Odds and Ends

I don't have a theme for this entry but I'm sure that won't prevent the readers of NFN to continue reading. Take one look at this video and you will forgive me for the lack of my title creativity:

Last week when we went to the gym, Hadley said, "Mama, you can stay in the playroom, Ima go workout." I told her that she'd probably have more fun in the playroom. She's picked up on a lot of things recently. She can put DVDs in the player now by herself, and she put that headband on (which is really a pair of sunglasses) too. The funniest things I see her doing is saying things that I say in her playing. The other day she was playing with her "buddies" (the Fisher Price "Little People" - she has termed "my buddies") and she said, "You ready to go night - night buddies? Yea? OK, let's go night-night." She then put them in the pack-n-play, said good night, and added, "Tomorrow we're going to go to the park, buddies. Does that sound good?"

When Hadley plays with her airport, she gets all her buddies in the plane, helicopter, or taxi cab and wheels them around the runway for a bit before lining them up at Starbucks. Each of the buddies gets a "grande half-caf" to which I say, "Well done, child."

Hadley and Harper have been sharing a room for about two weeks now which has gone smoothly. I heard lots of warnings about making sure the older child doesn't feel like his/her room is being invaded or that their crib is being taken away by the younger kid. Hadley doesn't seem to have any of that. When we showed her the new bed (which is a toddler bed, but we still have it as a crib), she said, "Oh! That's the bed Daddy made for you.....with blocks." (She has a hard time with the difference between"you" and "me.")

Here's a video of Harper enjoying "The Wiggles." She likes watching Hadley dance around to these guys.

Harper gives us lots of smiles, especially to Hadley, but gets confused when the camera is in front of her.

Here's Hadley showing Harper how to do the "Shimmy Shake."

I need to learn a new phrase besides, "Oh, Wow! Good job!"

I read an article by a woman who is giving up blogging, Facebook, and Twitter for Lent. Don't worry, I wasn't influenced. The last time I gave up something for Lent was in college when my friend Alison and I decided we'd give up ice-cream. I believe it lasted for a day. I know I was supposed to be focusing on Jesus, but all I could think about was the ice-cream I couldn't have. Anyway, this woman was concerned about what this was going to do to her social life. Since she wouldn't be on Twitter (something I have no idea about; I'm still trying to make sense of what "flare" and "poke" are on Facebook, and why anyone cares that I've installed Facebook on my phone), she thought she'd miss out on get togethers with friends. Maybe she'd be folding laundry while her friends were watching a movie, and she would never know because she gave Twitter up for Lent. I wanted to suggest to her that perhaps her friends could call her on the phone instead.

Valentine's Day in DC

Saturday we went to the National Archives to see the original Emancipation Proclamation, and then to the National Gallery of Art for lunch. We met up with my Erika and Arie Wilgenburg and their daughter Chloe, who is about three weeks older than Harper. (Erika was my RA when I was a freshman in college.)

Here are me and the girls outside of the National Gallery of Art.

And here we are taking a look at ol' Abe's work.






In the rotunda of the museum we also saw the Declaration of Independenceand the Constitution along with other documents.

Here's Hadley quite interested in the ceiling of the museum.

And here she is explaining to us as delicately as possible that she would like to leave:

Ice-Skating

On Saturday we took Hadley ice-skating in Rockville Town Center. This is the same place where the little splash park is that Hadley enjoys in the summer time.

It took Hadley a little time to understand what was going on, but she loved it. Her reaction was much different than the first time I went ice-skating, proving once again that my oldest daughter does not have my timid personaltiy. (My first time ice-skating was spent the entire time crying because I was afraid I would fall down. I don't think I ever did fall down, but apparently worrying about falling down was enough to cause tears.)

Here are some pictures and videos:

After a taking a few pictures, Harper and I walked around the Town Center for a bit. It was such a nice day yesterday and it felt good to be outside. Now that Harper is almost 3 months old, I thought it was time to take her into Starbucks, so we walked over there while Hadley and Jesse were skating.

