February - the longest month

It's been a very long 6 weeks! Since January, we have been hit with enough snow that neither of my kids were able to manage walking in the yard - snow was up to Nora's hips, and for awhile, was fluffy enough that she would just fall straight through to the bottom! We shoveled out a snow fort for the kids and the walls, at one point, were up to my eye level! The snow banks, even now that some of the snow has melted, are still shoulder height. Nora can manage climbing on the crusted over snow we currently have, and with the warmer weather arriving this week, I'm hoping we can play in the snow and make some snowmen!

Cabin fever has certainly arrived in this house. We had a very cold and windy day yesterday, so once Nora got home from school, we stayed in for the afternoon. We read books, played with glitter glue, drew spots on ladybugs, colored, read more books, played house (Nora was the mommy). It was really pretty good afternoon. Then, we hit 4pm. Multiple double meltdowns. Both kids struggled for about 90 minutes. It's really amazing how that can really make it feel like a no good horrible bad day, even though it was such a short time.

I am very much looking forward to spring. It'll be easier to take Beth outside (she's not a huge fan of the snow this year - and I don't blame her!). Outdoor playgrounds are free and are also much more fun than indoor playgrounds - for some reason Nora will play much better at an outdoor playground than most of the indoor play spaces that we've visited recently!

Here's a video I found on you tube. It's a song I've listened to since college and it seems rather appropriate.

Beth is 18 months old!

Happy Half Birthday to my sweet Rosebud! She's outgrown her super attachment to mama and will often become more comfortable in a new environment before her big sister! She is constantly on the go. It's really amazing how different she is - both from her big sister and from 3 months ago!

Beth is still very petite for her age. Her well visit isn't for another few weeks, but she's still in 12 month clothing (moving into the 18 month clothing). For reference, at this age, Nora was in 2T clothing! She eats very well, but only if she can feed herself. it has made for some rather messy meals, but she is totally getting the hang of it! Yogurt and soup is still very messy. We give her mostly greek yogurt because it's thicker and when we have soup, we strain out a lot of the broth so she can just scoop up the veggies. She eats all sorts of veggies, fruits, grains and meats. One of her favorites is millet. I think she would eat millet or scrambled eggs with spinach and cheese every day if we let her! She also LOVES freeze dried fruits, fresh berries of any type and frozen peas. She will even ask for peas by walking over to the fridge and pointing at the freezer "peas peas" - or peas, Please.

She's become quite adventurous with climbing recently. Unlike her sister, she does not seem to have the timid/cautious side to her. This, of course, means trouble! We have had quite a number of spills recently from trying to jump off the couch, climb into and out of the high chairs and jumping out of the learning tower. Ever the engineer, she has been working on her problem solving skills as well. She was playing with a pounding toy and is really still too uncoordinated to pound the pegs with the hammer. But, she wasn't deterred. She toddled over to the wooden blocks and grabbed a rectangle block. she tried to balance the block on a single peg to give herself a bigger landing bad for the hammer. When that didn't work, she put the block on two pegs and started pounding away, very happy with her modification.

Beth, like her big sister, loves books. She will bring me books and say "read book" a few times each morning. It's really quite nice to have the mornings 3 days a week with just Beth. The recent snow days have made those days few and far between, but they are really nice to have! We play for a bit, clear the breakfast dishes and get dressed, start a load of laundry and then play some more. Sometimes we run a few errands on our way to pickup, some mornings she decided to nap for a bit and some mornings we pop over to the library or a playdate for some much needed fun!

Here's some photos of Beth. I've been keeping the smugmug (see link to photos) up to date, so you can look at plenty more photos. I've got lots of January and Feb. photos in the kids section, as well as some photos from a recent snowstorm that ended in a sunny morning with snow covered trees - simply breathtaking. I got some nice photos, but they didn't do justice to how beautiful the morning really was!

Beth, refusing to sit next to her bear for an 18 month photo!



I just think Beth looks beautiful in this photo.


Beth loves to wear all sorts of hats, in all sorts of ways!





Messy messy. But, she's learning a great skill - feeding herself.

Oatmeal


Cranberry-blueberry pie!


Yogurt!


Nora and Beth having a snack together in the kitchen. They move their furniture all over. They will often push these two chairs together and take turns inside the "boat."

Once again, I have THE best dad and THE best in-laws!

