She's a Maniac

At fourteen months-old Georgia is astounding me with her vocabulary. The girl is such a Chatty-Cathy. When I took these pictures, she was vigorously upbraiding Grinch for who-knows-what. (Stealing Christmas?) There is noting funnier than a toddler giving someone "the business."

So, I've been keeping a list of all of her words. She can repeat anything you say. But, the following are things she says independently and KNOWS what she's saying.

"Booby!" This is a common request around here. She is quite demanding. When she's got it in her head that she needs to nurse she walks around pleading, "Booby! Booby! Booby!" Which brings me to #2...

Please! When she requests booby, I ask her, "What do you say?" And she very sweatily answers "Please". It may be uncouth that we call nursing "booby" but at least she has manners!

Of course she knows Mama and Daddy. She also says dog and Jack. The sweetest however, is that she calls Normy "Brother" which comes out sounding like bra-ber. Oh lord, it melts me. If she hears him wake up from his nap she will go running into his room squealing with delight, "Braber! Braber!"

She also points and says "this" for things she wants, and says thank you when you give it to her. Georgia tells us when she is all done eating. She calls anything in a sippy-cup juice and knows the difference between a dolly and a real baby. She says shoe when you dress her, and if you put her in a jacket and move towards the back door she'll say side... as in outside. That's 15 words! I know two year-olds who hardly talk that much! I think it is so much fun. I can hardly wait for what will come out of that little mouth next.

She certainly knows what she wants in life: to be a big girl. Today at the childrens' museum she was in full force. If I tired to lead her away from something she was doing or wanted to do she would pitch her self backwards out of my arms as hard as she could, trying to escape while emitting a blood curdling NOOOOO! I guess that makes 16 words.

She also wants to do whatever I'm doing. Sometimes that can be put to good use. For instance:

Very helpful. Now if I could just get her to do the dishes.

Do you have to go potty?

I can completely understand why some moms outsource when it come time to potty-train. I don't know what got into me yesterday. I thought it might be time to start trying to teach the kids (especially Normy) how to make poops and pees in the toilet like big kids. Wow. What a job. I'm not sure I'm up for it.

I don't care if Georgia learns to use the pot just yet. But, getting her involved made it more fun for Norm. They like to take turns sometimes... it makes things a game. So, I was especially tickled that she was the first to have a potty success. I thought that might spark a little healthy competition with her brother.


I'm sure Georgia's first pee was just luck. She didn't seem to understand what all of the fuss was about when I started cheering, but was pleased to be so congratulated none the less. I decided to try and let Norm go without drawers all morning to illustrate what he was expected to do. I was worried that if I put undies on him that he'd just think it was another cloth diaper. I know he is totally diaper trained, because when I caught him doing the pee-pee dance he asked me, "Where's the diaper at?" Ha! Two trips to the toilet later he had his first and only pee in the pot.

Georgia wasn't very patient in waiting her turn. I think we'll get a little potty so they can both sit at once. Plus, if either of them are so inclined they can get on to the little potty without my help.

Here they are tanking up on juice to make more pees.


Sadly, none of the juice ended up where I wanted it to. Norm wasn't very happy to have so many messes to clean up.

By lunch I had given up, and everyone was back in diapers.

Oh well. Rome wasn't built in a day... but I may be done potty training for now. If I just wait long enough they will be able to wash their own diapers.

More painting before seven o' clock

His creativity was restricted by clothing

Playgroud

Today was the warmest day my family has ever enjoyed in Illinois. By nine o' clock this morning the thermostat had climbed in to the high sixties... and the kids and I were getting a little stir-crazy. Mind you, by that time we'd been up for four hours. Long enough to do two loads of wash; clean the kitchen after eggs and toast; and watch several back-to-back episodes of the Smurfs. It was time to get outside.

Of course it had rained last night, so despite the current sunny weather, I knew it was still a muddy swamp in our back yard. Therefore, it was off to the playground. We were not alone. The playground was filled with gleeful little kids and tons of nannies. Most were in shorts and sandals. I could tell I'm still a Floridan at heart because though we were wearing short sleeves, we were also dressed in pants and sneakers.

The kids had more fun than I can describe to you. Normy made instant friends with this sweet little guy his own age and they chased each other from slide to slide. Georgie was enamored by the "big" girls and followed around a pair of adorable five year-olds who decided she would be their little doll for the day. I chatted up a couple of the nannies and stared enviously at the moms who were camped out at a picnic table with a bottle of wine! I hope they were moms and not nannies, anyway.

After and hour and a half of mad-capped playground adventures my little ones were pink cheeked and starting to get crazy. Normy had this crazed look in his eyes and was giggling maniacally. At any moment he was going to start pushing kids off the jungle-gym. Time to go.We collected our things and hit the bricks.

Georgia fell asleep two minutes into the car ride. Once home, I decided I could take everything in at once. I had a bag slung over each shoulder, Georgia still sleeping in my arms, and a sippy cup in my teeth. Of course, once inside our back gate Normy goes heading straight for the mud. "NOOO!" my mind shouts at him, but of course I have a sippy in my mouth and a sleeping baby. So I did what any mom would have done. I hurried inside, dumped everything I was holding and raced back out side to collect my little mud-puppy before he could get too dirty.

