Doggy Scissors

This evening Lindsey and I were driving to Target to get a birthday present for an upcoming birthday party (not her own). On the way we saw a man walking a golden retriever with three legs. One of the front legs was missing and the dog hopped along beside his owner, happy as could be.

Lindsey wondered and wondered about this for some time, and then I made the mistake of telling her that once her Grandpa Horsman had a dog with three legs.

L: Why'd he have three legs?

Me, outside voice: Well, he had an accident with a car and hurt his leg so badly the veterinarian had to cut it off.

Me, inside voice: Why did I just tell her that?! What a horrible visual to give a child! I can't believe I just said that!

L: What did he cut it off with?

Me, outside voice: Uh...uhh...

Me, inside voice: Think faster!! You do NOT want your child waking up at night screaming about a saw.

L: I know, maybe he used doggy scissors.

Me: That's a good idea, maybe he did.

L: Was the doggy asleep so he didn't feel it?

Me: Yes, yes, honey, that's exactly right.

L: And was the doggy happy?

Me: Yes, he was a very happy dog.

L: Why doesn't Grandpa Horsman have him anymore?

Me: Uhhh...Look! We're at Target!

Biking "Accident"

It's become clear to Wayne and I in watching Lindsey and Marissa attempt to master a bike (with training wheels, mind you), that Marissa is the more coordinated and fearless of the two of them. Thus, it takes two parents to take two girls out riding, as Lindsey wants someone to hold on to one of the handle bars with her, just in case, you know, while someone needs to be with Marissa as she races recklessly down hills, laughing the whole way.

This evening I got a jump start on dinner while Wayne attempted to take the two girls down to the park on their bikes. This involved helping one girl down one section of a block, having her wait at the corner, then running back and helping the other girl go down the city block.

The last little block we go down has a bit of a hill but not much. Still, for a novice biker you can gather speed quite quickly, which Marissa LOVES to do and Lindsey does not. So Wayne was going to help Marissa get down the hill first, since he wasn't confident she was going to wait patiently at the top of the hill, and then come back for Lindsey.

Wayne was halfway down the hill with Marissa when Lindsey decided she did not want to wait for him, so, being the conservative, conscientious little girl that she is, she got off her bike and began walking it carefully down the hill.

Through careful coordination, she managed to trip while walking and fell anyway, the bike rolling off into the grass on the other side.

She is the only girl I know who can have a biking accident while not actually on the bike.

When Wayne told me this story I laughed so hard I cried.

Biking!

After receiving a two-wheeler (with training wheels) for her 4th birthday LAST spring, Lindsey is finally showing an interest in learning how to ride her bike.

One of the last times she rode her bike last year resulted in a spill in front of neighbors who were gathering for our block party. She was instantly embarrassed and hurt at the same time, and that was it for bike riding for her. No amount of cajoling or enticing could get her on it the rest of last summer (our block party was in June).

But apparently the sight of her little sister on a bike herself will do the trick.

We were out walking one evening and a neighbor of ours asked us if we would take a little bike off their hands. They had gotten it from a different neighbor after her kids had outgrown it, and it was used by their grandkids when they came to visit. Their grandkids were bigger now, and they thought that perhaps Marissa would like it.

Marissa took an instant liking to it, and an instant knack for getting around on it. She rode it the rest of the way home, at which point Lindsey wanted her bike taken down as well for riding around the neighborhood as well.

All weekend this past weekend the girls were riding, several times a day. They were both doing great! I'm hoping this becomes the summer that Lindsey learns how to ride a bike.

Heck, maybe Marissa will too.

Home Improvements

In our typical fashion, we budgeted some money this year for home improvements and have spent it by May. Patience? What patience?

The two things we had done was we had our bedroom painted and we had closet organizers put in four of the five closets in our house.

The bedroom painting project turned out phenomenal, and we clearly see the benefits of paying professionals to come do the job right. The walls had so many plaster cracks and they found them all and plastered over them. They also removed the "crown molding" around the room (read "cheap-ass 1970's floor molding that some do-it-yourselfer nailed to the wall but not quite all the way to the ceiling and called it crown molding") and smoothed it out all the way to the ceiling. Oh, yeah, and the ceiling and walls had literally cracked apart from each other, and they filled that too.

Then they proceeded to paint three walls a medium blue and one wall a chocolate brown. It looks so warm now! We are very happy with the results.

We also had them paint our fireplace -- who thought a white fireplace was a good idea? Yeah, let's show every soot mark and smoke stain when we use our fireplace. So the same chocolate brown went on the fireplace as well. Here's a photo of the fireplace. The highlight has to be the two girls in front of it, of course, wearing their spring dresses because it is finally getting nice enough out that they can.

Lastly, we had closet organizers put in our closets. This turned out to be the bigger project, ironically, because we decided to do the prep work for this transformation ourselves. What were we thinking?! Wayne took two days off work, I took one, and Wayne still had to spend half his Saturday finishing it up. Prep work meant taking everything out of the closets, then dis-assembling whatever shelves/rods were in them, patching, sanding, then priming and painting the walls, and while we are at it why don't we touch up the woodwork too. Whew!

And what the hell do you do with four closets worth of STUFF when you only have five closets to begin with?? We ended up piling a lot of our clothing in a big file in our family room until we could hang them back up.

And better news of all is that our rummage sale pile is substantial!! That's the one really good thing about being forced to take everything out of your closets -- you finally go through it and decide not to put everything back.

Home improvement projects are very different now than when we used to tackle them pre-kids. On Thursday we dropped off the girls at daycare and Wayne raced the clock to get as much done as possible before we had to pick them back up again. He has an incredible work ethic and used to work hard before we had kids -- you should've seen him literally racing around the house these two days!

Same thing on Friday, and then I played parent while he finished up on Saturday. We used to enjoy these projects, stretched them out over a weekend just for something to do. Now we've got much more important things to do, like play hide and seek, Old Maid (Lindsey's newest favorite card game), or teach Marissa how to ride a bike. (She may learn before Lindsey does!)

Fundraising Candy Bars

This morning I walked into our breakroom and came across a box of candy bars, with a note asking people to buy one for a dollar to support a co-worker's daughter's la crosse team.

I was immediately swept back in time, about 20 years or so when we had to sell candy bars as a fundraiser for my high school band. I never put much effort in to it and could never convince my dad to take the candy bars to work, which is how many of my friends made many of the "highest fundraisers" prize list.

So instead I was resigned to walking around our neighborhood selling them door-to-door, or selling them to my own family.

And by my own family I mean me.

I believe that by the last year we were selling these damn candy bars I finally just plunked the box of candy bars in a corner of my bedroom. Whenever I wanted a candy bar I plunked 50 cents into the envelope and took one.

By the time our fundraising timeframe was over I had "sold" half the box and had $30 to turn in. I'll do the math for you: that's 60 candy bars, folks, one a day for every day of the two months of fundraising.

If only I had known then about Team in Training, I would've worked those 60 candy bars back off.

The one take-away I had from this experience was the power of saving just a little bit, every day. Hmmm....if I set aside 50 cents every day for 60 days, I would have 30 dollars! That's a lot to a 16-year-old in 1987. That means I could have:

1. Gone to the movies 5 or 6 times.
2. Bought three pairs of jeans and a pair of shoes at the thrift store at St Vincent de Paul, my favorite store at the time.
3. Rented 10 movies at $2.99 each (including tax)
4. Gotten my blonde streak in my hair re-bleached. (Note, I have naturally BLACK hair)

At least I didn't do what my one friend did. Her mom finally refused to bring the candy bars in to work, and instead of getting prizes for being the top fundraiser, she turned in a half a box of candy bars with an IOU that said, "I owe the band $30."