One of the things I love about my family is how close we are! Even though I have family in Maine, Oregon, Florida, Georgia and Massachusetts, we try to keep in touch - through Facebook, blogs, phone calls and emails. One of my (amazingly smart) cousins in Oregon is getting married - on my 35th birthday! Andy and I originally thought we would try to save up to take the kids out for a week and visit and go to the wedding. But, the more we thought about it, the more we thought it might be nice to have a short vacation without the kids, and plan to take the kids for a week when Nora won't miss school and we can concentrate on doing fun stuff with the kids. We talked to Don and Cherie and they agreed to watch Nora and Beth while Andy and I went totally across the country - with my dad and my sister - to attend the wedding. I was extremely excited. Then, a few weeks back, our sewer backed up into the downstairs bathtub and we ended up having to use our vacation savings on the plumber. I didn't realize how much I had been looking forward to that trip. My dad called a few days later and offered to purchase our airline tickets so that we could still go. He remembers how important it is for parents to have that break every once in awhile. I totally burst into tears I was so happy - I felt like I had just won the lottery! I'm so very much looking forward to going to Portland. I LOVE Portland and it has been far to long since I've been there. I don't think it would take too much to convince me to move out there - except for the whole living so far from grandparents and the much beloved Aunt Danielle and Uncle Jeff!

And so it begins...

I really think I need to read the book "Cinderella Ate My Daughter" by Peggy Orenstein. Nora's favorite color has been blue for a long time now. Her second favorite, green. I knew that she would likely change to pink or pink and purple with school exposure, but I didn't realize how quickly it would happen!

At Rugged Bear, we were looking at the winter coats. I saw the coat I expected Nora would pick out. It was bright blue with a white stripe on each side - the stripes had peace and love symbols. Totally Nora! Well, she walked right past the coat and picked up a pink coat and said, much to my dismay, "Mommy, I should get this coat because it's pink and I'm a girl." I almost cried right then and there! Was it happening already? But, she's only 3 (and 1/3, of course!). We sat down and talked about how pink was a popular favorite color for girls, but that she didn't have to get pink just because she was a girl and she should choose any color that she liked. After a looooong series of questions from Nora, she decided that she would pick out the coat she liked. And big surprise, she liked the blue one I initially spotted!

There have been a number of other similar situation where she "couldn't" do something because she was a girl. I knew it would come, I just wasn't ready for it.

Another thing that has happened is we watched a Thomas the Train video and Nora was instantly hooked! At Target a few days later, she had a meltdown because she couldn't get a new train set. She really wanted a blue train with a silver face. We try to maintain a fairly commercial-free home, so all of our current trains are simple Ikea or Montgomery Schoolhouse trains. Made me realize just how good the marketing people are when it comes to kids and how difficult it's going to be to combat it. Luckily, the library has plenty of Thomas books and we have many friends with Thomas trains so she can get her fix. And really, there are far worse things out there than a Thomas train!

Snow storms!

We've had two pretty good snowstorms in the last week. It means that Nora hasn't been in school for over a week! She only goes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. So, she had Wednesday off last week for snow, Monday was a holiday, and school was canceled yesterday and today (today was a 2 hour delay, but that means no preschool). It's been an adventure keeping both kids entertained during the snow days!

Nora usually loves going outside, snow, rain, sunshine - doesn't matter! But, these last two storms, she did not like being out in the snow. She wanted to go back in almost immediately. Finally, yesterday during the snow, we were chatting about snow and she let me know that she was worried that if the snowflake sparkles got stuck in her hair she wouldn't be able to go back to Bluebell when it re-opened. Poor thing. There was a student in her class with head lice, so everyone got checked for "snowflake glitter" last week. She clearly understood that if the glitter was found, the student would be sent home! Once the snow changed to freezing rain yesterday, she opted to go outside for over an hour. We all got soaked, but she had a great time! Thank goodness I have snow pants! I was also very glad that I had shoveled the first 6 inches of fluffy light snow earlier in the day, while Beth was napping and Nora was reading with her Tag and working on some mazes. When we went out in the freezing rain, I got up what I could of the remaining snow and ice - about an inch of heavy wet nasty. It was harder to get up than the 6 inches, and heavier!

Now we have a nice crusty layer of ice on top of our snow and a very icy driveway. I'm hoping that Beth naps so that Nora and I can go outside and play in the snow (and cleanup the driveway!).

The "Peeing Song"

I was driving home from a friends house last night just before dinner and Nora tells me "I have to go potty." I asked her my standard questions, can you wait until we get home, or do you need to stop sooner, and for the first time in a long time, she said she needed to stop sooner. Unfortunately, we were on a fairly narrow, dark road, so I wasn't willing to stop and let her out (plus, it was quite chilly outside!). I knew that there was a parking area about 3 minutes away where I could pull in for a potty break, and she said she could make it, but she did not want to go into a "peeing store" she wanted to pee in the baggie potty (we have a potty seat in the car that uses gallon sized bags).

