bridges in the process. On the way by me she will stop, wave and say “Bye-bye, nice time!” Off she goes for another round each time doing the same thing. I think it’s very polite that she is telling me she had a nice time. When she says bye-bye I ask her where she is going and each time the answer is different. Sometimes she is going home, sometimes she is going to the store, and sometimes she is going to the mall. Tonight for the first time she told me she was going to Arizona. Not sure where she heard that word but she said it quite clearly two or three times. By this time I am laughing uncontrollably. To the odd passer by I must look like a total idiot standing around a kids park laughing my head off.

The rest of her strange quirks are all typical little kid things like she hates having sand in her shoes and insists on taking them off to clean them off while still in the sandbox. Never mind that she just finished pulling her waistband out and dumping handfuls of sand down her pants, sand in the shoes is totally unacceptable.

I watched her pull apart a leaf tonight for the better part of 15 minutes. She would examine each piece and talk to it before she cast it aside in favor of the next shred of leaf.

She found a stick on the ground and walked around waving it in the air and when I asked her what she was doing and she said she was drawing clouds in the sky.

By this time it was dark and I was all laughed out so we went back to the car. As soon as the door was opened she yelled “Hi” to George who was waiting patiently in the car for us to return. All the way home she told George all about bridges and swinging and playing in the sand.

She is the most amazing little person I have ever seen. She has so much intelligence and energy and it all comes out in the funniest ways!

WARNING! TENLEY IS 2!

Wow-amazing how fast a year goes! On this day last year I was on a plane headed home from DC with Meg…and Tenley was at home with Daddy trying to walk and turning 1.


Today Tenley is 2. She can not only walk, but she can run and throw herself onto the floor in a kicking flailing temper-tantrum like a proper two year old. She’s adding to her vocabulary daily, and starting to string 2 or 3 words together. Some times this is good (ie. “Apple juice please”) and sometimes this is not so good (“no share- mine!”). She remains happily obsessed with Elmo who has taught her to count to 10…although she sometimes gets lost around 7 or 8. More personality emerges and I marvel at what a bruiser she still is, and yet is already showing the very girly girl characteristics of enjoying shoes, shopping and handbags. Interest is starting to show in things like potty training and in making choices for herself (ie. red glitter ruby slippers must be worn with everything). There are moments where I am just stunned at what a little girl she's become. I look at the pictures from her first birthday party and I laugh- it's hard to believe that it's the same child. She's just changed and developed so much in this last year. My favourite things are how affectionate she's become, and that she now calls me "mommy".

We started this years birthday by getting up late and having breakfast during Jack’s Big Music Show while Ten demonstrated that she has learned what to do with wrapped presents by quickly revealing the 2 cute outfits that Aunty Jen & Uncle Todd sent her.

Then we met up with Kim & Ten’s best buddy Jaxon at Victoria Gardens. We started with lunch at Lucielle’s BBQ. We made a quick trip to Ulta for hairpins & conditioner, and then I introduced Kim to the Lucy (http://www.lucy.com/) store. I love Lucy because it has stylish comfy active wear - perfect for moms. We were the only customers at the time, so we let the kids happily run amok through the dressing rooms while we scoured the sales racks.

After a quick stop at the potty rooms, we turned the kids loose in the fountain where they ran, laughed and splashed as they explored the water and got thoroughly soaked. When they had had enough, we dried them off & headed for home.

Tenley and I finally got home, and Jeff and I decided that Rainforest Café was a good spot for a 2 year old’s birthday dinner. We requested a table by the fish because like all good toddlers, Tenley is fascinated with fish. Sure enough, the fish and animatronic animals were a hit, a cheese pizza was devoured, and Tenley was serenaded by 6 guys in safari outfits who came bearing ice cream.











The mall the restaurant was located in was deserted, so we let her run as fast as her little legs would carry her for awhile; but when we saw the Build a Bear store we caught her & turned her around before we were forced to buy more clothes for George the Cross-dressing Giraffe (Grandma Suzie just bought him shoes, rollerskates, and a leash so Ten can now tow him around). Jeff finally managed to herd her out the door and then we went home to watch the Wiggles before it was bedtime.

It may not sound exciting to us grown-ups, but to a two year old it was a heck of a day.

Happy 2nd Birthday Tenster!
Mommy & Daddy love you.

Shopping With Tenley

When shopping with Tenley at the local Target, its best to let her do her own thing.....

Here Tenley has chosen a large purse to carry around while reading a Little Mermaid book.


Yesterday Tenley chose an orange backpack to wear around the store.


However, the backpack was not enough and she needed a matching football to help her on her shopping trip.

I've found that if you let her indulge herself a little, the shopping trip will go much smoother. The other side effect is that since her hands are full she has no room to reach out and grab items off the shelf. Plus she's really cute!

Sticker Fun

This is what happens when a toddler gets a hold of post-it stickers...

White Trash Child

The other day while Michelle was at work Tenley and I went to Target to pick up a few things. The first problem I did not really notice was that Tenley had a runny nose and was wiping it all over her arm, hands and shirt. Then there was the crying fit she had about being in the car seat again. By the time we got to Target she was a mess. Still, being a dad, I didn’t really notice.

Upon entering Target the first thing that Tenley did was start asking for popcorn and an Icee. Michelle had told me recently that for a dollar you get a small bag of popcorn and a small drink. She had been getting that for Tenley while they shopped. I thought that was a good idea and went over to the food area. Unfortunately there was quite a long line and Tenley, not being the patient type, started crying again. This produced more tears and runny nose which once again was being wiped everywhere but the Kleenex I had.

After we got our popcorn and drink we started our shopping trip. Up and down the aisles Tenley was spilling her drink and wiping her runny nose all over her shirt. Once again Daddy was not really paying that much attention. She was quiet and there was popcorn…what else did I need to know? Somewhere along the way she managed to get something black all over her shirt as well.

Pretty soon the popcorn lost its appeal, the drink was gone and Tenley was walking on her own through Target. Soon enough the crying began again because she didn’t get the Thomas the Train Backpack that cost $25 and was the same size as she is. As the wailing began in earnest, my eyes were opened and all of a sudden I had a white trash baby in Target. She was beyond dirty, snotty, food on her face and in her hair which was half out of its pony tails and standing on end. She had an overall look of neglect about her, like I had shopped at the nearest Goodwill store for her second hand clothes and never bothered to bathe her.

Instantly I became the parent that I used to look at and sneer “Why don’t they take better care of that child. I would never go out in public like that!” I grabbed her, ran to the nearest cashier and paid for the few items I had and raced out of there before anyone had the chance to judge me a bad parent.

Yikes, things are different when the white trash child is your own!