Just a Typical Saturday Morning at Our House

I believe the Whos down in Whoville refer to Kate's contraption as a "great big Electro-who-cardio-shnook." She certainly makes ear-splitting noise, noise, noise, noise on it. Tomorrow we're going to try to round up teams for a Zoo-ziffer-car-zay match. Bring your roller skates.

 

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We had the girls' yearly check-up appointment with the doctor this past week. Kate is 36.6 lbs. and 41 inches, and Maggie is 36 lbs. and 43 inches. So... yeah. Kate is in the 60-somethingth percentile for both height and weight for a four year old and Maggie is 13th percentile for height and 5th percentile for weight for a six year old. They've both always about around those numbers, so the doctor isn't all that concerned about Mags. She's just a pixie changeling. Kate had her final round of vaccinations (until boosters at 11 years old), and then we all went out for burritos to celebrate.

All is well here, if not exactly peaceful.

Halloween

Yay! I got our Halloween pictures up before Thanksgiving! I'm so proud of myself.

Mid-October was kind of a blur for us because I caught some kind of awful cold/virus (probably from a preschool student who lives in our house who will remain nameless...) and was under the weather for almost three weeks. I still have a muscle in my neck/shoulder that is spasming as a result of all the coughing, and the pain runs up my neck into the base of my head and gives me headaches. Fun! Bring on the muscle relaxers!

Then, just as I was getting better, Maggie got pink eye and had to have gooey eye drops and stay home from school. We ditched a trip to NH at the last minute because of Maggie's eye and therefore didn't get to go to Mack's and pick apples and buy pumpkins. Our farm stand pumpkin selecting experience was second rate, but we still got to carve a jack o' lantern for the girls


Scoopin' Guts

Our town has trick or treating during daylight hours among the shop owners in town square a few days before Halloween. I do feel it's sad that so many kids in America today don't get to experience the kind of Halloween that I remember as a child - walking door to door collecting candy from the neighbors - but it is nice to have an earlier option for little kids that is still a lot of fun. AND we still have the other, more traditional kind of trick or treating too! So we just spread the holiday out into a long weekend, multi-event candy bonanza extravaganza!


Ready to hit the Square!

Maggie wore this costume last year, and Kate was a duck. This year Kate was determined that they would wear the exact same costumes, of course, because that is what you do on Halloween: you dress as a duck and your sister dresses as a monkey. I don't know what you do if you have a brother. That scenario isn't covered in the Rule Book.

But of course last year's costumes did not fit. The three of us talked over their options and all the costume possibilities I could think of, and they finally decided that they should BOTH be the monkey. Find us another identical costume to this one, Mom! Get crackin'! And because I am a Supermom, I did find another one in Maggie's size. (I got them both at Babies R Us. Luckily they aren't very creative with their costumes, as they had all the same ones from last year again. I'm still claiming that Supermom title, though.) Hopefully next year Maggie will be old enough to want to be something different from her little sister because I don't think Elizabeth should have to be a monkey for Halloween THREE years in a row!


Gotta have balloons!


Taking a break to eat some candy

In their defense, they are very warm costumes, which is a good thing since we got snow the day before Halloween and it was plenty cold on the Friday before when we were in the square. We really got lucky because Mike's parents in NH and friends of ours to the west of Boston got a foot of snow and had long power outages. A lot of towns had to postpone Halloween!

Maggie's school was actually in session on Monday so they forged ahead with the Halloween party. There were games and fake tattoos and face painting and spider hats and bobbing for apples and crafts and TONS of snacks. I had to put the snacks she couldn't even finish in her lunch box for later.

Pop quiz question!

Did Maggie eat her sandwich at lunch?

A. No
B. Of course not.
C. Are you kidding?
D. All of the above


Getting her face painted


Jack O' Lantern


Three-eyed Spider Hat (the legs were supposed to go down, but Mags liked them up - dead spider hat?)

That night, as soon as Mike got home from work and we could gobble down some dinner, we put the girls' costumes back on and headed out into the night, leaving our own candy bowl on the porch honor system style. We happened to run into both sets of our neighbors with kids starting off at the same time, so we went around the neighborhood together like a gang of hoodlums. If we'd remembered a six pack of beer for us parents, it would've been perfect.


