Terrible Twos

It is here-the terible twos. Hello tantrums, crying, naughtiness, defiance, impatience and anger.

I decided that no longer will I ask Harper yes or no questions- the answer is always NO and then a tantrum follows once she realizes that she didn't REALLY mean no. Instead I am sticking to choices ("would you like crackers or pretzels?") because if I ask her if she wants crackers she will say no and the same for pretzels- and then scream at me for not giving her both.

She doesn't share. She ignores rules and directions. She throws, hits, and kicks. Two, indeed.

Pinata at party

Pre-party

A sweet moment before the party started.

Happy Birthday to Harper!

"I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too!" I heard Harper say this twice in the middle of her party. It isn't easy throwing a witch birthday party in May, but without taking the witch theme over the top, Harper got her witches and we all got a nice lunch with friends in her honor. Kids were asked, "Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?" Bad witches got green noses, good witches got sparkly stars on their cheeks.
The weather turned out to be a bit cooler than we expected so only some splashing occurred. The rest of the time the kids noshed on witch hat cupcakes, wacked a pinata, bounced on the happy hoppers (see photo below of the scary foursome on their hoppers- I personally wouldn't want to run into such a motley crew on the street!) and had running races. Harper had a wardrobe change mid-party when her dress got soaked in the pool, which explains all the outfits in these photos.
As for her actual bday, the theme of the day was OPEN PRESENTS! That is all that was on Harper's mind. The kids had some cuddle time on the couch, played with gifts, and we took Lu to school. Then Graham and I took Harper to River Farm to meet up with her bff, Caroline for cupcakes and running around. The rest of the day meant more presents, Tay and Roxie joining us for dinner and cake. All in all, two looks good on Harper. She loved getting to call the shots, which meant less tantrums and crying and that meant we were all happier. Lucy was the example of a good big sis. She let Harper make the decisions when it came to movie night, what to play, what to listen to, and gave her the ever-important and enviable task of choosing what color plate she wanted at each meal, for days- an opportunity that Lucy does not relinquish often.
So, is she a good witch or a bad witch? She chose both a green nose and a sparkly star- good and a little bit wicked- that pretty much sums up the personality of a two year old!

Uh, that's not our hose

So there we were out enjoying the backyard, the warm weather and filling our pool so the girls could splash. I had gone to turn off the hose and came back into the yard when Harper said, "momma, what's that?" I glanced, told her it was the hose. She adamently replied, "No,what's that, momma?!!!" I looked again. And there it was, a very long snake. I told the girls to move to the patio, where Lucy promptly started crying and I ran in to grab crying Graham and the camera, hoping for some video and a photo so that I could maybe identify the snake. We followed the snake across the yard, into the ivy and then watched it reappear on the other side and make its way behind our shed. A bit thrilled, I went to move the hose and settle the girls, when across the yard comes a second snake. We watched it make a similar departure and then went back to playing. I called the neighbors to make sure that I should still be letting the girls play out back and not subject them to something awful and poisonous.
It turns out that we have a ratsnake- or two- or more. Good news. Should mean that we won't have mice and the kids can remain playing outside.
UPDATE: We now have snakes- and mice. Yep, Ian saw one in the kitchen last night. So here is my warning to the snakes: we will only allow you to stay if you help out with the rodents. If you don't pull your weight, we might have to rethink our happiness to see you around. And yes, that takes our count of strange animal encounters this month to include snakes, mice, birds, squirrels, and one giant flying cockroach. I don't think I have even mentioned the piles of poo that keep appearing on our walkway outside the front door.

Space Jam

Lucy loves the boys next door. Partly because they are cute and she is four and they humor her by playing with her and partly because they do cool things like jump and do tricks on their trampoline and play basketball- in the street. The "in the street" part is very important because Lucy feels very big when I let he go out and shoot with them or when she is allowed to shoot and dribble by herself in the street. After weeks of using a soccer ball to play basketball, Lucy got the idea to ask Pops to send her a UK basketball. It must be a proper basketball and around here that means UK. She asked on a Sunday. By Monday morning she was wondering why it hadn't arrived. After a few more days she was still asking about it nonstop. Then she went to school one day and momentarily forgot about it. Then we arrived home and there it was. We didn't even go inside. We opened the box right on the front porch and all stayed outside for her to shoot and dribble in the street.
Bright green legwarmers, plaid shorts and two-handed dribbling-all made perfect with her new UK basketball!

