All summer long. She has been trying so hard to master the monkey bars.
Hand over hand…
How many more bars do I have?
I can do it…I can do it…
And finally. Last week, she made it across without any help from Mommy.
How could this not be my Best Shot of the week?
You did it, kiddo. I knew those long, monkey arms and legs would come in handy.
Check out some other big achievements today at Tracey’s.
Both times I was pregnant, I spent nine months willing my girls to come out with J’s warm, chocolate-y colored eyes.
When Em came out, I realized that even with all of my willing (and eating a lot of chocolate) she was going to definitely have green eyes, like me. I was consoled by the fact that she got J.’s big, almond-shaped eyes, and not my squinty ones, though.
And when Addie came out, her eyes were even bigger, complete with even longer eyelashes – which I didn’t think was possible. Her eyes are more brown, some days they are close to that chocolate color, but most days they seem to be more golden, kinda green-brown, still definitely lighter than J’s.
In the end, (and all that really matters) I am happy to get to sing “Brown-Eyed Girl” to one of my girls. (Although I do adapt the lyrics to include Em’s pretty green eyes, too.)
Though as similar as they are, I am always astounded when I look at photos of them. The stories their eyes tell are very different, indeed.
Emma has serious eyes. Her eyes are wise beyond their wee little five years. They are always analyzing. Always thinking. Always plotting out her next move or scanning her environment, curiously anxious to ask her next question.
Addie on the other hand…
She does not have what I would call “serious” eyes. Where Em’s eyes seem so “wise,” Addie’s are completely child-like. She wears her heart in her eyes. One minute they dance with mischief and happiness, the next they are brimming with tears. They are so very expressive – you are never left wondering what she might be feeling or thinking.
It is why I love raising these two little girls.
They each come from the same set of genes, growing up in the same environment. You can tell they are sisters – you can see it in their eyes, yet they couldn’t be more different. They are two completely different and individual little beings.
Stop over to Stacy’s today to look through some other sets of eyes.
Isn’t it astounding to think there are some things our kids will never have the pleasure of knowing or using – like cassette tapes, VCRs, window cranks, live television, pay phones.
We did have the pleasure of playing with a pay phone over the weekend, however. Two, in fact. These old British phonebooths are tucked in a little courtyard near where we had lunch. The girls found them fascinating.
Dueling phonebooths
How cool is this?
You rang?
There is a phone in here…with a cord!
Hello?
Uh…huh. Yep.
Sometimes it is the little things. And this is why I always have my camera with me.
You finally give in. Allowing your long, willowy legs to be still and rest for a few stolen moments.
I watch you lying there with your hair sprawled across the pillow, your arms tucked up under your chin, and your tutu bunched up around your middle, as your eyelashes flutter closed. I think you look even more graceful asleep, than you do dancing.
Find out what is gracing everyone else’s life over at Tracey’s today.
After our fly-induced commotion earlier this week, I am hoping for a little reprieve for the last bit of the week.
This parenting stuff is hard.
And, I’m afraid I gave you all a false impression – it appears you may think I “handled” the situation calmly and with something resembling responsible parenting.
Yeah. About that. Here’s the rest of the story…
E: “No. My tennis racket.”
M: “Go sit on the steps. Now.”
I was a little flustered. I had NO clue how to handle this one. And honestly, I handle about 90% of the discipline around the house because I am with them the most, I just didn’t want to be the one to do something.
So, Emma was sent back to the step (and was there much longer than just five minutes!) while I called J. and told him that we had a situation. He told me to tell her that “Mommy and Daddy would discuss the punishment when he got home and he would see her in the morning.”
Nice. Very smooth. And it put the fear of DAD into her for a change. She went to bed without a peep.
We gave her two punishment options:
1. Give up TV and books before bed for a week
or
2. GIve up seeing the Space Chimps movie at the theater this weekend
(Both things we knew she would not want to give up and would indeed be punishments.)
She chose option one. So tonight we did bath and she went straight to bed.
The thing is…it is really hard to cut out our little reading time. For me, I mean. I really missed it tonight.
Not only that, I want to know what Junie B. is up to.
This is what our little Junie B. was up to today…terrorizing her little sister, of course.
So, I am in the kitchen pulling the cookies out of the oven and return to the living room and see Addie holding a throw pillow over the window.
M: “Addie what are you doing?”
A: “There is a fly on the window, Mama.”
Meanwhile, Emma goes flying over to the other side of the room.
M: “Well, let me get the fly.”
And I pull away the pillow and see this…
Not a fly…and it isn’t a spider web either. That is a broken pane of glass, my friends. One of the panes of glass in one of the windows that I think is original to the house. Which, remember, was built in the 1920s. This isn’t going to be cheap.
