Heffalumps and Santa Claus

Charlotte and Elisabeth both love Pooh stories. In particular, they love this little book where Pooh has a nightmare that there's a Heffalump in his house. The Heffalump, in the nightmare, says "Ho ho ho, I'm going to EAT you!"

Sometimes during Charlotte's nap, she'll stand up in crib and say "ho ho ho, I'm going to EAT you" over and over again. So imagine Charlotte's surprise when she met Santa Claus in the mall last week (I'm withholding commentary on the fact that it was two weeks before Thanksgiving when Santa was in the mall). Santa Claus gave them a good "Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas!"

As if Santa Claus isn't scary enough, now he's pretty much a thing of nightmares that says "I'm going to eat you!" Although, Charlotte seems to have distinguished between the two. Just a few minutes ago, as she stood in the bay window eating her breakfast, she hollered out "ho ho ho!" to which Elisabeth responded "ho ho ho!" Charlotte said "me heffalump, you Santa Claus Zizzy." Which, after getting to know the two girls individually seems about right...

Why why why why why why why?

We're deep into the "why" phase with Charlotte. The answer to everything you say to her is either "why?" or "no, sorry Mommy, but no." Obviously neither is an ideal answer to most questions that I ask her. My new approach is to say "why why why why why why why Charlotte? Why? Why why?" Or sometimes I intersperse a few "nos" in there too. I continue until she says "top Mommy! top saying why!" I thought this was a brilliant plan until...

Elisabeth innocently asked "why?" about something, in a situation where "why" was an appropriate response and Charlotte got in her face and yelled "why why why why why why why Zizzy? Why? Why? Why?" Let this be a lesson: having two kids changes your parenting tactics and is NOT easy!!

Halloween, Disney, Snakes and The Flu

I feel like life is blowing by and when I get 10 minutes to sit down, I spend my time vegging out on useless sites like People of Walmart (be forewarned, if you click you should say goodbye to any hopes of productivity.)

Two year olds are, apparently, useful for some things. I think we could radically decrease the number of telemarketing calls and political campaign calls if we just let our two year olds answer the phone. Charlotte answered a political call yesterday. I was in the kitchen cooking and hollered for the kids not to pick up. Charlotte never listens to anything I say and picked it up anyway. I didn't realize she had picked it up but when I went in there 2 minutes later she was jabbering away on the phone. It was a recorded message but she was yelling various things that she yells into the phone. I'm considering letting her answer all of the undesirable calls, but I know that she'll fold like a cheap piece of paper if someone asks to speak to her mother.

I was originally scheduled to be writing this post from the couch in our cabin at Disney World. Alas, Elisabeth didn't want to go and so she faked the flu to get out of it. She must have learned the old lightbulb trick for faking fevers (except that all of our lightbulbs are the CFLs that don't put out much heat - which must drastically change the lives of no-good teenagers). In all seriousness, she's sick and so we had to postpone Disney until December. The rest of us feel like ticking time bombs waiting for our flu explosion. Notably, she got sick days after we got her vaccinated for H1N1 by showing up at a community health center with most of Fairfax County. Nothing for spreading the swine flu like getting a whole bunch of kids together in a public building.

We did do Halloween, however. Elisabeth wasn't sick for her parade so she got to dress up as Merlin. Charlotte was a spider. Trick or treating was done via the stroller so that Elisabeth didn't breathe on, touch, or really even look at anyone and give them the flu. Charlotte toted two bags up to the houses. Charlotte is serious about trick or treating. She would have stopped at each and every house if we would have let her but, well, Elisabeth was sick. And just maybe the Phillies game started at 8. But when that kid is old enough to understand that "oh they're on vacation" isn't really true for 80% of the houses, we're in trouble.

Charlotte has been having a snake obsession today. This morning, she crawled around all over the place pretending to be a snake and attacking me. Then, come nap time, she didn't go to sleep. She NEEDED to go to sleep. She was being loud and had been up since 5:30am (time changes mean nothing to this kid). Finally, after 2 hrs, she started really crying and so I went up to talk to her. She was almost hysterical because the overalls she had been wearing that we took off before her nap (and threw on the floor - I'm such a good mom) looked - to her - like a snake. She kept saying "snake in here! snake in here!" Which, as you'll remember, she can't say S words so it is more like "nake in here! nake in here!" I tried to convince her it wasn't a snake but when I picked the overalls up, she went flat out bonkers. So instead of trying to convince her it wasn't a snake, I removed the offending article and put it safely in our bedroom (again - the floor. Was I raised in a barn???)

I went back to her room where she made me hold her so that she could tell me repeatedly that "it made this noise at me mommy, hsssss, hsssssssss, hsssssss." (She makes s sounds just fine in this instance). I told her the snake was gone and put her back to bed and she was asleep in literally 30 seconds. I got to thinking about it and she always sleeps with her sippy cup by her head. And those sippy cups make strange air noises for a long time after you drink out of them, so I wonder if that was what made her think there was a snake in her room.

And just in case you think I don't learn from my mistakes, I picked up this rabid raccoon looking pair of pink and purple sweatpants off of the floor before I put her to bed.