Thursday, April 17, 2008

i win!

Last week the girls decided to go on tour without me. Now I have been drilling it into their pretty little heads that they may not leave the house without mama or papa. It apparently didn't stick. One morning while in the middle of the dreaded bill paying I was prompted by my youngest to do a thorough house search for the others. I found nothing and when I was really beginning to panic. Vivi came in the the front with the exciting news that she and B were outside. (To their credit they had on coats and hats and boots...good spring gear) Not sure how long or where exactly they went but I was in freak mode. I put them in their room and continued with my chant...."do not leave the house without mama or papa, do not leave the house without mama and papa....(i'm sure they hear) wha, wha, wha, wha, wha,"

When I come to my senses I begin to fortify the entrances. I put baby gates up and find them extremely difficult to enter and exit myself. But the girls will not leave without me. Then talking with my good friend Suz about it, she asks if I have any of those spinning door knobs that make it hard for kids to grip the knob. I run out immediately and and buy a six pack. I want to put them on all the doors. Unfortunately it only fits on the back door. The front door is a lever and the upstairs are all oval knobs. Darn me for looking to have an interesting knob or two. Well the gate is still up on the front but the back is difficult for me to open and now entirely kid proof. Thanks Suz!

Took Bebe to get a haircut today. Her first one...pro-fessionally. She now has a cute sassy cut and is telling everyone that she sees-"I got a haircut". She is quite proud of it. I'm proud of her. And now we will have no more comb out crying. Yay!

Thursday, April 10, 2008

two, tutus and too much

Today little B celebrated her second birthday. As Vivi was quick to tell anyone who would listen, today, is her birthday party but tomorrow is her actual birthday. In some ways I think she loved it. She is still singing "happy birthday to Beatrice" and she will open the birthday cards and read them. "Happy Birthday Beatrice, happy two, I love you" she reads. You would think she has never had a birthday before. She did do quite a bit of hiding. She wanted to be witness to it all but preferred to be on the periphery. At one point, one of the parents said to me, "Beatrice is up from her nap." When I clarified, "Phoebe?" This was the only child that I knew to be sleeping. He said, "No Beatrice." He thought she was sleeping since he had not yet seen the birthday girl. To which I replied "she's just hiding from her birthday. starting early, that one"

I wanted to make pink cupcakes with little ballerinas on them like she knows from Charlie and Lola a fun British animated show, but I had to settle for just pink cupcakes a la Pinkalicious --a favorite book of hers. I spent a good hour searching for little ballerinas that would fit on the top of a cupcake to no avail. I did find it on the internet .... too late to get shipped. I'm the worst mom. I plan a party for her that I know I'm going to do about a week and a half before, then actually start doing the shopping for it the week of the party. LAME. Sorry, Beatrice.

She did sport the outfit of the day with her pink tutu and leggings... A purple windbreaker and rain boots, once we moved outside. The sparkle purple rain boots made the ensemble.

It was a grand day and I made myself only marginally exhausted.

Phoebe slept the entire party and Viv had the most fun with all the attendees. All of my girls...each individuals.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

things that are just a bad idea

Today Vivi and I were sitting on the couch talking. She told me that Papa said he did not like it when she sat on the back pillows (like she happened to be doing at that moment.) I said that I thought that was probably a good idea. She said that Papa thought it was a bad idea. To which I realized my flawed response. I agreed with her (and Papa) that it was a bad idea but that it is always a good idea to listen to her Papa.

Today, I should have listened to her Papa. We were out of a few crucial groceries and I thought I'll just wrangle the kids and do a "quick" trip to the market. His response upon hearing this was "are you sure? well, good luck to you" For the record, it's a bad idea to take 3 children under 4 to the market unless you have 2 of them sedated, heavily. Or you should find a cart that has a couple of straight jackets and continually bribe them with lots of food. I had none of this going for me as we went right after breakfast...not snack time yet. And the kid's cart (the one that looks like a little car that allows them to "drive" around the aisles) it did not have working straps and my little houdinis would have figured them out even if they did since they are only lap belts. So my entire trip was spent trying to get them to stay in the cart, not dance around the cart, or climb on the car or hang to the side only to get smashed by a display. (Vivi is okay, by the way, but my hope is that she now knows to keep her hands etc. inside the ride.) The fun filled trip ended in my shamefully cutting my shopping short with two girls in full meltdown and one of them bleeding from the mouth. Next time I'm giving them the list and just let them have run of the place. Honestly, who can think under such pressure? At least I did get the crucial diapers, juice and bananas. Now the monkeys can be happy.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

Blessed day (night,really)

Phoebe slept from about 9pm all the way to 6am last night. I thought for sure I was dreaming when I looked at the clock this morning when I heard her. She almost always wakes me at least once and sometimes twice, if the first time was before midnight. I hope this is a new trend but I'm not holding my breath.

Last night Vivi was holding a Easter card that we made for Will and she was pretending to read it. (This card has no words, just a painting.) She was reading "Happy Easter Papa. I love you so much, I just can not say. Love, Vivienne, Beatrice and Phoebe." Will looked at me and said did she just say "she can not say?" Yep. Then Beatrice grabs the card and says, "Papa, I love you...Papa, I love you." So apparently they have figured out that cards are for saying "l love you."

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

the tip of two

Beatrice will turn two next week. I'm noticing that she has quite a lot to say these days. I don't remember Vivienne speaking so much. (Although I can't shut her up now and she is very funny, sometimes.) I also don't remember V having such an opinion at two. Bebe has to negotiate everything from what to eat to what to wear. She has to be given a choice. I think I was still dressing V at this point. It is hard to have such a definite little creature in the house. She can't exactly express what she wants although we can have a conversation in which she tells me that the contractor who works on our house is her friend Steven. And that she also has a friend Steve who gave us a new potty. (The plumber is also a Steve.) Yet if you don't understand her at just the crucial moment she melts.....literally. Sinks to the floor, becomes a heap of crying and won't be consoled. That is unless you mention one of her favorite things...chocolate, candy, cookies. Maybe she's an elf.

It is very acrimonious in our house at the moment between B coming into her own and V trying to keep everything from her. Vivi has a new game of keep away which apparently involves taking away whatever B is playing with and looking for things which Bebe wants to play with and take that away too. Sometimes some shoving is involved and always lots of tears. Overly dramatic is the response, so much so that V gets reprimanded more harshly just to stop all the fuss. That's not kind to Vivi though so we need to figure out a better tactic but what, I don't know.

Some of the time is spent in very cute play where they have very lengthy conversations about what to do and how to do it. I usually don't get involved for fear that I may screw up the sister magic but I do try my best to eavesdrop when I can.
Beatrice can now say "Vivienne" quite well but still falls back to Yayee or Lalee when she shortens her name. It makes me wonder if that is what she thinks we say when we shorten V's name. I secretly hope that it sticks but won't encourage it since I think about how Mom stills calls her sister Doodie even though it isn't even remotely close to her real name of Shirley. It's all said with love so how can you argue against it?

Meanwhile we can't seem to find the right groove with Phoebe and the solid food thing. She still screams throughout the entire meal which makes me want to shove it in faster and stop feeding her all at the same time. She wants to take the spoon but then won't accept the fact that the spoon doesn't have food on it. And eventually it becomes an unhappy Phoebe with a frazzled parent given up and going for the liquid diet. She does seem quite interested in the eating with her hands when I give her "o"s or grahams or bread or something she can gum. Maybe I should just strip her down and put a whole bunch of mushy food in front of her and let her figure it out herself.