Night Visits and High-Stepping

I haven't mentioned Evelyn for a while it seems. She's such a sweet, quiet girl--who's learning to walk!! She hasn't gone solo yet, but she's been cruising around furniture and walks across the room using a push-toy. When she's not walking, she does this crazy "spider crawl" with her cute little bottom up in the air.

Lydia is on to new craziness this week. We just moved her to her "big girl bed," and boy, do I miss the crib already. I never realized how the crib contained her so well!!! It now takes two or three tries to get her to stay in bed. She goes to bed at her normal time just fine, but about 45 minutes later she gets out of bed and comes to find us. We put her right back in bed--plus a few extra toy passengers. Then around 3:00-4:00 AM she wakes up and goes exploring AGAIN. She doesn't come to find us; she finds her toys and starts playing. I don't know how long she plays, but I eventually hear her and wake up--and put her back to bed. Again. Then she finally gets up for the day at 6:30-7:00 AM and comes to our room to wake us up. I have a feeling she's probably been waking up at these times all along, but she couldn't escape her crib and would play there and eventually go back to sleep. Ughhh...I am so tired...I know she needs to grow up and learn independence, but I sure do miss the crib!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Lydia!!

It seems so hard to believe that three years ago today (at 3:28 AM, actually!) I became a mother to sweet, little Lydia. She weighed in at 6 pounds, 12 ounces and was 19 1/4" long.
I've been looking back at those first pictures of her--she was so tiny and delicate. Now Lydia's about 24 pounds and almost 36" tall! I know she's not very big for most three-year-olds, but she's a big girl to me! It's amazing how much they change in those first three years... Lydia's gone from being totally dependent on me to being so very, very independent (with occasional pit stops of dependency.)

As it seems with most kids I know, we're having several birthday parties...so, in between a grandparent's birthday party yesterday and a big family birthday party (with cousins Griffin and Lila who also have birthdays!) next weekend, she's spending her day today doing whatever she wants. You know what she wanted?? To go to the fish store with her Daddy! Lydia LOVES going to the fish store and today she's taking pictures! Yep--we gave her her very own kids digital camera. She's already taken about 200 pictures with it--see below for some of Lydia's first pics--and some pics of her party yesterday...

She's very serious about unwrapping...

Evelyn's thinking: "Hmmm...she's not looking, I'll just scoot over and start playing with this toy..."

Lydia loves her new camera...

"Say cheese!!!" has been the phrase of the day...didn't she take a great pic of Granny?!

Lydia's picture of her birthday cake...notice the icing is gone...

Lydia's first artistic pic--her toes and mine!

Lydia's been taking pictures of EVERYTHING, including her toys...

and a picture of herself!

I seriously want to give my cat away!!!!

I just had to write (aka vent) about this. It's 9:00 PM, the girls are in bed, and Jer and I are enjoying a few minutes of relaxing on the couch with some mind-numbing television show. When I hear it. This little thump, thump, thumpity-thump.
"What in the world?" "What's that goofy cat doing now?" Yes, we knew it had to be the cat--we'd just heard him come inside through his cat door. I saw him at the door of our half-bathroom, almost guarding it, and I knew another critter was inside.
Jer grabbed his trusty critter-grabbing gloves (they're actually work gloves, but all they seem to do lately is grab critters) and went to investigate. He slipped into the bathroom and shut the door behind him--lest the critter escape and run amuck through the house. More thumps...a small crash...the sound of Jer grumbling...then he emerged with his hands carefully holding a little something.
"Come look, " Jer said and held up the cutest, softest, and likely most terrified little bunny-rabbit. He wanted to keep it, but I declined, so the little fella was released back into the wild.
We settled back down and both wondered, how did our fat, lazy cat catch a BUNNY? Seriously??? A bunny?? We've now had every kind of critter brought into this house by our cat: bats, birds, bunny, mole, chipmunks, field mice, snakes, and lizards. While we begrudgingly love the little fella, I think it's time we got rid of his cat door. Of course, then he'll probably go back to doing what prompted us to get the cat door in the first place: climb up on the roof outside our bedroom window and jump at the window in the middle of the night--meowing.
Sigh.... :)

Overwhelmed!

Mama C needs a break! I've fallen into the guilt-trap. And I hate the guilt-trap. You know what I'm talking about--you get asked to do something and even though you have NO desire to do whatever it is, you do it anyway because of guilt! Ughhh...so now I've got four classes worth of final exams, term papers, and projects to grade along with a bunch of stuff I said I'd do for various groups I belong to. So, I'm feeling overextended and overwhelmed. Well, actually, just complaining about it here made me feel better. Thanks for letting me vent...hmmm...maybe that's all Lydia's tantrums are about--just needing to vent when she's feeling overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by choices, rules, or just this big, confusing world around her...who knew I'd have such insight by complaining myself? : )

I'll write more when the semester is over...

