Our Kids

One day last weekend I made the mistake of making up a story for the girls. We were messing around, playing crab-statue or something (the girls come at you with pincers saying “crab crab” and you have to be a statue) and I got tired of playing it so I said, “how about I tell you a story?” They seemed pretty excited about that prospect, so they climbed up on our bed and got ready for a story.

Of course, now I had to make up a story. It seems much easier than it really is. I managed to come up with some disjointed adventure starring Dora and Diego, involving a spooky cave, and saving Baby Jaguar and Boots. All through the story Piper was totally into it… oohing, ahhing, looking surprised, going along with my (not-so) funny side comments (Piper: “Where was Benny?” Me: “Umm… watching TV at home?” Piper: “Ok!”). Lela, on the other hand… was totally serious. Had her head rested on her hands, looking right at me with absolutely no expression on her face. I kept looking over at her trying to read whether or not she liked the story… at one point I started getting nervous that she hated it. Man, she was a tough crowd.

Anyhow, I got to the end — the wonderful rescue of the sidekicks, and ended the story with a triumphant “The End!”. Piper burst out into applause and a hearty “YAY!” She was happy.

Lela just lay there… head still in her hands… staring at me. I could feel her eyes just boring into my soul… looking for something worthy of her spending the last five minutes listening to my yammering. Then… all of a sudden… she yelled:

“LET’S HEAR ANOTHER ONE!!”

And the last five minutes of my life was validated.

Of course that story just opened up a can of worms. Now every few days (tonight included) it’s… “Tell us a story… without a book!” Lately I’ve been asking them what they want to hear about, which actually helps things. I still have a very disjointed storyline… I’m not sure it all makes sense and a lot of times the stories sound oddly the same, but that’s ok. The girls seem to love it and it keeps me on my toes, so all is well.

Both of the girls are showing open defiance and if it were not so cute it might be annoying (check back in a week or so and I might have moved into annoyance). It is funny that it has just come on all of the sudden and both girls are affected. When I say open defiance I mean they are really testing if we say what we mean and they are saying what they feel. These are all good things because they have to learn to express themselves and we have been encouraging this to happen.

Tonight Jason was getting the girls ready for bed (while I watched tv and ate chocolate;) and he was trying to get Lela to brush her teeth. He would say, “brush your teeth” and she would say “I am” but she really wasn’t. Then he would say, “Lela brush your teeth,” and she would say, “go get my doll, I won’t brush until you get my doll” back and forth they went like a world class tennis match. In the end she got her doll and she brushed her teeth so all was well but it is a new layer to their personalities.

Today we were riding our bikes around the block and I called ahead to the girls and said “please do not go around the corner where I can’t see you,” their response was to pedal faster and faster. So I started walking faster and faster, I could not jog because I was wearing Landis in the Maya wrap. When I get to the corner they are waiting there for me on their bikes. This means that they purposely sped up, got around the corner and then stopped. Those little stinkers.

Little Landis is such a cutie:) I fear that none of her clothes will be fit for anyone else when she is done with them. You can’t get that gal to wear any sort of bib, she is a bit of a Houdini in the bib and high chair department. Twice I have found her either on the table when she was in her high chair at the table and on the island when she was in her chair that is attached to the counter. This morning while I was folding laundry I smelled dog food and turned around to find that she had opened the latch on the dog food and was chomping away. I guess I don’t have to worry about my cooking since she thinks dog food is yummy!

She still refuses to eat anything mashed or pureed so she poops out much of what she eats but it is okay because she is still pooping on the potty, YEAH! You can definitely tell that she is cut from my cloth because she LOVES all things bread! She also loves broccoli and most fruits so I can’t really complain. We are back on the sweet potatoes this week and we will see if she decides to eat that.

I figure that I should add that she does not drink from a bottle she uses straws and sippy cups and she doesn’t use a pacifier. In many ways she is less baby than most but all cutie pie:)

Piper is doing so awesome in swim lessons I can hardly believe it. I think this is one time that it pays to have someone else do the dirty work. After a little bit of crying she was giving Ms. Vivian high fives and swimming like a fish. After only two lessons she is jumping in the pool, swimming with her face in the water kicking her legs and today she even went under water to get a dive stick. She throws the “seahorse” and it is weighted so it sinks down to the bottom of the pool, then the instructor pushes her down under the water toward the seahorse, she grabs it and comes up with it. If I had done that with her she would have flipped out but she comes up smiling and saying look mom I did it. It was very exciting. So exciting in fact that Lela announced she wanted to do swim lessons too. I dunno about that but I signed her up for a trial next week. At this rate we are going to have to eat Ramen noodles every night to afford all these classes. I just realized that I have the girls in 2 day a week preschool, gymnastics, swimming and soccer all at once. Jiminy Crikets am I a mad woman or what:)