Happy Cake

Evie loves all her grandparents, but right now, she calls them all grandpa. She has also started calling birthday cake, "happy cake."

People are constantly amazed whenever they see me taking Evie to the bathroom, and they ask me if she's potty trained. The honest answer feels like "no, I'm the one who is trained." Last week Evie decided she was bored with going to the potty and started wetting her pants with wild abandon. So then I decided to just leave her panties off and that worked once. She came to me and told me she needed panties, so I put her on the potty and she took care of business, but then she decided that it's just as easy to pee without panties as it is with panties. So I'm back to bribing her with candy. To Evie, snack means something soft, chewy, and fruity, like fruit snacks. I have to be careful about offering Evie a snack, unless I mean fruit snacks or some other gummy candy. But these days, about every hour or so, I try to lure Evie to the potty with a snack (gummy bears or Mike and Ikes). I'm not sure what we'll do when the candy runs out, probably buy more candy, but so far, we've stayed pretty dry with regular bribes.

The candy also works as a way to teach Evie her colors. She usually gets to choose between two different pieces of candy. In fact, choices is a favorite word in this house. Anna always says, "tell me my choices" and Evie likes to say, "choices, choices." Evie also likes to ponder her choices and then choose with a dramatic flourish. I'll ask Evie if she wants the green or the orange piece of candy and she always says, "ummmm . . . that one!" Evie has also figured out that in the world of girls, some colors have higher value. If Evie really wants it, she says that it is "purple-pink."

Nov. 29, 2011

This is a photo of Evie wearing my hot pads like flippers. She cracks me up!

Snapshots in June

Anna looking cute in her Cinderella dress and Mom's shoes.

Dan had to go out of town for a night on Wednesday, June 8, so I decided that we should celebrate the warmer weather with a picnic at the park. We got a pizza at Little Caesars, some grapes, cookies, and donut holes at Wal-mart, and went to our favorite park.

Yum! Donut Holes

Dressing up and dancing with our friend Avery

Our library has these activity kits that come with a book or two and an activity. My kids mostly just love the fact that they come in backpacks. Anna was so excited about hers that she wanted to wear it while eating breakfast.

On Friday, June 10 we met Heather, Tamara, and Pam and her daughters at the park. Tamara brought the girls this awesome chair set and it has been a huge hit this summer.

Evie got tired of always watching Anna ride her bike and decided to hitch a ride. Anna was a great sport about sharing, and if I remember right, Evie didn't ever fall off. She convinced me to get her her own trike and a helmet.

June 28

Snapshots in April 2011

On April Fool's Day we went swimming with my friend Cami and her Janey, who is Anna's age. Mostly the girls wanted to stay in the kiddie pool far away from the giant bucket that dumps out water. Evie really liked the slide in the kiddie pool but needed a little help to actually get moving down it. I pulled out my camera just before we left. I guess I wanted to document the fact that we went swimming since it had been awhile for us since our last trip to the pool.

Evie playing with Anna's crown.

One day the girls dragged out Anna's little rocking chair and took turns pushing each other in it. Of course I was elated to see them sharing something rather than fighting over it.

Anna likes to climb in these storage bins and asks me to put the lid on. I told her I'd only do it for a few seconds--long enough to snap this photo. But before anyone calls DCFS, I won't put the lid on for her anymore. In fact, now when she asks, I just read her the warning on the lid itself.

One morning I came out from my room to discover that Anna had taken a purple piece of chalk and drawn all over our walls. Luckily for both of us, chalk wipes right off.

Showing off the bling she brought home from a birthday party.

We were so excited when the weather got warm enough to go to the park. Yay!

Easter presents from Grandpa and Sandy. Anna receive a Lamb Chop replica and Evie got a little Woodstock.

Yes, in case you are wondering, that is a diaper Anna put on her head. I don't know anymore than that.

