Savannahism (the first of many I'm sure)

Sorry...no pictures, but this post is more for memory's sake since I'm losing mine slowly day by day.

Savannah is 99.999% potty trained (she wears a pull-up to sleep). Woohoo! We wanted to make it easy for Savannah in case she needed to go potty at night so we bought her a cute little hippo stool to help her reach the potty. One night a few weeks ago, Stephen looks at me and says, "Do you hear water running?" I listened and sure enough I heard it and immediately my heart sunk into the pit of stomach and adrenaline rushed through my veins. In my mind, Savannah had turned on the steaming hot bath water, attempted to climb into the tub, slipped, fell into the steaming water, bumped her head knocking her unconscious (reason we didn't hear screaming), the washcloth had been left in the tub which blocked the drain, so water filled the tub and she was drowning in steaming hot bath water. I raced upstairs...don't even recall really how I got there...I may have just leaped over the balcony for all I know. Much to my relief, Savannah was happily playing in the sink standing on her other step stool having a grand 'ole time splashing in the water with her cup and a washcloth completely soaked neck to ankles...with cold water. Whew! From that moment on, we lock the pocket door to her bathroom with a dime each night before she gets tucked in. So now, we're back to square one, and IF (that's a big IF) Savannah wakes up and needs to use the potty in the middle of the night, she'll have to come wake us up.

So I had this brilliant idea to leave her Bjorn training potty in her room. Therefore, if she did have to go in the middle of the night, there would be no worries of her falling and busting open her head. That potty has been in her room for about a week now. Each night about 10 minutes after tucking Savannah into bed, she proudly walks out of her room holding said potty and announces with delight, "Look, Mommy Daddy, I pee-peed in my litter box."

What a weekend!

We missed gymnastics Saturday morning to attend a birthday party for 3 of Savannah's friends, Caden, Kyle and Kylie..."C2K '09" as we've referred to it in our house. Gymnastics class was probably pretty boring without half the class there since they were all at Kangazoom. Savannah had a blast as she always does at Kangazoom, but it's even more fun when surrounded by 20 other kids she knows. After the party, Savannah and I had a nice girls' lunch (just the 2 of us) at The Crepe Revolution. The waitress kept commenting on how well-behaved Savannah was. I'd pat myself on the back if I didn't know that she was really just dog tired and didn't have any fight left in her. She barely touched her lunch, but that may have been due to the fact that she ate her weight (40 pounds) in cheese, grapes and crackers at the party.

After a nap, (did she take a nap on Saturday? I can't remember) we brought her Barbie Jeep out of storage to see if she might finally be old enough to enjoy it. Stephen has a knack for buying toys about 12-18 months too early. For example, we have a Black and Decker toy tool set in our attic that Stephen bought after Christmas that I supposed Gage might find enjoyable next Christmas. Anyhow, she seemed to really enjoy the Jeep this year.


Here she is last year. It's not until you see pictures from a year ago that you realize how much of a little girl she is turning into!


Sunday morning took a turn for the worse. Savannah announced first thing, "Mommy, my belly hurts." Those are 4 words I've never heard Savannah say until then. After a small breakfast and 2 successful trips to the potty, we thought we were over the belly ache. So we decided a trip to the park to feed the ducks was in order. As we were getting ready...I think Stephen was putting on her shoes...Savannah got sick...on Stephen no less. I'm chuckling now as I type this because his face was priceless. I don't recall his exact words, but it went something like this:
Stephen: That's never happened to me before.
Me: Welcome to the club.
After all was cleaned up, Savannah said she still wanted to go to the park. We fed the ducks and played for a little while, but Savannah said that she wanted to go home. Uh oh. She must not be feeling good. So we went home and she took a 2 1/2 hour nap...no lunch, no milk, just sleep.

By Sunday night, I was feeling her pain. I too had a belly ache and head ache to boot. We both stayed home on Monday. By Tuesday morning, everyone was feeling good. By Tuesday night, Stephen is now sick :( I just hope Gage dodges this one!!!

