Mary's Reward

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Catching Up

It took me a full work week worth of days to begin to get back to normal. Most of the presents are put away, the laundry is caught up (but not all put away), we got to the gym with the girls today for the first time in a week, and Emma actually fell asleep before 10 PM. I even managed to vacuum and organize my closet. For all intents and purposes it seems like we are back to normal. Tomorrow we are going to tackle the decorations and take them all down and then the holiday will officially be over. Frankly, I'm quite glad to get the trees down - I've been itching to do it for over a week now. We put them up almost 2 weeks earlier than usual - mid November - and I'm ready for things to be back to normal. I still have 2 packages of gifts to send out to distant family, but if I take down the trees I'll probably get to those sooner.

On other news, Mary's cold remains - awful and unbeatable. She has the worst cough and drainage she has ever had. Even after the pharmacist recommended ventral that was supposed to dry up the mucus, she was coughing endlessly. I've tried the vaporizer, Vicks, extra pillows and lots of concerned hovering over her and none of it seems to work. Even all put together. Tonight she seems to be resting better, but in a few hours it may all be back. That's about all I can tell you.

I have some other things to type up but no time right now, as this will be the first night since last week that I will get in bed before midnight, and that is only if I stop typing now. For a little foreshadowing, I've had a job interview this week to write about, and my grandfather sent me some papers he found that are from the late 1800's - some of them are wonderfully unusual camp songs which I plan on typing here. You won't hear any of these today, I'll tell you! So, stay tuned!

Let the Festivities Begin

Well, Internet, I'm done. All of the baking is baked, all of the presents are wrapped, all of the labels are labeled, the family picture is taken and printed, all of the cards have been made and sent (so if you didn't get one yet, you aren't getting one), and everything that needs to be done for the weekend is DONE. The only things that remain are for Santa himself to do, in the order of inflating 2 Hippity Hops and putting together a small trampoline. Then all of the things that Santa can only do well after children are asleep. Even the library books are not due until the 27th. Friday is school for Emma with a visit from Santa himself (he must be all done, too) and Saturday after gymnastics the family parties start. We go o Papa and Grandma's house on Saturday, Uncle Jeff and Aunt Lisa's on Sunday, then over to Aunt Karen and Uncle Rob's before coming home and putting tired little bunnies to bed for the big day on Monday. What's left after that? Tuesday we have a meeting to finish house selections for our house that has not begun to be built yet and hopefully Mum and Papa are taking the girls to their house for a few days, Wednesday I have a job interview and we paint 2 rooms, Thursday we pick up the girls again and then it is a full week later from when I thought I could take a breath. So, that's all folks - Let the Festivities Begin!

Emma's First Christmas Program

Today we gussied everybody up and piled into the Jeep to drive the 4 miles to Emma's preschool, where we dropped her in her classroom and proceeded to the basement to wait 1/2 hour. Down in the basement, Mary, Mum, Jim and I waited (not particularly patiently) for the 3 year old's classroom #2 to make their entrance. They came! They sat in ever so tiny chairs which are so incredibly sweet in meandering rows that it breaks your heart. They fidgeted, and then THEY SANG. Ms. Tonya managed to get 30 3 year olds to sing. Not all at once, sometimes, and not all on the same song, sometimes. But they did it. Of course, I have a video -but a few things should be explained first. I put wonderful Santa-ish dresses on Emma and Mary that came with hats. I was not going to put the hats on, but Emma insisted. Mary followed suit. So there were hats. They were cute! They were very floppy in a Mrs. Claus sort of way. And neither child would leave them alone. That's all fine for Mary, who is out in the audience, bored to pieces while waiting for her older sister to appear, but I cannot begin to explain the horror I felt when I saw what Emma had done to hers. So we have a wonderful video with a red shower cap on Emma's head. I got over that - I mean, what was there to do about it? Get up from the audience and fix her hat? I'm sure SOMEONE would have thought of that, but it was not ME. No, siree, never, EVER crossed my mind. So fine. Poor Emma has had some bloody noses, so that caused her to be fiddling with her nose. A lot. I couldn't help her out there, either. And the hat. Yep, it was ITCHY. There is a whole segment of the video I left in just because she had fits about her itches. Because later, maybe even after next year, it will be endearing. And the part about saying 'hello' to her family between songs. That was endearing the very minute it happened. Enjoy the highlights!



