Three Years Old

Ellen's birthday was yesterday.  She's three.  She's screamy.  She's worried about sock fuzz.  She loves to swing.  She insists on holding my hand to walk up or down the stairs.  She calls herself Superkitty.  She likes to jump.  If we ride in an elevator, it's her favorite part of the day.  She's grateful for trees ('they sway').

We went to a corn maze/fun farm for her birthday.  It was cold and she was scared of all the bouncy pillows and play structures when she saw them up close.  She did agree to look at the animals in the petting zoo.

And she asked to take her picture in this pumpkin sizer.

She's still not quite potty-trained.

She requested a kitty cake and a tree cake.  Cake decorating is not one of my skills.

Natey ate green beans instead of cake.

This is from today but it shows pretty well how E feels about her brother.

We love our little E.

Kids of Summer

This one gives great big smiles, but he's shy for the camera.  (Also, he hates the outdoors, making his life very difficult this summer.  He's happiest lying on my bed in the air conditioning.)

One day I left him in his carrier when we came home from an outing and while I was unpacking the car, the bigger kids gave him some toys.  Ellen is fanatical about ensuring that he always gets his time with that monkey.

A boy in a strawberry cut-out wearing his cousin Tooie's shirt.

Hiking.  The Bairn loves it.  Ellen asks if it's over yet so she can eat a picnic.

But she enjoys the sights along the way.

The Bairn was determined to catch a fish at this nature playground, but all either of the kids got was a water skeeter.

The mud kitchen made up for the lack of fish.

Saturday was a family reunion.  The kids were thrilled by the potluck dessert selection and the abundant juice selection that elderly relatives kept offering them.  I cut Ellen off after 2 cupcakes and 2 juice boxes but she still threw up all over my lap (and on the baby brother sitting there).

We've had a new baby for every family reunion we've attended.  It makes us very popular with the older generations.

Ellen and a distant cousin (they have the same great-great-grandfather).  When I ask Ellen to smile, she makes fake dimples in her cheeks with her fingers.  I don't know why.  She has real ones.

Peppa Panties

My mom sent Ellen some Peppa Pig panties so we can potty train her and only have one child in diapers again.  Ellen has been seriously opposed to the idea, but she really loves Peppa Pig and smarties, our other bribe, so we started this new project yesterday.  Potty training is not my favorite, especially potty training someone who yells at me a lot that she needs some chocolate just for wearing underwear adorned with a cheery television character.  Ellen has really upped the irritation factor, though, by acquiring Satan's own telephone toy at a yard sale Saturday and playing the songs on it all day long.  She only got it because she used her own money, otherwise I would not have allowed a talking toy that meows (or barks!) four songs in rotation again again again.  Nothing makes me happier than cleaning up wet Peppa panties to the sound of a cat singing 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat.'

Also, I was reading my sister's old blog (yes, it WOULD be nice if she still blogged), and this post just about killed me.  It made my day.

The Finger Family

Here is Ellen with her 'finger family.'  They drive in a hand car and they are not to be confused with her peanut children who drive in a cheese car at snack time.  I pulled out those goggles yesterday and they were an instant hit.  Today Ellen asked me to put on some music because she was wearing her dancing goggles and needed to let the finger family dance.

American Thanksgiving 2015

We don't really celebrate American Thanksgiving, but I roasted a chicken today (both as a nod to all the turkeys in the ovens of my homeland and because we have 30 whole chickens in the freezer) and ate it with mashed potatoes and over-salted cornbread stuffing and cranberry sauce. Steve left the house around 8:00 this morning and won't be back until after I'm in bed, so I ate my fake Thanksgiving meal with one child who would only eat the green beans (he opens them and eats the inside and leaves the 'pods') and one child who stood on her seat and howled for more mashed potatoes every time her mouth and bowl were empty at the same time.

 After supper, I got out the Christmas decorations to make sure the kids were really out of their minds excited right before bedtime. The Bairn became super attached to the advent Christmas tree. He selected a location for it and then dragged it away from his sobbing sister and draped his body across it so no one could move it from its correct location until Christmas day. Ellen lost the Baby Jesus from one of the nativity sets (we found him on the workbench), she and The Bairn both draped garlands all over the place, and I managed to wrest the stockings away from them and hang them on the stairs, even though The Bairn is also seriously in love with Steve's (it has a train).

