tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-71608237724052832882023-06-15T04:17:57.524-07:00Lives in BeingA peek into the delicate balance we call our lives.Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.comBlogger269125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-85386457473507868382010-06-14T04:36:00.000-07:002010-06-14T04:36:36.545-07:00I'm a SuckerTwo weeks from today, I'm having a kidney stone blasted out. I'm a world-class chicken and absolutely terrified of anything you can properly term a "procedure." <br />
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Last night, I heard the dreaded noise of a door opening and the pitter pat of little feet about 45 minutes past bedtime. I went to ask Elisabeth what was wrong and she asked for a pen. I gently (surprised, aren't you?) told her no, that it was way too late. Curiosity got the best of me, so I followed up with "why?"<br />
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She said, "because I want to count off the days on my calendar until you have your kidney stone taken out." I asked if she is worried about it and she nodded. Feeling terribly that <i>she </i>was stressing about it, I got down at her level and assured her I was going to be fine. She ended with, "I'm just worried they're going to hurt you." <br />
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I decided that I was going to have to be strong so as not to worry my sensitive, good hearted 5 yr old. Until Doug came upstairs and asked what she needed. After I told him, he smiled and told me not to worry about it. She is just excited and wants to count down the days until our dear friends Jean and Harry stay with the girls, while I go have the "procedure" done. She mentioned to him that she wanted to count down the days and he told her that if she told me that I'd have my feelings hurt.<br />
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So, I'm a sucker. And the Academy Award goes to.....Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-59991269333704495612010-06-05T17:57:00.000-07:002010-06-05T17:57:15.199-07:00Say Nice WordsWow, a very, very long 3 month hiatus! I'd love to give you a reason, but as best as I can figure out - I just got really busy and perhaps stopped seeing the humor in my kids. Or, rather, was still seeing the humor but not finding the time to document it. Let's hope it was the latter, as the former sounds really depressing.<br />
<br />
Anyway, little Miss Charlotte has changed so much in the last six months. She's incredibly verbal now. I think I've relayed in the past what a turkey she is, too. And now she is pairing these two skills beautifully to further exasperate those who try to provide any form of discipline. <br />
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A scene:<br />
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It is late. We are at my parent's house. Charlotte is tired. Contrary to her usual preference, she is demanding to use the little girl potty insert. However, she refuses to allow me to help her put it in or get onto it and is having immense trouble doing it herself.<br />
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Me: Charlotte! You need to let me help you! It is very late, past your bedtime.<br />
Charlotte: NO! Me do it me self!<br />
Me: OK, well then do it by the time I count to three or else I'm doing it.<br />
Me: 1..........2.............3 - ok, my turn.<br />
Charlotte: screams, flails, kicks, hollers, spits, hops, etc.<br />
Me: I put the potty seat in and try to put her on it, she obviously continues the above.<br />
Me: (yelling loudly now, because well, that's my parenting style) STOP IT! Get on the potty right this minute or else I will put Princess Cat into timeout for the next week!! You are being a very disobedient little girl!!<br />
Charlotte: (stops screaming and gets herself fully into control, looks me dead in the eyes) You need to say nice words me, Mommy. Those are not nice words. You say nice words me.<br />
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Scene 2:<br />
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We're trying to leave the mall. It is mid-afternoon on a day after a terrible night's sleep. We are tired. And cranky. And more of us than usual as I was with my mom and my niece in addition to my two. Needless to say, as we approached the door to leave the mall, someone had to pee. We trek back to the food court to the family bathroom that is more like a play room with little people toilets (it is no wonder someone always has to pee...). Of course, the toilets are "out of order." So we trudge across the food court to the ladies' room where we are finally able to resolve our issue. Try to exit the mall again and, of course, someone's shoe becomes untied which is apparently a show stopper. We then resume our trudge through the 97 degree Florida sun, bouncing off of the asphalt. as Charlotte (who, by the way is riding on my back) begins to complain.....<br />
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Charlotte: I want to throw pennies in the fountain!<br />
Me: No.<br />
Charlotte: But I waaaaaaant to.<br />
Me: No.<br />
Charlotte: I WAAAAAAAANT TO!!!!!!!!!!!!!<br />
Me: (not quite yelling, but in an obviously angry tone of voice) We are NOT throwing coins in the fountain, I KNOW you want to and frankly I do not care! There will be no coins! So STOP SAYING IT.<br />
Charlotte, calmly: Mommy. Those are not nice words. You need say nice things me.<br />
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It is completely disarming. You can't keep yelling at her when she says that. All I can manage to say is "well, I will say nice words to you when you start acting like a nice little girl" but at that point the bite is gone from my voice and the moment has passed. She told Doug the other day to "top yelling me Daddy. Top yelling." (He was yelling at her for her usual refusal to put shoes on). He had to stop yelling and laugh. <br />
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So she wins. She has nerves of steel, that kid. And she has found a way to defeat us.Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-58075007634622800452010-03-01T13:17:00.000-08:002010-03-01T13:17:35.280-08:00Careful What You Ask ForElisabeth never does anything without clearing it with us, and usually requesting help. "Mommy, do you want to come with me to the bathroom?" "Mommy, I'd really like it if you just sat there and watched me sleep, I get so lonely when I'm sound asleep." "Mommy, can you help me put on my underwear?" "Mommy, can you help me brush my short, straight, tangle free hair?"<br />
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Oh, and she pretty much never does anything without being ordered. Get dressed. Get dressed. GET DRESSED. Put on your shoes. Put on your shoes. PUT ON YOUR DAMN SHOES. Except of course I can't say "damn" because she'd not only repeat it to all of her classmates and teachers, but she'd email her grandmothers with it. I make up for choice words with volume and threats of leaving her home. Getting her out the door in the mornings pushes me to the brink of crazy.<br />
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As I was discussing with a dear friend, it is enough to want to make me change my name from Mommy to something else - and not tell her what I've changed it to. She will drive you crazy! A million times I've wished for a self starting, independent kid. I should note that when I mentioned this to the preschool teachers, they about choked since - apparently - Elisabeth is totally self starting and independent and a leader at school. I guess those three hours must totally wear her out as far as independence goes.<br />