*Sigh*
M: “What happened to the window?” (Trying to control my voice so it didn’t come out all shriek-y like it was sounding in my head.)
Silence. Crickets…chirp, chirp.
M: “What happened to the window, who broke it? Emma? Addison?”
A: “I sink (think) it was the fly, Mama!”
M: “No, I don’t think it was a fly, Addison. Emma?”
E: “I don’t know, Mama? I didn’t do it!”
M: “YOU didn’t do it?!” (Starting to get a little shriek-ier here…)
Emma just starts full on crying. “I didn’t do it!”
M: “Why don’t you go sit on the steps until you can tell me what happened.”
About five minutes later she comes in and says:
E: “Well, there was a fly, and I couldn’t find the flyswatter.”
M: “Yes?”
E: “And so I hit it.”
M: “With what? Your hand?”
E: “No. My tennis racket.”
Of course. A tennis racket. What else would you use?
We are somewhere in the middle of a bunch of water right now – but these are my favorite photos from last week when the girls were finding some other water fun.
Check out other Best Shot Monday fun over at Melody’s this week.
When did my little Emma become an easy-to-put-to-bed, good sleeper?
And why am I questioning it? I mean, I suffered through enough sleepless nights, I should just take it as my reward, no questions, right?
(But, the real question is how do we get Addie to that beautiful point that Em is at right now?)
I have even let Em sleep with me the past few nights while J. is away.
E: “Mama, can I sleep with you tonight?”
M: “Em, we’ll talk about it later.” (As I nod towards Addie…indicating that we don’t want to talk about it in front of Addie because sleeping with Addie…well, it just doesn’t work very well.)
E: “Oh, we will talk about it when A-D-D-I-E is not here.”
M: “Mmmm hmmm.”
E: “Can you just tell me Y-E-S or N-O, M-O-M?”
Yeah, she is into spelling everything out. She thinks that by spelling a few choice words Addie won’t know what she is talking about. Hmmm…wonder where she got that from?
(Note to self: Stop spelling everything N-O-W, or start spelling backwards, until she catches on to that one, too.)
She is a stitch! I cracked up when I put her to bed last night when she told me, “Don’t worry, Mama, I will leave some room for you!”
And when I climbed into bed she was indeed all the way over to one side of the bed. She rolled over and fell off the bed, in fact. I got her back in bed and told her that she could move more to the middle so she wouldn’t fall off.
So she snuggled into me and whispered, “I love you, Mama.”
That, my friends, is payback for all of those midnight drives, walking the neighborhood at 2am, and rocking, rocking, rocking so many nights away when she wouldn’t sleep.
And it was oh, so worth it.
My friend Christina has started a little Friday fun by jotting down the funny things her cutie little girl has said over the week, and since I’m all about themes, and topical days (it gets me out of a jam when I don’t have time to find real stuff to write about!) I thought I’d join in today.
I’ve been saving a couple funny things Em and Ad have been saying and I really want to get them down somewhere so I don’t forget them.
So here goes – my funny Valentines…
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Addie’s funny words and phrases:
ahind = behind, as in “Mama! Look ahind you! There is a puppy!”
yook = look, as in “Yook at me, Mama!” Must also grab my chin and turn my head towards her when saying this.
musbash = mustache, as in “Do I have a musbash, Mama?” Said every time she takes a drink of something, not always a milk mustache, either.
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Emma’s funny phrases:
knick-knack name = nickname, as in “What is your knick-knack name, Daddy?”
And, the other day she asked me – “Mama? Is Addie pushing your buttons right now?!”
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And a couple of funny stories from Addie and my “day out” together the other day:
Addie: “Mama? Can we go to the puppy/kitty store (what she calls PetSmart)?”
Me: “Sure. I have one more errand to run, and then we will stop, ok?”
Addie: (sighs) “Ah, Mommy. Do you know how happy that makes Addie?”
(I tell them all the time when they do something *nice* – “Do you know how happy that makes Mommy?” but it sounds very funny coming back at me!)
And one more…
We were going into a bathroom at a store and an older gentleman was coming out and held the door open for A. and I. Then, later when we were leaving the store, he happened to be leaving as well and again, he held the door for A. and I.
Me: “Thank you so much! We are just going to follow you around all day so we can have the doors held for us.”
Man: (chuckles) “No problem. I’m just doing my duty.”
So A. and I continue down the street and all of a sudden she starts giggling…
Ad: “Mama…he said It’s my DOODY!”
Me: (kinda clueless at the moment) “Yes, it means like a chore or a job.”
And then I see her face and she is snickering at the word, because she thinks the man was referring to poop.
Where on God’s-Green-Earth does that girl come up with this stuff? Never in my life have I ever used the word, “doody!
My girls seem to have missed the memo that says that only boys laugh at bathroom humor.
