Heads or Tails or Tummies

Ellie has been fascinated with coins ever since she saw her cousin Tommy carrying some around all during Christmas vacation. She thinks every coin she she sees around the house is actually his and is always asking if she can play with them. Today while I was getting ready in the bathroom, this is the conversation I overheard in the bedroom, where Ellie had found some coins and Brady finally agreed to let her play with them.

Brady: Here, let me show you a game. See this side? This is called "heads" because it has a head on it. So this side is called "tails." So when I throw it in the air, you guess which side will land up by saying "heads" or "tails."

Ellie: No, I want it.

Brady: Just a minute. First you have to guess. Say "heads" or "tails."

Ellie: Heads or tails. [who didn't see that one coming?]

Brady: No, you have to pick one. Say "heads," or say "tails."

Ellie: No, I'm gonna pick tummies.

Brady: No, look. There aren't any tummies on the coin. Just heads or tails. See? I'm going to toss it and guess heads. Look--I was right.

Ellie: Now I'm going to teach you a game. It's called "Krauger aaannd . . . Snails."

At this point I had to rush off to choir practice, but I'm willing to bet that Krauger and Snails is a lot like Head and Tails, only with Ellie throwing all the coins but still getting to keep them all in the end, no matter how they land. We've already decided she's coming with us to negotiate terms when we're ready to buy our next car.

And sometimes it takes 30 minutes just to change the sheets

Which isn't so bad when you consider that also includes making a ship for space pirates' travel and a cave for hiding from dragons.

The Inadvertent (Intermittent?) Housekeeper

This is Ellie playing with her new "telescope." About a month ago I caught her walking out of the kitchen with a mostly full roll of paper towels. I stopped her and told her that those were for cleaning, not playing. She turned back, looked at me and said, "Sorry about this, Mommy. I'm so, so sorry about this, Mommy," and then continued walking out. Wait--what? I stopped her again and told her she could have one paper towel to play with and promised her the telescope inside once the roll was empty. She just now finally got her telescope. Does it seriously take me that long to go through a roll of paper towels? Part of me would like to think it's because I'm so environmentally conscious, but another part of me suspects I just don't really clean the windows or mirrors enough, let alone other messes around the house.

Don't be alarmed. The house is sanitary enough. I'm no fanatic, but I have my limits on what I will tolerate. I try to keep order, and get a good routine going for a while, and then my back goes out, or we all get sick and the routine goes out the window and we go into survival mode. I find an orderly house comforting, a broad expanse of newly vacuumed carpet soothing, a kitchen with all the dishes put away relaxing, and a tidy bathroom is so pleasant. But I also know my limits of health and energy and kids the ages mine are. So we do our best. 

I mean well, with a list of to-do's every day. Sometimes I feel bad for not getting to everything on the list, until I realize just how much I actually do get done every day, just not the things on the list. Who plans to scrub a 15-month-old's scribbles off the walls, or sop up the spilled liquid hand soap-turned-skating-rink on the bathroom floor (the three-year-old's ingenious idea) when they get up in the morning? Or who can forget this lovely spill? One time while I was scooping up a pile of Cheerios that Ellie had spilled all over the living room floor, the thought actually crossed my mind to just leave it there since Charlie seems to prefer to eat things off the floor than off his plate. Maybe I'll just sprinkle green vegetables behind me as I vacuum next time.

Someday my house will be perpetually tidy. People will drop by unannounced and it will look like I was just sitting there waiting for them to come over and inspect. In the meantime, I will start the day with a blank to-do list and fill it in as I go and see just how much housekeeping I actually get done during a day, rather than how much I don't get done. That or get the kids to only spill Cheerios on the floor on Mondays and Thursdays when I plan to vacuum, spill juice in the kitchen on Saturday when I was going to mop anyway, and save wetting the bed for laundry day. (Oh, who am I kidding? Every day is laundry day.)

A Post about Charlie

I realize that lately a lot of my posts have been a little Ellie heavy. She talks so much and has so many antics (that's what I call them when I'm in a good mood and she's safely tucked away in bed--just antics) to report on. I don't want Charlie to be overlooked in our family's history, though. It's not that we aren't completely enamored and charmed every day by this little guy. He is quite difficult to catch with the camera, though. 

