Playtime

Here are a couple of videos of the girls playing together. Well, the first one is just of Lilia, playing the piano, and sadly, it looks like it didn't record properly, so it's like a silent film (don't you feel more cultured now, watching a silent film?) but even though you can't hear her making beautiful music, at least you can see how much she's enjoying playing the piano. The piano has become one of Lilia's favorite toys. Sometimes, Lilia will be having so much fun playing the piano that Carolyn will get jealous and try to take it away. If I catch her doing this, I'll put a stop to it, and more often than not, as soon as my back is turned Carolyn will turn the piano off so that even though it's Lilia's turn, she won't want to play with it. But I am onto her and her devious ways, and it goes back on. (To be fair, the piano is technically Carolyn's, but I still don't like her taking it away from Lilia--or clotheslining Lilia away from the piano, which has happened--) Actually, Carolyn will take just about everything away from Lilia. I think she's mothering when she does it. She'll chuckle indulgently and say something like, "No, Leelah. No, no, no. You can't have that," in the most condescending manner imaginable and then pluck it out of Lilia's grasp. I'm sure that in Carolyn's mind, a big sister's work is never done. In the second video, Carolyn is teaching Lilia all about the difference between fast and slow, much to their mutual enjoyment. When they play together, it's so cute. When they don't, it's not much fun, and there is nothing cute about it. In fact, it's exhausting. To be fair, they're playing well together, more and more, the older Lilia gets, but I feel like I'm constantly saying things like, "don't sit on Lilia" , "don't roll on Lilia", "don't trap Lilia under the blanket", "we don't put things around other peoples necks" (eeek!) "don't cover Lilia's mouth", "don't feed Lilia crayons" and on and on it goes. Sometimes, I'll tell Carolyn, "I love you so much. I love you when you're good, I love you when you're bad, I'll love you always and forever, you are special to me." Earlier in the week, Carolyn came up to me with soft eyes full of love and gently stroked my arm with feather-light touches and said, "I love you when you're mad.........."(awkward silence)".......you're special to me, I love you forever." It was very sweet. It made my heart melt and yet...there was nothing to counter balance the "mad". It got me thinking, does Carolyn see me as an angry mom? Am I an angry mom? I don't want to be one. For the rest of the day, I found myself second guessing all of my reactions and maybe adding a healthy helping of syrupy sweetness to all of the admonitions that I doled out. I really don't think it made a difference. I just felt fake. Whether I say it with enough sugar to give cavities to everyone within hearing range or just say it like it is, it seems to have the same effect. Amazingly enough, Carolyn doesn't like having her behavior curtailed or even monitored most of the time. Too bad. Oh well, at least I have a recording of them enjoying one another's company and I can always watch it when I'm feeling discouraged.

A funny story that JT wanted me to add.....

Carolyn loves this show called "Super Why" (I'll have to blog about how Carolyn and Lilia, yes Lilia too, watch way too much t.v. in another post) where Whyatt (that would be the "Super Why" of the show) and his friends, the Super Readers, go into a story book and rewrite the story so that the storybook characters have a happy ending. (i.e. instead of leaving the ball because Cinderella's dress turns into rags, she stays at the ball, parties with the prince, makes her stepsisters green with envy and has a great time because her story is now rewritten to make it end that way.) Well, anyway, lately Carolyn has a hard time keeping her pants on. I think that if she had her way, she'd just run around in a diaper...or less. We have been working with her though, and we're making progress (please ignore the fact that she's not wearing pants in the video above) . Or so I thought... but apparently while I was at work yesterday, Carolyn strolled into the livingroom pants-less. When JT reprimanded her, Carolyn said, "I can't wear pants. It's in my story. 'Carolyn doesn't wear pants'. " JT couldn't keep a straight face, and so another lesson was learned/reinforced....when you're cute, you can get away with a lot.

Water is Wet, It's True

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What I really should call this post is "Technical Difficulties" because I have been trying for days, my friends, to upload videos but I have been unsuccessful. Today Blogger seems to be in a better mood and I've been able to upload at least one video and I'm moving on. So..................