After the ice-skating, we got something to eat at Bobby's Crabshack, one of our favorite places to eat.

What to do when your 2 year old wants to play with chalk in January

Teach her how to use a glue stick!

The last two days we've been stuck in the house because it's been snowing. I use the word "snowing" loosely since readers from the Chicago and Michigan areas would laugh in the face of the weather we're having here. But what has fallen is enough to shut down just about everything, so we are inside. Hadley wanted to play with chalk yesterday and I didn't feel like cleaning up what would be an enormous mess. Plus, the sound of chalk on paper gives me the shivers. Instead, I cut pictures out of the newspaper and had her glue them on paper. I told her we were making a grocery list and this seemed to please her.

Later, Harper and Hadley played in the sunroom for a bit.

"I can't wait until I can crawl and walk so I don't have to sit in this stupid swing any longer. Being an infant is so boring! Where's my hand? At least I could gnaw on that while I sit here."

Book Club

When I was a teacher, my favorite day was Book Club day. Usually Book Club fell on a Friday, and since Hadley seems to enjoy books so much, I thought that this Friday we would have a little Book Club of our own.

I've been wanting to keep track of the books Hadley and I get at the library just because I thought it would be fun for her to look back and see what she read when she was a toddler. A friend of mine who used to be a third grade teacher made a bookworm in her classroom, and every time a student of hers read a book, she wrote the title down and added it to the bookworm. I stole the idea from her, and started one for Hadley in her room.

I wrote the titles on the front of the circles, and on the back I wrote down what Hadley says about each book. For example, in the book Duck and Goose, I asked Hadley what the Duck and Goose find. "A ball." she says. Then I asked her what Duck and Goose think it is. She laughed and said, "An egg!" In the book Mine! Mine! Mine! Hadley told me that Cousin Clare is crying. "Why is she crying?" I asked. She said, "Ima show you Cousin Clare crying.....um....Cousin Clare, where are you?....Where's Cousin Clare crying go?" Eventually she found the page where Cousin Clare is crying and Hadley told me that she's crying because the other girl wouldn't share her toys.

I think I've mentioned this before, but Hadley usually likes to start her day with books and juice in her crib. This morning she and I read Small Small Pond, one of Hadley's favorites:

While we ate breakfast, Hadley and I colored some bunnies to go along with the book Tippy Tippy Tippy, Hide.

Then we made our way to the library to get some new books. Harper was happy to come along as well. I don't know why she's sideways.

Here she is patiently waiting with her uggs on:

I wish I had the next part of this entry on film because it was the best part of our morning. I didn't bring my camera along which I regret, but those of you who have been to our place know that one only takes the essentials when one is responsible for getting Hadley and Harper down three flights of stairs. The diaper bag, the bag of library books, Hadley, and Harper strapped in her carseat where enough. But even though I don't have pictures, I do want to record our trip to the library so I don't forget it.

Hadley and I were reading the enormous Sesame Street book (we have to read that one every time we go to the library because we can't check it out), when Hadley noticed that a girl at the table next to ours was reading the same book. The little girl was actually watching when Hadley turned the page to her book and then she would turn a page. It was pretty cute, and so I said, "Look Hadley, she's on the same page as you." So Hadley, being the extremely friendly child she is, picked up her book (it's bigger then she is) and lugged it over to the little girl's table.
"You want to read this together, girl?" she asked.
"OK." she said. And for the next 45 minutes, Hadley and her new friend read different books together. More than a camera, I wish I had filmed the entire thing so I could remember their conversations. One of the books had a firetruck in it, something Hadley was quite excited to point out to the little girl. This is how their conversation went. Make of it what you will.
"That's a firetruck." Hadley told her.
"We had a firetruck at our house. We had to go outside." the little girl said.
"No, the firetruck's in the living room." Hadley told her.
"My mom pushed a button in our house to call the firetruck. You have to push the button with a key and it is very dangerous." the little girl told Hadley.
"Yea. When you push it, you fall down and you get a band-aid." Hadley said.

