atticus at 30-something months ("2.5+ years" is equally un-catchy.)

atticus is getting closer and closer to being an official three-year-old.  they tell you that every age is your favorite, and it's so true.  he's like a good cheese - just getting better with age.  also, really stinky.  but that's just the nature of things, i guess.

he LOVES all things vehicular - scooper trucks, trucks 'fixin-a road' (construction), tractors and 'kime-bines,' watching the trash truck 'pickin-uppa trash,' trains, helicopters, airplanes, etc.  he frequently requests to see certain trucks along the road ('mama, wanna see a crane?') and doesn't quite understand that i don't really have control over that.

 we went to 'day out with thomas' when thomas the train came to boone.  needless to say, it was a hit.

he loves watching thomas the train and 'beegee-teels' (veggie tales).  we don't watch a whole lot of tv, but i definitely take advantage of thomas DVDs when i need to fold laundry, and it's nice to have a VCR in the van for longer trips.  if i try to put in sesame street (or something equally old and therefore found on video cassette) he'll tell me, 'no, mom.  wanna watcha coo-cumba.'  (on a positive note, all the veggie tales-watching has made him positively disposed to the idea of vegetables.)

pretending cucumbers from our garden were scooper trucks. 

he is basically fully potty trained, although i still put him in a diaper overnight.  even though he wakes up dry most mornings, i like the extra insurance :).  he will pee with me in the room, but will not poop with company.  i say that's fair.  if i come back in before he's completely done, he says, 'i still POOPIN' with a wild and desperate look on his face.  his favorite pair of undies are a nasty pair i got for free at a garage sale that have another kid's skid marks in them.  but you can't control who - or what - you love, i guess.

he's starting to get a little bossy.  unfortunately, he gets it from me.  must be an oldest-child thing.  many days i have to redirect more 'sissa, NO!'s than i can count.  it gets a bit tiring.

finally understanding the concept of head-in-the-hole photo ops.

he loves reading, and we've begun being more purposeful in spending longer amounts of time reading, and reading quality books.  i use the sonlight pre-k list for recommendations for good books, and we've been going to the library every couple of weeks before children's church (D6) to get a new stash.

in addition, we've started reading the Jesus Storybook Bible at breakfast, and working on memorizing a few verses from D6 and from My ABC Bible Verses.  we haven't done any official preschool stuff, nor am i good about sitting down and purposefully teaching him letters and numbers.  ABC bible verses are a good way to get me in the habit of at least exposing him to the official names of letters (although, he already knows a lot of them somehow and loves the fareway sign because it's super exciting to see two A's in the same word).

he also has memorized some bible facts:



who made you? god.
how many gods are there?
what is god's name? jesus.
where does jesus live? heaven.
where did jesus go? to the cross.
why did he go to the cross? for our sin.
what did he say on the cross? it is finished.
who was the first man? adam.
what did john the baptist say? repent.
to whom did god give the ten commandments? moses.
who built the ark? noah (only he says, 'noahnoah built-a ark' because there's a song that says that)
to whom did god give the promise? abraham.
who was the brave queen? esther.  (this one is taking a while to stick.)

i love hearing him pray, and he frequently asks us to pray with him.

his favorite song is 'stories' by go fish.  he is A.DOR.A.BLE when he sings it.  i hope i can get it on video at some point.  plus, he has all of these awesome dance moves that he breaks out, including what can best be described as an all-out floor pose.

he hates having a stuffy nose, and has a hard time sleeping when it's stuffed up.  the other day he said, 'i no wanna have a sick nose.'  i feel you, buddy.

getting slowly smothered to death by a constrictor.  fun times.

that's all i can think of for now, although since he's two, there are plenty of things i'm sure i'm leaving out since basically every second of the day is wildly entertaining or absolutely infuriating.  but that's what this season of life is all about, and to be honest, i'm really enjoying it.  the terrible two's haven't been too bad to me.

thwr: in which todd shows off his mouthy side.

as we were getting on a plane with the kids, who really ended up being fantastic the entire flight.

lady on plane: (loudly to neighbor) if i had known kids were going to be on the plane, i would have taken a different flight.

todd:  (just as loudly) yeah, because kids are the WORST.


the lady did not find that amusing, but you know what? we didn't find it amusing that she automatically assumed that kids she didn't even know, who would be sitting 20 rows behind her, were going to ruin her flight.  and that she had the cahones to say that right in front of the kids' parents: she didn't even wait for us to get past her before commenting - she said it while we were standing three feet away.  in my humble opinion, that lady deserved a punch to the jugular. 

so, while i'm glad todd didn't actually start throwing punches and get us kicked off the plane, i am hoping that lady got shamed into at least keeping her mouth shut next time.  parents have enough to deal with while raising toddlers than to have to hear about how 'inconvenient' their kids are to people around them.  plus, who's to say that we don't actually really like and enjoy our kids and hate hearing when other people assume they're horrible to be around?  what's so freaking wrong with VALUING children?

well, not on todd's watch, lady.  open your ugly trap again and your flight will suck at the hands of the furious five (our team name when we're mad).

video vednesday: pumby umby umpkin.

