Story hour--Lukie edition

I took Ella to Grammie's story hour and was later than I intended because I couldn't find my keys/phone/purse/mind when I was trying to leave my house. After I got there, I had to fill out a paper and help Ella put her name tag on, get settled in, etc. So, by the time I left there it was 10:30 which was the time I was supposed to be back for Luke's lap sit story hour. I burned rubber (but in a civilized burning rubber-type manner. Let's not upset Tori who wants me to drive extra safe since her accident) to get back to town for Miss Lori. By the time I got back to the library, it was 10:40--I was late but not too late to still go. I drove to the library and there were NO PARKING SPOTS. I drove to the building next door--NO SPOTS. I looked on the street--NO SPOTS. I would've had to drive to the bank to park which is a couple blocks away from the library. By that time it was 10:45 then I still had to wake Luke up (he fell asleep on the way there) and walk to the library. It would've been 10:50 by the time I got there--definitely too late by then. So I said to heck with it and went home.

Sigh.

Story Hour--Grammie edition

For those of you who don't know, my Mom works at a library. It's not the one that we normally go to because it's about 10 minutes away from my house vs the one in town being 1 minute away. Because we missed story hour with Miss Lori yesterday due to our Malabar Farm excursion, I decided I would take her to Grammie's Big Girl story hour (aka the 3-5 year old story hour). Grammie and her friends made an exception for Ella to come even though she's not 3 yet. We went today and SHE LOVED IT! She did really well. Grammie says that I need to buy Ella a pair of scissors, though, because she didn't know how to use them when it came to craft time. Call me crazy but I thought a 2 year old was too young for scissors but what do I know. I understand that Ella had a good time hanging out with another little girl. They shared glue, scissors, and all kinds of other fun, crafty things. The letter of the day for today was "B" so they made a bumblebee craft and a bear puppet. After story hour, they ate Bugles for their snack. What a B filled hour!

Here's the disturbing part, though. When all the kids left at the end of story hour, it was just Grammie, Ella, me, and the other librarians remaining. One of the librarians saw something lying on the floor. She went over and picked it up only to discover that it was a pair of Blues Clues underwear. They assumed they were Ella's because they know that she enjoys being nudie. I told them they were not because we don't have Blues Clues underwear. Bottom line is that some kid left story hour without their underwear on and guess what a surprised Mommy they will have when they get home. All I know is WHEW! IT WASN'T MY KID!!

Malabar Farm Pix

Ah, nature

Luke is his sweet ride a.k.a The Little Red Wagon
Ella loves to pull Luke in the wagon
They're looking waiting for fish to swim by in the pond

Much love to Tor

Hugs and kisses to my friend Tori who was in an accident the other day. Goodbye to her beloved "Golden Girl" aka her car who will be an organ donor for other cars because it was unable to be salvaged. Sniff, sniff.

Happy, Fun Adventure

Yesterday, Aron decided to take a day off work (yeah!) and we all loaded ourselves into the CR-V (again as a side note to my dad NOT A MINIVAN) and drove and drove and drove until we arrived at Malabar Farm. None of us had ever been there and for those of you who haven't been either it's an old farm that author Louis Bromfield owned. Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were married there way back when. It's now a state park with trails and other naturey things to do. There was a petting zoo which Ella and Luke both enjoyed--think petting a Shetland Pony. We took pictures which are bound to be uber cute but the camera's still in the car and it's raining really hard right now. I'll post them later.

We stayed there a while but then decided it was time to go because we needed to shop for a car seat for Luke (he's turning one soon so he needs a big boy car seat) and the kids were starting to get squirmy. We found a car seat but couldn't buy one because our car was too loaded with our little, red wagon, and our double stroller (Aron thought we might need both while we were hiking).

Ella had 2 great observations while we were at Malabar Farm. We were walking toward the visitor's center and the sun was behind us so it cast a shadow in front of us. She looked at the shadow and said "Look Mommy, the shadows are holding hands, too." Then about 5 seconds after that she said "We're sharing a shadow. Thank you for sharing with me." I almost went into a sugar coma she's so sweet.

Wow. What do you say to that?

Ella was going potty the other night. She was sitting there and suddenly she says to me "Peeps comes out front. Poopy comes out back." My pride at that moment was two-fold.

1.) She knows her front from back. Not always an easy concept for a 2 year old when describing something within yourself.
2.) She knows that these things have different origins. Not all 2 year olds know that.

Despite my pride, I was at a loss for words so I think I said "uh, yup."

Hanging Out With My Buddy

Myles came over last weekend to hang out and play while Daddy, Uncle Jeff, and Aunt Robbie were at the OSU game. 3 kids + 1 me=Crazy Annie! Actually, it wasn't too bad. I thought it would be more hectic than it was. Myles and Ella wanted to watch cartoons (Backyardigans, of course) in the morning so I set them up with their respective stuffed animals under a blankie.

Forgetful Me

I forget stuff all the time as any of my friends can surely tell you BUT this time I forgot to say Happy Birthday to my sister in law on the 19th sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

Woo hoo! Happy Birthday!

