Heard on Governors Ct. July 2009

New location, new things being said around the homestead...
Lucy:
-"Keep it in yours". She says this when she has what she considers a good idea. Since we often give her the response of "I'll keep that in mind," she has decided that she will beat us to our punch line and go ahead and tell us to "Keep it in yours."
-"That's the boys room, that's the girls room". This is her explanation for Ian keeping some of his clothes in the baby's closet, which is the largest of all the bedroom closets. I think Lucy likes the idea of Ian not being the only boy in the house and she of course loves that she and Harper share a room, even if it had to be blue and was in no way to be pink.
-"Read this. Mom, maybe you didn't hear me. I said read this. I was telling you!" You might wonder what it was that needed such urgent reading? The book "Little Miss Bossy".
-"All I need is attention and then I won't be so naughty". She's right and this has been her response to me over the past few weeks while I have been so busy with the move.

Harper:
-"Why?"- she has no idea what this question means, but she asks it everytime you tell her to do something these days.
-"Yeah." - her response to every question. It sounds a whole lot like "no" but you know she means "no" when she shakes her head in addition to saying it.
- She can tell you what a lion, dog, cat, cow, duck, sheep, pig, owl and a horse say. She can point out her nose, eyes, hair, head, belly button, toes, feet, mouth, teeth and bottom. She loves to spot airplanes, make fish faces, and shake her hips. She uses the words bottle, banana, cracker, blueberries, strawberry, milk, water, eat, snack, dinner, cheese to tell me when she is hungry. In fact the first words I hear every morning being shouted from her room are "Momma, get down! Banana, bottle, milk! Get down. Get down. Get down!!" There are many other words that she uses and even more that she will repeat. Including songs, whether they are traditional songs or songs that Lucy makes up and Harper adopts as her own. My favorites lately are hearing her say, "Round and round" from wheels on the bus and "My Harpa, My wear diapa" after Lucy's song, "My name is Harper, I wear a diaper!"

One Minute!

Lucy is a girl who likes to play hard and doesn't like to give up a good time easily so in turn I have adopted the practice over the past few years of always giving her a warning before we are to pack up and leave from a playdate so that our departure does not elicit a kicking and screaming, tantrum response. The problem is that my warnings are not exactly exact. For instance, I will tell Lucy "We are leaving in 5 minutes" and then 20 minutes later give her another 2 minute warning and then 10 minutes later a 1 minute warning. I know this is why she has no concept of how long 5 minutes actually is. My mistake.
The other person affected by this is Harper who has recently taken notice of the warnings and decided that she would start giving her own. Now whenever I give Lucy a minute warning I get a short little task master pointing her finger at me and saying over and over again, "Momma, one minute. One minute!" Then she will begin walking away only to turn back to me about a million times to tell me, "One minute!" each and every time holding her little finger at me and giving me a look that means all business. Perhaps she is tired of hearing me give my false warnings. Perhaps she just thinks that it is something we do prior to leaving, same as gathering our things or saying good-bye. Perhaps I should heed her warnings and mean what I say when I give my own.

Due date dilemma

So we are in the final countdown. Just a couple more months to go. The doctor thinks I am measuring small and the baby is weighing heavy. What that means is that they don't know what that means. "Weighing heavy" is no big deal since the girls were so little, a boy being a little bit bigger is really nothing to fret about. My measuring small is no big deal either since I always do and they always send me for an ultrasound at around 35 weeks to confirm the due date. The only catch is that they now think that my due date could be off by a week. A week earlier.
That sounds great on one front- I am already terribly uncomfortable all the time. The baby is a violent kicker. He is head down-good news since he is completely out of room and to flip now would be traumatic for both of us. Coming a week early, that sounds like a relief. But...
Coming a week early means one less week for Harper to be the baby. One less week to get the house ready. One week closer to crowding in on Lucy's bday (we have a deal with her, the baby won't come until after her birthday- here's hoping!)
So I'll just stick to my original due date, September 21. That date has worked for Ian and me before, right?

Chicken pox?

The mosquitos are so bad in our new yard that the girls both look like they have the chicken pox. Perhaps it is because Lucy likes to lay down in the spider grass or because Harper is always covered in something sweet.
Lucy gets the most on her legs. Harper seems to attract them right between the eyes. We now have anti-itch cream rub down sessions several times a day and the girls are not allowed outside without bug spray. I don't know if it helps all that much, the skeeters seem to find the tiniest spot that isn't covered in bug spray and eat the heck out of them. I could keep them inside more, but they are just so thrilled to have a yard of their own and space to run around and, apparently, plants to lay in, that I just can't make them stay inside. It is a great motivator for getting the yard into shape.

yabba dabba?