I have finally gotten videos to successfully upload to the computer, but now the editing software isn't working so great. And, really, you do want these videos edited down. I have quite the sequence of patty-cake footage, but I had to take quite a bit to get it all. He's the only baby I've ever known who will actually do the motions when you say "roll it and roll it," and also "throw it in the oven!" Several weeks ago I had him out in the foyer during Relief Society (we're on the 1:30-4:30 block and he was restless) and he did the whole sequence about 12 times in a row with me just whispering it in his ear. Sometimes he will just clap and roll his arms while he walks around like he's leading his own conga line. But, boy, whip out any kind of recording device and the kid could not care less to perform. He doesn't do it on command anymore. The same thing happened with Ellie's Cab Calloway impression. It's sad when kids outgrow these things.

So, anyway. I have really been feeling like I just needed to get some memories of Charlie recorded. I did my best to get some (blurry) pictures of him walking around. Plus, I almost can't stand how cute he looks in his Sunday clothes here (sorry to gush). [Good photographers, pay not attention to how not good I am at capturing these kids in good lighting or while in motion. Someday. For now, I just want to get it done.] 

Charlie is getting good at figuring out just how useful Ellie can be, and even communicating what he wants sometimes, even though he has quite the limited vocabulary (here he's gotten her to get his favorite stuffed animals out of his crib for him). I'm not sure how many words Charlie has down yet. His first words were "hi," "yes," "yay," and "dance," which I think says something about him. He's a pretty good mimic of tone and inflection, so he tries to say what we say sometimes. When I count for Ellie to go "hide" in a game of hide-and-seek, Charlie echoes me in nonsense words, but matches the tone length of syllables to sound like he's counting: ooonnee . . . twwooo . . . threee . . . Surprisingly, he seems to actually understand "no" a lot of the time. We didn't know kids could do that! After I pull his hand away from something I'm trying to do and say "no," several times, he in turn pulls my hand away and tells me, "no!" And sometimes even pats the lid of the garbage can and chants "no-no-no." (Sometimes I still have to steer him away, but come on, for 15 months, not bad.)

 He can charm anyone with his smile. Really, he knows how to melt you.

He loves to walk around carrying two things. These two stuffed animals are his favorites to carry, but he always likes to have something, and he thinks it is so funny to do this. He will shake them, toss them in front of him, pick them up again, crack up, and keep doing it. Walking is so funny to him. The lion was a Christmas present from Ellie. I encouraged her to pick something with shaggy hair in hopes of getting him to start pulling its hair instead of mine. This kid pulls hair worse than any other baby I have ever met. So. Hard. (And before anyone tells me I should cut off all my hair, it wouldn't make a difference because he pulls at the root, not the ends. He pulls Brady's hair just as bad as mine. It's getting better, though. Maybe the lion is working.)

The last time he really yanked my hair, I was on the floor with a heating pad for my back (not a good place with these kids). He walked up carrying one of Ellie's dolls, sat down right next to my head, and said, "Bay-bee," over and over again. I smiled and said, "Yeah, Charlie! Baby." We went back and forth like this a couple times. I turned my head to say something to a friend who was over, and Charlie grabbed and fistful of hair, whipped my head around, and insisted, "Bay-BEE!" Oh. I guess we weren't done talking about that yet. I think he was really happy to actually be communicating about something with me.

He really is a pretty mellow kid most of the time, plays well on his own, will get totally absorbed in something for long stretches. But then cry like his heart is broken when Ellie takes a toy from him, or you have to take something away from him that he's not supposed to be playing with.

He lets us know when he needs attention, though. Recently he took my hand and led me to his room. Didn't beg me to pick him up or anything, just quietly led me through the house to his door. Reached for the knob and jiggled it (he is already dangerously close to opening doors!) to get me to open it, then led me into his room. He was just so sweet about it. Then he found his bear and lion and started doing his little game of walking, shaking them, tossing them, for several laps. He just wanted me in there while he played. He did the same thing with some toy cars and a few books, cracked up laughing when I tried to catch him to read the books to him, but just kept playing.  He picked up the bear and lion and put them in the rocking chair and tried to rock the chair (though mostly he was the one who moved back and forth). When I said, "Oh, rock-a-bye," Charlie repeated, "bop-bye, bop-bye." Then he went and got two toy cars and set them in the rocker, "bop-bye, bop-bye." I'm not sure what age kids start to play pretend, and he probably got this from watching Ellie play with her "guys," but next he picked the cars up to face each other, and bounced them like they were walking along the seat of the chair and kept saying, "Hi! Hi! Hi!"