Stylin'


Monkey Mags


Even Monkeys Gotta Wear Shoes


About two seconds later they were punching each other in their padded monkey bellies.


Quote: "My belly is full of bananas!"


Baby Elizabeth traded us this stuffed toy banana for the duck costume. Thanks, E!


Let's Go!

Our neighborhood had tons of houses with lights on and the streets were full of families with young kids. I'm not sure if we just finally went down the "right" streets this year or what, but it was kind of magical. All six of us parents talked about how great it was that our kids could have this kind of quintessential Halloween experience right here in our town, as urban and mildly sordid as it sometimes looks by daylight. But the fact is that there are more and more young families like ours moving in and the houses are close together on streets with sidewalks and you can get to know each other and trust that you can eat each other's candy without fear. We really had a marvelous time.



Two Little Monkeys Jumping On the Bed

Stop! Maggie Time...

So, you say, what's up with Mags these days?

Well, here's a photo I took on Saturday of the Dead End sign she made for Dance Baby Dragon Town, which is the town where she lives... in her mind. She put the Dead End sign up on the post in the kitchen because that corner of the room is, apparently, a dead end. She has mentioned this Dance Baby Dragon Town to me now a few times, because she likes to tell me what is and isn't against the law there and how it applies to her current situation, in which she has usually broken a rule that exists in the town that I live in (reality) and which is NOT a law in Dance Baby Dragon Town.



If she doesn't become an entomologist, or an accountant, or a fry cook on Venus, she's going to be a lawyer. I'm pretty sure of it.

Here's some more of Maggie's art:



This image is Maggie's portrayal of our Skype call the other night with my parents in which our computer crashed and we couldn't finish the call face-to-face. Nana is on the left there, and that's Papa on the right. The big X represents the crash. I suppose an art therapist would tell you that she was quite distressed by this event. By the way, I think the likenesses are quite good. You can see the family resemblance there.

And finally, I took this video of Maggie at her request demand this evening. She wanted me to make a video of her giving a bouquet of leaves to her Dad.



We might need to add performance artist to her list of future professions up there. I never understand what those people are trying to accomplish either!

Adventures in Beantown

As our gorgeous cool/sunny weather continues, I decided we should take advantage and take the train downtown for a day of adventures. I had intended to do a lot more days out in the city this summer, but Kate's potty training has kept us at home more than I planned. I kept my fingers crossed and threw lucky pennies in all the fountains we passed, because the single greatest problem with Boston is the serious lack of public bathrooms, but she did great and didn't have any disasters.

As soon as we got out of the T at Park Street, we headed across the Common and into the Public Garden. The girls always love the Make Way for Ducklings statues and immediately ran to sit on the ducks.






Kate did not love sitting on Mrs. Mallard with Maggie and did not want to wait for me to take a picture. Maggie however loved it.


Here's a photo of them on the same duck last year. My how time flies!!




Maggie loved the real ducks, too. She cried when I dragged her away (because she was taunting the ducks by throwing leaves in the water and getting them all excited for snacks)!


On the bridge watching the swan boats. We didn't ride them because the line to get on was outrageous and it was lunch time. We headed out of the park to get pizza and pink lemonade instead.


After lunch, we headed over through Quincy Market and out to the Greenway where we hit the carousel, of course!


Kate wouldn't let me take her picture, so I surprised her and got a shot in the mirror above us. Sneaky Mom! She kept trying to tell me something all throughout the ride, but the calliope music was too loud. Finally I realized she was saying, "They're chasing me, Mom! The horses are chasing me! Up and Down! Come on guys, Come on!" She's a riot!






After the carousel, we cut over to the harbor to look at the boats and try to find an ice cream shop, but...


We ran into a playground instead. The only thing that got us out of there was that Kate ended up needing to go potty, so we just HAD to run over to the North End to Caffe Vittoria (my favorite!) and get some gelato and iced coffee!


These girls know all the tricks to keep the paparazzi at bay.


She just can't help being cute.


Yum!


