Miscellany

The kids have been giving me many little things to blog about, but, thanks to T, I can only use the computer in secrecy. He has a new obsession with the laptop. Every time he sees it, he climbs all over me yelling, "Gummy bear! Gummy bear!" (More about that in a future post.) So while T is distracted, I'm going to try to get you caught up on all the little things. Here goes:


Toddler Trade-off

Exactly 14 days ago, T ran head first into the terrible twos. Seriously. The change in his disposition was so sudden and dramatic that I could enter the exact date into his baby book. His first MAJOR tantrum happened in my doctor's building (just a follow-up appointment). Oo pushed the elevator call button before T could. After screaming, he threw himself to the floor. Where did he land? Halfway in the elevator (which had just arrived) and half out of the elevator. Not yet allowed to lift him, I held the doors open with my body while I used my foot to roll him the rest of the way into the elevator. He screamed all the way up.

Just as suddenly as his big tantrums started, his language skills have taken a big leap forward. He's had a great vocabulary for a while, but he rarely chose to use it. Preferring a caveman-like style of communication, he usually grunted and pointed to tell us what he wanted. But all of a sudden he's narrating everything and using longer phrases: "Cookies in bowl," "Shoes and socks on... go outside," "Play with blocks, please." We're all enjoying hearing what he has to say!


Garbled

Even though T's language skills have improved, his pronunciations are not always clear. At lunch the other day, he looked at me excitedly and said, "Moon schnoob noot!"

Me: What did you say?
T: Moon schnoob noot.
Me: I'm sorry, I don't understand. Oo, do you know what he's trying to tell us?
Oo: Nope.
T: (losing patience) Oo, I SAID, 'Moon schnoob noot!!'

"I said" was a new phrase for him, and it was said with such serious frustration that I had to fight off my giggles.


Puddle Jumping

The kids have new raincoats and matching froggy rain boots (Oo also has a Hello Kitty umbrella that Santa gave her this year), and Oo has been begging and begging to try out the new rain stuff. But after the slew of ear infections this fall and winter, I've been hesitant to take them outside to play in the rain -- our rainy days this spring have all been quite chilly and windy.

Well, I finally caved. On a recent rainy morning, I suited the kids up in their rain gear -- AND their winter hats -- and we headed out to play. The kids were so excited you would've thought it was Christmas. After squealing, stomping in puddles, catching raindrops with their tongues, and twirling the Hello Kitty umbrella again and again, they fought me tooth-and-nail when it was time to go in for lunch. The battle, however, was immediately over once I announced they could have hot chocolate with their lunches.


The Band

Oo often spends an afternoon each week practicing for "the big performance." Her performance may be anything from a dance show to a puppet show to a musical variety show (complete with costume changes). Her "rehearsals" are long and intense, with the goal of being ready to put on the show for Daddy after dinner that night. Once dinner is done, but before the dishes can be cleared, Oo assigns seats to Adrian and I (usually in the back row... her stuffed animals get preferred seating), and the show begins.

Her latest creation was a rock concert (which, come to think of it, she never did perform for us). She decided the dining room was her dressing room, the living room was the stage, and the kitchen was where the band rehearsed and came up with all their ideas. I asked her if her band had a name, and she replied, "The 3000 Band. And do you know why we are The 3000 Band? Because you have to pay 3000 money to listen."

Dream big, little Oo. Keep dreaming big!


Picky

As with all kids, my kids can be picky eaters. Oo has long had a "no skin" food rule, which translates into no skin on her apples, pears and plums, as well as no crust on bread. She has just taken the no-skin rule to a new level. Now "no skin" also applies to hot dogs, and -- as if she didn't already eat very slowly -- she frees her peas and corn from their tiny skins before eating them.

