Birthday Party

The birthday party.  So exciting!  And my children made sure this nice display was ruined immediately after their naps. Because that's what kids do!

Parker had a great party, and did pretty good job opening his gifts.  Maia "helped" quite a bit (as expected) and Parker LOVED his toys. More Things That Go!!

Is there any better present than balloons?

See? Even daddy likes them.  Good thing, too. Due to the shortage of helium, they were tough to get!

After the party, the kids learned that if you empty a bottle of bubbles into your water table, it makes a big foamy mess. And that's good times, people!

Happy Birthday Dude!

I made it almost four years...

...Before having to deal with this. On one hand, I love how they play together and entertain each other.
On the other hand, they are really good at helping each other dig in a little deeper to that big hole o' trouble!

If coloring on the art easel was fun, certainly the wall will be better!

And cleaning, while dancing.

It won't be long before I have a worthy submission to sh*tmykidsruined.com

Parker is TWO!

Two. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone, and what an amazing little guy Parker is.

He can count to 14 from time to time - to 10 often.
He throws out surprisingly complex sentences like handing me a piece of paper and saying

"I no want dis -eey more!" (I don't want this anymore). He's got a surprisingly good grasp of emotional words and tenses. "I gwumpy wite now! I don wike dat!"  and moments later "I all better! I happy!"  He's doing really well with pronouns, he refers to himself as "I" and others as "you" or "him" or "her." He can verbalize when things belong to others: "Dat Maia's twactor?"

He correctly recognizes all sorts of trucks, and calls them out in the car (wook mama! A semi twuuuuuck!!)
He correctly recognizes a stop sign and McDonalds (yay for pre-reading skills!)

He knows the names of the colors, but not how they apply to things.  Most things are green (or, rather gween).

He likes to sleep with his Lightning McQueen matchbox type car, and at least two pacis (Still. Sigh.)  And he can tell you if he has 1, 2 or 3 pacis. He will switch one out of his mouth for another and announce he wants "a new one."  He rolls "MaKween" up and down his pillow.

He's also really funny. He loves to make noise and sounds and laugh. He makes us laugh all the time. He thinks it is VERY funny when he toots, and if he does, he will try again (squinched up face and all!) and laugh!

He is great at sitting down and playing with cars for a while. He really likes to lay down on the floor and watch them roll. He also really loves to play with Maia, and his friends Ezra and Nicholas at school.

And lest we forget: His stats!
Parker is 35" tall (66%), 29.9 lbs (68%), and continues to have a big ol' noggin full of brains. 

Hangin Around

What a helpful big sister!

At school, we get a little dirty.

Hangin' out. Eatin' snacks.

Elton John and his big sister.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day began on Friday with a Mothers' Day Tea with Maia, at daycare.

They set us up with cookies (that the kids made), lemonade and iced tea, then whisked us off to another room where we colored a picture of a teapot together.

After that, we did a variation on a cake walk in another classroom, with all of us standing/walking on shapes, and Miss Maria making sure everyone got the chance to be a winner.  Maia picked out a couple of silly bandz.

On Sunday, the kids brought me down some coffee and handed me this card.

Maia may have had some help with spelling Parker... but she is quite competent in her ability to write her name on her own... and I was surprised to see her writing MOM without help earlier in the week.

(I bet they've been practicing at school!)

 

So what did I get from my two amazing kids (with some help from their fantastic daycare teachers)?

A photo magnet of Maia, a hand painted tile (Maia), a tea bag, a hand painted flower pot (Parker) with a Parkey Posey (ha ha).

The teabag poem is as follows:

I know that you love me

and enjoy being with me, 

but sometimes I'm rowdy

and busy as a bee.

If you get discouraged

take this gift from me. 

Prepare this

and relax with some tea!

It really was a lovely day.  Thanks to Ray for taking care of breakfast and doing a few special things with the kids to give me a little break.

This photo is completely unrelated to this event... but is the result of an "Art Fair" project at school.

This Owl's name is "Garros"

Ice Cream

Unseasonably warm days in May lead me to remember the kids had gotten gift certificates from Grandma for  Coldstone Creamery.  So we had a special outing, just the three of us.  

Parker is rather new to ice cream in general, so I offered him a few choices of things he'd like. I figured he'd choose banana (I do love their banana ice cream with chocolate and strawberries!), but he chose mint, so I had them add chocolate chips.

 Maia chose Raspberry Sorbet with gummy bears.  The gummy bears disappeared first.

And even at the smallest size, the kids had far, far more than they could eat in a single sitting, so we got to take it home and enjoy it for dessert for a few days after as well! YUM!

One of Those Days.

