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!

Heard Blobbo!

Nora has an imaginary friend named Blobbo. Here’s the thing about Blobbo– he’s a monster and he’s very scary, but he is still Nora’s friend. He is extremely large. Whenever Nora sees a very big house, she tells me, oh, that’s Blobbo’s house. One of his houses is in Piermont in a big mansion with a river view. She reminds me that he lives there every time we drive by.  He also owns a lot of property in Bethany Beach.

Blobbo can be nice, but sometimes he just gets very over-excited and Nora has to help him calm down. How does she do this? She tells him to take a breath or to drink some water. That usually does the trick. If not, she reads him a story, or gives him some quiet time, or tells him to play with his toys quietly in his bed. But, still, he doesn’t like to go to sleep at night. Why not? Because he is nocturnal. Well, he isn’t actually nocturnal, but he likes to pretend he is nocturnal. Because he wants to stay up all night. Why does he want to stay up all night? Because he likes to do things instead of sleeping. Like watching TV. Watching TV is actually his favorite thing to do.

Blobbo is friends with some of Nora’s other buddies, including Bubba (sometimes bear, sometimes human), Firefuchi (the dragon), Petunia (the lady dragon) and Eggbert (their dragon child).

Once or twice a day, we can hear the fire station sounding an alarm near our house. It is a loud, repetitive honking noise. That’s actually Blobbo. When we hear that sound, we should hide. Because that sound means that Blobbo is coming for us.

Rosie knows this, too. When she hears the alarm– or, Blobbo– she scurries over to me, buries her head in my legs and cries, “Heard Blobbo! Heard Blobbo!” (Heyard. Blobbo!) Sometimes Blobbo makes that noise in the middle of the night, and if the girls hear him from their rooms, they’ll let us know.

It’s good that Nora is friends and not enemies with Blobbo, because she really has been a big help for him when his temper gets the best of him. She is showing him how to be his best self, which is hard to model when you’re four and a half. She’s just figuring it out herself– how to ask for things instead of demanding, how to take a deep breath when her Magna tile tower tumbles rather than yelling and hurling magnets across the room, how to hold her sister’s hand and walk with her slowly rather than yanking her by the hood. Blobbo might live in mansions, but he also lives inside of Nora. They’ll work on it together for the time being.

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What’s going on with Rosie these days? She got all of her molars and her little pointy teeth are coming in on the sides. She yells at me all day and her voice is surprisingly loud for a small person, “Mo cracker! Peeease!” She is talking A LOT, saying whatever we say. “Skye house.” “Big bear. Zoo. Daddy. Zoo.” “Nora. School.” “Nora. Hebrew School.” “Nanny, Poppop, heere.” “Dora. Phone.” “Elmo book. Read Elmo book.” She says no to many questions, shaking her head. “Do you like apple?” “Mo.” “Is your name Rosie?” “Mo.” She has some mean dance moves– kind of like a tribal dance meets Footloose kind of thing. She sometimes whispers, randomly. When I tell her I love you or tell her she’s a cutie, she whispers, “tank tu.” When I sneeze or cough, she says, “Bless you, Mommy.” When Nora tries to give her something, she yells, “No tank tu!” and shoves it away. Her favorite song is “Wheel a Turnin'” and she sings it and does a little swaying motion. She gets so excited if I put the song on in the car, laughing, saying, “Wheel! Heart! Wheel! Heart!” She sings “Let It Go” with Nora. “Gooooohhhh! Goooohhh!” She has very strong opinions, just like Nora. She is a snuggle bunny.

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Thanks for checking in!

Summer pics

Good times! Goodbye summer break!

 

 

 

Summer kiddos

Summer, summer, summer.

It’s going by too fast. I’m going to miss the long days at the pool and at the beach, swimming, playing, eating ice cream, sleeping through the night after a long, exhausting day. (I am not going to miss packing bags for the pool and the beach, wrangling kids in and out of wet bathing suits, wrestling one kid to put on her sunscreen while the other one makes a run for it, and bracing for meltdowns at the end of a long, exhausting day.) But, it’s all mostly fun, and we’re making memories, here, people! 🙂

 

Okay, now for the updates.

Nora:

She is so curious about everything.

She asks “Why?” a million times everyday.

She takes her time to say what’s on her mind, speaking slowly and carefully, her head tilted.

Her smile brightens her face and she is always up for a laugh.

