Halloween-a-thon!

It's been a Halloween marathon around here. It all started with a Halloween costume parade at Natalie's preschool Friday morning, her class party after that, a "Trunk or Treat" Friday night at one church and then a fall festival at another church on Saturday. When the actual holiday came around, Natalie announced that she was finished wearing her costume because it was hot and itchy and she'd just have to be a butterfly again next year because she was DONE wearing it this year. We asked her repeatedly if she wanted to get dressed up again and go trick or treating on Halloween. She insisted she did not.

Then the trick or treaters started ringing the doorbell and don't you know that little stubborn butterfly decided she just had to trick or treat after all! On went her wings and out went the little bug (on her tricycle...she had to make up for lost trick or treating minutes, and fast!) with her Daddy, her Nana and her baby sister. She cried when she returned home and I told her that I had had a few trick or treaters because she wanted to be the one to hand out the candy. I had to explain that she couldn't be in two places at once...even if she did have wings and a bike.

All dressed up Friday morning for her costume parade at preschool.

The pumpkin costume I had for Audrey was a little hot for an Arizona Halloween so we opted to put her in this little spider shirt with some black tights instead. Those are the chunkiest spider legs I've ever seen!

Natalie and her classmates waiting for their turn in the costume parade.

The highlight of the Fall Festival we attended on Saturday was getting her face painted.

Examining some of her candy! She sorted and stacked and sorted and stacked her loot and graciously gave up all peanut products to her parents. She's such a big girl about her allergy.

5 Months Today!

Audrey is 5 months old today. She just has the most charming and delightful personality. Her smiles are contagious. Her giggles are, too!

We have all sorts of quality time with the little charmer as she is up 2 to 3 times per night and then takes teeny, tiny cat naps throughout the day. With the little amount of sleep that she gets, you'd think she'd be a fussy grump. But, instead, she's just a generally happy and alert little bundle of energy. The pediatrician said we are just "lucky" to have a child that doesn't require much sleep. Lovely.

She spends all her time on her tummy, both during her many, many waking hours and her few sleeping ones. She finds the tag on any toy and licks it repeatedly. She chews on her thumb instead of sucking it. She loves to hear herself "talk" and she babbles, squeals and crows LOUDLY at the most inappropriate times (during church, at 3 a.m., or whenever Natalie is napping). She is still a bit explosive from both ends and her stained wardrobe reflects it, unfortunately. She's fascinated by the cats and her big sister. And she's just as snugly and edible as can be. It really is hard not to nibble on her.

I trimmed her bangs tonight because I was so tired of seeing them in her sweet eyes. She was very fidgety. The result looks a little like Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber. Oops! She will definitely require a barrette for at least a week until it grows out enough for me to try it again!

This is Audrey sleeping BEFORE being placed in her bed. That's usually her cue to wake up.

Sick Sisters

We're on the mend now, but last week was a rough one. Sick kids. I took them to the doctor last Tuesday when both of them had coughs that didn't sound quite right (think 80 year old chain smoker meets Fisherman's Wharf sea lion). As we waited our turn at the pediatrician's office, I kept thinking that both of them probably had colds that would have to run their courses and I would be told to take them home and ride it out. Well, when we left there with 2 unpleasant diagnoses (bronchitis for Natalie and an ear infection for Audrey) and 4 prescriptions, I was grateful I'd taken them in.

I actually made a chart for each kid so I remembered who got what medication and at what time. The days were a blur of humidifiers, inhalers, nebulizers, that sticky, candy pink amoxicillin that has not changed since I was a kid, lots of television, and a whole lot of cabin fever once the real fevers subsided.

We're better now...even Corey and I... who felt just as crummy as the kids but didn't really have time to whine about it properly. There's nothing quite like a week of sick to make us appreciate healthy.

Once everyone was heavily medicated and no longer contagious, we thought we might as well let them snuggle!

Outside Again!

It's finally perfect outdoor weather. Now, we are pleased to say, we will be outside almost every day until Memorial Day. That makes the sizzling summer worth it. We can walk to the park again and that feels great. Corey took Natalie a few times after dark this summer but it was still pretty hot at 8pm. It's still in the 90s during the day here, but the breeze is a little cooler and it's very comfortable in the shade. It feels great to be outside in the daylight again.

No one can say we do not take sun protection seriously.

Now that our days are cooler, our nights are cooler, too. We had some good friends over for dinner and a movie the other night and we enjoyed both outside! Corey set up a screen and a projector and we watched Madagascar under the stars! It was so fun and we can't wait to do it again.

The calmest and most captivated I've ever seen children outside!

