Laney talks about Laney

For unknown reasons, Laney has begun to refer to herself in the third person.  She tells us, "Laney is hungry for dinner," or "Laney is ready for school."  We keep asking her to stop, and she says that "Laney promises to not do it."

Tracy is tired of it.

The Birth of Christ According to Laney

I overheard Laney “reading”  to Liam today and had to write down what she said.  She was reading a do-it-yourself sticker book about the Nativity that we had done together.  Of course she can’t actually read, but she was able to piece together the story of the birth of Jesus.  In case you are curious, here is more or less how it happened 2000 years ago:

“There was lots of sheep and buildings.  Mary was there and all of the sudden a angel told Mary she was having a baby going to be born.  And then Mary was on a donkey and there were lots of roads and sheep and animals and Joseph leading a donkey.  Lots of people and chickens.  Jesus was going to be with Mary in the manger and there was lots of animals.  All of the sudden an angel disappeared with sheep and he told all the shepherds a baby Jesus was going to get born in Bethlehem.   The sheep were watching the baby get born fast asleep.  All the shepherds came and Joseph and Mary were there to see Jesus.  It took a long way to travel for the shepherds.  They went by some palm trees and all the kings brought gold and sparrows.  And Jesus woke up and Mary and the animals and one angel and lots of stars were there.  And it was good.  There was a angel and a man who brought sparrows and gold and the shepherds came, all the animals came, all the angels were singing and the stars, animals and people took a long way to travel there.  Okay?  And Mary had her baby after riding a donkey.   The End.”

MMMMMM butter

I got all the goods out to make oatmeal for us this morning.  While I got the water boiling for the quick oats, I gave the kids the spoons, butter, and napkins for setting the table.  I turned around from cooking the oats and Liam was tucked into the container of I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, eating it with a spoon.  Everyone knows that margarine is a balanced breakfast!

Laneyism

Laney is quite a deep sleeper and I often tell her that she sleeps like a log.  This morning Oma asked her if she heard Sinterklaas arrive on his horse last night.  Her response? No Oma, I didn't hear it because I'm like a sleeping log!

Hello December...I'm back!

So it has been roughly 3 months since I have last blogged...sigh.  Where has the time gone?  There is so much to fill in between then and now, I am tempted just to skip it all.  So I will, for now.  Today is the first day of December, and there is mommy magic in the air!

As I have discovered in the last few years, my effort (or lack thereof) is directly proportional to how magical the Christmas season is in our house.  Of course Patrick helps out with the decorating and participates in the family events, but without me scheduling, planning, and executing all of the behind the scenes stuff, Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas for L&L.

When it was just P and I, we might have waited until mid-month to purchase a tree or hang our lights.  This year ours went up during Thanksgiving weekend.  It really is amazing how ordinary the string of lights on your house seems to you, but when a child is involved, they are spectacular.  L&L  just love to go outside and look at the lights on our house, and are in LOVE with the light up snowman gifted to them by their Sheshy on Thanksgiving.  What we might have once found tacky and possibly may have ridiculed neighbors for having, now proudly sits on our patio so we can gaze upon it night after December night.  Now, we have a new Christmas mission:  make the season as special as possible for the kids.  They probably won't remember all of the little things that we did during December to make it special for them, but they will remember how special the season felt.  That is what I remind myself as I stay up those few extra minutes posing HHB for the next day, or go the extra mile making notes from Santa and creating the wonderment that I remember feeling as a child at Christmas.

Tree lot:  1 out of 2 looking at the camera...not bad.

Laney helps us cut the netting off the tree.

We waited until Liam was up from his nap to decorate the tree.  Turns out he couldn't have cared less about decorating it, so Laney and I did it ourselves.   Laney hung her elephant ornament first on the tree :)

Today brought some extra excitement into the house as it began the advent calendar season.  We began our religious advent with the candle ring last Sunday, but this is the advent that the kids have been waiting for:  the one that involves chocolate.  I filled up our advent house with all kinds of Hershey Kisses, chocolate coins, and mini candy canes last night.  Laney loves opening the doors each day to see what surprise awaits them.  This year I added two DIY calendars for the kids to do, and mounted them to canvases so they could  pick them up and not worry about breaking them.  Laney gets to glue a cotton ball onto Santa, completing his beard on Christmas Eve, while Liam gets to put ornament stickers onto his tree.

