Monkey Business

I took Emma and Mary to the movie theater for our first adventure with kids and movies. My friend Trica (pronounced Tricia) brought her 2 year old daughter Zoe and we all went to see Curious George. To begin with, the only time we could go was 5 PM. When we set a date for the movie, I was kind of thinking along the lines of 10 in the morning. But that was not to be. So, after naps and in lieu of dinner, I packed up the girls and headed to Emagine theater. When I got there I inquired about pricing for kids. $5.75 per, I was told. I motioned to my kids.

For them?

Yes, for them.

Even for the little one?

Yes.

But she's only 18 months old!

Every person has to have a ticket, she said, eyeing Mary with a bit of distaste. That ran me $18. Then we got to the concession stand. Seeing as it was right at dinner time, I had already figured that there was no way to avoid buying food. I scanned the menu and found a wonderful little kid's combo, for a mere $5. Well you know my girls are just old enough to want their OWN. So I thought, instead of $10 (and nothing for me), I would work it another way. So I bought a medium popcorn (hey, it was my dinner, too) and 2 kid's drinks. That was $9.25. Thank GOODNESS I thought up that money saving idea. So we went and sat down. Everything was fabulous - Emma and Zoe were LAUGHING and LAUGHING with each other. It was so incredibly cute! And Mary was content to hold her pop and munch on popcorn that I put on her napkin in her lap. Trica and I exchanged happy looks over the heads of our 3 angels. Then the movie started. Well, at once Emma did not like the fact that it got dark and she was sure to talk about at the top of her voice. Then Mary did not really care to look at the screen, but really wanted to get out of her seat. I tried to hold her in my lap. I tried to let her pace in front of the other seats. Nothing worked. What she REALLY wanted to do was run up and down the aisle. So after 1 1/2 hours of juggling Mary and trying to shush Emma, the movie was over at last. Zoe was perfect through the whole thing - she even cheered at the climax! My girls would have been better off at McDonald's play place. So, anyhow, when we were talking about the movie later, I asked Emma if she liked the monkey movie. She said, "No, mama. Zoe liked it. I didn't like it." Well at least I won't have to worry about spending just under $30 anytime soon to go take them to a movie.

My day yesterday.

My MIL scrapbooking with me Saturday.

We went to the park even though it was rather cold.

Offspring Oddities

Today Mary has a cold and Emma has a tooth. She went around all day telling me she has a tooth. I tried asking her which tooth hurt, but she kept pointing in vague directions in her mouth and nothing was really conclusive. I finally figured it out at dinner when she explained that her "tooth" was behind and under her tongue. It seems she has a sore throat, I believe. The tooth reference probably has to do with Mary's continual state of teething that I wander around mumbling about. The other funny thing that Emma said was in regards to the computer. She likes to play the kids games on Nick Jr. And Noggin and she calls them Emma games. Jim has the computer set up so that when she clicks on her account, explorer automatically loads and the homepage is Nick Jr. She has learned how to use the mouse to get to the games/videos/etc she wants and can play a fair amount of them by herself. She calls these Emma games, and usually wanders over to the computer with a very serious, resigned statement that she has to play an Emma game. Today, as usual, she told me she had to play an Emma Game and then turned on the computer and added, "Because I'm Emma". That cracked me up for a good couple of hours.

As for Miss Mary, she is talking more than any other baby I know. I actually wrote down all of the words she said over a few days and have come up with about 150. Now she is putting those all together and is saying 2-6 word sentences. Emma had a vocabulary of 3 words when she was this age. Mary can sing the whole Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star song. She can even place blame, an important thing to learn when you are the younger sibling. When I ask her if she is stinky she always replies, "No, EMMA stinky". I think I should be worried.

Getting to Know Me

I was bumping around on the internet and reading one of the occasional blogs I frequent (fluid pudding) and I found that she had made a list. Now, I am all about making lists. I have no less that 5 lists right now that are occupying some space, detailing all sorts of things to be detailed. Her list is 100 Things to Know about Fluid Pudding. I am not going to do 100 things. But I will do some things because I thought her list was fun to read. If you are reading this blog, you may or may not find this list interesting. Also, I think it would be interesting to know if there is anything on this list that Diane does NOT know.

1. I have blue eyes.
2. My refrigerator has pictures of Emma, Mary, my Mom, my Dad, Diane and her children, all of my nieces and nephews except the one in California and the 2 that are to be born any minute, my babysitter, and my friend Trica and her family.
3. My favorite food is Popcorn.
4. My favorite thing to drink is English Breakfast tea.
5. I prefer regular Pepsi but Diet Coke.
6. My first pet I got all on my own was named Alexandra, or Alley Cat. I named her before I saw her and determined I wanted a grey cat before I knew what was available.
7. I always wanted 3 kids (until I had 2).
8. I count the buttons on people's shirts.
9. I practice square roots in my head when I am trying to go to sleep.
10. I like to laugh too loud.
11. My house is red, my car is red and my winter coat is red and I don't care for red at all.
12. I hate pink.
13. My 2nd daughter is named after my father and his heritage.
14. My first daughter is named after a Jane Austen book.
15. Emma was born on 03/03/03.
16. My dog's initials spell CAT.
17. My dog's middle name is Athelstan.
18. I love sapphires most.
19. I speak French in my sleep but not when I'm awake.
20. I understand written Portuguese and French.
21. I am obsessed with the life of Evita Peron.
22. I wanted to be a veterinarian when I grew up.
23. I have a life ambition of playing violin in a professional group at least once.
24. I harbor a dream to sing on stage.
25. I have stood on the stage at Carnegie Hall.
26. I once walked from Central Park to the Statue of Liberty - half the length of Manhattan.
27. I learned to barter in the Middle East.
28. I lived in Spain for a year and didn't know any Spanish when I got there.
29. I always wanted to learn ballet.

