Baby clothes collage

Thought I’d share my little idea with you. It was definitely time to give the baby clothes away, but I had a hard time letting go. I went through a very special, emotional process,  holding up onesie after onesie, mystified that my girls could ever fit into those clothes and by the whole thing– that at one time the girls didn’t exist, and then they did, and then, I put them in those teenie onesies and took them for walks in the carrier and nursed them and rocked them to sleep. Now, my girls are huge, and they just keep getting huge-er, and they do their activities like soccer and dance, and they have their own very strong opinions about everything, and they say things that I didn’t teach them to say. Nora is especially big now. She’s a real kid– nothing babyish about her.

It was stupid for me to let bagfuls of baby clothes collect dust in my house when another little baby could be looking adorable in them. Most of the clothes were hand-me-downs from my sister, and I really appreciated having them. So, now friends will create their own memories and go through their own special, emotional processes of letting go when the time comes, and then they might give the clothes to another friend who might go through that special, emotional process too, and it will be this endless cycle as the clothes continue to circulate from mom to mom until the end of time.

Maybe that’s dramatic.

The point is, I came up with this idea to create a collage of some of my favorite clothes. I’m thinking I’ll make a print of this for the girls’ rooms. Although, this is definitely more for me than for them. Each image tells a story for me. If you’re nostalgic like me, maybe this idea will appeal you. 😉

Here it is:

You A Chicken For REEAL

If you were to walk by our house, you’d probably hear children singing “How Far I Go,” from Moana in very loud, (and nasally) voices. “When the sky from the light from the sky meets the sea, it calls me! Now I KNOOOOWW how far it GOOOOOs!” Nora and Rosie are obsessed with this movie, (and they’ve only seen it once), to the point that I decided we had to cool it with the soundtrack to give their brains a break. It was the ONLY thing Rosie talked about for awhile. She really hasn’t watched THAT much TV– okay more than what I let Nora watch at this age. Poor second child. She just absorbs TV unlike anything else. She started telling random kids on the playground, “We watched Moana and it was scaahwy. Moana and uuuummm Heihei  and uuuummm Maui is funny. Um. I’m Moana of Motunu and you will board my boat.” She told Kevin, “I’m Moana and you Heihei the CHICKen.” He said, “I’m not a chicken!” And she said, “But. You Heihei the CHICKen Foh Reeeal.”

She’s pretty good at zingers without even meaning to be. For awhile, she’d call us Sven the reindeer from Frozen. “Mommy, you Sben! I Anna and Nora Elsa and you Sben.”

Also, she said to Kevin, after I’d asked everyone if they’d rather be a cow or a horse (by the way, he said cow if it was a bull). “No, Daddy,” Rosie said. “You a DONKEY.” Zing! What’s with her and calling people not-so-glamorous animals?

Rosie is a chatter box now. She opens her eyes after a nap and immediately starts chatting as if she was not asleep for the last two hours, but in the middle of a thought. The way she talks is so funny to me. She sounds like a voice navigation system. The words are real person words, but her inflection is not quite right and often ends with a question when it shouldn’t, i.e. “AYE love YOU so MUCH?”

She’s started to really think about things the way Nora does. She watched an episode of Super Why with Nora (again with the TV. Sheesh. I’m ashamed!) The episode was about Little Red Riding Hood. That night, I was rocking Rosie and she kept asking, “Is da woof gramma?” “Well,” I said. “It’s complicated. Not exactly.” She was not satisfied. “Mommy, is da woof gramma?” She asked me over and over and over again. “There’s a whole story about it,” I said. “You see, there was this girl named little red…” She lifted her head from my shoulder, put her hands on my cheeks and turned my face toward her face. We were nose to nose. “Mommy,” she said.  “Look at me. I TALKING to you. Is the woof gramma?” “No,” I said, finally. “No, it’s not.” I tried to get her to relax and rest her head on my shoulder, and she started whispering to me. “Mommy is the woof gramma? Mommy is the woof gramma?”