My mom found this sucker that was covered with a plastic globe and little balls of candy. I think the idea was that the kid could dip her sucker in the candy balls and lick them off, but to my mom, it reminded her of a rattle. She thought it would also look like a rattle to Evie too and she could just play with it. But Evie immediately recognized it for what it was and demanded that we unwrap it so that she could get that sucker into her moth.

I still don't know why, but one day, my kids decided it would be fun to take all the books out of our bookshelf and dump them behind the kitchen table. I try to keep reminding myself that they are learning initiative when they do these sorts of things. I guess I just need to do a better job of teaching them to help me clean up these messes. And of course, I decided to take a picture to document this mess.

Little Personalities

Sometimes I really hate the fact that as my kids grow up they have a will of their own. It can make simple things, like getting in the car, so much harder. But I also love to see their little personalities come out.

Anna has been talking for what seems like forever, but recently it feels like her speech has become more articulate and nuanced. For some reason these days she likes to ask me if she "should" do something. "Should I do it, Mom?" and if I say simply, yes, she tells me I need to say she should.

And whenever we go around a corner in the car, she often yells out, "We're tipping Mom!" I figured three isn't too young to begin talking about the basic laws of physics, so I explained to her that her body is leaning to one side because it wants to keep moving in the same direction it was moving in before we turned. So now sometimes she'll exclaim, "My body wants to keep moving in the same direction."

About a month ago, in one of our brighter potty training moments, Anna realized she was wetting her pants and asked Dad to put her on the potty, where she finished the job. I came in to the bathroom to celebrate this major achievement and she said, "Mommy, my body needs to eliminate." I know she picked that phrase up from me as I've tried to help her understand the concept of going to the bathroom before she goes in her pants, but it was so surreal to hear it coming out of her little mouth.

Evie isn't really talking yet, but I think she said the word "shoe" the other day (I guess it's been three weeks since she said it). She loves shoes and I think it's because she's figured out that when we put shoes on, we usually go outside. My mom was taking my girls for the day and loading Anna's car seat in her minivan. Since Evie likes to run out into the street, I was keeping her inside and she wasn't happy about it. She brought me one of her shoes and was babbling pretty emphatically and that's when I realized she was repeating the same sound, "shoe" over and over. I consider it to be her first word even though she sometimes says mama, dada, Nana, and for awhile there I really think she was saying no although not necessarily in the right context.

She is our little talker and I get the sense that she's probably using words, but I just don't understand her. She's figured out that she gets more attention when she babbles loudly, so she does a lot of that. And she's still growling when she finds something she really likes. She also knows that all the good food is in the pantry and if I open the pantry, it doesn't matter if she's on the other side of the house. She gets to the kitchen as fast as she can toddle and starts demanding food. It's only become worse since I've started using food more in my efforts to potty train Anna (still not going all that well).

Her other favorite things these days are my wooden spoons. If I pick her up near the stove, she'll point and start yelling at me until I hand her one. She loves it when I give her a bowl that she can stir the spoon in. Anna also likes to take all the letter magnets off our fridge and put them in bowls for the two of them to stir. Then Anna will put the magnets in small containers in the fridge. She tells me she's making soup or ice cream. The other day I opened my fridge and found that the bottom shelf on the door was stuffed full of wooden blocks and there were more in a bowl on another shelf.

A few weeks ago when I was visiting my neighbor, Evie found a bottle of lotion with a pump on top. She would put her hands around the pump and then rub her hair. I think she was acting out washing her hair. She did it several times and it was totally cracking me up.

Snapshots in December

In late August or early September my point and shoot camera broke. It took me a few months to decide which camera I wanted to buy to replace it, but finally at the end of November I got a new camera and I've been having lots of fun catching random moments around our house again.

 I love high chair photos with messy faces, especially when it's such a cute face underneath the food.