After the debacle Doctor's visit, this week has been pretty fun. On Tuesday we celebrated Carolyn's birthday at the park and it was so much fun. On Wednesday I took Carolyn to Portrait Innovations to get her official 3 year old portrait done and it was also a lot of fun. Do you have a Portrait Innovations near you? If you do, you should go there. Right now. You won't be disappointed, especially if you like to get portraits done on the cheap (I do). Speaking of cheap portraits, I got another "official" 3 year old portrait done at Kiddie Kandids on Friday. They let me down. But's that's okay because I only got my free 8 x 10 sheet, we had a lot of fun shopping,we got to bring JT a treat (Carolyn absolutely loves visiting him at his office) and now I have Portrait Innovations. Did I mention how much I like them? A lot. Anyway, the real highlight of my week was Thursday. The girls and I walked to the park near our church, by way of stroller (yay me! for actually using the stroller at least once a week as planned) and met Shane and his family there. Shane and Melody bought a KFC smorgasbord and the adults relaxed and chatted while the kids all played. We were there for about 2 1/2 hours and if Lilia hadn't needed to eat (shame on me for not bringing her food with us) we could have stayed even longer. Carolyn was having so much fun that I had to use a bribe to get her to happily come home with me. The bribe that I used was the froggie swimming pool that I bought about a week ago. I was so excited to get this pool. I had visions of Carolyn and Lilia swimming like little fish, shrieking with laughter and having a great time while I sat in a lawn chair, under an umbrella, sipping a delicious slurpie of some kind and reading a book. As if I would run the risk of my children drowning while I read a book as my children played in a pool. As if I had a lawn chair. As if I had an umbrella for shade. As if I could be sipping a slurpie without either sharing it or giving it to Carolyn and Lilia. I do have the book though. So my little fantasy was pretty much that, pure fantasy, but I was sure that we'd still have a good time with the pool. I have to admit that when I blew it up, I was a little disappointed. It's a very small pool. We're talking rinky-dink small. But it was still cute and even if we just used it this summer, I would still get my $15 worth out of it. I hauled it outside (yes it's so small that it will fit easily out of my front door, even when it's completely inflated, open froggie mouth and all) and filled it up. Carolyn was dancing around the house in excitement, her eyes were sparkling, and she was giddy with joy. I helped her get into her swim suit, grabbed a blanket for Lilia to play on (I was a little leery about plopping her into the pool without heating the water up a little bit and too tired from my trek to and from the park and lazying around in the sun and all--you know how exhausting that is--to heat the water) and we headed out to our new swimming pool. Carolyn and I swirled our arms into the sparkling, crystal depths of the pool (okay, not that much depth there, but it was shiny) and I waited for Carolyn to splash into the water. I certainly wanted to climb into that pool. The water felt so good on my arms, not too cold at all, and if the pool was slightly bigger, (oh, say the size of my bath tub, maybe?) I would have gotten in with her. The only thing is that the pool is very small and I am not and I would look like an idiot. A great big idiot in a little itty-bitty pool. So I restrained myself. But Carolyn wouldn't get in it either! Oh, she would splash around with her hands a little bit, and she'd play with the ball and tell the ball that it liked the pool, but she wouldn't venture in. She was having a good time with the sprayer though, at least until she got her swimming suit wet with it. Then she started crying that her swimming suit was wet and that it needed to come off. I tried to explain that the purposes of the suit was to get wet, but she wasn't buying it. I thought, foolishly, that if she'd just get in the pool she'd see that it was fun and that it was okay to get wet and so I picked her up and placed her in the pool. She stood up and scrambled out of that pool as quick as a scalded cat and yelled, "It wants to eat me!!!!" her voice squeaky with real fear. "It's a nice froggie, sweetie. It's a fun froggie swimming pool," I tried to coax. Her response? "It wants to CHOMP ME, mama!" I have to confess that I didn't see this coming. When I saw this pool, I thought that it was cute and soft and summer fun. I thought this was a big step toward to us spending time outside and actually liking it. She looked at the pool and no doubt thought, "Oh my gosh, my mom expects me to swim in this 'froggie's' --let's call it was it is, a monster's giagantor mouth. My mom's not too bright, but that's why she has me to look after her. What will she think of next? Playing Candyland on the railroad tracks?" When JT got home, Carolyn had rewritten the incident and told him all about how she and Lilia had played and swam in the froggie swimming pool and how much fun they had had, and how she can't wait to swim again, only the water is "too wet".