The list of foods T won't touch has always been more lengthy than Oo's list. At our favorite ice cream shop, he added a new item to his list. I ordered two kid scoops of Oo's favorite flavor -- Blue Cosmo (it tastes like cotton candy). T's never had this flavor, and neither kid has ever had sprinkles on their ice cream before (what kind of mother am I??). When I gave them the cups of bright blue ice cream topped with rainbow sprinkles, their eyes lit up and they squealed with delight. T loved the new flavor of ice cream, but the sprinkles... After each bite of ice cream melted in his mouth and was swallowed, T would say, "Bleah!" And then he'd stick his tongue out to wipe the sprinkles off one by one. I felt bad that his treat was marred by my choice to add sprinkles, so I scraped off all the sprinkles and ate them myself. The sacrifices a mother makes for her children!


No S'more Please

After several rainy days in a row, the kids and I got pretty squirrely. To break the monotony, we made S'mores bars together -- like Rice Krispie Treats, but using Golden Grahams and stirring in chocolate chips and extra marshmallows. Oo helped by cutting the butter into little pieces and by doing much of the stirring. T helped... that is helped himself to a lot of marshmallows! After dinner that night, we were all excited to taste our new creation. T, however, took one lick, said "Bleah," and handed the s'more to Adrian. Oo took several bites of hers before pulling it apart to eat just the chocolate chips. She then declared that she no longer likes marshmallows. Adrian and I "had to" spend the next several days eating the rest of the s'mores by ourselves. Poor us!




Stop Copying Me!

Keeping true to the title of my blog page, T does everything that Oo does. No longer entertained by this, Oo yells at T, "Stop copying me!" at least a dozen times a day. At the library, I stumbled across (as if by divine intervention) the perfect children's book to help keep the peace in our house. It's called "Copy Crocs," and was written by David Bedford. In the story, Crocodile is annoyed when his friends do everything that he does, so he keeps running to get away from them. In the end he realizes that it is more fun to have his friends with him than to be alone. The book has worked wonders for us. Now when T imitates Oo, she usually shrugs her shoulders and says, "T's being a copy croc again."


It's in the Genes

Many people comment about how much T looks like Adrian. But last October my cousin took a picture of T that, to those of you who knew me as a little kid, looks a lot like me. I forgot I had the picture until I was tidying up my email inbox yesterday.



"Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away..."

I have to mention we LOVED the warm sunny weather we were having. On Saturday, I took our niece to an afternoon showing of "Monsters vs. Aliens." I'll admit, it was a little silly to sit in a dark theater on a sunny day, but it doesn't matter because we had fun! Back at home, Adrian and the kids took full advantage of the great weather. Below is a picture he sent to my cell phone while I was at the movie. It's classic Oo!


Well, I gotta sign off for now. T's climbing on me yelling, "Gummy bear!"

Make a Wish

While Oo and I sat on the floor playing today, I noticed an eyelash on her cheek. I carefully picked it off and showed it to her as I explained one of my favorite childhood superstitions: make a wish, close your eyes and blow the eyelash away to make the wish come true.

Her eyes twinkled with the possibilities and she grinned a big grin. Before closing her eyes and blowing her lash away, she whispered, "I wish, I wish my eyelashes would stay on."

Happy Easter

Over the course of this holiday weekend, I composed three blog entries in my head. And now I can't remember what I was going to write. So rather than try to recall and recompose three entries, I'm just going to share some pictures.

Visits from Grandparents:

Both of my parents made trips into town last week to help out with the kids. The kids were beyond excited!




Egg Hunt with Neighbors:

Every year we get together with other families on our street for an Egg Hunt at the park. This first picture is of T all bundled up. He does NOT like cold weather and was quite crabby until we layered him with an extra sweater and his winter gloves.


Oo and some friends taking a break after the hunt.


Oo and a friend taking stock of their spoils.


Easter Morning:

Before bed Saturday night, Oo informed both Adrian and I that she planned to wake up early, tip-toe downstairs and find all the eggs before anyone else could. What she didn't count on was being the last one to get up -- she was pooped out from running around the park the day before.

