Imagination Station

Addie borrowed/liberated/wouldn't give back a large stuffed puppy from the Kirchoffs yesterday. She played with the dog all night and wouldn't give him up before going to bed. Since the dog (henceforth named Mr. Spotty) looked like it would make a really comfy pillow, I let her take it to bed. This morning when I heard Addie talking I walked up to get her (yes, Lily was the first one up again today). As I got to the top of the steps I heard Addie saying, "I love her soooo much." I opened the door to see Addie talking very intently to Mr. Spotty. (I really wanted to place a very insightful link to an article on Crib Talk here, but I can't find a single one. I'm sure it's not a phrase I made up!)

Later in the morning, Addie took Mr. Spotty and Patrick the Pup (who is much bigger than Mr. Spotty) and started having conversations with them. It goes something like this...

Mr. Spotty - "Help me daddy, I fall down." (Mr. Spotty thrown off couch)
Patrick - "I'll save you." extends paw to Mr. Spotty
Mr. Spotty - "Oh, Thank you."

Mr. Spotty - "I love you."
Patrick - "I love you too puppy."
Addie - "No Lily, no no!" Hits Lily on the head.

Yes, sibling rivalry has reared it's ugly head at our house. This morning Lily was hit on the head, poked on the head repeatedly and also had her hair pulled until she shreaked. Nice. Any advice anyone would like to give on how to get this to stop would be greatly appreciated!

Where did Kitty go?

"Momma, make the kitty come back!"

Catch the Kitty

Do you see the Kitty in this picture?

Opportunity Knocks

I had the opportunity to get up early with Lily this morning (and I say opportunity the same way I'd say I had the opportunity to change 30 dirty stinky diapers yesterday). I was really kind of feeling sorry for myself - I wanted to sleep in and maybe kick this cold that's been kicking my butt for days. I, however, lost the "I'm pretending to sleep so the other person will wake up and take care of the baby" battle.

I am so happy I got up with Lily (tired, but happy). I really don't get much time alone with her, mostly she's competing with Addie or a shopping list for my attention. We snuggled, played and made coffee. Lily is such a happy baby in the morning, it's hard to be cranky for long. The highlight of the morning was when she crawled over to the basement door (closed) at warp speed. Lily had heard the cat locked in the basement and went to investigate. She discovered how much fun it is to play with the cat's paws under the door.

I'm now being pulled (literally) away from the computer to watch "Little Einsteins" with Addie. More photos later

Stop me if I've said this before...

Have I shown you this picture yet? How incredibly sweet is that? That's my baby with her Great Grandma Addie. Yep, pretty darn sweet.

Wow, this picture just makes my blood pressure go right down. I've had a miserable day at work - ok, maybe not miserable the whole day. One person is just really twarking me off. I really just need to take a few breaths, go home and cuddle my babies.

So, I'm going to go home, grab Lily and go knit. Tonight is our knitting night for the Optimist Club. We knit hats for babies and donate them to the hospitals and to a crisis nursery in town. I, however, will not be working on a baby hat tonight. I have to work on a shawl that I would like to have done by Saturday (I'm only 1/3 of the way through!) Panic knitting, people! You might ask why I started a new project last night if I'm in panic mode. (Yes, Adam asked the same thing.) Weeeelllll..... it's because I signed up for a class and had to start the project in the class. So really, adding one more project to my to-do list isn't all that crazy... sort of.

I'm thinking about starting a new blog for my knitting. It might get a little boring as I am a slow knitter.... and I probably won't have any readers. I also don't yet have a name. Any suggestions? I'm amazed and continually entertained by people like the yarn harlot and Franklin (two of my fav knitting bloggers).

Santa

Yes, we're still talking about Santa at our house. I've explained that Santa is on vacation and won't be back until next year, but Addie chooses not to understand. So in the spirit of the season, here is a picture of Addie with Santa on Christmas Eve day. This is the Santa that brought her a huge trampoline.... not an itty bitty 2 1/2 year old size trampoline, one that will take up our entire backyard and scare me to death every time she wants to use it. Take a deep breath Jess, it will be OK. Nope, I need a few more deep breaths... oh man this scares me! This scares me almost more than the idea of Addie going to preschool next year scares me. Talk about Mommy panic attacks. Is raising kids supposed to be this scary? I know I never scared my parents this much!!! I'm sure that hiding in the culverts, falling out of trees and getting my head stuck, punching my sister in the nose, and other myriad things didn't scare years off my parents lives!