After this conversation, she started to sing, to the tune of Jingle Bells: " Oh what fun I will have peeing on the road" I wish I could remember more, but that's all I can remember now. It was really funny. She asked Beth if she like her "peeing song" and then sang it through again! Then she told me she was on her last holding minute before peeing, which made me worry. She managed to hold out, although she did say the pee was moving up to her throat and she was having problems waiting to bring it back down.

Bee Balm and Baby

Nora got a doll stroller and Beth got a shopping cart for Christmas. They both have spend many (many) hours pushing their babies up and down the hallway, around the kitchen and through the living room. One is often chasing the other. Biggest problem was that Beth didn't have her own baby doll. She has a doll, but it's not as realistic looking as her sisters. It became clear to us that Beth was going to need her own, so we ran off to a local toy shop and picked up a small baby doll. Beth got the baby yesterday morning and has not let go of it since, except when required to for meals. She slept with the baby doll last night and tonight, I forgot to grab ba-bee before putting Beth down. She stood up in the crib and immediately yelled for ba-bee and the tears started streaming down her face! I can't believe how attached she became after only two days!

We also learned that if Beth is saying what sounds like "bee balm" she is actually saying "clean bum" and wants us to change her diaper!

Yes, No, and "me too"

Beth has started being able to answer yes and no questions. It's been very helpful. If we ask her a question, she will either say "uh-uh" for no or "pwea" (please) for yes. She's been doing it for about a week, but it took me a bit by surprise on Christmas morning when after cuddling with me in bed for a few minutes, I asked if she was ready to get up and she said "pwea" and then practically jumped over me and off the bed! It was very cute.

Beth has also started really mimicking her big sister. When sister needs a napkin to wipe her face, Beth will ask for a napkin. If sister has a spoon to eat her potatoes, Beth needs a spoon (which she holds in one hand and eats with the other). When my sister and I were little, we used to call her the "me too" kid. Beth appears to be following in her footsteps. It's very cute to see!

Christmas 2010 Summary

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration this year! It really started a week before Christmas with our traditional Chinese food and gift exchange at my grandparents. My aunt and uncle from Florida were up visiting and we had a blast. Because Beth has been much less clingy, I was able to leave my grandparents house and help my sister pick up dinner -which meant a mai tai! Mmmmm. Nora and Beth had a great time!

On Monday, my sister and I went to Wrenthem with the kids. We didn't get a lot of shopping done, but we had fun. It was pretty chilly and windy out, but Nora had a blast running around outside. I'd love to go back for some real shopping - perhaps I can drop the kids off at my dad's house and then head down. We did hit some interesting weather on the drive home.

On Tuesday, my sister and I went to my grandparents again to visit. They had a few inches of nice wet snow and Nora was itching to build a snowman! I stayed in with Beth, but Nora had plenty of company building the snowman. We also went to the enchanted village at Jordan's Furniture, and that was a lot of fun. Nora seemed nervous about it at first, but warmed up to it pretty quickly.

Friday brought Christmas Eve. We decorated cookie houses, baked Stollen (holiday bread) and played games. My dad, sister and brother in law joined in the fun. I think it was one of the most fun days! Nora was so excited to get presents, and even Beth seemed to enjoy opening gifts - although she didn't seem to care nearly as much about what was inside!

Christmas morning was wonderful! Nora was super excited and was thrilled to see all her packages under the tree. It was a very nice relaxing morning. After lunch we went to visit family. We had a nice dinner, but Nora and Beth had some problems. Nora didn't want to leave all her toys behind and Beth was overtired and just kept melting down. I think there was just too much stimulation for her.

The day after Christmas, we drove up to Maine. We had to keep our eye on the weather, but we had a wonderful trip. It's a lot of driving in one day, but we really enjoyed visiting with family and I think the longer day works well right now - Beth just doesn't do well outside her own bed. Once again, Nora and Beth enjoyed opening gifts. Beth loved playing with her Grampa and her Uncle and I enjoyed the fact that she didn't insist on being held all day!

Now we are looking forward to a week with daddy, complete with lots of snow!

Christmas 2010

Christmas has been just wonderful this year! Last year was fun, but I think this one tops it. At 3, Nora is old enough to really "get" the whole Christmas thing, and she fully enjoyed it. She had a bit of difficulty falling asleep last night and was so excited this morning!

"Before"


"After"