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.

Rocky Roll

Get me Mick Jagger, STAT! I'm riding down the road with my little guys and here is the scene: Harper is wearing rainbow striped sunglasses, a pink t-shirt, purple leggings and red squeaky shoes. Graham has spiky hair, red, white and blue guitar shoes and a jacket with a giant guitar on it whose hoodie says "ROCK!" on it. Harper is yelling, "I need mo Rocky Roll, now please!"
All is fine and good, even cool, until you realize what "Rocky Roll" is. Raffi. Raffi, you know, the guy who sings "wheels on the bus", " 5 little ducks" and everybody's heavy metal favorite, "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands". Rock 'n Roll he is not. More like folk singing for children. And that's not all, we aren't even allowed to hear the entire cd. Instead, we are all subjected to Harper's favorites, which include the 3 above and another diddy called "Rise and Shine". You know a cd has worn out its welcome in the car when you are praying that she won't mind listening to "Daniel in the Lion's Den"- just for a change of pace. We have a three disc set, and yet, Harper only lets us listen to the one.
And so there I am, driving down the road, with the speakers turned off in front and fairly loud in the back (to accomodate her other frequent request, "Turn it up, PLEASE!!!!!". Graham is jamming in his seat, Harper is singing along and Lucy has begun her new tirade on how tired she is of this cd and how all she wants to listen to is her rock 'n roll (remember when I listened to Journey day and night- that's what Lucy wants, again.)
Let's hope that the cds that Harper said she wanted for her birthday are better and satisfying to her very selective ear. If not, Raffi might get tossed from the car window- in true rocker fashion.

Animals Gone Wild

I'm not sure what is going on here. I have kids who act like animals and animals that act like kamikazes. Harper is still acting like a dog whenever she is in a new situation. Graham is now hooting like a chimp on the playground and Lucy is just wild. That's nothing.
The past few days have included some strange animal encounters in our neck of the woods. First, a couple nights ago Ian and I were sitting in the living room after the kids had gone to bed and we heard a splash. This isn't so abnormal since we often hear Charlie, Lucy's fish, splash in his bowl. But this was a substantial splash. Ian got up to take a look. Sure enough, Charlie had jumped out of his fish bowl and onto the table. Good thing we were awake or it would have been a plunge to ol' Charlie's death.
Today while Harper, Graham and I were eating lunch in the kitchen we were watching the birds swoop all over the yard and we watched as a woodpecker ate his lunch from a hole in the top of one of the trees. Then SMACK! A sweet little finch flew right into the very window we were looking out of. Bad news for the bird. I ended up having to bury him in the backyard. Harper was mildly tramautized and said the bird needed a nap. Good night finch.
To top off our animal stories for the week: Our storm doors on both the front and back doors often don't latch all the way. Today I heard our front door open a bit and I went to the top of the stairs to see who was opening it, assuming it was a delivery. No. It was a squirrel. That's right, a squirrel opened our front door. His back was to me, but I stomped my foot and he darted, door slamming (and latching) behind him. What is going on?
Harper thought it was great. I did not. Wild thing.

Smashing in Pink

Don't let the pink and tutus fool you. Lucy is not wearing hers because she finds it pretty or wants to be girly or a ballerina. The girls put on the tutus and Lucy declared, "These are not for dancing, they are our wrestling outfits." And then mahem ensued. It was a pink massacre and both girls were taking and giving lumps. Giggles, tutus, and little girls. I'll take it. At least they looked pretty while they were trying to body slam each other.

It's good to be in the middle

As Graham gets older he is catching Harper's eye more and more. She used to walk by and sort of copy whatever Lucy was doing, but now she is trying to get his attention more and more. And vice versa. Now that they sit next to each other in the van, without Lucy between them, they spend that time smiling and talking to each other. He yells at her when she walks by, and she will now stop and play with him. A friend of mine the other day noted that she also loves to take care of him. She gets a little carried away sometimes, but in general, she will help wipe his drool, get him a toy, entertain him or hand him his cup or whatever else is out of his reach.

On the other hand, Lucy is letting Harper play with her more and more and actually hoping that she will do so. Lucy doesn't ask to play by herself as much anymore, rather she says, "Can Harper come out with me, too?" or she will make a snack for Harper when she makes one for herself.

Who says that being the middle child is so tough? I think that if Harper plays her cards right, she will be in the most enviable position of all.

One Month to Go!

Harper is in birthday mode. We have been talking about it so that she understands it when the day comes. She now walks around singing "Happy Birthday!" and talking about her birthday party. Never did I think we would end up with a little 2 year old who was a Wizard of Oz fanatic and who, in particular, loved the Wicked Witch of the West! Of course, Lucy has to have her hands in the planning and the day after I made Harper's bday invites, sealed and addressed, Lucy announces that "she and Harper have had a talk about Harper's bday party." She went on to tell me that Harper wanted a fish or turtle birthday party. This would be fine, except now Harper is wanting a witch/ turtle birthday. Not sure how those two work together except for the fact that they are both green. I need to keep Lucy out of the planning, or at least keep her from giving Harper more ideas.

Lucy also has ideas about what to get Harper for her birthday. They all include things she herself would like. For instance, there are some small unicorn figurines at the variety store that Harper has been eyeing for a few months. Lucy went to pick out one for her the other day, but wanted to get the blue maned one. This is Lucy's favorite, not Harper's, who would like pink or purple. Lucy then adds, "I will love to play with Harper's blue unicorn, that's why we need to get that one." In the end, they are a buck so I got two, both are Harper's, but now maybe she will have one to share. We'll see.

