Our Kids

I’m pretty sure I won’t forget these moments, but just in case…

I don’t know why, but sometimes I have fun with the girls by doing silly stuff, like pointing at the color green and saying “that’s orange” or calling an apple an orange.  Dumb stuff.  But it’s fun because I get to hear the girls say, “nooo! That’s an orange!”

The other morning Piper was having breakfast and then all of a sudden started saying, “Where’s my fork?”  (To be honest, it took her saying it a few times before I realized she was saying “fork”, but that’s another story.)

She was looking right at me with her quizzical face, shrugging her shoulders and spreading out her hands.  “Where’s my fork?”  Then she pointed at her glass… “is this my fork?”  And then she looked at me expectantly.

“Noooo…” I said.  She pointed at her plate.  “Is this my fork?”

“Nooo!” I laughed.  She did that a few more times… all the while her fork was sitting right in front of her.  Finally I just busted out laughing and said, “you silly… here is your fork!”  And I pointed it out and she just laughed and laughed.  She was doing the exact same game I’ve played with her so many times before.  She was being like daddy.  Except this time she was leading.  Hilarious.

And now the Lela moment… this just happened today.  Lela’s still feeling a bit under the weather from her recent bout with who-knows-what which caused some throwing up and a queezy stomach for the past few days.  Tonight she was pretty tired, so we started to get ready for bed.  Piper was still brushing her teeth so just Lela and I headed to her room to put her pajamas on. She sat on her bed and in a classic tired-and-sweet Lela voice said, “Lela threw up last night.”

“You did?” I asked (because it actually happened a few nights ago.)

“Yeah.  In the sink,” continued Lela… still in her soft voice.  And then came the moment that I can still hear in my head as clear as day.  Lela looked up at me and said, “You took care of me.”

I couldn’t help but pull her in for a big hug and I just told her I loved her.  It doesn’t get any better than that.

A lesson we all should learn and remember:)  This is a lesson that Lela is learning again and again.  The bear in question is her older (by two minutes) sister, Piper.  Yesterday while out riding their boulders in the backyard, Piper decided to get on Lela’s boulder.  Now Lela started to anger the bear by insisting it was her boulder and Piper should get off.  Now Piper should have gotten off but if she did it would be very un-Piperlike.  So she did not get off and Lela started to really insist and was even so bold as to try to push Piper off.  This unleashed the bear and Piper bit Lela very hard on the arm.  She did not break any skin.  Piper is a repeat biter (maybe 5 times total in her life) so I used my usual tactic which is to shower the bitee with attention while ignoring the biter.  I brought the biten inside and put an ice cube wrapped in a towel on the bite to lessen the bruise that was sure to come.  The biter finally came inside and asked what I was doing.  I told her I was putting ice on Lela’s arm because she had bitten her.  Without prompting she apologized to Lela and even said “I won’t do it again.”  Lela was happier, I was glad that my positive discipline worked and today Lela has a nice bite shaped bruise on her arm.  Aside from the bruise it all worked out okay.  This is the first time she has bitten with advanced language skills, so maybe she meant it.

I forget that the girls are toddlers.  For example, I sometimes forget when I should help and when I should not.  This morning Piper said she had to go to the potty so she went and I helped out and as a reaction I flushed the toilet.  Well today was a day that she wanted to flush the toilet herself.  At this very moment she is still in the bathroom mad at me for flushing the toilet.  She wants her own pee back and nothing else will do and unfortunately that is something I can’t do.  Lucky for me Lela is feeling puny and wants to be held and Landis is sleepy and wants to be rocked.  Oh to be an Octopus with pee retrieving abilities:)

Yes, we have entered the “I don’t like” phase of toddlerhood.  I can’t complain since it was a long time coming and I really can’t complain now that we are here.  I mean I do get that all day long, eat a few apples and then the inevitable, “I don’t like apples” comes out.  Then on to beans, bread and anything else on offer.  Lucky for me (and for them) they have short memories and in the next few hours they will like apples again, lucky for them because I don’t think they want to see how stubborn I can actually be:)  They have never said they don’t like broccoli and since they eat it about every day I am thankful for that.  They have never said they don’t like milk, although if I don’t have their brand of soymilk they do tell me it tastes funny and they don’t like it:)  Anyhoo, that is what is going on here a whole bunch of I don’t like!

We all had a late and long night last night. Someone in the house picked up a stomach bug, lucky for us it seems to be the twelve hour bug. Piper had it overnight which was better than Lela’s day and into the night version. Jason took charge of Lela and slept with her in the guest room while I kept little Landis far away in our room. Funny thing is that Landis had a projectile stomach emptying session at 3AM so vomit was in the bed anyway:) LOL! I think she was just overfull, she does that sometimes.

But the whole point of the post is that while I was changing/cleaning her up last night or early this morning I should say, I noticed how chunky she has become. I mean she has rolls on her legs and a big beautiful face and jowl:) It is hard to believe how quickly she has transformed into a healthy beautiful baby. She looks more like Piper in the face now and she has Lela’s build. It will be interesting to see how she continues to grow.

Okay so we are doing the whole babywearing thing and I really like it. Landis likes it the most since it means that she is worn around by mommy for most of the day. Nothing like being close to food and a warm beating heart all day:0) We should all be so lucky. I LOVE my moby wrap, the only thing is that is not quick to get on. It only takes about 20 seconds or so but once I get all wrapped I don’t want to unwrap. The Maya wrap is definitely the quicker carrier but so far we have not found a comfortable position for both of us. I think as she continues to grow she (and I) will find a comfortable carrying position but until then I think Moby wins.

Just spent the last twenty minutes or so playing a rousing game of hide and seek with Lela and Piper. What a blast! We started with the girls sitting in their “egg chairs” (with “lids”) while I hid… they’d count to ten (sometimes skipping from 4 straight to 10), and then come looking for me. We even had marco/polo going after a little bit.

After a couple minutes of “where’s daddy?” and “shhh! let’s find daddy” they’d usually wind their way to their bathroom where I was standing. I’d yell out a “you found me!” which was greeted by a chorus of “yay!!”

Then after a few rounds of that, Piper and Lela started hiding. Piper was cute… she’d point into Landis’ room and ask me, “in there?” and I’d say “yeah!” I’d then lead Lela around a bit and finally “find” Piper. She’d yell out, “you found me!” and we’d yell back “yay!”

When it was Lela’s turn she’d grab my hand and say “come with me” in the sweetest Lela voice ever. Can’t say no to that. So we’d hide and Mystique would give Piper prompts in order to find us.

All in all lots of fun… a good way to spend some the time before bath and bed.