The Stove Incident

To show how much I haven't been blogging this summer, this incident happened in the first week of July.  Aria loves to help, especially in the kitchen.  One day for lunch we were making pasta.  She was standing on a chair near the stove, but out of harm's way.  She was helping me measure things and dump them in.  When the pasta was finished, I took it off the stove and told Aria to be sure and stay far back because the stove was hot.  She knows the stove is hot and usually stays away.  Well, that particular day she was in full two-year-old mode.  The look on her face was pure I'm going to do that because you told me not to.  And, she slapped her hand down on the hot stove.  I didn't see it full force because I was dumping the pasta into the strainer in the sink, but I know what happened out of the corner of my eye.  Yep, the stove was hot and my little girl learned her lesson the hard way. 

It was pretty much awful for the next hour.  Thankfully, Justin was on his way home from lunch and I called to ask him to make a detour for some burn cream.  We sat on the couch with an ice bag on her three fingers and I tried to console her.  Even though I felt like it, I knew it wasn't time for "I told you so" or "That's why we don't touch the stove."  She just needed me to help take the pain away and I really couldn't.  We eventually put burn cream and Hello Kitty band aids on her fingers and gave her some Tylenol for the pain, but I couldn't really make it go away. 

Since then, it has occurred to me often that there will be much pain in Aria's life that I can't prevent or make better.  There will be more physical pain and there will be emotional pain, which I imagine will be worse.  I'm sure there will be lessons learned by trial and error where I would have rather avoided the trial all together.  But just like touching the stove, she will probably learn best from the pain.  In no way did I want her to touch the hot stove and burn her fingers, but I do know she won't ever do it again.  In fact, for the next month, Aria wouldn't have touched the stove with a 10 foot pole.  I can already see that even though it is hard, sometimes it is best for kids to learn for themselves.  I will do my very best to guide her, but ultimately decisions will be up to her. 

When she burnt her fingers, I helped her in the only way I know how, we prayed.  We prayed many times a day for many days for God to heal her fingers.  When I can't heal her, I know Jesus can.  I pray that as Aria encounters more pain in her life, she will pray and ask Jesus to help her just like she did for her fingers.  Fortunately, as bad as it seemed in the moment, the damage was minimal.  Aria's fingers healed perfectly without any sign of infection.  She was a real trooper, too.  After the initial incident, she rarely complained of any pain.  It was an unfortunate event, but a lesson learned by all. 

At Least She's Listening

I am posting this simply because I don't want to forget it.  Today, Aria told me...

"Mommy, I got married.  I have a husband.  His name is Esau and he died on the cross."

While this is humorous and a bit off the wall,  I know exactly where it came from.  This morning we read the story of Jacob and Esau's birth and the story of Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz.  Naomi and Ruth were widows because their husbands died.  Then, Ruth married Boaz.  And I think Aria associates all dying with dying on the cross. 

At least she's listening.  We'll sort out the details later.

Surprise Golf to beat Cancer

Sixteen years ago, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She had a mastectomy and six months of chemotherapy and has been all clear ever since.  It was a difficult experience during my sophomore year of high school, but my mom always had the best attitude about it.  Since her bout with cancer, she has been great about attending, speaking at, and organizing breast cancer awareness events.  Most recently, with one of her friends, she put on a women's golf tournament.  My dad had a really cool idea to surprise my mom and have Aria and I attend the tournament.  My dad was in charge of hole number five, which was a "closest to the pin" award hole.  He also took it upon himself to buy some awesome, fancy chocolates in pink boxes to hand out to the ladies.  Part of the surprise was a t-shirt for Aria and my mom with their picture on it.  It said, Grandma-1, Breast Cancer-0.  It shows that my mom beat cancer and gets to play with her granddaughter because of it!  Pretty clever! 

While we waited for my mom to come to the fifth hole, Aria handed out chocolates to the other golfers...

 explored the flower garden...

and received golf lessons from a pro!

My mom was so surprised to see us when she got to the hole.  She immediately put on her matching shirt and shared her chocolate with Aria. 

Then, we went with her to finish her round of golf and Aria used her lessons to help out.

When the golfing was done, we got to eat at the nacho bar and my mom and Aria posed for a few pictures (just ignore the taco meat on Aria's face).

It was a great idea for a fun surprise for a good cause and I'm so glad she did beat cancer to spend time with her granddaughter!

