Adventures in Babysitting

Friday Night Lights
I tell you, reading every single Babysitter's Club that there ever was is really coming in handy these days. Little Lydia came over last night. I think the highlight of the evening was letting mom and dad watch her play on the webcam. I never thought I would enter into the world of webcams--it seemed so "movie," but it works great (for us)! Of course, they noticed that Lydia is a busy little bee. She never stops moving. She loved all of the cords and wires that have to do with headsets, webcams, and power cords. And she loves to have her hands on something. When I fed her the bottle, she was practically tearing my hands off of the bottle so she could hold them. Unfortunately, it's somewhat difficult to hold the bottle and hold her little moving hands.
We constructed a little play space in the living room by moving the coffee table and our big blue chair to create a U-shaped play area with one of our throws on the ground. Of course, she doesn't really stay ON her blanket, so everytime she crossed the border she would get caught up in the blanket. She'd have it all bunched up between her hands and her knees as she attempted to keep crawling. I don't think she has enough "lift" in her knees.
While I made dinner, I put her in her little play area, where she played pretty contentedly until she heard my salad spinner going. She hurried her little buns into the kitchen and crawled right over to me -- very enamored with the spinning effect. You can see that she attempted to join in the fun of making din-din.

Post-Valentine's
I also have a few extra pictures from Valentine's Day. We decided to have the party in the kitchenette for ease of cleaning up and setting up. Unfortunately, our kitchenette is so hideous. there are a few industrial sized pieces in there and then the paint color on the wall is soooo drab - it's hard to feel like eating a regular lunch in there, not to mention a party feast. So, I hit up my local party supply store -- Target and bought $6 worth of wrapping paper plus some cute Japanese lanterns, or are they Chinese lanterns? We could avoid this quandry by calling them accordions (this according to Mr. Price). Thankfully, Sam was able to help put them up, otherwise the feat would have nearly been impossible. Many of you will be glad to know that the lantern/accordions have now been safely moved into my classroom. . You've heard of Christmas spirit all year long; we're looking for Valentine's spirit all year long. (P.S. The inordinate amt. of pictures of Sam can either speak to a deliberate campaign to overturn a commonly held principle that "Sam is not photogenic" or Sam's desire always to be in the center of the action. Take your pick.)