On Strike

I was going to tell you that I'm on picture strike until we find the USB cord that connects the computer to the camera... however after much searching, I found it. Instead, I'll tell you to check out my new knitting blog, Knit One Blog Too. Any comments about my wittiness are greatly appreciated.

I'll have new pictures uploaded shortly.

I Was Just

Every once in a while a phrase comes along that you wonder where it came from and when it will go away. My day went a little something like this...

"I was just... looking at the pony fruit snacks."
"I was just... looking for Monkey." (as toys are thrown wily nily out of the box)
"I was just... looking at the cake."
"I was just... touching the pitcher of juice." (balanced precariously on the edge of the counter)
"I was just... wiping Lily's face." (with her foot)
"I was just... tapping Lily's head." (again, with her foot)
"I was just... looking at the treasure chest."
"I was just... pulling Aggie's tail."
"I was just..." Grinding the croutons into the chair, shaking applesauce off my hand, hiding so Mommy couldn't put me on the potty. Basically, you name it, she "was just" today.

On the other hand, she took a 3 hour nap and I was able to get quite a bit of scrapbooking done in that time. Even though Lily didn't nap at the same time, I was able to keep Lily entertained while I worked.

Proof

For all of you clamoring for pictures (that makes it sound like more than 2 people actually read my blog) here is proof that we did actually have snow at one point this winter. Addie doesn't actually look all that thrilled about it. It could be because Adam put her in a snowsuit that's too small and in Lily's mittens!

Snow is one of her favorite things though. Eating fresh snow is right up there in her book with picking apples. Sledding on the other hand is a little scary. She's not quite ready to be a speed demon!

R-U-N-N-O-F-T

Well, it happened. Wormy dun r-u-n-n-o-f-t. I can't find him anywhere. Addie says she doesn't know where Wormy is either and is very distressed by the fact that Wormy is gone. I'm guessing that Wormy has found a nice little purse to hide in for the duration. However, in Wormy's absense, I have started wearing a different watch. Addie was very excited when she saw it and immediately said, "WORMY!" I had to explain that this is not Wormy, it is his brother Squirmy. "Oh Sammy." No honey, it's Squirmy. "Oh Sammy, I missed you too."

Had I known that the "Squ" sound was so hard to make I would have named the watch something else. According to my sister the teacher, she may not be able to pronounce that sound until she's a few years older. Oh well.

Oh Oh

Lily is now repeating things that we say. This weekend she was saying "oh oh" pretty consistently as she dropped food off her tray. This morning she also tried saying "Addie" when we heard Addie talking upstairs. No Momma or Dada yet... no walking yet. All of which are good things in my book. I don't want her to grow up yet, I'm not ready!

I a boy

I was getting Addie into her jammies tonight while she was entertaining herself by looking into the mirror.

"Look Mamma, I a boy." putting her hands onto her ears
"What honey?"
"Look Momma, I a boy. No... I a big girl!"

I realized that she's not putting her hands onto her ears, she's squishing her pigtails close to her head so it looks like she has short hair! In her mind, the only difference between girls and boys is that girls have long hair! It reminds me of our friend Eliot and his facination with ginas.

Happy Birthday Em!

I am such a procrastinator! I have been thinking about blogging Addie's recent haircut since Friday night (8 hours before the hair was actually cut). I took the camera with us to the hair stylist, took several pictures, and.... nothing. Not a darn blog written. Maybe it's because I wasn't sure if I liked it yet. Maybe it's because I am absolutely positively exhaused. So exhausted I fell asleep on the couch last night (something I only seem to do while pregnant or staying up until 2 am watching a bad movie - neither of which I am/did.) Seriously exhausted.

Ok, shake it off. Drink some coffee, eat some yummy homemade apple pie. Ok.

So here's the story. On Friday night I gave Addie a bath. After the bath it took over 30 minutes for me to brush her hair. 30 minutes of kicking, screaming and hitting. If I had 2 more hands I would have been able to do it. Since it isn't very common for 2 more hands to be lurking around my house, I completely lost my temper. Addie was yelling at me, I was yelling at her, and Lily was scared of both of us. Early the next morning I called the stylist and got an appointment. I told them we'd be cutting 7-10 inches off and donating it to Locks of Love. I went to the Locks of Love website and printed off their donation form. By the time our appointment had rolled around I realized that cutting off 10 inches would leave her with a boys haircut. Cute, but super short. I wasn't sure I could do that to her.

So we compromised. It's a shoulder length bob. Addie still doesn't want me touching it, but at least it combs more easily. It looks much less wild. It's still long enough that we can pull it back from her face and put it in pigtails. It's really pretty cute. (Especially in the Elmo hair pretties she got for Valentine's Day.)

Now if I can just stop feeling guilty for loosing my temper with her.

Note to Self

1.) If a baby who normally sleep most of the night is up every 3 hours 2 days in a row, perhaps there is a reason. It might even be due to the top two teeth coming in.

2.) Do not (in an attempt to make the house look cleaner) put the baby's Orajel out into the mudroom when it is 20 below zero outside. Gels will freeze solid.

3.) Always have a back-up supply of Orajel stashed somewhere in the house. Babies do not enjoy frozen Orajel rubbed onto their gums.

4.) When you find said stashed Orajel, baby will still not like it rubbed into their gums.

5.) Babies with Orajel on their gums are lousy nursers. It must have something to do with the fact that half their mouth is numb.

5.b.) Babies get very mad at their mothers when they are unable to nurse effectively.

6.) Babies with 2 teeth coming in do not like you to touch their new teeth. However, they are inordinately proud any teeth already in.

Last Man Standing

Lily stood today all by herself. Unfortunately I wasn't there because as Addie so aptly puts it, "Momma work." Lily picked up a cracker, forgot to hold onto the James Hart orginal and stood. All. By. Herself. For about 30 seconds. YEAH LILY! It's time to get out the walking toys...

A Day in the Life

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?