Birthday Bash

Here are pictures from Carolyn's birthday party yesterday. We had so much fun! Check out the blue frosting on Carolyn's mouth. It totally matches her shirt!

Feel The Pain (and this post is really long, so you will)

Okay, these pictures have nothing to do with the contents of this post. These are videos and pictures that I took when we were playing at the park last Thursday with my sister-in-law Melody and my nieces Haven and Kimmee. (By the way, we had a blast! and plan on picnicking there Thursday.) I would post pictures about today's adventure, but it no one wants to see the shocking horror that is........

Me taking the girls to the doctor's for check ups and vaccines. Both girls at the same time. For some reason, I thought I was being very clever and efficient by making their appointments for the same day. I thought I was making it easy on myself. Ha! Not so. And never again. It actually didn't start out too badly. In fact, both girls were being so good that I was congratulating myself on being so smart because I was shooting two birds with one stone. Carolyn was playing in the castle with a couple of kids and I was holding Lilia. And then Lilia wanted down and I realized that I forgot to bring a play blanket to come between her and the very, very grimy and stained floor that I would never let a baby of mine come into contact with. So I held onto her while she strained against my arms and lunged for freedom. My back was starting to hurt, but all in all it was just par for the course. (so funny that I use that term since I know absolutely nothing about the game of golf) After an eternal 20 minutes we were ushered back to the examining room where we spend another 20 minutes waiting for the doctor. (This is nothing compared to the hour and a half we had to wait last time, for which I am very grateful.) In the examining room it was much of the same with Lilia trying to dash herself to pieces on the hard floor with the addition of trying to stop Carolyn from getting into the many drawers of medical supplies and equipment. By the way, quick side note, why don't they child proof the drawers and cupboards in a pediatrician's examining room? Do they think children aren't curious? Do they not care that children could be handling "sterile" supplies? Is mine the only one who likes to get into stuff? But I digress...Once Dr. Loomis came in and began the exam, things got better because it was Carolyn's turn first and she didn't have to have any shots. Carolyn loves Dr. Loomis and as long as Dr. Loomis was giving Carolyn her undivided attention, things were going smoothly. Carolyn was preening and showing off. Dr. Loomis made the comment that Carolyn was very smart (she probably makes that comment about all of the children she sees, but I have to admit that I enjoyed the comment none the less) and Carolyn started rhyming at her. Dr. Loomis wanted to look into Carolyn's eyes, Carolyn batted her lashes. And on and on it went. Then it was Lilia's turn and Carolyn wasn't ready to give up the spotlight. She wanted me to hold up her so that she could see everything that was going on with Lilia, but I have to confess that I was enjoying a moment of bliss. My tired, aching arms were empty, I was rolling my shoulders, getting the kinks out of my back and savoring the sensation of sweet freedom while someone else made sure that Lilia didn't fall to her doom, or at least to her serious injury. I really didn't feel like holding an even heavier child and I denied her "request". So she pitched a fit. It got to the point where Dr. Loomis offered to let Carolyn sit next to Lilia on the examining table, on the condition that she not whine. (Good luck with that, Dr. Loomis) Carolyn gamely agreed and hopped back on the table. The rest of the exam was spent with Dr. Loomis looking over Lilia and dispensing sage advice like, "lower the crib mattress as much as you can so that Lilia doesn't fall out" and "Lilia can now have yogurt" while Carolyn tried to talk over her, block my view of Lilia and replace it with her own sunny visage, and topple Lilia over with hugs and loves. I was getting a massive tension headache trying to listen to the doctor, pacify Carolyn and keep Lilia safe (from Carolyn). Because I am a mild hypochondriac (let's be fair, I'm a major hypochondriac), in the past I've had a lot of questions to ask at the end of our visits, but the last two times, I really just want to leave already. So Dr. Loomis hurried out to her next appointment and a friendly nurse with a tray of syringes came in. I kept comforting myself that at least only one of them was getting shots today (I'm sure Carolyn was doing the same--poor unsuspecting Lilia.....) and that a couple of shots (try three!) was much better than Polio or Diphtheria or whatever, but I knew that it wasn't going to be fun. The nurse had me hold Lilia's arms down (do they have to make me a party to her misery??) and Carolyn watched from the steps at the end of the table and I turned my head to the side because I hate watching the carnage. Poor Lilia. She's so small and the needles were so big. She started screaming with shock and pain and betrayal (it made my heart ache) and then Carolyn started crying herself and yelling at the nurse to stop it. "You're hurting her, you're hurting my Leelah!" The nurse and I tried to explain that the shots would help Lilia to not get sick, but Carolyn wasn't having any of it. Finally it was over and I could comfort them both. Lilia might have disagreed, but Carolyn seemed to need comforting as much as she did. Eventually the girls calmed down and all was right, or at least no one was getting stabbed with needles, and I gathered up the papers I had been given on vaccines, feeding tips (wished they actually worked), safety check sheets, blah, blah, blah and Carolyn's stickers (Dr. Loomis gave her 6 stickers that were either glittery or scratch and sniff, all the size of my palm) and we headed to the door. Only I forgot something. I forgot that Carolyn has to be the first one out the door and the first one in the door. She will mow you down if you get in her way, and heaven help you (or me, as it were) if you're holding 8 bags of groceries. Anyway she darted in front of me and grappled for control of the door, insisting, "I do it all myself!" and the door opened over her foot, bending her big toe nail back so far that it has a white crease across the center and it broke the skin. Poor Carolyn was howling with pain and crying so hard that tears splashed onto the floor. I lifted Carolyn back onto the table so that I could get a better look at her foot. I didn't have anywhere that I could set Lilia down, so I attempted to clean the blood off her toe (she didn't actually let me touch her foot until we got home) with Lilia on my hip. No one peeked in to see what was wrong or if they could help. Maybe they thought that if I needed help I would come out of the room and ask for it. At any rate, we finally made our way out of the room (both Carolyn and I were much more cautious with our exodus) and down the hall to check out, Carolyn limping pitifully and Lilia sniffling miserably, both with tear swollen eyes. I'm don't even want to know what I looked like at this point. Carolyn was so sad that the receptionist offered her a lollipop, which was quickly accepted. (Carolyn always makes out like a bandit at the doctor's office.) I felt so weary by the time I got the girls safely bucked into the car, that I decided we all needed a drink, so it was off to Target! but that's another story........