April Showers Bring....

MUD!!!
Oh, and how they LOVE it.

Amusing ourselves indoors due to rain.

Last Week's Run-Down.

Wow. Where did the last week go? What a blur. Here I sit at the end of an other peaceful and productive week of Smoochy-fabulous life. In some ways the week exceeded my expectations. In other ways... not so much. I really had it in my head that we were going to have "Easter" a week late. All of the suggestions and comments that were left on my last post were so helpful and interesting. I had a whole list of stuff I was going to have us do as a family to celebrate. I was thinking about a treasure hunt with the kids' baskets at the end of it, and a spring nature hike complete with duck feeding. (All great ideas I read on other blogs!) But mid-week I found out that Smoochy would be gone on Sunday. So, all my plans got scrapped for this year. The good thing is, I have a whole bunch of great ideas for next Easter now. As well as some half-off Easter goodies for the baskets!

Once I found out we wouldn't have a second-chance Easter, I started doing my Easter activities with the kids throughout the week. So, the whole week turned into a bit of a Spring celebration. One of the enjoyable things Normy and I did was paint flower pots. He and I both had a ton of fun doing this... at six o'clock in the morning! It was actually a great time for painting, because we were both is good spirits and Georgia was still sleeping, so it was just the two of us. Very nice. This week we'll plant something in our pots!

I also made cake-balls for the kids' baskets. I think in the future they will be a fun substitution for a ton of store bought candy. Surely they aren't any healthier... but at least they are made with love.

In other news, Georgia is pretty much full-on talking. She says, "All-right!" when she's excited and "Off! Off! when she wants up or down. She parrots anything said, and there is tons more that I can't think of right now. It just blows me away. She ALMOST talks as much as Normy.

But she looks way cuter than he does in spring dresses!

Not that Normy isn't adorable. Especially when he is raiding the fridge for "grapesies"

These days we've been watching a lot of Smufs around here. That was my FAVORITE cartoon when I was Normy's age. We bought about 10 episodes from Itunes recently and the kids love it as much as I do. Boy, have things changed though. One of my earliest memories is of a Saturday morning that I overslept and missed the Smurfs. I remember vividly crying into my mother's red nightgown, heartbroken that I'd missed my show and there was simply nothing that could be done about it. I would have to wait what truly seemed like forever for next weekend. But today, with a simple click of my mouse I can watch the Smurfs over and over much to everyone's delight.

We are battling ants. I hate them.

Georgia in her Easter dress. It was Friday and we were going to the supermarket. I thought, why not? This dress is just too beautiful to sit in her closet waiting for special ocasions.

We had the great pleasure of hosting friends this Saturday. It was the first time we had the grill up and running in our new little house. It was amazing fun and wonderful company. Plus, it gave us an excuse to make margaritas.

And skillet cornbread.

And my first ever latice-topped pie. Blueberry and strawberry. Not bad at all, thank you very much. I was actually pretty proud of the pie. It wasn't very attractive. I think I was strutting around the house like some big rooster about the time this puppy came out of the oven. Oh well.

So, that was our week. Hopefully, this next one will be just as lovely.
Happy Monday everyone!

Easter

We missed it. OK, I missed it. I don't have any excuse. I just missed it. We skipped church, the eggs, the baskets, all of it. And I feel like crap about it. SO... I'm thinking NEXT Sunday might be Easter for the Smoochy family. At least I'll be able to get some Easter gear half-off... Maybe a trip to Target is in order?

The whole thing has me thinking about how sad holidays feel without family and friends to celebrate with. It might be better if the kids were older and we had some of our own family traditions developed. I realize that as the mother it is MY job to develop those traditions. I'd like to really give some thought to this.

Of course I want to do the egg dying and hiding. But what should the Easter Bunny bring the kids in their baskets? Surely later we'll do some candy... but I don't want to give my one and almost three year-old a basket full of chocolate bunnies and Peeps... though I do love me some Peeps. I don't really want to do toys either.

Arg. I want to write about holidays and traditions. I want to find ways to mark the glorious transition in to Spring and celebrate the Resurrection... and all I'm blabbing about is Easter baskets and half-off Easter crap. Maybe, it's time to just call it a night. I'm pooped. I'll just finish by saying I am meditating a lot about what kind of traditions and celebrations I want to develop with my kids. I am looking for something more real than plastic eggs and stuffed bunnies made in China. I want to develop traditions that really help us feel connected to Spring's victory over Winter and connected to Christ's victory over death.

The kids did color Easter Eggs... sorta.

Sunday we went to the park and had some very lovely family time.

Hairdresser on Fire

"Hey Normy, could you do my hair for me?"

"Sure thing, Peaches. What style did you have in mind?"

"Oh I don't know, just give me something cute."

"I've got just the look for you!"

"Oh Normy! I hate it! This isn't cute. It looks like I have antenna coming out of my head!"

"You ungrateful little primadonna! See if I ever help you out again!"

"Never mind, maybe it does look cute."