Potty Training Marissa

Marissa made some big strides this past weekend in potty training -- she finally went poopy on the potty!!

I kept telling her all week that if she went poopy on the potty she would get a special prize. So this weekend, while visiting Wayne's folks in Tracy, MN, she decided to go poopy on the potty. As she got off the potty, having successfully completed her mission she said, "I want a sucker."

Sure, absolutely...except we don't have any suckers. So a trip in to town to get a bag of suckers. Each time she (and Lindsey) went poopy on the potty they would earn a sucker.

It got to the point that if any family member used a bathroom, when they returned from the trip someone would inevitably ask, "Did you earn a sucker?"

Now, just to help her understand how to use toilet paper to wipe...

Lindsey's Drawings

Lindsey was given as a gift a little notepad of "scribbles." Each page's scribbles are slightly different, and the idea is that it's the start of a creative process, by which a child can make a drawing of her own imagination. Some of the examples showed a scribble of a squiggly line, which then became the forehead and upper jaw of a dinosaur, etc.

Then...there's our mathematically astute child.

Lindsey methodically went through the entire pad in one day, drew on each piece of paper and tore it off. She simply connected the line to itself in the most straightforward fashion.

I thought, "My child has no imagination, we need to get her out of that math class and put her in an art class!"

I took photos of a couple of her creations. The first one she told me about was this one:

"What is it?" I asked her.

"A banana!" she says, like I'm crazy for not knowing that.

But then she goes on to tell me a story about how this particular banana was eaten by a monkey who was flying on a flying trapeze, and he almost fell down because his hands were slippery from the banana, and then...etc etc. When Lindsey starts telling stories, she doesn't actually end sentences, they just flow into the next sentence with the words "and then."

The next picture was:

This one I was informed is of the tiger cave at the beginning of the movie Aladdin, the one that the thief goes into and never comes out of, that Aladdin is later stuck in. She talked about how he roars and moves around and then disappears back into sand.

Hmmm...perhaps no drawing skills, but definitely no lack of imagination!

Amber Alert

A few weeks ago, as Wayne and I were driving home from work, we saw that there was an Amber alert on one of the highway signs over the road we were driving on. It said that a girl had been abducted, and gave a very detailed description of the vehicle she was taken in, license plate included.

By the time we turned on the news that evening the lead story was that the perpetrator had been caught: story on next after the break.

"Good," I thought, "I hope they put that perp in jail."

Then the story came on, and the photo of the suspect was the spitting image of the girl who had been abducted.

It was the girl's noncustodial mother. She had just lost her custody battle the previous week.

Granted, the mom is all of 19 years old, meaning that she would have been 15 when she had her daughter. I'm sure there are all kinds of reasons why she was not awarded custody. But it still makes me sad that the mother felt impelled to steal her daughter, and that the 4-year-old now thinks her mommy's a criminal. Maybe she is, but it's still sad.

Winter Days

We are truly TRULY looking forward to spring. We got more snow this past weekend (Easter weekend) than we'd gotten in several weeks. The only good thing about it this time is that it was warm enough to actually go out and play in it, and we were actually home to enjoy it. So many times we've had perfect snowman making weather during the week, when we're all at school and work, and it's too dark by the time we get home to make one. So I was happy to be able to make one with Lindsey on Saturday. It lasted all of about 10 hours -- it was melting and falling sideways by 6 pm.

Can you tell which photo is from last winter, and which is from THIS winter? I can't believe we found that same snowman kit with all the snowman making trimmings.

We awoke Easter morning to even MORE snow, still in the 30-degree range. Great packing snow for a snowball fight! And that's promptly what we did, until I accidentally hit Lindsey in the face. (I meant for her back, but she turned around.)

I'm including this photo of the two girls reading books because I think it's so sweet.

Swimsuits in March

This is what happens when winter goes on...and on...and on...

Last weekend we went to Wisconsin Dells to spend some time with my side of the family. We stayed at a hotel that had a pool and knew we'd have to break out the swimsuits. We weren't quite sure if they fit from last summer (sure enough, Marissa's didn't but Lindsey's did). We ultimately ended up settling on two matching swimsuits. I had bought both of them for Lindsey last year, not sure which one she would fit into. It turns out that the best fit was for Lindsey to wear the 3T bottoms and the 4T top, and Marissa fit best into the 4T bottoms and the 3T top. So this was the photo at the end of the fitting session, when we finally decided on who was wearing what. They wore their mittens because they were cold.

Remember that post about "Baby got Back?" Proof positive.

After these photos were taken we ended up somehow in a game of naked potato sack racing around the house. I have pictures of that too but am not posting them.

Geek in training

On Thursday of last week Wayne's nephew and fiancee watched our girls for the day instead of our having to take them to daycare. (Truly, what 19-year-olds do you know of ASK to watch toddlers/pre-schoolers while on their spring break?)

We got home and ordered a pizza for everyone (we spare no expense, no frozen stuff for them!) and Trav and E told us about the day.

E told us she was creating a connect-the-dots picture for Lindsey to connect all the dots on and make. She didn't realize that Lindsey was going to count all of the dots as she drew between them. Lindsey counted to 33.

I couldn't believe it. Wow! We have an official geek in training, I'm so proud.

Who cut the cheese??

This past weekend we had a lovely time in Wisconsin Dells visiting with my side of the family. Marissa and her cousin Paulie are very close in age, just two weeks apart. While you would think that would make them the best of pals, the girl/boy thing has already intervened -- Paulie cannot be separated from his cars, Marissa wants her dollies.

Once over the weekend my mom thought she smelled something poopy and asked Marissa if she had a poop in his pants. Marissa replied, "No." Then my mom asked, "Paulie, do you have a poop?"

Paulie replied, "No, she do," and pointed to Marissa.

Boy it starts early, doesn't it?

Apparently no one cut the cheese. At least...no one under three.

"Family Day" at the MIA

Once a month or so the Minneapolis Institute of Arts has "family day" and we finally took advantage today for the first time ever. It's a time when they have special kid functions throughout the museum that play in to the latest exhibit. Today the theme was "Cherry Blossoms and Cranes" and the focus was on Japanese art. You could watch a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, try your hand at folding origami and try to paint Japanese characters (our two did the latter).

With Marissa being partially potty trained and we not wanting to take a step backwards, she wore underwear today to the museum. I kid you not, I saw the inside of every bathroom on every floor that we visited. I believe we visited a bathroom a total of 5 times in the 1 1/2 hours we were there. I saw more toilets and sinks than I saw art.

It's not like you're going to say to her, "Marissa, I know you don't really need to go, you just want to play in the sink and see another bathroom." She would retaliate by looking you right in the face and peeing her pants right then and there, however little liquid she could conjure up. So off we traipsed at every request to find a bathroom to have her put two drops in the toilet.

The wide open spaces everywhere were very tempting to Lindsey and Marissa, who felt the need to race each other up and down every corridor, and play "peek a boo" around pedestals of scuptures.

Who knew that family day involved having three different security guards tell us that our kids need to "slow down?" Even at full speed they are barely doing a fast walk. And..ummm...isn't it family day? Who the hell cares? Everything's behind glass anyway, it's not like they're going to knock something over.

I want my kids to be comfortable in places like museums and libraries, but I think they are a few years off from visiting. Perhaps if I took Lindsey on her own she would behave herself better, but the two of them egg each other on.

I'm exhausted.

