Toddlers

Nora is sleeping later these days which is a huge blessing to me. Don't get me wrong- for the right reasons I like seeing the early side of 6am. But it starts to get old after a while when your brain is screaming at you "SLEEP! GIVE ME SLEEP!" Unfortunatly, Brain, my daughter comes first.

So lucky for me- she is now sleeping in until 7:30am-8am ish. Hurrah for shorter daylight hours. I always mourned the ending of the long days when summer was coming to a close before. Now I am starting to see the beauty of longer periods of dark!

We've all be sick lately which means we have all been spending WAY to much time in front of the TV. I have seen all of our child-friendly DVD's at least once (we only have a handful) and I swear if Dora yells "Say Backpack! Say Backpack" one more time...

If I were feeling better I would feel guilty about all the TV time. But I don't so I don't. Nora has been so good. Today was the reading day. We read five books in a row and then she sad and read to herself for another 15 minutes. She has also been really into her blocks. We have been working on color recognition a lot this week and she is getting better. She is doing great at Yellow, Blue, and even green and red. Sometimes she gets them mixed up still, but it is getting tones better.

Nora wanted to wash dishes today. Usually this consists of soapy water in the sink, her with the scrubber/spounge thing and lots of water ending up on the floor (Look mommy- I am bailing out the sink!). Today I though- Sure! The floor needs mopped anyway!

Sure enough water goes on the floor (and counter tops and the clean dishes) but after a while I hear her get down from the chair and I peak around the wall furnace that blocks full kitchen vision from the living room and she is on her hands an knees scrubbing the floor with the dishes scrubber. Uhm. Okay so we have another cleanig spounge, need to get out a clean one for dishes, but hey! The floor is clean! Go Cinder-Nora, Go!

My little naked baby is also learning the joys of clothing. Normally I give her about 15 minutes from the moment I get her dressed to the moment she is running around shirtless, pantless and diaperless. However recently she has been asking to wear clothes! Awesome! Maybe she will learn the lesson before it frosts!

Speaking of winter coming- our garden is done for the year. I know some plant fall gardens but with only about 10 days left before the first predicted frost- I don't think I would even get radishes planted, sprouted, and grown before the frost killed everything. That means I need to either spend a lot of time digging in the garden and working in some manure from the stable or I need to rent a rototiller. Note to self- go talk to the rental guys!

Our apple tree is shedding apples like crazy. I am not sure if I will be able to keep up with them all! I hope so because they are fantastic! The wasps and ants have been getting a good fall treat! I hope the squirrels have been taking some as well.

Well I am going to go lay down and hopefully go to bed early tonight. I have had the flu for about 5 days now and have work tomorrow. We are joking that it is swine flu. I hope not. But I feel pretty recovered so I don't think I will be a Typhoid Mary at work tomorrow!

Ciao!

Alee