Sunday, August 30, 2009

Mad Hatters


Top O' the Mornin' To Ya
PS - I promise that is a clean potty.

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Potty Party

Maggie asked to watch her "I Can Go Potty!" dvd this morning. She's watching it right now. However, when I asked her if she wanted to put on panties or sit on her potty and try to go, I got an emphatic NO! I'm not sure what to think of that. I'm torn because I think it's past time for her to be potty trained and if I just buckled down and did it for a week, she'd be trained even though she's mightily resisting it. My conflict comes from the fact that we are going to fly across country in two weeks and then have to fly back 10 days later - 4 flights, hours and hours crammed on a plane and running through airports, with an 8 month old too. I just can't see that working out with a newly potty trained 2 year old who will be crazed from the chaos as it is and eating and sleeping sporadically. Still, I feel like we're losing time here, treading water on this potty thing. I guess there really never is a good time to do it. Will she be 4 years old by the time I get around to it?! I hope not. She's going to want to go to school eventually, right? Should I just bite the bullet and do it or would I be foolishly setting myself up for hauling 3 sets of pee sodden clothes, a weeping toddler, a bawling infant, and a seething husband through DFW airport with another 30 minute flight left to go? I think we're going to have to postpone until late September. Ugh.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Amen, Sister.

http://www.doublex.com/section/kids-parenting/katie-roiphe-my-newborn-narcotic

Exactly. I'm at the point of dearly looking forward to the day when my girls will just be my children and I'll be free to read non-fiction, go out for drinks with friends, watch a movie and actually pay attention to it, have a conversation about politics, care about getting my hair cut, work, wear shoes daily, etc. But I'm totally not there yet. I'm still enjoying my vacation to end all vacations. (However, when did you last take a vacation in which you worked yourself to death? The vacation analogy is a little lacking. It's perhaps more like taking a couple of years off to join the Peace Corps digging latrines in a third world country. Extremely rewarding and exotic, but also dirty and exhausting.)

Monday, August 24, 2009

That's My Girl

I was changing Maggie's diaper just now and I noted that her diaper rash is almost healed up. I said, "Soon you'll be right as rain."

Maggie said, "NO!"

You won't be right as rain?
No!

Will you be...um...left of center, then?
YES!

Sweet.

House Warmed

We hosted a barbecue at our house on Saturday afternoon for 19 adults and 13 kids (including ourselves). What is the aftermath of such revelry? It's 10 am on Monday and Maggie is up in her room singing and reading and playing by herself. She normally gets up around 7 or 8, so by 9 am I was starting to worry that I hadn't heard one peep out of her. I went up there and found her sitting quietly in bed humming and reading an alphabet book. She told me to go away! An hour later she's still up there, and although the humming has escalated to singing, she's still sitting in her bed. No breakfast even! Yesterday she fell asleep on the couch right before dinner and we could hardly wake her up to eat and take her bath. I'm starting to think that it's going to be Wednesday before she returns to her normal self! Kate, on the other hand, hasn't missed a beat. She had a blast, skipped a nap, rejected one feeding and then ate tons with both hands shovelling in food, smiled her face off, and then slept like a log. They're a couple of party animals, I tell ya.

Even though we've only lived here from a couple of months and there was tons of work to be done to get the house and yard ready and the food prepped, we really wanted to finally throw a party for our friends at our house instead of always being the guests. Everything turned out very well I think. We wanted to do real BBQ, not just burgers and dogs, so I made a brisket, Mike grilled barbecue chicken, and we bought some ribs from a good nearby BBQ restaurant (and we did have hot dogs for the kids anyway). I also made macaroni and cheese, my great-grandmother Ruby's coleslaw, and pecan pie. Jane and Dale brought freshly shucked corn on the cob from a local farm stand, green salad, fruit pizza, and peaches and cream pie. Friends brought some buffalo chicken dip and tons of desserts, too much of which is left in our fridge. I confess that I had pie for breakfast! We also have way too much beer left over. What do the parents of two very young children do with tubs of beer sadly getting warm and skunky in our basement? Too bad we don't know any local college kids. There should be a charitable place where old folks can drop off their excess party liquor for needy young college kids. A beer pantry. I'm sure there are adverse legal ramifications keeping such a brilliant idea from becoming reality. The world is simply awash in unjust inequality.

