February 28, 2013

My Two Dogs

In a lot of ways, having a crawling baby is like having a dog. Violet chews on things she shouldn’t, gets into the trash and spends most of her time looking out the window at absolutely nothing. Often I find her and our real dog, Lumpy, side by side contemplating the same things. What is happening in the backyard? Nothing? Are you sure? Let’s stare some more just in case the wind makes a swing move!

Yesterday Violet was hanging out happily with Lumpy when I realized she was chewing on a rawhide.

The camera was right next to me, so I took a picture before I went to take it away. Before I could even get up from taking this picture, Lumpy took the rawhide right out of her mouth!

This was especially funny because Lumpy only cares about rawhide if another dog is eating it. We give it to him periodically and he will half-heartedly chew on the same piece for days. He doesn’t chow it down like some other dogs UNLESS another dog is in the vicinity. Then he doesn’t want to share. When the baby threatened his rawhide, he had to get to protect his property by eating it right up! He’ll play this rawhide game with any dog that’s around, why not the dog-like crawling baby?

After the dog took the rawhide from her, Violet repeatedly tried to get it back. Lumpy would let her take it right out of his paws or mouth and I would swoop in to take it back. I threw the bone behind the baby gate several times to end this insane cycle, but Lumpy somehow kept sneaking to the other side of the house and bringing the rawhide back to where he and the baby had been sitting.

I not only have two dogs/crawling babies. I have two dogs/crawling babies who are plotting against me together!

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February 26, 2013

“It’s Perfect for Her”– the Conundrum

Yesterday I was walking through Meijer when suddenly I saw something that was “perfect” for Rose.

I mean, how could I walk away from a hooded Cinderella towel considering how gigantic her Cinderella love is? We need new towels anyway and this towel just had “Rose” written all over it.

The trouble I had when I saw it was what to do about Lily. Do I have to get her a towel too? And which towel? There were other characters, but no other princesses. This towel was so obviously perfect for Rose’s Cinderella passion, but there is no such obsession in Lily’s life. In fact, Lily has no favorite anything. If you ask her what princess she likes the best, she will answer “all of them”. If you ask her her favorite color, she says “rainbow”. Who is her best friend at school? “Everyone.” It’s a wonderful personality trait of hers that she doesn’t play favorites, but it also makes it really hard sometimes. There is no perfect anything for Lily (aside from an $80 Lego kit she’s been eyeing).

When I see a blue dress or Cinderella anything, I want to buy it for Rose. There is nothing parallel to that that ever makes me discover a toy or outfit and think “OMG, Lily must have this.” when I had absolutely no plans to buy a treat that day. And I don’t know what to do with that.

It’s not fair for me to constantly come home with blue/Cinderella stuff for Rose, but never come home with stuff for Lily because nothing practically jumped off the shelf yelling “LILY MUST HAVE ME!” I mean, I understand that both kids don’t always have to get presents at once. Sometimes you find something for one kid but not the other and the kids have to get used to that. That’s part of life that they need to understand, but the way things are going Rose would get constant presents while Lily got nothing.

When I found the Cinderella towel, I just didn’t know what to do. An occasional treat for just one kid is to be expected, but every time the kids take a bath Lily would be reminded of any jealousy she might have feel over this towel. We could say “it’s just a towel”, but look at that thing! It’s awesome! I thought about coming home with one of the cheaper Lego kits as a token prize of my finding something perfect for Rose, but that seemed unfair. If my sister had a hooded towel that awesome, I’d probably want one too even if I usually preferred another type of toy.

I ended up coming home with nothing for Lily and explaining that she could have something of equal or lesser value if she wanted. I explained there were other characters she could choose from OR other toys. She immediately said she wanted the exact same towel as Rose. Phew!

Now that works for this time, but what will happen next time? Will I ever see something in a store and think “LILY!” right away? It just seems so unfair that all these perfect things exist for Rose, and Lily gets “treats” to make up for it. I wish I could find a way to fix this.

I hope that someday there is something “perfect” for Lily. Until then, I guess I’ll just do my best to keep the random gifts fair?