Scooter

Audrey scoots. I have this sinking feeling she will be an early mover (yikes). She gets onto her tummy and then kicks her legs while raising her upper body up by straightening her arms. The result is a backward scoot leading her to all sorts of surprising places. She, of course, has no idea where she's headed either so we're not the only ones puzzled by where she ends up.

She scooted off her play mat the other day and ended up halfway under the ottoman.

Role Play

It should come as no surprise that Natalie likes to direct us...not just in our daily doings but in actual role playing. She announces who will be who ("Daddy, you be the king and, Mommy, you're the mean witch."...sadly, this is a very common cast of characters). She gets the starring role every time, of course ("I'll be the princess."...shock). She tells us what to say, how to say it, how to say it again the right way because we invariably get it wrong the first time and when to say it. She likes some emotion put into it and gets frustrated when lines are delivered indifferently. It's not uncommon to get to "take 12" before we get it right.

Well, the perpetual princess surprised us all the other night when she put a crown on Audrey. Really? Audrey was equally shocked. I assumed Audrey would always be the court jester (at best) or the royal puppy. Never did I think Natalie would share her crown. It lasted only a second and the crown was promptly removed. But there was a glimmer of hope that one day (if Audrey has any interest at all in princesses) she might just have a glamorous role in one of Natalie's plays. A speaking role? Probably not. But maybe a tiara and a tutu.

=

Bed Head

This is Audrey's hair first thing in the morning. Is there a direction her hair isn't going?? I can tame it a bit with a little water and a comb, but it really prefers to do this all day.

No go

Audrey was given the green light at her 4 month visit to try rice cereal. We were so excited. Out came the tiny bowl, the baby spoon, a new bib and the camera. The only one not excited was...Audrey.

She was open mouthed and open minded (the kid puts EVERYTHING in her mouth so it didn't surprise me that she was receptive to this part):

She thought about it:

She wasn't impressed:

She spit most of it out. She gagged on the rest. I'm not sure she actually swallowed much. So, we'll try again in a few days and see if anything changes.

In other 4 month appointment news...she's 14 lbs. 8 oz., 25" tall and, once again, "perfect" according to the pediatrician. We'll take that!

The Treasure Box

In an effort to get Natalie to mind her parents, we've created a positive reinforcement star chart. Every time she minds (the first time) she gets a star. When she gets to 10 stars she gets to visit the treasure chest. Sometimes collecting 10 stars takes a day and a half. Sometimes it takes a week and a half.

The treasure chest is filled with little things from the dollar bin at Target, "coupons" for cupcake making with Mommy and trips to ice cream with Daddy, suckers and smarties and various other little goodies that we know Natalie will salivate over.

Whenever she earns a trip to the treasure chest, she empties the ENTIRE chest of all its contents, lines up the prospective prizes on the floor and deliberates and deliberates over what she'll select. This can take a while. There have been some biggies in there (a "coupon" for a trip to a new aquarium in town) that she's passed up at first and some really little ones (like a plastic flower pinwheel she already had 2 of) that she snatched up without hesitation.

It's been hilarious to see her go about the selection process. The coupons?...yeah, we've realized she's not all that interested in delayed gratification . I'd have to drop what I was doing (including Audrey) that very minute and start making cupcakes with her immediately in order for that little paper promise to win against bubbles that smell like strawberries.




Here's to hoping for a week with lots of treasure hunting!

Freshman Fears (15 years early)

A highlight of Natalie's day is going to the child watch area of the YMCA while Corey (and, occasionally, I) works out. Recently, one of her favorite child watch employees left her summer job at the Y to return to college. This threw our little girl for a bit of a loop.

During the drive home, she asked if she ever had to go away to college. Corey said, yes, she'd probably go away to college. Natalie quickly admitted that she didn't want to go away to college. Corey insisted that she didn't really need to make a decision about that today and that, when the time came, she'd probably change her mind and be excited to go. Natalie disagreed.

The next day, she came up to me out of the blue with tears in her eyes and said she didn't want to go away to college and wanted to live at home forever. This puzzled me for a few reasons...first, I was not part of the car conversation the day before so I didn't even know that Natalie knew what college was. Second, most days, Natalie (with her heavy sighs and eye rolling) acts as though this is the most unfair and un-fun place to live and I thought surely, when she heard about an opportunity to move out and make her own rules, she'd ask me to make a countdown chain.

Her reasons for wanting to stay at home forever were pretty cute: she wanted to keep checking out books at the library every week with Audrey, visiting her friend Libby's house and going to preschool.

It's nice to know she's actually happy here.