(Occasionally he will carry this bear around by its nose like this.) The whole world is such an exciting place of discovery right now for Charlie. I love how he looks to us when he sees something new, as if to say, "Do you see this?!" I love reading books with him, just to watch what pages he'll turn back to and study when we're done. During Sacrament meeting he'll turn pages back and forth through the hymnbook like a frantic scholar trying to cross reference with the board books sitting next to him on the bench. He gets so intent, so focused and driven about things like sorting blocks or books to put away on (or take off of) the shelf, and then get deliriously excited over two random toys he finds on the ground that he can carry over his head like a trophy. I look forward to seeing where this passion and drive takes him in life.

P.S. Sorry for the long, oddly nostalgic post. Not sure where that all came from. Sometimes I write with my parents as the audience in mind, who I know go through Ellie and Charlie withdrawals at times and are likely the only ones who will actually read all the way to the end here. Hi guys!

This post was supposed to go up nearly three weeks ago. But nearly three weeks ago I threw my back out. Bad. So I haven't been doing much other than "rest-es" for my back, as Ellie says. Every time I get back from the physical therapist Ellie is convinced that the doctor got me all better. She thinks doctors can fix anything from hangnails to televisions that won't turn on when the power is out (which is what we were dealing with on day one of my back catastrophe). She has a lot of faith in the medical profession.

Needless to say, the kids haven't been loving this. None of us do, really. It's slowly getting better, I think, and I have resumed some basic level of activity, counter height and above. Problem is that the kids are not counter height (well, except when Ellie climbs, which is actually a lot, but is also another problem). The PT also gave me a "back grace" [brace] to wear sometimes when I need to lift Charlie or do some cleaning and I think it helps. Ellie also fashions different back graces and has to rest her back quite a bit these days too. She has it rough.

This all came just a couple weeks after I started things to take better care of my back, like being smarter about how I clean, doing some stretches I learned in physical therapy before, etc. This seems like really bad back karma. Somewhere someone is out there not lifting with their knees, not doing transverse abdominal work, not stretching their hip flexors, and totally getting away with it.

Anyway, onto the real intent of my post. I just wanted to finally get a few last Christmas pictures up before January is over. I set that as my deadline. Ellie still isn't over Christmas; she regularly wears her Christmas jammies (both kids do, actually), still asks if we can get decorations back out, and builds Christmas "trees" out of her blocks and blankets. Occasionally she will ask me to help her write a letter to Santa, but it's just that--literally a letter: sometimes E, sometimes S, she really likes O. But I think it's time I just dump all these pictures and we close this chapter and I get to blogging about other things.

 We watched a lot a Christmas movies during Charlie's naps. Ellie fell asleep during a lot of them. In awkward places. This is a bed she made for herself in her toy box.

 Lots of fun Christmas parties. After driving three hours to attend this family party/reunion for Brady's dad's family, Ellie was elated to meet up with her cousin/partner in crime Phoebe.

 The centerpieces for the tables were handfuls of candy. Once the candy on our table was gone, the girls moved to a vacant table and made themselves at home. And made a mess.

They sat there by themselves for lunch.

And hid and spied.

 And played "mamnets" [magnets] at Aunt Kathy's house after the party.

 Building a snowman. Ellie loved Aunt Kathy's house. She "went snowing" with Uncle Booga and Phoebe, she introduced Aunt Kathy to They Might Be Giants' "Here Come the ABCs" (they're both huge fans), and had so many goodies. She's dying to go back.

Picking out treats to take home. And Charlie, our good little sleeper, slept through the whole visit. He will be as big of and Aunt Kathy fan as we all are by our next visit, I'm sure.

 We went to visit my family and  continued the festivities. I went to the Nutcracker ballet with my parents, nieces, and sisters.

 And did not get great pictures. We also celebrated my parents' 40th wedding anniversary with a temple trip and dinner at a nice restaurant. I didn't get any good pictures of them at the party. They were always holding one grandbaby or another, playing with the grandkids, which is typical of how they celebrate.

 We had a good Christmas carol cousin jam session on Christmas Eve.

Flowers Ellie got from Aunt Renee ('Nee-'nee flowers), which she insisted on sleeping in on Christmas Eve.

 Christmas morning. Finally a picture of Charlie (to be fair, this kid does sleep a lot of the time. Also, I have loads of videos of him that for some reason are not transferring well since we got Windows 8, so I will work on that. He started walking just before Christmas, which he thinks is the most hilarious thing he ever did, so he walks around carrying things over his head and just cracking up. We really love this boy.) This is one of my favorite presents we got Charlie. His own remote.

