Anna Grows

Today was a lovely fall day. The leaves are about at their peak, the sun was shining....it seemed like the perfect day to head to the mountains for some apple picking. Mom packed some lunch and everyone loaded into the car to head back to McIntosh Fruit Farm in Berryville, VA. Since we had such a good time picking peaches, we thought we would have an even better time picking apples. Some of you are probably saying to yourself, "gee, isn't October 26 a little late to be picking apples?" This thought occurred to us; however, the brochure from the fruit farm clearly listed a couple of types of apples in October and November. When we got there, we found very few people and even fewer apples. It turned out that all the apples were picked, thus we resorted to "picking" apples out of the crates (hey, at least we could see the trees they came off of). The good news was that you could still pick pumpkins. We loaded Anna into the little red wagon and hiked across the farm...

Anna's 2nd birthday included the beginning of a major milestone - the move to a "big girl" bed. In this case, the bed is an antique rod iron twin bed which coincidently was found at an antique store in Columbus, Ohio. Of course it was not enough for Mom to simply remove the crib and install the bed. First, she got Dad to agree to repaint the green and white nursery to a cheerful buttercup yellow. With some help from Grandma, Anna's room was transformed with reds, yellows, greens, ladybugs, and flowers. There are still a few more things to do, but we are on our way. Anna took right to her bed. The downside for Mom and Dad is that now she can get out.

At long last, after months of phonecalls and packages, Grandma and Grandpa arrived for a long weekend visit. They came to visit Anna on Columbus Day weekend, which was just enough time to completely spoil her with non-stop attention. It was a busy weekend that included the Fairfax Fall Festival, a visit to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, a Columbus Day parade in Baltimore's Little Italy, Italian Food, and just some time playing with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandma enjoyed reading and coloring while Grandpa enjoyed building blocks and going down the slide. Anna also spent some time dispalying her new fashion sense. Mom and Dad enjoyed telling Anna to knock on Grandma's door when she got up at 6:30 AM so that they could go back to sleep. Grandma also assisted in putting the finishing touches on Anna's "big girl" room. It was a great visit. Anna will see Grandma and Grandpa in a few weeks when she goes to Ohio for an early Thanksgiving celebration.

For those of you that were reading about Anna's 2nd birthday and thinking to yourself, "gee, Anna didn't even have a party," fear not! You can rest assured that Anna had two additional birthday celebrations courtesy of Ms. Be. The first celebration was held August 24 at a family picnic hosted by Ms. Be. August 24 happened to be Thomas' birthday (he is a couple of weeks older than Anna) so Anna and Thomas celebrated with cake and ice cream. The real treat for Anna at the picnic was not just the cake or the moonbounce with balls that Ms. Be had, but Anna's friend Brian's older 11-year old brother. Anna seemed quite taken with "Joe, Joe" and proceeded to follow-him around for most of the event. In the process, she managed to get Joe Joe to push her in the car and play basketball with her. It seems that Anna has already developed her mother's appreciation for more mature men. On August 29, Anna had her own party at Ms. Be's where she had the ...

Anna officially turned 2 years old on September 3. Many acquaintances have smiled knowingly when we told them she was about to reach this major milestone and commented, "ahhh....the terrible twos," as if they were in on some secret. We have news for them....Anna started the terrible twos at about 18 months. I believe the phrase that made us realize we had entered a new phase was "that's mine." For Anna's birthday this year we decided to take advantage of her pre-schools status and spend a week at the beach while all of the other kids were returning to school. This seemed like a good idea at the time....a relaxing stay at the beach fill with days of frolicking in the sand and waves. As always, things did not go according to plan. Things got off to a bad start on Saturday (we were scheduled to depart Sunday) when Mom enlisted Dad to assist in the ceremonial removal of the crib to be replaced by a "big girl" bed. The big girl bed of choice was an anti...

The weather was unusually nice over the weekend. Eighty degrees for a day in August in Washington is almost unheard of, so we took advantage of the sunny skies to head to the mountains to pick peaches. The original vision for the trip was taking a picnic lunch, which we would enjoy under the lovely peach groves as we gazed over the mountains while Anna ran through the wild flowers. The reality was much different. First, Joe was the victim of the flu over the weekend and was just starting to feel somewhat human again on Sunday. Theresa had found a day trip listed in the newspaper earlier in the summer of a nice fruit farm outside of Berryville, VA (appropriately named). As we loaded up our picnic lunch and took off, Anna began singing the ABC song in the car until she fell asleep. As we drove west, the sun was interrupted by clouds. By the time we drove over the mountain, it was raining. Determined to press on and pick our fruit, we finally located Maintosh Fruit & Berry Farm. The f...

It has been a few weeks since the start of full-fledge potty training and I am happy to report that Anna is doing well. She is down to a diaper only at night. Of course we still revert to disposable "pull-ups" when we go out just in case. These are clutch when going somewhere, especially if you are visiting someone's home. Anna is very good at charming people when we visit; however, you can see fear in the eyes of our host when we mention Anna is being potty trained as they eye their rugs and nice furniture. I can't really blame them as I try to keep her in the kitchen and uncarpeted areas at home for the very same reason. Unfortunately, Anna still does not always tell us when she has to go so we are left to guess based on the timing of her food and drink consumption. Whenever she goes into the potty, we cheer and she gets a sticker. I've cheered for a lot of things before, but never using the bathroom. Parenting is truly a humbling experience.