Happy Turkey Day!

Are you ready for Thanksgiving? What I’m really asking is “Are you ready for Christmas?” because on Friday the Christmas frenzy will officially begin. I think I’m ready. I have a list; I’ve checked it twice, or three or four hundred times. I have a gift next to everyone’s name except for a couple of the cousins. (Auntie C, are you reading this?) I’m a list person so I enjoy this part of Christmas. I love making a list and marking things off….it gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Flower hasn’t quite caught on to Christmas yet, but she LOVES to open gifts so we’ll definitely have to dust off the video camera on Christmas morning. Princess remembers last Christmas vividly and has been fine tuning her list for a few weeks. I’m still trying to get her to nail down what she will tell Santa so Santa can start shopping. We’re having a little trouble trying to figure out what Flower would like from Santa since she doesn’t have a list. Last year Flower was a baby and Princess decided Flower wanted a teddy bear from Santa. Perfect. Santa loved that idea. I’ve been trying to get Princess to think of something Flower might like again this year but so far I haven’t had any luck.

We’re heading north to Grandma and Grandpa’s (and Great Grandma and Great Grandpa’s) for turkey day. This will allow Daddy to get in a few more days of hunting before the season ends. It will also provide ample opportunity for our dog to “meet” Grandpa’s new puppy. Our dog will be wearing her training collar so she’ll be on her best behavior all weekend. I can’t remember a time that our dog has been around a very young puppy so hopefully she will succumb to her maternal instinct and love the puppy….not confuse it with an appetizer.

Flower’s Fetish

Flower has a fetish….an underwear fetish. We can’t leave our undies on the floor at our house because Flower likes to wear them on her head. I think it’s her recent interest in dressing herself, which she can’t do yet, but she likes to put her shirt on. So anything she finds with a hole large enough to accommodate her little melon goes over her head.

She’s not interested in Daddy’s boxers, but Princess and I have to keep a watchful eye on our undies. It makes sorting laundry a little challenging and folding laundry nearly impossible. I had to rescue my undies from all over the house the other day as I was folding a load of whites. I just hope I found them all because that might be a little embarrassing the next time we have company over for dinner and they find a pair I missed.

A few weeks ago Princess needed new underwear so she picked out a package of Ariel panties at Target. I was taking them out of the package and removing all the tape, etc. before I put them in the laundry and Flower came running from across the room wanting to help. So I gave the little bundles to Flower so she could peel the tape off of them and before I knew it she had them over her head. I guess when she grows up I can tell her therapist it all started with the underwear fetish.

Another Mama and Her Babies

I know this video went around the Internet a few months ago but I just received it again from a friend. I forgot how much I enjoy watching it. The mother in me can't help but get a little teary eyed watching the twins play in the sprinkler....and that song always gets me too. The girls and I have watched it a few times this morning and we thought you might enjoy seeing it again as well.

The Week in Review

I know the week isn’t officially over yet, but it seems I like to wrap things up on Thursdays. I work four 10s so my work week is over and it’s a good time to post a status report, if you will.

Flower and Princess both have a cold. Princess has had a nagging cough for a few weeks that just won’t go away. She doesn’t really have any other symptoms and she only coughs occasionally so I haven’t worried about it much. Flower came down with a bad cold last Thursday night and she was pretty miserable on Friday and Saturday. I spent the better part of both days following her around the house with a Kleenex because every time she sneezed a big ball of snot shot across the room….well sort of.

By Saturday night I had caught Flower’s cold, even though I must have used a bottle of hand sanitizer after wiping her nose. Needless to say, we didn’t leave the house last weekend except for a trip to Nana and Papa’s for dinner Sunday evening. Side note: Grandma M roasted chicken with all the fixins’ and baked a peach cobbler….it was delicious!