She lets us know when she’s unhappy, and she knows how to put her foot down.

She is smart. One day, we saw a large bird at a lake, and I said, “Nora, look at that cool bird!”

“Oh!” she said. “That’s a great blue heron!” She was right.

She is learning to swim at camp and she’s gaining confidence. She doesn’t want to put her head under water, but she’s starting to kick and move in the water a little bit on her own.

Rosie

Rosie is getting all four molars at once. She is 16 months… right? One, two, three, four… no, 17 months. My brain is fried– that’s what having two of them does to you. 😉

Here’s my favorite thing that she does: she pats and rubs my back when I pick her up. It is the cutest thing ever.

She shakes her head no when you ask her any question. “Is your name Rosie?” No. “Do you like ice cream?” No.

She says so many words now: Mama, Dada, Rara, gogurt, nak (snack), fishy noise (goldfish), ors (horse), hi, ello, bah bah (bye bye), bebe (baby), bup (cup), names of friends and family…. She’ll repeat almost anything we say.

She knows how to turn the hose on and off, flush the toilet, climb up onto the stool to wash her hands, take off marker caps and color, open and close the refrigerator, and more.

She thinks Nora is just the bees knees. Nora can make her laugh more than anyone. She has also learned to guard her belongings, and to lash out when Nora takes something that’s hers.

When she eats or grabs something she’s not supposed to, she smiles and laughs and speed walks in the other direction as fast as possible.

She likes to do ugamuga before bed and rub noses with all of us.

Her thighs are impressive.

Summer’s not over yet! Enjoy!!!

Until next time!

🙂

 

 

Spring Love

 

Rosie likes to dance with a swinging torso, arms by her sides and a very serious expression.

She learned to say mama and then unlearned it and started calling me dada. She says bup (cup), blehbu blehbu (for food. She wants goldfish most of the time), goggle (this is a funny one. She says it perfectly. I was like- “That’s funny. It sounds like she’s saying goggle! But surely she means something else.” And then she picked up a pair of goggles in the tub and held them out to me. I don’t even know why we had goggles in the tub. “Gah gul,” she said. She doesn’t know mama yet, but goggle, she’s got down.) She kind of says knock knock. (Nora has been practicing her knock knock jokes).

She is pretty sure she’s a four-year-old. She climbs up and sits in chairs with the big kids, attempts to eat with a spoon (she won’t let me feed her), wears a smock and paints, colors with a pincher grip (seriously!). She just wants to be part of the team.

Nora is hilarious. I wish I was doing a better job of writing everything down because she says the funniest things.

I love her baby voice.
“Rosie do you want your bup? We’ll get it for you when we stop the car. You are sweetness. You are a youngster.”

She’ll crack herself up. “Rosie is a youngster! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Our children are both very strong-willed. It’s good, right? Girls should be strong. Nora definitely knows how to hold her ground. This was a funny one: She kept trying to tell us from the backseat that it was an accident she had green marker all over her arms.

Kevin took a closer look and started laughing. “Nora– you wrote your name. That couldn’t have been an accident.”

Nora, frowning: “It was! It was an accident.”

“You accidentally wrote ‘Nora’ on your arm?”

“It was an accident!”

She was really holding her ground too.

Nora is so artistic. She gets very focused and in the zone.

She likes to pick things up and say “I need this for my collection” and takes it upstairs to her room, where she keeps a hand painted box full of items.

In her collection box: Rocks, flowers, pine cones, leaves change, buttons, hair– yes hair. I discovered a very large clump of hair in there, and that’s when I discovered she’d decided to give herself a trim. Help me. Oh boy.

They keep me entertained for sure. Love them so much.

You’re Doing It, Girl

Let’s be kind to ourselves, guys. Here’s an essay I wrote for Sammiches and Psych Meds. A reminder– you’re all doing it.

http://www.sammichespsychmeds.com/youre-doing-it-girl-nicest-thing-say-to-mom/

I’m so proud of you

Rosie walks at 13 months! We’re so proud of her and of her big sister, Nora for being so sweet and supportive of her. She has been cruising for a few weeks now, but she took her first few steps yesterday. Today, she walked across the floor all the way to Nora.