I was positive that we were going home now as it was somewhere around 2pm, but we had to walk back through the Greenway to get to the T station and Maggie spotted the fountains!


She wasn't leaving without getting totally soaked. Here are a couple of videos of the girls cavorting in the spray:

Pretty Pretty Princesses

Then after I turned off the camera, Maggie said, "And now is when we are supposed to kiss!"



I know two girls who've been watching too many Disney movies lately! There are also some Evil Witch and Cut Out Her Heart games going on as well. We may have to switch over to being a strictly Pixar-only household!

The Entertainer

ABC Song



Encore



Ring Around the Rosey

C-A-T

She's a writer! She's been asking how to spell lots of things lately and is somewhat obsessed with the idea that some words contain a silent "e" which she calls a Sneaky E. I wonder if she'll start reading a little bit soon.

Also, notice the left handedness. She was also cutting paper with the scissors in her left hand the other day. I probably should get her some lefty scissors.

I Give Up

Any illusions that I had of being in control of style decisions around here are gone now...

They are terribly cute, though.

Also, thank goodness Costco is so cheap - if I'd had to pay full price for these skirts, I probably would've had a seizure.

Maggie Sez... "It's Raining! I Love It!"

What's that you say?! You want to see more photos of my kids?! It's my job to fulfill your every wish, and I take that responsibility seriously, so here you go.

It was really super hot a few days ago and I promised the girls to blow up the kiddie pool, but I remembered too late that I had borrowed an electric pump from Mike's parents last year and there was no way I could blow it up on my own without having a stroke. So in order to quell the uprising, I took the rebels to Home Depot and bought them a couple of sprinklers. Mike enjoys feeling like the girls are doing some of his chores for him. Win-win!

(NB: That fence technically belongs to the neighbors and their two young sons are systematically destroying it picket by picket. We're trying to decide what we can and should do about it. Try not to look directly at it. Thanks.)

She's Headed for the Olympics

Jump!

Down the Toilet

Where has the week gone?! Down the toilet, of course... literally. Besides the fact that all four of us are still battling the same old head cold we've been passing around for two weeks now, we also had some fun with plumbers in the last couple of days.

We actually noticed the water dripping out of our kitchen cabinet a few weeks ago. We realized that the toilet upstairs was running (we can't hear it downstairs, so it had been going for a while), so we were able to stop the dripping and clean up the dishes and the cabinet right away. Our wonderful plumbers came out the next day and replaced the wax ring which was basically non-existent. We really hoped that fixed the problem. Not so lucky. It dripped again a week or so later and we called the plumbers. They wanted us to re-caulk the bathtub and see if that fixed it, but we felt the location indicated that it had to be the toilet. When it happened a third time, again when the toilet was running, we asked them to come out and look at the toilet. Sure enough, when they came out on Tuesday this week and cut a big hole in the kitchen ceiling, they found the crack in the pipe under the toilet. The good news was that it was fairly cheap to fix the pipe with a section of new PVC, but the bad news was that we had to choose between cutting a hole in the tile floor in the bathroom or pulling down the kitchen cabinet to make the ceiling hole bigger. We went with the bathroom floor since we have no love for the crumbling avocado tile up there.

Guess what's underneath our bathroom tile! Hard wood flooring! Ruined by water damage, of course. And that's all, by the way, no subflooring for the tile job. They just stuck tile straight onto the varnished hardwood - so that's why the tiles keep popping off and look like they've been regrouted about three times in different spots with various colors of grout. Brilliant.

Mike got to be Handy Manny and help the plumbers cut out plywood to fill the holes left by the rotted boards in the floor. He also has high praise for his shop vac and suggests that everyone go out right now and get one if you don't already have one. He also feels he may have missed his calling as a carpenter because he loves the smell of sawdust so much. I'm getting scared that he's about to start filling our garage with thousands of dollars of equipment and wearing an apron and calling himself "Nahm" and talking all day about "mehshud drawrings."