We also made the mistake of watching The Wizard of Oz Saturday evening and Princess has been having nightmares all week. I was a little hesitant to let the girls watch it but when the munchkins started singing there was no going back. The girls were glued to the TV. Even when the witch appeared they didn’t seem frightened and normally if there is a scary part in a movie that Princess doesn’t like she will ask us to forward through it. But she was ok during The Wizard of Oz. I asked her a couple times if she wanted to forward the movie and she said she wasn’t afraid.

All week Princess has been waking up four or five times during the night thrashing around in her bed and yelling. I’ve tried to wake her but it’s useless. She’s talking like she’s mad, not scared, but when I ask her about it the next morning she doesn’t remember a thing. I’m not sure what to do (we’re definitely not watching The Wizard of Oz again for a few years) but I need to think of something soon. Princess’ room shares a wall with our bedroom and she wakes me up all night long. I need some sleep. So if anyone out there has a suggestion I would love to hear it.

Tuesday night we had tacos for dinner. Princess must be growing because she’s been eating two helpings of everything this week. Flower, however, not so much. I normally don’t inventory everything they eat because generally they eat well and I don’t worry about it. But that night Flower hadn’t touched a thing by the time we had finished our dinner. Princess decided she was going to feed Flower and proceeded to feed her everything on her plate and three more spoonfuls of taco meat. Princess made funny faces, flew the airplane full of food into the hangar and the girls giggled. It was pretty entertaining to watch as I cleaned up the kitchen and I was happy Flower went to bed with a full tummy.

Chatty Cathy

Flower is….let’s say blossoming….when it comes to communication. She still has a few months until her second birthday and she’s really starting to chatter. She was a slower talker, at least compared to Princess. I know you should never compare skills such as walking and talking at certain ages because every child acquires these skills at a different age, but when you only have two girls it’s hard not to.

Princess was an early talker. She wasn’t interesting in walking, heck she wasn’t interested in rolling over or anything which required movement. But the girl could talk. Before her first birthday she was speaking in phrases and within months she was speaking in complete sentences. Princess was easy to understand. She annunciated her words well and never really “baby talked”. People that didn’t know her thought she was a lot older than she really was. I’m saying this not so much to brag but to give you some background as to the only standard we have for comparison.

Flower hasn’t really been interested in expressing herself with words. She’s content to point and whine until we give in and play the game of guessing what she wants. I’m sure she enjoys watching us try to figure out exactly what she wants by holding up every item on the table during dinner. I’ve tried to hold out and force her to “tell” me what she wants because I know she can but I always give in. I think its part of what I call the second child syndrome. When you only have one child you have more time to spend dwelling on the details. Once you introduce subsequent children your time diminishes exponentially so you give in more quickly, at least we do.

I also blame some of her opposition to words on sign language. When Princess was a baby we bought the My Baby Can Talk DVD that was suppose to teach your baby to sign which would allow them to express themselves before they were able to talk and eliminate some of the communication gap. Princess learned to talk before we had a chance to learn to sign be she did enjoy the DVD none the less. So I decided to give it another try with Flower. Flower immediately learned how to sign “more” which she used (and we encouraged) extensively. But when we tried to encourage her to ask for things using words rather than signing she refused and would only sign. So that idea backfired on me. I’ve read about how signing can help children talk sooner and increase the size of their vocabulary but in our case it didn’t work that way.

In the last couple months Flower has started babbling and using a few words here and there. Every now and then she’ll put a few words together in what sounds like a phrase and she can mimic you very well when she wants to. She likes to pretend she’s talking to you by mumbling a bunch of sounds really fast and then smiling….kind of like she’s teasing us. She follows directions really well so we know she understands what we’re saying, she just chooses not to indulge us by answering our questions. Flower likes to babble on about something as if we’re having a conversation. I guess we are in some ways. I respond to her babbling and ask her another question to which she responds. If I only knew what was going through that little head. When we try to get her to say something she gets a mischievous glimmer in her eyes and I’m afraid when the time is right she’s going to be quite the little chatterbox.