This was Hadley's first experience making a friend all by herself, and I can't think of a better way to do it then through a story.

Follow You, Follow Me

Jesse and I were married for 10 years this past Friday. We attempted to celebrate, however, our girls had another agenda. Harper usually gets fussy around the evening hours, but on Friday she decided to really show us what she's capable of. We swaddled, rocked, fed, and changed her and nothing worked. I even hummed the theme song to 90210; something that wins a smile every time, but she screamed louder.

Jesse and I were tag teaming all night. At one point, he came into our bedroom to take Harper just before I was seriously considering throwing myself out the window. He picked her up, and I walked into the living room to sit down with Hadley who was quietly doing puzzles.

"Hey, you." I said.

"Hi Mama. I don't like Harper right now." she said.

I patted her on the head and helped her with the United States puzzle (she knows, California, Texas, New York, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas. Kansas?).

It was quiet for about 5 minutes until I told Hadley it was time for bed. She, however, wanted to play with her firetruck. After a short argument, she threw a fit. It was the first full on tantrum I'd seen from her. Perhaps it was because I wasn't paying enough attention to her. Or maybe it was because she was overtired, or maybe she really wanted to play with her firetruck. But I think she and Harper had a conversation earlier on Friday and dared each other to see who could throw a bigger fit.

"Let's just get upset for no reason, OK Harper?"

"OOO! That sounds great!" adds Harper. "And since I can't talk yet, I'll just scream as loud as is humanly possible. It'll be hysterical!"

So our anniversary was spent trying to keep our girls happy, and then collapsing on the couch feeling as though we were run over by a semi-truck.

Our life now is filled with Sesame Street, bjorns, cheerios, and carseats, and I will file all these things away with the last 10 years I've spent with Jesse. One afternoon when we were living in South Bend, and I was complaining about how there was nothing to do, he took me to Macri's Deli and Bakery and bought us some pastries. We sat along the East Race eating donuts and watching the kayakers fly by. On Saturdays, we used to walk along the St. Joseph river to the Farmer's Market, and in the afternoons we'd often go the library or the Notre Dame bookstore.

If it was a football Saturday, we'd sometimes go to Corby's, or just sit on our porch and listen to the crowd from the stadium. And hardly a birthday, or Valentine's Day, or just a Tuesday would go by that we weren't at my favorite restaurant, The Vine.

I remember in our marriage vows we told each other that we'd help find each other's gifts and encourage one another to develop them. Once, when Jesse had gone to the library to look for a book, he came home with a huge stack of books for me. He told me he stumbled on an isle that was filled with writing books and thought I might like to take a look at them. Another time, he came to help my students make topographical maps one morning. I asked him later that day what he thought of working with middle schoolers. He didn't respond to my question but he did say, "You are a different person when you teach. It's like a light switches on."

So our 10 year anniversary might not have been spent sipping champagne or dancing to "C'mon Ride this Train" like it was 10 years ago. And instead of a bouteneirre, Jesse had spit up on his shirt, but I'd rather spend an evening with him, and my lovely girls than anyone else.

Say What?

Keeping up with Hadley and Harper is exhausting, but it would be much more so if I didn't get to be part of conversations like this:

While working on her Dora (Hadley pronounces it "Dorya") puzzle, Hadley asks, "Where'd Daddy go, Mama?" I said, "He's giving Harper a bath." Hadley replied, "Oh.....That's a good thing."

This morning, while Hadley and I were coloring today she looked at me and said, "Can we talk, Mamma?" I said, "Sure. What do you want to talk about?" She said, "The ABCs."

And while she's not talking yet, Harper gives me plenty to smile about. Here are a few pictures of the happy baby. Here she is trying to duplicate the Obama fist bump:

Maybe if I try the other hand it'll work better....

Oh well, who really cares?