Baby Got Back

We've been in the process of potty training Marissa of late. She's been doing pretty good, she's been wearing underwear for two weeks to KinderKare now, though she clearly does not like pooping on the potty and that has led to some issues. She's wearing a pull-up or diapers during naptime and night time, but she's getting there.

The interesting part about going through this experience with Marissa as opposed to Lindsey is that Marissa is MUCH more easy going and with a big sister leading the way, she's very interested in getting rid of her diapers.

Another interesting part is that when we were potty training Lindsey you could always tell when she was wearing pull-ups, diapers or underwear. Her butt was so petite that it was always obvious when it wasn't covered with a thick, bulky diaper.

Marissa, on the other hand...well, this baby's got back.

Wayne almost put her down for her nap today in underwear because you can't tell by the size of her butt if she's got a pull-up on or not. She and Lindsey are both wearing the same size underwear -- 4T.

Gotta love that baby!

My Self Help Group

Around 3:00 this afternoon, I had a vision of myself at a self-help group:

Me [Standing in front of a room of people]: Hi, my name's Jenny.

Group [In Unison]: Hi Jenny!

Me: This afternoon I ate a whole box of Girl Scout cookies in one sitting.

Group: Oooo! So sorry.

Me: I resolve to NOT eat an entire box of Girl Scout cookies tomorrow.

Group [Various calls of encouragement]: Take it one day at a time. We're here to support you!

Me: Okay, maybe just one cookie...

Group: No! Don't do it!

And in case you are wondering, there are 1,125 calories in a box of Tag-a-longs.

My and my treadmill are going to be getting along famously tomorrow.

"Neighboring," the Verb

Last Friday night we had our neighbor Marilyn over for dinner. She has lived in her home here on Ewing for over 50 years and is a wonderfully spry and generous soul.

We had lots of fun visiting, and she brought over ice cream sundae makings which the girls thoroughly enjoyed. She shared with us that she had been a "soda jerk" back in the day, and obviously had not lost her touch! She even provided her own classic ice cream soda glasses!

We also learned another new word from her -- "neighboring" as a verb. She would say something like, "They were so good at neighboring!" And by that she meant that they were wonderful neighbors.

Here are a couple of photos of the girls making ice cream sundaes with Marilyn.

It was lots of fun, we'll have to do it again some time soon!

New Neighbors

As you may know from previous blogs, we had some riff raff in the neighborhood previously. While we begrudgingly spent time with them because our children seemed to like their offspring, they were too low brow and blue collar for our neighborhood.

Thankfully they moved away...far, far away, and we've finally got some pedigree in the neighborhood.

The people who moved into their home are the kind of people that we are proud to call neighbors. The husband is the newly appointed executive director of the James Sewell Ballet Company. They always park in their garage, never on the street, and the home already has the nice and tidy appearance of people who don't have those darn offspring around, messing up the crisp snow by making pesky snowmen and forts.

I know that that low-brow lady who moved out reads my blog...and I'm sure she takes this posting in the spirit in which it is meant: we miss you guys!

What's appropriate...in the bathroom?

A couple of nights ago Wayne was giving Marissa a bath while Lindsey and I were still downstairs playing indoor hopscotch. (It can be done, especially in Minnesota!) Lindsey suddenly announced that she had to go potty and ran upstairs to the bathroom Wayne and Marissa were in.

From downstairs I hear her enter the bathroom and announce her intentions. A few seconds later, I hear Wayne say loudly, "Lindsey, are you going poop? Don't go poopy while other people are in the bathroom! We don't want to smell your poop. Go use the downstairs bathroom. Oh, ugh, P.U!"

To which I hear Lindsey's musical voice reply, "Toooooo late!" as the toilet flushes.

I hear the water in the sink run, then down she comes, skipping down the steps, ready to resume our game with nary a care of the stinkbomb she just left in the bathroom for Marissa and her daddy to smell.

I laughed my ass off.

Glasses??

Marissa and Lindsey's cousin Paulie has glasses due to far sightedness. His glasses are cute little toddler glasses, perfectly fit for his face.

Both Marissa and Lindsey like to try on our glasses at various times. I'm surprised by how well mine actually fit Marissa's face. Just a little wide, not too much!

She liked looking at this picture of herself and then the one of Paulie on our fridge. She would say, "I wear glasses too!" very excitedly.

Fun with Vocabulary

This past weekend I couldn't believe how much Marissa's vocabulary has improved. Not just sentences, but full sentences, 5 and 6 words each. She can very clearly articulate what she wants and is learning new words every day.

She still has a few idiosyncrasies, though, that I just love. She still drops the "s" when it is paired with another consonant at the beginning of words. So she says "tool" for stool, "tink" for stink and so on. The other one that she does is she substitute "p" for "c" at the beginning of words. I found this one unusual and it took me some time to find the pattern of the substitutions. But now it's clear as day.

"Mommy, help me put the pap on." (Holds out a bottle of milk and cap.)

"Pomming, Dinzee!" ("Coming, Lindsey!")

The best one came last night when I was making wild rice soup for a potluck at Wayne's work. She wanted to see what was on the stove in the big pot, so she held up her arms to be picked up and says,

"I see poop?"

Happily, the soup did not taste like poop.

Slowly starting to warm...

We may finally be getting out of the deep freeze. A couple of things have tipped me off to this...

1. This morning was the first time in I don't know how long that the temp was in the double digits when we left the house. As we walked to the garage Lindsey took a deep breath, breathed out and looked at me excitedly. "Mommy!" she said. "It doesn't hurt to breathe!"

2. This afternoon as I was driving around doing errands over lunch, I cracked open the sunroof on the Civic. It was so nice to smell fresh air, and at 24 degrees, it didn't seem that cold!

Sad, but true.

My Avatar...

Would have changed, by the way, had anything of interest happened. But it is still effing cold, and that fact currently presides over Valentine's Day and St Patrick's Day.

It was 8 degrees BELOW zero at one point this weekend, windchills in the -20 zone.

WTF?!? Where is this global warming thing?!

Can't wait to start reading...

East of Eden.

I just got done reading "Heyday." It was...mediocre. It's been on a lot of best seller's lists, I read an excellent review of it, I couldn't wait to dig in.

I didn't get in to the character until halfway through. Actually, I couldn't keep the characters STRAIGHT until about halfway through. Then when they finally all joined up and went on their adventure together, which happens about two-thirds of the way through, I finally became intrigued.

I couldn't decide which way the novel was going to go -- a tragedy or no? As it turned out, it was a tragedy for some of the main characters but some got what they wanted in the end, so the ending in my mind was overall satisfactory. But even during the most tragic parts my only sentiment for the one main character who bites it was, "Gee, that's too bad."

At any rate, so I am now starting "East of Eden," a book I have never read, and I cannot wait.

I had to read "The Grapes of Wrath" in high school, and to be honest, I couldn't tell you a damn thing about the book. I also read "The Red Pony" in jr high, but both, being required reading, were approached with some tedium and trepedation.

Now, having recently read, "Travels with Charley," a semi-autobiographical account of John Steinbeck's travels across the US in the 1960s, I feel like I know him as a person. I'm more interested in what he has to say as a writer. And...now I realize that the 60's weren't in the same time period as the dinosaurs, as I once thought as a youngster. I realize that they are very recent history, that he is a very recent author, and that he is writing about America, a relatively recent country in the history of the world.

I am one chapter in, and cannot wait to get back to it. I'll let you know if my enthusiasm holds.

First Dental Appointment for Lindsey

I finally got Lindsey in to the dentist -- about a year after she should've had her first visit. Hey, nothing like starting to postpone those dentist appointments early in life, right??

