In & Out

Though the title of this post reminds me of a favorite burger joint that Justin and I enjoyed while he was in the Navy in San Diego, my "in and out" reference is to the weather! This month has had some beautiful days in the high 40's to high 60's and we are trying to enjoy them as much as possible. On those cold days we've had to retreat inside again. We went to the Georgia Aquarium this month and had a great time... it was Lana's first trip there and she liked it very much. She, of course, liked being able to touch things more than look so she enjoyed the touch pool for the sea urchins. Mammie went with us and it is a lot of fun.

On the days it was too cold to play outside, we also enjoyed some art, the loathed "animal rescue" game that Lana has made up, too much tv, puzzles, books, and playing in the tunnels.

When we could go outside, we have mixed in some yardwork... lots of transplanting and pruning and planting of shrubs with Lana digging in the dirt. Everytime I dig a whole to transplant something, she is right there to sit in it and play a game in the dirt. On one day that was particularly nice, we took a picnic outside. Lots of fun! We've also made trips to the playground and the park to go fishing, but all we caught were ducks!

Birthday Cake, Fires, and Games

I just have to share that Lana is in a strange stage of "organizing" objects. This has consumed most of her play time in the past month now. She loves to "build" piles of seemingly random objects, but she is so particular about how she puts them together. She builds these piles, which she most frequently refers to as "games" or "birthday cakes". She'll eagerly ask us, "Do you want to make a game with me? Do you? Do you?" In addition to calling her creations "games" and "birthday cakes", she has also called a couple "fires" and is into building "spider houses" right now. Here are some pictures of her creations, which may be made anywhere including the floor, sofa, a desk, a chair, the bathtub, a table at IHOP, the kitchen sink, outside, and so on....

Justin likes to say that the creation above looks like something a cat puked-up. Somewhat true, I guess.

She's in the act of building the above game.

This one is in the bathtub.

Bed Bugs and Poopie

Some of you have heard this story because I could not resist telling it, but I have to put it here in case you haven't heard it plus Lana has caught me on something I say that she has interpreted literally.

Bed Bugs

A few weeks back, we decided to expand upon our nightly "good night" ritual with our daughter, Lana. In addition to the commonly used, "Good night. Sleep tight.", we decided to add "Don't let the bed bugs bite."

Well this first created some concern with questions about bed bugs. We told her the weren't real so not to create concern (even though they are real). The next few nights, we repeated this new addition to our "good night" ritual and encountered Lana trying to grasp it and put it into words. Then she finally spit out a complete sentence on the matter, "Good night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bugs eat your bed!" I struggled to stop laughing as I lay next to her to get her to sleep.

The next night was even different. She said with great enthusiasm, "Good night. Sleep tight. Don't let the bugs eat your bed or mine!"

The Poop Comes Out

I recently made the mistake of telling Lana to be careful as she was laying on a balloon. "Be careful, Lana. That balloon could pop and scare the poop out of you." She continued to lay on the balloon and I told her again to be careful. She questioned me, "Or the poop will come out?" Two days later, we have the same scenario. I reminder her that the balloon could pop and it would scare her badly. She reminded me, "So the poop will come out."

I guess so.

Not only do I have to be careful to avoid certain words in the English language that are considered vulgar, but now I have to worry about literal translations for some terrible sayings I have.