the night owl and the early bird

A guest blog by Aunt Stacy...

Last weekend S, A, K and I packed up B’s car and hit the road east, for a weekend at the beach.

We drove straight to the beach, arriving a little before 11 am. This was the day when the heat index rose to 121 degrees in downtown DC and while it was cooler at the beach, it did still feel like over 100 degrees so we prepared A for the hot sand as best we could.

Despite being scared of it last year, this summer A was all about the ocean. She liked it much better than the pool and could not get enough of jumping in the waves, even laughing loudly the few times she got a mouthful of water. Every time we’d pack up to leave the beach, she’d ask when we were coming back.

K also seemed to enjoy himself, though really, he is quite the stoic little guy. I wish I could tell what he was thinking because he rarely shows it on his face. We held him in the ocean, dipped his feet and even most of his body in the chilly waves and… nothing. Just part of his cool dude persona I guess

I get to see the kids pretty often, but spending an entire weekend together definitely gives me a lot more insight into them, especially A. For example, I learned:

1.       A wakes up very early.

Saturday morning, at about 6:30 I woke up to the sounds of the door knob to my room turning back and forth. I got out of bed a few minutes later, opened the door and there was A., sitting outside my door waiting for me. It took me a few minutes to realize, but S (whose door was wide open by the way) was still sleeping. I sat A down in the big chair with me to have a conversation about sleep. I explained that she’s an early bird and I’m a night owl. She looked at me like I was nuts and told me she’s not a bird and I’m not an owl, but I am silly. 

2.       She has a great memory.

By Saturday afternoon I still hadn’t quite recovered from my early morning and I told A that the next morning she needed to wake Mommy up first. S then said how nice it was to sleep in and I felt guilty so I amended my comment, telling A it was up to her and she could wake up either of us. Many hours later, just before bedtime, I asked who she was going to wake up first in the morning and she just looked at me and said “It is my choice”

3.       She is sneaky.

Thanks to an ill timed smoke detector battery failure we had the joy of a chirping noise wake up the whole house around midnight. After an hour S finally gave up on getting A back to sleep in her own bed and let her come in and sleep with her. I didn’t know this at the time, but in retrospect you’d think that would have meant I got my wish to sleep in a bit on Sunday morning. Nope, you’d be wrong.

Around 6:30 in the morning A told S she was getting out of bed to go potty and instead came in to wake me up.

A, as she taps me on the arm: “Good morning Aunt Stacy”
Me, looking at the clock: “It is too early. I’m not ready to get up yet.”
A: “Want me to go read two books then come back?”
Me: “Yes”

A very short amount of time later

A: “I’m back. Get up now. We need to play Go Fish”
Me: “You need some longer books”

4.       She has two favorite songs – ABC’s and Five Little Monkeys.

 She’s also a big fan of “Apples and Bananas” which I think is on every single kid’s song video she watched during the car trip. That explains why four days later I was sitting at my desk at work, still humming it in my head.

5.       She is a great big sister.

K did ok in the car, but really wasn’t a fan of the close to 3 hour drive, especially on the ride home. Whenever he started to cry A would sing him his special baptism song. It is absolutely adorable, and often worked in calming him down. This picture is A feeding K his rice cereal for the first time.  Everyone was a mess but they were both happy.

6.       A loves to be included in the conversation. If she doesn’t have something to add she’ll just come up with a very relevant question.

Scene: Driving along on Sunday afternoon, after 3 full days together.

A: “um… what… what… why… why… um, why are you in our car?”

7.       She has to have the last word.

Again, this was during the drive home. I don’t really remember what S and I were talking about, or what lead me to make the following comment, but I won’t forget A’s response.

Aunt Stacy: “you are very argumentative”
A: “And it is absolutely fine”

And it was. More than fine actually. J

idea emergency

A goes through phases with television.  She only likes one show at a time.  When she was about 18 months old, she liked the wonder pets.  She was allowed one show daily; she watched that 1 show until we had seen every episode about 227 times.  Then she moved on to the fresh beat band.  Since there were only about 16 of these made, B and I can say every line to every episode where Kiki, Marena, Twist and Shout sing their way through some stupid scenario.  About a month ago, I couldn't take "It was a great day" anymore and I turned on the Imagination Movers.  This show fits the criteria of being under 30 minutes, having music, and having somewhat of a plot.  The format consists of a  problem, 4 guys and a mouse brainstorm ideas to fix the ridiculous problem, 3 or 4 trials of ideas including one where they travel to a "room" in the idea warehouse, and then finally, the idea emergency is solved.   

Since watching this show, whenever we come across a problem, A yells out "idea emergency" and we try to solve the problem.  Tonight, we had a very odd idea emergency.  We had a frog in our toilet. 

