Art O' The Month

Autumn items: Maia's "tom tom" (thank you, Mr. Quaker), Maia's binocular necklace, and Parker's Pumpkin.

 Parker's painting of a garbage truck.

Maia's: H is for Hearts  

cookie cutter, paint on paper

 Maia's spider

Maia's H is for House 

 Maia's J is for Jewels

No Rock.

Maia was wearing this little towel wrap thing after her bath tonight.  While I was combing her hair, she looked down at it and asked what it said.  I told her "Rock On. R-O-C-K rock O-N on."  She looks down at it for a moment (like this...)

Sh

and says "No it doesn't mommy. That's no. It says N-O no."  

Huh. Now that I was not expecting.

Thanksgiving 2011

Oh, Thanksgiving.  Can you feel the love?

 Look at all we have to be Thankful for, mama!

Cousins who play dress up with us and make us feel pretty. 

 Not sure I WANTED to be pretty (but check out my cool shiner! That makes me hard core, right?)

And we can always count on a complete room trashing for at least part of the day (and yay for more hands to help clean up!)

 We really like the yummy food! (Maia was really enjoying Uncle Andrew's spicy sausage stuffing, and my sweet potatoes with apples this year).

 But mostly, it's about being together. 

We are so Thankful for our Family.

This year we had Thanksgiving at our house, and invited Ellen, Sarah and Rod as well. So once again, we had to have a "kids table" as we were spilling over our table's capacity.  Dinner was fabulous and the company was even better. It was a beautiful sunny day, and we are so grateful for friends and family.

Random Funnies

Upon seeing a wedding dress in a shop window, Maia asks: when I grow up, can I wear a dress like that when I grow up and get married to daddy?


Watching a YouTube video of U2, Maia asks about Bono: who is that microphone player? He is a cool guy!


One afternoon, for no apparent reason, Parker is walking through the house shouting 'heh-WOAH?' into each room.  I wonder who he's looking for?


Proud moment in parenting:
Maia: why did that song skip a minute?
Me: I muted the bad word.
Maia: why is it a bad word? Is he angry at his daughter?

Saturdays

On coldish Saturdays, we like to try to "run" the kids... and this is a cheap way to do it.  To the Mall!

Dancing (Tap Shoes)

While Maia was sick, I got tired of watching our limited supply of Princess movies (Tangled, Snow White) and Netflix faves (Wallace and Gromit) and finally hauled out Lord of The Dance. She wasn't sure she wanted to watch it at first... but she was intrigued. And then when daddy sat down and told her some of the story?  Oh, it became a new favorite.  

So within days her "dancing" style had changed. Hands on her hips, lots of hopping and kicking.  And, because she's just of that age, she wanted to try on the idea of being "the bad guy" (Don Dorcha).  Then came the resurgence of wearing my heels for extra clicky sounds.   

Cue mommy and daddy getting annoyed with the clomp, clomp, clomp.

So it occurred to me that we had some hand-me-down tap shoes from Lydia.  They're a few sizes to big, but even tap shoes must be quieter than a toddler in mommy's shoes.  The response?  Don't let the photo fool you... she was thrilled.

Maia as Don Dorcha

The Tap Shoes.

Parker's got his own dancing style!

Halloween 2011

What with Maia just getting over this sickness, and Parker wanting absolutely NOTHING to do with any costume I put on him... it wasn't looking like we were really going to participate much in any Halloween festivities.  But apparently they both did great (and wore their costumes) at the school Halloween parade.

So after a quick (and soft) dinner...  we got Maia dressed in her butterfly costume (yes, I know it was last year's but it was her request, because it's nice and warm!). And Parker was supposed to be the ducky, or maybe Elmo... but the boycott continued for me, so I put him in his fireman-ish rain coat, and plopped a fire hat on him.  Into the wagon (where they wouldn't cooperate for pictures) 

and out for a little walk around the neighborhood.

Maia knew exactly what to do, and Parker caught on fairly quickly. 

In fact, after a few houses, it was hard to get him back in the wagon. 

It was a brief jaunt - maybe 10 houses, but they still made enough of a haul that we'll have candy for months. Which is actually rather unfortunate, because Maia has a habit of becoming obsessed with candy after each of these candy-celebratory holidays.  She's also adept at getting a chair to climb up to where she wants something, and a little sneaky.  So it wasn't long before she'd wake me in the morning with a tootsie roll clenched in her sweaty fist.  Look what I found, momma!

Sick.

About a week after everyone left, Maia woke up from nap with a fever on a Sunday afternoon. No other discernible symptoms, just a fever. Just Maia dialed down from 11 to 10.  She still had a temp in the morning, but didn't seem any worse, so we sent Parker to daycare and I brought Maia to work with me so I could complete a few reports that were due, and grab some work to do at home.  I brought Maia's back-pack (my "bag o'tricks") full of paper and stickers and quiet toys, but she was delighted just to be there, be special, and get some special attention from my co-worker, Kelly.

So a quiet day at home. She watched her Princess movies and some shows on Netflix while I worked.  Tuesday, much the same. More whiny, a little slower. But then she perked back up in the evening, so we thought maybe that was the end of it.  Nope. Wednesday was worse.  She really didn't complain about anything specific being wrong. I couldn't see anything bothering her, specifically.  So on the 25th, we went to the pediatrician to see if they could help us solve this mystery.  While we reviewed her symptoms, and she talked the PA's ear off... we finally came across the realization that she had complained her tongue hurt.  So we looked. And lo, and behold: Blisters. Hand food and mouth.  Which meant it was going to get worse before it got better.  And worse is what it did.

Last time she had this as a toddler, she only got blisters on her hands and feet, and they didn't bother her in the least. We had officially Gotten Lucky.  This time, not so much.  No blisters on hands or feet, but her poor mouth was covered. On her tongue and her gums and the roof of her mouth.  The blisters kept coming, and her gums were so swollen, her heart shaped lips looked more like Angelina Jolie's.  She was miserable.  There was a lot of crying, not much sleeping, very little eating or drinking. After she could no longer tolerate soft or acidic food, it came down to ice cream, pudding and pediasure. Her breath was rank because any contact with a toothbrush caused a bloody mess and screams.  She finally started to turn the corner a full week after she came down with it, but tooth brushing was still touch and go.  I wondered if she'd be able to enjoy her Halloween!  But by Monday, she was at about 85% and totally fever free, so back to school she went.  Incidentally, none of the other kids in her class got it, nor did Parker. Phew!

Incidentally - her stats:
weight = same: 30 lbs
height  = 38" - that's 1 1/4" growth since August!