My Valentine Bakes

Sylvia and I (self-confined due to the snow) baked Valentine's cookies today. She poured flour and sugar. And did the decorating. I manned the oven. The best part was that not only did Sylvia get to wear her favorite outfit (her thermal underwear) for the event, but she also got to eat a lot of the dough.

The Latest Fashions - Watch Out Vogue

Well, the latest hot items in Sylvia's drawers include the Target thermal underwear, her bee bib size 0-6 months (but, she swears it still fits), and the winter hat a la faux pink pig-tales. She is currently in love with these items and found them in the clean laundry pile. I washed the thermal underwear after she insisted on wearing it 4 days in a row. I guess we are starting up the next cycle.
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She was already dressed for the day, but we ended up changing into the thermal underwear after a bit of heart wrenching, lay flat on the floor and sob display. Sometimes, it's easier to give in...

Papa's Birthday Weekend, Part 2

Dede and Papa sent us a few photos from their camera, so we thought we'd share them.

Sylvia Plays a Tune for Dede


Sylvia and Papa play at the condo


An interesting contraption at the Kohl Children's Museum


Watching the ice-skaters at Millennium Park


All bundled up

Papa's Birthday Weekend

This weekend Papa and Dede came up to Chicago for Papa's birthday. It was pretty cold and snowy, but we managed to get out and have some fun.

On Saturday morning, we all headed to the Kohl Children's Museum. The museum, as Sylvia learned, does not display children in glass cases but offers kids a few dozen themed interactive play areas. Sylvia drove cars, played drums, danced with streamers, took care of animals at a veterinary hospital, captained a ship, talked on a phone, shopped in a grocery store, and ate pretzels all while other kids dashed about.

Playing a drum.


Shopping for produce.

Saturday night all five of us went out to dinner at the Italian restaurant Campagnola where the staff worked diligently to meet the demands of a 16-month-old customer.

On Sunday, after a nice brunch, we all headed down to Millennium Park to see an 'ice painting' exhibit and all of the ice skaters.

Chris, Sylvia, and Darcie in front of the Bean


A reflection of the whole crew in the bean.

It was a great weekend, and Sylvia had a blast with the grandparents.

The snow, the snow, the snow...

It's expected. I mean we know we live in Chicago. But, we've had enough. Sylvia needs out! She bangs on the door in morning saying "bye-bye." Then, we get outside all bundled and freezing and she wants to return inside. We've found a play lot in Evanston with a big car that Sylvia can drive. So we get out of the house and into another place for a bit. Once we return home, Sylvia's enjoying a new found treasure, the oven mitts. I never knew they were such a hot item with kids.

A Sign Post

Sylvia and buddies have been taking sign language for three weeks now. We have all expanded our depth of American Sign Language and are deepening our abilities to hopefully communicate better some day. We can read Eric Carle's, "The Very Hungry Catepillar," in ASL now. Whenever, we sign with Sylvia, we also say the words so that she is learning both.

The idea behind teaching Sylvia sign language is to make her bi-lingual. She'll have two ways of telling us what she wants - her hands and mouth. Sylvia's sign vocabulary includes: "more," "eat," "all done," "milk," and "bird." We are teaching her additional food signs, feeling signs, and signs about family.

She's just turned 16 months and her verbal skills are also exploding. Some of her current favorite words are: "baby," "fish," "shoe," "turtle," "bubbles," and most importantly, "ball." She has also started singing her own rendition of "Old MacDonald" which consists of "e-i-e-i." She really likes the refrain. It is pretty catchy.

Together At Last

Those of you who follow Sylvia's virtual exploits, may have felt over the past few months that the Price-Wallace clan has been somewhat of a house divided. We have presented ourselves through the blog at Sylvia & Co. as well as through the Blogger site ToddlerWoddler. Well, today marks the beginning of a new age of reconciliation as we officially join the Sylvia & Co. blog and the ToddlerWoddler blog in to a Super Sylvia Blog.

What does this mean for you? Basically you'll be able to read both Chris' and Darcie's posts on either blog. As with any technological advancement, there could be glitches or the whole thing could burn to the ground, but so far we haven't had any issues. Please, let us know if there are any problems, and get ready for the next step in Sylvia's online evolution.