Nora and Rosie are doing just what sisters are supposed to do. They play together, wrestle with each other, scream at each other, fight with one another, turn on us and get into trouble together and love each other in an almost primal way. It’s cool that they can play together now. The game of choice right now is called “sick baby.” Often, I find Rosie sitting in (I mean, dwarfing) a bouncy chair or doll’s stroller while Nora checks her heartbeat with her stethoscope or puts a blanket over her and tells her she needs to rest. “Don’t get up, Baby,” Nora says. “You need your rest.” Rosie says, “My rest? Okay, Momma.” They also like to put on backpacks, rainboots and our jackets and play a game Rosie likes to call, “I’m going at school.”

I can’t keep up with the rapidly shifting love/fight dynamic between these two, and often it’s best for me not to jump in too quickly. I might hear screaming and run into the room to find them both yanking on a toy. I’m just about to intervene when the screaming turns into laughter and then the two of them are chasing each other around the room, in hysterics.

Nora says she loves Rosie just a little bit more than she loves me and Daddy. But that she loves us all a lot. It’s cool. They’ll have a bond that no one can match, and they should. Their relationship will be theirs and only theirs, and that’s what I would hope for them.

PS- I’ve been really bad about updating so I’m going to add a few little funny things Rosie used to do. She’d would start walking backwards and yell “Backwards!” and bump into stuff. Or, she’d put her hands over her eyes and walk around like that and fall all over the place. Also, for awhile she investigated putting food up her nose. She did this with a very serious expression. She put stuff in her ears too. Glad those phases are over. (Knock on wood.)

Thanks for reading!

Shmooples turns 4!

birthday girl!!!!

I can’t believe our Shmooples is turning 4. It’s just crazy. She is a real kid now. She’s beautiful, goofy, full of energy, sensitive, creative, curious, strong-willed, funny and so sweet. We are so thankful for our little monkeys. Happy birthday, beautiful Nora!

Everything will be okay Mommy

Nora is just as silly, goofy, affectionate, energetic, thoughtful, sweet and funny as ever. Here are some highlights.

Trip to the city

Nora packs up her pocketbook, sits three or four of her “guys” in the baby stroller and leaves the room.

“I gotta go.”

“Where are you going?” I say.

“I gotta meet Nicole in the city.” (Nicole is a good friend of mine.)

“What are you two going to do there?”

“We’re gonna eat coffee.”

Then, mimicking mommy she comes back in the room. “Oh! I forgot my wallet and my purse!”

—

Fears

We were at a friend’s birthday party at Tumble Bee and Nora had a blast. But when, at the end of the party, a person in fuzzy bee costume emerged from the back to a rap song which chanted “Bumble Bee, bumble bee,” Nora was not having it. She burst into tears and clutched onto the leg of the nearest staff member. I picked her up and hugged her, and she let out a nervous laugh as we watched the other kids hug the giant bee.

“I want to go home,” she cried.

“That’s not a real bee,” I said. “That’s just a girl in a bee costume, like for Halloween.”

“I want to go home,” she said, kind of like, look, I think I know what a giant bee looks like, and that is one right there.

The whole drive home and for the rest of the evening, she rehashed the debacle over and over again. “Da bee came out and I was crying. I said,” (in a mock crybaby voice) “‘I want Mommy!’ And he waved his hands like this” (waving her hands in front of her). “Maybe we’ll see him again.”

She is still rehashing, three weeks later. She’ll bring it up randomly in the car. “It’s not a real bee!” she says. “It’s a guuurl in a costume.”

I’m impressed by the way that she copes with one of her fears. She processes the situation and talks herself out of being afraid. Kid’s got a good head on her shoulders.

—

Crib mishap

Okay, it’s probably time for a toddler bed. It’s just that, I love that nice long nap she takes every day. And friends tell me the toddler bed might put an abrupt halt to the nap.

She climbed out of the pack n’ play at Nana and Poppop’s house, pulled a sheet off the bed, knocked a gate down and made her way to the bottom of the stairs.

“I want to play with Caitlin and Leah!” she was yelling. I ran up to get her when I realized her yelling had gotten louder. So loud, it almost sounded like she was no longer in the attic. Because she wasn’t.

She is probably too darn big for that pack n’ play anyway. Sigh.

—

Lovable moments

She says, “Mommy you’re so cute.”

“I want to play with you. Because I love you.”

“I’m so glad you’re here!”

I sneeze and she yells from the other room, “Are you okay, Mommy?”

“I’m okay,” I say.

“Everything will be okay Mommy!” she says.

She sure keeps me on my toes but I sure love her.