One more bit of excitement today:  a letter from Santa arrived on the breakfast table.  The kids made their Santa lists yesterday and HHB delivered them to Santa last night.  He promptly sent a letter back to the kids,  thanking them for caring for HHB.  He sent them elf placemats, cups, and plates as a thank you gift.  He also reminded Laney that he would like her to stop whining and would like Liam to stop hitting his sister and having tantrums.  A mom can dream!  Thank goodness for Santa blackmail :)

Furthermore, HHB made his glorious return to Shadetree Drive last weekend.  Since then, he has been involved in several incidents of hi-jinks  including:  pulling the TP off the roll and decorating the bathroom with it, making a candy cane fishing pole and fishing into a bowl of goldfish with an elf friend from Laney's room, setting up a tea party with some of Liam's toys, coloring a picture of himself for the kids, and then we found this today.  He has a packet of magic seeds (red sprinkles) that we are to plant in a bowl of sugar.  The seed packet says that a surprise will be there in the morning.  I will remove the seeds, bake slice-and-bake reindeer cookies and stick them on lollipop sticks so it looks like they grew out of the sugar.  That is, if all goes as planned!  You know me and baking...

Well, we are off to visit Santa for the second time this season.  The first time Liam just did a whole lot of crying.  Let's hope we don't get kicked out of the Helen Woodward Animal Center event today after her spies jolly old St. Nick!

First day of preschool 2012

Today was the first day of preschool for both of the kids.  Laney was off to the 4 year old 9-2pm class, and Liam and I attended the 9:30-11:30am Parent/Toddler class.  Laney has been apprehensive about this day, nervously discussing it with us for the past few weeks in a tiny voice.  I am happy to report that the day went very well and everyone had a good time.  Laney didn't shed a single tear, nor did she need to take her lovey out at all today.  She went right into her classroom, put her backpack into her cubby, and got to work making pictures for mommy at the writing table with Margo and Shane (friends from last year.)  She gave Liam and I hugs and kisses goodbye, and never looked back.  She announced to me after school today that she was a big girl now, and just had decided to be one this morning.  She also told me that she was not going to cry at gymnastics today, and that she went to the bathroom 4 times at school (which is a big deal because she wouldn't go at all last year.)  I was also happy to find that she enjoyed having lunch at school since she flat out refused to stay for lunch bunch last year.  I am feeling so relieved that she loves school!  Her teachers couldn't be nicer and today was a great start to the school year.

Liam has yet to master putting on a backpack.  Wearing it makes him cry!

I can't believe they are both old enough to go to school today.  

The preschool was just remodeled, and it is so nice inside!

Liam joined Laney at the writing center before heading to his class

Liam on the 2 year old playground.

Liam had fun at the parent/toddler class too.  He ran all over the playground, and was most interested in climbing on the boulders and jumping off.  He also helped me set out the snack for his class, attempting twice to take a plate of snack back out to the playground with him.  He discovered the toddler sized automatic sinks today and fell in love with washing his hands.  He washed his hands so many times that I had to forcibly remove him from the bathroom so other kids could have a turn!  He ate his own snack, and then started on the other kids snacks when I wasn't looking.  Oh well...he is so much bigger than most of the kids, I guess they won't miss their food.  Liam was all over the classroom after that, trying out all of the new toys before settling into running up the small staircase and running down the small slide.  There are quite a few only-children in the class who don't know how to take turns, but Liam solved that by yelling "TURNS" at them in a loud voice when he thought they were trying to cut in line.  He also tried yelling "SHARE" when other kids wanted to play with his toys, adopting a defensive stance as though he were about to blitz the offensive line and run off with the toys.  A little intervention on my part saved the day, and I am relatively sure that he didn't make any enemies today.  Poor guy was pretty worn out by the end of class and kept asking to go home about 15 minutes before class ended.  He did give his teacher a big hug when we were done, and wanted to "call daddy, tell school" when we got in the car.  I took him to Panera afterward, followed by a riveting trip to the car wash and quick shopping trip to Thinker Things (toy store).  It was really nice spending time with just Liam, something that rarely happens for him.  It's interesting how he behaves so much better when he has no sibling to compete with for my attention.  Hmmmm....note to self:  schedule more one-on-one time with each of my kids.  We made it back to school to pick up Laney and I was shocked that he hadn't passed out in his car seat.  He ran into her class and gave Laney a hug immediately (LOVE!)  On the way home I announced to him that when we got home I would give him some milk and he was going right to bed to take a nap.  I told him "no books, no songs, just night night."  "Okay mommy," he replied, and true to his word, he got right in bed and cuddled up without a fuss.  

