There 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.
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!"
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!
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.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Charlotte'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.
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.
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.
And this is how our conversations went:
Elisabeth: Academy Award winning sobfest. The kind that puts Sally Field to shame.
Me (yelling, obviously): CHARLOTTE! Did you hit Elisabeth?
Charlotte: (completely emotionless face, sort of indignant) No. Princess Cat did.
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.
Charlotte creates drama between the friends too. Here's an example:
Charlotte, running over to me, somewhat upset: Mommy! Lambie is crying!
Me: Oh no, why??
Charlotte: Pink kicked her in the face.
I put Pink directly into time out for that one.
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.
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."
She isn't that 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.
I am very interested to watch a world ruled by Charlotte develop. I'm thinking Lord of the Flies.
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.
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.
And this is how our conversations went:
Elisabeth: Academy Award winning sobfest. The kind that puts Sally Field to shame.
Me (yelling, obviously): CHARLOTTE! Did you hit Elisabeth?
Charlotte: (completely emotionless face, sort of indignant) No. Princess Cat did.
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.
Charlotte creates drama between the friends too. Here's an example:
Charlotte, running over to me, somewhat upset: Mommy! Lambie is crying!
Me: Oh no, why??
Charlotte: Pink kicked her in the face.
I put Pink directly into time out for that one.
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.
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."
She isn't that 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.
I am very interested to watch a world ruled by Charlotte develop. I'm thinking Lord of the Flies.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Nature Walk
After 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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?"
"Only if you misbehave, kid."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?"
"Only if you misbehave, kid."
Monday, December 28, 2009
How We Know Santa Is Real, Plus Baby Jesus Rolls
Two 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...
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.
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 still want a cat, I have one for you.
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...
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.
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.
Now change gears a bit. For Christmas Eve Dinner, I set out to make Parker House Rolls. 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.
Me: You're going to EAT Baby Jesus?
C: NO! Baby Jesus neaking (read: sneaking) away!!! See? See Baby Jesus neak? Chomp.
Me: Oh Baby Jesus, come back!
C: Me getting Baby Jesus. Me putting Baby Jesus back Mommy. Chomp.
Me: You're eating Baby Jesus again?
E: I've got Mary in my roll.
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...
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.
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 still want a cat, I have one for you.
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...
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.
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.
Now change gears a bit. For Christmas Eve Dinner, I set out to make Parker House Rolls. 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.
Me: You're going to EAT Baby Jesus?
C: NO! Baby Jesus neaking (read: sneaking) away!!! See? See Baby Jesus neak? Chomp.
Me: Oh Baby Jesus, come back!
C: Me getting Baby Jesus. Me putting Baby Jesus back Mommy. Chomp.
Me: You're eating Baby Jesus again?
E: I've got Mary in my roll.
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...
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Advice 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 many days when I don't want to come out of my room either.
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."
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.
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.
So all of you considering more children, take it from Elisabeth. They ain't all sugar and spice and everything nice. Sometimes they bite.
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."
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.
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.
So all of you considering more children, take it from Elisabeth. They ain't all sugar and spice and everything nice. Sometimes they bite.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Pinkalicious
For 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.
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."
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.
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 neber do that, Mommy. Neber eber eber." So I said "oh good, Charlotte, you should never do that." To which she replied, "Me wash mine hands first Mommy."
Yep, so very Charlotte. I didn't believe her for a second when she said she'd never do something so sneaky.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Is 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?"
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."
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."
Yeah, because that 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."
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