National Puzzle Day

Caleb likes puzzles.

I love the wooden Melissa & Doug puzzles for him, because they’re simple, colorful and durable. He enjoys the ones with animals (he’s big on animals) and we like to use them to practice identifying animal names, animal sounds, colors, shapes, etc.

Today, we made sure to carve out some puzzle time in honor of National Puzzle Day.

Puzzles are special to our family for another reason. When Garrett and I first started dating, we would go to the local AmVets and buy puzzles to assemble together. We both enjoyed it. Maybe it was a little dorky, but it was a great way to spend time together. We could talk, get to know each other, drink wine. And we felt we had accomplished something when we were done.

Because of this, when we got married, I used a puzzle piece theme for some of the decorations. Our guestbook was a puzzle, the seating cards had puzzle pieces on them, and there were fondant puzzle pieces on our cupcakes.

The wedding program featured this quote by e. e. cummings:

We fit together so well…it’s like pieces of a puzzle, the way your hand fits the curve of my hip and the way my head rests on your shoulder, the way our hands just melt into one, and the way I feel complete when I’m with you…like the picture’s finally completed and I’ll never have to wonder what I’m missing.

Years later, and the puzzle has only gotten bigger and more complete.

National Dress Up Your Pet Day

Another silly day!

I’d never dressed up a pet until we got Sadie. Before her, there was Laddie, our Shetland Sheepdog, who has always been averse to putting clothes on. I think he considers it undignified. Even though he doesn’t like when his paws get cold in the snow, he never wanted to wear the Muttlucks we got him. He has a “backpack” to hold his stuff in, but he doesn’t like to wear it.

Sadie, however, is the perfect dog to dress up. She’s Laddie’s daughter, but thankfully she didn’t follow in her dad’s grouchy footsteps. She’s happy to put stuff on and look ridiculous. As she grew, I soon discovered how fun it is to find things for her to wear. She’s just so cute.

I don’t dress her up every day, because I’m not crazy, but she does get dressed up for special occasions, like football games or holidays.

But somehow, on today of all days, she just wasn’t feeling the “fashion show” I tried to put on. I did get a few kind of blurry pictures. Excuse her “blah” facial expression; maybe she was tired, I don’t know, but she didn’t feel much like posing. It was like she decided to only do the bare minimum required to get a treat.

Here we go:

Batgirl!

This ensemble was Sadie’s Halloween costume this year.

Supergirl!

This is my favorite. The red tu-tu is huge and full, and when she runs around it bounces everywhere.

Boo!

This is supposed to be a ghost, kind of like the “Scream” mask, I guess. I bought it for Halloween last year, and it fits her nicely, even if it is a little weird-looking. She also has a pumpkin costume that she’s unfortunately grown out of.

Let’s Go Buffalo!

This is her most important outfit. Sadie wears this cheerleader uniform (note that it’s “uniform,” not “costume” — she takes this seriously) during every Bills game. Though she normally sleeps through most of the afternoon games, she can at least show her spirit this way.

Meanwhile, I tried putting a raincoat on Laddie, and…well…

Not a fan.

National Rubber Duckie Day

Simple. We celebrated this one at bathtime.

Rubber Ducky, you’re the one,
You make bathtime lots of fun!
Rubber Ducky I’m awfully fond of you!

Rubber Ducky, joy of joys
When I squeeze you, you make noise!
Rubber Ducky, you’re my very best friend,
It’s true!

Classic.

National Vision Board Day

Maybe I should have celebrated today by making a vision board — a scrapbook-type project, where you create a board with visualizations of your hopes and dreams. But hey, I’m almost 9 months pregnant, I have a toddler, and it’s Saturday, so I got lazy.

And you know, lately I’ve been pulling together a little lifestyle collection for my baby girl. Socks, headbands, dresses, mittens, nursery decorations, sheets, blankets. I’ve been making pediatrician appointments and planning for child care, thinking of names…I feel like my whole life lately has been about making a “vision board” all for her.

So instead of making a new one, maybe I’ll revisit one I made a long time ago.

I made this on New Year’s at the start of 2013, a year I knew would be a big one. A couple themes you’ll notice:

– Love and Marriage: My wedding was scheduled for May 11, 2013, the date circled in the top right corner.
– Travel: We were in the process of planning our two-week honeymoon, a trip to the UK and Ireland, hence the “Wearin’ of the Green” sticker above the word “Travel.”

I had a lot of hopes for 2013, and I’m happy to say they all worked out. The wedding was amazing, and the honeymoon was the trip of a lifetime. We fulfilled the dreams I had poured from my heart onto my vision board.

There was more. In 2013, I would also get pregnant with my first child. That was planned at the time I made the vision board, but I hadn’t wanted to write it down just yet. I didn’t know if it would work out. I didn’t want to tip my hand or jinx it.

In 2013, I would also face some hardships (in April, I was laid off from my job) but things turned around fast. It was a good year, mostly full of love and flowers and butterflies and happiness, just like my vision board predicted.

I should really make another one soon.

National Bubble Bath Day

National Bubble Bath Day is an easy one to celebrate for us. Our nighttime routine with Caleb always starts the same way: “Is it tubby time? Wanna go take a bath with bubbles?”

Bedtime for Caleb begins with a bath, and it’s one of his favorite times of day. Wash, wash, splash, splash, what’s not to love, right? We add in some Johnson & Johnson Baby Bedtime Bubble Bath, though we’ve tried other brands in the past. I like the smell of this one.

He has several favorite bath toys:

• Olivia, a purple spotted octopus who sings opera. (At the end of every bath, she sings, “Goodniiiiight, Caleb!”)
• R2-D2, Chewbacca (or, “Bacca,” as Caleb calls him), and other Star Wars bath toys that rotate in and out of the tub.
• Mama Duck and Baby Duck — your typical rubber duckies. We’ll probably talk more about them next week, since Jan. 13th is National Rubber Ducky Day.
• A bag full of colorful foam letters and numbers.

The starting lineup.

 

In the end, once his hair is washed and he’s clean, he says goodnight to the toys one by one (including each number and letter individually), then dries with his Mickey Mouse towel and heads to bed for “night-night.”

Meanwhile, Wikipedia is much less fun — and very specific — when it comes to what constitutes a bubble bath. “A filled bathtub with a layer of surfactant foam on the surface of the water and consequently also the surfactant product used to produce the foam.”

I, myself, love taking baths, though I rarely do it. Our old tub was too shallow for a good bath, and even though we have a deeper one now, I’ve been pregnant and unable to take the super hot kind that I love. A bath isn’t worth it unless it’s really, really hot. And I’m not really into bubbles — it’s more about the scented oils or oatmeal mixes that leave the skin feeling soft and smooth. So this day’s not for me, unfortunately.

It’s OK. I’ll leave the bubble baths to Caleb for now. He loves them enough for all of us.