Baby Costume

Molly cracked me up the other day.  I had the boppy on my lap and she came up to me and laid down on it.  I said to her that when she was a baby I used to hold her on the boppy all the time.  Then she says to me "I used to be a baby until Maggie stole my baby costume."  I suppose that's one way to look at it!

Maggie, in her fabulous "baby costume"

Molly's been talking about fishing a lot lately.  Jonny has a fishing pole rigged up with a tennis ball so that she can fish for "Dinkfish", but she's been asking REALLY go fishing.  Jonny being the awesome dad that he is took her out and got her a pink fishing pole and took her out.  No fish were caught, maybe next time...they're probably going to have to find a new fishing hole.  Maybe her and Grayson can be fishing buddies.

Jonny said that she wore the had the whole car ride and then promptly took if off once they got there.

Little Joker

The other day, Molly reached another important milestone: She made an original joke. For a first joke, it was actually pretty funny.  We were finishing up dinner and I asked her if she was full or if she wanted more to eat.  She said that she was full and so I commented that I better not hear any demands for special treats since she was apparently "sooo full".  She then, with a huge grin on her face says "I want a special treat!" and then starts laughing hysterically.  Since we were laughing too, she wanted to capitalize on the moment and she kept shouting over and over "I want a special treat!"  Hilarious.

We went to gateway park the other day with my mom.  We had a good time except for all the creeps.  For some reason they're really attracted to that park.  The Wetlands park is also by the river and also in a questionable part of town, but for some reason it never seems to attract them like gateway.  The first time  it wasn't creeps as much as it was the obnoxious truants who didn't seem to care that they had parked themselves at the bottom of the only slide that Molly was capable of using at the time.  This last time it was some guy who came over to the Ramada right by the playground, took his shirt off and started doing an interesting array of calisthenics. We went back and forth on whether or not we were being too judgemental.  In the end the fact that he had been sitting perfectly happily (and still) over on the other side of the park before we arrived and his need to not wear a shirt (It's not even summer) were what made him particularly creepy to us.  We left shortly after.

  Molly with the coots (birds not creeps)

Going down the big slide!

Once again, Molly helped out with some painting.  This time it was the back of Mere's house.

Maggie hanging out in the K'tan

Here's Molly's Valentine's Day breakfast

Here's mine.

Anyone else watched Portlandia?  If not, this won't be as funny to you.

Look at this baby:  So boring.

Put a bird on it!

As a side note, I actually took these last two pictures on Manual.  Nothing too impressive, but they're not blurry...it's a start.

Pirate

This evening we went out to dinner and I almost had my first "embarrassed by what my kid is saying" moment. A man walked in, he had a shaved head a gold hoop earring and a shirt with a skull and crossbones and Molly says "Hey! It's a pirate!" Seriously though, how exciting for her. You're just sitting in La Casa and then what do you know? A pirate walks in! I don't think he heard and if he did he didn't throw us any dirty pirate looks or shake a hand hook at us (Thank God he didn't have a hand hook!). I'm sure there will be more of that in store for us in the future, she's full of observations.

Whenever we go to the paint store she likes to get all the sundries out.  I suppose it's payback since that's exactly what I used to do.

These next picture are why I had to post two days in a row.  She's just too cute to resist.

These first two look like she's dancing.

Dude is scary!

She can pretty much sit by herself now.  She looses her balance occasionally, but she's pretty good!

 

I HATE pictures of myself, but I'll allow this one since Maggie looks so cute peeking out.

Cardboard Castle

Down at the D&M complex we had a delivery that had some HUGE boxes.  We took advantage and made Molly her own little castle.  That's what she was calling it anyhow.  She had a whole story line going where everyone was Rapunzel and she was trapped in her castle.  I think boxes are the universal awesome toy...some of my favorite childhood memories are in boxes. Ramsey might feel differently since she remembers finding me in my box down at the paint store infested with ants.

We're getting a new roof put on the house right now and because that makes a lot of racket we hung out at the store and YSB last week.  It's made me seriously consider whether working (taking the girls with me of course) would be at all possible.  Being at home with two small children ALL the time can be a little maddening.  Yes, I would still have them with me, but just a change of scenery as well as having a few more faces to look at might be nice.  Another added bonus that I hadn't considered might be a cleaner house.  The first day we were out of the house Jonny came home and asked me who had cleaned the house.  Of course no one had cleaned the house, we (Molly) just hadn't been there all day making messes.  So yeah, maybe we'll start going downtown and screwing up the office instead.  Ha!
Papa and the girls

Maggie frequently gets that deer in headlights look.

Molly might hate me someday for posting this picture, but she was cracking me up the other day with her insistence that she get her "newspaper" before she used the potty.  She's been getting really good at using the big toilet by herself and can even manage it with out a step.  There was one incident where she fell in.  She was pretty upset, but I have to admit I thought it was pretty funny.  When it happened she she kept going on about how she would "never" fall in the toilet again.  "Never" "forever" and "for hours" have all made their way into her vocabulary.  She's "never" going to cry again (yea right!) and anything she likes doing is going to be done "for hours" or "forever", which makes sense since I'm pretty sure that hours feel like forever when you're a little one.  It's interesting to see the concept of time start to show up.

Maggie has been going crazy around dinner time, and she sits up pretty well now, so I thought I would let her give rice cereal a try.  I think she spit most of it out, so I decided that, despite her enthusiasm, we'll wait a few weeks before we try again.

Molly has 3 dance classes under her belt now and I think it's going pretty good.  She still needs to work on listening (what a surprise) but she participates and seems excited to be there.  There's a recital in June and I've paid for the costume.  Should be hilarious.