Once Oo was awake, the four of us headed downstairs to find out what the Easter Bunny had left. T bee-lined directly for his basket, pulled out a new pair of sunglasses, and put them on. He was so fascinated with his new shades that he didn't bother to look for eggs.


Lovin' the new glasses, T wore them ALL DAY LONG.


Aunt Meanie will be proud to learn that after finding all of the Easter eggs, Oo (aka Mini-Meanie) set to task sorting all of the contents of her Easter basket. As the picture below shows, the sorting included an entire jar of play beads separated by color, and later by shape.


Oo was thrilled with her new Easter dress. She loved that it was polka dotted (circles are her favorite shape) and that it matched the pink sparkly shoes that Aunt Cindy gave her. To add an extra touch of fanciness, we painted her finger nails bright pink. I love her girly pose in this picture!

Time on My Hands

Still recovering, I'm now able to lift up to 10 lbs., but that isn't enough to resume full housework duties (especially vacuuming and carting laundry up and down stairs). I also don't have the energy to do much yet. So I sit. In our dirty house, I just sit. I've had help with the kids and the laundry -- which is great, because neither just sit.

Though the crumbs and fingerprints stare at me mockingly, I do so enjoy the time I have to think and to dink around on the computer. Below is a picture I made yesterday of the kids. It was totally a test-run effort -- rough and not the best picture of the kids -- an experiment for some pictures I hope to make of them in the future. Let me know what you think.

Crunchy Snuggles

This Tuesday was my first morning giving the kids their breakfast since my surgery a week-and-a-half prior. Before Adrian left for work, he lifted T out of his crib (b/c I'm not allowed to lift) and placed the sleepy guy in bed with me. Adrian kissed us good-bye and shut the gate to the downstairs before heading to work.

I'll admit it. I was nervous. It was the first time in a while that I was going to be taking care of the kids by myself, and even though my Mother-in-Law was coming at 10:30 to help with the house and kids, there were 3 hours where we would have to manage on our own.

Now I just have to brag about my kids for a moment here... these wonderful children of mine were both awake by 7:30, but they let ME get another hour of sleep! And during that hour, do you know what these kids were doing? They were quietly reading books in their rooms. Seriously, I was in heaven!

You know, I LOVE babies, little, tiny babies. And I constantly wipe away little tears each time I see my kids reach a new milestone that carries them farther away from babyhood. But this entertaining themselves for an hour thing? Pretty nice, I gotta tell ya. Maybe them growing older isn't such a sad thing after all.

Okay, so it's 8:30 and we head downstairs for breakfast. I have to keep it simple, since I'm not supposed to be on my feet much yet. I quickly gathered what I could -- with the goal of not having to get up again and again like I usually have to do during a meal -- and then we all sat down to eat. That breakfast was a little unconventional for us. It consisted of vitamins, sippy cups of juice, a smorgasborg of three different cereals, and bananas, and... we sat in a circle on the kitchen floor to eat. (I didn't want to move too far from the fridge or cupboards, just in case.)

Despite the fact that my floor has not been mopped since before the surgery, our picnic wasn't half bad. And despite the fact that the kids were not confined to their "food chairs," they weren't terribly squirmy and weren't running around getting their sticky hands on the walls. In fact it was a nice continuation of a nice morning. Soon I had one kid sitting on each of my indian-crossed legs, and we were all snuggling close as we crunched on cereal. Since the kids were sick during all of my recovery, we've had to keep our distance from each other. I've REALLY missed the snuggling, and I can tell that they've felt the same.

It's good to be back.

(Reality check: By 10:00 T had a nasty poop-through, and Oo decided that she is no longer capable of wiping after her own potty break. So while I was up to my elbows in stink and baby wipes with T, Oo was upstairs screaming and wailing b/c she was 100% certain she would be sitting on the potty, all alone, forever.)