I didn't ask you to show me how to play

School days around here mean that Harper turns to Graham for entertainment. On this day, that meant that she was going to show him how to play with his own toys. This pretty much meant that she was taking away whatever he decided to play with. He would play with the cow and pig, she would take them away. He would then grab the rooster and the duck. She would take them away. This went on for about 5 minutes. Then he had had enough. He leaned in and bit her on the leg. And that was that. Thanks for playing.

8 months!

Graham turns 8 months at the beginning of next week, but with Harper's 2nd birthday festivities, I didn't want to overlook writing about where he is these days and all the fun he is having. Fun is really the word for Grammy right now. He is smiling, laughing, dancing, bouncing and talking all the time. His babble has really increased recently and he will even try to talk over his sisters when they are talking. He has mastered the art of pivoting around on his little buns and can spin around to see whatever action is taking place in the room. He is scooting some as well and can pretty much get to whatever he wants, given he stays patient and takes the time to do so. He is definitely trying to crawl and just needs to either figure out army crawling or get up on his knees. Right now he ends of supermanning and trying to swim after a moment or two of trying to crawl.
He is still eating, although he has slowed down a bit. He is preferring more and more real food to baby food and loves the site of a bagel or banana coming his way.
He loves being outside and spends a lot of time trying to scoot off of his blanket or pulling back his blanket to pull up and eat grass, seeds and sticks. He loves to eat playground mulch as well.
He scoots baskwards and ends up under the couch, bed or whatever else is around. He is not fond of this.
He loves to play peek-a-boo and loves to be roughed up. If you aren't willing to play rough- too bad, he is going to tackle and cover you in sloppy kisses anyways.

How do you spell P-R-O-U-D?

She has done it, a few months earlier than I had planned, but she has really done it! The she I am talking about is Lucy and the big accomplishment is READING!!!!
I told Lucy last week that I thought we should spend a little time each night working on her sight words and reading a BOB book (early reader) every night before her bedtime story and bed. After one week she picked up a book, sounded out all of the words and read the story to me. It was amazing! Now, don't get me wrong, we still have a long way to go and she has now taken to memorizing the same book and "reading" it over and over again, but she has made real progress in just a week. So now she is sounding out words in books while I cook dinner, while riding in the car and wants to read to me at any given moment.
All of this coincides with our reading of a book about George Washington, in which the terms freedom and liberty are discussed. Lucy has lots of questions about these ideals and we talk about them after reading the book. She applied these new concepts to our discussion of the attempted bomb in NYC and why some people in this world would want to hurt Americans. When I explained to her that some people don't have the same freedoms and liberties that we have and are angry about it she pressed me with more questions. I explained to her that in some parts of the world a lot of children, especially little girls, aren't allowed to go to school, listen to music, dance, or read books. She looked at me and said, "some people are not free to read books? I'm already reading all by myself and I would be sad if I couldn't read." Yes, even our four year old can read better than many across the globe- and she can understand injustice.

Love it, Love it NOT

I have had more success in the past. I have had more success when it was just Lucy. I have had more success when it was just Lucy and Harper. All three in petal headbands, in a garden, before snack and playtime- it was not going to happen.

I settled all three kids down to have our annual kids in the garden photo taken and I got about 3 photos taken and was sure that it was just not happening this year. Too bad, Lucy's head is getting too big for the headbands and Graham will only dress up as a flower for so many years. In fact, it was Lucy's comment that should have tipped me off to what I was about to encounter, "Graham is wearing purple! Purple!? He looks like a girl! Graham, you should know that you look like a girl!" Being that she would not wear the purple one, that was what Graham was left with. I guess it doesn't really matter, dressing him up as a big daisy isn't really very macho anyways.

So here it is. I will try again next year, but this may be it. I'll always have Halloween. At least for the next 10 years or so.

Day of the Roses

It's Derby Day and in VA we aren't celebrating at the track, but the girls did pay homage to the Run for the Roses in their matching rose bikinis yesterday. (Don't tell Lucy that her new bathing suit is pink, with flowers, a skirt and ruffles- she chose it and hasn't seemed to notice that it embodies everything she claims to loath!)
As for those bets, Lucy chose the 5 horse , "Because I'm almost 5." and Harper chose Sidney's Candy because it mentions candy. Grammy chose the 1 "because he is going to be 1" and #16 because that's his birthdate.
My bet -the trifecta #12, #13 and #16 to honor the kids birthdates. For that to come in, it would be quite a bit of luck. The perfect trifecta.