Yesterday Harper tried for ten minutes to tell me something. It sounded like this "Ganja dippa. Trowe inda gabbage". She said this to me over and over and over again. And kept trying to walk away after each time but would stop and turn around to say it again. I was not giving her the right response. So she would try again. "Ganja dippa. Trowe inda gabbage." Then it occurred to me that she was saying diaper (dippa). From that I was able to decipher "Change my diaper." So we had that covered and she kept saying "Yeah. Trowe inda gabage." Then it all came to me. "Change my diaper and I'll throw it in the garbage." Once I confirmed with her she was off to grab a diaper for me, have herself changed and then proudly took it to the garbage all by herself. She had communicated, been understood, and her wishes were granted. It was quite an accomplishment and she repeated the same phrase a couple hours later. Just once this time.

Just a little bit goin' on, just a little bit

Well, it has been almost a month since I posted last. Only one reason, there just isn't time. We have begun the move over to the house, we have had lots of visitors, Lucy must still get in her pool and friend time and I am plain wiped out. And Harper likes to throw tantrums about a million times a day. And Lucy has been waking up with nightmares. And Harper was teething.
Internet will be connected on Sunday at the house, but there is still no promise of me getting things onto the blog. My goal: before vacation the second week of August. After that, I fear there just won't be much time for anything with summer winding down, Lucy starting school, birthdays and the baby arriving. The summer is moving along at a rapid pace. I wish that Autumn promised more time and energy. If that's what a newborn brings (and a very determined 1 year old and a very busy 4 year old) then I am game. If not, then the blog will just have to take a backseat. Oh wait, we won't have room in the backseat. It will have to go in the trunk.

Sing me a song

Harper has started singing some household favorites. She will now join in on "The Wheels on the Bus". She sings the part that goes "round and round". She also can be heard singing "Row, Row, Row your boat", "the Itsy Bitsy Spider" and "Baa, Baa Black sheep". It's a sweet song, no matter what the tune.

Thinking inside the box

We are a week out from closing on the new house (yeah!) Lucy's anxiety has pretty much turned into excitement although she has some very funny questions about the move. Here are some:
-"Are we taking our bananas?" She is very concerned about exactly what stays and what goes so she picks random things in the house to ask if they are going with us. The answer? No, we are not taking those bananas, they will be eaten. But, yes, we will have new bananas at the new house.
-"When will we be moving to Belle View again?" I tell her that we will probably not be moving back to Belle View. Her response: "Well, maybe we won't all be moving back to Belle View, but I can live here when I am a grown-up."
-"I can't wait to move. And Taylor will live with us, our grandparents can visit us and Ronin will live with us!" This is putting together many ideas. She has been hooked on the idea that Taylor will be living with us (we're hoping for that, too, even if just for a few weeks), that grandparents can visit anytime they want. Oh, and Christian told Ronin he could come live with us in the new house and the two 4 year olds have since made plans for this to happen. If we can't live next to him, might as well live WITH him. I think our house has grown from 4 bedrooms to 6 or 7 bedrooms in a matter of one Lucyism.
-"When my grandparents visit I can't wait to sneak down to their room and wake them up. I will surprise them by banging on drums." We agree that this is a great idea.

Our house is full of boxes and Lucy chooses boxes at random to ask what is inside. She will probably think it is Christmas when we start opening things up at the new house. What was old will be new again. For now, she just likes climbing on them and playing inside them. Harper likes banging on them like a drum. Lucy also loves the smell of the condo now that it is full of cardboard. Everytime we walk in the door she exclaims, "Ahhh, it smells so good in here. Sort of like cookies. Sort of like paper!" One week and counting, if only we could box the excitement to use when we are very tired of un- packing the boxes.

Washington Monument

A view at the top

Harper at the American History Museum prior to the Washington Monument

Lu and George
One of the first stops we had to make this summer (it was on Lucy's "summer list" was to the Washington Monument. Lucy has wanted to go up to the top for more than a year now and I have never been myself. I just needed to wait until I could get Harper to the top without a stroller.

The wait was well worth it. We got tickets ahead of time so that we wouldn't have to wait in too many lines. It was hot, but we were excited so we waited what time we had to with patience and anticipation. Once at the top, it was amazing! Lucy loved pointing out the airport, the National Cathedral, the Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial and the Potomac River. She liked hearing in what direction her friends lived, where Ian worked and where the White House was. We took two trips around the top looking out each window and talking about everything we saw. She also liked pointing out the photos and statues of George Washington and hearing about how tall the monument was.

A very successful trip and a fun way to see the city!