 

p'nut at seventeen months

i realize i have gotten really bad at remembering to post updates about the kids.  those angelic little faces are, after all, the only reason why i have all this time to sit around and blog in the first place.  did they not exist, i would be a working chump like everybody else.  instead, i get to sit here eating spaghetti bake and blogging during naptime, so the least i can do to thank my kids for this opportunity is acknowledge every once in a while that they exist.

first up: penelope.

she will be 17 months on the thursday, and it's weird to think that she's almost exactly the same age - to the day - that atticus was when we welcomed her into our family.  she still seems so little to me, but now she is about to be come a big sister!  i can't believe it.

she typically wakes up between 7:30 and 8:00 (although i think she'd sleep later if she and atticus didn't share a room), and the first thing she does when she gets downstairs is to grab a book and head to the fridge to whine for her 'ma.' (milk.)  milk in hand, she camps out by the book basket until it's time to eat.  and the kid can eat.  the other morning she ate FIVE EGGS by herself, stole some off my plate, and cried when i told her she couldn't have any more because i didn't want to clean up egg puke.

she's a pickier eater than atticus was and is; she isn't big into crackers, bread, or really carbs in general (with the exception of pancakes and spaghetti); she's tolerant of vegetables when she's in a generous mood; and she'll eat fruit if driven to the brink of starvation.  not a meat eater.  what does she eat without being coerced, then, you ask?  eggs.  cheese.  milk.  yogurt.  i think she's begging by her preferences to move to a homestead...hmm. 

her favorite activity is reading.  i think all kids love reading at this age, but she spends most of the day pulling all the books out of the book basket and looking at them until atticus steals them.  her favorite book is 'ba ba' (brown bear, brown bear), but her favorite author/illustrator is sandra boynton.  what a weird thing to say about a 17-month-old (their favorite author/illustrator is...).  todd even discovered the other day that she has mastered the concept of 'i spy' and can identify all the items in the 'i spy' board book we own.

like her mama, she will read whatever she can get her hands on  - even thomas.

she started talking way earlier than atticus did, and she's capable of saying way more than she typically shows off - her vocabulary includes quite a few words, but her most commonly used words are 'ma' (milk), 'muh' (more), 'duh' (done), and our very favorite 'yah.'  we hear 'yah' about 20 times an hour.  did you notice the rest of the words are food-related? no surprise.

she can also say 'mama,' 'dada,' 'buh buh' (brother), 'puh' (puppy), 'tah' (cat), 'no,' 'bye bye,' 'ball,' 'buh' (book), 'shoes,' 'this,' 'that,' 'baby,' and probably several more that either i can't remember or haven't identified yet as being actual words.  (please tell me i'm not the only mother who recognizes a word as being an actual word months after my kid started saying it.)  it's funny - at this age, atticus could only say 'mama,' 'dada,' 'puppy,' and 'baby.'

she LOVES wearing shoes and will request to change shoes multiple times a day.  she likes putting on headbands and hats and brushing her hair.  she loves carrying around dirty laundry, particularly socks and atticus' underwear, so we have to keep an eye on her around the hamper. (yesterday i found her pushing a baby stroller full of dirty socks around the house.)  she's starting to realize she's capable of refusing to do what i ask her to do, and i can always tell she's being willfully disobedient when she stares at me and blinks her eyes really hard.  she loves giving kisses and hugs, and patting atticus on the back.  she's already more strong-willed than atticus, and we probably see more temper tantrums from her on a weekly basis than from him (anyone who knows atticus will not be surprised by this).

in all, i've found raising a girl to be similar to raising a boy in a lot of regards, but in other ways it's funny to see how innate the differences are.  even though she spends her time playing with cars and trains, watching thomas the tank engine, and waiting for the garbage truck to come, her interests are definitely more feminine than atticus'.  she likes brushing my hair and bringing me my own shoes to put on my feet - i think she's trying to get me to buck up and start developing more feminine interests like hers.  recently i wore my hair down for the first time in a long time, and she just kept staring at me and smiling and playing with it.  atticus would never have done anything like that.  he probably would have just pulled it and gone on his merry way.

though she's more feminine than atticus, she's also more brave, and apparently fascinated by this tarantula.  did NOT get that from me.

and i will end this very long post with her dental report because, as you know if you get our annual christmas newsletter, dental news is a very big deal in our house.  sis currently has four front teeth on top, four front teeth on bottom, all her molars, and is working on teething a few more in between.  (it has been a long two months of nonstop teething, and it doesn't look like it will let up any time soon.)

so that's 17-month-old sis in a really big nutshell.

'member that time?

what is it about fall that makes me reminisce about high school vandalism?

