Brian Regan

For Christmas, we, along with our siblings, gave our parents tickets to go see the comedian, Brian Regan. Then Mitch and I decided we didn't want to miss out, so we got two more tickets and called it "our gift to ourselves." We just couldn't pass up the opportunity!

What a great Christmas gift! We all laughed until we cried. I don't know about our parents, but Mitch and I were both complaining all night about how bad our faces hurt from laughing so much. Seriously.

If you don't know who Brian Regan is, then you are missing out! He is hilarious! I love that he doesn't have to use crude language or offensive topics to be a successful comedian. He is just genuinely funny. Here is one of my favorite Brian Regan bits ever:

Swimming, Yay!

Well, swimming lessons are over. Layla had a blast! In fact, the last time we went to swimming, we walked in the doors to the gym and she said, "Swimming, yay!!!" She was so very excited! She cried when we made her get out, and she talked to everyone in the locker room and said, "Hi! Swimming, baby, ya!" She is such a social butterfly and I love it!

We took the video camera for her first and last lessons and I put together a little video, which I'm sure only the grandparents will care to watch. (Especially since it's not that great. It was my first attempt, after all.) Mammy and Bopa Miles came to her last lesson and had fun watching. I was glad they were there to video tape since Mitch was at Scouts. The swim teacher gave us a picture of Layla underwater that she took with her water-proof camera, as well as a card showing everything Layla learned. I included both in this video.

Overall, I'd say the lessons were good. She got more exposure to the water, learned that it's okay to go underwater, and learned how to hold onto the edge of the pool all by herself. On the other hand, she hated the teacher, and cried every time we made her float on her back. Also, she will not jump into the pool, despite my best efforts to force her into it. Ha, ha. She usually sits down first and then slides in. That's no fun! Guess we need to work on a few things next time around.

After this experience, I'd say we will either start swim lessons earlier with our next kid, like when he's (hoping for a boy next) a baby, or wait until he's older, say 3 or 4, and can understand instructions better.

Run Away!

We are watching Oakley tonight. Layla has so much fun when she is over. I would say that they both have so much fun, but sadly I think L annoys O. For example, I asked O what color something was (it was red), but before O could answer, L said, "Yewwoh!" which was wrong, but it's the only color she knows. O was patient and even though she was rudely interrupted, she still gave me the correct answer.

I was showing O how to use one of our toys, and I said, "Pull hard!" which Layla immediately repeated and kept repeating the whole time O was playing with the toy. Just a little annoying for poor Oakley.

L keeps telling O what to do. "Oakey, sit!" or "Oakey, wun away!" or "Oakey, come on!"

(BTW, Layla's new thing is to yell, "Run away!" as loud as she can, while running away of course. It's hilarious, but so far she's only done it at home. It won't be so funny when we're out in public, I'm sure.)

Any toy that O tries to play with, L quickly snatches, at which point I return it to O and tell L that we need to share. O is so good at sharing, and quite frankly, I'm surprised she still bothers to share with L when it is not reciprocated. We're working on it, sweet Oakley!

Finally, O kept asking me, "Is Leela tired yet? Is Leela going to bed?" I'm sorry, Oakley, I totally feel for you! Layla's cute, but she's "full of spunk" as her dad put it, and she's kind of exhausting. We did put L to bed and O and I had fun playing — without having to give or hear a lecture about sharing every two minutes. We're glad O still wants to come over and play because we love having her!

In other news, Layla went poo poo in the potty for the first time today! TMI? Sorry, we are just so proud of her! Yesterday she told me she needed to go pee in the potty for the first time. It took about half an hour from the time she told me until she actually went, but it's progress! I think she's starting to really get it. Hopefully she'll be fully potty trained in the next month or so?

Also, I wanted to document a two things that happened this week that give some insight into Layla's personality, which I am slightly worried may be a little OCD ... the other day I took her sweater off so that she could take a nap without getting too hot. I laid the sweater out nicely over her chair so it wouldn't wrinkle, laid Layla in her crib, and left the room. Less than a minute later, Layla is bawling and saying, "Ado! Ado!" which means "clean up" (no idea where the phrase came from). So I go in there and she's pointing at her sweater, bawling, telling me to clean it up. I put it in her closet and she instantly stopped crying, laid down, and slept for 3 hours. What the heck?!? Just a little OCD, right?