Sometimes, as a parent, you just have one of those days. 
In mid-May, Maia was going through some AWFUL daycare drop offs. Wailing and crying and clinging to me for dear life, begging me not to go to work, begging me to bring her with me. These days were a tremendous pull on my heartstrings, and while I knew she was safe and well cared for, it hurts as a mother to see your child, and worse, to leave your child in distress!  Oh, heartache!  Bedtimes hadn't been much better, and she was skipping naps during the day. It was a recipe for disaster.


So we started a sticker chart. Good drop offs, naps at school, staying in her room after being put to bed all resulted in a sticker. After 5 stickers, she got a little Princess. Hooray! It was working! She was motivated to gain some control over her behavior.

In the middle of this, Ray left for a visit to New York. A week of single parenting for me, but it's okay! I've got this. On the first day, we had a great drop off, due in part to the promise that I would see her at lunch time for the Family Picnic.

Families gathered at the pavilion by the duck pond on the grounds near daycare. Kids from toddler to pre-K were sitting next to their parents and grandparents on picnic benches and getting lunch buffet style. Most kids are 1 kid to 2 adults, or at the very least, 1:1 or 2:2. I'm a little unusual in that I have 2 kids to one adult, but that's okay - we're having a good day! Parker and Maia were SO excited to see me there for lunch!  We waited... and waited... and waited our turn to go get our lunch. Pasta salad with chicken and grapes (neither of them liked it) Sun Chips (kids loved them), Watermelon and brownies (mess fest!). Maia made sure to keep everyone supplied with lemonade, and we sat together on the picnic table and ate our lunch.  I was busy, trying to keep both kids on task in this exciting and busy environment. I turned to help Maia and Parker slipped off the picnic bench and bonked his head.  In so doing, he tried to catch himself and upended his lunch. Watermelon and pasta flying through the air and landing... on me. In my hair, on my face, in my eye, on my clothes (why, oh why did I wear light colors today?).  


Staff come running with a make shift ice pack, and another mom was dear enough to bring Parker more food (that he wasn't going to eat anyway).  Parker settled, and I gave up on getting the kids to eat the food they didn't like. Pick your battles. Save your sanity.


After lunch, there was some milling about. Parker was going through a new phase of thinking that if you try to catch him when he goes too close to danger, it's a game. So he runs faster, while looking over his shoulder and giggling.  For our next event, Parker tried to run too close to the duck pond, while Maia snuck heaping handfuls of Sun Chips without permission. Then Maia began ramping up her hysterics for my departure. While she's on my hip, Parker runs out into the parking lot, just after a car passes by. I yell at Maia to get off! and throw her and my purse to the ground to pursue (the giggling maniacally) Parker. Once I've caught him,  my stern admonishments of "No run in parking lot! Danger!" are responded to by my little stinker saying "I funny?!"  We return to the sobbing Maia, who is being wrangled by the center's director who is telling her "I need a big preschooler to help me take all the table cloths off the table, can you help me?"  To no avail. I leave a kicking, screaming, sobbing Maia in the arms of her very pregnant teacher (sigh), and head back to my car, miserable. And as I walk up the sidewalk, Parker is walking hand-in-hand with his classmates, and he is sobbing for me too. Wow.  I shake my head, and comment to his teacher: This was an Epic Triple Mommy Fail today. She advises me to go get a little liquid lunch before returning to work. I didn't. But I cried on the way (and I'm not much of a crier) back. It took me a good 15 minutes to compose myself before I could go back to work. Sometimes being a mom hurts. A lot. 


Addendum:  At pick up time in the afternoon, I'm told that mine were not the only kids who had a complete meltdown when it was time for parents to leave... and that naps were really really needed.  That said, they did all feel really bad for me. And I'm not sure if that makes me feel better or worse.

Festival

Each year, the first week in June, my city closes a few blocks and buildings and sets up food booths and stages and throws a big Festival of the Arts.  Saturday was rainy, but Sunday was shaping up to be gorgeous (if a little warm) and we all headed out to spend a little time at Festival. And get some yummy chicken-on-a-stick.

We stopped at the Calder Stage and watched this large ballet troupe dance to a medley of tunes from the 20s. Maia was enthralled! The Joplin Rags are very catchy, and Maia was bouncing and wiggling as she turned to me and said "I want to go up there and dance with them, mom!"

Next was the Paint In. 

Parker was over it pretty quickly.  His favorite part was washing his hands in a big tub of soapy water.

Maia had a vision, apparently...

She worked on her painting for a while.

Completed works

Parker's

Maia's

After that, we got some ice cream!  And listened to some rock n' roll. Namely, a 12ish year old boy playing the guitar parts to various metal hits with quite a bit of skill.

Nothing wrong with a little ice cream and Ozzy.

We moved on to listen to some more music and to finish our ice cream in the shade.

Hooray for Festival!