You're on Candid Camera!

Quick little back story for this video......Carolyn was very frustrated because she couldn't zip up her white sweater. She was getting so upset that her face was cherry red and her eyes were spilling fat tears. And of course, she was shrieking. I offered to help her, but that just fueled her rage to greater heights. You'd think I'd know better by now, because no matter how frustrated she gets when she's doing something all by herself (which is everything lately) it only makes her more upset when I offer my assistance. Actually, I'm very proud of her for wanting to do things by herself and for asserting her independence. I have a hard time not stepping in and fixing things for her. It's almost painful to watch her struggle with something that I could easily do for her, but I'm trying, because it's important that she knows that she can do things all by herself and I'm hoping that she'll learn to deal with frustration. But back to the video....after working herself up, she went to the piano and started to play it. And I thought it was a good opportunity to experiment with uploading a video onto this blog. I thought that even if it wasn't a cute video, it would at least be entertaining. (I'll try to get something cute next time) After I did the video, Carolyn immediately wanted to watch it. She watched it over and over and over again and I don't even know how many times she watched it before she very softly patted my leg and apologized for not being very nice. It was like she was thinking to herself, "Is that what I really looked like?" I wonder what I would think about my behavior if I was presented with a candid recording of it. Would I like what I saw? Would I ask myself if that was really what I looked like? I have a feeling that's what judgement day will be like. Whoa, this is way too deep for this blog, way too deep. :D (anything deeper than a soap dish is pushing it) On a lighter note, I might use the camera another time Carolyn is pitching a fit and see if it has the same effect. She'll probably think it's cool. (By the way, when I ask her if she's playing beautiful music, her reply is, "No! I'm playing MY music!!!" --since I was holding the camera close to me, you can hear what I'm saying, but what she says isn't as clear.)

Even MORE Loot!!!

