Rainbow Brite

Scored some RB PJ's at TJMaxx for $6!  Lucy discovered an 80's Rainbow Brite movie on Netflix and is in love.  

Non-Fiction

Lucy told me her classmate Ethan killed a snake with a knife and then sucked out the blood.  When I questioned the validity of the statement, she defended herself by saying, "Mom, yes he did!  It's non-fiction".

First Donut

The idea of a donut was much more exciting than the consumption.  He didn't like he hands getting messy, but he really liked carrying the bag!

Day Four

This is how I got Lucy home from an epic trip to the doctor. Just past the car is the big hill. This is the condition of the streets after four days...

And this is the Tupperware container repurposed as the vomitorium for Eli.

Totally Unprepared

Ha! A medium I haven't used yet to bitch about the Atlanta snow storm of the decade! In case you haven't heard, we are on day 3 of being totally and completely snowed/iced in. No school all week, and most likely not tomorrow (Thursday) either. We've played in the snow, skied, sledded, shoveled and now we are done and would like it to go away. Atlanta is just not prepared in any way to deal with this kind of weather. I read today the city of Atlanta has 8 snow plows???  Why I spent every last morsel of my energy to chip out the ice half way up our huge hill so Ken could get his car to the top and leave it there...I'll never know. Because now, he's gone and I have two stir crazy children, one of whom barfed every 15 minutes from 6pm last night, until 3am this morning. At that time, she *only* barfed every 30 minutes until 6am. All day I've been wondering, does my stomach hurt...do I feel barf-y...or am I just hungry? Eli is running figure 8 sprints around the table then the kitchen island, something like a caged animal. And Lucy just keeps asking me to sit down with her. But I have piles of laundry! Barfed on at that!

Last night, I will admit I did escape for a few hours. It was a night of fun and adventure. I met my neighbor at the top of the big hill with sleds (to load up with supplies and pull home). We loaded them into the car (that I had stashed up there earlier in the day), and went to the grocery store. But nothing was open, except for Wal-mart. It was a eerie outing, everyone looking half showered, half asleep, like they too have been trapped inside for days. Not all the lights were on in the store, and the produce department was sparsely stocked. We took our sweet time, enjoying the time away, loading up on essentials like toys and hummus. On the way home Ken called to tell me Lucy had started barfing. While trying to park my car at the top of the hill, I got stuck in some mud and which required 4 people to help push it out. I'm not kidding when I say, it was fun and it was good to get out.

The biggest news of the day is Eli TELLING me he has poop in is pants, instead of me discovering it myself and chasing him around the house, tackling him and wrestling him to wipe the smelly excrement off his butt. He also asked me if he could eat it and then told me he smelled it and made smelling -- sniff sniff -- sounds. Like it was a freshly baked pie.

Well, at least the dolls are having a great time!

Finally

Pepper the sled dog gets to do his work.

White Christmas

It was a white Christmas in Atlanta this year. The kids couldn't get enough of the snow. Such a special treat. Eli broke several of his gifts on Christmas day. His excitement could not be contained and he was bubbling over with energy, determination to touch everything, and would not sit down for a minute. Lucy was in her prime, loving all the presents, being patient with her brother and in general being a lovely little girl.

As I type this, Eli is destroying my office, taking every game off the shelf and strewing it about on the floor. Game pieces, dice, cards, boxes. It's the price I pay for a few minutes to sit down.

Until next time...Happy New Year!

XOXO

Lucy and her best buddy from school, Luke, have now started blowing each other kisses.  She also gives him hugs and kisses when she says goodbye to him.  If you don't know this, Lucy is not a big hugger, so this is particularly funny.

Santa lives in Mountain Park

There are many great things about living in Mountain Park, Georgia, but I'm going to say the very best thing, is the annual Santa Run.  Each year, Santa and his elves deliver Christmas presents to all the kids in our small community and the surrounding subdivisions.  This goes on all day, starting at 8am and going until 5 or 6pm.  The volunteer fire and rescue department coordinates the entire event, and it is an enormous logistical task.  We are usually the first or second stop of the morning.  The fire truck is followed by the ambulance, followed by 4 or 5 additional car/trucks filled, filled, filled, with presents.  Santa and the elves are transported in the ambulance, and Mrs. Claus sits in the fire truck.  The sirens blare and we go outside to wait for Santa and his elves to stop in front of our house.  When everything finally comes to a stop, out pops a crew of 15 to help Santa deliver the gifts.  Photos are hard to take because of the commotion.  We need to be highly involved in getting the kids to sit on Santa's lap and not get run over.  Lucy likes it, but the sirens and the huge crowd make her a little nervous.  This year we finally wised up and let her wear her ear muffs to drown out the sound.  Eli scrambled up into Santa's lap with hardly a pause.  It is truly a sight that brings tears to your eyes, each and every time. It never gets old.

