Shake It, Baby

In celebration of the 50th post on BergstromBabble,

I give you the Anna Booty Dance.

Doing Time

This past weekend we got to enjoy one of the rarely discussed joys of parenting - installing a stair gate!

Ok, so, it's not so much a joy as it is a chore, and working on a project like this with your dear husband is as good a test of the strength of your marriage as any. Anywho, I digress.

To me, the whole concept of babyproofing seems to be just an excuse for an industry peddling over-priced, and often RIDICULOUS goods, to exist. Some examples:
Now, don't get me wrong...we locked the cabinets with cleaning products, put all medicine out of reach, plugged the electrical outlets and strapped Anna's bookshelf to the wall (hey, I saw that episode of Grey's Anatomy and it scared me).

We even sprung for the foam fireplace hearth guard after cringing one too many times as Anna did a head dive towards the bricks. But, that is where my interest in babyproofing ended.

Until the child started walking. That's when the panicked rushing down the upstairs hallway to head her off before she could tumble down the stairs after Tope began.

And then I started having horrible visions of her somehow managing to climb out of her crib and wander the hallway at night, all of which ended with a ghastly spill down the stairs.

Then I just started to get annoyed that I couldn't fold a load of laundry (the laundry room is right at the top of the stairs) without being ever vigilant of the munchkin escaping behind me.

Lo and behold, we now have a gate. And, I LOVE it. We're even toying with the idea of putting one at the bottom of the stairs...how crazy are we?!?!

Anna treats the gate with ambivalence. Unless you are on the opposite side of the gate. Then she freaks out and cries as the picture above can attest.

Tope, I believe, likes the gate. She quickly learned to slither under, jump over, and dash through the bannister pickets on the side to escape the running mini-feet behind her. And then she sits just out of Anna's reach on the other side of the gate totally taunting her.

Bumping Up & Down

Bumping up and down in my little red wagon
Bumping up and down in my little red wagon
Bumping up and down in my little red wagon
Won't you be my darling?

One of the best Christmas presents Anna received this year is her first little red wagon. She absolutely loves to push the wagon around the house and hear the wheels click, click, click, click, click, click, click.

She also likes to climb in and out of the wagon, a feat she mastered within three days of owning it. We initially egged on this activity by pushing her around--much to her glee. However, upon hearing some groaning creaks (from both the wagon and our backs), we stopped treating it as Anna's personal limo and have been able to convince her it's just as much fun to sit in the wagon and pretend it's moving.

The wagon revolutionized one area of our playtime...the great outdoors. Anna has always liked going outside, but since the arrival of the red wagon, we now have a mission when we head outside - find anything and everything to put in the wagon. Sticks, leaves, rocks, dirt, grass, mulch, pretty much anything goes.

Gone are the previously aimless outside ventures which typically ended after 5-10 minutes of standing in the backyard looking at leaves and constantly repeating, "No Anna, don't eat the rocks." Now we traipse up and down the sidewalk, looking, looking, looking for wagon fodder.

And, we can bring friends! Bunny, Carlton the Bear and Penguin are regular wagon-riders. Sure they come back with leaves stuck in their fur, but, I think they enjoy getting out of the house as much as we do.

Thanks, Gramma & Grandpa "Odie" Turner

P&J Construction

Over the holidays the sounds of Christmas filled our house…you know, Christmas carols, jingle bells, hammers banging, saws whirring…

Anna, my mother-in-law and I were treated to the constant (yet sweet) sounds of Jason and his dad starting the process of finishing our basement. HOORAY!

This is the second project Jason and his Dad, Paul, have undertaken in the basement. The first was Jason’s true pride and joy, his wine cellar – aka Chateau Bergstrom.


This time the project is a bit bigger, but I am very excited about the ultimate end project, slated for sometime this summer assuming all goes to schedule.

For this second go round, Paul had T-shirts made for the occasion and Anna was deemed the official foreman. She ran a tight ship, making sure they were down working in the basement by 7:30 each morning, had a 15 minute lunch break, and she insisted they keep the job site clean. After all, the motto of P&J Construction is “A clean job site is a safe job site.”


She even granted them the use of a radio so they could hammer to the beat of 24 hour Christmas carols on 98.5 fm. To their chagrin, the foreman insisted on taking two naps a day, requiring a full work stoppage to minimize the banging. Afterall, a sleepy foreman makes for a grumpy foreman which ultimately makes for grumpy workers.

Happy New Year (5 days late)!

Well, I have been remiss in posting lately - we had such a nice break over the holidays that I never broke away to write about our escapades. We had a wonderful visit with Jason's parents. It makes me wish all of our family lived in one place.

Since it's been so long, I'll give a very quick rundown of our lives over the past 2 weeks:

Christmas morning was very fun - Anna's laughter and excitement made the day very special. As my dad said when we talked to him that morning, "Kids deserve all the Christmas they can get." What did surprise me (although I'm not sure why), were the presents Anna got excited about. She did like her workbench from Santa, but the real winner of the day was a seahorse for the bathtub and Tope's gift from Santa (the litter box). Go figure...




We also did lots of cooking (and dishwasher running)...


Made several trips to Home Depot (more on that in a later post)...


Went to the aquarium...


And ate our black-eyed peas on New Year's Day (we rang in the New Year in a very quiet manner - i.e., went to sleep at 10, woke up in 2009...lame I know!)



More posts soon, I promise!

Happy 2009!