It was an 8:30 appt and she, Marissa and I hit Bruegger's Bagels first for a special treat, then ate our bagels on the way. (Also a good idea, eat lots of chewy bread before going to your dentist -- dental hygienists LOVE that!)

To sum up the visit, Lindsey was a DREAM. She sat very still in the chair, she did exactly as they asked her to do, she was incredible. She was a little scared at first but when she realized that I wasn't going anywhere, she sat very still and just held my hand. Marissa was having fun looking into Lindsey's mouth with the big light on it, and the hygienist let her play with the suction tool -- she thought that was lots of fun!

The best news of all...no cavities.

I was so proud of her!

Yeayyyy Lindsey!

Request for housekeeping advice

Marissa had an accident at Kindercare today, the kind that hurts her pride and not her physical being.

She's been doing so well on the potty that they forgot to put a pull-up on her at naptime today. She awoke from her nap with a poop in her pants.

Except this time her "pants" were underwear.

So they did like any good caretaker would do, they changed her poopy clothes, put her in other clothes and sent her dirty stuff home in a bag.

It wasn't until AFTER I saw the poop floating around in the washing machine that I realized that they did not actually REMOVE the poop from her underwear, they had just wrapped it up in it. I, of course, had just dumped all the clothes in the bag into the wash without even looking.

So...here's my request for advice:

We no longer keep bleach in the house as it is not environmentally friendly. I've been using vinegar in my laundry along with a laundry detergent when I wash clothes. So...what do you recommend I use in the laundry tub to make sure it is fully sanitized before my next load of laundry??

Or should I go knock on a neighbor's house and ask for a cup of bleach?

Thanks!

The girl took the house!

She won for the ultimate irony.

Amy Winehouse "cleaned house" at the Grammy's, taking 5 of the 6 Grammys she was nominated for, including:

• Record of the Year ("Rehab")
• Song of the Year ("Rehab")
• Best New Artist
• Best Female Pop Vocal Performance ("Rehab")
• Best Pop Vocal Album ("Back to Black")

If you haven't heard the song that won the most, the chorus goes, "They tried to make me go to rehab and I said 'no no no.'"

Ironically, she could not attend the Grammy's as she was recently released from rehab in London. She has a phenomenal voice if you haven't heard it and if you can get past all the crappy celebrity trash on her. You go girl!

Frozen Grand Central

What an awesome experiment! This was fascinating to see ordinary people's response to this.

A Marissa Moment

Tonight I was reading Marissa "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" while sitting on the couch. We got to the page where the hungry caterpillar eats all the junk food, including an ice cream cone. Marissa climbs down off the couch and goes over to the big bin of playfood, searches through and finds the play ice cream cone.

She comes back over and holds it up to the page -- it is almost the same exact size as the ice cream cone on the page. So we pretend to eat the ice cream cone, we pretend to lick the lollipop, etc.

Pretty soon she pops the ice cream off of the cone part (they come apart and go back together), and I put the cone part upside on Dax's head as he lies next to me, perfectly still. Of course it stays there, and Marissa starts to sing:

"Happy Birf-fy to you...happy birf-fy to you...happy birf-fy to Dax, happy birray to you!"

And she leans forward and "blows" on his ice cream cone hat, which also bears an uncanny resemblance to a candle.

It was awesome.

I am on my way back to Minneapolis after an interesting trip out west. I don’t often get a chance to go west, and honestly don’t usually enjoy it, as the two-hour time difference really screws up my sleep schedule. (Oh yeah that’s right…what schedule?)

I got to spend a lot of time in Las Vegas, a city I have successfully avoided up until now. I don’t enjoy gambling, and the “shows” in the past have been more like peep shows that entertaining shows.

For once I had some free time on this trip. My traveling companion’s husband flew in to town, so they went their own way and I got to spend the evening on my own.

I walked up and down the strip a little bit. I felt like a little kid, so small compared to the buildings. I couldn’t believe all the people walking up and down, taking photos of “fake” architecture. Because that’s the only way I could describe it – a “fake” palace, a “fake” pyramid, a “fake” canal.

I felt small in comparison to the buildings, to the expanse between them. Even the sidewalks made me feel small – the city no longer allows pedestrians cross at the intersections; you have to take an outside escalator and go on bridges across the strip – large, wide bridges with glass walls so that the walls do not obstruct the pedestrians’ views of the rest of the strip.

Caesar’s Palace looks like a palace, but the “architecture” is made of cement, painted to look like granite. Instead of the architecture being made by artisans it’s churned out by machines and then put up by low-paid low-skilled workers, not like the true artisans who made the original works.

When I was a little girl I liked to play with toys that made me feel like a grown-up – a BIG playhouse that I could actually walk into without hitting my head, a pretend kitchen that made me feel like I was really cooking. I think that the tourists walking around Vegas get that feeling again, of being a child in a playland that is just a bit oversized for us.

This was evident to me as I people watched during my dinner. I ate at a restaurant called Canaletto, and it was set up as a patio just outside the “canal” at the Palazzo casino. To keep this fakery theme going, when I approached the hostess station to be seated, she asked if I wanted to eat inside or “outside, on the patio.” Keep in mind that the patio is actually a large shopping center, with fake building all around to be the Palazzo in Rome. There is a fake canal that runs through it, and the ceiling is painted like the sky, blue with puffy white clouds and a sunset beginning in the corner of the sky. Outside?? Um…yeah, let me leave the building then…

Anyway, while I was sitting there, enjoying my quiet dinner by myself, I saw two elderly Chinese men walking around, licking ice cream cones. They had pure white hair and shuffled while they walked, wearing matching tan Members Only jackets. They were so happy, the pleasure on their faces was evident for all to see as they walked around the square, taking in the sights and sounds of the fake Venice. After all, had we really been in Venice, the canal water would have been muddy brown or green, not sky blue, and the stench would have put the restaurant I was eating in out of business, or at least farther removed from the canal.

So then the question begs to be asked, “Is happiness at fakery authentic happiness?” And I guess the answer is “yes,” because these two men were taking in the human-made marvels that honored an older time, artisanship that is mostly lost, and preserved it in a sad, pathetic, commercial way. But they were genuinely happy and perhaps that is all that mattered.

Counting my blessings

Today we took the girls to the Mall of America, just to get out of the house and get into some large open areas where they can really move. Lindsey isn't as enamored with the rides as she used to be -- she now wants to hit all the little toy stores around the amusement park and beg relentlessly for us to buy her product x, y and z.

But I did get her to go on the merry-go-around. She was all settled on her seat ready to go when I had to move over to make room for a mom getting her son on the horse next to us. He was probably 6 or 7 but was obviously suffering from low muscle tone as she had to lift him into the seat. He was blind and she was "showing" him the horse by putting his hands on it. He never spoke, he never showed any emotion, and the longer we were near him the more I realized how profound his issues probably are.

The ride started and the mom did all the things any mom does with her kid, asking him if he was having fun, pointing to family members along the way every time they went around. "Look! There's Grandma and Evan!" I look to see who she's pointing to, and there's a slightly older lady with a baby in a stroller in front of her, waving emphatically. The baby very clearly has Downs Syndrome.

I held Lindsey tight and counted my blessings, while praying for their family to have the strength to deal with theirs.

A New Bedtime Diversion

Lindsey has been in a math "class" at her preschool for most of this school year. They actually have them adding and subtracting now, and give us little worksheets with activities to do at home with her to incorporate math into every day routines.

Last night Lindsey and I were reading "Heidi" for the third time. It starts by introducing Heidi as a 5-year-old girl, meeting a goatherd named Peter, age 11. So I asked Lindsey, "So how many years are there between Heidi and Peter?" and she and I counted starting at 5 up to 11 and got 6 additional numbers, so the answer was 6.