(The last picture is her with her teacher, who is absoloutely wonderful and fabulous)

Potty Training

This is Nemo. Nemo is being potty trained on "the potty". This particular box is an empty flushable wipes container which is oddly reminiscent of a toilet, which Nemo fits neatly on when he's really got the urge. Unfortunately, Nemo "made poops in his diaper" before he got to the potty, so he was changed, cleaned, and sternly dealt with before being set on the potty (see picture) to "make pee-pee". Emma and Mary were co-parenting, with Mary being Nemo's Daddy and Emma playing his Momma. Emma was the one that changed and scolded Nemo and set him on he potty. Mary was the one that praised and hugged Nemo when he was successful. She then put him to bed, which you can see behind the potty there. Every time Nemo cried, "Momma" would jump up and run over while "Daddy" watched. After 5 or 6 messy diapers, where Nemo was told NOT to do that again, "Momma" unceremoniously thrust Nemo in "Daddy's" face and said, "He's stinky, Daddy, you have to change him now". "Daddy" dutifully cleaned Nemo (with a view finder disc, oddly enough) and told "Momma" that Nemo was hungry. Alright, "Momma" conceded, he needs Momma milk. For those who are not familiar with the parlance in our house that is our code for breast feeding. Emma promptly lifted her shirt, attached Nemo, and looked annoyed for what she thought was enough time for Nemo to get his fill. She then rocked him, told him he was loved, and put him to bed. This played out many times and only stopped when I tried to get a movie of it. Before that it was too much to expect me and Jim to get off of the floor and wipe our tears and stop our crazy laughing to pick up a camera and focus on the moment for posterity. That picture may be worth a thousand words, but the video would have been worth a million laughs.

Little Guy and the Miraculous (Daily) Recovery

Some of you may be waiting with baited breath to hear what has become of Little Guy. The very next day he resurfaced, unharmed. My psychologist friend down the street suggested this might happen. To support Emma's game without acknowledging that Little Guy might be real (which he said annoyed Emma because by her actions she KNOWS Little Guy is imaginary and I would be lying to her), I asked her the next day after he reappeared while we were walking in the mall, "How are you doing with Little Guy today?". To which she replied, casually, that he was gone now because he wandered off and got eaten by a monster. On the way home from the mall, she and Mary were BOTH playing with Little Guys, because now there are 2. Emma was rather vexed that Mary wasn't playing the right way with Little Guy, and I found this funny because I have learned that imaginary friends have to do with children wanting a sense of control. Soon after that, Charlie sat on her Little Guy and smashed him. Later, he climbed in the fireplace and got burned. Eventually he came to an awful end involving a dragon. More recently, he has had unfortunate dealings with wild animal puppets at the library. And today he had a tragic accident with the soap on the bathroom mirror. In spite of all of this, Little Guy remains a companion. He is sort of the Mr. Bill of imaginary friends, or the Kenny of Emma's life. Now Emma has developed Little Puppy, who is NOT Little Guy's pet, but EMMA'S pet. I was corrected emphatically. I just hope Little puppy isn't accident prone.

Addedum: I've been told that Little Puppy went to Argentina and he got a boo-bo and then he died. So much for that.

Praises to my Baby

Mary is 2 years, 4 months, 3 weeks and 1 day old , as anyone can see by the Lilypie ticker in the header. She is not by most standards, a baby. However, she is my baby, and I am constantly amazed by her. Today was a pure Mary day, with Emma at preschool. It was not remarkable in any way, except that Mary was in it. Maybe there are some things I can tell you about her.

First of all, she is more beautiful than anything else I know. Her endlessly blue eyes, set deep in her face and framed by the delicate brown smudges of eyebrows and lashes against her pale porcelain skin always spark with a slight bend of humor. Her perfect pearl teeth line up between the outlines of her rosy bowtie lips the hold a suggestion of dimples. Her muscular legs bounce her along regularly with enthusiasm usually reserved for special occasions. Her gentle curls bounce with every movement. She is, in a word, beautiful.

