I can't hear you, or anything else

Hadley usually does a good job of keeping her voice to a reasonable level.  In the middle of the night she'll whisper.  During the day she's at the normal level, unless she's trying to be heard over her sister.

Brynne, on the other hand, only seems to have one level.

Like Spinal Tap, Brynne turns it to 11, but she keeps it there.

She can walk up to me and request the most mundane thing.  If she happens to be right in front of me when she speaks I feel as though my hair is being blown back.

We very nearly lost a 50 year old oak tree when Brynne spoke at it.

I wasn't surprised the other day when she informed me about something she had just done.

"Me went poop on the potty!"

It just might have been more appropriate to use her quiet voice at this particular point - seeing as wee had about a dozen people over at the time and I was standing in the middle of them.

Oh well.  At least she wasn't cursing.

Same old same old

When trying to come up with dinner plans for your family, or even just for yourself, do you ever feel like you're in a rut?  Like you have the same thing to eat every week? 

I've been wondering recently if the girls were getting tired of eating virtually the same foods over and over again.  Mama does a great job of planning their meals, and ours, to provide lots of variety, but when it's my turn to do it, I just can't get too creative.

My entree staples for them are:

peanut butter and honey
hot dogs
bratwursts
chicken
salami (their all time favorite)
meatballs
pasta
breakfast foods (eggs, waffles, french toast, etc)

I was trying to rack my brain for something new the other day and I just happened to ask Hadley, who was helping me be creative, what she wanted to eat.

"Bratwurst"

Mmmmm, bratwurst.

I wasn't really sure if  she meant that, or was just talking, but I went ahead and got some out and started to prepare dinner.

I asked her about a side dish, and she replied with her all time favorite

"Chips"

Easy enough. 

With dinner prepared we sat down to eat.  My two little ones barely touched their food.  Only eating a total of:

3 bratwursts
1 apple
1 orange
4 handfuls (mine, not theirs) of chips
2 yogurt cups
3 glasses of milk
1 glass of water

Yes, I was being sarcastic when I said they barely touched their food.

After all this disappeared, Brynne informed me

"Me want something else to eat."

They got a few M&Ms, usually reserved for potty training treats, and that seemed to top them off. 

What did we do?

Here is a list of items we gathered together for an activity we did when I took a vacation day last week:

Large knife
Tablecloth
2 painting smocks/Mama's t-shirts
Empty bowl
Roll of paper towels
Wet wipes
Pumpkin we picked a few days earlier

Can you guess what we did?

Made the girls' first Jack-o'-lantern!

I had to lay out a few rules:

1 - No touching the knife.
2 - No eating the pumpkin guts.
3 - No touching anything other than the pumpkin until we were done.
4 - Go potty before we start so you don't violate rule number 3.
5 - Don't rip the bottom tooth off the pumpkin (actually, this is a new rule for next year based on this year's actions).

Brynne was apprehensive about cleaning the inside of the pumpkin, and let us know it was "slimy".  Hadley, on the other hand, literally dove right in.  She was a bit disappointed when we were done with this step, but she quickly got over it.

I carved the first eye and pushed it inward.  Then Hadley went elbow deep to dig it out.

I carved the second eye and pushed it inward.  Brynne semi-reluctantly dove in after it, but was pleased to show off her haul.

I carved the mouth, after them telling me the pumpkin should have two teeth.  I made three, but as you can see from rule #5, they only wanted two, and so two is what they got.

Hadley was eager to pull the pumpkin's tooth.  We'll see how long that lasts after she loses her first tooth.

I thought three teeth would look better, so as they were cleaning up I widened the pumpkin's grin and added the bottom tooth back.

Notice something different?  Wider smile (on the pumpkin), and the third tooth has been restored.

 

Haunted House?

Early this morning, at about 4:30 AM, I was roused from a wonderful dream by Hadley's voice coming through the toddler monitor.  Calling it a baby monitor just isn't appropriate as they are now "big girls".  She let me know she had to go potty.  I stumbled into her room, half awake, scooped her up, and headed to her "big girl potty" in her bathroom. 

When I scoop her up in the middle of the night she is almost always overly clingy.  Maybe she's cold, or maybe she just wants to be close in the dark.  Either way, she's like a little backpack hanging on the front of me with her arms wrapped tightly around my neck.

As I carried her in front of me I was suddenly stopped.  Actually, I was bounced back a bit and almost fell.  I wasn't initially sure what was going on.  In my semi-conscious state I assumed my progress was being halted by a supernatural force.  Some evil spirit or sinister demon was preventing me from taking her to the potty.  I imagined this mean spirited poltergeist was trying to get me soaked with urine.

Vomit is worse than urine.  I can attest to that.

I reached my free hand out to see if I could push through the resistance that way.  I could not.

The apparition was unlike anything I'd ever heard or read about.  It was solid.  It was everywhere in front of me, blocking my progress.  It was also smooth.  Almost too smooth.  I couldn't feel any difference no matter where I moved my hand.  No lumps.  No cracks.  Not even a wrinkle.  The resistance was the same no matter where I touched.

Then, my hand brushed against something that was different.

It was small and round.  It fit into my hand very easily.  It felt familiar.

Had I grabbed a hold of this handle I think I would have soiled myself.

And why shouldn't it?  It was a doorknob.  I shut the door to their bathroom earlier in the night, something I don't ever do - obviously for good reason.

There was no unexpected visitor, but I had managed to soften the blow of walking into a door in the middle of the night by using a Hadley bumper.  Poor girl got squished between me and the door.

"Sorry for running you into the door, Hadley.  I didn't realize it was shut."

Her reply:

"That's OK, Papa.  You didn't mean to.  I'm fine."