Once she realized that she can figure out how to do this, she got very excited. She said, "Let's do another!" So we did addition instead of finishing reading the book.

As I was leaving her room, she said, "Mommy, I want a book to read by myself." So we started picking out a book for her to read from the collection on the floor by her bed. Then she said, "Oh wait! No, I have my fingers, I'm going to count instead! Good night!"

So I left her room to the sound of her reciting as she opened up her fingers one at a time -- "One...two...three..."

Oops!

This evening we had two accidents in our household -- one when Marissa peed on the floor (to be expected, it was only her second time wearing underwear) and one time when Lindsey forgot to take her underwear down before sitting on the potty, and she peed THROUGH it to the potty.

I laughed pretty hard at the second one. And thankfully Lindsey did too.

Two Words with such meaning

Marissa's vocabulary has continued to expand and we are always entertained by when she tells us stories. She starts with lots of "uh uh uh's" but eventually gets to the point.

Tonight she and I were reading "Elmo Loses His Blanket," a book that has six flaps to open on each page to look for Elmo's blankie. Marissa's word for "open" is "ope." So here's what she sounds like as she searches for Elmos' blankie on each page:

This ope??

[opens flap with feigned surprise]

Oh! This ope!

[shuts flap, points to area with no flap]

This ope??

[scratches at part of page with no flap]

Oh! No ope!

[points to part with a flap]

This ope?

[opens flap with glee]

This ope!

It was a great example of how you can get a multitude of meanings from just a simple phrase, depending on how you say it.

I tried to get her to say "open," and she said it once, but once it got back to the book, "ope" was the word of choice.

She makes us laugh.

Blogger's Block??

Probably about once a day for the past week or so, something would happen and I would think to myself, "I gotta post that."

Then I get to my computer to write...and can't remember what the hell I was going to write about.

So I guess I'm writing about not being able to write. I'm still here, I'm apparently suffering from blogger's block!

Every Girl's Dream

It's clear to me how very young we are when those of us of the female persuasion begin to "dream" of our wedding day.

I'm sure some of this is brought about by the Disney Princess (TM) line, as well as various movies, influences, etc. And it doesn't help that my wedding dress and veil is at the back of Lindsey's closet.

Lindsey asked me if she could play with my wedding veil, and she donned her Christmas dress that I bought (for cheap) after Christmas this year. It does fit this year, though I suspect it will still fit her next year as well.

So she began to play "wedding." She found some Christmas decs of mine from downstairs, which became her bouquet, and would ask Wayne or I to walk her down the aisle, which started at the kitchen and ended at the storage bench in the living room. She asked me to sit where the minister would be, and then I needed to ask her name and the name of the groom, then I would say, "You are married happily ever after, you may kiss the bride!"

Eventually she got Wayne into the act, and he had to play the part of "Daddy," walking her down the aisle.

I think we'll have to pull these pictures out some time in the very far future, when she actually does get married.

Marissa played the part of maid of honor, obviously.

Adding insult to injury

Like it hasn't been cold enough of late, three things have happened that just rub it in how cold it is:

1. This weekend it got so cold that when I would open the side door to let the dog out, I had to ensure that my hands were not wet or damp (as they often are when cooking or doing dishes), as they were going to stick to the handle on the door.

2. It got so cold that our dishwasher stopped working. The waterline to it froze and wouldn't fill with water. Our air temp went below 0 at 4 pm Friday and didn't come back above zero until noon on Sunday...at which point it went back down under zero at 4 pm. Wayne left our cupboards open, hoping that the warmer air from the kitchen would get back to where the pipes were and de-freeze them. Something finally worked because finally Monday morning, our dishwasher finally worked. After three days of staying in the house, doing dishes after every meal, it finally works the last day of our three-day weekend.

3. The Packers lost, despite the advantage that the bitterly cold temps were giving them. Bummer, but the way they were playing they wouldn't have won against the Patriots anyway. Good luck to the Giants!

So long to the Patterson's!

We will be greatly missing our friends the Pattersons, who safely drove in to Buffalo, NY yesterday, after leaving Minnesota on Wednesday. Above is a photo of their daughter Jamie and Lindsey, playing dress up for the gazillionth time.

Yes, I also thought that Marissa was going to bite Molly, only to have her give her a very tender kiss. After they both looked and each other and wondered what that was all about.

Brrrr!

You know it's cold when...

• You wake up in the morning, see that the thermometer says 10 degrees outside and say, "Gee! That's not bad!" (because at least it's above zero, and it is above single digits.)
• Your nose hairs freeze together whenever you breathe through your nose.
• You actually stock up your house so you don't have to leave over the weekend to get groceries. Required supplies include brownie mix, chocolate chip cookie ingredients, chili and wild rice soup makings.
• It takes the dog all of 30 seconds to go outside and do his business, some of which sprays against the house because it is too cold to go all the way out to a snowbank.
• It's too cold to drink beer -- your drink of choice becomes Irish coffee.
• The radiators in the house run 24 hours a day to keep the house warm and become too hot to touch.

This isn't some list that gets passed around through the internet that I'm posting here, this is the honest to God truth of what we've been doing the past few days.

The kicker came last night when I was attempting to wash dishes. I ran out of hot water right away and couldn't figure out why because we have a water storage tank, not a hot water heater, which is connected to our boiler since our entire house is heated with hot water. I finally figured out that between trying to keep the house warm and Marissa just having bath water run, it was enough to drain that entire huge tank of hot water.

Brrrr!

Local Facebook Controversy

I read in the metro section of our local newspaper today about one of the suburban high schools that cracked down on underage drinking by perusing photos students had posted themselves on their own Facebook pages of them at parties, drinking with other underage friends.

The school had penalized the students by various means, i.e. suspensions, kicking them off basketball/volleyball teams, etc.

Some of the students actually had the gall to protest against the school, claiming that they had "invaded their privacy." They staged a walk out on Friday and did not attend classes. Rather ironic, considering many of them weren't supposed to attend anyway since they had been suspended.

Let me get this straight...your privacy was INVADED? By viewing photos that anyone can view which were posted on the internet? The saddest thing was how many of these students parents backed them up, opting to send nasty letters to the school or threaten to pull their child from the school district. (As if their child was a gift to that school in the first place.)

Hey, how about instead having a chat with your son/daughter about the dangers of underage drinking? How about taking away rights to the family car as punishment? You're going to stand by your child who was drinking because you don't like the means by which the school found out? Where were YOU, the parent?

Good for you, Eden Prairie High!

A New 'Do

Okay, so perhaps the short hair on my last avatar gave it away. I had decided some time ago to donate my hair to Locks of Love, or some other such charity that can use human hair to weave wigs for cancer or alopecia patients who can use it.

Well, Locks of Love required a minimum of 10 inches of hair, even for the shortest layer of hair. My shortest layer was 8 inches, and I just didn't have the patience to grow it out anymore. So I did a little searching and thanks to the publicity from Hillary Swank, came across the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program, in which the minimum length required is 8 inches.

The majority of the hair that was cut was 10 inches, with the shortest lengths being 8. It all came off in one thick ponytail, which I then packaged up and shipped off to the charity.

It felt sooo good to get it all chopped off! I was grinning like a fool while my stylist was cutting away, and I am very pleased with the outcome. I can't believe how weighed down my hair had been -- hardly any of my natural curl was showing through anymore and after she styled it, wow! What curls!