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Anyway, along comes Charlotte. Charlotte puts her own shoes on and tries to throw them at you if you even look like you might come over and help. She picks out clothes and comes downstairs wearing them - even if both legs are in the same pant leg. But, yesterday alone made me want to retract every time I ever said or thought "please give me an independent self-starting child." <br />
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Around noon, I looked up and saw her trying to jam a straw into a juice box. We've had the juice boxes at kid accessible height for years because Elisabeth always asks before diving in. Clearly this plan has its flaws. Fine, I'm not such a scrooge that the kid can't have a juice box. But it has to be at the table. Off to the table she goes, with me warning her to be careful and not squeeze the juice box. Three minutes later I see her licking a Magic Tree House book, licking it like its covered in sugar. Oh, wait. Right. It's covered in juice. Hollering ensued, which doesn't phase her, at which point she informed me that not only had she spilled juice but she had also had an accident. Because, oh yeah Mom, I decided it was time to potty train too. I'm not wearing a diaper. <br />
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Fast forward a few hours. I put her up into her room for "nap time." Which, by the way, she has given up napping entirely just like her sister did at this age. A child locked in their room for an hour and a half every day is bound to come up with some doozies, but Charlotte's a stealthy little thing. Elisabeth would give running commentary to everything she was doing. I didn't realize "making muffins" was her code for "spreading poop all over the place," but had I been able to correctly interpret - I would have been able to intervene and stop quite a disgusting mess.<br />
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Well, yesterday was Charlotte's muffin making day. She came out around 3:30 and asked if quiet time was over. I told her she could come downstairs. I noticed she wasn't wearing a diaper, which was cause for concern. I asked why and she said that she had tried to go pee pee. I was sitting within sight of her room and had not heard her leave and traipse to the bathroom, so this assertion was surprising. Convinced she had peed on the floor, I went upstairs. No diaper. No pee. I looked and saw brown on her knee and upon closer examination determined it was, in fact, poop. Oh look, more poop on her arm. And other knee. And neck?? Into the bathroom we went, where I discovered poop all over the stool and... all in the sink. In her defense (am I really defending this?) I think she was trying to clean herself up. Notably, and disturbingly, I did not ever find a load of poop. I can only hope and pray that it has been safely (and extraordinarily quietly) flushed away. I did find a completely clean diaper, so it isn't in there. <br />
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So throughout the entire cleaning up ordeal - and I'm still not sure I found all of the spots - I'm explaining (very, very patiently, obviously - and stop laughing right this minute) to Charlotte that I'd like her to please <i>ask</i> me when she wants a snack, <i>ask </i>me when she needs to go potty, <i>ask </i>me before putting on big girl underwear and it occurred to me that this is exactly what I deserved, what I requested. To each statement, I got the dreaded, "why?" Because poop is nasty, Charlotte! But why mommy? I sent her downstairs while I 409'd the bathroom. And Princess Cat for good measure.<br />
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I came downstairs, frazzled from the afternoon with her, and, I kid you not, that child had gotten another juice box and was sucking it down. Utter defeat. But I'm bigger than she is so I snatched it away and put it in the fridge for another day. I don't know what the score is at this point, but I'm pretty sure I'm losing by a wide margin.<br />
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Charlotte is probably a lot like her daddy was as a kid. Quietly getting into things. Telling you the truth, just not all of it. Elisabeth is like me. Constantly aggravating her mother and constantly in need of assistance. My mother tells me that she had to get me dressed until I was ten...Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-31615463467922777392010-02-16T18:27:00.000-08:002010-02-16T18:27:00.215-08:00CommercializationThere is so much talk about how commercialized kids are these days. It isn't something that I spend a huge amount of time fretting over and thanks to the magic of the DVR, I feel like Elisabeth has been relatively shielded from it. That is, until recently. She has gotten into Penguins of Madagascar, which has ads between the episodes - so at the 15 minute mark. She usually fast forwards through them, but has -apparently- watched a few. At least this leads to some humorous stories.<br />
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When we were in Florida recently, as we drove East on I-4 towards Orlando Elisabeth saw a billboard with a picture of a pile of money with eyes on it. She nearly jumped out of her seat pointing and saying "Mommy, Mommy!! That's the money you could be saving with Geico!"<br />
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Then, on Friday, Doug told Elisabeth that they were going to buy some flowers for me for Valentine's Day. She said, "No, Daddy, you shouldn't waste your money on flowers." So he asked what he should get for me for Valentine's Day. She said "you can still get flowers, but you have to go online and go to flowers.com. And type "youth" in the box. It will save you money." We think she got the coupon code wrong, but she was close!<br />
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As an aside, I would pay money to the makers of Barbie to STOP producing commercials, so my kids can live in ignorance of Barbie's very existence... I would take an entire truck full of My Little Ponies if someone would promise me that another Barbie would not enter my house. Heck, I'd take an entire truck full of battery powered noise making toys if I could keep Barbie out.Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-26110969961447999232010-02-14T18:27:00.000-08:002010-02-14T18:27:33.285-08:00Charlotte's "Friends"Charlotte has a set of "friends" that she absolutely cannot go to bed without. Let me just list them, so that you can get an idea for what I'm dealing with: Tigger, Pooh, Big Tigger, Minnie, Mickey, Other Mickey, Lambie, Amme, Pink, Princess Cat, Baby Ginny, Baby Llama, Nemo, Goofy, and Donald. Now, see, I am certain that I am forgetting at least one. <br />
<br />
If these "friends" stayed up in her room, we wouldn't really have a problem because they'd all end up with her at night. Instead, she brings some subset of them down every day for escapades. Which inevitably leads to a wake up call at 2:30 am "Can't find Lambie!!!" How in the world that kid takes inventory at 2:30 am, in the dark, I will never know. But she is always right, and she'll tell you that Lambie is downstairs playing marble game in front of the TV. And off you'll go in search of Lambie, or else you will never sleep again.<br />
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Lately, some of her friends have taken on personalities. And let me tell you, that Princess Cat is trouble. Princess Cat seems to be Charlotte's (even more) evil twin. In fact, Princess Cat is only recently released from a week's long incarceration in Charlotte's room. This stemmed from a few days of Charlotte repeatedly causing Princess Cat's hard plastic face to connect at great speed with Elisabeth's soft fleshy face. <br />
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And this is how our conversations went:<br />
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Elisabeth: Academy Award winning sobfest. The kind that puts Sally Field to shame.<br />