I was giving K a bath and happened to look over to our toilet where I saw a large green lump.  My first thought was EEEWWWW, who didn't flush the toilet.  Then, it was even more gross when the large green lump moved.  That's right, a frog somehow climbed through the plumbing system to our third story bathroom and was hanging out in the toilet.  So, in my best sing song voice... we have to get the frog out of the toilet, we have to do it without hurting the frog.  For that we need some good ideas. Let's brainstorm.  Idea 1) A ran and got a box where we keep ivory soap.  nope, too small and I'm not touching the frog to get it in there.  Idea 2)She tried to go get the fish net for our aquarium.  Good idea, but we couldn't find it. Idea 3) Daddy saved the day with a coat hanger and a tupperware.

Gross idea emergency solved as the frog was safely transported out our front door.

did I just say that?

Jane, my mother in law, and I always talk about the sentences that we never thought we would speak.  B has the best, a sentence that I don't think anyone else in the world can say... "I was peed on by a lion while protecting the baby Jesus."  Yes, it actually happened when we were working the living nativity at our church in Richmond.  And, yes, the lion was real and B pushed him through in his cage while wearing a very short skirt.  His only rule was to throw himself in front of the cage if the lion was going to pee on Jesus.  It happened and he smelled REALLY badly. 

Anyway, in addition to the phrase "talk nicely" that I have said about 100x already today, I have found myself saying a lot of unexpected things to A lately.  Here are a few...

"Don't drive that car over your brother's face"
"I don't know what a fob is A, that is a ... tampon"
"Well, Daddy likes water and milk too, but he also likes beer."
"Girls don't pee outside in the yard, we pee in the potty."-- this was after she saw our neighbor pull down his pants and pee in the flower bed.  NICE

fears

"No such thing as silly monsters?"  This is the question that I answer every night before A goes to sleep.  She actually usually calls me back up to her room to ask again at least one other time.  At first, I thought it was just a stall for bedtime, but I have come to realize that she is REALLY afraid of silly monsters.  I'm not sure where this came from.  I'm also not sure where her fear of haircuts, water, any man working on our house, or cars that are at least a block away have come from.  But, these fears are real and have a definite impact on our day. 

Today, she gripped my leg and screamed b/c there was a car heading towards a stop sign totally across the parking lot from us.  Don't get me wrong, I do think there is a healthy dose of fear to keep her from running into the street, but the death grip is a little over the top. 

The haircut fear led to a after a 3 week battle that ended when she could no longer see through her bangs. 

She has gotten her haircut about 7 or 8 times in the last year and been fine going across the street to the good ole hair cuttery. This last time, she freaked out and started screaming. I must have looked at her like she was nuts because I couldn't figure out why she was crying. She finally said it was because Daddy wasn't with her. Well, Daddy has never taken her to get a haircut (that is a whole other entry on fears) but, I didn't fight it and force her to get a cut. So, she and Daddy went back a few days later and she did the same thing. She did, however, sit nicely while she watched him get it cut. Last Saturday, as I brushed her hair out of her eyes for the 100th time before 8:00 am, I decided enough was enough. I showed her pictures of herself last year

July, 2010- no fear

 I then said she had a choice to go to the hair cuttery or go sit in a car for the cut.  I thought this would motivate even though I was not excited about spending $20 for a trim on an almost 3 year old.  the crying continued for a good hour as we got ready, drove to the store etc.  We got in the store and she saw a train set and everything was fine.  No crying no fighting.  Just your everyday happy girl eating animal crackers while sitting in a car for a haircut.

The stranger fear is probably the worst.  Again, I think there is a healthy dose of fear when it comes to people you don't know.  However, when we had a guy come to our house to powerwash our deck, you would have thought I was bringing a man to murder my daughter.  My first plan was to have her watch with me so that she would know nothing bad would happen.

But, I got bored after about 5 minutes and figured she was probably desensitized.  I was wrong.  She SCREAMED as soon as I got up from the chair and clung to my leg for the next 40ish minutes before I decided we should just leave the house.  She still asks me on a daily basis, "Is the man coming to get our deck?"

I don't really know what to do about these new found fears except hope that they are just a stage.  After all, I don't know many teenage girls asking their moms about monsters, scared of boys with shaggy hair.  On second thought, maybe I'll keep the fears...

4 months

My great friend gave us this little sheep when A was born.  I took a picture of her on it every month to see how she grew.  I'm doing the same thing for K (I did forget at 3 months... oops).  I don't think that these 2 will be able to deny that they are brother and sister.  Can you tell who is who?

A at 4 months was 14 lbs 6 oz, 26 1/8 inches. K at 4 months is 15 lbs 3 oz and 26 inches.  So, my little guy is shorter and chubbier.  They have both been FANTASTIC babies.  We used to talk about how calm A. was, but when you put K. next to her, she was downright rowdy.  He is so calm that I have even asked the doctor if it is OK for him to be so stoic.  I think we are just blessed to have a little laid back guy to even out his super busy sister!