She is funny. My Mary can tell a joke. She loves to make a funny little grunt noise to make her family members (especially her sister) laugh. She puts random things on her head and says, "Look at me!" just to share a smile. She laughs at Tom and Jerry cartoons while sympathizing with the injured party. She is pleased with herself if you find something funny in what she did or said.

She is empathetic. When I yell at Emma for something, Mary tears up and says, "Don't be mean to my sweet sister!". When Emma has done something wrong and I am correcting it (more reasonably), she hugs my leg, repeating, "I love you, Mama". When somebody on a show gets hurt, she tells them it's OK. She gives me random hugs when I am just sitting quietly and tells me, "Don't cry, Mama, I love you".

She is smarter than I could ever expect. She draws pictures of jellyfish and self portraits that are recognizable. She correctly identifies letters that I have never taught her. She can play a melody on the piano if you show her how to do it first. She makes up songs constantly about things she is doing and manages to rhyme the words. She peruses picture books and makes up back stories. She sings entire verses to songs that I sing to her. She amazes me at every turn.

Every night after she is asleep I check in on her and kiss her goodnight. Dear Mary! She is now in a regular twin bed (although she refuses to use anything but her crib blanket) and she looks so tiny in the middle of it. I cannot let go of the little infant that nursed and slept in my arms yet, despite all of the indications that she is nearly a kid. She continues to cry over anything (temperamental, that one) and squeal with anger - both things left over from a firey infant life. And I know I'll even miss those when they evaporate, because there will no longer be any remainders of her babyhood.

I don't know where I was going with this. Usually I feel I have a nice, tidy ending to bring it all around. But I just wanted to share some of my overwhelming Mother love for this little creature who I am so blessed to call my daughter.

Guess what's cooking for dinner?

So I just typed this huge post and my computer decided to shut down Explorer. Hooray and here we go again. I think the post went something like this:

Saturday we had my parents over for dinner. It was a nice little affair where I did not have the time or inclination to pull out the Christmas dishes and that was probably the only opportunity I am going to have this year to use them. Anyhow, this story is relevent to today, really. We made a lemon chicken recipe that is a favorite, along with some broccoli. As for the noodle side dish, we had a bit of a disagreement. Jim, it seems, already had a menu in his head that did not include the noodle recipe I really wanted to make. I saw this recipe on Martha Stewart's show and it sounded so fabulous and GOURMET that I had to make it. So, after a brief show of annoyance, Jim conceded to my Fettuccine with Mascarpone and Parmigiano-Reggiano idea. I think he was still a little sore that recently Martha's cakey chocolate chip cookies beat out Alton's puffy chocolate chip cookies. In case you didn't know, these two cooking gurus are constantly battling for face time at our house. Almost every dinner has some mention of one or the other. So, anyhow, we made the Mascarpone noodles. Unfortunately, the day before, I had burned out my taste buds with atomically hot chai tea. All I can tell you about this wonderfully rich and creamy sounding dish is that the broccoli seemd over done and the noodles seemed under done. That was purely by texture. To satisfy Jim's desire for HIS noodle dish, he made it yesterday with the left over chicken.

Today, I went pawing through the refrigerator for the small amount of Saturday's dish that was hidden away, thinking that my taste buds were quite recovered. Knowing that this sauce was a creamy thing, I was gentle about heating it up in the microwave. Unfortunately, the taste was unrecognizable beyond the clumpy egg piles that had cooked into the sauce from my over active microwave oven. So much for Martha.

Nothing Special, but worthy of COMMENTS

Hello? Anyone there? I KNOW you are watching - I can check my statistics to find out how many people have visited every day. I can also track where you are logging in from - city, state, and even country (for a while I had a couple of loyal British readers - huh!). But yet, as I continue to add content, the comments are dropping. Abysmal! Not only dropping, nearly DISAPPEARING! This is a bit of a two way street, Internet. You read my material, then I read yours. Please, I BEG of you - COMMENT!

With that out of the way, I thought I would post another brilliant picture by my resident artist - that would be 2 year old Mary Leona. Check this out, straight from the Magnadoodle:


Now, you think that is a series of dots and circles, don't you? As always, I asked dear little Mary, "What is it?". Mary replied, with enthusiasm, "That's Mary No-na!" (That's Mary's interpretation of her middle name - No-na, which she insists is a part which must be used in conjunction with her first name at all times). So, upon closer inspection, and the context that a 2 year old drew it, I realized I could see eyes, a mouth, and even hair. And, if you think there is no resemblance to the hair, check out the picture at the end of this old post.

