Friday, November 20, 2009

Heffalumps and Santa Claus

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

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

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

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Why why why why why why why?

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

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

Monday, November 2, 2009

Halloween, Disney, Snakes and The Flu

I feel like life is blowing by and when I get 10 minutes to sit down, I spend my time vegging out on useless sites like People of Walmart (be forewarned, if you click you should say goodbye to any hopes of productivity.)
Two year olds are, apparently, useful for some things. I think we could radically decrease the number of telemarketing calls and political campaign calls if we just let our two year olds answer the phone. Charlotte answered a political call yesterday. I was in the kitchen cooking and hollered for the kids not to pick up. Charlotte never listens to anything I say and picked it up anyway. I didn't realize she had picked it up but when I went in there 2 minutes later she was jabbering away on the phone. It was a recorded message but she was yelling various things that she yells into the phone. I'm considering letting her answer all of the undesirable calls, but I know that she'll fold like a cheap piece of paper if someone asks to speak to her mother.
I was originally scheduled to be writing this post from the couch in our cabin at Disney World. Alas, Elisabeth didn't want to go and so she faked the flu to get out of it. She must have learned the old lightbulb trick for faking fevers (except that all of our lightbulbs are the CFLs that don't put out much heat - which must drastically change the lives of no-good teenagers). In all seriousness, she's sick and so we had to postpone Disney until December. The rest of us feel like ticking time bombs waiting for our flu explosion. Notably, she got sick days after we got her vaccinated for H1N1 by showing up at a community health center with most of Fairfax County. Nothing for spreading the swine flu like getting a whole bunch of kids together in a public building.
We did do Halloween, however. Elisabeth wasn't sick for her parade so she got to dress up as Merlin. Charlotte was a spider. Trick or treating was done via the stroller so that Elisabeth didn't breathe on, touch, or really even look at anyone and give them the flu. Charlotte toted two bags up to the houses. Charlotte is serious about trick or treating. She would have stopped at each and every house if we would have let her but, well, Elisabeth was sick. And just maybe the Phillies game started at 8. But when that kid is old enough to understand that "oh they're on vacation" isn't really true for 80% of the houses, we're in trouble.







Charlotte has been having a snake obsession today. This morning, she crawled around all over the place pretending to be a snake and attacking me. Then, come nap time, she didn't go to sleep. She NEEDED to go to sleep. She was being loud and had been up since 5:30am (time changes mean nothing to this kid). Finally, after 2 hrs, she started really crying and so I went up to talk to her. She was almost hysterical because the overalls she had been wearing that we took off before her nap (and threw on the floor - I'm such a good mom) looked - to her - like a snake. She kept saying "snake in here! snake in here!" Which, as you'll remember, she can't say S words so it is more like "nake in here! nake in here!" I tried to convince her it wasn't a snake but when I picked the overalls up, she went flat out bonkers. So instead of trying to convince her it wasn't a snake, I removed the offending article and put it safely in our bedroom (again - the floor. Was I raised in a barn???)
I went back to her room where she made me hold her so that she could tell me repeatedly that "it made this noise at me mommy, hsssss, hsssssssss, hsssssss." (She makes s sounds just fine in this instance). I told her the snake was gone and put her back to bed and she was asleep in literally 30 seconds. I got to thinking about it and she always sleeps with her sippy cup by her head. And those sippy cups make strange air noises for a long time after you drink out of them, so I wonder if that was what made her think there was a snake in her room.
And just in case you think I don't learn from my mistakes, I picked up this rabid raccoon looking pair of pink and purple sweatpants off of the floor before I put her to bed.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Top, 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!
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!"

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.

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)

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.

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! . 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.

It took 3 days, but I finally got an "I torry mommy" as she touched my lip. Only after we read "Do Unto Otters" - because now apologizing is cool.




Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Top 10 Things I Have Learned the Hard Way This Week

In honor (??) of Dave Letterman... the Top 10 Things I Have Learned the Hard Way This Week:

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.

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).

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.

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.

6. I cannot actually 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.

5. Rolling sushi ain't as easy as it looks.

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).

3. No matter how cute it looked on the plate, Elisabeth would not eat the blue rice that I shaped in a beautiful E with a cookie cutter. "Mommy! My rice is blue! Gross!"

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.

1. Eating a lot of Doritos minutes before falling asleep is a monumentally bad idea.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

New School Year

The 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 everyone 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.

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."

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 good. 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.

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).

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 after 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.

And with that, I am off to watch some mindless TV.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Some 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.

As they're getting ready to play, Elisabeth says, "Daddy, I talked to Jesus. He said that I get the ball first."

Doug asked her how Jesus knew who got the ball first, and Elisabeth replied "He asked God, and that's what God said."

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.