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February 25, 2013

The New Cinderella in Town

Rose lives, breathes and dies for Cinderella. Everything she does, wears, sings, says or plays all relates back to Cinderella. Occasionally she will express a split loyalty for another Disney princess, claiming that Merida or Rapunzel are her favorites, but it always comes back to Cinderella. I suppose for now this is a good thing. I just purchased 14 new/used warm-weather blue dresses. I’d hate for her to back out on Cinderella and her blue dress obsession NOW when I already have the wardrobe problem taken care of for the next 6 months. And yet there’s a new toddler idol in town. That idol goes by the name of Maria Von Trapp.

My husband has to be the world’s biggest heterosexual male fan of “The Sound of Music”. He owns two copies of the movie, two copies of the sheet music for piano and at least one copy of the movie cast soundtrack. I love the movie too, but he’s the devoted enthusiast in this house. Or at least he WAS. Now we have two little girls who are probably more obsessed with the movie than he is. Since we introduced the movie last month, they have watched it repeatedly and listened to the soundtrack non-stop. They constantly sing the music, especially Rose who somehow has known almost all the words to every song after only watching the movie once or twice.

Now Rose wanders around pretending she is Maria. She dances and sings and tells me that she’ll be Maria and I can be “the children” (which is an interesting feat).

While Cinderella is still No. 1 in her world, Maria is definitely challenging her dominance.

There may be a reason why this is happening so easily.

“Maria has yellow hair just like Cinderella! And the captain has black hair just like the prince! That’s why Cinderella marries the prince and Maria marries the captain.”– Rose

So, Maria may just be a substitute for Cinderella because Julie Andrews kind of sort of looks like Cinderella? Maria is just Cinderella in disguise? Maybe the children represent the mice and birds and the nuns are her stepfamily?

Hmmmm… I wonder how she’d feel about Mary Poppins?

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February 20, 2013

It’s 3 am I must be lonely

There is a war on sleep at our house this week. Nobody wants me to sleep. NOBODY. Everybody has a reason why I should wake up at 3 am FOR THE DAY. It’s a conspiracy and I’m convinced that I may never sleep again.

I forget what happened Saturday and Sunday, but I’m fairly certain that the kids did stuff that led to me not getting a ton of sleep then. All the stuff happened at 3 am. That’s when all stuff has to happen. A night can’t go by this week without my having the privilege of seeing the clock say 3:30 am. The last few nights were particularly evil. Are my children evil? Why this streak of bad luck? Why? They usually sleep so well.

The worst of it started early Monday morning and was partially my fault. I stayed up too late and then had trouble falling asleep because my allergies and old lady shoulders were both being stupid. Anyway, I fell asleep at 1 am, which could have given me 5-6 hours of sleep in a perfect world. Naturally the baby woke up for a half hour at 2 am. She never wakes up at night, so she of course chooses the best night ever to do it. Why not do it on a night when I go to bed at 10 or 11? That would just be silly.

In my experience, men are deaf to children at night. I have a lot of mom friends who agree. I’m usually the only person who hears children wake up in this house. I usually have to beat up my husband to wake him up if I need him to take over. So imagine my surprise when at 3 am I woke up to find him already tending to Lily’s lower GI disaster. I must have been completely out of it when she came in our room for help.

Since I can catch naps during the day and my husband is usually out of the house for work before 7 am, I took over with Lily even though I’d only had 1.5 non-consecutive hours of sleep. I was with her from 3-6 am as she went back and forth to the bathroom. I cat napped on the couch while she watched movies.

Of course, the second she went back to bed the baby woke up for the day.

Three’o'clock Tuesday morning had me up with teething baby. At the same time the baby woke up, Lily, whose tummy was back to normal, woke up with a bloody nose. My husband came to the rescue because I was already dealing with the baby. Dr. Toy Warden has been doing a ton of clean-up this week and is totally my hero (but he has gotten a lot more sleep than I have).

I actually got some consecutive hours of sleep in my bed after that, but woke up to Rose throwing up and another fun-filled day tied to the house. THANKS, KIDS.

I stayed up too late again that night. How? Why? Stupid. I assumed we were back on track because Rose had been cheerful and bright most of the day.

WRONG.

Three am again. Why is it always 3 am? WHY? She threw up all over her bed (and saintly Dr. Toy Warden cleaned it up while I cleaned HER up). I spent the rest of the night AND day with her watching movies and never got to go back to bed. The baby again got up at 6. I got less than 3 hours of sleep. Again.

