Reading before bed

Carmela's bedtime routine is fairly epic. It starts early with getting some jammies on. (It would be a mistake to think these will be the jammies she actually falls asleep in.) Then there's a drink of water. Then brushing teeth. She and Mama start reading a story, but then Carmela says, "Heyyy, we forgot to have milky on the couch." It's part of a little game we play that allows her to think she's pulling one over on Mom. Mom's alright with it. It's fun.

So then, out of bed, to the couch for some snuggling and milky. After milky wraps up, she says goodnight to Daddy, and Puffy, and Tiny, if he's around, and then Mama carries her to her bedroom. But it's not actually lights out, night-night time yet.

Now the stories start. Carmela and Mama read three stories. Then Mama snuggles Carmela up (tucks her in) and helps her say her prayers. But no one is actually going to sleep yet.

First, Carmela kicks off all her blankets. Then she requests an outfit change, either because her leggings are too warm, or her shirt is too warm, or, Mama's favorite, her shirt is too "bunchy." Mama and Carmela go around and around about which shirt will be suitable to wear. This is when Mama communicates to Miss Carmela that Mama's beginning to run out of patience and if Miss Carmela doesn't lie down and go to sleep soon, Mama will not be reading for awhile in her rocking chair, but will instead be leaving. Carmela concedes, Mama snuggles her up again, tells her good night, honey, it's time to go to sleep, and then sits in her chair and opens her book to read. But no one is actually going to sleep yet.

After a few minutes of thrashing around, kicking off her covers, trying to pull her covers back up, sitting up, lying with her head at the foot of the bed, sitting up, flopping over with her head at the head of the bed, sticking her feet in the air, and thrumming her fingers on the edge of the bed, Mama firmly and rather loudly tells Carmela to go to sleep. Carmela clamps her eyes shut tightly in a display of willingness. Then she kicks her blankets off again, and complains to Mama that she's not covered up.

Soon after Mama snuggles her up again, and admonishes her to go to sleep again, Carmela begins to either sing quietly or whisper to herself. Mama sighs, sets down her book, but doesn't say anything yet. Carmela then tries to strike up a conversation, starting by saying, "Mammaaaa ...."

"Go to sleep, Carmela," Mama replies.

"But I have a question. About my eye," Carmela says.

"Ask me tomorrow, Carmela. I need you to go to sleep right now or I'm going to have to leave, and I really want to stay with you and read my book."

"OK."

...

"Mammmaaaa?"

"Go to sleep, Carmela."

...

"Mammaaa? I'm getting sleepy."

"OK, Carmela. Good girl. Go to sleep."

And on and on. A few minutes later, Carmela kicks off her covers and complains that she's having trouble going to sleep. Mama encourages her to keep trying. Sometimes Mama leaves, there is crying and carrying on, &c. Sometimes Carmela has less trouble and does manage to fall right to sleep. Is it awful? No, not really. Does it take a long time? Yeah, kind of. But Mama and Daddy know Carmela's always had trouble going to sleep, and they understand that no one can fall asleep on command. With luck, she'll learn how to help herself happily and peacefully go to sleep.

Even more May fun - Memorial Day weekend 2012

The Doctors were all recovering from a miserable spring cold, but we were able to muster up the energy and motivation to go sailing on Sunday. It was supposed to be a miserable, rainy day, but it turned out to be lovely — sunny, but windy enough to keep our sailboat going. It was Miss Carmela's first time in a boat. She was a little nervous at first, but she warmed up to it. She did a great job wearing her life jacket and staying in her seat!

Mama's not sure why Ela wouldn't smile for the camera, but we suspect she was just feeling a little nervous and uncertain about being in the boat out on the water. She was in great spirits during the ride, and she was in a fantastic mood when we got back to the shore. She ran around the dock, colored with crayons a bit in the club house, and enjoyed a picnic turkey sandwich and some chips and banana outside in the sunshine with Mama and Daddy after the ride.

On Monday, Carmela was very excited to meet Nana and Grandpa at the Museum of Flight. She was thrilled to see all the airplanes from the different wars, to push the buttons that made different sounds (radio broadcasts from World War II, engine sounds, short presentations on different aspects of flight or construction), to go inside a Concorde jet and a decommissioned Air Force One jet (the one that carried Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon; it was the Air Force One that Johnson took Texas when President Kennedy was assassinated); to see some space capsules, and, best of all, to sit in a fighter jet and use the controller! So cool!

Miss Carmela has thoroughly enjoyed May so far, but she is now sacked out for a nap. It's exhausting have so many important things to learn and do!

And Mama is now caught up with Carmela's blog, and hopefully won't get so far behind again!

More May fun

After Mother's Day weekend, Carmela got to go to her first all-preschool birthday party at a place called Arena Sports. It's a warehouse filled with inflatable bounce houses and a 20-foot inflatable slide. She got to see her good friends from preschool, play on the slide, eat pizza and birthday cake, and say Happy Birthday to the birthday boy. Wow!

After Arena Sports, Miss Carmela changed into her party dress to visit Mama's friend Colin for his chimichanga party. While Mama and Daddy visited with some friends, she got to see her good friend, Evan, whom she met at Mama's work. She's quite fond of Evan because he chases her. She ditched the party dress shortly after arriving. It's too hard to dance and spin and climb in a party dress.

After all the activity and excitement, Miss Carmela June sacked out on the couch for a good, long nap. (She woke up sick, and was sick for the whole next week. Mama and Daddy caught it, too. It was a miserable spring cold, but that's a story for another time.)

Kicking May off right

First there was Mom's birthday and Mother's Day.

Before Mother's Day, Carmela June got to go to KidQuest to play in the tree house, drive the Mack truck, plug colored pegs into the giant light wall, eat a snack, bogart some of Mama's coffee, and watch the turtles and frogs in their tanks. Because she was having so much fun, she was a good sport about getting pictures taken with Mama for Mother's Day.

On Mother's Day, Carmela took Mama and Daddy to the aquarium. It was lots of fun. This time, Carmela got to have her face painted. She picked the octopus, of course!

A connoisseur of whipped cream

Yum!

Fun things during a dreary Northwest winter

The Doctors aren't afraid of a little rain, and Carmela does love to play in puddles and watch the worms and slugs crawl across the sidewalk after a rain shower.

But what to do when it really is just too rainy and miserable to play outside? Daddy had a few tricks up this sleeve, and he and Carmela had a really fun winter!

Sometimes, they would put on their coats and walk up to the ice cream shop.

Several times, they took the bus all the way to the aquarium to visit the octopus and feel the sea stars in the touch tank.

Once a week, they went to the indoor kids gym to flip and jump and play on the mats and trampolines.

Sometimes, they would have a play date with Carmela's good friend, Anita.

A few times, they even went bowling! Winter goes by pretty quickly with so many fun things to do. Before she knew it, Carmela was looking at the pretty cherry blossoms and enjoying the first signs of spring.

Valentine's Day 2012

Our favorite sweetheart! With flowers from her Daddy.

Catching up

Well, the Doctors have been remiss about keeping up the blog. A lot has been going on, and Miss Carmela June seems to get busier and busier.

To catch up, we're going to make a few posts of things dating back to January or so; the last post will be our fun Memorial Day weekend. Hopefully, we'll keep up from here on out (read: Mom and Daddy stay employed and Carmela keeps doing cute things so we have time to update the blog and interesting things to talk about!).

Without further ado:

Carmela and Grandpa sport their Carolina blue for the Tarheels during March Madness.

Carmela enjoys sweet iced tea at the annual UNC alumni barbecue. Carmela loved the barbecued chicken and potato salad, and she especially loved the sweet iced tea!