The Little Treehouse

Is awesome! I had heard of the Little Treehouse before. I'd even walked by once or twice, but we had never been in before. I like to get my money's worth and I knew you had to pay to go in. I wanted to make sure Cece was old enough to appreciate the experience and was she ever!

We left this morning headed to the High Point Sunday Market outside of the High Point Cafe in Mount Airy. It began at ten and we got there a little early. It was smaller than we expected, it was very nice, but we were pretty much done by 10:18. We had passed the Trolley Car Diner and planned to go to lunch there, but we had time to kill.

We went to Chestnut Hill to walk around, we passed O'Doodle's on the way to park and decided to play there for a bit. I mentioned the Treehouse and thought we might stop in (if I could find it). ThE last time I was in Chestnut Hill, I was a bit disoriented, but this time when we got close to O'Doodle's, I saw The Little Treehouse on our right. We checked the hours, headed to O'Doodle's, where Cece played her heart out, and closer to lunch time went to The Little Treehouse.

The "cover" (like a club, get it?) is $8 for children who can crawl or walk and you can also get food to eat. You accrue a tab and pay the total at the end. This place is awesome! All they toys and play structures are wooden. It's like a mini Please Touch Museum, only organic and local too! It was just the right size for Cece, and it wasn't too crowded. The tumbling area was open downstairs and we checked that out after lunch. Cece played, I placed a food order. By the time the food was ready, she was hungry and had checked everything out. It was perfect.

And the food! Well, it all adds up - let's just say that. But, it was organic, delicious, and just right. Cece had Mac and cheese, her all time favorite food in the world. Jeff and I both had healthy paninis. While we didn't get to it, there were also some pretty amazing dessert choices available and I look forward to giving them a go another time.

And there will be another time!

Tea Time

You may remember that back on February 2nd, I blogged about Cece imitating putting contacts into her eyes.

Cece has an awesome Madeline picnic basket tea set that we got for a great deal at the Cozy Tots consignment sale in Bryn Athyn. It happens twice a year, in the spring and the fall, though I hear that this year's "fall" sale is happening in August, so be on the lookout for that! Anyway, it has ceramic cups, plates, a teapot, sugar pot, and creamer, as well as sets of forks, knives, and spoons. It is adorable. What may be even more adorable is Cece's recent use of the set.

Here's a blast from the not too distant (therefore I can actually remember it!) past. On June 8th, Jeff sent me the following text message:

Cecelia was playing with her tea set. She was using the teapot as a neti pot. Then she would blow her nose. (oh! I almost forgot - there is also a picnic blanket and cloth napkins!)

So, in addition to the daily task of putting in my contacts, I try to make it a daily task to use the neti pot. And someone's been noticing!

Update: since June 8th, Cece has broken the teapot that came with the set. But, one of her birthday presents (probably not with this use intended) was a tea set with a talking tea pot that also makes sounds like it's pouring.

A Crib In

On e again I'm in the odd position of backtracking to give you a peek into Cece's life or living in the present. Today, it's the present, tomorrow, who knows? So, my final act of diving coaching for this summer was facilitating and judging diving champs today. All day. So, as a result I was away from Cece all day. Which was an everyday occurrence during the school year, but it would seem that now she is more accustomed to seeing me on a regular basis. Start of school will be a rude awakening. But I digress.

So, at the conclusion of champs, I decided I might stay and swim and have Jeff bring Cece to the pool to come swim as well. Great idea, right? Little did I know, all day Jeff had told Cece that when she woke up from her nap, in would be home. And this made her happy. So, when she woke up and I was not there and daddy was spouting some nonsense about the pool and seeing mommy there, she was having NONE of it. She went so far as to refuse to let Jeff take her out of the crib. My very own peaceful protester...if only she was peaceful. So, plans changed and I hurried home. And she vacated the crib. A short lived protest, but a protest nonetheless.

Blogger Solution

If you have been wondering where I was...probably not, right? I was having trouble posting to blogger. I'm currently testing out an iPad and am without traditional Internet access via a laptop at home so I was posting to blogger from the iPad as I had done from the iPhone via Blogger in Draft. Then one day, it stopped working. And as I sometimes do in these situations, I ignored the problem and came back only to find the exact same result...again...and again. I finally figured out a work around just now. In regular blogger, I could not type in the content box. Again, I don't know why but on the iPhone and iPad this was just not a reality? But I could type in the HTML box. However I don't know code from Egyptian. In fact it all looks similar to me. But I have become proficient at using online code converters like the one I'm typing into right now. Www.htmlconvert.net Soooo, I will hit convert, it will spit out code at me. I will copy and paste and voila you will be able to read it here. It is about 7 more steps than it should be, but when don't I make more work for myself? Hopefully I'll be seeing you a little (no promises) more often in the near future.

180

Yesterday, Cece was back to her pleasant, bubbly, and overall smiley self. She didn't see any need to nap though following a half hour snooze in the stroller at the end of a long walk, which left me a bit grumpy coming on the heels of a day when she napped a full three hours. Overall though, we had a great day and she even let me take a peek inside her mouth. Instead of a mere, wimpy three teeth cutting through, it looks more like a potential 12! Three on the bottom of each side and top too, including what look to be some molars. It's hard to tell, and if I didn't know she's not nocturnal these days (thank goodness) I'd swear they were all baby vampire teeth. They all look very sharp and scary. All the better to eat carrots with!

Erupting Gums

Cece has sprouted quite a few teeth successfully since her relatively late first comers. But there are still an awful lot of gaps between those choppers too. While most almost two year olds are expecting or already have their molars, I suspect we are a long way from finished. And Cece is, um, dramatic. Now, it's hard to be sure, but teeth are easy to blame when your child is acting like a lunatic as mine was this afternoon post-nap. At dinner, she opened her mouth and I spotted what looked like three spikes shooting through her gums, which certainly explains a few things. Cece has worn her Baltic amber necklace from Inspired by Finn since she was about four months old. I still think it helped and certainly did not hurt. But on a day like today when things are happening fast and furious...well, it can't work miracles. I'm just hoping that on the day of my sister's wedding, Cece will be more cooperative putting on her flower girl dress than she was today. Let me transport you there. She began to scream because the fitting room door was closing. So we decided that perhaps the door could stay open. Then she was screaming because I was trying to take off her dress. She wanted to take it off herself, you see. And she did. And she proudly marched around in her diaper cover and pink crocs. She was not on board with just seeing if her dress fit. Oh no. She was here to make every last bride to be in the place miserable, and reconsider having children of her own. Fortunately, my sister was not among them. I apologized profusely to the brides who, I'm sure, were hoping for a slightly more magical moment as they tried on wedding dresses. But I digress. I did wrestle (gently) my daughter into the dress to make sure (because this was my mom's big concern) that the arm holes were big enough. Really!?! The arm holes!?! Let me explain that Cece is a slender, svelte child. But, I did. Because it was also a final sale. And it fit and was promptly removed. Cece literally broke out in hives of anger at this ordeal. We paid and exited, and I'm sure everyone breathed a sigh of relief. I did not until she went to sleep a short time ago. This summer is going to be one fun ride for sure. Stay tuned. Did I mention she's almost two?