Why? Why does it always all have to happen in one week? Why can’t it just be ONE 3 am night? Why does it have to be three or four in a row? I know we are usually very lucky with sleep considering we have three small children, one of which is an infant, but STILL. It’s totally unfair.

And with that, I should go to bed before someone throws up, has a bloody nose, gets hungry or has diarrhea at 3 am again. I have high hopes that our bout of GI issues has ended, but there are still three people in this house who haven’t been sick yet. Doom.

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February 19, 2013

A Surprise in the Litter Box

I’ve written before about my mom’s latest in a long line of animal obsessions: Her pet pig Wuzzle.

When you have a pig that lives in the house, you usually have a litter box for that pig. Wuzzle prefers to hold it and do most of his business outside, but she keeps the litter box inside for Wuzzle just in case he has to go potty while she’s not home. Wuzzle usually used the box about once a week. Suddenly, my mom noticed Wuzzle was using the box every day. She actually got a little worried about him. Why was Wuzzle suddenly using the box so frequently? Did he have a bladder infection? Was it pig diabetes? What was happening?

Then one day my mom walked into the “pig’s room” and found her dog in the litter box. Peeing. Her Australian shepherd Dusty had been watching the pig use the litter box and decided she wanted to get in on the action too!

The dog has apparently been using the pig litter for a while. All those extra litter box presents were probably from the dog and not the pig!

The dog was really embarrassed to be caught in the act. Really, she should be praised! I mean, that certainly makes some parts of life with a dog easier… but others harder. Who wants to change the litter box of a 50 pound dog?

What I’m confused about is why it took a pig to convince the dog to use a litter box. She’s been living in a house with cats her whole life.

By the way, the “pig’s room”? It’s my childhood bedroom. That’s right, my childhood bedroom is where a pig lives now. I feel really special and loved and… piggy.

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February 17, 2013

The High Pitched Squeak

What is it about playing with dolls that makes everybody’s voice go up an octave? Whenever my kids are making dolls talk, their already high voices go up another octave. I can’t even make out what they are saying because they are speaking at a frequency only dogs can hear.

I don’t know if this came naturally to them, or if it is something I taught them. Whenever I play with a doll, I tend to give that doll a voice that’s not my own and that voice is typically higher than mine to make it more girly even though I’m already a girl. Why do I do this? I don’t know. It just seems like talking that way should make it more apparent that I am not the one talking– the doll is. Is that why they do it?

Rose is particularly persistent about the high-pitched role-playing voice. Her voice hits the ceiling as she makes all the Cinderellas she owns talk about going to the ball. Various princesses all fight with each other in high-pitched voices about whom is going to the ball first. Cinderella usually wins. Or maybe not. It’s really hard to understand her in her make-believe voice even though her regular 3 year old pronunciation is generally very good as long as it’s not time to order grilled cheese (or “goo-wed chee”).

I just wonder where the high-pitched doll voice started. Do I do it because my mother did it with me? Or are all little girls naturally inclined to make their dolls talk even girly than they themselves already do? It’s hard to say, but I hope that one day they get good enough at their doll voices that I can actually make out what’s happening in their doll plotlines.

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February 13, 2013

The Birthday Party

My mom had an amazing birthday party this year, only she didn’t get to attend it in person. Her Little People counterpart attended in her place. When Lily and Rose realized it was their grandmother’s birthday, they immediately set up a birthday party with their Little People dolls. I haven’t discussed this in a while, but every single member of our extended family has a Little People counterpart (The pictures in the post I just linked to have disappeared. Trying to figure out what happened and get it fixed.). They all live in strategically placed “houses” (decorated plastic boxes) around the playroom. My mom’s tiny plastic figurine is from a MegaBloks stable set and is forever in her horseback riding habit, which is pretty accurate actually.

All of the Little People came to the birthday party. They mostly stayed segregated by family or type, but they were all there to wish my mom a happy birthday. My mom’s birthday party was attended by all of the Disney princesses and many of the princes. Even our duplicate princess Little People were in attendance. They all sang and danced and ate cake, repeatedly wishing my mother a happy birthday.

I wish tiny plastic princesses came to MY birthday party.

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February 11, 2013

Strength

Lily: Look at this picture!

*Shows me a picture of Ramona holding her baby sister.*

Lily: She’s holding her baby sister!