Me (yelling, obviously): CHARLOTTE! Did you hit Elisabeth?<br />
Charlotte: (completely emotionless face, sort of indignant) No. Princess Cat did.<br />
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So Princess Cat, since she couldn't figure out a way to keep her plastic face to herself, had to live in Charlotte's room for a week. <br />
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Charlotte creates drama between the friends too. Here's an example:<br />
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Charlotte, running over to me, somewhat upset: Mommy! Lambie is crying!<br />
Me: Oh no, why??<br />
Charlotte: Pink kicked her in the face.<br />
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I put Pink directly into time out for that one. <br />
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Charlotte has an active relationship with her stuffed "friends," something we never saw with Elisabeth. She has complete, lengthy conversations with them. Consoles them when one of the other ones assaults them; watches out for their best interests. Just the other day, she had a major meltdown while listening to They Might Be Giants' Here Comes the ABCs in the car. Pictures of Pandas Painting came on, and Charlotte was literally in tears because it is Pink's song (the letter P), and Pink wasn't there to hear it.<br />
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This afternoon, Charlotte introduced Princess Cat to the washing machine. "See dat Princess Cat? Clothes go round round round. See clothes in dere?" Then tonight as we played a game of Sorry, Mickey, Pink, and Princess Cat each had to take a turn watching what we were doing as Charlotte explained to them. "Soooorrrrrry Princess Cat."<br />
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She isn't <i>that </i>cautious with them though. Just this morning, Princess Cat got tossed onto the floor while Charlotte played in her play kitchen. I guess nature called, Charlotte was wearing her big girl undies, and Princess Cat took the brunt of the accident. In a highlight of my parenting career, I found myself Googling "wash baby doll hair" and breaking my favorite comb trying to brush the dredlocks out of her hair after washing it with my fancy schmancy shampoo and conditioner.<br />
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I am very interested to watch a world ruled by Charlotte develop. I'm thinking Lord of the Flies.Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-45899582673638247212010-01-20T13:56:00.000-08:002010-01-20T13:56:05.965-08:00Nature WalkAfter nearly a month of frigid temperatures, it finally got to be above 40 last Thursday. Now, I'm a Florida girl - so you know that it has been really cold when <i>I</i> go out in 45 degree weather in just a long sleeve t-shirt and seriously contemplate a picnic. I decided it was probably too cold for a picnic, but by gosh those kids were getting outside for some much needed airing out. <br />
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Elisabeth's preschool class had gone on a "nature walk" earlier in the week where they took bags and picked up little things like pine cones and acorns and brought them home to mommy so that everyone can have just a little bit more junk in their house. Elisabeth just loved the nature walk. She has grand plans of constructing a pine cone lantern. I don't want to know the specifics.<br />
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Our neighborhood is surrounded by a flood plain that about half of the houses, including ours, back up to. It is a bunch of woods and fields with two decent sized streams. We often take walks down there, when it isn't 18 degrees with gale force winds. Thursday seemed like a perfect day for an adventure, so off we went on our own 'Nature Walk.' I gave each girl a shopping bag, put on our mud boots, and off we went in search of nature. <br />
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About half way in, Elisabeth realized that there weren't many pine cones or acorns. We collected some spiny spherical things that fell from some kind of spiny-sphere producing tree (I should really consider a career as a science teacher, with my fancy undergrad degree in microbiology...). We tried to find some deer bones or snake skins but came up empty handed. We did find some grass covered in fox spray, but I vetoed that entering my house. <br />
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We ended up down at the stream where we skimmed stones for about 20 minutes. Charlotte "plunked" stones (appropriately called "plunkers"). Elisabeth found "skimmers" and managed to get a three hopper. I threw sticks for the insane lab puppy to fetch in the water. It was glorious. <br />
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As we walked home, Elisabeth began to lament our lack of "nature finding." We stopped to look around and saw a flock of eastern bluebirds in the field across the stream from where we stood. Male bluebirds are one of my favorite animals - they are so blue and so pretty. As an aside, they are also perhaps one of the dumbest animals I've ever observed - they continually build nests in our bluebird boxes but don't sit on them and then the wrens move in and kick them out. Anyway, the girls and I watched the bluebirds for awhile as I explained that the male bluebirds get more brightly colored as we approach spring. It was all very serene and calming.<br />
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Until a hawk came flying in low, right over Elisabeth's head, and attacked a male bluebird right before our very eyes. Grabbed it out of mid-air. I'm pretty sure that my girlish shriek scared the hawk, who did not end up killing the bird. My girlish shriek also scared the living bejeezus out of the kids, far more than the hawk had. <br />
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So I said to Elisabeth - "you wanted a nature walk? That was a bona fide nature walk." The entire walk home, the girls grilled me with questions about hawks. Did the bird die? Why do hawks eat birds? What else do hawks eat? Will the hawk eat Ginny (the puppy)? Do hawks eat fish? Can hawks swim like ducks?Do people eat hawks? And my favorite, from Charlotte, as she looked up at me with huge brown eyes, "Hawk eat me, mommy?" <br />
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"Only if you misbehave, kid."Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-62422022590114238032009-12-28T12:43:00.000-08:002009-12-28T12:43:48.266-08:00How We Know Santa Is Real, Plus Baby Jesus RollsTwo cute stories from the Christmas weekend. First, as I've written about previously, Elisabeth was terribly skeptical of the whole Santa story this year. She eventually settled on Santa being real, but Rudolph being made up because, really, what kind of reindeer has a nose that lights up... <br />
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Well, in order to test her "hypothesis" (her new favorite word thanks to WordGirl, I believe), she devised a system that would prove once and for all whether Santa was real. She would leave a note for Santa along with the cookies. The note would read "For Santa ONLY." That way, if the cookies got eaten, she would know that Santa was real because only Santa could eat the cookies. If the cookies remained in the morning, then Santa didn't exist. She was thrilled to find the cookies eaten. And I only feel a little bit bad for misleading her. <br />
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If one of us hadn't eaten the cookies, it seems likely that the cat would have. We left the mug of milk out for Santa and came downstairs to multiple puddles of foul, and I mean FOUL, smelling cat vomit. If you've ever wanted a cat, think again. And if you <i>still</i> want a cat, I have one for you.<br />