I'm telling you - she is an genius.

Have Guitar Will Travel

Today we started going back and examining each letter of the alphabet in grand Lydia fashion, that is with a continent of discovery for the alphabet. We were doing South America, so we started with A is for Anaconda. Fabulous! I think this really started, the first time, last year August. We keep petering out because I am lazy ad find it impossible to keep my children's attention for more than 5 minutes. Well, since Emma has started recognizing and talking about letters, Mary has becoming KEENLY interested in them and I thought this was a good time to jump right back in where we left off - at G. We did G is for gecko as our animal/craft project and listened to guitar music from South America as well as investigated the guitar that Zoe's mom brought with her. I'll tell you, she looked like quite the hippy play group mom, arriving with a guitar. Too bad neither one of us could play any better than the girls.

Housebound and Productive

Today I was very ambitious in the house, especially the kitchen. This is probably explained by my lack of being able to go the gym and run right now, but I am using it to my advantage. Today, while the girls napped, I cleaned out my refrigerator. I found I had a lot of apples and left over cranberry sauce I couldn't bear to part with. So, I thought I would try this with the cranberry sauce (I had some rather frightening bananas, too). Then I set this up in the crock pot. I'll let you know if they are keepers. I also had more laundry than a small country to do and put away, and I am still in the middle of that.

This weekend we bumped around the house and finished juggling furniture between the bedrooms, including the demise of Mary's crib/toddler bed. The nursery used to look like this, a very long time ago (one year ago):



And now it looks like this, as of yesterday:



Emma's room got a bit of a turn around, too, since we moved an entire bed and dresser out of it. it originally looked like this:


And now, like this:


I bought some curtain things that will just have to do for a year until we move, but those are not up yet (obviously). Before, one hardly noticed the curtainless windows. Now, they make the room look like an orphanage. So Jim has some Things To Do this evening when he gets home (after he eats all of the food I made). Well, I must get back to laundry, and I'll post the picture with the curtains later. I will spare you the gory details of the sobbing and weeping that occurred when Mary went to sleep in a regular twin BED instead of a crib

Gaggle of Girls

Diane and Me with our all-female offspring:

Holiday Happenings

We have company in for a week during Thanksgiving and it has been a little crazy around here! We added a family of 6 - 3 adults and 3 children (2 months, nearly 4, and 6 1/2 years old)to our humble abode. Let me just say that there is never a dull (or quiet) moment. The Ruckers are here visiting family as is standard for Thanksgiving and we are having a great time having the families together. The only thing that is not working very well is the sleeping. There's not a whole lot of sleeping situations happening as planned. This was the original plan: Diane and Derek on the 3rd floor sleeper couch with the baby; Mary's bed joined Emma's in the Dora room and the queen sized inflatable mattress on the floor for Sabrina and Fiona; the second twin bed from the Dora room into the nursery for Grandma Mary to sleep in and us in our room. The first morning found Sabrina in Grandma Mary's room sharing a twin bed and Mary in our room on the floor. The next morning found Diane and Baby Brianna on the couch in the living room, Sabrina on the third floor with Derek, Fiona in with Grandma Mary, and Emma on the floor in our room. We've just about given up on any night time order whatsoever. And if you can follow all of that then you are doing better than we are.

Thanksgiving dinner was here, with my parents, my grandfather, Jim's mom and Avis joining us. I really enjoying maiking all of the Thanksgiving Day food. This year we brined the turkey overnight, which gave it a fabulous flavor and texture. I think I will ALWAYS brine fowl from now on. I highly recommend trying this recipe.

We are spending a great amount of time working out with the Ruckers. Today Jim, Derek and Sabrina went to the rock wall at the fitness center and spent a good portion of the afternoon rock climbing. Then Diane and I went back and swam for a while. We also raced down the water slide, but only twice. Whee!!!! The day started out with the girls frosting Christmas cookies, which I made a video of for you to see.

Dora and Swiper

Emma doesn't usually do a Dora role play, and today we found out why. Mary isn't quite the willing accomplice Emma would like her to be, apparently.