This year on Thanksgiving, I'm very grateful that both my children still nap and that they nap at the same time.  It's a gift.

Also, I'm thankful that Ellen (aka I Always Have Pneumonia Face) has access to 24-hour health care.  She's been to the walk-in clinic twice this week and the ER three times.  She loves the hospital bracelets.

This is what she looks like when she's sick.  She's snuggling a unicorn costume that she refused to let me put away.

Today she seems to be doing much better and she's been sashaying around the house, swinging her arms and wiggling her hips when she walks.  I love the way she walks. She and The Bairn also very enthusiastically helped me clean toilets.  I really love how much they love to help.  Also, I love that The Bairn must always sleep with Chicky Bick (hand puppet) and Baby Bick (finger puppet) on his pillow.  And that he likes me to smell his breath after I brush his teeth to see if he's fully freshened.  And that both kids say, "You. look. maaaahvelous," but it comes out "maaaahbelous" from Ellen.

Happy Thanksgiving.

A Two-Year-Old Girl

Monday was Ellen's 2nd birthday. The only things she requested for her birthday were party hats and candles on her cake, so we fashioned some hats out of construction paper and put candles on the birthday cake that The Bairn refused to eat, since it was really a grown up cake made for my own enjoyment. Also for my own enjoyment, I moved Ellen into her own bed in her own room the night she turned two.  The Bairn very earnestly told her that if she cried in her new room, he would come to help her and give her books and hugs.

Ellen is such a gem.  Her daddy can barely contain his enthusiasm for her sweet ways and she and The Bairn love to hug and tickle and lick one another (I don't know what the licking is about).

Playing outside in the leaves today.

At 2, Ellen

• loves to draw.  She can entertain herself for ages with a pen and paper making 'balloons and hearts and ABCs.'
• sings adorably.  She's especially fond of the alphabet song but she has an expanding repertoire.
• does funny dances that involve bending her elbows and scooting from side to side.
• plays really well independently.  She loves playing outside with water and containers and inside with whatever she can find--often babies and purses.
• gives really tight hugs and likes to jump from the stairs into our arms (followed by really tight hugs).
• holds strong fashion opinions.   She prefers wearing boots and anything ruffled, furry, or gaudy.  I just pulled out the winter clothes and she's upstairs marching around in a fur-lined purple coat and fancy snow boots.

We just love this monkey.

My Little Ones

My children are just impossibly sweet and funny at the moment. We're at some sort of sweet spot in which they're both at good ages that just delight me every day, and I feel the need to gather up all the pieces of them, the moments that grandparents assure me are the best of our life, and hold them still somehow.

I read with Ellen and think to myself, "I must remember how impossibly sweet it is to have a curly-haired girl snuggled under my chin."  I watch her run across the playground and know that it would be a crime to forget how her cloth diaper makes her skirt puff out like a cupcake and that she waves her hands over her head when she runs and that her motion is more up and down than it is forward.  She bounces.  She enters the kitchen with a blanket around her neck and announces that she's a 'sup'aherio' and then the next day in the stroller she argues with her brother that she's not a baby, she's a 'wobot.'

The Bairn snuggles in my lap and promises that he will never leave me.  He sits in the backseat of the car after church, munching on snacks and informing me that he learned about 'Heavenly Father and robots and cars and trucks and monster trucks' in his class.  He explains to Steve that babies live inside their mothers until they're born and come out to drink milk from the mommies' 'milksides.'  He loves the outdoors (but not wearing pants there).  I took him hiking last week and he named all the sections of the trail - Mom's Jungle, Franklin's Forest, and The Bairn's Jungle.  He ran over the bridges and literally oohed and ahhed at everything I pointed out to him.

Not a fan of pants outside

These kids drink monkey milk (banana smoothies) every day and beg to help Steve make pizza.  They want to eat all the bread dough before I bake it and delight in picnics (even if it's just grapes on the deck).  They love playing in the sandpit at the market, visiting the beach, and going to the splash pad.  Ellen holds us by the finger and leads us around and The Bairn calls excitedly to show me the things he's built.  They both worry about bugs.

Watching the July 1st Parade

I just can't get over them.  They go to bed at night and I recount our day to Steve and I think, "Remember this.  Remember."

The Goings On

Ellen walks around with a paper hippopotamus on her hand saying, "Sorry, sorry, sorry."  Because, you know, if you can say 'hippopotamus', you can say 'I'm sorry.'

