Daddy Tree: Tiny Footsteps

One of the wooden blocks was missing, so Willow created a search party made up of Willow, CPK Baby Kayleigh, Baby Monkey and Daddy and started on a journey to FIND THE MISSING BLOCK!!! The search party looked high and low, as high as the ever-high balloon and as low as, er, under the couch. But Block O' Letter Q was nowhere to be found. The search continued, with Daddy bellowing, "Oh, Blo-ock!" And Willow skipping alongside, squealing, "Oh, Bro-ock!" The block did not answer. Finally, after much searching, and after Willow gave Daddy a scolding or two for breaking off from the search to make the bed and clean off the breakfast table, the search party found the block! The block was hiding away behind the Disney Little People Princess Palace (Willow thinks Block O' Letter Q was just trying to find a good and quiet place to poop, but Daddy suspects the block was peeping on Cinderella). Willow triumphantly return Block to his spot in the wooden block string-pull...

Willow hasn't seen much snow in her short lifetime. Actually, I don't recall any snowfall of any fun depth during the past two winters (I do recall taking Willow to the park nearly every day last winter). That's OK to me because I'd prefer it stay warm all the time, and I like taking Willow to the park and the zoo. So Monday morning's snowfall, even though it wasn't much more than a dusting, came as a surprise to us. The snow wasn't much to play in, but Willow never has played in the snow, so we made the most of it that we could. I put Willow in her snowsuit, which she's never donned, and we headed to the back porch, where the snow measured probably a good inch. And Willow didn't care. Nope. Not one iota. She liked putting on the snow boots and the snow suit. She liked the mittens and the knit cap. But, really, all she wanted to do was ... SWING!!! Swing. Swing. Swing. Swing. Swing. She insisted, so I buckled her in, covered her face the best ...

In January Cherish and I got off to a grand start potty-training Willow and beginning her transition from the crib to the toddler bed. We have to make way for our second daughter, you know, in the crib AND in the monthly diaper budget. Then we got sick. All three of us. Then we got sick again. All three of us. Then we got sick again. All three of us. These sorts of things are well documented on Facebook by families all across the world, so I won't bore you with any details, but we were sick pretty much all of February and half of March (and March is only just half over!!!). Anyway because we all three were sick, it was much easier to put Willow in the crib for bed instead of chasing her all over the house and, um, reapplying her to the toddler bed. And, of course, it was much easier to let her do her thing in the diaper than giving her on-the-potty pep talks. But we're all three healthy now (I'm knocking VERY LOUDLY on you, wood), so Cherish and I have gathered up the...

Toddlerhood is in full swing. And I'm tired. But enough about me! We have few problems with Willow, but one big one we've had to face recently (and one in which Willow is thoroughly kicking our butts) is the matter of her throwing food during lunch and supper to the floor. This happens nearly every day and usually goes down like this: She eats a little of her food, then -- WHOOSH -- she flips the plate to the floor, and, most of the time, the food flies in all sorts of directions. This sort of behavior is why we have little pinto-bean spatter spots all over one of our walls in the dining room (it looks like we tried to cover up a murder in there ... badly). We read in one of our parenting magazines that toddlers do this sort of thing because they're learning about physics. "They're little scientists!" I recall the magazine chirping. The tots throw food because they're experimenting on what kind of "plops" they can make, or they're gaugin...