Speaking of Gage, he took it easy on Sunday. He read the paper and then napped in the swing. What a life!

The Children's Museum

Sorry for the 3 posts in one day, but it's been a busy weekend!

Today after Gage woke up from his morning nap...that was 2 1/2 hours after only being awake for 1 hour after 12 hours of continuous sleep the night before (okay, so yeah, now I'm bragging a little)...we had our first visit to Imagine It Children's Museum. We were impressed and we didn't even see the half of it! Because we got there so late, we really couldn't stay too long before we needed to leave to grab a very late lunch. However, we are now members and can go back whenever we like which we plan to do on those rainy and/or HOT weekends when we alternate trips to the GA Aquarium.

Savannah really enjoyed playing in the moon sand. The sandbox is the main culprit for the Savannah fits she tends to throw whenever we have to leave Kiki's house. Maybe this year when we go down to Amelia Island and Sanibel, she'll show a little more interest in the beach than she did last year.


Anyway...here she is with Stephen. This was the first trip to the sandbox. We went back for more a little later.


Later, we started to take in a show, but Savannah was a bit freaked out by the girl who was a bit too animated and loud and, not to mention, quite a bit off key. We trekked into the area with water and she had a blast fishing and collecting all the pink fish.



Here's one of me and Gage...


Later, she tried her hand at painting. The painting wall is right next to the sandbox so once she realized this, she quickly washed her hands and bee-lined it back to the sandbox.

Party of 11?

Geez! I remember when it used to be party of 3...that would be me, Patti and Cindy. Single and no kids. Then, as time went on, we became a party of 6. I remember nights out to dinner and tailgating for the Bucs games in Atlanta...no kiddos. And here we are today, a party of 11. It's just craziness! The Bozzas and Themelis' came over for dinner Saturday night. It's been too long since we all got together. Jenna, Savannah, Allison and Cole (not pictured) had a great time. It's too bad the parties have to end so early these days :(


Earlier in the day, Gage and I drove north to visit with my sister and family and met up with Nana and Papa Bob for lunch. Here's my beautiful little niece. She is definitely a mini Melanie with those big brown eyes.

Open up and say "Ah"

On Friday, Savannah had her first dental appointment. Although I prepped her for the visit all week, still she was very nervous. It was pretty cool though...much better than when I went to the dentist as a child. I mean they have flat screen TVs mounted on the ceiling with cartoon movies playing!!!
Here's Savannah enjoying the novelty of the exam room. She played on the chair and gave me several smiles.

She was pretty happy before the hygienist came in.


However, once we started getting down to business, Savannah wanted nothing to do with the examination chair, room or even the office. Once I calmed her down, she sat on my lap. The hygienist was great! She showed Savannah all the tools she was going to use and demonstrated how they tickled. Savannah ended up giggling quite a bit and was a true champ through the entire cleaning. When we were ready to leave, she gave the hygienist a high-five and posed with the dinosaur.


That night, Nana and Papa Bob spent the night with us on their tour of metro Atlanta to visit with all 7 of their grandkids. We introduced them to Nuevo Laredo...I think we'll be taking them back again :)

Here's Gage snuggling with Nana. He's a little lover.

It's always more fun with friends...

The weather in Atlanta this past weekend is what keeps me here. Sunday started out overcast and cool in the 50s. By late morning, the clouds had burned off and the afternoon warmed to a beautiful 80 degrees. Just 6 days earlier, we had snow! Finally we could enjoy the great outdoors as a family! The Barnetts and the Kings met up for a fun-filled day at Zoo Atlanta. We first became members last year and I feel we robbed the zoo given the number of visits we made last year. This year, we renewed and plan to visit as much in 2009. Every trip to the zoo is like the first time all over again for Savannah. One would think she has never seen an elephant or gorilla or squirrel for that matter the way she gets excited for every creature she encounters.