 I've been reading about the different temperaments of children in Jane Nelson's book called Positive Discipline for Toddlers (I highly recommend it), and I've decided that Evie is more active than Anna was, but she's probably not super high on the active spectrum. But then the other day, I noticed her cuddling with her sheepie. Anna also started snuggling with her blankets about this age, so maybe it's a little more of a developmental thing than a temperament issue. I still think Evie is on the active side though.

 Anna loves getting packages and it was hard for her this month when so many came and Mom wouldn't open them while she was around. But then a package came with the presents already wrapped. Anna commandeered one of the boxes and called it her house. She put a few pillows in there and had a great time playing in it for a few days. She'd probably still be playing with it if we didn't take it out to the recycling bin after she fell asleep.

It's sort of hard to see in this photo, but Evie pulled the bag of Craisins out of the diaper bag and shook it until she had spread Craisins all over the floor. I heard her playing with the bag but thought it was closed. When I checked on her, I found her mouth full of Craisins and drool running down her chin. She was loving it.

 Anna helps Evie "pick up" the Craisins.

Anna hurt her mouth and told me she needed a band-aid. I guess the owie was right on her lip.

Wal-mart

I spent most of my childhood in a small town in northern Oklahoma. We had one McDonald's and a J. C. Penneys, so when Wal-mart came to town, it was exciting. Soon after Wal-mart showed up, we got a Burger King and a new movie theater. Of course, I also remember that Wal-mart closed down a few of the general stores that had been around for years, but as a kid, all I cared about was the bright new store in town. As I got older, I cared more about the cheap prices at Wal-mart, but I also felt a certain nostalgia walking into a Wal-mart. I'd been in enough of them in the south that I could walk into just about any Wal-mart and know which way to go to get dish soap, contact solution, or a pillow. When I was a senior in high school I worked at our local Wal-mart over Christmas break, and even though I knew first hand what it was like to work at Wal-mart, I never really understood why some people didn't like Wal-mart. After all, it was so cheap!

Then we moved to Pasadena and far away from a Wal-mart. I could walk to Target, but had to drive thirty minutes to get to Wal-mart. So I started to shop at Target and by the time I left California, my loyalties had shifted. Now I dread going to Wal-mart and try to avoid it, but there are a few things I can only find there. So every few months I go to Wal-mart with my fingers crossed that whatever I need will actually be in stock and that I won't be stuck in a long line.

Last week, I ran out of Anna's hair elastics, so we went to Wal-mart. Clearly it made quite an impression on her. Sunday after Church, she found my reusable grocery bags and was pretending to go shopping. Then she put one of the bags on her head and I asked, "Oh, did you buy an Anna?"

"No, Mom. I shop at Wal-mart." Ok, funny that she's never mentioned shopping at Target.

Yesterday, we were driving on the freeway when Anna suddenly yelled, "Look Mom! Look! Wal-mart!" Sure enough, there was a Wal-mart. She hasn't even learned to identify the golden arches yet, but for some reason, she can recognize Wal-mart. That kid cracks me up.

On another note, at lunch yesterday Anna was playing with one of the many Snoopy dolls we own. She said, "Mom, I need my knife," pointing to the butter knife she had used to spread peanut butter on her sandwich. When I asked why she said, "So I can kill Snoopy." Wondering what she meant by that, I gave her the knife and then she poked him in the stomach with it.

"Why do you want to kill Snoopy?" I asked her, not sure if I should laugh or be horrified.

"So I can eat him for lunch." Needless to say, I took the knife away from her but more because I was worried about her getting peanut butter on Snoopy. What a funny kid.

Bed Time and Hide and Seek

Anna has a hard time going to bed most nights. She's often awake until after nine even though we read stories and tuck her in around eight. Some nights she plays quietly in her bed until she falls asleep. Some nights she calls out regularly, doing anything to get us to come visit her in her room. Tonight is one of those nights where she's been calling out and since I've been home alone while Dan was at Church meetings, I ignored many of her shouts for attention. Finally I went in to check on her and she said, "my pants came off" as if they just leaped off her body. I guess I should be surprised she doesn't strip all her clothes off more often. So I put her pants back on and tucked her in. Maybe this time, she'll start to settle down.

