Playing dress up.

Just jewelry and tiaras, not a bad morning of play.

Double (play) date

We went to Brielle's house so Lucy and Brielle could run wild, paint pumpkins and have lunch together. Lucy had a great time and thinks Brielle is just the greatest. The bonus? Brielle has a little sister just 6 weeks younger than Harper. They held hands while playing on the blanket and Harper giggled just at the sight of her. Friendships in the making. For now there is lots of running after kids, feeding babies, etc. In a year or so we'll just plop them all down in the same room, close off all the exits and have a cocktail while they run amuck. Now that's friendship.

Animal House

There is a scene in Animal House where John Belushi stuffs his mouth with food and then punches his cheeks in to create what he calls a human zit. Food goes flying everywhere and all are grossed out by the act.
This is dinner in our house everynight, except Harper doesn't need to punch her cheeks together, she just razzes the food all over the place. She takes a bite, then puts half the food on her lips and razzes as hard as she can. Peas fly, sweet potatoes are airborn and Harper is covered from hairy head to tiny toe in baby food every night. It's actually the second time (the first involved biting and nursing- ouch!) that she has gotten the stern parent voice from us. She seems to kind of like it though. She will razz and then stop and look at us to see if we are going to reprimand her for spraying food. She looks wide-eyed and sweet (who me?) and then smiles and waits for her next bite, then repeats the process. Telling her no is starting to work. Just say no to the human zit, how's that for baby parenting?

Can I get a "Da Da"?

Da da da da da da da. That is what I hear all day long now. I know she doesn't know what she is saying, but it would still be gratifying if the first sounds out of Harper's mouth, other than the standard "hiiii" that she has been doing for months, was mamamamama. We're working on it. Lucy is always trying to get her to say "Lulululululu", but that is a tricky one since Lucy's comes out as "Wuwuwuwuwu" as is. Harper is pretty funny about it though. You see her jaw going up and down and up and down, like an old man flapping his gums and then out comes the sounds, moments later, dadadadadada.
She does like the response she gets from Ian when she makes the sound at dinner. She may not know what she is saying, but she knows that she gets a reaction. And so it begins. A smile, a flash of the dimples, a simple Dada and he is putty.

Uh... Not quite.

Lucy is a sponge. Lucy likes to repeat everything she sees and hears. Lucy doesn't always get it quite right.
For instance, Lucy has heard folks talking about allergies lately. In turn, we have heard (over and over again) that her little toy frog has allergies. Actually the conversation was something more like "Oh no! Frog doesn't have allergies. He can't find his allergies anywhere. That makes him sad. He wants his allergies."
Lucy, allergies make you sick. We don't want allergies.
"Yes we do. Frogs allergies are different. He really wants allergies."

She also likes to walk around with no shirt on these days and hates when I make her wear a sweater or jack. To get me to let her take off her shirt she'll say, "I'm really cold now, I think I need to take off my shirt." When I tell her that doesn't make sense she tries to turn it around on me. " Yes, I like to be cold. It's ok if I don't wear my shirt, I won't get too hot that way."
I know it will make your head explode if you try to reason with this kind of thinking. This is why Lucy spends nearly every day until noon in nothing but her pajama pants.

Harper, the little monster

Harper has almost got sitting down. Her balance is getting better although she still can topple over at any moment and she likes throwing herself backwards. She is trying to get to sitting on her own from her belly, pretty hard when you still can't sit proficiently. She jabbers all the time, wakes up as the happiest kid in all the world, sleeps through the night, and loves playing in her exersaucer. This week she discovered a few new things. For one, she loves to sit in her bumbo seat and play with Lucy's fridge farm. She has figured out that if she presses the buttons it makes a sound. She gets so excited that she ends up throwing it across the room. The other new game she has learned is that she can start a game of peek a boo at any time. She hides her face in my chest or on my shoulder and waits for me to "look" for her. It causes hysterical laughing at times and can go on for forever. She has also decided that she loves cold chewing toys, and board books. The board books she likes have sparkly pages or googly eyes. She will now let me sit and read them to her, but more importantly to her, she loves to chew on them.

Lucy has started calling her "the little monster". And right now, my little monster is waking up, gotta go.

Boo at the Zoo

We went to one of our favorite holiday events last night, Boo at the Zoo. Of course, to keep the tradition alive, it rained. Lucy never noticed and it cleared up enough that Harper hardly saw a drop. Lucy was a hit. At least a dozen times she was told how great her costume was, how cute she was or we overheard folks pointing her out in the crowd. It isn't the norm for a 3 year old girl to want to be a ghost. She was this tiny little thing swallowed up in all sorts of tulle, with all that face paint, strutting along like she owned the zoo. She was on a mission- treats. She was a spook among the hundreds of princesses, bugs, dinosaurs, and furry cute little animals. A couple folks thought she was a dead bride. They were reading way too much into the simple costume. Plus, what 3 year old knows of dead brides?