New Year's Eve

I don't do this often, but here's a picture of our crew from New Year's Eve 2006/07. Bob, Michelle, myself, Adam, Lisa, and Brad.

Lady Godiva

No, this is not a picture of Lady Godiva (I think that's the right reference), it's not kiddy porn, nor is it Cousin It. This is how long Addie's hair is. Just a little bit longer and we can donate her hair to Locks of Love!

Wormy

I've been meaning to post this for some time, but I was waiting for a picture. I don't think I will have a picture taken and downloaded any time soon, so here goes. Addie has developed an attachment to my watch. She has named "him" "Wormy." She'll take my watch, wrap it up in a blanket, coo to it, put it to sleep, kiss it, and generally drag it around the house like it is a doll. She did this one day and I thought that would be the end of it. Oh no, momma, you were totally wrong on that one! A few days later she saw my watch lying in the bathroom where I put it while I shower. Addie snatched it up as fast as she could and said, "Oh Wormy, I missed you!" and gave it a big kiss! This has gone on for several weeks now. This morning the 3 of us were walking in the mall (my attempt to work out in the cold and maybe loose the last pounds of baby weight). Addie looked up behind her at me and said, "I play Wormy?" What's a mom to do but turn over her watch?

At least she can still be creative

Despite the over abundance of TV watching at our house, Addie still has an incredible imagination. This was the "boat" Addie and Lily were playing in at Christmas. Note the toys and wrapping paper in the background... who wants toys when you have a perfectly good box to play in?

Random Babble

I cannot tell you how hard it is to take a digital picture of 2 small children and have them both looking in the same direction. It seems that something in their genetic makeup makes them look away in the instant before the digital camera goes off. Honestly I thought Adam was going to throw the camera through my parents living room window trying to take a picture of the girls.

On a totally different train of thought, I was thinking about Sara's blog about the universe today. (You have to go to "In Your Face McGinley" because I don't know how to link to a specific blog entry) Anyway, she writes about how the universe doesn't hear negatives. For instance, when I say "my children will not watch tv all day long." The universe hears, "my children will watch tv all day long and as punishment momma will then have songs from Blues Clues permanently embedded in her brain." How did we get to the point where Addie knows all of the characters on all of the toddler shows? She actually said this morning, "Little Einsteins, I missed you!" Geez, kid! Go, play outside! Oh yeah, one of us would have to take her outside and it's darn cold out today. And did I tell you my child runs like a girl? So when I said, "We're going to have a tomboy, there's no way we'll have a girly-girl." Basically God laughed his/her ass off and gave us a girly-girl. I-yi-yi! (yes, I know I swore on the blog and someone will probably chastise me for this.)

Little Lily

So poor little Lily is in the 15% for weight. She's such a little peanut! There's nothing to worry about I guess, she's just little. The funny thing is that she's in the 64% for height, so maybe that will carry through to adulthood. Developmentally she's right on track.

Yesterday Lily climbed all the way up the stairs. Now she's been climbing the first few steps by herself for awhile (maybe a month). But this was the first time I let her climb all the way to the top. I'm not sure what she was trying to get to, but boy was she determined. Lily just had this grin on her face like, "no one's going to stop me now!" I can just see she's determined to be a big kid like her older sister.

Lily has also started to copy us. If I say "mmm..." when I'm eating, she'll make the same noise. Lily also has started to copy us dancing. Little head waggles here and there, maybe a booty shake, but it's definitely a dance. It blows me away that she's capable of doing so much. I know she's much more aware of what's going on than we give her credit for. She's going to be such an entertaining toddler!

Dreamscape

Addie has been having a lot of interesting dreams lately. Maybe it's just that she's remembering them more...

On Christmas Day she came up to me and told me that she had played with cousin Tyler "All night." When I asked her what they did all night she said, "no, no, no Tyler, no." Later I asked her again (we had to get it on video, it was so cute!). This time Addie said, "share Tyler." I can only assume that Addie and Tyler were playing with toys and Tyler didn't want to share.

This morning Addie told me, "I play Santa, all night." In the last week she's also played with Grandpa and Grandma in her dreams!