Favorite-Things-Phone-Dump Friday

I wrote the rest of this post earlier this afternoon, thank goodness, because our power went out with the crazy storms at about 8pm, and 3 hours later it is still out. So I figured out how to post this from my phone. Word on the street is that the power may not be restored until late Sunday night, so it could be an interesting weekend!

On to the original post...

Since this was my first week home with Cal for the summer, I have a lot more pictures than usual. :)

I decided to create collages categories of things I'm thankful for, based on the pictures I have...

Here goes!

Favorite Thing #1: Work time on "laptops"

Favorite Thing #2: Bubbles!

Favorite Thing #3: Catching up with childhood friend Emily and her daughter Vera!

Favorite Thing #4: These two stinkers and their ice cream

Favorite Thing #5: Toddler in a banana (if you follow the mommyshorts blog, you may know what I'm talking about.  If not, you'll just be confused and that is okay).

Favorite Thing #6: MOA date with Jenna, Charlie and Mabel

The biggest thing this week has taught me is...patience.  As I expected.  Callie and I actually did very well together (for the most part), but after being used to working full time and having a crazy-busy- structured schedule for so long, it was hard to adjust to "toddler time."

As in, toddlers don't care about time at all.  And the more you try to push them along to hurry up with something, the slower they seem to go.  At least that is the case with my toddler.  Maybe not all of them.  But definitely mine.  So far, the only strategy that sort of works now is counting down from 5 and setting the timer on my phone, which we call "Piano Man" because it is a piano riff that goes off when the time is up.  She'll usually get her butt in gear and do what I ask in both of those circumstances, but I'm just waiting for her to realize that I got nothin' in terms of consequences if she doesn't. 

What has been totally awesome this week is the amount of sleep our toddler is getting.  Summer wears her out, and it is fantastic.  She is quick to fall asleep, late to wake up, and still takes good naps.  Which means that I get a much needed nap every day too.  Whew!