The other day I was getting ready to take her upstairs for a nap. I told her to head up to her room. She walked over to the stairs, started to climb up and then stopped, as if she forgot to do something. She turned around, walked over to her baby doll that was lying in the middle of the floor, leaned over the doll, pointed her finger at her and babbled some instructions very seriously. I guess it was time for her baby doll to lie down and go to sleep too.

We'll Miss You Ritz

Grandpa's dog Ritz made the unfortunate mistake of crossing the street in front of a car last week. She was a cute little thing and we'll really miss her. We decided it was time to break the news to Princess last night because we're heading to Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving next week and figured Princess might need some time mourn.

As we were finishing dinner last night I looked at Princess and said I had some really sad news. I said Ritz accidentally ran out in the street a few days ago, was hit by a car, and now lives in heaven with God. Princess was really quiet for a minute and said "I'm really going to miss her" and I told her I would miss Ritz too. Then she looked at me and said "You need to tell Flower, she really likes dogs too."

Flower took the news pretty well. She didn't know what we were talking about.

The Grass is Always Greener....

Or in our case the apple is always better when it comes from your sister's bowl. It's snack time (a bad habit we started with Princess but that's another post) and tonight the girls are eating apples. I sliced, quartered, and then halved an apple (Princess prefers her apple in 8 pieces) and then sliced off a few edge pieces for Flower. Flower isn't quite ready for big slices of apples yet so I slice her pieces pretty thin so we can avoid an ugly choking incident.

The girls are sitting around their little table eating their designated apple slices and Flower wants the big slices that Princess is eating. I try to distract Flower but she's not buying it. Princess turns away from her bowl of apples to check out the football game on the TV and Flower sneaks around the table and snags a big apple slice from Princess....without being detected by Princess. There was a very mischievous twinkle in her eye and I'm sure that one slice of apple was the best slice Flower ate all night.

Our Week

Not much new to report. Daddy returning from his annual hunting trip last week so Princess no longer misses her daddy. We had another play date with Homestead last weekend and the kiddos had a blast. It was a cool fall day and they found a lot of mud. I’ll leave it to your imagination as no one had a camera. Princess, Sweet and Tuff (Flower was in the house getting the mud removed from her hands and mouth) decided 40 degrees was the perfect weather to run around the yard barefoot and bury your feet in the sandbox. I can’t help but wonder what effect that little antic had on the cough Princess has had for about a month and is now wet and chesty…..

I had Tuesday off so we made a trip to the dollar store and Target in search of items for a Christmas shoe box project. Every year our church prepares and sends boxes to children in Mexico. I intended to have Princess help me put a box together last year but it didn’t happen so this year we got it done with two weeks to spare before the deadline. Princess did really well picking out items for a little girl who she affectionately refers to as “the little girl”. I thought it would be a good way to teach her about the gift of giving. We followed our list and purchased the basics (undies, socks, t-shirt, hygiene items) and a few fun things like a tiara (every little girls needs a tiara), jump rope, colored pencils, paper, and finished up with some snowman suckers. I only had to remind Princess a couple times that we were shopping for someone else and if she really liked the swimming pool baby doll she would need to add it to her Christmas list. We went home and packed up the box. Princess hadn’t said much about it until last night when I walked in the door and she was sobbing “I wanted some snowman suckers like we sent to ‘the little girl’!” How long has she been thinking about those suckers?

Let’s see, what else? Oh yeah, Flower isn’t much fun at the dollar store. I don’t go there often and I think it’s because it’s so chaotic. The isles are barely wide enough to meet another cart, the shelves are piled with stuff (I had a better word but I don’t want to lose my G rating), and there doesn’t seem to be much along the lines of organization. I suppose it’s ok if you are just browsing, but when I’m looking for something specific, it’s just too much for my brain to handle. Chaos is NOT my thing. Anyway, as I mentioned the isles are narrow and full of crap. This causes a bored toddler to hang over the side of the cart and grab anything she can get her grubby little paws on….so we came home with a stuffed animal that is either a bull (of the moo-cow variety) or a buffalo….the jury is still out. This time of year at our house the word bull is usually in reference to a male elk.

