Grandma vs. Disneyland

Last year my parents went to the funeral of an old family friend. My dad remembers her doing all kinds of things from being the den mother for scouts to being the bus driver for school. She was quite a character. When they got home from the funeral, my mom threw her hands in the air and said, "I give up. She wins. She is the world's best grandma." She then told some of the funny memories people shared at the funeral about this lady, all the fun things she did for kids and grand kids.  One of the most notable stories was when one of her kids were taking their family to Disneyland. Their youngest was a little young to really enjoy all the features of Disneyland, I guess, so they decided to drop the baby off to stay with Grandma while they were on vacation. As the family was getting ready to leave Grandma's house to go to the greatest place on earth, the next youngest sibling got really upset and whined, "Why do I have to go to Disneyland? Why can't I stay at Grandma's house?"

My kids don't even know Disneyland exists. We'll see how long that lasts. For now, I think they get as much thrill out of Grandma's house as they could from Disneyland at this point. And here are just a few tips for Disneyland from one grandma's house:

Put light switches in reach of babies. Hours of entertainment. Charlie loves lights, practically jumps out of my arms every time we go past a light switch, trying to reach to turn it on and off. It was so nice to have on he could just play with by himself.

Provide princess tent beds. We recently discovered that Ellie sleeps better when she has her tent bed to shut out the outside world (we discovered this when we took down the little tent over her bed and she stopped sleeping through the night, staying up for hour and a half stretches in the middle of the night, etc.). With her tent bed, she seems to get a lot more sleep, so we go with it for now. My mom rigged up this little number so Ellie would feel at home while visiting. Worked like a charm (stayed in her bed until 6:55 a.m. most mornings), and Ellie loved it. 

The first night I tucked her in Ellie said, "I'm really glad I came . . . so glad." Then she started squirming around and crying out, "Ooh! Ouch! Ouchie! Oh, I hurt!" Alarmed, I asked her where she hurt. She responded, "Oh, no. There is a pea under my bed." We decided it would make it better if I "ate" the pea, and all was right in the world again. Quite the little princess, that one.

Of course, the main attraction would probably have to be cousins. A close second is popcorn and movie parties.

Hang in there, Baby Ian. Someday you can knock him down!

This is the only picture I have of these two cousins together. They were fascinated with each other, and especially with each other's pacifiers. They never tried to suck on the other's, but loved pulling each other's out, and (sometimes) trying to put it back in again.

The most important thing we learned, though, whether it's Grandma's house or Disneyland, is never, ever, EVER forget Blanket Dear or she will have to be shipped to you and you will be inventing stories for a couple of days about all the adventures Blanket Dear is on to try and comfort the distraught three-year-old in your life. It was a rough couple of days followed by a joyous reunion. They had lots of secrets to tell each other and don't part company much while at home these days.

Charlie's ABCs

This is Charlie's latest trick. Not bad for 16 months old. He likes to watch Super Why with Ellie and gets really excited whenever they sing or say the alphabet on the show. We noticed he was starting to recite letters, saying them when he was pretending to read books, trying to guess letters when the characters on the show would ask questions. Soon he started doing a string of several letters in order. Yesterday I thought he might like some alphabet flashcards, so I downloaded a free app on my phone with just the letters and someone saying the letter. You can't see it on the video, but he's not identifying the letter on the screen, he's telling me which letter comes next. The kid hardly talks yet, except for jabbering and occasionally giving us a word here and there, he was slow to walk, and still fights the sippy cup, but he knows the alphabet. We'll take it.

(He almost always skips E and N, and consistently pronounces W that way, and kind of pronounces G, H, and J like Daffy Duck, but come on, he's a baby. He also skips 7 when counting. Also, Brady cut the video off before Charlie started clapping. He loves clapping for himself.)

Easter ties are for the birds

As Easter approached I raided my stock of consignment finds to see how my children's springtime wardrobe was faring. Not great, but I did rummage up this little number, which I thought would do nicely for Ellie for an Easter dress if the weather was nice enough (it was; we reached 60 degrees even).



But poor Charlie. Still at an age where he outgrows his wardrobe every couple of months, and so big I don't dare buy too far ahead for him since he might just outgrow it before it't the right season to wear it anyway.



Determined not to leave him out, but realizing I had nothing Easter-y for him, I decided to make him some ties. I made this one first because I knew I would take pictures of it, and I knew that one day he would see these pictures and ask, "Why in the world did you put a mustard-colored with teal polka dots  tie on me when I was a baby?" The more conservative striped pattern just won't have that effect, and everybody needs to have that experience of being dressed in something that's a little trendy as a baby, but totally ridiculous when you're a teenager.





While I was working on it last night, I was listening to Wives and Daughters, by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. (The novel is about 800 pages long, and I have to have it finished for my book club by April 9th.) The characters were talking about preparations for an Easter ball and how they all needed to have some new article of clothing to wear (preferably a bonnet or dress, but worse case gloves or a handkerchief--at least something that would show) or else they would be in ill favor with the birds. ?!?!? I know. I had to back that one up too. I was re-threading a bobbin at the time, so wasn't sure I heard that right.

I looked it up later. This is what Wikipedia taught me. If you didn't have new homespun at Easter, then moths and crickets would eat your old things, and rooks would nest around your home. Then there's the old Irish saying, "For Christmas, food and drink; for Easter, new clothes." Not super catchy, is it? Maybe it sounds better in Gaelic. And then there's the 15th-century proverb from Poor Robin's Almanack [sic] (yep, Ben Franklin didn't think up Poor Richard's all by himself), "At Easter let your clothes be new,/ Or else be sure you will it rue." Kind of some verbal gymnastics just to get to rhyme scheme right; could have just said it's bad luck not to wear something new on Easter.



So, turns out all this hoopla about Easter finery is based in old European superstition (I'd like to see some department stores set their Easter marketing campaigns based on this). But really, what of our silly traditions aren't really pagan or superstition anyway? The date for Easter itself is determined not by any religious calendar. It is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.  I think it's time we just picked a day and settled it. Worked for Christmas. Second Sunday in April. Every year. Done.

At any rate, Charlie didn't seem too thrilled with all the evil rooks I was warding off for him and all the good luck I was getting for him this coming year. Not to mention all the homespun goods of his that I saved from crickets. Or, at least, he wasn't too happy about getting his picture taken.

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!