So next time you see me you may see me start to do the "hair flip," but then stop and grin ridiculously. Or you may see me put my purse on my shoulder then go to move my hair out from under the purse strap, only to smile that it isn't stuck under there anyway!

I'm especially happy to be able to see my children again when I bend down to kiss them hello, without having to put my hair in a ponytail to do so.

Nighttime Noises

Some time ago I wrote about being freaked out in the middle of the night when one of Lindsey's toys' batteries started to wind down, causing the toy to make unprovoked noises in the middle of the night. It was creepy and enough to cause my heart to jump into my throat before becoming entirely awake and gaining all of my faculties.

Last night I had a similarly creepy event.

I awoke in the middle of the night to hear Lindsey laughing. Clear as day, as if someone had just told her a joke.

It wasn't a sleepy, grunty laugh, one you would expect from someone still sleeping. It was the clear, crisp sound of her normal laugh.

Sure enough, she was dead out sleeping. She must've been having some good dreams, though, to laugh like that in her sleep.

Creepy.

First Day back at KinderCare

Today we were talking to Lindsey and Marissa about how their day was today, their first day back at KinderCare in a week and a half.

Lindsey told me she had a bad day. She said, "There were lots of kids there and they made a lot of noise and I didn't like it."

Marissa had the following to say.

Wayne asked, "Marissa, were you naughty or nice at KinderCare today?"

Marissa: "Naughty."

Wayne: "What do your teachers say to you when you're naughty?"

Marissa: "They say, 'No No, Me!'"

We thought that was pretty funny.

Lindsey's Photos

One of the gifts we gave Lindsey this year was a digital camera. A what? you say, how can you possibly give a 4-year-old a digital camera??

Well, it's made by Fisher Price, it's in a solid plastic casing that is intended to survive multiple drops, and there are only four buttons on it. It's made for ages 3 and older. And, in typical fashion with technology continually blowing my mind, it actually wasn't that expensive. She loves my camera, always wants to take pictures with it and look at them through the viewfinder, so it seemed natural to get her her own.

The one drawback is that the photo quality is pretty weak. We can change the setting on it to make them nicer, but then it only holds 20 photos instead of 60, and for her it's all about hearing the click and knowing she took a photo. I did, however, have to share some of the lovely photos she took on Christmas Day. She had that camera filled to 60 within an hour. I promptly downloaded them for her and I'm pretty sure it's full again and needs to be dumped once more.

So, here's Christmas Day from Lindsey's perspective.






This lovely trio of photographs was taken of a rather large gift toward the back of the tree that Lindsey kept trying to get at to open, but Wayne kept telling her not to because she was going to knock all the ornaments off the tree. We could not even get to this gift until the presents in the FRONT of the tree had been opened. So she kept getting closer and closer and taking a photo of the greatly desired present. In case you're wondering, it was a play bowling set from Aunt Michelle, which was promptly the item of delight until the next gift was opened.


This particular photo brought Lindsey a great deal of mirth, as she laughed and laughed at Marissa's oversized butt, which is clearly in need of a diaper change by the way it hangs halfway to her knees.

Here is the only record we have of the joy the aforementioned iPod brought Wayne, aka Daddy, as you see him smiling as he finally realizes that I did not buy him a sports radio, it's an iPod! Note the strewn presents in the background -- we haven't seen our floor in days.

Last note, while it took Wayne 10 minutes to figure out how to open the battery compartment and put the batteries in the camera, it took Lindsey all of 2 seconds to figure out what the buttons do.

"How do I turn it on? Oh! here it is. How do I take a picture? Oh! Here it is! Mommy, I want to see the pictures...oh never mind, I found it."

Damn I feel stupid.

Worldly Thoughts

I was awoken this morning at 6:30 am by our youngest, crying in her room. I go in and she asks for hot milk, which I give her and she promptly goes back to sleep. Which is a good thing because for the 10 minutes she was up she didn't stop crying; she clearly had awoken too early. (I'd like to do that too when I wake up too early, but I don't think my co-workers would appreciate it.)

But now I was up, and, unlike going back to bed as I usually do, I got up, put a pot of coffee on, and folded some clothes while watching The Today Show, a guilty pleasure of mine. (Those who know me know that our TV is rarely on.)

So while this sounds like doing household chores, I see it as quiet time, me time, time when I don't have to getting after someone to stop bugging the dog, give something back to your sister, don't unfold the folded clothes, frick and frack, and so on.

Suddenly there was a "Special Report" on the Today Show. In some cases this means something ridiculous; I bet if I had been watching TV the day it was announced that Britney Spears' 16-year-old sister was pregnant they'd have broken in with a "special report." I remember they broke into regular programming when the O.J. Simpson verdict was announced.

But this was special news -- Benazir Bhutto, former prime minister of Pakistan, had been assassinated in Pakistan. The air literally went out of me -- she was one who I had been watching closely in the news, hoping that she would find a way to work with Pakistani President Musharraf and bring stability and, more importantly in my mind, some level of humanity to many of the people in Pakistan who live in abject poverty. She had been the poor people's champion, even though her government was previously accused of corruption. (Her reaction had been, "How else can you get anything done in this country?")

I had thought some months ago when she returned to Pakistan after being in exile in London that she was putting herself in harm's way -- she had been killed while standing up through a moonroof in a vehicle, clearly making a target of herself. I wonder if she thought in her mind that while she may do some good while alive, she could also do some good as a martyr for a better Pakistan. But either option was preferable to living a comfortable life in London while her homeland went to hell in a handbasket. God bless her for choosing to act and not sit back and observe from afar.

I was very saddened by the news, and saddened to know that 20 people were killed along with her. I'll be praying for people in that part of the world.

Christmas Photos

This Christmas was a wonderful one, especially because Marissa finally understands the concept of presents, though she still doesn't get the hype and the fact that Santa is coming. But she did have lots of fun opening her gifts.

The entire time leading up to Christmas Lindsey never had many ideas of what she wanted from Santa for Christmas. Whenever we'd ask her she'd say "a dress" or "bones for my doggie." So Wayne and I thought about what she and Marissa might enjoy, and for the most part I think we hit the jackpot. They both truly enjoyed their toys, and spent the rest of the day playing with them all.

I have a couple of observations about the photos I took throughout the day on Christmas:

1. Multiple costume changes. They both started in their same-old pajamas, which were quickly replaced when they received the new pajamas from Grandpa Tom and Meme. This was changed once again when the matching purple dresses were unwrapped.

2. Incredible flexibility. Both Marissa and Lindsey spent many hours this day in deep knee squats, checking out toys, opening gifts, playing, and had no compliants whatsoever. I, on the other hand, needed a Tylenol and a heating pad after bending over for so long.

3. Challenging photo op. I have multiple photos of the back of Marissa's head. I have long expanses of orangish-looking wood floors. I have photos of ripped wrapping paper, jumbled boxes and scattered toys throughout my home. In other words, I have successfully captured the chaos that reigns nearly every day, but certainly at Christmas.

Now I can tell this story

I shared this one with a few people before Christmas, but now I can tell everyone else. I'll give away the ending now: Wayne had no idea I had really gotten him an iPod.

I got Wayne an iPod for Christmas. Lindsey was with me when I bought it (can't be helped sometimes) so I told her that it was a secret that Daddy was getting it and not to tell him. She got preoccupied with other things before we got home so she promptly forgot about it and never said a word.

Two weekends ago she was pretending that she was going to go to the mall. She put on her hat and mittens and her purse over her shoulder, and came up to Wayne and said, "Daddy. I am going to the mall to see Santa. What would you like for Christmas?"

Wayne said, "I would like an iPod."

Lindsey replied, "Oh! Mommy already bought one for you!"