 We got Ellie some pots and pans, in hopes that she would leave our kitchen stuff alone. Ha! (And you can see how the flowers fared overnight. Not bad.)

 Charlie's door toy. Lots of little doors to open and close. This kid is fascinated with doors. He can't stand to see a door open that could be shut.

And the table and chairs. Again, hoping to prevent Ellie dumping her entire toy box and commandeering all the throw pillows to make her own table and chairs. Doesn't prevent that, but they do love to play with this set too. As you can see, a very busy, very IKEA, very merry Christmas.

No Love for Santa

We don't play up the whole Santa thing too much with the kids. We'll see how that goes as they get older. We have a lot of fun traditions for them at Christmas, and we don't outlaw Santa by any means, but we just like to hit some of the more important elements of the holiday. So we don't go way out of our way for Santa. But on campus they were having a Santa come for families to visit. It seemed like a good, get-in-the-spirit-of-things family activity, convenient, and free pictures and cookies. So why not?

Turns out our kids are not comfortable sitting on and conversing with a strange old man, even if he looks like Santa. And it turns out, I'm kind of okay with that.

Ellie was a little wary, just watching from a distance.

Charlie was none too happy (and may have thought something smelled fishy about some old man just giving stuff away to strangers).

 So hesitant.

 So Brady and I had to be in the shot too. Charlie still can't figure this guy out. And Ellie agreed to daintily fold her hands, but notice how she's trying to squirm off my lap?

 But the candy cane made it all worth it. And apparently it is the most amazing candy cane I had ever seen (trying to keep some enthusiasm up for Ellie). Lesson learned. No more Santa visits.

We went to an extended family party that had a Santa too (no pictures of this one--not that I have anyway). All the kids who sat on his lap got a little glass (yes, glass!) ornament filled with white glitter that Ellie sooo wanted. She thought it was a snow globe. She finally approached Santa with me, and then the Santa made ME sit on his lap and hold Ellie. It was awkward. I see why she doesn't like it. She wouldn't talk to him either. So he kept asking her questions. He asked her, "Do you want a doll for Christmas?" I wanted to give him a swift elbow jab. Are you kidding me? A doll was not in the plans this year. Santa shouldn't plant ideas. Finally, through gritted teeth, Ellie said, "I want a snow globe." How convenient. She got her ornament and ran off. Atta girl.

A little while later Ellie's preschool had a Christmas party and all the mom's had a different activity for the kids. One of the moms did photos with silly hats. She had a Santa hat and a paper Santa beard for the kids to wear. Ellie really liked the beard, but she refused to wear the hat. She really, really liked the reindeer antlers.

This kid really has a thing against Santa.

Finally, we got the perfect activity. We had taken the kids out for ice cream and our favorite spot was closed, so we stopped at a frozen custard shop near a park on the other side of town. A nice lady asked if we knew about the activity at the carousel at the park that very night. Santa would be there and they were offering free rides on the carousel. Ellie had been asking to go on the Merry-go-round since we took her on it once last summer, but it is closed all winter. So we headed across the street, skirted around Santa, hopped on the carousel and couldn't have had a better family outing if we'd planned it.

Both kids absolutely loved it.

 Look at that face. The magic and thrill on her face of not being forced to sit and converse with Santa. You just can't manufacture that.

Belated

Bet your Nativity set didn't come with Pluto, Pongo, or a "Yodelin' Cowgirl."

That's what Ellie calls herself when she wears that hat. Not Jesse. Yodelin' Cowgirl. I managed to keep things out of Charlie's reach this year, but I couldn't keep Ellie away. Casualties so far are one sheep and one angel wing. When I found the broken pieces and asked Ellie about about it, she sounded a bit panicked and said, "But I can say 'sorry!' The doctor can fix it!" She still apologizes every once in a while for it. Nothing a little super glue can't fix.

I have a serious backlog of blogging material. The holidays were great, but we were all sick and are just now  really recovering from our ear aches/sinus infections/coughs. So I didn't get around to chronicling everything in the moment. And lately Brady has wanted to work from home while he still has the chance and has been using the computer a lot.

I just might go back sometime and post a few holiday pictures, since I am terrible at any other form of record keeping and someday my kids might appreciate seeing the pictures. If you few readers will indulge me. Not very zen of me to look back, but aren't we supposed to try to keep the Christmas spirit all year long? In case I don't get around to it, though, this counts as this year's and maybe next year's Christmas card. Hope everyone had a lovely time.