What else is Rosie up to? She has two new teeth on the top, so that makes eight teeth! She says Mama, bye (with a Southern accent– Bah!), hi (ha!), ball (bah!), Nora (Rara), and something that could mean this or that (datssss). She loves to point at everything and say datsssss or yayackkkk. She really wants to talk about everything she sees. She makes a bunch of animal noises– hooo hooo (owl), pppp (cow or elephant), gah gah gah (duck), raaaaaar (bear, lion or miscellaneous animal) and my favorite- blehbuh blehbuh (fish). She gives hugs, putting her head in your lap and kisses (mah!) She just learned how to drink from a sippy cup and a straw. She wants to join in the fun, whatever it is. She is always mimicking the noises that Nora makes, and she leans forward in her car seat so she can get a better look at whatever shenanigans Nora is up to. Her belly laugh is the best. She is so sweet.

Now, Nora. She really seems like a big kid now. She has a big kid double bed, she can get herself dressed, and she just looks so tall suddenly. She is very thoughtful when she speaks. Sometimes, she’ll look very pensive when I peer back in the rear-view mirror, and she brings up something we talked about earlier that day.

Here’s an example: “Mommy, can I drive the car?”

“When you’re sixteen, you can drive.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s how old you have to be. You take a class called driver’s ed, and you learn how to drive safely.”

(Insert Nora asking “Why?” several more times to whatever I say.)

“When am I going to be sixteen?”

“In twelve years.”

(Quiet for awhile)

“But, why am I three for so long and four for so long?”

“Well, you were three for a whole year, and now you’ll be four for a whole year.”

“But that’s a long time before I’ll be sixteen! What if I’m four forever?”

“You won’t be, I promise.”

I really enjoy these deep talks.

Nora loves art and gets very focused whenever she’s working on something. She made a beautiful painting called “Rainbow World.” She put her paint brush down and said she was finished. “When Daddy gets home,” she said, “I’m going to tell him that I’m not going to paint any more days.” I think she meant that she had created her masterpiece, and needed to paint no more. Luckily, she changed her mind about that later that afternoon and decided she’d like to paint again.

 

February pics

I want you to stay too long

Nora

At three and a half, Nora is a strong-minded little monkey who swings back and forth between wanting to do everything “all by myself” and needing her mommy and daddy.

Developing independence means she sticks to her point-of-view and doesn’t back down. Logic does not sway her. Life for Nora is all about what she wants and does not want. “I want milk right now,” “I want to watch a little something!” “I don’t want to ride my scooter,” “No, I don’t want to go to the pool!”

We went to Rockland Lake so she could ride her scooter. She was distracted by all of the families who had gathered at picnic benches for cookouts, and by the smell of hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken wafting in the air.

“I want to eat dinner,” she decided, stepping off her scooter, trying to pull her helmet off.

“We didn’t bring dinner,” we said.

“Well, that’s okay,” she said walking over to join another family’s cookout. “There’s food over there. We can eat some of their food.”

“But that’s not our food,” we said. “We’ll turn around, go home and get dinner.”

She wouldn’t have it. “Nooo!” she yelled, about to sit down with the family. “I want dinner here!”

I’m trying to remind myself that though exhausting at times, she is showing character traits that will serve her later in life: She knows what she wants. She’s learning how to negotiate. She’s smart. She’s a problem solver. If we didn’t bring dinner, we could just go ask those nice people over there if they have a few hot dogs to spare. It must be hard to be so small, to do what grownups want all the time.

She seems to need us less and less as she asserts herself and learns how to do things for herself. But she still needs us. She’s afraid of the dark and she won’t let us leave her room so she can go to sleep. Lying in her bed, she wraps her arms around my head and says, “I want you stay too long! I really want you to stay too long!” I’d like to get to sleep and I don’t want to have a nighttime routine that never ends, and yet, I like that she’s holding onto me a little.

Rosie

Rosie rolls over! For a while she could only do back to front and then started complaining because she couldn’t turn back over. She’s learning to turn the other way. She is a close talker. She likes to get right up there so our eyes become one eye and open her mouth and try to eat me. She likes to suck on her fingers, my fingers, anybody’s fingers. Maybe those teeth are coming in. She likes to reach out and grab my face and squeeze it in her little lobster claws. She is so chill and smiley all the time. She likes the Jumparoo. She likes to do a Tarzan yell. She says gggghhh and bwah and ahbah and she is working on being a ventriloquist talking with her mouth closed. She is so chubby! She grabs her hands and feet and looks at them with wonder. She gets startled a lot. She is taking big sister Nora’s rough hugs in stride. She laughs when you kiss her belly. She’s delicious.