The Rest of St. Louis

I have three more things to report on from our St. Louis vacation.  First, I'll talk about swimming.  Aria enjoyed pretty much everything we did in St. Louis, but she was thrilled to go swimming every day.  Our hotel had a pretty small pool, but Aria didn't mind.  She gained so much confidence by swimming every day for a week.  She couldn't touch in the pool, so she constantly had her tube or arm floaties.  This was her first time using arm floaties and she did really great!  She also learned to jump in without holding our hands and she enjoyed floating on her back, which she has never been real fond of in the past.  Our daily schedule was usually get up and go out to see the sights, come back for a nap, then swim in the late afternoon/early evening.  One of the days we went to a local public pool instead of the hotel pool.  That was really fun because they had a great kid area with 18 inches of water, a playground in the water with a fun slide, a lazy river, and a separate splash pad.  It was similar to the pools in our area, but a bit smaller, less crowded, and just better! 

In general, staying in the hotel was just awesome!  Aria did fantastic sleeping in a big bed and going to sleep for both naps and at bedtime.  She loved staying at the hotel and having a swimming pool just down the hall!

Another activity we did in St. Louis was a Mississippi Riverboat cruise.  It was just an hour-long sightseeing cruise, so we didn't get too far from the arch.  We thought Aria would really love going on the boat on the river because she loves rivers and crossing over them on bridges.  I think she enjoyed the trip, but was a bit confused because the boat was so big.  She couldn't see the water real well and of course, it was really hot.  I just had to buy the picture they took of us since we are all looking at the camera and smiling.  It makes me think of our whole trip, not just the boat ride.

And last, but certainly not least, we went to a Cardinals/Dodgers baseball game.  The whole reason we took this trip in July and risked sweltering heat was to see Mommy's team (Cardinals) beat Daddy's team (Dodgers)!  Oops!  I mean, we wanted to go when the Dodgers were in town since you don't often get to see an LA team, even on tv around here.  We were excited to see another round of our little family rivalry (and I'd like to point out that we have never seen the Dodgers beat the Cardinals) and Aria was excited to see Fred Bird.  We had excellent seats just behind the Cardinals dugout, but back far enough we were in the shade.  And, it was the coolest day at only 95 degrees!  It is awesome that Busch Stadium lets you bring in your own soft coolers, so we had plenty of water, snacks, and washcloths to keep cool without spending a fortune.  Aria is also still young enough to not need a ticket, so we got quite the deal!  Aria did phenomenal during the game and didn't really complain at all.  We kept her entertained and were able to enjoy the game ourselves.  When Fred Bird (aka Red Bird to Aria) was a couple sections over, Aria and I raced over to see him.  She went right up and gave him a high five.  She wanted him to hold her, but he just kind of helped her turn around for a picture.

Definitely the highlight of her day!  She loves mascots!  Overall, it was an excellent vacation!  We all had a blast every day.  I truly can't wait to do it again! 

That's What She Said

Recent quotes from the little one in our home...

"No, Mommy!  You're too big for Daddy's lap.  It's only for me."

After discussing how she used to only drink milk because she didn't have teeth when she was a baby, "Did I have a tongue when I was a baby?"

"Mommy, you have a headache?  You need a hug or something?"

"Right now I'm eating my rice, but eventually I need to eat that."  (as she points in disgust to her steak)

The real lyrics of the Iowa Fight song finish, "Til the game is won."  When Aria sings it, sometimes she changes it to, "Til the game is two."

At a restaurant, Aria wanted to eat with a spoon instead of a fork.  So, when the waiter came back and asked if we needed anything, she politely responded, "Can I have a spoon, please?"  It was so adorable!  The problem is that she doesn't say the 's' on spoon, so the waiter thought she said "poop."

After buckling herself into her booster seat, she decided she wanted to get down.  "Mommy, buckle me out!"

"Somedays I'll be a cow so I can jump over the moon!"

And my personal favorite...

"Somedays Daddy will grow his hair long so he can have ponytails, too!"

The Zoo

On Day 3 of our vacation, we ventured to the zoo.  It was hot.  Like 108 hot.  At least at 7:30 am, when we started our day, it was only like 92.  It's funny, on vacations pre-Aria, Justin and I would stay out late and sleep in.  Our days rarely began before 10.  With Aria, planning to leave the hotel by 7:15 to get to the zoo by 8 was no big deal.  We went to bed early the night before and packed our lunch, water, and cold washcloths to survive the heat.  The St. Louis Zoo is really awesome!  First of all, it is free.  It really doesn't get much more awesome than that.  Parking is supposed to cost $15, but apparently, when you arrive around 7:45 am, you don't have to pay for that, either.  Also, in the first hour the zoo is open, several children's activities are also free, like the carousel. 

It's free--that means you've got to go twice, right?!?