He's an Eating Machine I Tell You

Luke has really discovered his ability to eat everything in sight! He likes to have several rounds of breakfast. See, there's the appetizer breakfast which consists of me putting him the high chair with a sprinkling of rice krispies on his tray. That appetizer will usually buy me enough time to make him Breakfast #1. Breakfast #1 consists of about 1/3-1/2 cup of oatmeal (this is a precooked measured amount. It probably puffs up to a cup.) mixed with a container of applesauce (about 1/4 cup). Sometimes this satisfies him, sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't, we have to go to the Breakfast Dessert which is cheerios on his tray. After he's done, I feed Ella breakfast then I get my breakfast which usually ends up being about 30-45 minutes after his Breakfast #1. By that time, he's ready for Breakfast #2 and this usually consists of staring at me eating my breakfast until I give him mine. About an hour after that, he's ready for a little bottle then it's off for his morning nap. I'm not sure where he puts all this food in his tiny little 19# body. He must have a hollow leg or something.

This is a picture of him pouring a bowl of yogurt into his mouth. I made the mistake of leaving the bowl where he could reach it and then turning my back on him for a moment.

This is going to come back to haunt him someday

Those are Ella's underpants on his head. We were getting ready to put Ella in the tub with her jammies and clean underwear sitting on the floor to put on her when we saw Luke trying to put them on his head. Aron decided he would help him with his fine motor skills and put them on. Thanks, Aron.

Ella-isms

Ella has some pretty funny one liners...here are a couple of my favorites

1.) When she eats a bowl of soup, she closes her eyes and blissfully says "Mmm...soup...it makes my belly warm."

2.) She likes to lick my arm~for some reason she thinks this is hilarious (probably because I always say "Ew, yuck why are you licking my arm?"). When she does this, she cracks herself up by saying "Yum. Tastes like chicken." Sometimes she'll say "Yum, tastes like soup" but most the time it's tastes like chicken. Hannibal Lector in the making??

3.) When Luke poops in his diaper, she likes to come and tell me that Luke has "junk in his trunk." I think maybe I said this to her one time and she has picked up on it.

She's a riot.

It's the verbal AND non-verbal cues they pick up, my friend

Ella has picked up on quite a few things in her 2 3/4 years. Some good. Some not so good. I tend to forget that she not only mimics what you say but also what you do and the manner in which you do it. This is good when she's on the phone and she tells the person that she's talking to "Love you, miss you, bye." This is her closing line to virtually everyone she talks to on the phone. It's very sweet. However, I've noticed her picking up on the non-verbal things Aron and I do, too. This is not always good. She was trying to put together a toy the other day while I was making dinner. I heard her over with her toys banging them around and going "RRRRRR. RRRRRR." I turned around and was like what is she doing? She started to bang her toy on the table and said "RRRRRR...can't do it...RRRRR...can't do it, Mommy" and proceeded to throw her toy on the floor. I was dumbfounded--where did she pick up such Neanderthal behavior? Certainly, not from moi. I couldn't figure out where she learned this until I watched my husband trying to fix something around the house. I watched him go "RRRRRR....RRRRR.... this sucks. Piece of crap" and toss what he was trying to fix on the floor.

Not that I'm completely innocent in the non-verbal cues department. Ella's picked up a few habits from me as well. Like when I get frustrated with Aron when he's nagging at me to do something (like he always is but I'll not go into that now) and I tell him "YES, I'll do" whatever and while I say YES I bulge my eyes out and tilt my head to clearly indicate that I'm not enjoying his nagging but will do whatever to get him to stop talking. Yeah, she's picked up on that and I've been on the receiving end of that.

As always, SIGH.

Big Girl Story Hour

That's right, my friends, Ella went to the big girl story hour today. This entails her going to the library and hanging out at story hour for an entire hour ALL BY HERSELF. I was a little worried about how she would do because she's been a little tantrum-y lately (to say the least). But, as always, I prepped her for what would happen a few times this week by letting her know that she would be going to hang out with Miss Lori, it would be fun, Lukie and I would be going to run some errands, etc to let her know that she would be doing this all by herself. She did wonderful! We got to the library a couple minutes early so she could put on her name tag and play a little bit first. I took her in to the story hour room and told her to pick a spot on the rug. She sat down and told me goodbye, gave me a kiss, then gave Lukie a kiss and off we went. I told her I was running some errands but in all reality I was just sitting outside the room in the play area with Luke playing with toys. I peeked in the window a couple times to check on her and she was playing and having a great time dancing around with the other kids. Miss Lori said she did great and grew up a lot over the summer.

Lukie didn't know what to do with his new found freedom from his sister. He played in the play area but every once in a while would look around for Ella. He kept trying to climb up on one of the Daddys and chew on his arm so I eventually took him upstairs to look at magazines.