Invasion of the Goo

It all started simply enough. Lydia asked me for a few juice treats (kind of like gummy bears, but made with fruit juice.) I gave her a few and off she went outside for a romp on this glorious spring day. Evelyn and I joined her on the deck, and we all enjoyed the warm sunshine for a while. Then it happened. Lydia cried out to me in that voice that told me I'd better check it out. Her hands were stuck together. She had laid a few of these gummy treats in the sun, played for a while, then went back for them. The treats had melted into this gelatinous muck that stuck like you wouldn't believe. I tried to pull her hands apart and pull off some of the goo only to get my own hands stuck in the goo. You would not believe the sticky power of this stuff! You could probably stick a person to the ceiling with this stuff it was so sticky. We slowly, stickily made our way to the kitchen door when we encountered our next problem: how to open the door without sticking to the door? Well, I now realize that I have outstanding chin-neck control because I managed to get the door open without my hands. We made our way over to the sink and the warm water would not get the stuff off. Nor would the giant squirts of Dawn liquid dish soap. I finally grabbed--and adhered to--some paper towels and using the warm water, soap, and paper towels and lots of elbow grease, I finally worked the goo off of our hands. Lydia and I both were laughing so hard and I chalked it up as a lesson not to leave those things out in the sun. But as I sit here writing these words, I'm left with the thought: what do these things do on our insides?!?!? Ewwww!!

Cat: Free to Good Home

I have a love-hate relationship with my cat, Bob. When he's being so nice and cuddly with me, keeping me warm on a cold night, I love him. When he's being so sweet with the girls, letting them pat him, pull on him, cover him with stickers (like in the picture,) or even dress him in hats and he never even bats a paw, I love him. Right now, though, I HATE HIM!!!

I know, how could I hate such a sweet kitty? Let me set the scene for you... It's 3:00 AM and all are quietly, blissfully snoozing in our quiet, dark house. Then I startle awake hearing some kitty-footsteps and a little squeaky-squeal. "Oh, great," I thought...thinking it was yet another mole or chipmunk that Bob had brought in--up two flights of stairs, no less--to our bedroom. Jeremy woke up, too, and we quietly laid there hoping Bob would just finish it so we wouldn't have another critter to catch ourselves and get rid of. So, we're lying there in the dark, practically holding our breathes, when something flutters by our heads.

Choking back a scream--at least the girls didn't wake through this commotion--we both sat bolt upright and realized some winged creature was in our room. We grabbed our glasses and turned on the lights and a cloud of feathers floated through the air while this poor bird flew in frantic circles over us and Bob chased. I was ready to kill Bob at this point--I mean, come on, we're talking 3:00 AM and a BIRD in my bedroom!!!

Jeremy and I decided we really didn't want to bang and crash around our bedroom trying to catch this bird. So, I had the idea of opening our window so it would fly out. We opened our screenless window, turned out the lights and waited. And waited. Bob got bored and went back outside--probably to get some other feline tasty treat. At this point, Jeremy and I were so tired and we were punchy. I brilliantly commented when Jer asked where the bird was, "He's over there on the floor....I wonder what kind of bird he is....hmmm...he must be some kind of floor bird for Bob to have caught him." Yeah, that made sense. But it sure did make us laugh.

We finally dozed off, and a little before sunrise, when all of the birds are singing at their loudest, the bird finally made it out the window and flew on. I guess I'm not so angry with Bob anymore....I guess...it was pretty funny...but I still have to vacuum up all of those feathers. Sigh....

Success!!!

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words...

The Puddle Jumper, part 2

Well, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Or something like that. It's been raining here for DAYS, but it hasn't bothered me a bit. I just got my little puddle jumper some awesome new Wellies (see pic--too cute!!) Lydia has been having a grand time splashing to her heart's content in all of the puddles she can find. Happy rain!!

Why my photos are blurry

Well, I tried (yet again) to get some cute pics of the girls. I had willing model helpers when Nana and Papa stopped by for a quick lunchtime visit Saturday.

Me: "Smile!" Oh good, maybe this will be my lucky day...or maybe not...

Me: "Smile! No, Evelyn, honey, look at Mama...Evelyn??"

Me: "Now everyone hold still and smile! No, quit wiggling! Oh well..."


I guess the images in my mind are best--they were having a good time!

Kicked Out!

All I wanted were a few pictures of Evelyn, a few pictures of Lydia, and few of them together. We went to our "friendly" neighborhood photography studio. I should have known it wouldn't work--Lydia's been in a mood all week it seems. The photographer started with Evelyn, snapping pictures. She did great: smiling, cooing, laughing. Everything was going smoothly until he asked Lydia to sit next to Evelyn. Her response? "No WAY!!" "No way" has been Lydia's response to just about everything this last week. Everything I ask of her has been met with a "no way" lately. This was no different, except evidently Lydia decided she wasn't going to cooperate at all. I asked her to sit with Evelyn, "NO WAY!!!" So, the photographer and I decided to continue with Evelyn and he asked me to move her to a chair. For whatever reason, this set Lydia off--she wanted Evelyn to stay where she was. Then the trouble really began. Lydia's face contorted into that face parents dread: the pre-tantrum pout, followed by the dreaded lip quivers, and finally on to the full toddler screaming, crying meltdown. Nothing would suit and no way would she stop and have her picture made. At this point, the harried photographer asked us to leave...well, I guess it was more like he recommended that we leave, but still...we were kicked out!
Tune in next week to see if I have better luck at my quest for the professional portrait, or will I just have to settle for my own somewhat blurry snapshots....