Of course, I couldn't rush in to the room and stop this exchange or Wayne would know that truly I HAD bought him an iPod and this wasn't just Lindsey making things up. But later she came in to the kitchen and I motioned her over.

"Lindsey!" I whispered. "Why did you tell Daddy that I bought him an iPod? Remember, it's supposed to be a surprise!"

She said, "But Mommy, he wants to ask Santa for one, and I don't want him to get two!"

Some Good Christmas Moments

All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas. Some good thoughts of today:

• Lindsey jumping up and down upon coming downstairs and seeing even more presents under the tree! (She was worried Santa wouldn't leave any when he saw all the ones that were already under the tree from relatives.)
• Both girls jumping up and down upon receiving the largest package of plastic play food I've ever seen.
• Two girls in matching pajamas they received as a gift as they open the rest of their gifts.
• Marissa completely enamoured with the stuffed puppy dog, kennel and veterinarian supplies that came with it. (All play stuff, of course).
• Lindsey methodically putting her toys into a pile so Marissa can't play with them.
• The picture perfect snowfall that after in the afternoon as we were getting Marissa down for her nap.
• Sledding with the girls on snow covered sidewalks around 4 pm, both girls giggling and squealing along the way.
• Coming back in from sledding and sharing some homemade hot chocolate we had gotten as a gift.
• Wayne singing off-key on his newly loaded iPod, figuring out all the features it has.
• Loading up all the CDs we have onto our PC so Wayne can put them on his new iPod.
• Playing grocery with Lindsey with her new cash register.
• Having a dinner of divine steak with garlic bread, corn, baked potatoes and wine. And...not having the dinner ruined by a timeout or a whine-fest. Aaahhh!

Pictures to follow...

Christmas Confusion

Tonight we attended Christmas Eve service and then went to our friends' house down the street for a Christmas Eve get together with friends. We finally called it a night a little after 8:00, with Lindsey and Marissa both yawning and getting cranky.

As Wayne was putting Marissa's coat on, he asks her, "Marissa, do you know who's coming to our house tonight?"

Marissa says with no hesitation "Fosty the No-man."

Lindsey chimes in, "And Rudolph!"

Excellent. We've taught our children well.

Okay, so maybe sometimes she IS Italian...

Last night I asked Marissa to wash her hands before dinner. As she got up on the stool she said

"I washa-hands."

Buon Appetito!

This is me as we try to leave the house in the morning

Marissa's Evolving Language Skills

I remember when Lindsey was about the age Marissa is now she went through a period in her speech in which she sounded like a little Italian girl:

"I-a wanna go-a park."

"Dinna dinna! Pasta pasta!" (Even the subject matter was Italian.)

"Whatsa gonna eats?"

Marissa is going through a stage herself, though slightly differently, of course.

She drops the "s" in front of words that start with an "s." So in my previous post, "mell" is "smells." We also hear "tinky" and "tool" frequently. ("Tool" not actually meaning a "tool" -- think about it.) My favorite? "Nuggle." Awwww...

She also is going through a stage of putting an "e" sound at the end of words. Lindsey used the "a" sounds, giving her the Italian accent, Marissa does the "e."

Her favorite word right now is "Uppy! Uppy!" said with arms outreached, waiting for you to pick her up. When she's cold she shivers and says, "Coldy."

Other favorite phrases right now:

"Daddy watch!"

"I too! I too!"

"Sassa do."

"No Dax no!" followed by "Down dax down!" as he tries to get on her booster chair to eat what she's dropped.

She sometimes wakes up at some ungodly hour in the morning, between 4 and 5. Usually you know she'll go right back down when you walk in her room and she says, "Hot miwk." But you are in trouble if she looks at you with mischief in her eyes, honey in her voice and utters these words:

"I pay?"

Put the coffee on, you're up for good.

My Mother's Words

It happens to everyone at some point; finally you find yourself saying things your mother said when you were growing up.

It all came together for me this morning, when everyone was done with breakfast and left the breakfast table. Every dish was left on the table -- every one. Granted, Marissa's only two, but the example set by her daddy was, "Just leave the table, Mommy will clean it all up."

"Okay!" I called out in my authoritative mom voice, "Everyone come back to the table, pick up your dishes and put them in the kitchen. I am not your maid!"

Good heavens, the "I am not your maid" line, I can't believe I just uttered it. It did get the desired results, though -- everyone got up, picked up their dishes and put them in the kitchen.

Even Marissa.

Christmas Preparations

You can just hear how this goes, right?

"What the...how'd these lights get so tangled?!"

But then it all comes together and we have a lovely tree!

Our Funny Girl

Without a doubt, Marissa makes us laugh all the time with her little antics. (By the way, don't you love her eyes in this photo?? I had to edit out some snot under her nose, though.)

This morning I had to run a few errands and decided to take Marissa with me. Usually Lindsey gets to go because she's older and a bit better behaved, but since it was just me and just one kid, I figured Marissa could go along, she's got to learn eventually not to touch every breakable thing in a store.

She and I went to the post office to mail a package and she had everyone in line smiling, she was just so happy to be in line! She was giggling and making little happy exclamations for no apparent reason. Wow! 'Tis the season, but for her "tis the season" is 12 months out of the year.

Then we went to a consignment shop to see if they would sell a coat for me. As we were leaving the store Marissa says to me, "No go home." So we hit one more store nearby, just for fun.

The name of the store was "Shop in the City," a little eclectic boutique of all kinds of things -- really expensive local designers ($78 for a silk shirt that I would sweat through in 2 minutes??) to stationery products, soaps, lotions, books, handbags and purses and all kinds of things. They had a car air freshener there that smells like "cat butt" and is a cartoon of a cat...from behind. Right next to that $78 silk shirt.

So at any rate, we're going through this store and Marissa is enamored with the Vera Bradley bags. She pulls five of them out and counts them - "one...three...four...five!" Then she says, "I put back" and she meticulously puts all five of them back. She mistakenly brushes up against one or two strangers thinking they are me and doesn't seem to care. That's the same kind of thing that used to send Lindsey scurrying in shyness to me at that same age -- Marissa's attitude seemed to be, "So I touched your coat; deal with it, I'm a kid."

Finally I decide we've checked out this store long enough and we need to go home. Marissa apparently disagrees as she runs from me and hides in a little nook with all of these very expensive clothes. I make my way to her, and then find the reason why she wanted a little corner.

"Poop in pants," she says to me.

I say, "Marissa, did you just poop in your pants??"

She breathes in through her nose very deeply, then says, "Mells good."

So we get her mittens on and off we go, back home to change. Once we get home she announces to Wayne, "I poop in pants -- mells good!"

Not sure where she got this one, apparently her own poop smells good to her. Ugh.

Thought I'd finally post a couple of photos -- 'tis the season (3 weeks to Christmas) which means I'm busy AND tired, so I'm not often staying up late to blog like I usually do.

First photo is of the girls with Lindsey's neighborhood friend, Jamie. Jamie came over one evening to play, and there was a Christmas special on TV. So the three of them got snuggled under a blanket and were transfixed by the television. (I believe it was a Charlie Brown special).

The next photo was taken on December 1st, after we'd gotten several inches of snow. Around 5:00 we headed out since the streets had been plowed through at least once and took them sledding. It was so beautiful and peaceful like new snow can be, with very little traffic as no one wanted to head out in it, so we took them right down the middle of the streets.

Animal Sounds

I love Sandra Boynton books. For those of you unfamiliar with her work, she has a quirky, whimsical sense of humor and her books are a delight for the infant/toddler set.