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Elisabeth has said multiple times over the past two days, "I KNEW he was real. I KNEW it. I'm so happy." It is so sweet and innocent that she has full faith that if she writes something on a note, it will be obeyed. Well, maybe that's not sweet and innocent, maybe it is an expectation that her parents do as she says. Hmm... let's go with sweet and innocent. Makes for a much better story and makes me feel better about my parenting skills. I note this as I watch Elisabeth dance around the room to Penguins of Madagascar periodically mooning the TV. Pardon me while I inquire of the nature of this dance...<br />
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OK that is settled. The adjustable waist band button in her pants was bothering her, so the obvious solution was to pull both pants and underwear down as she danced. On to Jesus Rolls.<br />
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Charlotte, like her sister before her, loves, and I mean LOVES, the notion of Baby Jesus. Every Christmas song that says Baby Jesus is met with enthusiastic cheering from Charlotte. She carries the Fisher Price Baby Jesus around the house, perching him precariously on towers made of blocks. Heck, she even named a new baby doll of hers "Baby Jesus" and she (yes, she) is the sister of Other Amme. <br />
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Now change gears a bit. For Christmas Eve Dinner, I set out to make <a href="http://bakinghistory.wordpress.com/2007/10/16/world-bread-day-parker-house-rolls/">Parker House Rolls</a>. These little rolls are made by taking a ball of dough and squishing it flat in the middle so that you make a sort of oval with two thicker ends, then you fold it in two and bake. If you're so inclined, you can open them up in the middle before you eat them. Charlotte was so inclined. And immediately upon opening the roll, she decided it looked like a manger. "Baby Jesus in there!" Hoping she had seen an image of Baby Jesus in a Christmas roll that I could sell on Ebay for the big bucks I looked over only to find her looking at a very plain looking roll. "Baby Jesus sleeping in here Mommy." Charlotte then patted the roll gently and then folded it closed. And shoved it in her mouth with a big, theatrical, CHOMP. <br />
<br />
Me: You're going to EAT Baby Jesus?<br />
C: NO! Baby Jesus neaking (read: sneaking) away!!! See? See Baby Jesus neak? Chomp.<br />
Me: Oh Baby Jesus, come back! <br />
C: Me getting Baby Jesus. Me putting Baby Jesus back Mommy. Chomp.<br />
Me: You're eating Baby Jesus again?<br />
E: I've got Mary in my roll.<br />
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So now, every day for three days, we've had these rolls with dinner. And needless to say our irreverent dinner roll skit has gotten less reverent with each passing day. So now on every Christmas Eve, I will apparently be serving Baby Jesus Rolls. And also probably going straight to hell...Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-30877397004433945632009-12-20T18:34:00.000-08:002009-12-20T18:34:05.267-08:00Advice from a big sister for those considering a second child...We just got back from a wonderful weeklong trip to Disney with my mom and sister and niece, who is 3. Elisabeth, Annaleis and Charlotte had a lovely, if not loud, time playing together. Poor Annaleis, though, by day 3 she did not want to come out of her room after she woke up. Instead she sat by the door, relishing her last little bit of peace. That is how crazy my crazies are. I can understand, believe me, there are <i>many </i>days when I don't want to come out of my room either.<br />
<br />
Anyway, my sister is somewhere around 20 weeks pregnant, and I guess Elisabeth thought she needed some advice. We overheard my 4 year old telling my sister in a very advice-giving tone of voice something to the effect of "you know, babies aren't always nice. Sometimes they bite." A sort of "take it from me, I've been there, don't get too excited about this so called 'bundle of joy' you've got growing in there because it will come out and bite you." <br />
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Now, given Elisabeth's only experience with having a new baby, this was fair advice. This week was the first time both girls have had to sleep in a bed together. The number of times Doug and I had to go in there and yell at them is pretty much uncountable. And this countless number of times was always, ALWAYS, attributable to Charlotte. Elisabeth was being a saint. <br />
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Twice, Doug went in and Charlotte handed over Baby Ginny and Baby Llama without a fight and said "me mack Zizzy." We have a video monitor,we know its true. We'd watch as Elisabeth peacefully tried to go to sleep and Charlotte would breach the pillow divide we created and climb on Zizzy and haul off and "mack" her good. <br />
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So all of you considering more children, take it from Elisabeth. They ain't all sugar and spice and everything nice. Sometimes they bite.Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-11893004612977378302009-12-08T06:26:00.000-08:002009-12-08T06:26:00.564-08:00PinkaliciousFor those of you who don't know - Pinkalicious is the in the running for the dumbest kids book on earth. But for some reason, Charlotte (and many, many other kids apparently) LOVES it. So we read it more than we might otherwise want to.<div><br /></div><div>The entire premise of the book is this bratty little girl and her mother make pink cupcakes, and the brat eats so many pink cupcakes that she herself turns pink. They take her to the doctor who tells her that to turn back to her normal color, she has to eat nothing but green foods, which of course are "YUCK." </div><div><br /></div><div>Pinkalicious' mom puts the rest of the cupcakes on top of the fridge. Pinkalicious is not to be swayed, so she stacks chairs and books and tvs precariously on top of the kitchen counter and climbs up to reach the rest of the cupcakes.</div><div><br /></div><div>This morning, as I read this book to Charlotte and we got to the part where Pinkalicious is sneaking in and climbing up this ridiculous stack of stuff to sneak another cupcake, Charlotte says, "me <i>neber </i>do that, Mommy. Neber eber eber.<i>" </i>So I said "oh good, Charlotte, you should never do that." To which she replied, "Me wash mine hands first Mommy."</div><div><br /></div><div>Yep, so very Charlotte. I didn't believe her for a second when she said she'd never do something so sneaky.</div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-57051173485275435452009-12-07T06:20:00.000-08:002009-12-07T06:26:09.205-08:00Is Santa Real?I must field this question daily. Luckily she still really wants to believe, so I can answer with a "what do you think?" and she quickly drops the question. But a few weeks ago, she engaged me and said "Well, I think he's real." Then she asked "does he really have a sleigh?" <div><br /></div><div>I've wanted to dance the Santa dance without flat out lying to her, but if she already believes in Santa then what's the harm in telling her that yes, he has a sleigh? So I said yes. And she said "Yeah, I thought so. That's how I can tell the real Santa from all the fake ones, like at the mall. The fake ones don't have sleighs." </div><div><br /></div><div>Then she asked, "but mommy - I don't think Rudolph is real." I said, "why not?" to which she replied, "because, Mommy, NO animal has a red nose that lights up. That's just silly." </div><div><br /></div><div>Yeah, because <i>that </i>is the unbelievable part of the story. If I'd been on top of my game I would have reminded her about fireflies, but I was in a two-child induced stupor so I just said "oh I know, that Rudolph story is just ridiculous."