Lily's quote of the week

I was serving up a very tasty dinner of Baked Chicken Cacciatore Monday night, and as I dished the food onto Lily's plate, she says "Oooh, nice". Not that she ate more than three bites of it, but that's another story...

I also have to share our adventures in driving home tonight. Of course, five minutes before we left the school, the sky decided to open up and spew an inordinate amount of rain down upon us. Luckily, it is only about an 8-minute drive home. As we are driving in the blinding downpour and hydroplaning over the large puddles in the road, Lily begins laughing hysterically. She was so amused by the loud rain, thunder and lightning all around her. I'm afraid that we have a thrill-seeker on our hands.

Playdate with Nathan

Ready for our grilled cheese, please!

Makin' sweet music together

Our favorite card game: throw all the cards on the floor and watch our mommies pick them up.

I've been working 10 hours a day/4 days per week for the past couple of weeks so that I can have a "mommy and me day" each week with Lily. This week, we had arranged a playdate with Nathan and Jen. The weekends are usually so busy with things that we need to get done that we don't get the chance to get together with friends nearly as much as we would like. We were so happy to have the opportunity to catch up today. I can't believe that these 2 little monkeys are going to be 2 years old in less than 4 months!

Lilly's latest

Lily attempts to say pretty much every word we say, no matter how difficult, which results in some funny "words" from her. Among the more amazing things that Lily can do now are: count to three, recognize the color purple, recognize circles consistently and squares some of the time, and use four-word "sentences". One of her not-so-brilliant behaviors recently is to find any small, tight spaces in which to get "guk" (stuck). She actually looks at the space (such as under the kitchen table or chairs) and repeats "guk, guk, guk" until she manages to wedge her body into position to inevitably get stuck. That's my genius baby.

Why I love my job

All of the things that make me laugh and contribute to my overwhelming job satisfaction cannot be found in any job description. Here are just a few recent highlights from my days...

• Bead extraction from a child's nostril (who says the game Operation doesn't prepare you for life?)
• Happy visits to the office for going pee-pee on the potty
• A child "giving me his heart" each and every night before he leaves by putting his hands on his chest and making a throwing motion toward my heart (priceless)

One of the Family Medicine Physicians that Carl currently works with keeps a journal of things that his patients have said over the years. I really wish that I had done this in all my previous years of experience working with the 0-5 crowd. I'll try to post some of my favorite quotes from time to time because they are guaranteed to make you smile. One recent comment that stands out is from a little boy around 4 years old. He was having a conversation with one of the teachers about the weather (supposed to be a harmless, neutral subject, right?). The teacher had said that it looked like it was going to rain that day. He remarked "that stinks". She said that it was good because rain helps things grow. He inquired what would grow, to which she responded "the plants and trees". He sat quietly, lost in thought for a moment, and then retorted "Yeah, well, it doesn't help my 'peanut' grow any". It goes without saying to what he was referring. I think parents would be surprised to hear some of the things that their children say at school; it certainly keeps us amused.

Magic 8 ball, where are you?

I go through periods of total preoccupation with our move next year and now is one of those times. The current topic of discussion between Carl and me is how to rank the various residency programs out there. Obviously, location is a huge factor for us. Other considerations include the salary which varies slightly or not-so-slightly depending on your point of view. Also, the area's cost of living is in the mix. Reputation of the school is another consideration. One factor that I really didn't consider much but now seems to be creeping up the list in importance is the number of years of the residency program. Carl will begin the process of applying to residencies in Pathology in September. Some of the programs are 3 years (Anatomic Pathology only) and others are 4 years (combined Clinical and Anatomic Pathology). He could really go either way, but of course, the 3-year programs are less common. This is a major life decision for us that will have an enormous impact on our lives. Ironically, these are the times that Carl becomes cool and collected, and I enter my panic mode. Do we go for shorter time over location? Higher salary/lower cost of living over reputation? I just don't know. This doesn't mean that we are straying from the Midwest plan. We just have to decide the rank order of the schools within the Midwest, not an easy task. Either way, we have until January to decide, just to begin the excruciating process of waiting to find out our ultimate fate on March 20th. Only 240 more days...

Mama Lily

We had an intentionally low-key family weekend - no hassles, no hurry. Lily mostly wanted to take care of her babies, walking them in the doll stroller and putting them in the doll crib for night-night. We did spend some time at the park yesterday, played tennis this morning and spent a very relaxing, wonderful afternoon on the deck this afternoon while Lily splashed in her pool.

Most notable of recent with Lily is the number of times she says "Oh shoot" in a day; it really cracks us up. Another favorite is "guk" (stuck). Also, she is now very consistently pointing out circles in her environment and without prompting; today she found one on our rug and said "circle" while she stood in the middle of it. She is so proud of every word that she says. While we flip through her ABC picture book, she points to the pictures, says the word to me and then says "Daddy [word]" and waits for the praise from Daddy. She is very headstrong and insists that certain pictures depict particular words, like the picture of a pumpkin is without doubt an "apple" and her science card that shows an electromagnet is absolutely, positively "milk". Who knows with that one; maybe someday she'll elucidate her reasoning.

Friday night highlight

Friday nights sure aren't what they used to be...they are so much better. Watching Lily playing on her new bike beats any other plans hands down.

Toddler recipe book

So anyone who knows me knows that I have to have a project to work on constantly. I really feel lost, unfocused and completely out of whack when I don't have a personal project on which to focus my mental energy. My latest project was an ABC book for Lily. I began the project thinking that I would take pictures of our household items so that Lily would have a point of reference for the words, and thus the words would be more meaningful to her. Then I thought about the thousands (no exaggeration) of pictures that we have from Lily's first 20 months of life. Why not just go through the pictures that I already have and see what I can make from them? And so began one of my all-time favorite projects (right up there with the calendars that I made for my family). I had the best time going through all of her baby pictures, but the book is now near completion (just needs to be bound). So, time to move on.

The thing that I am most interested in right now is healthy meal ideas for toddlers, with obvious reason. Sometimes I feel stuck in a rut, offering Lily the same things over and over. I want some new ideas! I've already searched the internet and looked in cookbooks, but I want more. So I'm asking for everyone's help with this one. If you have a young child, have ever had a young child, or just know of a young child, I need your help!! Please submit any and ALL meal ideas to me at kathleendeetz@youngschool.com. Don't be shy! Please tell anyone you can think of that would benefit from this project about it. My goal is to compile all the submissions into a simple recipe book and then send out a copy of it to anyone who submitted ideas.

There are no real guidelines for the recipe book, except that something in it should be considered somewhat healthy. The ideas can be as simple or elaborate as you wish. Even frozen meals or a certain brand of prepackaged food that you've found to be effective with little ones is welcome. My goal is to have a RESOURCE BOOK, something that parents can flip through when they are feeling like they are simply out of new ideas. All children are different and some are obviously more finicky than others but exposure to different foods is what I'm most concerned about. How do we know that they won't eat quinoa if we never try it, right? Recipes for healthier versions of old standbys like mac 'n cheese would be also great. The possibilities are truly endless. Again, the more ideas submitted, the better this book will be, so please pass the word along. It only takes a minute to forward a recipe or two (or three or four...), and you'll end up with a great resource. Thanks for your help!

Please e-mail recipes/ideas by August 15th. My goal is to have the book done and sent out by the beginning of September.