The other night I was reading a book of hers called "Moo Baa La la la!" to Marissa. Here's how it goes:

A cow says moo.
A sheep says baa.
Three singing pigs say "La La La!"
No no, you say, that isn't right, the pigs say "oink" all day and night!

I read this to Marissa one night as she pondered her sippy cup (no more bottles!) of milk:

Me: "A cow says...?? Marissa, what does a cow say?"

Marissa: Silence.

Me: "A cow says moo (turn page), A sheep says...Marissa what does a sheep say?"

Marissa: Chewing thoughtfully on sippy cup.

Me: "A sheep says baa. Three singing pigs say..."

Marissa: [at the top of her lungs] "LA LA LA!!!!!!"

We had to stop I was laughing so hard.

A Special Thanksgiving

All in all, we had a good Thanksgiving.

The holiday first began with Neil & Millie coming to our house on Wednesday evening and staying for the big feast on Thursday at our place. We tried a turkey breast instead of a full turkey and it worked out pretty well. We always threw away the drumsticks anyway, seems a waste to cook a whole bird including all the parts that we just don't eat.

Unfortunately Marissa was under the weather -- I ended up picking her up early Wednesday and taking her to the doctor as she spiked a fever of 102.5 at daycare. She was put back on an antibiotic for 20 days to help knock out what appears to be another pesky sinus infection. Her nose cleared up right away, but we'll see if it stays after the antibiotics are done.

So on Thursday she was a big crank for much of the morning. She was crabby, clingy and liked to pester her sister, resulting in lots of refereeing. So we decided to move up the timetable and had the Thanksgiving feast while Marissa was napping. I felt kind of guilty, planning for her to not be a part of it, but it was a nice break to actually be able to eat my meal and not get after her to eat, not throw food, put her in a timeout, etc, which is what probably would have happened. Lindsey was well-behaved at least, though she didn't eat much. Marissa took a 3 1/2 hour nap and woke in a much better mood, and didn't seem to care that we had forged ahead without her.

We then all trekked down to Tracy, MN on Friday to gather with the entire family on Saturday afternoon for another feast, this time on cheesy potatoes (yum!), stuffing, sloppy joes (or "barbecue," as the Minnesotans call it) and a myriad of pies, including a pumpkin cheesecake that I had made upon arrival there. Nicole brought two large pans of Rice Krispie bars with chocolate topping -- only four survived the onslaught of hungry relatives.

Nicole also brought lots of photos of her album in August which we had missed due to both girls being sick that weekend. It sure was nice to look at all the photos. Everyone looked absolutely gorgeous (and the men were dashing) and it looked like everyone had a lovely time.

Sherrie brought over a belated birthday gift for Marissa, whose birthday was back in July. She got her a play vacuum cleaner, and was that a hit! Marissa would point around the entire living room and say, "this alllll yucky!" and proceed to pretend vacuum it. She also took out the attachments and would get under the coffee table, get the couch seat and arms, etc. Too bad the thing doesn't actually work!

She got into such a cleaning frenzy she also grabbed a little stuffed animal piggy and started "dusting" the furniture with it! It was a riot to watch.

She and Lindsey had to take turns with the vacuum, and later when Sherrie asked Lindsey what she wanted for Christmas, Lindsey said, "A vacuum like Marissa's!" I'm pretty sure we don't need two of those things around; they will just have to get better at sharing.

The one downfall of traveling with little ones at this age is the sleeping arrangements. We tried having all four of us sleeping in one bedroom, resulting in multiple awakenings, moving an offspring from airbed to actual bed, back to airbed, etc. They just get so disjointed when they are out of their routine and out of their normal surroundings.

The second night we got it a little better and Marissa and I slept in the family room while Wayne and Lindsey slept in the bedroom. Marissa would still awake a few times throughout the night, look around and start crying at the unfamiliar surroundings. But at least I was right by her side to comfort her and she would go back to sleep immediately, as opposed to the previous night when she would fully awaken and it would take us some time to get her back to sleep. That worked out much better, though I didn't get much sleep on the couch. I found out the next morning that the couch actually has a pull out sleeper, so that may be our salvation for our next trip!

Now I can't believe that it's only a week to December, and I am not ready! I haven't even started thinking about designing our Christmas cards. I do have a few presents already purchased, ready to wrap and ship to their recipients, but much more ahead of me to do.

With the stores in the Twin Cities being absolute chaos on the weekends, all I have to say is, "Thank God for Internet shopping!"

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is the one holiday that I am pleased to wish everyone a happy one of. I don't have to worry if you're a Christian and actually celebrate it, I won't offend your offenses if you're Jewish, if you're a Muslim it's OK too. How about Jehovah's Witness? Mormon? Doesn't matter. Here's what matters:

1. Are you currently in the US? Do you enjoy freedoms here that you may not have elsewhere?
2. How's your health? Had leprosy lately? How about the bubonic plague? Good to hear that you are plague free!
3. Do you have family in your life that you are thankful for? Parents? Siblings? Children of your own?
4. How about a roof over your head? Food to eat? Clothes to wear? Even if you're poor, if you live in this country you probably have all of the above.
5. Have any friends that you like? That support you in times of need? Yep, they are pretty special too.

So if you have anything that you can be grateful for in your life, I wish you a happy and heartfelt Thanksgiving!

Lindsey's Haircut

Lindsey has been bugging us for about a week to get a haircut. And not just a haircut, her description was, "I want it short like Marissa's."

When she first asked, Wayne's knee-jerk response before he could even stop himself, was to say, "Oh but Lindsey, I love your long hair." (I thought that was pretty sweet coming from her Daddy.)

I like it too, and had thought that it would be in ponytails, pigtails or up moreso than it is. Even if I do send her to daycare in some kind of pony/pigtails, they always come out at naptime because they are uncomfortable to nap in, and then she spends the rest of the day with her hair flying around her face. And she often fights having her hair combed, resulting in some nasty tangles.

For those two reasons she didn't have to wait long after bringing it up again before she and I took a walk down to the local Great Clips, where she got about 5 inches taken off in an inverted cut. The front of her hair just about touches her shoulders, and the back is at the nape of her neck. She was smiling and grinning the entire time she was getting it cut, and afterwards said how happy she was with it.

I wasn't able to get a picture of her today, since she only had the cut for a few hours, but I'll try to get one soon to post it. I do say, it is pretty cute on her, and hopefully lower maintenance than her long hair.

Jason McElway: Heartwarming Story

This has to be one of the most heartwarming storeis I've seen of late. Much needed considering the other news that we usually see on the news.

Minnesota Children's Museum

Thought I'd quickly post a photo from this past weekend when we visited the Minnesota Children's Museum. They have a Curious George exhibit that the girls enjoyed.

My Halloween Costume Confused Many...

I felt ridiculous on Halloween with my hair done up so high like Amy Winehouse. For those of you who don't know who I was attempting to be, you can see that my hair did not nearly reach the heights needed.

I Am An Addict...of sorts

For those of you who know me well, this may come as no surprise.

I have finally come to the conclusion that I am an addict. I can't help myself every time I pass a place that serves them. I see people holding cups in their hands and I become envious. I wonder how late in the day I can get away with having one and still get to sleep at night.

It's the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, and the last thing I think about as I go to bed at night, happy in the knowledge that when I get up in the morning it will be the first thing I have.

These are all true statements -- honestly! But I'm happy to report that the object of my addiction is somewhat benign.

No, not cigarettes.

No, not alcohol.

I am addicted to Caribou coffee.

And I'm even becoming a coffee snob and preferring Caribou over every other type of coffee, including Starbuck's.

I am a very lucky soul.