</div><div><br /></div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-68541762769313064082009-11-20T05:10:00.000-08:002009-11-20T05:10:00.189-08:00Heffalumps and Santa ClausCharlotte 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!"<div><br /></div><div>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!"</div><div><br /></div><div>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...</div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-26387310242723933522009-11-18T05:05:00.000-08:002009-11-18T05:09:59.114-08:00Why 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...<div><br /></div><div>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!!</div><div><br /></div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-29181582313295170262009-11-02T17:45:00.000-08:002009-11-02T18:12:48.796-08:00Halloween, Disney, Snakes and The Flu<div><div><div>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 <a href="http://www.blogger.com/www.peopleofwalmart.com/">People of Walmart</a> (be forewarned, if you click you should say goodbye to any hopes of productivity.)<br /><div> </div><div>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.<br /></div><div>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.<br /></div><div>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.</div><br /><br /><br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399693718643496290" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JhCWJyhFXFQ/Su-Q1AunVWI/AAAAAAAAFC4/R5d18e1OPrk/s320/DSC_0140.JPG" border="0" /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399693959886504802" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JhCWJyhFXFQ/Su-RDDbbg2I/AAAAAAAAFDA/0QNjGVtv-20/s320/DSC_0165.JPG" border="0" /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399694219413681442" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 213px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_JhCWJyhFXFQ/Su-RSKPh9SI/AAAAAAAAFDI/8uf4zZpZnnY/s320/DSC_0143.JPG" border="0" /><br /><br /><div>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???)<br /></div><div>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.<br /></div><div>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.</div></div></div></div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-37328855711648261612009-10-20T17:28:00.000-07:002009-10-20T18:03:38.891-07:00Top, Mommy, Top!!!Charlotte can't say anything that starts with an "s." As she says increasingly more things, it leads to some hilarious results. In general, any time I sing I'm met with a very loud TOP MOMMY TOP! <div>It took me a lot more time than it should to figure out what she was saying when she came running to me yelling "Zizzy DUCK Mommy. Zizzy DUCK!" She pulled my hands, "come heeeeere Mommy, Zizzy DUCK!"</div><div><br /></div><div>Well, Zizzy was duck. Duck in the dog crate. Who do you think locked her in there? That's right, the 2 yr old force to be reckoned with. Elisabeth was ok though - no worse for the wear. In fact, truth be told I think she was kind of enjoying her chance to play the role of Ginny the Crazy Dog.</div><div><br /></div><div>And one of her favorite things to pretend to be? No White! I'm No White Mommy! (She also likes to say she's Tinkerbell, but I don't know if she's saying Tinkerbell or Stinkerbell - which is what I call her)</div><div><br /></div><div>Strangely though, there is one thing she says over and over and over and over and over that begins with an S. She says it with such gusto and downright furor. ME SELF. DO IT ME SELF. She definitely separates the words, and "self" comes out loud and clear. </div><div><br /></div><div>As an end to my hilarious "Charlotte can't say "s's" post: I know that this is a phase and all kids go through it - but the anger, the rage that this precious little two year old harbors within all comes out if you have the audacity to buckle the top part of her seatbelt. TOP MOMMY! TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP! Me do it me self! nooooooooo! <insert>. Our last bout of Mommy vs. the Tyrant, The Seatbelt Wars ended with me getting a big, fat, bleeding lip. And then I had to go grocery shopping, with blood running out of my bottom lip. Grocery shopping with Charlotte is not fun in the best of days.</div><div><br /></div><div>It took 3 days, but I finally got an "I torry mommy" as she touched my lip. Only after we read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Do-Unto-Otters-About-Manners/dp/0312581408/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256086968&sr=8-1">"Do Unto Otters"</a> - because <i>now </i>apologizing is cool.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-90698369360758980772009-10-06T16:53:00.000-07:002009-10-06T17:24:22.556-07:00Top 10 Things I Have Learned the Hard Way This Week<div>In honor (??) of Dave Letterman... the Top 10 Things I Have Learned the Hard Way This Week:</div><div><br /></div>10. Your inaugural trip to H-Mart (Asian grocery) should not coincide with the second biggest Chinese holiday of the year. (Thanks for the explanation, Lindsay!) I've never seen such craziness. Huge buckets of crabs clammoring around with people sticking their hands RIGHT IN THERE grabbing them out and throwing them in bags.<div><br /></div><div>9. Rice cookers emit a starchy steam that covers everything within a 1 foot radius of the rice cooker. This starchy steam is especially bad with brown rice. As a consequence, my computer monitor looks tiger-striped. But I got a heck of a deal on the rice cooker (see #10) - you know if you don't count the money I'll have to spend to get a new laptop... (just kidding, I fully expect this starchy striping will come off with windex and elbow grease).</div><div><br /></div><div>8. Baby Ginny (stuffed little yellow lab) absolutely must go into Charlotte's crib at night or else you will be on your hands and knees scouring your bedroom floor in the dark for a little stuffed animal just so that you don't have to hear the yelling. The fact that you've remembered to send Baby Ginny to bed with Charlotte every night for the prior six months does not earn you any goodwill with the 2 yr old in the middle of the night.</div><div><br /></div><div>7. A 1.5 hr tennis lesson, after not having touched the tennis racquet in easily 6 yrs, leads to unfortunate results. First, your racquet grip will literally disintegrate in your hands. Second, when you think your bangs are in your eyes and so you'll just skedaddle over to your tennis bag and scavenge it for a hair band - that also hasn't been used in 6 yrs, you will be quite disappointed when the hair band also disintegrates in your hands. Third, while you might actually still fit in your pre-pregnancy tennis skirts, you do not look nearly as cute as the pre-kids twenty-somethings. Fourth, you will hurt - badly - the next day.</div><div><br /></div><div>6. I cannot <i>actually </i>control both of my dogs on a walk, even with no pull harnesses, no matter what I tell you. Luckily I learned this in an area with no traffic and with a puppy that Maggie did not actually attack or harm in any way.</div><div><br /></div><div>5. Rolling sushi ain't as easy as it looks.</div><div><br /></div><div>4. My nearly year long new diet of more veggies, less meat, almost no red meat has led to some undesired consequences such as my inability to eat Costco hotdogs (although as Wendy pointed out, the problem is that Costco hotdogs are 100% beef and I should stick to the really unhealthy ones that are 100% gross stuff that you don't want to know about).</div><div><br /></div><div>3. No matter how cute it looked on the plate, Elisabeth would <i>not</i> eat the blue rice that I shaped in a beautiful E with a cookie cutter. "Mommy! My rice is blue! Gross!"</div><div><br /></div><div>2. When the food coloring doesn't easily come out of the dropper, squeezing as hard as you can is the wrong answer (see #3). I still have dots in my hair, on my neck, my arms, everywhere.