Santa brought Lucy a box full of accessories to help her take care of ALL her babies.  Eli received a toy with lots of buttons.  Of course, he likes Lucy's gift more. 

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

Things of note this week:

Eli has jumped, fallen, flown, soared and slid off everything in my entire house this week.  Remarkably, he has not (seriously) injured himself.  Yet.

Lucy's teeth get smaller by the day.  She grinds them and they are slowly disappearing.  I see it very clearly in photos.  I'm told some kids do this and once they get their permanent teeth in it will stop.  I'm not convinced. 

Lucy dressed up as a 'Cowboy' one day.  She even went to school like this, which is remarkable in itself, since she rarely wants to call attention to the way she dresses.

Eli has taken to barfing on random occasions.  In the car, at the dinner table, in his bed.  He usually tells me when he is done "ALL DONE", then takes off running to jump off something else.

Picture Day!

Superman

Hey, he INSISTED on wearing the Dora undies.  Wore them to bed, all night too.

And speaking of beds, Eli has moved out of his crib, into a bed.  But, I still have the crib in the corner of his room, just in case I need to keep him contained!  It's hard to slow down Superman.

Halloween Recap, 2010

This was the first year that Lucy really understood the full concept of Halloween and appreciated it.  That made it fun and extra special.  I've learned over the years to pick out comfortable clothes for her costume -- they can't be itchy or too over the top.  This year, she requested a mask to wear with her skeleton costume.  She wore it here and there, around the house and in the car.  But, she didn't want to wear it Trick or Treating or to any of the umpteen Halloween parties we attended. 

The pathetic one of the season was Eli.  Poor kid has been sick on and off for almost two weeks now.  On Halloween, he was so sick, he couldn't even go out for candy.  He stayed home with Dad.  Conveniently, there was a Vikings game on, so Ken was more than happy to stay home with the sick kid.  We were up with him most of the night, as he was raging through a fever, in excess, at times of 103.  The antibiotics finally kicked in today, so he is on the mend.  He keeps picking up the candy bags and looking at me and saying, "Trick or Treat'?  I haven't really had the heart to tell him he missed out.  We just load him up with all of Lucy's nut and chocolate candy and call it even.


She insisted on painting her pumpkin white first, then applying a face.  We also carved pumpkins, but that was so hectic I didn't get any pictures.

Boo at the Zoo, with her BFF, Zella

Eli at his one and only Halloween event.  He was dressed up as a Fireman, but he got too hot and took off his coat (casualty of Halloween in the south).

Here he is sick, and insisting on wearing the Tutu.

The Box...

...is always more fun than what is inside!

First Word

During the morning dance of chaos, Lucy asked me how to spell the word toy.  I told her, and she repeated the letters under her breath.  She does this often, whispering things to herself -- talking to herself.  A few minutes later, she asked for some paper.  I ran downstairs to the laundry room and grabbed the first thing I could find and gave her the paper, secretly thankful she was passing the time before school doing something besides watching TV.  Twenty minutes later she proudly showed me 20 pieces of paper with the single word T-O-Y written on them.  She had written her first word!  So much excitement in the house these days. 

She took all the pieces of paper and handed them out to her friends at school, so they would know how to spell the word too.  Later in the day, she asked for more paper and made more flyers with the word toy carefully written in the upper left hand corner.  We went out to dinner to celebrate (or just an excuse to get out of making dinner?), and she handed out the flyers to everyone in the restaurant.  On our way home, she handed them out to neighbors in the streets.  This is from a girl who doesn't like to wear dresses or put her hair up because "people will say things to me" (read, compliments). 

Up until a month ago, she would have nothing to do with writing.  Hated writing her name, wouldn't do it no matter how cleverly I tried to help.  All her letters were upside down and backwards.  You could see the struggle and frustration.  Often she scribbled lines on a page, probably liking the way it feels, but resembling nothing. This is a major development in Lucy's world.

