Freedom does not equal Happiness: The Sad Tale of the Mittenless Baby who liked to poke outlets

Eliza's turning out to be somewhat of a stubborn, headstrong kid already. Taking after her mother, perhaps.

Yesterday I took her to the mall's little playground play place (to escape the cold weather but still have some time outside the apartment), and she was having a BLAST crawling around over the odd Thomas Jefferson plastic memorials and laughing at the fun big kids and then somehow managed to find the ONE exposed outlet that was on the ground right outside of the play area to try to poke her finger into.
I tried moving her across the play area to play and be distracted with other corny, fake plastic rocks and drums and such, but she kept finding her way back to the outlet. Then I tried just standing with one foot over the outlet and letting her still explore around me, but instead she tried pushing my foot out of the way and got mad at me. I moved her across the room again and she turned to repeatedly pulling off her socks and trying to de-leaf a branch of an ivy plant.

Notice the mess Eliza manages to make in a matter of about 2 minutes.
She pulls up on the entertainment center (and the couch and the chairs
and the toilet and the edge of the bath, etc) all by herself these days!

Today on our daily walk with the dog, I got Eliza all bundled to go out into the 20 degree weather and put her winter coat on with a hat, mittens, and shoes. She was not happy about being burdened with all of this extra clothing and just a minute into her walk I heard her from the backpack make an angry grunting noise, and I glanced back and groped around with my arm to find that one of her mittens was hanging down. I felt around on the other side a minute later and realized she had freed herself from that one also.

I hung the mittens over my shoulder and felt one of them and found that it was wet from where she had apparently bitten it to pull her hand free from its imprisonment. I gave Eliza a nice little lecture on how "Freedom does not always mean happiness" which I'm sure she enjoyed greatly (but if I don't talk to her or Mika, what else do I have to do all day?).

Here's Eliza after the walk: no shoes, no mittens-- and a smile!

Then a few minutes later I heard her mad little grunt again and heard a soft thud on the cement behind us. I turned around and there was her little plastic shoe sitting on the trail. I bent down and picked it up and before I even stood up the other one plopped down also. OH, Eliza! What am I gonna do with you? I cut our walk a little short. At least (knock on wood) she hasn't figured out or at least hasn't found interest in pulling off her hat or bows yet...

It was really nice weather on Monday so we had our sliding door to our balcony open with the screen door just barely open enough so that our indoor cat could go out to stare at the birds and think he's really daring and stuff. This is also where Eliza decided she wanted to practice walking. We tried to distract her with other toys and walk her to another couch and location but she would just let her legs collapse under her so that she could crawl right back to what she was doing. Nice, right?
Oh, yeah, and Eliza also loves to chew on chords.

This is probably just a normal child's response or attempt to control and/or manipulate their environment, but it sure can get annoying.

Eliza also loves playing with the dog's crate for some reason.
Notice how she is once again down to only one sock!

My mom said that she would tell Katy No or to not do something and Katy would stop (as a baby/infant). She said that I would find an electrical outlet and try to put my finger in and my mom would say no, and I'd go right back to it and stare at my mom while I poked my finger into it once again. (Let me know if I got that story right or wrong, mom)

Eliza also loves playing with the dog's crate for some reason.
Notice how she is once again down to only one sock!

So apparently Eliza has my affinity for electrical sources and defiance. Neat.


V-Day Report
Steve and I tried to keep it cheap this valentine's day. I baked him this devil's food cake from scratch and practiced out my cake decorating skills.
And here's a dorky picture of me being really excited about the Lindt chocolates Steve got me!We actually had a really neat Valentine's day. Steve made me my favorite food for a romantic lunch- sesame chicken (and even out of the weight watchers cook book so there was no guilt)! And then we had a great family nap and went to the library. Then we had a scrumptious Mediterranean meal at a restaurant on the Downtown Mall called Bashir's Tavern that had a delicious Valentine's menu that even included chocolate fondue for dessert. YUM!

We were kinda worried that we would crash some couple's romantic valentine's date by having Eliza with us at such a nice, un-family oriented restaurant (they didn't even have high chairs or booster seats), but Eliza was SO good. She loved sharing my food with me (and eating her blueberry and cereal baby food), and our waitress and the people sitting next to us both commented on what a GOOD baby she was and how lucky we were!

And here's a picture of our odd kitty who loved his little paper ball so much, he dove into the deep recesses of our couch to retrieve it.
And returned successfully to tell the tale.And here's something crazy I did in photoshop with a picture of my mom with Eliza. Don't worry, I don't actually think it looks good. I thought it was kinda fun/funny, though.
Playing with photoshop is just one of my recent projects I've deluded myself into thinking I can become awesome at.

Some others include the cake decorating, sewing Eliza a jumper (this I blame on too many project runway reruns), sewing Eliza and me matching skirts (also PR reruns), reading five different novels (including 2 Toni Morrison audiobooks), trying to wean Eliza, blogging fascinating and interesting posts every 2-3 days, and browsing and retaining the information from 4 different parenting books before they're due back at the library.
I believe that I will probably completely accomplish NONE of these endeavors, at least not to the extent I would like.

But maybe I'll have some fun in the process... or give Steve something new to chuckle at. Eliza's SO good at entertaining herself these days now that she can crawl; I feel a new liberation as far as my hobbies go. It's been really nice in the afternoons to turn on my Toni Morrison audiobooks and listen to them while I try to learn how to cut and sew straight as Eliza happily plays with her puzzles and blocks and the cat at my feet!