</div><div><br /></div><div>1. Eating a lot of Doritos minutes before falling asleep is a monumentally bad idea.</div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-56875102738464951102009-09-27T17:56:00.000-07:002009-09-27T18:16:27.554-07:00New School YearThe school year is in full swing, now. We're finally at 5 days/week! Elisabeth absolutely loves it- her new teachers run the classroom a lot like kindergarten. Just like last year, every kid has a job every day. The jobs that I know of are: sponge helper, librarian, line leader, door holder, bathroom helper, pack-up helper, letter finder, number finder, and chime ringer. Last year, the teachers assigned the jobs. The kids ended up rotating through the jobs once every few weeks. This year... the teachers made the jobs first come-first served. We used to leave the house at 8:30 and get to school at a perfectly reasonable 8:42 for school starting at 8:45. But now - NOW - Elisabeth wants to be the chime ringer. Apparently <i>everyone</i> wants to be a chime ringer. So we leave at 8:15 and run as fast as we can to the door only to find 5 other kids IN LINE because the door doesn't open until 8:45.<div><br /></div><div>On Thursday, my crowning achievement as a mother, I got Elisabeth to school in time for her to fake out her 4 other friends in line and sneak in and steal chime ringer. I should probably be ashamed of myself for not pulling her back out of the room, but no. I am immensely relieved that I can deny her the joy of being chime ringer for another three weeks and have a good conscience about it. She thoroughly enjoyed ringing the chimes, as you might imagine. It does seem like the best job, far better than anything termed "bathroom helper."</div><div><br /></div><div>And Charlotte, my dear Charlotte, she should hang up those signs that you find on bulletin boards with their number on them usually advertising tutoring or babysitting services. She should hang one up offering lessons to other two year olds on the proper form and method of throwing a tantrum - because that kid is <b>good</b>. We're talking flat on her back, kicking her legs, screaming good. In the library no less! All because, well I'm not even sure. I think it was because I made her stop pulling books off of the shelves and throwing them on the ground. I'm really mean like that.</div><div><br /></div><div>Today she threw a blanket at me and yelled "spread it out" angrily over and over again, in increasing volume levels. And this was when she was in a good mood! But, darn it if that kid isn't the cutest thing on Earth when she tells you, quite emphatically, that she won't be scared when we go to Disney World and she'll walk right up and hug Mickey Mouse! Or when she comes running through the front yard hollering the whole way "DADDY DADDY DADDY! BUG in my wing! Bug in my wing!!!" (she can't say words beginning with "s," and is terrified of bugs).</div><div><br /></div><div>As for me, I'm really enjoying my new job. I love the part time schedule where I get to spend entire days home with my kids. And, truth be told, I equally love the fact that the day <i>after</i> I spend a whole day with my kids - I get to go sit in a nice quiet office and be a lawyer. I will tell you that on my inaugural walk to the Courthouse, I walked by what was definitely a rabid fox. OK, sprinted. I'm not sure what that says about my future lawyer career, but it certainly was an interesting first walk to the Courthouse. Later that week there was what appeared to be a rabid squirrel outside of our building. <insert></div><div><br /></div><div>And with that, I am off to watch some mindless TV.</div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-57496162181975793212009-09-12T04:43:00.000-07:002009-09-12T04:46:39.155-07:00Some Sports Use a Coin Flip...Thursday evening, Elisabeth got all dressed up in her soccer gear and we played some soccer. First we played outside. Then on the porch. After I forced her to eat some dinner (still in soccer gear), we went upstairs for bath time. We usually let the kids play before bath time, and so obviously Elisabeth chose to play some indoor soccer with her Daddy.<div><br /></div><div>As they're getting ready to play, Elisabeth says, "Daddy, I talked to Jesus. He said that I get the ball first."</div><div><br /></div><div>Doug asked her how Jesus knew who got the ball first, and Elisabeth replied "He asked God, and that's what God said."</div><div><br /></div><div>We weren't quite sure how to respond, so we let her have the ball first. And we're hoping her "relationship" with Jesus doesn't continue to revolve around getting stuff.</div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-30705770614280641872009-09-10T12:14:00.000-07:002009-09-10T12:30:38.502-07:00And.... we're backWhew - today is my first day home with the girls in what seems like ages! We've run 8.2 million errands, which as I'm sure all of you parents know, kids really love to do. They often beg me mercilessly until I find errands to run. All I have to do is bribe them with milkshakes...<div><br /></div><div>Today's first errand was outfitting Elisabeth with soccer gear for her first soccer game on Saturday. We walked into Sports Authority and wandered around somewhat aimlessly. After passing the shoes, the tennis section, the hunting supplies, the baseball section and the basketball section I heard two mothers talking to each other.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mom 1: Do these pad thingies go over or under the socks?</div><div>Mom 2: I have no idea, I never touched a soccer ball in my life.</div><div>Mom 1: Do you know, Ryan?</div><div><br /></div><div>Ryan did not know. Ryan was 5. As was the other little girl in the store. And there we three mommies stood in the soccer section. Over the course of the next 30 minutes we would become fast friends, and also be joined by 4 more sets of moms/kids all on the annual (?) quest for soccer gear. In Elisabeth's soccer league there are 3200 kids. That is ridiculous.</div><div><br /></div><div>I helped the other moms out with the proper placement of shin pads. Then I grabbed a pair of the "extra small" shin pads that were part of the "$29.95 everything you need for soccer" deal. The shin pads came to Elisabeth's thigh, which, as the sales person ever so helpfully pointed out, is too high.</div><div><br /></div><div>Clearly I am not the only mother with this problem, and in fact the other mothers of five year olds near me looked at their kids' legs and said "oh.... that's too high?" So the sales guy said that he thought he had some smaller ones for girls. 10 minutes later he returned with the smallest shin pads I've ever seen - I mean, really, they were sized for a newborn Pele. He encouraged me to at least try them on Elisabeth, who after quite a bit of shoving and pulling finally said "Mommy - these are TOO small and you're hurting me!" Off he went to find something in between 6 mos and 4 yrs in size. Thankfully he came back with something that fits, and is unbearably cute when worn. Oh, and that $29.95 deal? Right, that doesn't actually work if you have to get micro-sized shin pads. Thanks Sports Authority.</div><div><br /></div><div>Next was socks, which as all of us mothers quickly found out, are still too big even at XS. But not so big that we couldn't use them. We found a size 3 ball, teeny tiny soccer shorts, and thought we were on our way until I decided to research cleats. I thought we'd just borrow some from neighbors who have offered, but since they had 2 pairs for just over $11, I thought I'd look. Turns out that if your kid wears a size 10 shoe, in one kind of cleats they need a size 13, in one kind they need an adult size 1, and in Nike cleats - well they just won't ever fit a kid with a wide foot. So after shooting at a moving target for far too long and never finding a shoe that actually fit the kid, I decided to revert back to the borrowing plan. How hard is it to make a size 10 shoe that fits a size 10 foot I ask you? Apparently very hard, if you're a manufacturer of $11 soccer cleats...