So we went to the library again yesterday to turn in our second set of reading logs and choose a couple of new books. And, *gasp* , we even walked there, using our new stroller. I know, I know. Shocking. It was very hard to get going and I kept thinking about how much more quickly we could get there by car and how it wouldn't cut into my day as much if we drove there, but even though we didn't get out of the house until 2:00, I thought it was very important that we make it a point to walk where we can, for health and fiscal reasons. It was the right choice. We had so much fun! As soon as I got the girls into the stroller they were grinning and vibrating with excitement. At the beginning of our trip we walked by a huge, beautiful, pink rosebush. Naturally Carolyn wanted to pick a rose. (Who wouldn't?) I explained to Carolyn that those roses belonged to someone and that they didn't belong to us. They weren't ours and we couldn't pick them. This set the tone for the rest of our outing. Every time I would point something out, whether it was a tree, the sky, flowers, squirrels...you name it, Carolyn would say, "That's not OURS. We can't take it. It's not ours, Mama." Good to know she was listening.

When we were in line at the library, waiting to turn in our reading logs, I was listening to someone else get the spiel about all the freebies sponsors were giving to the library this year and I realized that we were gypped free pizza and passes to the Discovery Center. When I brought this up to the librarian she was so apologetic and insisted on giving us 2 extra freebie packs. So now I have 4 of everything but the free pizza and Discovery Center passes. I thought it was greedy to accept so much freebie goodness, but the librarian pointed out that if she broke up the packs, someone else might not get all of the freebies. I thought she was very nice. Of course, if I had been dealing the HCL (Head Children's Librarian--who incedently gave us the partial freebie packs) I don't think this would have happened. I think we just would have been out of luck. The HCL doesn't really like children and is often awkward around them, but I think she wants to like children, so I guess she's in the right place....When we were strolling around, Lilia would rest, but no so Carolyn. Literally, as soon as we got home, Carolyn crashed on the floor and slept for an hour. (much like I wanted to do--WOW I've got to get into better shape!!!)

Even as I'm writing this blog, Carolyn is smothering Lilia with love and probably making Lilia a tougher child than she might otherwise have been. Carolyn has no bubble of personal space and so it never bothers her with you get in very close. Lilia does have a bubble though, and after a while she'll lose her patience with Carolyn. I've actually seen Lilia try to roll away from Carolyn. The only problem with this is that Carolyn will match Lilia, roll for roll, and suddenly it's a new game. Lilia has also been trying really hard to improve on her crawling skills, especially yesterday and today. Keeping Carolyn from whomping on Lilia (even when it's done with the best intentions) is exhausting me, because it requires constant vigilance. I turn my back for a minute and Carolyn has a pair of my nylons (where did she get them, when I can't even find them?? I've been going to church with bare legs for the past 3 weeks) and she's using them on Lilia like you would a bit for a horse. Sadly, this really happened and it's not a pretend example of what can happen. It is aggravating to say the least. I find that I'm starting to be quicker to snap and that I play the NC (Naughty Chair) card much more frequently. Oh well. Soon Lilia will be bigger and then it will be a fair fight. I'm pretty sure that constant vigilance will still be needed.

Library Loot

Those who know me, know that I love the library. One of the best things about library (other than encouraging a love for reading, of course) is that it's absolutely free. In the summer, it's even better than free. Yes, that's right, it's Summer Reading Program time. That time of year when you get a brand new, free book for every 40 books you read to your child(ren). This year is especially sweet because we get free books for reading to Lilia too. And, it gets even better because you can read to them at the same time and it counts for both of their reading logs. So I've been plopping Lilia down with me when I read to Carolyn. Sometimes Lilia is a willing participant, sometimes not so willing. But always a participant. Because you see, it's all about the FREE stuff, more than the love of reading for me. Shameful? Yes. But I think the love of reading will come anyway. It's not everyday that you can get free books. By the way, we got our first reading logs on Wednesday and turned them in, completed, by Friday at 11:00am. JT calls me the Reading Nazi. To be fair, I am a little militant about the whole thing, but I wouldn't call myself a Nazi for heaven's sake. But it all paid off because we walked out of the library with $22 worth of books, coupons for 4 free kids' meals, free ice skating passes, tickets to the county fair, tickets to the rodeo and a bouncy ball. (Not as many freebies from sponsors as they had last year, but the books seem to be nicer, so it's all good.) Carolyn's book is a Cinderella book with magnetized pages and magnets that go with the story and Lilia got a beautiful butterfly book that talks about colors. We have a bit of reading to do today and tomorrow, but I am very confident that we'll be walking out of the library with 2 more free books. Just see if we don't.

p.s. here are some pictures of Library Fun of the (not so distant) past. Lilia is being held by my lovely sister-in-law Melody.