She loved seeing the Hippo smash a whole pumpkin with its enormous jaws, the elephant pee and poop right in front of her (gotta love the potty humor), and her favorite treats, she claims, were the apples. Her favorite part was Tiger Tunnel. You enter into the mouth of the tiger and walk through all sorts of "guts" and hear all kind of sounds, then it poops you out at the end, complete with sound effects. Lucy went through 3 times. A spooky dead bride that loves to be pooped out of a tiger, how's that for a happy halloween?

And Boo will be there?

We went to Boo at the Zoo last night. As we were getting ready for the evening, Lucy said, "Where does Boo live?" Ian was perplexed. I immediately thought of Boo Radley, neither of us had any idea what she was talking about. She repeated her question. Then we realized that for weeks she had thought that "Boo" was a person we were going to see at the zoo, like Santa or the Easter Bunny. Boo was going to supply tricks and treats and photos were going to be taken, she was going to sit on his lap and request Halloween favors. All was explained and I, for one, am relieved that there is no "Boo" that sneaks into our house to bring treats. Lucy thinks we have ghosts as is.

Cat napper

We have finally gotten Harper to sleep through the night again. It really only took one night of just not answering her when she called out and that was it, she took the hint, no more 4:30am "let's meet in the front room for a chat, some milk and maybe a little playtime". The flipside, now she just wants to catnap throughout the day. She takes a decent hour and a half nap in the morning and then a 45 minute nap in the afternoon and then wants another 45 minute nap in the evening. No more 3 hour hap in the afternoon with Lucy sleeping 1.5 hours of it and me actually able to get anything done. I'm sure it is temporary, and I am enjoying my full night's sleep, let's just hope that when she goes back to a long afternoon nap it won't be at the same time that Lucy decides to give up her nap entirely.
Another note on the shorty in the house, she is a food lover. This kid is taking to eating like no other. And her thighs are all the thicker for it. We haven't offered her anything she has wanted to turn down and now after she is finished eating her meal I am having to make her seconds. Now if those thick thighs would start holding her up in a sitting position she could start eating some on her own. She tries now, but that just means that she is grabbing the spoon when you are feeding her and tries to "help" herself. I can't wait until we can just chop up some soft vegetables on her tray and let her eat some on her own between bites, then maybe I could eat at dinner as well, at least without being yelled at for another bite.

"Well..."

This blog just won't do justice to the real thing. We all know that Lucy has a crazy imagination, loves to put her animals into little situations and always has little storylines running throughout our house. In fact, Ian is constantly saying that you never know what is going on in our house. There could be a pony birthday party, a penguin leading a music class, a group of people in trouble and being kept in the bug house for safekeeping. There are always stories of "giraffe's mommy, the alligator" or "walrus is the line leader" or "nightingale is having a party".
Most recently Lucy has started to lend different voices to the main characters. Most of these voices are a take on her "firefighter voice", a deep, raspy, gruff character that Lucy uses to talk about (or as)firefighters with Ian. The best addition to all this role play is the "Well," start to all her conversations in animal world. It's done in the firefighter voice and is always the first thing out of her mouth when voicing an animal. If I can get it on tape, it would be worth the sneaking I would have to do since she immediately clams up when I get the camera out these days. "Well," I'll have to try.

Free Falling

Lucy has a new habit of falling. It is not accidental, it is intentional, and very poorly acted. She usually does it when she wants attention or when she feels nervous about something or, well, I'm not sure of the other reasons but it is very annoying. When we are inside I just ignore it and remind myself that Lucy needs to get outside to burn off some energy. When we are outside I ignore it until she starts screaming that she is hurt, clearly she is not, but she will carry on until I check for boo boos and ask her if she is ok. Hopefully it is a passing phase, or I may just start wrapping her up in bandages so that she has no room for more boo boos.
The other new habit she has is to bounce off everything in the house. She comes running into the family room and runs full speed into the chair or the couch, bouncing off of them like a tennis ball. Then she will slide across the coffee tables, hop across the couch on her knees or jump off of one of her chairs. It isn't all the time, but there are just times where it seems like she is actually bursting with energy. Predictably, she gets hurt everytime. Again, this is a time when I have to force her to go outside and run of some energy. She is starting to outgrow some of our regular playgrounds and we are now going on more walks (with her doing the walking) and to other playgrounds that allow her to climb more. She also loves hide-n-seek and scavenger hunts.
All of this energy expulsion just before it turns cold. Great. I'll have a new crawler, a jumping bean and a nutty dog all under one roof. Did I mention it is a tiny little roof? Perhaps I should clear the house of furniture and put in a rock climbing wall, a jungle gym and a treadmill. Earplugs and blinders for me, I think that will be the solution.

Watching leaves fall

I took Harper and Lucy outside the other day to lay under the falling leaves. Well, Harper watched the falling leaves and Lucy kicked them around, tossed them in the air and then played hide-n-seek in them with some of her little animal toys. Then Harper tried to eat one. Then Reggie tried to knock both of them down to get to a squirrel that was up in the tree. It was a peaceful autumn day, if even for just a few minutes.