Savannah was thrilled at the last minute announcement that Sophie would be joining her at the zoo this time. We were a bit nervous given that we rely on the stroller during zoo excursions to get us from one exhibit to the next without any meltdowns. Sophie, on the other hand, doesn't stroll on her visits. Therefore, we were braving the zoo and Savannah without a stroller. How would we ever get from one end of the zoo to the other all in a day's time???


Turns out, having Sophie as a companion was exactly the motivation Savannah needed to get through the zoo sans stroller. They had a blast running from exhibit to exhibit. We somehow managed to avoid the petting zoo much to my delight. The moms took the girls on the train and on the merry-go-round. Savannah's not a huge fan of the merry-go-round. She prefers to sit in the peacock bench (or duck as she calls it) rather than ride an animal that goes up and down.


After wrapping up at the playground, we left the zoo and headed to lunch at the Barnetts' favorite post-zoo spot, Six Feet Under. We had a nice lunch while Gage and Olivia were drawing all the attention from the wait staff who ooh'd and ahh'd over them.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas???

This post is really for the neighbors, and Stephen is probably going to come behind me and remove this post because he begged me not to blog about this, however, years from now when I go back and read through all this, I do want to be reminded of the things that make me laugh and that make Savannah so very happy. For example, she loves Christmas lights. She thinks they are "pity" (that's "pretty" for those who don't speak 2 1/2 year old). How many people can say they get to see Christmas lights every night when they get home...even in March!?!?!? Yes, our neighbor still has his Christmas tree up, but what makes it funny is that he still turns it on. We've always known that said neighbor loves Christmas...he typically decorates Griswald-style two weeks before Thanksgiving every year. This post is not meant to be a complaint. In fact, I would like to thank our neighbor for making my little girl's eyes light up every time we come home after dark.



Sorry, Stephen, I had to do it.

Choosy moms...

...should NEVER run out of peanut butter! You are probably thinking this topic is not blog-worthy, but mind you, never in my life that I can ever remember (and I'm going back to when I was first introduced to peanut butter probably in the womb) have I run out of peanut butter. I love peanut butter. Think Ron Burgundy and his "I love scotch. Scotchy, scotch, scotch." speech. My favorite is homemade, freshly ground peanut butter. Among her many talents, my aunt Brencie grinds her own peanuts into peanut butter and it is to die for. Forgive her, the peanuts are actually store-bought, although, if she had a peanut farm somewhere on her property, it would not surprise me in the least. I can remember as a wee little lass sitting in her kitchen eating it by the spoonfuls. I'm not certain I wasn't eating store-bought, but, nonetheless, it is one of my more pleasant childhood memories. Running a close second to freshly ground, is full fat, full calorie, creamy Jif...no Skippy will pass through these doors. Anywho, the point is, last night, it happened. I depleted my peanut butter supply. Gasp! I scraped every last creamy morsel of goodness out of that jar and Stephen can attest that I came close to tears when I threw the empty plastic jar in the recycle bin. In an effort to capture this once-in-a-lifetime event, here is my empty jar.


I guess I should mention (since this blog is called "Savannah Kate and Gage Martin") that yesterday Gage turned 3 months old! He's a chatty little fella these days. Savannah never really talked until she could actually talk. Gage, on the other hand, makes all sorts of fun noises and really sounds like he's holding a conversation with us. So much fun! Felicia and Leslie are just eating him up in the infant room at school. They say he never cries and I believe it. He doesn't cry at home either unless he's tired or hungry (or when I accidentally clip skin instead of nail when trying to trim his fingernails...that only happened once and I've not clipped his nails since).

And here's one for the grandparents who don't really care that I love peanut butter. I can only imagine what fear is going through Gage's head.


I know you all are thinking we don't let Savannah wear anything other than this shirt. I promise, she really just loves this shirt!