Right now, we are focusing on getting Harper completely healthy. After a week of a mild rash that wasn't driving her crazy, but was starting to spread all over we decided to have it looked at. She was also vomiting late last week so a trip to the doc was in order. It turns out that she has strep. Bubblegum, pink antibiotics never hurt a 2 year old girl, so she is on the mend. Today when I gave her her first dose of medicine she said, "thanks momma, now I'm not sick anymore."

We went to the doctor and that means H got weighed. She now weighs a whopping 20.8 pounds. I think Graham is about 18. Slow and steady wins the race. He is gaining, slowly, but surely and it will be interesting to see in June when all three kids go to the doc at the same time to see who weighs the most- Graham or Harper. In the meantime we plug away at trying to get her to eat.

Harper loves playing in closets. I'm not sure why, except it is sort of hiding, sort of peek-a-boo, sort of something that she thinks that she's not suppose to do.

Shake Your Groove Thang

Graham has found it, his GROOVE THANG, that is. We got back from KY and now he is a dancing machine. He hears anything resembling a beat and off he goes to the land of disco balls and dance floors. The girls love getting him to dance and so we now have a dance party at all times of day.
Dancing isn't the only thing he has discovered, bouncing in general is great fun. He loves to be jostled and bounced on my knee, or in my arms. And you can't stop. If you stop, you get some quick hip thrusts to get things going again. So when I rock him before bedtime now I am given a final hip thrust as I get ready to put him in bed. He may be half-asleep, but he is going to go dancing into his dreams.
So he will soon be introduced to our version of the Kentucky Derby, mounted on a knee, listening for the call to post and then a full call of the race, all while being bounced on a knee at full speed. He will always win, just as Lucy and Harper always did, and will be showered with a garland of roses. And I'm sure that win will deserve a victory dance.

7 Months

Graham is almost 7 months old- already! He has become such a happy little man and is truly developing his own personality. He loves to wrestle, be rowdy and silly. He is definitely not a passive player in the game anymore. He is nosy- everything distracts him and he wants to know where every sound is coming from and what everything tastes like or feels like.

He is talking a lot. He has started saying "Ma!" and usually starts chanting this before milk-time. He mimics loud noises with his very own loudness and will mimick your tone when you talk to him as well. Ever see a human try to get a dog to howl? We can do that with Graham as well!

He loves being outside and watching the kids play. He goes with us everyday after school to the playground and will squeal when kids run in front of him-he seems to think they are doing it for his pleasure. He loves to swing as well, although not too high, he catches his breath like he is on a major roller coaster.

He is sitting and rolling and reaching. He scoots backwards if he is on his belly so that he ends up under the couch, the bed or whatever else he can fit under. His hand-eye coordination is amazing and he is actually pretty quick at grabbing things and, of course, getting them into his mouth. His favorites are sticks off the ground (Harper is on the case though, she loves to scold him for putting "dirty things" into his mouth).

He is exploring his little body. You can find him with his fingers in his ears, eyes, nose, between his toes, etc and diaper changes have brought a new found toy into his life!

We think he is cutting his first tooth. You can't see it yet, but it is swollen and Tylenol seems to be helping. If it isn't a tooth, then he is playing us, quite seriously.

As you can see above, he has a mind of his own. When I put him in his carseat now he will straighten completely- stiff as a board- and not let me bend him to put him in his seat. He will also do this when I try to put him down on the floor. It's like trying to fold a brick wall sometimes.

He eats all the time. He eats 3 meals of solid foods a day, plus a little snack, plus he nurses about 5 times a day. And he is still always hungry. Speaking of hungry, there he is now. He is a growing boy, afterall!

Graham's First Visit to KY

All loaded up and off to KY in a car too small, really, for all of us and our belongings. The upside is that in a car that is too small, you pack lighter and Lucy can help with Graham. The downside is that Harper can reach Lucy- and that just means aggravation. All in all, the trip was flawless. Graham cried for less than 20 minutes the entire 10 1/2 hours, Harper managed to keep her feet to herself most of the time and movies pacified Lucy and that mouth which really needs a car of its own at times. And we made it to Lexington to see the last half of the UK basketball game.
We arrived in Lexington and stayed for less than two days. This was just enough time for the kids to be showered with gifts, attention and to squeeze in some funtime with Parker, Pop Pops' trains and Gramzie and the pirate ship. More time will be spent in Lexington this summer- we promise!
The next day was Graham's baptism. He got the shared honor of being baptized with Molly- whom we all met just hours before! Needless to say, Graham and Molly like each other. They ogled each other and smiled big goony smiles at each other much of the week. Molly cheered for Graham when he bounced in the jumparoo and they held hands a lot when playing on the floor. Graham is big enough to eat Molly, but he never had the opportunity to get hungry since he ate every hour on the hour while we were in town.
Back to the baptism... Graham was being dangled over a fountain of holy water when he heard Fr. Gary say his name, just as Lucy did a few years before, he craned his neck to see who was about to pour cold water over his head- a little guilt trip for the priest. Then Fr. Gary got his revenge, he finished the bottle of chrism on poor Graham. To say that Graham's head was slippery and smelly for days is an understatement. I know you only need something old, something new, something borrowed and something new when you are a bride on your wedding day, but since Graham was wearing a beautiful white gown, it needs to be mentioned:
Something Old- the gown, Nani made it and Lucy and Harper and myself and my sisters wore it at their baptisms.
Something new- does a fresh diaper count? or the scratch he put on his own head on the car ride over?
Something borrowed-Graham's shoes are borrowed from Max
Something Blue- Graham wore his UK jersey underneath with the number "1/2" across the front. Oh, and he bleeds Kentucky blue!
Party- cake, egg hunt, and friends and family. We won't mention the UK game, it did not add to the festivities.
All in all, it was a great start to our week in Kentucky.