Yesterday Princess woke up really early and walked into our room just in time to see her daddy walking into the shower….naked. She was still a little sleepy and came downstairs to find me. She looked up at me and said “Mommy, I saw Daddy’s bum and I thought it was you getting in the shower.” Just as I was about to tell her that’s not really a compliment she said “First I thought it was you, but then I thought it (daddy’s bum) was too big so I knew it was Daddy.” Phew! For a minute there I thought I was really going to have to start using that gym membership again.

It Was Our First Play Date Too

Homestead, Sweet and Tuff came out for a play date this week. You can read the synopsis here. It was our first play date too. Princess waited all weekend for Sweet to come visit. We’re not sure exactly what they discussed at the Blackfoot last Friday, but whatever it was, Princess could barely contain her excitement to see Sweet again.

We don’t get together with Homestead nearly as often as we should. We are similar in many ways….which is the main reason we don’t make time to visit. That and geography. We both live a few miles out of town in almost opposite directions so dropping by to say hello isn’t really an option.

The kids had a wonderful time. In fact Princess is still talking about Sweet and Tuff. I guess Homestead and I need to make an effort to “play” more. It’s not the New Year yet, but maybe I’ll make an early resolution to invite Homestead and her family (yes, Hot Stuff is always welcome too) over more than once a year.

What Does It All Mean?

I saw this video at a conference I attended a few months ago and just received the same file from a friend yesterday. I don't normally post about anything besides Princess and Flower but I find the stats very interesting….and sort of scary.

Don't get me wrong, I love technology. It's amazing. I remember the first "computer" class I took in high school and in college. I don't remember anything I learned because as the video says, that information was obsolete before I finished my studies. I barely remember the internet in the 90s and now I can't live without it. My job used to involve multiple people with numerous spreadsheets and now I manage all the data with the help of the internet and a database. I'm not in the IT field….maybe someday I'll pursue another career in that direction because it does interest me. I think about all the possibilities and the things my kids will experience in their lifetime because of technology and it's awesome. However, I can't help to shake the feeling that all the advances in technology are a little frightening as well. Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to admit I love texting my family and friends just to say hi. But is too much of a good thing....bad? If things are moving as fast as the video says….what does it all mean?

Daddy Went Hunting

Quotes from our house this week:

• Mommy can I call Daddy?
• I miss Daddy (we’ve heard this one about a million times).
• I don’t like folding Daddy’s socks when he’s gone.
• Mommy can I call Daddy?
• I like Daddy more than pizza (this one is my personal favorite so far).
• Daddy didn’t kill anything yet (no comment....that's another post).
• I forgot what Daddy looks like (he’s only been gone for 3 days).
• Mommy can I call Daddy?

In case you can’t tell, Princess will be happy when Daddy gets home.

What’s a Snow Princess?

Princess was a snow princess for Halloween. I thought her costume choice was quite appropriate. Initially both Princess and Flower were going to be Disney princesses since, well; we own most of the dresses already. I was happy about this because it meant I’d get off cheep this year. Then I made the colossal mistake of letting Princess see the costume section at Target and her eyes lit up when she spotted the snow princess costume….and I have to admit….it was totally her.

So one snow princess and one pumpkin costume later, we were set. Halloween arrived and I didn’t think anyone would know what Princess was….I’ve never heard of a snow princess. My search of wikipedia and came up dry. Then I asked my co-workers and one of them vaguely remembered a fairy tale about a snow princess. So I went to google and according to amazon.com there is a Russian folktale based on the Tchaikovsky opera-ballet The Snow Princess. Who knew? Apparently most people we saw on Halloween because everyone knew she was a snow princess.