The only hitch in our day was that Toby had a nervous breakdown while we were gone and went around the house destroying things.  He did a #1 and a #2 in the craft room, stood up on 3 different windows and scratched the blinds, wrenched the door open to Liam's room and scratched up his wall some more, knocked a wooden seahorse off the wall in the kid's bathroom, pulled the security handles off of both the front and back door, oh, and did this to our back doorknob:

Yes, he ate our doorknob.  It looks like the Incredible Hulk tried to exit our house via the laundry room and squeezed a little too hard.  Guess we know what Patrick will be doing this weekend.

Poor Toby just couldn't handle this new Miller milestone!  Either that or there was some thunder here today.  Note to self:  add "give Toby a valium" to my checklist for Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

My big girl keeps getting bigger

Today marks the first time that Laney was able to reach the seat belt and buckle it all by herself! Growing up so fast and soooooo proud of herself.

L&L like to help

My kids have 2 very different ideas of helpful.  Laney is truly helpful.  She tidies up toys and messes left behind by her brother, organizes books on the shelves, and even dresses herself for me.  Last night she even got her room and Liam's ready for bed while I dressed him in his jammies, setting out books for me to read to Liam and layed out his sleep sack on the reading chair (so cute!).

Liam has a different idea of helpful.  He tries, it's just that when he is helpful I usually have an extra hour or 2 of undoing his helpfulness.  In the span of the last 24 hours, he has done the following "helpful" things:
1.  Carried a bowl of {thankfully dry} cereal to the table and dropped it on the floor, covering our kitchen in Chocolate Rice Krispies.
2.  Vacuumed up the Rice Krispies, and then went on to vacuum up the magnetic alphabet letters and Mr. Potato Head arms and ears.
3.  Cleaned off the dinner table by flinging the rice onto the newly vacuumed floor.
4.  Helped me do the laundry by taking out the lint screen in the dryer to clean it, and then stuffed Mickey Mouse magnets into the lint trap of the dryer.
5.  Folded laundry that I had just folded by throwing it into a pile onto the floor as I fished the magnet out of the dryer.

So, in the last 24 hours I have vacuumed twice, taken apart the vacuum bag to find the magnets and appendages, scrubbed the rice off the chairs and table, refolded the laundry, and MacGyvered a magnet retrieval tool out of a telescoping Swiffer duster with duct tape wrapped around the end.  I played a frustrating game of Operation with our dryer, beating it after a few rounds of almost pulling the magnet out of the lint trap and then dropping it just as it hit the opening.  Side note:  our 15 year old babysitter didn't know what I was talking about when I told her I MacGyvered something and I had to explain it to her.  Ugh I feel old.  

At any rate, my little Liam is doing his best, but helpful he is not.  At least he still thinks cleaning is fun.

A PSA for anyone in the vicinity of Liam

Dear men of North America:

If you have a super short haircut (think clippers set on 1), are dressed in a trendy fashion, or drive a black SUV of any kind, Liam will automatically run up to you and hug you assuming you are Daddy.  At this point he will look up as you look down, and he will realize that you are not Daddy, and begin screaming.  This will cause everyone in your immediate area to believe you are attempting to kidnap my son, causing old ladies and mothers to tighten their grips on their purses and children, eyeballing you as you flame red with embarrassment over the awkward situation.

You have been warned!

There's a new sheriff in town

And her name is Sheriff Mommy.  
Seriously though, I have been cracking down on Liam (aka T.O., named by my family for the massive amount of time outs this kid wracks up each day) lately and I think I might be winning.  Might being the operative word.  Liam is very definitive in what he does and doesn't want to do and we have been embroiled in a power struggle for 3 weeks now over who will be the boss of the house.  As of today, I am happy to announce that I am relatively sure the boss is me.  Sure I have to count to five and threaten a time out, reminding him to make a "good choice," every time I need him to behave, but I am finding myself doing that less and less these days.   Added bonus, he is so good at T.O. now that I just have to tell him to go take a T.O. and he grumpily trots to the bottom of the stairs and sits himself down.  He also comes and tattles on himself after doing something to make Laney cry, slinking in the room covering his eyes with one hand muttering naughty.  Maybe Liam is capable of impulse control after all.  The jury is still out...

Liam vs the babysitter

I dropped the kids off at my mom's house this morning so I could go work out at the gym.  Upon my return, Sonia reported that both of the kids were pretty good, although she did mention an incident with Liam.  It got too quiet in the house, and she found Liam in the living room STANDING ON TOP OF THE GRAND PIANO!  When he spotted her, he shook his finger at her and said "NO NO NO NO!"

