I didn't teach her that

Yesterday while exploring my room, Kathleen came upon two pins.  Pins are very fascinating because they can be stuck into things.  Realizing the value of such a device, Kathleen fetched her baby doll.

Then she plunged the pins into her baby's torso and then plaintively said, 'hurt.  Baby doll.  Hurt.'

We're going to start hiding Sophia's hair and fingernail clippings.

Kathleen-isms

After having taken her own sweet time to begin her verbal journeying, Kathleen is now making up for lost time.  And giving us a wonderful insight into the logic of two year-olds.  A few days ago while at dinner, the word 'trouble' came up in the conversation.  To show that she, too could participate, Kathleen pitched in her own two cents.

'Trouble!  Fifi-no!'

Because of course Sophia is the only one in the house who causes trouble.  And unwinds all of the floss.  And dumps Motrin down the heating vent.

Our First Thanksgiving

Ever since I left home for college, I have always mooched off others for Thanksgiving.  After all, who wants to cook all of that food themselves?  It's a holiday, and holidays don't involve large amounts of cooking.  Well, at least by me.  On Thanksgiving.

This year, however, our devious plans fell through when our regular Thanksgiving date fell through a few days before due to rampant bronchitis in their large household.  We did, however, receive a turkey, sweet potatoes, olives, cream, and two bottles of soda to ease the pain.

One problem with a 12-pound turkey, however, is that it has to be cooked.  You can't just decided to have pizza or go out to dinner when a 12-pound turkey is waiting in your refrigerator, reminding you that a turkey somewhere in Middle America lived and died to be sitting in your refrigerator waiting for its big day and not to be ignored and left to spoil.

So, we cooked the turkey.  And sweet potatoes, and mashed potatoes, and stuffing (from home-made bread, of course), giblet gravy, cranberry sauce, pecan pie and pumpkin pie.  Thankfully the olives simply had to be drained and eaten.

Lest I take too much credit, however, I must give thanks and much acknowledgement to my wonderful team of sous-chefs, my dear husband, kind sister-in-law Ashley, and Seth, who is amazing with a knife.  Everyone followed the recipes and schedule posted and dinner turned out fabulous.

Now we just need to find some more people to come help cook Christmas dinner.  Anyone planning on a Springville Christmas?

Everybody loves Plinko

On my bedside table sits a change jar.  The jar contains all of the change collected during my married life, perhaps $30.  

Every morning when I shower, Kathleen gets shut up in my room, free to roam and explore with some restrictions that change as she discovers new places to pillage that she hadn't discovered previously.  Don't touch the CD's.  Anything that comes out of the bedside table drawers goes back in.  Leave my clothes in the drawer.  Don't pull the painting supplies off the shelf.  She is very obedient and leaves things alone after they have been specifically outlawed.  

And of course, that's the problem - specifically - because a two year-old has no common sense.  Common sense is gained when fingers are burned, dishes are broken, and time-out is served for improvised murals.  

Yesterday morning Brandon discovered the change jar disgorged of most of its contents.  And the change?  Underneath our bed, having been tossed behind the headboard, most likely for the wonderful noise that it makes.  She has yet to see The Price is Right, but I think I know which game will be her favorite.

Six months

Today, Sophia turned six months old.  To celebrate, she is crying in her crib, trying to go to sleep.  

When Kathleen was born, we marveled about how calm she was, such a good-natured, contented child.  Then she turned six months and woke up.  She wasn't good natured, we realized, she simply wasn't awake long enough to be any kind of nature.  And then the next three months until she had learned to crawl were particularly stressful for both of us.

When Sophia was born, we adored her and loved how happy she was, contented to be held and smiled at.  Now she is six months old and has woken up.  This time, I know what I'm headed for and I'm not looking forward to it.  Sophia has given a wonderful preview in the last week by waking up at 4:30 and intermittently crying until 6:30, not taking naps, waking up to early from naps, crying herself to sleep at night, and crying while left alone for 5 minutes.  Productivity around here has gone through the floor.

I know she'll survive the next three months, but I'll get back to you about me.

But who knows what it says?

Yesterday Kathleen came to me with a crayon, her coloring book, and a request: write.  Not wanting to write at the moment, I suggested instead that she write for me.  She then proceeded to write Kathleen, Sophia, Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, and all of the assorted names of cousins, aunts and uncles that I could think of.  Then we wrote all of the words that came to mind.  When Uncle Sam came over, she requested of him all of his words to write.  Every time one of us said a word, Kathleen would make a very careful squiggle corresponding to the word.

When I went to find her for dinner, she was holed up in the bathroom with a notebook and a pen and had covered several pages with writing.  Her nursery pictures all had writing.  She is writing right now as I type, exclaiming 'write, write' every 30 seconds or so.  Now if only I could teach her how to write actual letters....

$48

In these perilous economic times, money  has begun to take on increasingly important value; one never knows when the next bottom might drop out and the cash flow will dry up all together.  So I find it important to think seriously about the power of my dollar.  

If I had $48 to spend, I could spend it on a good many things.

21 gallons of gas, 2 tanks, or a trip to Vegas

17 gallons of milk, and a whole lot of pudding

16 dates to the $1.50 theatre (not counting babysitting, of course)

a tasty dinner at our local Indian restaurant

48 songs off of iTunes

70 lbs of apples, and a lot of applesauce

a new dress for me, the first since I have been married

171 pounds of flour

4 DVDs 

9 3/4 pizzas from Little Ceasar's

But instead, I spent that $48 on diapers for my children.  Diapers which will only be soiled and thrown away.

So Kind to Share

A few days ago, some snow boots came in the mail for Kathleen.  She didn't like them, so offered to let Sophia have them instead.  Sophia was delighted.

Kathleen's Halloween

When asked how Kathleen would be dressing up for Halloween, I replied that she would be posing as a small girl, asleep in her bed.  Here she is, ready for her big night.  This costume is so popular, we'll probably be using it again next year.

When the cats are asleep

The parents will play.  As a child, I always suspected that my parents were a little over-eager to send me to bed.  Surely there was something  really good going on that I was missing while sleeping away upstairs.  However, every time I managed to sneak downstairs to spy, they were able to quickly hide the party balloons and toys and pretend to be watching TV instead.

Well, now that I've been a parent for a few years, I've realized that my suspicions were correct, as evidenced by last night.  After returning from our respective mid-week callings, Brandon and I decided we needed a treat.  So we heated up the oil, chopped up some apples, and made apple fritters.  Originally we intended to make a half-recipe but the proportions were incorrect, so we made the whole recipe.  And then we ate them.  Without our children.