Yesterday morning she talked me into playing Hide and Seek with her. She learned this game from our neighbors Hayden and Parker when they came over to play. Hayden is five, but since Parker is only a little older than Anna, neither he nor Anna really understood the hiding part. Hayden would start counting and they'd both run to the opposite end of the house squealing. Then they'd stand in plain view, waiting for him to "find" them.

When I played with Anna, it was pretty similar. She let me hide first, so I hid under a sheet she had been playing with in our family room (she was making bubbles and popping them). After that, whenever I started to count, Anna would ask me to help her hide under the sheet. I tried to pick hiding spots that would be easy for her to find, like crouching down on the far side of our bed. But that one was a bit too hard for her. I had to call out to her so she could find me. Once I hid in the bathtub, making sure to make a lot of noise with the shower curtain so she'd know where to look. Another time I hid in my closet, just inside the door. It was so fun to watch her check beside the bed where I had hid before. When she realized I wasn't there and turned around, she could have easily spotted me, but she wasn't looking for me in the closet. I couldn't resist. When she got close, I jumped out and yelled "boo." She shrieked and it was loud. Not a great thing to do when Evie is taking a nap. I think she felt genuinely betrayed by me for scaring her, so after that the game was pretty much over.

As I was huddled in one of my hiding spots, I thought, "this is so much fun. Why don't I think to do this with Anna more often?" For some reason, I am always so concerned with all the things I need to do, like cleaning the bathrooms and balancing the check book, but when I do take time to play with my kids, it's always the highlight of my day. Of course, today we didn't have time for Hide and Seek as we were rushing off to story time and then to Costco. Maybe tomorrow.

Evie has finally figured out how to drag herself across the floor. She's been doing push ups and the plank position for a week, but this morning she saw a cheerio on the floor that she really wanted. I do my best to sprinkle random bits of food and chokeable items all over the floor so that she'll be sufficiently motivated to learn to crawl. Or maybe that's Anna who sprinkles the food and me who doesn't bother to pick it up. Anyway, she wanted the cheerio and dragger herself over there to get it and by tonight she was pretty good and moving across the floor. She still relies mostly on the army crawl, but she'll also push up on her hands and knees and lunge forward.

Anna also learned something new today: if she opens the package of Rolos in the store then Mom will have to buy them. I was in a new grocery store and I made the mistake of parking the cart right by the candy while I picked out some peaches. When I returned to the cart, Anna had the Rolos completely unwrapped, but I don't think she had managed to eat any yet. She was a pretty good sport when I told her she couldn't eat any until we paid for them, which seems a little beside the point since she had already unwrapped them, but saved me more of a mess.

Today I got a Hanna Andersen catalog in the mail and knowing that Anna love to look at catalogs, I handed it to her. Now she makes me read it to her whenever we read stories. It's awesome because I get to read things like, "What if her best friend is a dress?" Riveting. She also likes to quiz me on the names of clothing items. After I had correctly identified the leotard, tutu, and the leg warmers, she pointed to each item again several more times. I don't know if she was quizzing me or just studying herself so that she'll know what to call each clothing item the next time she sees it.

As much as I love reading the catalog, my favorite moments are when she wraps her arms around my neck and says, "I got you!" She's a sweet kid even when she tells me, "You a bad mama."