'member that time a bunch of my friends tried to TP my house, but the only tree in our yard worth TPing is a pine tree, and the toilet paper rolls would go up into the tree when they threw them, but wouldn't come back down?  so 'member how every time it got windy after that, whole rolls of toilet paper would come sailing out of our tree and re-TP our yard? 

and 'member how we ignorantly pulled in the driveway when they were only mid-destruction, so they took off running, leaving behind a still-sealed four-pack of charmin?

i felt like the luckiest girl in the world that night because A) anyone who's anyone gets TP'd during homecoming, B) i have the kind of friends who would vandalize my house with the expensive toilet paper, and C) i got some freebie, lint-free toilet paper out of the deal.  

no, sweet pea. that would be called the black market.

when todd and i went to my 12-week appointment, we took the kids with us.  before we got out of the car, i tried to use the moment to explain to atticus that mommy has a baby growing in her tummy, and someday soon that baby will get to come and live with us at our house.  today we're going to hear its heart beating.  can you feel your heart beating? etc. etc.

we get inside and go up to the counter to check in and atticus is all like, mommy buy a baby now?

nope.

i must've missed the opportunity in our deep and meaningful prior conversation to explain that we're at the doctor's office, not in a shady back alley to pick up our trafficked human.

just providing you with the facts, folks.

warning: if you're one of those people who would like to continue thinking that pregnant ladies are cute, you shouldn't read this blog.  if you like to think that the belly is 90% decorative and that there's a 'glow' about a pregnant lady that can only be attributed to the spit left behind when the angels kissed her, stop here.

i warned you.

i am here to dash your preconceived notions about the cuteness of pregnancy.  while i'm at it, i will also say that the stork does not deliver babies and watermelon seeds are in no way involved.

and also, i strongly suspect, from the pure ratio of the number of actual blind guys in the world to the number of focus on the family radio programs addressing the topic, that masturbation does not cause blindness.

that last one has very little to do with pregnancy - actually, it has the opposite to do with pregnancy - but i thought it pertinent.  not condoning anything here, people, just providing you with all the facts.  i'm like your D.A.R.E. officer, only without the potbelly mustache.  and my D.A.R.E. officer went on to win the lottery, so if i could be a millionaire by simply growing a mustache, i'd do it.  (i've got the potbelly thing down, does that get me at least half a mil?)

anyway, back to crushing your fantasies:  i STINK when i'm pregnant.  as in, i have B.O. about 10 seconds after stepping out of the shower.  also, my pit hair grows really fast and i'm balding on top of my head, but that's not the point of this part of my post.  (all in due time, friends.  all. in. due. time.)

and it's not that i don't wear deodorant or anything.  in fact, the other day i tried putting on todd's deodorant to see if the man-stuff is in fact stronger than sparkly berry-scented teen spirit or the kind with built-in pit moisturizer.  (yes, i did, todd.  i'm sorry you're having to find out this way.)  (also, girl deodorant is dumb.) and you know what?  i smelled like a tenth-grade boy.  like, aww, good effort, but now i really just smell like sweat with a hint of pine.

and that 'preggo glow'?  just good old fashioned perspiration.

you heard it straight from the horse's mouth.  because my breath kind of stinks, too,  but that's from all the puking.

video vednesday: oh no. uh oh -

just for the record, this was as far downhill as this whole debacle got.  lucky for the cleaning crew at the local BK, my kid doesn't have a sensitive upchuck reflex.  he was only sad that stuffing the whole burger in his mouth, gagging, spitting the whole thing out, and then (not unreasonably) refusing to eat any of it was not, in my opinion, grounds for more fries.

the land of make believe

atticus loves pretending. we have all kinds of characters pass through our house on any given day. there are 'the guys,' who are the fingers of one hand that he carries in the other hand. there is 'man,' who talks in a really deep and kind of abrasive voice. there are your typical animal characters (a cat named murph, my mom's cat marley, a dinosaur named dinosaur.) then there's the ever-present 'baby.' don't get me started on how much i dislike baby.

(i'm not saying his names for all his characters are the most original. he seems to have gotten the 'i hate the naming process' gene from me.)

the other day, he was pretending to be 'mama.' he talked in a singsong voice, hovered over penelope, read a book, and ran to the bathroom to 'pook.'

it's apparent that i'm leaving quite the legacy.

'member that time?

'member that time i failed at vandalism?

so then 'member how, for hours upon hours after my sad experience, i sat with a bunch of girlfriends stringing together a yards-long chain of rubber bands?  and 'member how we returned to adam's house at four in the morning and stretched that sucker all the way around his yard so the only way to clean it up was to cut it and watch it fly?

second time was a charm.  i dubbed us the 'rubber bandits,' adam's dad was pissed, and i can only hope that the giant rubber band somehow got stinging vengeance on the Lame Neighbor.  street cred REINSTATED.