Dancey Dance

I've been thinking that Molly should probably try out a dance class for awhile now.  She's always showing off her moves for us and she loves to use the porch at the two story as a makeshift stage for her performances.  Yesterday I called to see about getting her enrolled and BAM!  Next day she's in a class in a leotard with brand new ballet slippers.  Needless to say, it was hilarious.  I think for her first day she did pretty good though.  Especially for a kid who I'm convinced is the worst selective listener ever..."Huh?"  I didn't take any pictures of the actual class (would it be weird if I did?) but here she is afterwards sporting her new duds.

Maggie might as well be mobile these days.  I can put her down, leave the room, come back in 5 minutes and she'll be 3 feet from where I left her, going after some random toy that probably says 3+ on it.  I may have to hide every one of those toys until a later date.  Hopefully that doesn't start a riot in the house.
Here she is hanging out in the playroom in her Bumbo.

Joining in on one of Molly's tea parties.

These books are Molly's favorites (This is our latest blog book).  Why shouldn't she love looking at pictures of herself?

So, the other day she saw this post in her book and saw how she was eating her baby food with a straw.  She then followed me around begging me to let her have applesauce with a straw.  I got her a little cup full, but Nooooo!  She wanted it out of the jar...just like the picture.

Permissive parenting?

Seriously I can't say it enough.  Maggie is the sweetest thing ever (Since Molly).  Do you know what she did tonight after I pushed her past bedtime at Molly's dance class and then fed her in the car (not as nice as the boppy)?  She drove all the way home almost completely contentedly, and then went to sleep by herself in the Amby.  She doesn't do this all the time or anything, but sometimes, she does and it blows my mind.

It was a tad bit chilly the other day.  I took advantage and had her wear my old baby hat.  I think she looks cuter in it than I ever did.  I'm pretty sure my Mom agrees.

I'm not going to complain too much about this since I've pretty much been waiting for this day Molly's whole life, but last night Molly broke my heart a little.  After I read all the bedtime stories, she asked me to stay for a little bit.  I did and while I was laying with her I was thinking about how nice it was since she was mellow, sleepy and snugly.  As if she could read my mind, she said "Mama, you should go now".  Made me a little sad.  Tonight she fell asleep in the middle of the story and so I said "Goodnight Molly, I love you" I thought she was completely out so I almost got a little teary when she whispered "I love you too" eyes still closed.  Funny how they can erase a whole day of "pain in the ass" with one little gesture.

Strolling

I wasn't going to do it, but after taking a walk the other day and using our terrible Cosco umbrella stroller to push Molly around, I broke down and bought a double stroller.  I'm glad I waited since I haven't seen this one before and it's pretty nifty.  It's arranged so Maggie's seat is higher than Molly's so it isn't like pushing a bus around and the back seat reclines enough that you could supposedly put a newborn in it...although I'm not so sure about that.  Maggie however sits just great in it.  We took a walk to try it out and I had hoped that Maggie might take a little nap, but instead Molly passed out.  Right now we're at this weird place where she probably still needs a nap, but doesn't really want to nap.  Since bedtime has been such a bitch in the past, I can sort of get on board with the whole no napping thing since I can get her to bed on her own by 8:30.  If she for some reason naps, we're up until 10 and it doesn't seem to change her 7-8 wake up time.  Jonny had proposed a compromise of letting her nap but then waking her up after an hour, which actually does seem to work, except it is nearly impossible to wake her up.  Today when we were going down some steps in the stroller, her head flung all the way up to an upright position and then slammed down on the front bar.  She flinched, but didn't wake up.  The other day she passed out on the couch and when I went to get up I accidentally rolled her off. She fell face down into a ceramic bowl full of popcorn and didn't wake up.  She didn't even wake up when Jonny and I, instead of helping move her back onto the couch, stood there and laughed at her.  When I do attempt to wake her up, it requires all sorts of special treatment.  Juice is alright, but not as good as chocolate milk.  Chocolate milk is good, but not as good a dumdum.  You never know what it's going to require from day to day.  I've joked that only way I could consistently get her up from a nap would be to put cigarettes out on her, but since neither of us are into smoking or child abuse, we're just going to have to wait for this phase to work itself out.

No naps for Maggie, but as usual she was all smiles!

Maggie's been enjoying the jumper.  Molly would like to be enjoying the jumper, but so far we've been able to prevent that from happening.  When we first set it up, we had it apart so we could clean it and there was the hole in the center which was easily large enough for a 2 year old to occupy.  My Mom watched them the other day while the hole was still available and Molly stood in it trying to get my Mom's attention while my Mom ignored her (letting Maggie have things is kind of a struggle sometimes).  In the end, she stood there for a half hour...pretty stubborn.

Maggie has gotten really good at trying to sit up.  I can even get her to balance and sit by herself for short periods of time.  She's pretty pleased with herself when she does.

That's a pretty conniving look she's sporting there.

Christmas Movies

Well I did a little better at taking pictures at Christmas than I did at Thanksgiving, but not by much. I guess I just got too caught up in all of the fun we were having to be bothered to find the camera. I did manage to take a few movies though that are kind of funny if you happen to be interested in Molly.

Granny and Maggie on Christmas Eve

Gran and Maggie, also Christmas Eve

Little Christmas Cheese Log

The Lucia Bread...tasty!

The beginnings of the mess.

So we had a little bit of a rough start Christmas morning. For the record I didn't go in and wake her up, she was talking in the monitor before I went in there. It took her a little bit to figure out what day it was. I think having her daily question of "Santa's here?" turned down so consistently had finally broken her down.
The Stocking!!! Lots of fun!
Another year in the books! Who knows what fun is to come...