Adventures with Anna

So Anna has been extra active lately. I feel like she’s reached an all new level of the terrible twos. Last Tuesday we met some friends from law school at the Market Street Grill in downtown SLC. Wow! it was an adventure and probably not the best place to take kids. We wondered if kids were even allowed, but they do have a children's menu. Still I think we were the only two couples in the restaurant with kids. I was sitting between Anna and Evie. Anna kept getting up out of her booster chair and lunging towards me so that she could better reach the tray of butter pats. At first she tried to spread some on her bread, but eventually she just started licking the butter off the wrapper. Nice. Meanwhile Evie was trying to grab anything that came within her reach. Sometimes she actually picked something up and several times in her attempts she knocked whatever it was to the floor. She managed to grab a butter knife and a piece of bread. I felt like every time I focused my attention on Anna to try and manage her, Evie knocked something off the table or was able to grab something I didn't want her to have. The server was great about bringing the kid's food out quickly, but Anna only ate about two bites of her grilled cheese before she went back to the butter. So she was bored before our food even made it to the table. But she got an ice cream sandwich so that made her happy. Needless to say, the adult conversation was limited, but it was fun to see our friends again.

This week Anna has been even more destructive than normal. On Tuesday, while I was trying to cook dinner, Anna was running towards Evie with a cup of water. She wanted to give Evie a drink and I was trying to stop her because Anna doesn't know how to give Evie sips. She just puts the cup to Evie's mouth and keeps pouring until Evie is drenched. Realizing that I was going to catch her and stop her, Anna decided to just fling the water at Evie. So maybe I should have just left her alone. Most of the water ended up on the floor and on Evie's high chair tray since that's where Evie was sitting.

Earlier that day, as we were leaving the library and I was putting Evie in her car seat, Anna was playing on the grass near the car. She then comes waddling towards me complaining about her diaper. I lift up her dress to see that she had tried to take it off. When I went to readjust it, little bits of poop, whopper size, fell out into the parking lot. At that point I was still fresh and full of patience, so I picked the poop up (using wipes of course) and then changed Anna's diaper. You might say that potty training has sort of plateaued and doesn't seem to be going well. I guess I just haven’t found the right motivation for her. I’ve tried to bribe her with fruit snacks, but she’s decided that rather than going on the potty to earn fruit snacks, she’d rather just whine. I don’t give in, but when I ask her these days if she wants to wear a diaper or panties or sit on the potty, she goes for the diaper and has no interest in the potty. I'm not worried. I'll just keep asking her and one day I'm sure she'll decide she's done with diapers. At least she's got the basic mechanics down even if she's not interested.

Let’s see, this week she also scribbled on the rug under my kitchen table with her sidewalk chalk. One morning she got my contacts case while I was in the shower and decided she wanted to try and wear them. They ended up ripped in half, but it was about time for me to get out new ones anyway. During her naptime yesterday she ripped all the pages out of one of her library books. When I told my mom about it, she asked, "Just one book?" So I guess it could be worse, but right now I feel like I've hit my threshold for entropy and distruction.

Yesterday I figured I’d try to spend some time with her so we made lemon poppy seed muffins. She loves to pour things into bowls and stir. So I was letting her stir as much as she wanted. Then I noticed that she had her hands in the bowl and was squeezing the batter. I wasn’t thrilled, but I figured she was just exploring the texture and really it wasn’t that big a deal. The next thing I knew, she was dipping her arms in the batter and had batter up to her elbows. I started focusing on my breathing, trying to take deep breaths, but it was hard not to freak out, especially when she started dripping batter all over the floor. Then today she dumped a bottle of infant ibuprofen into Evie’s sock drawer as I was trying to get out the door for a doctor’s appointment. I think she drank some too, but thanks to a similar incident a few months ago and a call to Poison Control, I now know that I'd really only need to seek professional help if she drank two full bottles of the stuff. And since I think she's working on getting in her molars, whatever she managed to swallow probably helped her feel better.

I Wanna Hold Evie

Anna loves her Evie and she loves to hold her and roll her around on the floor. As they play I hear lots of "Hi sweet girl," "Here you go, sweetheart," and then when the playing has become too rough, "You're alright." Once when Evie started crying Anna said, "Shh!" because she knew that I was on my way to rescue Evie. Poor Evie. It's hard to be loved so much by your big sister.