Cluck Cluck Cluck!

Cluck rhymes with...I could have done some terrible things with the title.  I decided to keep it clean.  You know, for the kids and all.
We have just completed our 3rd Halloween, 2nd amidst the trick or treating madness of Picacho.  Both of the kids did awesome.  Molly was a charmer as always, screaming "trick or treat" and giving enthusiastic "thank-yous" and Maggie was a trooper in her stroller past bedtime. It was fun, but I'm glad it's over.  Herding Molly back onto the sidewalk and eventually having to carry her (because she decided to just plop down and I guess lay an egg or something) wore me out.
The pictures are mixed up a bit, but I'm just going to go with it.

We know that in this case, the chicken came first.

Too many sweets.  Ramsey the hygienist warned us!

This was a few days ago, Jonny carved an Elmo for Molly

Granny and Papa Kevin took Molly to Rural Metro's festival.  She had a ton of fun and was super excited that she got a kitty face to show off to everyone.

I was trying to get her to do a "claw" but this is what she came up with.

Trick or Treating with the Morris':  Firefighter and his Dalmatian.  See Maggie in the back passed out?

Rear view chicken

So that's it for the Halloween installment, but I have more pictures from this week.  Molly has a play camera (it does take actual horrible pictures though) and she loves taking every one's pictures.  The other day she wanted to get all her "friends" together for a photo opp. 

She looks so sad! Where are my REAL friends?











Molly wanted me to take her and Maggie's pictures the other day with their matching bows.  She of course will not wear one in real life and I always feel bad putting one on Maggie's head since it seems uncomfortable, but it was cute for the picture.

Maggie in headlights!  She's been doing great.  I forgot to mention that at her 2 month appointment she weighed in at 11lbs 7 ounces.  Packing them on! 

One last super important story.  Today we have reached a great achievement in potty training.  We were in the drive through with 2 cars ahead of us as well as cars behind us and Molly springs the whole "I really have to go" bit.  I'm pretty sure this is going to be bad.  I can really only expect so much from a 2 year old's bladder, but still, I begged her to try and wait.  She said she would, but a minute later she's asking again.  We finally get to the front of the line, I pay and ask the guy if I can pick the order up inside and sped off to the bathroom.  I'm happy to say that she made it!  So proud of her for holding it!

Huh?

Molly's new favorite word is "huh?".  It's not so much a statement of misunderstanding as a statement of refusing to understand.  At times she can be a stonewall of "huhs?" and I have to admit, it's pretty obnoxious.  "Molly I need you to stop doing abc..."  "huh?" "stop doing abc." "huh?" "seriously, stop it" "huh?".  It doesn't always work, but the key to stopping the cycle is to turn is back on her.  "What are you supposed to stop doing?" "oh! abc!".  Hopefully this quirk passes quickly.
Of course I'll probably be seeing round two with this one.  Lately Maggie has been quite the talker as well moving on from "ohs" to include some "goos", "a-boos" and "pfttts".  It's too freaking cute.

Molly is still a little overly enthusiastic in her love for her sister.

We're still getting ready for Halloween.  We bought a Sesame Street carving kit and Molly put us to work. Of all the characters she could have picked, she picked the most difficult one, the Count.  In the end it Jonny made it work.  Molly was impressed anyhow.

One! One pumpkin!

Buzz Kill

So, I'm a complete buzz kill.  I've always been this way.  Even when I was a kid I was always ruining every one's good time with my downer attitude.  This is the complete opposite of Molly who is determined to have a good time and go crazy.  Today Molly went on a shopping trip together and I had almost forgotten how much she talks when we're out and about.  95% of the things she says start with "Mama can I please..." and 95% of my answers are "NO!".  I feel bad about killing her buzz, but in the end I think the world is a better place when I don't let my kid disassemble an entire aisle at Target.  So then we get home and it's time for a nap and she's going bed jumping crazy.  I loved jumping on the bed when I was a kid and so it hurts even more when I have to step in and kill the buzz.  The truth is though that when she falls off and busts her head, just like the monkey's had forewarned, I don't want to deal with the blood and crying.  Then there's my buzz kill theme of the day:  You can't have a balloon (she asked about a dozen times today).  Jonny bought her balloons (he's definitely not a buzz kill) and really that should be okay, you blow it up, she runs around with it for the day, but no!  It's not that easy.  Jonny taught her that if blow up a balloon and then let go of it, it goes flying, so that's all she wants to do with them.  This can be a pain in the ass for me since she can't blow a balloon up and she has an insatiable appetite for watching balloons fly.  The whole thing is compounded because the particular balloons we have are really terrible balloons that pop after only a few flights.  Super messy and super load is a recipe for me killing a buzz.
Anyhow, on to the pictures!