Even he knew he was being naughty.  Oh Liam...

What do these things have in common?

rock

fork

wooden puzzle piece

sippy cup

8 loveys

straightening iron

q-tip

Kindle

plastic broccoli

flashlight

glasses

Carmex

Answer?  These are all things I found in bed with me after letting Liam get out of his crib at 6:15 this morning.  We share one big room in Tahoe, so I knew that I could keep an eye on him {sort of} while I tried to catch a few more zzz's.  Leaving a one year old to his own devices is an interesting social experiment, and I am still scratching my head over where the fork came from...

Laneyism

We were driving behind an older car today that was belching out black smoky exhaust.  Pretty soon our car was filled with the delicately scented aroma of burning rubber.  Laney asked me why it smelled so bad and I told her that the car in front of us was really stinky.  She then announced that the driver in front of us really needed to give their car a bath so it would smell better!  How cute is that??

Having 2 kids is like...

Having two children under age four in the house is like having two very small ninjas follow you everywhere you go, booby trapping anything they think you might touch.  I realized as I made breakfast this morning that I operate under the assumption that everything is about to leak, spill, or explode on me {and usually does!}  Note to whoever unscrewed the syrup lid enough to make the it fall off while I was squeezing the bottle onto Liam's waffle:  I'm onto you.  I've narrowed it down to 2 candidates and I know where you live.

Now, it's time for some wipees and a mop.

Halloween costume?????

Sadly, our son makes a fairly convincing Elton John in Laney's pretty pink heart sunglasses...

Family Elton outfits this October?  It's on the radar now!

Beautiful poem about children

"Your children are not your children.
They are sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the make upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness.
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He also loves the bow that is stable.” ―Khalil Gibran

Sayonara Paci

Success!  2 whole days of him not even asking for his beloved paci.  Ahhhhhhh.  One less thing to lug around with me while we are out and about.  For the last few days he has asked for his paci a couple of times and then rejected it immediately after putting it in his mouth.  He just can't get the same suction with the whole in the tip now.  I am so glad we stuck to our guns with this one, because P and I almost gave up 3 nights ago when Liam woke up in the middle of the night and wasn't able to sooth himself back to sleep.  Fortunately we have had to sleep train this kid more times than I can remember, and the sound of him crying lulled me back to sleep.  There were really only 2 bad nights of sleep before he figured out how to sooth himself during the night.   He has also started talking a lot more this week, communicating with us in more than points and grunts.  He tells us "I big boy", "I did it!" and today he announced "I funny."

Bonus:  after Patrick did the bedtime ritual with him 2 nights ago, Liam asked for mommy.  This probably wouldn't have happened if he had his paci to console him.  When I went into his darkened room, he said, "mommy sing?"  I cuddled him through a few of his favorite lullabies and then snuggled him into his crib.  A tiny voice in the darkness rang out:  "Mommy, I love you!"  {which actually sounds more like, Mommy? I wud doo.}  See!  Giving up that paci may have been rough for a few days, but it was worth it for our new nighttime ritual of saying I love you.  Last night after I put him in his crib I said I love you, and then he repeated it back.  We say it to each other a few more times, and after I close his bedroom door he yells, "Mommmmmmy!  I looooove yoooouuuu!"  Nothing better in the world than hearing your child tell you they love you for the first time.  Thanks paci!

Bye bye paci.....I hope

My newest idea for breaking Liam's bad pacifier habit:  skewering them so they lose their suction.  So far he puts it in, pulls it back out and stares at it, throws it on the ground and walks away.  Pray that it will really be this easy!  Updates to come later in the day...I may have to pacify myself with a cocktail to get him through this.  Any suggestions for a new recipe?  I will name it "the Paci"

Trip to the Beach

We live under 10 miles from the beach, but haven't been able to go since Liam was born because of either his age or *ahem* his behavior {sand eating!}  Today we tried it again and were successful!  L, L and I went to South Ponto for 1.5 hours this afternoon after lunch and it was a hit.  I did end up holding Liam most of the time as he was unsure of walking in the sand and why it wouldn't come off of his toes.  He also did not love standing in the waves but was sort of amused by them if I held him.  Laney did some body whomping {a word coined by Mike Perry} and had a fantastic time running around in the slop, making fast friends with the other preschoolers on the beach.