The silver lining in all this - and please god, there must be a silver lining to all this, please - is that our cabinets under the hole are now super clean and bleached, I finally put down the shelf liner, and all our plates, cups, glasses, and bowls have been through the dishwasher. So the kitchen is sterilized. Also, the hole in the ceiling is actually hidden by the soffit above the cabinets, so once we tack that back up it will essentially disappear (until we decide to redo the cabinets - but we'll worry about that then). Also, the hole in the tile needs to be remedied, so we're thinking about pulling up the rest of the tile - should take about ten minutes since they pop off with the slightest encouragement - and laying some inexpensive linoleum in there for the meantime until we can get around to redoing the bathroom (a project that's actually near the top of our list). Even cheap, ugly linoleum would be better than what's in there now, and they actually have some pretty decent looking stuff these days. Could be a huge improvement.

Wanna see some photos?

Oh yeah, and one other thing... last week, the stairs fell off the deck. Mike happened to be standing on them at the time, but thanks to his cat-like reflexes (ask him about them, he'll be glad to tell you all about them any time), he just coasted down the steps as they were falling and didn't get hurt. Not to worry though, he already Handy Manny'ed them last weekend, so we're back in business. It never ends, it really doesn't.

Happy Friday!

Wonder Girls

You know how Kate likes to put stuff on her head, right? Here's a new favorite past time: fighting crime with vacuum cleaner attachments!

Nice and Safe

We've taken (and shared) quite a few photos of Kate with various things perched on her head. She genuinely seems to like it, and it only adds to the hilarity that her noggin is so delightfully round like a pumpkin. If you can stand a few more Buckethead videos, come right this way...

It's especially nice how you can hear us in the background encouraging her to put the bucket on her head. We're supportive parents. Here are some killer dance moves:

And here's a photo of Maggie getting in on the act:

For Your Entertainment

After my post about Maggie singing Deck the Halls, and just because this video is so darned funny that Mike and I keep watching it over and over and cracking up each time, here's a bonus feature of Maggie and Kate's comedy act:

Multimedia Tuesday

Here's a silly video of Kate. This knee scooting/bouncing thing is her favorite form of locomotion at the moment. She has taken a few actual steps and she stands around no-handed quite a bit, but she's still more confident walking on her knees! I think it looks a little like we're pioneering our own new style of baby hip hop dancing (Creep? Crab? Cranky? Crumbcruncher?) in our living room/dance club, especially since you can hear me cheering her on in the background. I feel like I should've been saying, "Go Katie, Go Katie, It's your birthday!"



And in Art news, here's a painting that Maggie did over the weekend. She informed us that she painted it for Kate. Charming, don't you think? So full of sisterly love and joy. I'm not sure if Mike was trying to create a logo for Maggie's future work or if he was just trying to cheer the piece up a bit with the blue bits on the side.

Kitten Sandwich

I need to go to bed, but I just ran across this video in an article on the history of Swedish Fish (yes, this is what I do with my free time after the girls go to bed) on mentalfloss.com, and I just had to share it here in light of my previous post about Maggie's Catburger. Bon Apetit!



PS - Mike wants me to add that he LOVES Swedish Fish.

Kate's Spokesbaby Career Takes Off

Kate recently recorded a foreign-language TV commercial for her favorite snack treats, Baby Mum Mums. Huge profits are expected to start rolling in any second. Here's the clip (sorry we couldn't add subtitles; that would've made it perfect!):

As for what's been going on with us the last almost a month since my previous post... insanity. In the interest of saving space and not lighting my keyboard on fire, here's the quickie version:

Connecting flights, lots of crying, car seat snafu, Alex's wedding, cute flower girl, lots of crying, missed reception, up all night, lots of crying, fun at Nana's & Papa's, learning to crawl, babbling constantly, sleeping poorly, lots of crying, missed the zoo, Eric's wedding, catching up with old friends, sangria swirls and cheese fries at the Mont, rush to airport, stupid car seats, connecting flights, no stupid frickety fracking changing table, LOTS of crying, 10 days worth of cat barf, why does our house still smell like an old lady?, potty training, poop on the floor, big girl panties, attempted stair climbing and couch standing, falling, lots of crying, teething?, frozen peas, lots of crying, sleepless nights, laundry, laundry, laundry, potty success & "chocolate treats," hissy fits, lots of crying. Whew!

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