This little dress was mine when I was a baby.  When Molly was a baby we took her picture in it on Mere's front porch, so we did it again.

She wasn't into the bonnet, but she endured because she's such a congenial baby.

We're getting ready for Halloween!  Molly's going to be a chicken and Maggie's going to be a chick sitting in her egg.  My mom is going to make them for me because she's better at that stuff than me.  Here's Molly during one of her fittings.  I considered that maybe she could be the stay-puffed marshmallow girl, but we're still going with chicken.  It's really awesome.

Can't believe it, but Maggie's going to be 2 months old in a couple days.  She's getting so big and she's so unbelievably happy and sweet.  Everyone should  be so lucky to have a baby like her.

So Sleepy

Yesterday I gave Molly a choice between napping and no napping.  She of course chose to not take a nap.  Her body betrayed her in the end and she passed out on the couch watching Gabba.  I was thinking that maybe I should take this approach with bedtime too.  I can just lock her in the living room with the TV running and go to bed and hope that she eventually falls asleep too.  This week I've been having to deal with Molly at bedtime since Jonny is out of town and it still blows just like I remembered.

This baby on the other hand seem to love to sleep.  Not to brag, but last night she slept from 7:30 until 4:45...over 9 hours!  Totally insane.  I know that I keep bringing up the sleep thing, but seriously after Molly's  questionable sleep habits, this is amazing.  Repeat after me:  Don't get used to it. Don't get used to it...

Gran and possibly the happiest baby on earth (although she doesn't look it here).  Check out her long sleeved duds!  It was a bit chilly yesterday!  At least for an August baby.

So yesterday after her couch nap, Molly was walking around in the kitchen when she started crying and altogether freaking out.  I finally get it out of her that her foot hurt.  I try to look at it, but every time I get near her foot, she looses her mind. After almost 20 minuted of fussing and crying I figure out that that she has some sort of splinter in her foot.  I keep trying to convince her to let me try to get it out, but despite all of my bribes she kept screaming at me, "Don't touch me! Don't touch me!" and "Don't hurt me!  Don't hurt me!".  I decided to just leave her alone and let her calm down, which seemed to work except anytime she wanted to go anywhere, I had to carry her since she refused to walk.  She eventually graduated to tippy toeing everywhere, but she still wouldn't let me touch her.  Later that night, my mom helped me convince her to let us get it out.  We put some Orajel stuff on it which she seemed to approve of (just a tip for anyone who might have a similar problem in the future).  When I finally pulled out the splinter I couldn't believe it.  It was about 1/2 inch long and some sort of super thin metal wire.  My mom suggested that maybe it was from a little wire brush bristle that had somehow been tracked into the house.  Now I understand why she was pitching such a fit.  Poor thing.

"Oh!"

Well this is where the blog began in the first place.  A video of Molly saying "oh".  Now Maggie has accomplished this milestone.  I give you the "Oh" video, complete with my dorky baby talk, just like last time.

As if there isn't enough whining in my house, I'm going to add to it myself.  Normally I only write about the little ones, but something so traumatic happened to me today that I just can't stop myself from writing it down.  Jonny has given me a hard time about making such a big deal about this and I told him that I have 24 hours to get over it, so I thought I should get this down quick before my 24 hours is up.  Yesterday, while Molly and Maggie were napping, I went to take the garbage out which means that I went to throw it out Mere's window which is directly above our dumpster.  When I unlocked the window, the top portion of the double hung window slammed down on my fingers and trapped me there.  I guessing it's hard to visualize since most people don't have double hung windows, but just know that it hurt and I wasn't able to move.  I was completely freaked out since it was around the time that the girls would be waking up and I had horrible visions of all of the terrible things that might happen when they did and I wasn't there.  I also started to worry that I might have broken something or worse yet, that somehow, lack of circulation would result in the loss of my fingers.  I envisioned my future self clutching a bag of my finger bones that I would wear around my neck for luck (that's a joke for Mere and Chris).  Thankfully it wasn't too long before the lawyer whose office is across the alley came walking by and he was able to call the Paint Store and my dad was able to come up and get me free. I guess fear led me to overreact about the severity of the damage to my fingers because after only an hour or so, they seemed to be back to normal except for a small amount of swelling/soreness.  Looking back on it now, I feel a little ridiculous about how upset I was about the whole situation. I do think Mere should be glad that this didn't happen to her at night when no one would be in the alley, at least no one with a cellphone. I'm just extremely grateful that it was all resolved before nap time was over, that would have been bad.
I'm also grateful that Maggie has become quite the happy girl, full of smiles and coos.  Not that you don't love your children right off the bat, but all of the work you do for them really starts to seem worth it when they give you that little bit of encouragement through a little smile.
I couldn't get a picture of them both smiling at the same time...that's how it goes. 