BV Halloween Party

We headed over to the Belle View Halloween party tonight. While Lucy was so excited to wear her costume (the Nice ghost as previously mentioned, not spooky or scary, but NICE!!) she was a bit underwhelmed at the party. She loved seeing her friends, but there wasn't much going on at the actual party. Once she claimed her candy, participated in the costume contest and decided NOT to go into the haunted gazebo, she was left not knowing what to do. So we did our best with what was there. We ogled the dogs in the dog costume contest, we watched the other kids going into the haunted gazebo, we ate candy and we talked about all the fun we had as we walked home. It was a preview of Halloween. Thank goodness we have several more parties and events coming up: Boo at the Zoo, Playgroup Halloween party, school Halloween party and of course, the big day- Halloween. If they don't get more fun than tonight then Lucy's reaction might be the thing that is scariest of all.

Pumpkin Patch with stem head and picky pumpkin chooser

We headed to the pumpkin patch today at Homestead Farms. We met Eli and Jamie Butler there (it has been a real Butler-filled week, 4 outings in one week, now we will quit stalking them for at least a week or until Lucy hits Eli withdrawl). The kids ran around and checked out the animals and then boarded their respective wheelbarrows for a ride out to the pumpkin patch. Once they were among the orange globes Lucy set to work to find the one that fit her "perfect" description: "medium-sized, fat, very orange and with a long stem." It is amazing that among a zillion pumpkins, none fit her description. We walked and walked and walked, turning every pumpkin this way and that and they just wouldn't do. Finally, she found one, but not "the one". She claimed that one was for Harper. Then we looked and looked some more. And then, there it was, one strikingly like the one she picked out for Harper, but decidely better (of course). Then she and Eli became oddly attracted to the thin-skinned, tiny, green, unripe pumpkins. She chose one of those and then was done. Then it was just about exploring the entire patch with Eli. They took turns tripping over vines every 10 feet, they picked up pumpkins and talked of their merits, and they marched along like a couple of hikers out on a trail. Then we turned them around and they repeated. Hay stacks and pizza completed the outting. Harper, as always, was a trooper. She loves watching anything Lucy does and liked licking the pumpkins- I know, I shouldn't let her, but she really was liking it.

We got home and were readying Lucy for nap, hay is nestled all throughout her hair, both girls totally exhausted, and ready for a nice nap. It's amazing how much cool fall air, the country, and hauling pumpkins can wear out a couple of kids, not to mention their parents. A nap is needed though, a Halloween party is on the docket for tonight. A nap and then some sugar, we'll be all set for some more Halloween fun!

Pea toes

Harper loves some peas. I would say they are her favorite out of the foods we have tried. What she loves even more: pea toes. In between bites she slips her toes into her mouth, nibbles on them and then goes back to yelling for more peas. Needless to say, her toes are coated in a thick layer of green drool that she then sucks off between the next two bites. It's disgusting, cute and funny all at once. It does remind me of a lady I saw once that loved using her toes for everything, including eating. Let's hope it's just a passing baby phase and not one that will earn her notoriety in her later years.

A fool for the camera

Harper loves the camera. Or to be exact, the flash of the camera. She immediately starts hamming it up and grinning, giggling, and waving her arms and kicking her legs for the camera and the possibility of a flash. Here she is on Ian's lap, you can see the initial reaction of pure joy for when the camera came out. This works out well since Lucy constantly tells me to "put the camera away, mom!" When she hits photo fatigue, I spin around and take photos of Harper, who is all too willing to have her photo taken.

Reading time

Here we are squeezed into a tiny rocking chair because Lucy just couldn't stand the idea that I might read to Harper without her. Harper is getting a little bit better about having books read to her. She went through a phase about a month ago where she just wanted to grab the book and throw it down or she would just start crying when I started reading, now, if the timing is right, she seems to enjoy the books a bit more. Of course, Lucy will listen to any story at anytime and perhaps is just taking the opportunity to get another book in for the day. She does not like, however, that Harper only listens to one or two board books, she would prefer 20.

Pretty little things

Here are my girls. Smiles and giggles and big hat. The hat is actually part of Lucy's "grocery shopping" outfit. The outfit includes the hat, a purse, high heels, reusable shopping bags and a baby carrier with LaLa in it. Sounds about right, except I pretty much would never wear high heels to the grocery, more like flip flops, but to each her own!

A couple of animals at the zoo

We met Eli Butler at the zoo on Monday. He is one of Lucy's favorites. She also likes to say his name "Ewi Butwer". These are some photos of them hooting it up among the bamboo. Lucy is teaching Eli some silly song that includes the word "poo". They were laughing and carrying on so much that people walking by started laughing at them. What the photos don't show is moments later when they both jump up and stick their heads in the water misters.

Bathtime!

We've been starting to toss Harper in the bathtub with Lucy at night. Harper loves getting in and watching Lucy splash and dump water on her head and Lucy loves to help give Harper a bath. Harper is more slippery than a little fish though and she likes to try to stand up so bathtimes don't last very long.