okay, one picture

still no picture

Every day this week I have meant to post. (Not to be confused with every day last week, when I wanted to post.) Something has come up. For example, last night I was helping train an aspiring back up singer. The night before I was wrestling my daughter to sleep. And so on.

This afternoon I was feeling serious about it. Because it was that, or face my home. My home that is one mess after another. Some of the messes are today's messes, the one's the girls make every day. Some of the messes are mine, trying to sort through things in order to get rid of anything I don't care about. And some of the clutter comes from fitting too much stuff into too little space (see previous mess description). Kiddo was in the bathroom, making noises I wasn't terribly comfortable with. Babs was whining unless I was holding her, and then sometimes still whining. I figured I'd document it, then try to at least clean off the floor before my husband got home.

The previous post is what happened instead. As I tried to write a title, Babs managed to hit the keyboard (as she had been desperately trying to for the last five minutes) and posted. I gave up. I give up. Maybe I'll write tomorrow.

and that

the great shuffle

When we got up Saturday morning, we decided enough was enough. After increasingly frequent wake-up calls from both girls, that were stretching longer and longer, we decided they needed their own space. So we claimed the spare room as the master bedroom (which I believe is its actual purpose), put Kiddo in our room and Babs stayed where she was.

I look at our old room, that is still tight quarters with just a twin bed pushed into the corner, and wonder how we fit two adults in there. I look at our new room, that still has the computer and piano in it, as well as random other things and wonder how to find room for us.

But, Kiddo is no longer waking up at night (mostly). And Babs, well, let's not talk about how before the great switch-up she was sleeping through the night, until Kiddo woke her up, but now isn't anymore, and is now sick, so retraining her will have to wait. My dreams of consistent rest are still being deferred.

The most awkward part of the whole move is that we couldn't finish the move (put away all the displaced things) on Saturday, because either me or my husband was off all afternoon helping people from church. We only got the beds moved by putting Kiddo to bed rather late. Maybe next Saturday.

you be the mama...

Within the last few months Kiddo has gone from no pretend to all pretend. I assume this is how she learns about different responsibilities and relationships. Right now there is a lot of family pretend. She assigns each person a family member. Babs is always assigned a role, although she doesn't really get into character.

For a while the most popular was when she would be the mama, I would be the big girl, and Babs would be the baby. This basically means that I call her Mama, she calls me Sweetheart, and I get told that I'm to little to do things like pick up the baby or use the stove.

She also likes to be the baby. In this role she fake cries a lot, sits in Babs' chair to eat, and talks in a really high-pitched voice.

Sometimes we are the Wonder Pets (she is always the duck, Ming Ming). Today we were student and teacher (okay, brag moment: she knows almost all the sounds the letters make!).

Her favorite though, is pretend ballerina. "I'll be the ballerina, you be the people. I will dance on the stage, you will throw roses at me."

natural habitat

The first thing to say about this picture is that Babs is super happy.

The next thing is that this is her favorite place right now. Most of the board books are on a low shelf she can reach. She crawls over to it, and pulls them all down, then reads whichever strike her fancy. It what occupies her the most. (You can tell she's really engrossed because she's managed not to empty the diapers from their plastic case, a previous favorite pastime.)

It's good to know she's part of the family.

I scream, you scream

Yesterday, the weather was beautiful. I had some things to mail, so we walked to the post office. Given how little we've walked the last few months, I wasn't sure how Kiddo would do, but in fact she did great. Apparently getting older and bigger outweighed lack of walking (and goodness knows she runs and dances plenty around the house). About five minutes before we got back home, she screamed about something because she likes to make a lot of noise. She understands the power of a joyful yawp, and let loose.

Immediately, I said her name in a "pay attention" tone. But before I could tell her not to scream I remembered, I always tell her we don't scream in the house. We're not in the house. So I explained to her that we were outside, and isn't it great that we can make as much noise as we want?

She made a joyful noise the rest of the way home. She'd scream for a second or two, then wait, and do it again. We turned on the next road, and she kept up the yelling. Then a group of three elementary students started coming towards us. They too understood the joy of a good scream, and they screamed back. Then she screamed, then they screamed, and on, and on, and on.

It didn't stop until they went in the house they were visiting (poor lady who opened the door to three happy children in mid-cry). Kiddo kept it up a little longer. I'm so glad I listened to my better mother nature, the one that says "childhood is fun - let it be."

sunday sisters

synonyms

Last night at dinner Kiddo asked me a question. I didn't get the verb, so I tried to repeat it back to her. I guessed wrong, so she repeated herself. I guessed wrong again, so she tried again. I told her that I couldn't understand what she was saying, so say it one more time slowly, and I would try very hard to understand.

She instead used a synonym, then repeated herself. This additional clue allowed me to get it immediately. I was so impressed that she could rephrase herself like that. I think she's smart.

(Original sentence: "Mom, are you still spilling?" Later sentence: "Mom, are you still dropping, spilling?" Since I wasn't spilling or dropping anything, I really had no context clues. Oh well.)

my curly hair

Kiddo is pretty obsessed with my curly hair right now. She wants to touch it. She labels each hair as curly or straight. She tells me that "your hair is curly, so that means we pull it!" Luckily (for her and me) "pull" in this circumstance means gently pull on it to straighten the curl, then let it boing back into place. This is to distinguish with Babs' pull, which means wrap your little pudgy hand tightly around as much hair as you can grab and yank on with all your little might, back and forth quickly. Which despite her little size actually hurts a lot. Poor Kiddo is the brunt of much of this love.

As we were driving home the other day, Kiddo again started talking about my hair. "Your hair is curly," she declared. "Mine is straight and sticky." Sticky, adj., meaning to attach to oneself, i.e., incredibly full of static. Welcome to winter time with long hair.