</div><div><br /></div><div>We got out of the store for $40, which I guess isn't hugely more than $29.95. It was worth it to see Elisabeth clutch her soccerball with great affection in the car the entire way home. I felt like it was a right of passage as a Northern Virginia mom. And, at least I knew how to put shin pads on.</div><div><br /></div><div>(I hereby promise to post a picture of Elisabeth all decked out for soccer...)</div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-90941318262595070152009-09-06T05:07:00.000-07:002009-09-06T05:09:30.147-07:00GiraffesElisabeth was looking over my shoulders as I typed an email last weekend. She said, "Mommy, do you have any giraffes?" A bit perplexed, I said... "No?" She said "No Mommy, do you have any <i>giraffes?</i> You know, emails that you haven't finished yet??"<div><br /></div><div>I said, "No, I don't have any giraffes" and left it at that. She doesn't say many words incorrectly anymore, and if she wants to call drafts "giraffes" - I am going to let her.</div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-81164075408590562462009-08-27T17:39:00.001-07:002009-08-27T17:42:58.158-07:00Two pictures<div style="text-align: left;">I am going to make an effort to post more pictures. Here are two favorites from the last few weeks:</div><div><br /></div><div>Elisabeth making mudpies down by the stream behind our house.<br /><div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_JhCWJyhFXFQ/Spcnv_FVBfI/AAAAAAAAExc/NNr21m_ju-c/s320/mudpie.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374808385631094258" /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Charlotte after decorating her 2nd birthday cake.</div><div><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JhCWJyhFXFQ/SpcnZkiJOZI/AAAAAAAAExU/2K8lfaPDHdQ/s320/DSC06676.JPG" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5374808000547076498" /></div></div></div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-77713121311306995692009-08-27T17:22:00.000-07:002009-08-28T13:28:26.375-07:00Recent Funny StoriesElisabeth likes to torment Charlotte from time to time -- assuming her proper role as older sister. Our dear little Charlotte is getting a pretty good vocabulary, but talking is absolutely not her strength. She gets understandably frustrated, then, when Elisabeth plays the "You can't do [X] unless you say the magic word" game.<br /><br />A few days ago, Elisabeth told Charlotte that Charlotte couldn't sit next to her unless she said the magic word. The magic word on this day was.... "Achupichu-pichu-achu-pichu." Quite a mouthful for Miss Charlotte who immediately burst into tears and said "NO SAY achu-pichu-pichu-achu-pichu!!!"<br /><br />And speaking of magic words... Elisabeth learned a little bit about having a big brother this week. She went to her friend's house, who has a brother a few years older. The brother had them blocked in the basement and wouldn't let the two girls come up, until <i>they </i>said the magic word. Elisabeth apparently got upset and maybe a little scared. She didn't know the magic word. The little boy's mom told me about the exchange when I picked Elisabeth up. She was apologetic and hoped that it wouldn't affect Elisabeth at all. <div><br /></div><div>When we got into the car, I asked her about what happened. She didn't have much to say about it, just that she was frustrated and never wanted to have a big brother. All the while, Boy George's song "Do you really want to hurt me? Do you really want to make me cry?" was playing in the background. After a few minutes of it, Elisabeth said quietly from the back "he should listen to this song, Mommy." </div><div><br /></div><div>And in the Mommy-as-chopped-liver department, these two gems: </div><div><br /></div><div>First, every morning for years now Elisabeth gets to watch two tv shows in the morning - so about 40 minutes total. And every morning I sit in my recliner with her for 5-15 minutes. If for some reason I have to leave early to go to work, she gets teary eyed about not sitting together in the chair. Yesterday morning she said, "Mommy, remember when you said we were getting too big to sit together in your chair? Maybe you should move to the couch."<br /><br />Then today, I got home a bit early from work and told Doug I would go play in the basement with the kiddos. Fully expecting this to be the best news they'd ever heard, Doug hollered down to the little beasts and said he had a surprise basement playmate for them. Elisabeth came tearing up the stairs - right by me - and kept asking "where where where?" We waited until she figured it out - to no avail. Doug said "It's Mommy..." and she said, "oh. well, ok."</div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-70725865341507963002009-08-20T17:39:00.000-07:002009-08-20T17:39:00.576-07:00Fairfax County Summer Reading Program<div><div><div>One big achievement that we've had here is that Elisabeth completed her Fairfax County Summer Reading Program. She had to read 15 books, and in exchange for reading the books they gave her a book full of coupons that we won't use. Well, ok, I'll take her to McDonalds for a free ice cream - but if she thinks I'm taking her kayaking at the ripe old age of 4... she'll have to think again. Or ask the more willing parent.</div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, Elisabeth was (is!) such a rock star. She read all kinds of books, from pretty easy to some long and tough ones! The deal, at least in order for her to get the super special better-than-a-coupon-book prize was that she had to read the books to me, all by herself (with some help when she got stuck), and they had to be books that she hadn't read before. Her longest read was 48 pages (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Captain-Peppers-Reading-Sally-Grindley/dp/0753410427/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250644275&sr=1-1">Captain Pepper's Pets</a>), and had some pretty difficult words! I'm incredibly proud of her.</div><div><br /></div><div>She was really cute taking her list of books to the library. The kid (probably 11 or so) who was manning the table was really nice to her. The kids get to pick out an animal cutout and write their name on it. So, Elisabeth wrote her (very long! what was I thinking?) name on the cutout - it had to wind around the side, and the kid took her to let her pick out a spot on the library wall to hang it. She chose a spot right in between a little boy named Jack and a girl named Abigail. </div><div><br /></div><div>As her prize, I bought her 34 of the Magic Tree House books. We love reading these books, and I got a heck of a deal on ebay (new ones even!). She was pretty thrilled to open the package. She also got her very own library card. Does anyone want to start a pool on # of days until the library card goes missing??</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></div></div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-65227178323530199192009-08-18T17:49:00.000-07:002009-08-18T18:39:27.685-07:008 more days!Only 8 more work days as a full time working mommy. Not that I'm counting. I like my job, I really do. But I cannot tell you how excited I am to go to part time (at a new job). I feel like my well of hilarious kid stories has run dry. Not because my kids aren't hilarious, but because (1) I'm not around them enough to know the funny things that they do and (2) I'm too tired to remember what I did 5 minutes ago much less the funny things my kids did earlier in the day... <div><br /></div><div><div>Charlotte has officially weaseled her way back into Costco outings. This past weekend, I needed to go to Costco because I needed another big vat of tzaziki sauce along with 500 Stonyfield yogurts. Now, usually, I'd leave Charlotte home with Doug. But, Doug had decided - on a whim - to dismantle our kitchen faucet to attempt to fix a broken gasket thing. And, let's just say it did not go so well. At the peak of his frustration, we had it so that pushing the faucet to the off position make the water run at about half speed. It was completely obvious that staying home and "helping" was not an option with two little people afoot. It was also obvious that leaving Charlotte home to fend for herself was not really the best plan either - since she thinks crayons on glass windows are the best thing ever. So I packed the girls up for a trip to the library, then lunch and shopping at Costco. Our last Costco journey with two girls ended in me swearing upside down and sideways that I was NEVER taking Charlotte back (she hit, bit, smacked, wiggled, and was generally dreadful in the cart). This time... she was a saint. A really cute, sweet saint.