The other day my mom-in-law came to watch Layla and she had on a coat very similar to one of mine. Layla must have thought it was my coat because she started crying, kept pointing at Kathy, and saying, "Mama's coat!" over and over again. I finally took my coat out of the closet and showed it to Layla, who then did a double take between my coat and Kathy's. It was pretty funny! She stopped crying after that.

Random Videos

I always have a list of things in my head that I need to get on video. This time it was Layla counting 1 through 10 and saying, "I love you," "surprise!," and "purse". The counting because she's finally got it down, and the words because she says them in such a cute a funny way — she opens her mouth so big when she says, "surprise," and "purse" sounds like "push." And of course, "I love you," because it melts my heart. She usually only says, "I love you" when you ask her to, and even if you ask her she might just say, "no," which is sad and funny at the same time, but the other day she ran up to me, hugged me, and said it out without being asked and without me saying it first. Totally on her own. Best mommy moment to date!

Be patient with the filming ... our video camera has a screen you can turn around and Layla LOVES to look at herself on the screen while I film her, which of course means I can't really see what I'm filming. It's always a guess as to whether her sweet little face is actually in the shot or not.

I'm so glad to have such a happy, funny little buddy to hang out with all day! She's becoming quite the little helper too! The other day she brought me our coats to hang up, she's always up for throwing stuff away if I ask her, and she likes to use her little pink vacuum while I vacuum the house. Prettty awesome. The other day after the snow storm, I noticed our neighbors kids out shoveling their driveway. Got me thinking: just a few more years and we'll have kids big enough to mow our lawn, rake the leaves, and do all the chores that I hate doing! Mwah-ha-ha!

BTW, Mitch used our snow blower to do our entire driveway, which is pretty big, and had just started on the sidewalks when it broke! He can fix it, but has to order a part. Of course it snowed the next day, so we woke up at 6 a.m. and shoveled the driveway by hand. I was so proud of myself for getting my butt out of bed and helping. It made me feel bad to think of poor Hubby out their breaking his back all by himself! Luckily there wasn't much snow and we finished pretty quick.

Ballet Blast

I went to a class last night with my friend called "Ballet Blast." Essentially, it's an aerobic exercise comprised of ballet moves with 2 lb weights. I LOVED it! You can read all about it here.

I thought I'd be really sore this morning, but I didn't feel it until about mile 2.5 of my what was supposed to be 4 mile run. I only ran 3 miles because my legs felt like jello. Apparently the ballet blast really blasted my butt and legs!

The first class is free, if anyone cares to join us next week!

Curly Sue

I love that Layla wakes up with beautiful hair. She has these perfect little blonde ringlets that I just die over. Unfortunately, it always looks the best right when she wakes up and then goes down hill from there. Ha, ha. I usually wet it and comb it, sometimes add gel, but no matter what I do, the car seat always messes it up! Drives me nuts! But she still looks adorable, even if her curls aren't perfect all the time. I really think the pictures don't do it justice, but you get the idea.


I also took some pics of this hilarious outfit, the poncho my parents gave her and the boots Aunt Katie gave her. So cute!

ABC

Layla loves the alphabet. For the past few months, she's been able to recognize and say each letter. (If they are capitalized. We are still working on the lower case ones.) She pronounces most of them correctly, but others are more difficult like, "W," which she pronounces as, "dub-dum." I love to watch her little mouth move as she concentrates to pronounce certain letters. So cute.

We're working on the ABC song. While she knows her letters, she still gets confused on what order they go in for the song. When she forgets what letter comes next, she says, "M,M,M,O."

Here we are singing the alphabet song. Layla fills in the blanks when we stop singing. I know it sounds like she's just making a random sound, but she really is saying the correct letter, even if it's not perfect. I think she did a great job!

We are also working on saying, "I love you," which she pronounces as "I yove you." Melts my heart!

Swimming lessons are going okay. Let's just say that she does not like the teacher. Can you blame her though? Every time I hand her over to that lady, she either pushes Layla under the water, with no warning, or splashes her in the face. Ha, ha. Surprisingly, it doesn't make her mad to be shoved under, she just doesn't want to be near the teacher. So I have to shove her under myself, which doesn't seem to bother her. Apparently it's okay for Mommy to be mean, but not the teacher? Either way, at least she has fun!

Today after her nap, we did the usual routine of Layla handing me one of her stuffed animals and naming which one it is (Kitty, Piglet, Dog, etc.) This time she handed me three of them at once and said, "Friends." Wow! Totally surprised me! She must be listening after all, when Mitch and I refer to her stuffed animals as her "friends." I guess I should be careful; she's always listening, even when it doesn't seem like it!