Maggie is just ridiculous.  Yesterday I laid her on the bed to hang out while I was folding clothes and she just passed out.  Then later I was changing her diaper and I walked away to get something (please don't call CPS on me) and ten seconds later when I got back:  ZONKS.  This ability to sleep, just because she's tired is so foreign to me. I love it, but I'm trying to not get too excited about it.

Meeting Maggie Mac

This weekend we had company!  Maggie got to meet her Uncle Chris and her Aunt Stephanie for the first time.  Very exciting stuff.  She seem to like them as far as we could tell, no hysterical crying (as if a child of mine could be capable of hysterical crying).  We were especially impressed with Chris' ability to utilize the Happiest Baby on the Block techniques that we had taught him to calm her down when she became slightly fussy.

Molly was also very excited to see them.  For weeks before, we talked about how they were coming and how much fun it was going to be.  She would ask about them constantly and always wanted to know how much longer it would be.  At one point she even told me that when they showed up, she was going to give them BIG hugs and kisses and that with Chris, it was going to be scratchy.  That really impressed me because she had somehow remembered either from a past meeting or from pictures that he had facial hair.  So fast forward to their actual arrival:  Molly the mute.  The child that never shuts up, who will talk to complete strangers about our grocery store purchases, wouldn't talk to her own family.  After about an hour of hanging out in their presence though, she recognized them as more people to do her bidding and warmed right up.
Our main activity, other than eating and doing Molly's bidding, was swimming.  She's getting pretty good!

Think Gran is ready?

Blast Off!

Center of attention

So thanks to them for coming down and visiting, we can't wait to do it again!

Stunt Double

I really think Molly might have a future as a stunt double.  The other day while triking, Molly biffed it and rolled her trike into the grass.  She then decided that it was pretty cool to do that and tried to perfect her fall, and even add a few extra dramatics, just for fun I guess.

 Another stunt she's been pulling on us is her crazy climbing habits. Although she's been able to climb pretty well for quite sometime now, she's starting to think of new clever ways to use it.  The other day she kept going on and on about the "blue one!" (a blue dum dum lollipop).  I had given her a red one earlier in day, but she really wanted the blue one.  Since I wasn't going to give in, she waited until no one was paying attention and took care of it herself.

Victory="Blue One!"

She also utilized her climbing talents the other day when I was giving Maggie a bath.  I have been letting her help out by putting her into the big tub behind Maggie's little tub and letting her help wash her hair.  She's usually totally into this, but on this particular day her feet got wet or something distracted her, I'm not sure what, but she wasn't going to help anymore, so instead she started screwing around in the bathroom.  So I'm paying attention to the infant in the tub (as I should be) but meanwhile the two year old is climbing into the pedestal sink.  She let's me know by yelling "I'm stuck" (she hasn't figured out yet that it's harder to get down than it was to get up).  Since I can't leave Maggie, I tell her she's going to have to wait until I'm done.  No problem, she just take a fully clothed bath in the sink.  Good times.

Maggie is still an awesome baby.  She hardly cries and if she does, she has a good reason for it.  Molly was the same way, but she was just always awake.  Not so with Maggie. She doesn't sleep as much as she did a week or so ago, but she's still way more into sleeping than Molly was at this point, which makes life easier for sure.  Lately she's been smiling more frequently, but I haven't been able to capture it in a picture yet.  Here's a few pictures of her with pleased looks, but not exactly full on smiles.

She's changed so much already.  Not sure why that surprises me, but it does.  At her 1 month appointment she was 9 lbs and 14 ounces, so she's growing like a champ!
In other news, we have visitors! so expect a post about that soon.