Ella's First Crush

Ella has been crushing on someone lately. I'm a little torn about how I feel about it, though, for 2 reasons. 1.) He's a much older man (think 60) and 2.) he's a relative (think my Dad's cousin). That's right, it's my Dad's cousin, Ralph, who is aka our realtor. We're selling our house (this has started just recently and came about rather suddenly so if I haven't told you all about it, I apologize now but we've been crazy busy) so he's been over a few times lately. He came over last Tuesday to take pix of the house to put online and my Mom said when she told Ella that he was coming over, she wanted to wear a dress and fix her hair just so. Also, she likes to call people which is why some people get called frequently (think Grammie and Steve). She was in a calling mood the other night and had already talked to Grammie and Steve so I asked her who she wanted to call next. She said she wanted to call Ralph. I tried to redirect her and asked if she wanted to call Aunt Annie. She said no that she wanted to call Ralph instead. I think I crushed her when I told her that I couldn't do that.

Ah, young love.

Believe it or not...

Luke's walking! He decided the other day that he would take the plunge. Aron stood him up a couple feet away and encouraged him to walk toward him and he did. It was just 2-3 steps and a flop over but it was walking in my book. He's so big now--no I'm not just talking about the volume he has in his hair but he, himself is so big now. He's also been rejecting his baby food. He's all about eating whatever we're having. Aron even fed him taco dip last night and he couldn't get enough of it.

He also has had some more teeth come in. He now has 6 of them--four on top and two on bottom. This has its good and bad features. The good is that he's no longer Cranky McCrankerson Mayor of Cranktown every night because his teeth hurt. The bad is that it hurts really bad when he decides to chomp down on your arm. He also thinks that it's funny when you make a face and try not to yelp in pain. That's bad, too.

What in the world happened to this kid's hair?

Speaking of OSU/N Illinois

We totally kicked some serious butt in that game. But on a more hilarious note, my bro was in the alumni marching band there. He was all excited cause he was the top of the I in one of the Script Ohio formations. Too bad his beret (yeah, I said beret. All the cool kids are wearing them) totally fell off in front 108,312 people. I pointed and totally mocked him but he couldn't see me cause I was like a bazillion rows up in the South Stands. But my point is...well, I don't really have one other than HAHA Your beret fell off!

My Dad---YIKES

I don't typically post about things other than the kids but I think in order for the kids to truly understand their dear Poppy, I have to devote a special post to him.

My Dad is "special" in certain ways. And what I mean by that is that sometimes he's not so smart. My Mom, Dad, Aron, and I were all driving home from the OSU/N Illinois game yesterday when we starting talking about what makes my Dad so "special." We got started on this subject because while we were trying to get out of the game, we noticed that our friends the Cooperriders were just a few cars ahead of us. We tried to get Dad to speed up and get up by them but he was like "Huh? What? I don't get it. What do you want me to do?" By the time he figured it out, the moment was passed and they were way too far ahead for us to catch up (my Mom wanted me to moon the Cooperriders if we caught up to them but that's beyond the point--Mr. Cooperrider and I have a history that goes waaaaaaaaay back to the 90's but I'll leave for another day). Anyhoos, my Mom was complaining that I was probably a wild child in college that led all of my poor friends astray. I then reminded her of the time that my friend, Tori, went to a frat party when we were sophomores (no I wasn't there) and it happened to be the frat that Dad was in when he was in college. She told my Dad that she drank something called "Boar Juice" and that 2 sips of it knocked her on her keister. My Dad's response was "Seriously? They still make that? Don't drink it any more. I can't tell you what's in it but don't drink it. Seriously." So if there was any wildness going on in college it was Dad. Anyhoos, I digress.

After that we got talking about how Dad's clueless sometimes. Like the time when I was in college and I called in to a radio station and won $100 playing the Letter Game. The premise is that they call out a letter then the 50th caller that calls in with that letter in their name gets $100. I won with the letter N. Ok, so later on that week or month or something, I was in the car with my Dad and the Letter Game comes on and its the letter V. Dad's sitting there going "Huh, that's a hard one. Who would have a V in their name? Veronica? Victor? Huh, that's really hard. I can't think of any other names with a V in it. Can you?" Me, being the Smarty Pants that I am said something to the effect of "Um, you mean like you? DAVID???" It was painful for me at the moment to realize that I was now smarter than my Dad. But not so painful that I wouldn't mock him about it.

There's also about a month ago when we were in Michigan for Robin and my 30th birthday extravaganza. It was me, Robin, Mom, and Dad in a car for a long period of time. We all kept calling my Dad the Bag Boy and made him carry around our purchases or walk them to the car--bless him for that let me tell you because we purchased a lot. Anyhoos, digression again. Ok so we're heading home on Route 75. We're driving along, driving along, driving along. All the sudden, Dad goes "Hey look guys. The Pontiac Silverdome." I tried to be polite and go "uh, huh." until I suddently I realized that the Silverdome is in DETROIT! Detroit was like an hour out of our way! I said "Dad! We're in Detroit!" He said "No, we're not. We just passed the Silverdome." I said "Yeah the Silverdome that's IN DETROIT!!" He was like "Seriously? I saw our road vear off a while ago...should I have followed it?" DAD! DAD!! Yes! You should've followed the road you KNEW WE WANTED TO BE ON!!!!!!

Oh sigh. What will he be like when dementia hits? Oh heavy sigh.