Well, that should be enough Ann-trivia for today. I am sure there are many more things that I could divulge, but I think you might get bored after 30 items, so I quit while I was ahead.

How does your garden grow?

I did it. I took this picture with my new cell phone and sent it to my blog. Due to this WONDERFUL discovery and Thanks entirely to Lydia, you can expect MANY pictures of beautiful children doing ordinary, everyday things. Just because I can. If I get too excited, I may start up just a mobile blog, called Moblog, and link that. But for now you must endure the pictures. Like this one! Isn't Mary sweet and pensive? What is she doing on the counter, you may ask. Well, it was the only way I could get her to stop hurtling herself at me when I wanted to take a picture. Anyhow, I swear to you that there could not possibly be any cuter 18 month old Mary out there than mine. Surely you must agree.

She's Come Undone

I am undone by Emma. Completely undone. There was a simple task today: I had a handful of paintchip colors and I wondered if she would pick one or two that she liked. I thought it may even help me with how to do her room. So I laid out the 8 colored squares in a random order and asked her if she liked any of those colors. "No, mama. Not like that, that's messy. Like this." Then she arranged them in 2 perfect rows of 4. Ok, fine. So then I asked her again, moving some of them around to make four choices of pairs of colors that would look nice together. "You have to put them like this, mama." And then she brought to my attention the little Dora figure in the top right corner. All of which had to be, well, in the top right corner. We were not able to pick colors with Dora being all turned around upside down and whatnot. Ok, fine. So then I asked her again. Emma picked up the colors one by one and stacked them neatly, with an extra tap on the edge to make sure they are all lined up. "Here, mama. These are your colors." So I laid them out in a circle, trying to see if she liked one over any others. And I asked again. Emma began to pick up some and rearrange the order of the colors, saying to me, "And this one goes there, and this one goes over here...". I gave up. I absolutely broke into giggles and laughed until I cried, right there on the dining room floor. Not that I am depending on her opinion to decorate this room, it is just that she has expressed opinions about clothes and colors in the past and I thought I would see what she would say. Well, it seems she was a little on the obsessive compulsive side today and as not about to pick a favorite color from such unruly squares of paper. Mary, who got to the pile later, really liked to throw them up in the air and let them rain down on her. If I had asked Emma which one was her favorite then, she may have just gone and picked them up - in correct color order - and handed a tidy stack back to me. I am just completely undone by her!

For the Princess in training

I was looking at beds and kid's furniture online for Emma. We want to make a "Big Girl" room for her (and eventually Mary, too). I feel bad that she is sleeping in the guest room, with all of her clothes and toys in the nursery and Mary, in contrast, is sleeping in the fabulously decorated nursery with murals I painted myself. I'm big on equality and I must say that falls incredibley short of the definition. So we are looking at what it will take to make the guest room into a girl's bedroom. I am in love with Pottery Barn's Madeline twin bed, but the price is downright scarey. So I was browsing around and found something that was purely terrifying: a life sized Cinderella coach handmade with a full or queen size bed inside for a mere $47,000. Click here to see the actual bed. It is on a site called Posh Tots. I should have known by that name. Anyhow, it made Pottery Barn look like pocket fluff. I found a nice set at Art Van that I think we are going to go with. Check out the dresser here. We're going to wait to see if they have some good sale on President's day weekend. Well, the children need to be bathed, so I'm up to bat.

It was Colgate

Well, Readers, it seems that a 2 word post really gets some response. As a matter of fact, it is rivaled by very few posts, excepting that one about my sinus infection where my faithful nemesis got roasted to a smoking crisp. Ah, that was fun. Anyhow, I have a couple of things I have to address. First of all, really good to see you, Karol. For those of you who don't know (which is many, I assume at this point), Karol and I (and Amy) were inseparable during 7th and 8th grade. We spent a lot of time writing notes (coded, as you already know) and taunting a very special group of guys which included my nemesis, Derek. It just seems that some things never change. The coded notes held PRECIOUS and VALUABLE information about liking guys and the whatnot. Oddly, the guys seemed DRIVEN to nuttiness by not knowing what was in these notes. So we made a code. I don't even remember what the code was based on, but all that mattered is the guys were flustered. Junior High was such a good practice for life. And those toothpaste names. That was a funny thing. It came up because Karol said when I smiled I looked like a Colgate toothpaste add. I have a big smile, I think. My little Emma has inherited that from me and when she smiles you can see every tooth in her head. Anyhow, since Amy's name automatically shortened to Aim, and I was the Colgate sponsor, that left Karol. I think she was Crest, since it started with the same sound as her name. I must admit that I bought Colgate for years just because of this.

I can only hope that future posts, especially those meant to incense Derek, produce just as much response as my last one did. The children are screaming and fighting over a toothbrush. I must go and intervene.

A Post for Derek

I win.