We also got (somewhat) lucky with the weather. It was supposed to be both hot and raining - how is that fair? - but the sun came out and stayed, so it was merely hot and humid and sunny and we would have been dry if not for the sweating. The kids all piled into our kiddie pool and had a ball. Additionally, there was sidewalk chalk drawing, tricycle derby, whiffle ball, and some light gardening. Maggie drank at least part of what appeared to be about ten juice boxes (she says it was "forty") and then suffered the worst diaper rash ever. Well, you live and learn, even at the age of two. She also thieved a baker's dozen of brownies and cookies. I'm kind of shocked that she didn't throw up!

A special shout out to Amy and Lee and Jared, those brave childfree souls who knew in advance that there would be a mess of kids and came anyway! I hope you at least ate well. Come over and I'll give you a bunch of beer as a reward!

Yesterday as we continued to clean up, we found a juice box behind the toilet, a small stack of stones in the corner of the kitchen near the table, a fork in the garden, a beer hidden behind the deck railing, a pair of kid's Crocs (Charlie's), and several indoor toys left out in the yard to get rained on. All telltale signs of a good time been had. Hopefully there will be many more parties to come - although I think our next one will be pot luck!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Maggie Sez...

... I need to get up off my eatin'.

You're finished with your breakfast and you want to get down from the table? Yes.

Apparently you don't actually have to be born in the South to inherit redneck genes!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Maggie Sez...

...Mmmmm starts with donuts!

She's been doing a lot of, "Cat starts with C. Mommy starts with M. TV starts with T and V," sort of stuff lately. Well, this afternoon we stopped by Dunkins to get more ground coffee and since I'm not the kind of Nazi who takes a small child to a donut shop and doesn't buy them a donut - and since she asked an elderly couple in the store if she could have a dunkin donut - I got Maggie a bag of Munchkins. She really liked them.

Maggie Gets a Hair Cut

We've never been able to bring ourselves to cut Maggie's hair so far because we love the curls too much. However, I felt the time had more than come to do it especially since she's in my brother's wedding next month. Nothing drastic took place, just a shaping up and leveling out all the crazy lengths, no bangs or anything like that. She cried a bit at first, but once the stylist gave her a comb to hold - Maggie likes to help - and I started talking to her about the animals on her smock, she calmed right down. As you can see here, by the time she got her 2 lollipops at the end, she was quite cheerful! The certificate has some locks of her hair taped to it - so cute. We'll put it in her baby book.











After lunch we picked blackberries in Gram & Grandpa's yard. She loved it!

Monday, August 10, 2009

Beach Babies

My friend Amy was so nice to invite us to go to the beach with her and her mom last Friday. It was great because I really could not have taken the girls by myself - all three of us were like pack mules hauling kids and gear the block and a half from the car to the water! The girls had a total blast, the water wasn't TOO cold, and the only sunburn sustained was on the top of my right foot! Weird. Anyway, Maggie loved jumping in the surf, chasing sea gulls, and knocking over the sand castles that Amy built for her. She also sidled up to some kids playing nearby and took their pail and shovel! They just sat there watching her play with their toys until I went and hauled her away. Next time we go to the beach hopefully we won't need so much baby stuff and diapers and will have more room in the bag for sand toys. Around lunch time, we went over to Amy's in-laws' house for lunch and a swim in their pool where the water was considerably warmer. Kate LOVED the pool, kicking her feet, splashing with her hands, and laughing out loud. Maggie floated in the pool chair and was Queen of the Pool. Pretty much as soon as we got in the car to go home, I looked back to see both of them sound asleep in their car seats - they slept all the way home! It was a super fun day - thanks Amy and Karen!











Thursday, August 6, 2009

Pretty Pretty Princess

Maggie is going to be the flower girl in my brother Alex's wedding in September. We got the dress in the mail the other day and I took some pictures of her in it just to show my sister-in-law and mom how it looks (for the wedding, it will actually have a purple sash without the flower). She's going through a phase of not liking to have her picture taken, so she makes goofy faces and turns away from the camera. Here are a few good shots that I finally managed to squeeze out of her:







Sunday, August 2, 2009

Maggie Sez...

... Maggie needs a bike!

She's been saying this now for months and I keep telling her to ask Santa for it. However, around here, by the time Santa comes she won't be able to ride a bike because of the 10 feet of snow on the ground. Plus the poor child doesn't have anything to do in her new backyard besides dig in a weedy dirt "garden." So we got her a trike. And a slide.







Kate likes it too.


And so does Mike!

Impressionism

Our House in the Rain


Snowman with Paw Prints


Maggie is a very serious artiste.