There's a satellite dish buried in our backyard.  The former house owners put it there to be fish pond until it became a giant mosquito breeding ground and then they used it as a fire pit and then they buried it with a bunch of trash.  They were super classy.  Steve's been unearthing it, which has left a giant hole in the yard for The Bairn to spend his mornings exploring.

Ellen loves to dress herself.  She has a preference for hats, boots, ruffles and anything 'fancy.'

The garden is mostly all planted.  We didn't label our seedlings very well, so we're not really sure what we're growing.  Lots of tomatoes, some sort of peppers, a variety of squashes, beans, maybe pumpkins, maybe melons, kale, cucumbers.  The Bairn loves walking up and down the rows.

I am having all the FEELINGS about our lawn.  Our lawn tractor is broken and we can't afford to fix it and it takes me 3 hours with Ellen on my back to mow it with the push mower but the teenagers (and more specifically their parents) ask rates I consider scandalous to do the job.  We're currently paying a kid more per hour than Steve's draftsman charges to have a tidy lawn.

Ellen at 18 and 19-Months-Old

I was planning to post about Ellen at 18 months, but here she is 19 months already.

Things to know about Ellen:

1.  Everything she does is adorable.  Examples include, running to the rug and throwing herself face down with her bottom popped up in the air for family prayer; suddenly announcing, "Kisses!" and then giving very, very nice kisses;  growing curls that go wild in the humidity;  walking through the market holding onto her daddy's finger.

2.  She sticks everything she can up her nose.  She sneezed yesterday and out came a sticker.

3.  So far, she's very compliant.  When I ask her to come in from playing, she just comes.  When it's time to clean up, she helps.  If I set her down next to the car and ask her to stay while I get a bag out of the trunk, she stays put.

4.  She talks a lot.  At 18 months, she started making tiny sentences.  I'm super tickled when my kids can tell me things.  Last week I asked her where her cracker had gone, and Ellen answered, "Throw it down."

5.  She's great at independent play and has inner resources.  (Hallelujah!)

6.  She can sit and read books for ages.

7.  She calls herself Edabee, her baby nickname.  I've been having  her repeat her whole name (first middle last) after me and she's really good at it, but when I say her given first name, instead of repeating, she answers, "Edabee."

8.  Her favorite thing is playing in water.  We have a water table outside and she can amuse herself there for hours.

18-months-old

Visiting the Sunsphere in Tennessee

Popsicle on the Deck (Don't worry, she has stars and stripes outfits too.)

This is her 'smile' face.

Conversation with Ellen, Age 17 Months

We were standing next to a pan of brownies with a knife in them.  I had given her a taste but she wanted more.

Ellen:  Bitey!  Bitey!

Me: Oh no, that's it for tonight.

Ellen: Cut it.

Me: Cut the brownies?

Ellen: Sure.

It's Just Like Baby Jessica in the Well. Without the Well.

Bad News: I locked Ellen AND the keys in the car today.

Good News: We have a spare key to the car.

Bad News: I didn't know where it was.

Good News: Steve knew where it was.

Bad News: Steve was two hours away in a barn when I called, so the call went right to voicemail.

Good News: We have a really good next door neighbor.

Bad News: There is no more bad news (except that it's still snowing), because our neighbor sent me back to our house with his friend who was visiting to stay with Ellen while he called around for tow trucks that had equipment to open our very, very secure Volvo (coat hanger did not do the trick) and then the tow truck guys came and rescued poor Ellen and then refused payment, which made me cry.

Good News:  Steve called me back just as the rescue team was opening our car door, so now I know where the spare key is too.  Whew.

Not the Cleaning Season

Yesterday I was cleaning the house, and I thought about getting out the glass cleaner to wipe off the fingerprints on our long window at the bottom of the stairs,

but

 this . . .

There's always a little girl at that window, waiting to greet us as we come in from the cold.

As soon as I clean, there's a new set of fingerprints, so we'll just leave it for now.

Potty Training by E

Little E spends a considerable amount of time potty training her dolls.  She's very serious about it.

Little Girl, Little Dress, Little Balloon

Snow Days, Sick Days

We're just getting out from under weeks of illness. We've been down so long that we even dragged our TV up from the basement, where it's been sitting for the last 18 months, so that we can all nurse our fevers and watch movies and take it easy during these hard winter months.  We are also having the cold and the snow from the living in the Canada, which meant that we had to pull out a few special treats today.