</div><div><br /></div><div>I'm pretty sure it was the Coke that I let her drink at lunch. With the pizza and fries. She sat in that cart with Elisabeth and the only time she touched her was to "pat pat" and "hug Zizzy." And, no, I did not stick any prozac or alcohol in the Coke. So... she is not quite on the A list yet, but she's also not blacklisted from Costco trips. In the days after our trip, she keeps talking about going to "Caco." </div></div><div><br /></div><div>As for Charlotte's talking - she is really cracking me up lately. She'll come up to you and say a huge number of recognizable words to relay a very simple thought. For example, this morning she came up to me and said: "book Ginny this do go eat there over go GINNY eat mine no eat Ginny table mine mine." She looks you right in the face (climbs up on chairs if necessary) and tells you all of this at a very frenetic pace with such a look of concern in her eyes. Obviously she was telling me that Ginny was chewing on one of her books. Trying to figure out what her 30 second speech boils down to is like a logic game. Charlotte has a great nature about her, too - when you guess wrong instead of getting frustrated she finds it hilariously funny. As I've mentioned, though, she finds everything hilariously funny. Especially timeouts. It is a blessing and a curse.</div><div><br /></div><div>You'll all be happy to know that our kitchen faucet works just fine now. Even better than it worked before. And we didn't even have to pay a plumber. Doug did good (with the help of a wonderful neighbor)!</div><div><div><br /></div></div><div> </div><div><div><div><br /></div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-28521823550837492592009-08-10T17:33:00.000-07:002009-08-10T17:44:29.545-07:00ahh, the twos.Well, it is official, Charlotte is two. And two she is. She is, shall we say, savoring being two. Her biggest joy these days is saying "meeeeeee do it!!!!!!" Well, maybe not her <i>biggest </i>joy. It has to be at least tied with kicking her legs when she's not getting her way, crying like a drama queen when her sister looks at her funny or makes a move for anything that Charlotte at any point in the past or future might have wanted to touch, or smashing food over every square inch of her exposed skin. <div><br /></div><div>Yes, we've arrived at the so called "terrible" twos. I beg to differ, though, unless the threes are called the terrible horrible no good very bad threes. At this point in her life, tantrums are still pretty funny. "Oh, you don't <i>want</i> to put this onesie on? How cute. You're going to kick and pitch a fit until you're red in the face? Well, hold on a minute and let me get the camera..."</div><div><br /></div><div>She's at an age where she's starting to do some really funny stuff. For example, she got this gorgeous Madame Alexander doll from Gram for her birthday. She hugged it and then we asked her to sing "Rockabye Baby." She rocked that baby and sweetly sang "rockababy rockababy rockababy" as we videoed her and cooed over our sweet sweet birthday girl. Then she threw the baby down with some amount of force and sang "baby fall down." And hopped down from her perch and plodded off somewhere. That lullabye has always bugged me with trees breaking and babies falling to their demise...</div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of lyrics, here's a funny "mis"-lyric that Elisabeth sang today. She really wanted me to sing Bare Necessities with her from Jungle Book. So we did. Here's her version:</div><div>"Just for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities,</div><div>Forget about your worries and your stripes."</div><div><br /></div><div>I really need to start writing things down as soon as they happen. It turns out my brain only has a certain capacity and this full time job thing plus having two kids has overloaded it. Things pop into my brain and I think "ooh - I want to remember that." Then 3 minutes later - it is long long gone. Not a great skill for a lawyer...</div><div><br /></div><div>OK, until my next brilliant thought...</div><div><br /></div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7160823772405283288.post-45925263497468715922009-08-03T17:15:00.000-07:002009-08-03T18:54:34.524-07:00Children's BooksTwo thoughts on children's books:<div><br /></div><div>First, did you ever know that some children's books have one line summaries on the copyright page? They're really hilarious - at least I find them funny. They sound like a lawyer summarizing stories about muffins and llamas. Reading them is my new favorite library activity...</div><div><br /></div><div>Some favorites include:</div><div><br /></div><div>If You Give a Moose a Muffin: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'arial unicode MS'; "><a class="normalBlackFont1" style="font-weight: normal; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Chaos can ensue if you give a moose a muffin and start him on a cycle of urgent requests.</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"> </span></span></a></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Llama Llama Mad at Mama: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: 16px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';">A young llama wants to play but must go shopping with his mother instead, and so he gets angry and makes a mess at the store.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px;">Bear Snores On: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">On a cold winter night many animals gather to party in the cave of a sleeping bear, who then awakes and protests that he has missed the food and the fun.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px;">Goodnight Moon: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Goodnight to each of the objects in the great green room: goodnight chairs, goodnight comb, goodnight air.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px;">Skippyjon Jones: <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;">Skippyjon Jones is a Siamese cat with an overactive imagination who would rather be El Skippito, his Zorro-like alter ego.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'times new roman';font-size:180%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 18px; line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><br /></div><div>Second, if Make Way for Ducklings' Mr. Mallard pulled his little "I want to go explore the rest of the river and leave you with our 8 babies" stunt in this household - he'd probably not have any tailfeathers, or an ability to have future children. And we <i>certainly</i> wouldn't be meeting him a week later all happy to see him. Luckily my girls have no real concept of gender roles since they have a stay at home daddy (for 4 more weeks!) who does the laundry... and bakes.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Ericahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06307984870480640905noreply@blogger.com2