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    Full Steam Ahead

    Thursday, March 01, 2012

    We all seem to be moving so quickly lately. Lucy's speeding through toddlerhood, Benjamin is rushing through addition and subtraction and right onto multiplication and division, Mike is spending his time increasing speed on his brand new triathlon bike and I've been cruising around the pool and on my bike for my own triathlon training. Days and weeks go by without us even noticing that they're gone. Today is the first day of March and it is hard to believe spring is just around the corner. Usually I'd be all "Woah! Slow down, I need to breathe." But lately, I have been embracing this full steam ahead progress. We're moving toward great things. It feels good. A couple of weeks ago we visited the Minnesota Zoo with Grandma Chris on the President's Day holiday. The zoo was overrun with school children, but neither Benjamin nor Lucy noticed. They had a great time. We are so lucky to have such a great zoo here, we all really enjoy it.

      Grandma and the kids Benjamin's Wing Span Lucy at the zoo

    Multiple times a day Lucy insists on sitting at the kitchen table in her booster chair. We've stored the high chair for a possible spring garage sale and she's exclusively sitting at the table with us now. She loves to "color" in coloring books. I use quotes around the word because to her coloring means holding too many crayons for her tiny hands, dropping most of the crayons on the floor, scribbling for 30 seconds on one page and whining until someone gets her down from the table. The whole process takes maybe 3 minutes. We repeat it probably 2-3 times in the morning and 4-5 times in the evening. She enjoys it so much that we continue to oblige her. It is pretty cute. She is in full-on toddler mode right now though. I forget how demanding they can be at this age. Lots of yelling and whining and this face:
    Oh yes, toddlers. 
    Being parents of two children now, the toddler phase takes on a whole new meaning. Yes, it is tiresome at times, but we can see the bigger picture now. She is emotional, unable to communicate her needs and frankly, testing us constantly. We are so much more prepared this time around. I find that I am less anxious when she cries and whines and have actually caught myself giggling at her meltdowns a few times (without her seeing me, of course). This is old hat. 

    Benjamin's reading is unstoppable. He has finished all five of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books he received as Christmas presents and has since finished the second Harry Potter book. He is now reading the third. He begs us to have reading time in the chair in his room and we often hear "just one more page!" when we've asked him to put down the book. It is marvelous.
      Wimpy Kid

    I have registered for my first ever photography workshop, which begins next month.  The woman teaching it is a favorite blogger of mine and is an excellent photographer.  The workshop is entirely online and encompasses many photography topics over the nine weeks.  I am so excited to take my camera out of the automatic mode and finally understand how to really take photos with my camera properly!  I'll probably post a lot about the assignments here, so be on the lookout next month!!

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