Like snowcream.  The classic ice cream treat made from snow.  I ate it as a child and The Bairn is a convert, although I had to talk him into trying it.

Matching games from the parent resource center.  Ellen is very insistent about trying everything The Bairn does.  When he drinks hot chocolate, I have to give her a tiny cup of water and stirring spoon so she can participate in the ritual.

The 'Yes' Drawer.  The kids have taken over one of my kitchen drawers.  It's full of their own kitchen utensils and things I suspect they can't break.  Sometimes they like to pull everything out and play games with them.

Ellen is, in fact, holding a knife sharpener.  That should probably go in the 'No' Drawer.

Baby E

I just love her sweet curls. That is all.

Baby Love

Last night The Bairn and I were discussing Ellen and how she's a baby now but will get bigger and will stop being a baby and then we'll have ANOTHER baby [note: I am not pregnant].  "And then we'll have more and more babies!" The Bairn enthused.  When I asked how many babies he thought we should have, he very promptly announced that there would be ten more babies.  Hmmm.  Not so much.  It's too bad, though, because Ellen and The Bairn do LOVE babies.

My friend brought her infant, Caitlyn, over last week.  We pulled the exersaucer out of the basement and settled Caitlyn in it and my kids went wild with delight.  All morning Ellen crooned, "Oh, babe-baby.  Bee-bee-beeeee.  Baby see."  And then she'd lean in as far as she could over the exersaucer and pile paper towels on Caitlyn's head.

The Bairn, though generally a clever kid, couldn't figure out that Caitlyn and his sister were not the same person.  He was really thrilled to have a baby girl in the toy-contraption-machine, but he kept asking me why I'd put E in there and looking startled when he saw, he thought, his sister in an exersaucer and then turned around and saw her gathering paper towels behind him.

We need a little more time before we add another baby to this mix, though, because Ellen and The Bairn are still working on peacefully co-existing in a shopping cart.  One day a woman in the grocery store saw The Bairn kissing Ellen in the seat next to him and came over to tell me what an adorable sight it was, but she missed part 2, in which Ellen did all the screaming and I did all the threatening when The Bairn refused to STOP kissing her because 'I just love her so much.'

It's a Jolly Holiday with Ellen (and The Bairn)

Our Christmas festivities began two weeks ago, because Canada doesn't have any holidays after November 11 to prevent Christmas creep.  We took the kids to the Santa Claus parade in town.  This year I knew to bundle them in snowsuits AND to bring a thermos of hot chocolate.  They sat together in the double stroller and The Bairn requested that I hold his hand while he watched the floats in awe. When the parade was over, he asked, "Where are those clowns and trucks going?  Let's follow those clowns and trucks!"

Ellen only has about five words and an additional five signs, but she still manages to be quite clear in her communication.  Here was her take on the parade (with a bit of padding by me):


Before the parade began:

Out [of this stroller]!
Out!
Out!
Out!


After the parade began:

More [delightful animals and dancing gingerbread folk]!
More!
More!
More!

Snow Boots

I pulled the snow boots out last week after we had snow flurries.  Ellen's are too big, but they stay on because they're high.  More importantly, though, they are pink and fuzzy and she LUVS them.  She brought them to me every day last week and insisted on tramping around the house in them.  Sometimes she added an extra dash of fancy by making herself a shawl out of a dish towel to complete the look.

Watch out boys.  She'll chew you up.

My Bigsy Girl

When Ellen was born, the nurses handed her to me (after pumping her full of oxygen) and she seemed entirely familiar.  I looked at her and thought, "Well there's my Baby E." 

Today she turned one.  

She gives the best kisses.  Actual kisses with a satisfying mmmm-wah sound effect to accompany each one. 

She climbs like a monkey. 

She's sweet and gentle. 

We love her dearly.  Today in the car The Bairn was watching her sleep and said to me, "She's so cute.  Can I hug and kiss her?"

Yesterday we celebrated her birthday with Steve's parents and aunt, two little children close to my kids' ages, and the children's mothers.  Ellen enjoyed a pumpkin roll.

Now, right this moment, she is enjoying some jet-lagged staying awake past her bedtime.  Again.  I will forgive her because it is her special day.

Happy Birthday, Baby Girl.