We actually were most excited to go into the children's zoo during that first hour, but it was a huge disappointment.  The website talked about all kinds of hands on activities with petting and feeding animals, but there was absolutely nothing to do at 8:00 am when we got there.  In fact, the only animals we saw in the entire children's area were a couple donkeys.  The otters (always my favorite) weren't out.  No goats to feed.  We were pretty frustrated.  So we left and went to pet the sting rays and sharks.  That was another free in the first hour activity and was really cool.  It was a huge pool with tons of sting rays and a few shy sharks that you could reach your hand in to pet.  Aria didn't want to pet them, but she loved watching them swim and Justin and I enjoyed it.  We definitely made good use of our first hour free time even if the children's zoo was a disappointment.

If you ask Aria, she'll tell you her favorite animal at the zoo was the zebra.

She was very excited to see the zebras, but I think she is also focused on going to the zoo during z week to see the zebras.  While it was fun to see the zebras, she actually got a pretty big kick out of the hyenas who were chasing each other around their pen.

Besides otters, my great animal love has always been penguins and the penguin exhibit at the St. Louis Zoo was phenomenal.  Not only was it great to go in the 60 degree building on a hot day, but you could get so close to the penguins.  Their pool didn't have any kind of barrier other than the glass that enclosed it, so we could have reached out and easily touched the penguins had there not been an armed guard there to stop us.  Okay, maybe he wasn't armed, but it was obviously against the rules to pet the penguins.  Anyway, we were frequently splashed by the penguins as they jumped and swam around in their pool.  They were fun for Aria to watch because they were so active.  Pictures couldn't capture their activity and the video takes to long to download, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

 FYI- That is just a statue outside of the penguin building.  :)

The best part of the zoo for all of us was definitely the sea lion show.  They have a new area at the zoo called, "Sea Lion Sound."  It had one of those awesome tunnels where you were walking through the sea lion's pool and could see them above you and on both sides.  Phenomenal!

We bought tickets for the show and found some shade to watch.  It was so cool!  I can't even begin to do justice in trying to describe it or show pictures.  First they brought out two female, two-year-old pups, which Aria loved because they were two like her.  They did a variety of tricks, including following commands from two kid volunteers pulled out of the crowd. 

Then they brought out a ginormous eight-year-old male who was trained to do so much more.  The most amazing thing for me was when he jumped in, traveled the length of his pool, hopped out, and then rolled across the deck all with a basketball on his nose.  It was just so awesome! 

Aria's favorite trick was definitely when Benny, the big male, went down the slide. 

Overall, it was just an awesome experience for all three of us and I'm so glad we went!  It is so fun to have Aria at an age where she will sit still and enjoy things like that and talk about it weeks later!

When we ventured back outside after eating lunch in an air conditioned building, we really began to feel the heat.  You know, 108 is hot, shade and cold washcloths or not.  We tried to zoom to a few animals on our list yet to see and were ready to go a little after 1:00.  The heat may have kept us from spending as much time as we wanted at each animal, but it didn't stop us from seeing all that we went to see.  It is a great zoo and we had a great time.  I think it was the highlight of Aria's trip because it is what she still talks about the most!  One of my favorite parts of the day actually happened at bedtime the day of the zoo.  This was Aria's prayer, "Dear God, thank you for the zoo and the museum and the sea lions and the penguins and the zebras and the giraffes and the eagles, no wait they didn't have any eagles, and the lions and the elephants and the monkeys and the turtles, Amen!"  It was just adorable.  She was dragging out the name of each animal and doing it in a sing-songy voice, too.  I just love to hear a glimpse of what happens inside of her head.  What a great day!

First Movie

Today I took Aria to her first ever movie theater movie!  Our local theater shows free movies for kids during the summer and today they were showing Happy Feet 2, which I thought was a great one to be our first.  Aria was excited to go to the "penguin show" and was only a little apprehensive of the dark theater at first.  She sat still through the entire movie and really enjoyed it!  When it was over, she started crying and claimed she wanted to do that again.  She told Justin the penguins were crazy and they sang and danced.  I'm not sure how much of the story line she followed, but of course she liked the music! 

We don't really go to movies in the theater much, mostly because of the ridiculous cost.  I was reminded of that today.  Since the movie was free for both of us, I figured I could splurge on some popcorn, which is Aria's favorite snack.  Holy cow the small popcorn was $7!  I had already told Aria we could get some and I decided I didn't want to fight the no popcorn battle after I had promised it, but I almost walked away from the counter.  I'm not sure any popcorn is worth $7, but I guess the theater is banking on sucker moms like me who buy stuff for their kids. 

Even though the popcorn was pricey, I'm glad we went and enjoyed a special date.  I think it could only have been better if Daddy could have come, too.  I'm sure we'll have the opportunity to go again, but at today's prices, it will definitely have to be a very special treat!