Apple Orchard

We went to an apple farm this past weekend.  Must be the thing to do with kids, since there were so many there it felt like we were living in an ant farm.  These photos of Eli below capture his personality so well right now.  He's two and all about it.  He's been running for about a year now, but it has taken on a new seriousness lately.  You really have to work at it to catch up to him.  And he's strong and will fight you to the death to keep all 32 pounds of him planted on the ground.  He does not like to sit, EVER, even to eat.  He's always into anything, everything, never stopping.  If he has something he thinks he shouldn't, he looks straight at me and shoves it in his mouth, then gives me a little smirk.  Hilariously unfunny most of the time.  He jumps off anything he can find.  Climbs up onto the counters with no stool or chair.  Has no interest in being potty trained and truly plays very quietly by himself when he has a load in his pants.  He talks all the time, narrating the world around me.  If I feed him anything besides macaroni and cheese, and pushes it away and declares loudly, "I don't like it".  The tickle games could go on for days.  If I stop he grabs my hand and tells to me to do it again.  This boy is funny and has a great sense of humor.  He's taller at 2, than Lucy was a 3.  He likes Diego, but not Elmo. And he's really pissed that he has to sit in a 5 point car seat, while his sister gets to sit in a booster. 

Lucy was like Eli too; intensely active, never letting up, into everything.  People often see Eli and proclaim, "THIS IS WHAT BOYS ARE LIKE".  As if I had it easy the first round with Lucy because she was a girl.  And I laugh (or maybe cry) inside, because this was what Lucy was like too, only worse.  Because she screamed all the time and wouldn't sleep, until just recently.  So far, being five has been a big deep breath of fresh mountain air.  She listens to me sometimes, even does what I ask once in a while.  She sweetly tries to take care of her brother (when she isn't grabbing her toys out of his hands).  Last night she set the table for the whole family without asking.  I can sometimes reason with her now, explaining she has no time to watch the Care Bears because she slept late and we need to get to school.  She actually accepts that answer and moves on without melting into the floor in a pile of tears.  She knows when Eli is doing something wrong and lets us know.  But, she hasn't taken it too far and become an annoying tattle tale.   She's still the same old Lucy, but just a little softer.  She gets upset when her old clothes don't fit her anymore and she tells me she wants to be four again like some of her friends.  And even if that were possible, I'd never let it happen in a million years.  I love five.

First Lemonade Stand

Lucy's 5th Birthday - 9.19.2010

Lucy celebrated her birthday with an out of town friend on Friday evening at American Girl doll store.  In the past, Lucy didn't know you could BUY things from the store, she thought it was just a place to LOOK.  Sorta like a museum.  Go ahead moms, take that nibblet of genius for your children who have not yet been corrupted by The Consumerism.  We blew the top off that old theory and bought a brother (Freddy) for his twin sister Sally, (who has been featured here in the past completely covered from head to toe with scotch tape) and a husky with a dogsled.  And that decision was completely unprompted.  No words like, 'look Lucy a DOGSLED'.  I really don't even know if she remembers I used to instruct dogsledding courses for Outward Bound - could care less, I'm sure.  She had been eyeing it in the catalog, drooling over the thought.  So dogsled it was.  Lucy loves dolls and dogs, so this was a perfect marriage.  I never really played with dolls as a child, much to my mothers frustration.  This love of all things doll related jumped from my mom, over me, right into Lucy.   

Happy 5th Birthday Lucy Marlow!

First Day of Preschool, 2010

The kids started preschool on Tuesday.  Eli will go two mornings a week, and Lucy will be in pre-K 5 mornings a week.  People have been asking what I am going to do with ALL that time...all 6 hours a week without a child.  The list, it is really endless.  But mostly, I will try and get on the workout wagon again.
Lucy has really grown up so much this summer.  She rocked her first day of school and took it in stride.  Eli is growing into a big, loud, opinionated and fast 2 year old.  I sat with him for an hour on his first day (this is the way they do it), and I leave him for an hour on Thursday.  The following week, we will be on a full regular schedule. 

First of Many

Lucy turns five in two weeks.  This was her first cake, of many, over the next several weeks.  Her best friend will be out of town on her big day, so they invited us over for an early celebration.