Two

Just a couple things today.

Faux-Ian is somewhat newly two and entering that hilarious phase.  Here he is being a dinosaur this morning.

And here he is this evening.  I swear, the boy will make a great Daddy someday.

And because this was too funny not to share, here's a snippet from Faux-livia's day as well.


We went to McDonald's tonight. The toy on the drive-thru board was Puss in Boots, but what both children actually received was Strawberry Shortcake. Faux-livia was PISSED because, in her words "McDonald's lied to us." At bedtime she was still concerned "I *am* happy, but they just lied to us". Oh McDonalds, she may never forgive you.

Let's talk about Pinterest for a minute

In case you don't know, Pinterest is this super cool website/service/social network thingy that let's you take anything from the internet (or really anywhere, cause you can upload your own stuff) and "pin it" to various board you've created.  For instance, I have one entitled "Oh my dear lord drool" which contains lots of amazing looking recipes I want to try, and a few (yes FEW) pictures of my true love, Robert Pattinson.

It is the ULTIMATE time suck, even more so than Facebook.  But I feel like it's actually making me be a better stay-at-home-mom.  Here's why.  

Today, for roughly three hours, my tv-head kids and I did science and crafty DIY home tools.  We made "calm down bottles" as Faux-livia calls them.  Empty Fiji bottle, glitter, vegetable oil.  Fill the bottle with oil, dump the glitter in, glue in the threads inside the cap and screw it on voila.  When your little beat needs some time to "think over their choices" or "have a calm down" (that's what we do here most) they shake up the bottle and watch the glitter settle.  Faux-livia picked it up mid-tantrum tonight spontaneously.  WIN!  

We also did a BUNCH of messing around with baking soda, vinegar, water and food coloring.  It was awesome.  Oh, and we did most of it on our DIY light box/sensory table, which I also found the idea for...on Pinterest.  

I've actually made a board entitled "Saturday activities".  There's lots of fun, some educational some not, kid-friendly activities that the kids will get to pick from, selecting a few to do each Saturday.  Here's why.  

Faux-livia's Dad works most Saturday's and we generally chill around the house.  After all the educational, hands-on fun had been had and cleaned up I thought "Oh, they can watch something while I get dinner ready".  Biggest. Mistake. EVER.  WIthin minutes of the movie being turned off they go from the sweet, intelligent angels they were before and (generally) during viewing to the spawn of Satan the SECOND it's turned off.  Do anyone else's children do that?   One hit the other, then one was wearing the other's shoes, but ON THE WRONG FEET, scratching and pushing and sobbing ensued.  I was mixing ground beef for hamburger patties, and they both came over just screaming.  The younger one was attempting to shove me (with surprising strength) away from the counter for all he was worth.  The elder one was, I think, attempting to return to the comfort of the womb via my rear.  I, meanwhile, could not do much as my hands were covered in ground-beef grossness.  And then their Dad called and I was awful and yelled at him, and broke down sobbing when he got home because I felt so awful for being such a bitch. 

And that's why we won't be watching TV on Saturdays anymore.  But Pinterest is still the bomb.  

What sound does PPPPPPP make?

SO I woke up this morning in a foul mood. Really foul. One or another member of my family has been coughing, barfing, feverish or some such sicky thing for the last month. Straight. I have this new business venture that I'm crazy excited about, but the startup cost is freaking me out. It was a sleepless night for the whole household.

So I started off the day as what's known in this house as a potamus (short for crab-o-potamus). And then my sweet daughter climbed up on the couch, where I was having my pity party, and snuggled me. Then she said "I know sometimes it's hard Mommy" and caressed my cheek in that way only a four-year-old can, and I felt a ton better.

And since then the day has been great! She's been playing nicely with the baby. She GAVE him one of her old baby dolls, which he LOVES and we've named Bruce, after Nemo's shark friend. She let me do her hair all fancy in two little french braids, and then she made up a song about stinging bugs. The baby has been trying to sing along and it's utterly hilarious, since he doesn't talk yet at all.

Here's another gem of hers I have to share. Wednesday we were walking out to the car and I smelled...a smell. We got in the car and I inquired if she'd farted. She looked at me all sideways sneaky and said "Welllll, did you hear a noise?"

"No."

"Did you smell a stinky smell?"

" Yes!"

"Well, you didn't hear a noise, so I don't think I farted!"

Flinging Olivia - A stuffed pig and a ceiling fan

I have a four-year-old. She drives me crazy, with love and with exasperation, in fairly equal parts, on a daily basis. I'm sure I'm not alone in these feeling, as parenting a four-year-old goes. I also have a son, who I keep calling my baby, but in reality he's walking and babbling like a character in Lego Harry Potter, and at 1.5 I guess qualifies as a toddler.
Lately I've been noticing in my parenting that I seem to have some trouble noticing the forest for the trees, so to speak. I am infinitely blessed to be able to stay home with my kids, and they are healthy, sweet, happy, smart and, most of the time, generally well-behaved. Yet I keep getting stuck on the little things, the whining and the testing tantrums and the "But whyyyyyyyyyyyyy can't I have a cookie for breakfast???? But I WAAAAAAAAAANT one! AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaa!" and letting it ruin my whole day.

This evening at dinner the kids and I chatted and had a generally good time eating our frozen pizza. The four-year-old is a big fan of Olivia the pig from the books by Ian Falconer, tv show, etc. She loves it all. Really I do too. My favorite is the episode where Olivia decides she wants to be a mommy, names her baby brother, pets, and anything she can lay hands on Olivia 2, Olivia 3, etc all the way on up in her dream sequence through Little Olivia 37. Whenever the show is on I think the writers must be sneaking into my house and snatching material, so similar are my daughter and that sweet, precocious pig.

Anyway, my kids both got Olivia stuffed animals as stocking stuffers. My daughter got regular Olivia in her everyday dress, my son Olivia in green and yellow pajamas so I could pass him off as Ian, Olivia's kid brother, and thus avoid a freak-out about the baby "having a GIRL toy" perish the thought. My daughter thought it would be great fun, as the eating was winding down and she'd been excused, to take the pigs and fling them into the air. First she threw them just up in the air, sort of near our family room ceiling fan. I thought to myself that it was a fairly high fan, being on a vaulted ceiling, and there's no way she'd get the pig that high.

The next thing I knew, Olivia was being shot like a cannon towards the fireplace and hit it with surprising force about an inch from the flat-screen tv.

By that point in the day I was just too worn out for a big "Not something we do, expensive television, blah blah blah" lecture so I just made her move into the kitchen while I finished feeding her brother. A badminton racquet was brought into play. And she started laughing, and her brother started laughing. And laughing and laughing, it was great. They'd both be silent while she set up, she'd whack Olivia or Olivia towards the ceiling, and they'd just chortle with hysterical glee. It was awesome. It was the kind of moment you want to just savor, hold onto for when they're teenagers and dying their hair and hating you for existing and such. And I had this moment of clarity, that we actually have a lot of those moments, but for one reason or another, I tend to pass them by and focus on the negative. So this blog, which will hopefully be updated if not daily several times a week, will serve to remind me that there are great moments with the frustrating ones, that for every mini tantrum about needing help peeing or someone breathing on someone else, there are moments of unbridled sibling glee, and tiny stuff pigs flying joyfully through the air.