The thing that they both liked were sand crabs.  I must have collected millions of these guys as a kid along the North County shoreline.  They were fodder for hours of entertainment for me as a child, and I made sure to pass that tradition along today.

I showed the kids how to find evidence of them by looking for the v-shaped indentation their antennae made in the swash zone of the tide.  Armed with shovels, they eagerly dug down to find the little squirming crabs and filled up their pails until the water was a swirling mass of tiny gray crustaceans.  Liam didn't really get the hang of holding them as they would speed off the palm of his hand and dive back to the liquid sand, leaving him looking confused and a little annoyed.  Laney really liked holding them, squealing as they tickled her hand, looking for a place to burrow in.  "They feel like tickles and I want to come back and find them again" Laney told me as we headed back to our car.  

Mission accomplished!  I must note that while Liam didn't really like playing in the water, he did find much enjoyment in sitting on his beach towel and eating.  Go figure.

Oh Liam

Doubling up on the pacis...today's new trick!

Things that make me laugh

Recently Laney walked up to me and said

"Mommy, I want to piss in your ear."

Of course I burst out laughing, and then tried to wade through that statement in the hopes that she did not actually want to give my ear a golden shower.  I finally deduced that she wanted to whisper "psssst" in my ear, and tell me a secret.  This is a tickle game I play with the kids to get them out of a funk.  After I pssst (not piss) in their ears I nuzzle the spot right behind their ears and then give them a big raspberry.  I used to call this game Mommy wants to tell you a secret.  Maybe I will call it pee-pee-ears from now on.

On Monday I told Laney a joke and she just looked blankly at me and asked why I said that.  I told her I was just telling her a joke to be silly and make her laugh.  She looked at me in all seriousness {side note:  she was sitting on the potty} and told me "when you tell jokes my mouth doesn't know how to laugh at them."  At this point I mentally entered the sound effect that is played at the end of every losing game on the Price Is Right.  I thought I was funny, but I guess not.

Laney turns 4 (Pump It Up Party)

On Laney's actual birthday, we hosted a birthday bash at our local Pump It Up! for Laney and all of her friends from school.  The kids got to play in the jump zone for 1 1/2 hours and then were treated to cookies shaped like number 4s.  Jumping is one of Laney's favorite pastimes, and she adores Pump It Up.  Liam demanded that Sonia follow him around in the round ball pit/jumpy and was only content if she was chasing him, no sitting down allowed!

The party was sooooo easy to pull off.  The staff lays out all of the food and monitors behavior within the jump arena so all you really have to do is write the check.  They even provided a clipboard for writing down who gave what gift, bagged all of the gifts, cleaned up the party room, and schlepped all of the gifts to my car.  Too bad all birthday parties can't be like this!  {ie Mom's dream come true}

Liam and Anneliese had a ball chasing each other

Brodie was with us for the day, and the cousins had a great time running around together.

Laney divided her time between the mega-slide and completing the obstacle course with her friends.

The inflatable gift opening throne on the party room!

Laney turns 4 (Ladybug Party)

Laney turned 4 last week and we had a great time celebrating, multiple times.  I hosted a ladybug themed birthday party at our house for the family on Saturday.  The decorations were simple, but I think the whole thing turned out very well.  Red and black paper, red and black balloons, red and black crepe paper streamers, red and black plates and napkins, a few circular paper punches, prizes from Oriental Trading Co, and voila! Tres chic bug party :)

I actually made this, and it was DELICIOUS!  A major coup for me since everyone knows that I don't bake very well...

Made this garland with green felt and wooden ladybugs.  It will  hang in Laney's room after the party is over.

My $3 centerpieces looked precious.  Muchas gracias to the Dollar Tree and Oriental Trading Co.  

 

Gift bags for the kids

Laney really loves pinatas, so we ordered her a ladybug one and filled it with candy and prizes.  All of the kids had a great time hitting it, but none more so than Patrick who got to make the final blow!

 

I don't know what Liam was so mad about, but I bet it had something to do with candy...

Then I brought out a jar of live ladybugs for the kids to release into the garden.  I filled little cups with squirming red beetles and let the kids explore the fascinating world of bugs.  They all agreed that was their favorite part of the party.


 




We served vanilla cake with butter cream frosting, topped with little ladybugs made out of sugar.  Laney had me dye the cake batter blue.



Look, I finally make it into a few pictures!  What a great birthday party.

Happy birthday Buggy!  Can't believe you are already 4 :) 

Silly faces are our specialty!