A Birthday and Good Grammar

**Be sure to scroll down to the Elvis post. It's a classic.**


Abby turned 2 on July 3. It is hard for me to believe that she is indeed two. I decided the week after her birthday was potty training week. That proved to be an abysmal failure. On Friday, her birthday, we gave her a potty seat, big girl panties, the works. On Monday, we went to the potty every few minutes, cried and then wet our pants. Well, I didn't wet MY pants, but I did almost pull my hair out.

I decided that on Tuesday, I would only take her if she asked. She asked a few times, but never did anything in the potty. After Tuesday, things got chaotic, and we put it on hold. Maybe I'll try again in a few weeks. Who knows?!?

Let me give you a quick physical update before I continue on to the birthday party. At her two year checkup, Abby weighed 22lbs 14oz. I'm not sure that it was completely accurate because they didn't make her take her clothes off nor did they ask me to change her diaper, but regardless, she's above 20lbs! Ahhhmaaazing! For her weight, she in the 7th percentile, a place I never thought we would be. The more amazing part is that she is 33in tall, and in the 30th percentile for her height. Crazy, huh?

The thought is that she has probably fit into the growth charts where she's going to fit in, and that's okay.



Now, on to the birthday party. It was CRAZY! I've never been particularly fond of birthday parties, and I'm not exactly great at planning them either. I really tried to exercise restraint in the guest list, but when you've got family and church and friends, it adds up pretty quickly. On our best count, there were over 50 people and about 20 kids running around the house (or hanging onto me while we were opening presents).



We truly enjoyed having all our friends together, but man am I glad we only have to do it once a year!



Here's the good grammar part. At Abby's party, she got a goldfish named Dorothy or Dorfothy as Abby calls her. If you're a parent and you watch Sesame Street, you immediately recognize that this the name of Elmo's fish. A coincidence, of course not.

On Sunday morning, when she got up, Abby walked up to Dorothy's bowl and said, "Good morning, Dorfothy. I slept well." I can't tell you how my heart swelled at the fact that my two year old knows to use the adverb well after the action verb slept. She may not be potty-trained, but she can speak properly.

Hallelujah!

You'll forgive me for being a little behind.

To say that the past few weeks have been busy would be a definite understatement. We've had birthday parties and family gatherings and I've been working some. It has been chaotic.

First: Abby's Nana and Papa went to Memphis to deliver some rocking chairs. And as we all know, a trip to Memphis would not be complete without a stop at Graceland. I made sure to tell Abby to let her grandparents know that she needed a t-shirt. We were not disappointed.



Some of you may remember the story of my mom's Elvis mug. She went on a mission to find another cup to replace her current, faded pink one. Unfortunately Graceland doesn't sell such things anymore, so my mom had to settle for one of those hard plastic cups with the huge flexible straw coming out of the top. I could tell she was disappointed, but I'm sure that given a few months, she'll have worn the writing off this new one, and it will be like old times.

If I had access to my mom's camera, I'd show you a few of the many pictures she took of Elvis's grave and the grounds of Graceland. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures inside the building unless you turn the flash off your camera, and my mom couldn't figure that one out, so we had a to settle for looking through the tour book she bought.

All that to say, we're trying to instill in Abby a love for the King of Rock and Roll (not to be mistaken with the King of Pop; although, Jason did teach Abby to moonwalk after MJ died).