The Ultimate and Terrible Demise of Little Guy

Emma has an imaginary friend, who she pulls out occasionally. This is not the constant friend who never leaves her side. This is someone who comes out when she is playing with others and joins in. His name is Little Guy. The other day (Tuesday) I was driving to go do errands and there was a clump of dirt in my tire, clanking around as clumps of dirt tend to do when stuck in the wheel well. I stopped briefly to get out and look at it and announced to the inquisitive girls what it was and drove off. Then Emma broke out in screaming and sobbing fits.

"NO! NO! MAMA! IT'S LITTLE GUY! YOU SMASHED HIM WITH YOUR TIRE! STOP! YOU'RE HURTING HIM! IT'S ****LITTLE GUY****!!!"

And so the car ride went, with Emma convinced I had just killed her imaginary friend. Yep. Ran him over. Much like Grandma and the reindeer in that catchy holiday song. Emma was beside herself for the rest of the ride. At nap time, she had nightmares about Little Guy. After nap time, she moped about and looked wistful, saying the house was an awfully sad place without Little Guy. About every hour she teared up and mourned her loss.

It's amazing to me that I have never come across any parenting articles about how to handle this occasion.

And the Stockings were Hung...

Well, there you have it, the fabulous tree in the living room, with matching decor. Sunday the girls helped me and Grandma decorate the little tree in the foyer with Hallmark ornaments (read: less breakable). They were so excited it was hard to keep up with them, but they enjoyed it so much it was nearly insupportable! Grandma Saunders was a good sport and I think she even enjoyed herself. We all had such a nice, Christmas-y time and now the trees are up, thanks ever so much to Grandma!

12 Days of...

BUSY-NESS! What on Earth have I been doing??? Well, let me tell you, my friend. ***I*** am getting ready for CHRISTMAS! Friday my mother-in-law and my niece came over and we spent all day long making our Christmas cards, with lots of red and green candy and many Christmas music CD's. I made 38 cards out of the 60 I need. That was a very productive day! I worked hard enough on those that I had a cramp in my hand later that evening. Something like carpal tunnel for stampers. Ouch!

Today we took the girls to gymnastics, where both of them proceeded to crumple into small melted toddler piles when they should have been doing donkey kicks or candle sticks or something. Really, Mary was a pile on the floor and kept saying she was tired. Poor girls were just not in the mood to be jumping and flipping about, even if they are unbelievably cute in their little leotards. Then we met Niecey at Sam's Club and found her some new tires for her little car and we got her a few important food items to take home with her. I'm so glad I'm no longer in my 20's and on my own again! The girls continued to be melted messes so we took them home. While Emma neglected her naptime and refused to sleep, we put up the big Christmas tree. IT IS BEAUTIFUL! This is the first year the living room is painted a rich burgundy and it matches the colors of the tree ornaments. It is all so sumptuous and glamorous and makes you want to weep it is all so Better Homes and Gardens. At some point (when the furniture is back in place) I'll take a picture to share with you. Kind of sad this will be the only year it will be in that room. HUH!

After all of that holiday happiness I went and worked out - swimming again. And I did my personal best! I swam 1/2 mile today. You can check out all of the statistics on my Triathlon training blog here. So now we are exhausted, sitting in the family room just listening to the laundry get washed in the washing machine. When I have some energy - tomorrow - I think I will run for 3 miles. I'm serious about getting with the skinny.

I'll keep you posted.

Halloween

Just for those that continue to think about that long past holiday mentioned above, here's a treat. The little girl in the JoJo costume is my good friend's daughter.

Christmas

Well, it is snowing today. Not just lazy, drifting, thought you might not notice flakes - we have full white out conditions over here in southeastern Michigan. Were you expecting a post about Halloween? Well, it is November SECOND, which means we are a full TWO days into the Christmas season. The catalogs are spread out on my kitchen table, with dogeared pages and ink stars all over them. Christmas cards designs are piled on my craft table, waiting to be tried and loved - chosen to be the special one that is duplicated 60 or 70 times over and them sent all over the Earth before the end of December. Even the weather has given up any hope that fall extends one MINUTE past October 31st. There is no time for wallowing and focusing on Halloween any more - that holiday is SO last Tuesday. Time to dig out my holiday CD's and mull the cider - we have cards to make!