Me: Yes, just like you hold Violet sometimes.

Lily: No, Mommy, look. She’s holding her up in the air! She’s not sitting, she’s standing! And Ramona is 4 years old! I’m 5 years old!

Me: Actually, Ramona is 9 years old in this book. She was 4 years old in “Beezus and Ramona”, but she’s 9 years old here. Remember how she’s 8 in “Ramona Quimby, Age 8″? She’s older in every book.

Lily: Oh. So maybe if I were 9 I could carry Violet?

I guess Lily really wants to hold Violet up in the air and carry her somewhere. Unfortunately, at 34 pounds Lily just doesn’t have enough strength for me to trust her to carry around her 17+ pound baby sister. Maybe if she were a bigger, sturdier 5 year old I would feel a little differently.

I WISH she could safely lift and carry Violet. It would certainly make my life easier sometimes.

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February 10, 2013

Toy WTF: The New Lite Brite

WTF is up with Lite Brite these days? My girls got one for Hanukkah and we were really excited about it. I last played with Lite Brite when I was a kid in the 1980s. I haven’t seen one since. Needless to say there have been some changes. It’s kind of like the old Lite Brite was a tube tv (which we still happen to have at our house because we are THAT cool). It had some depth with actual visible light bulbs behind a black plastic perforated panel. It stood up in a triangle and you had to plug it in to get it to work.

The new Lite Brite has basically been updated from a tube tv to an iPad. It’s compact and flat with an LED light inside it. It’s battery operated so you don’t have to plug it in. It even has a little tray attached for the bulbs, which I’m pretty sure my previous Lite Brite didn’t have. All of that is fine and dandy. I would love the new Lite Brite except for one thing: It takes an Olympic Champion Weight Lifter to take the damn light bulbs out of the screen after you make a picture.

Do you see how some of the bulbs are missing? Those are the only ones we could get out this time. Must conserve finger muscle energy to try again.

When I was a kid, the little light bulbs fell out easily. Sometimes if you breathed wrong a light bulb would shoot out of it. I guess that was annoying, but at least you could remove them. Now my kids come whining to me after every creation asking me to help them take the bulbs out. I pull and pull until my thumbs ache. The stupid bulbs are almost impossible to remove. When they finally pop out, they often fly across the room and land in the baby’s mouth. If they don’t land in the baby’s mouth, they either poke an eye out or land somewhere where you can’t find them until the baby crawls up and puts them in her mouth.

I mean, I know it’s a choking hazard, but STILL. It’s impossible to regulate the bulbs to the no-baby areas when I have to remove the bulbs myself every 5 seconds. For an hour. Because it’s SO HARD to remove those bulbs that it takes FOREVER.

What on earth made Lite Brite decide to make the bulbs fit so tightly? While it’s true the bulbs could have fit in better when I was a kid, this is absolute overkill. Children are supposed to be able to work the Lite Brite by themselves, but both my husband and I struggle to remove the bulbs. We’re gym-going adults! There’s no reason for these things to be bolted to the Lite Brite. I just don’t get it. WTF, Lite Brite? WTF?

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February 5, 2013

Nothing but Trouble

What is it about off-limit areas that is so attractive to babies? Violet has been on the move for a while, but this past week she finally graduated from creeping to crawling. Now that she can get places faster, she is determined to go places she doesn’t belong.

We have a gazillion baby toys set up for her in the living room, yet every time we put her down she heads to the kitchen.

I don’t know why she wants to be in there so badly. The tile has to be rough on her knees. I’m behind on mopping, so it’s not exactly the cleanest crawling area. There are no toys in there. Yet the kitchen is so much more desirable than the living room. I mean, there’s dog water to splash AND a sliding glass door to stare out. Who needs a trillion brightly colored plastic toys when you can go in the wonderland that is our dirty barren kitchen?

What’s frustrating is that there’s no way to stop her. We have at least a 10 foot open gap between the living room and the kitchen, so a baby gate isn’t going to work. We’ll all be sitting in the living room and she takes off. It doesn’t matter if you are actively playing with her. To the kitchen it is!

I wish I loved anything as much as she loved crawling to the kitchen and making us all chase her and bring her back. God, you forget how much serious work babies are even when you HAVE a baby until you have a crawling, solids-eating AND nursing baby in your house. Constant work these days. CONSTANT.

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