Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Queen Elsa

Brigid's Easter basket was a little Frozen-heavy this year, but we honestly couldn't help ourselves. This was the first time Brigid had become really interested in a movie (or, you know, completely and totally OBSESSED with a movie, as the case may be), and listening to her sing along with the soundtrack or watching her pretend to turn our floors into an ice rink or being asked to act out the part of Princess Anna in the ice castle to her own very impressive Queen Elsa (complete with dialogue prompts from the queen along the way, since Princess Anna couldn't quite remember her lines as well as she should at this point) meant that anything Frozen we were able to get our hands on was coming home with us, moderation be damned.

Steve put in some time to track down everything we knew Brigid would want, since Disney seemed to have a problem with production (or *cough*just wanted to drive up demand*cough*), and there was never anything available in any of the stores or online. The dress arrived after one of Steve's set-the-alarm-early-to-wake-up-when-Disney-updates-online-stock evenings, while the Elsa doll was a product of his joining a Facebook group of parents that just wanted to help each other find whatever it was they were looking for, without paying the Ebay scalper prices. I'm impressed, and a little exhausted, looking at the work he put into this whole thing. It's a shame he only got credit for the dress, since the doll came from the big bunny, himself...



Brigid thanked us for getting her the ice dress 'just in time', since she's decided she wants to be Elsa for Halloween, and even if her concept of time is just a touch off, the sentiment was nice. Caitlin ended up with a corresponding Anna costume, so we'll have a matching pair come October, but I kind of refuse to let her wear it at this point because, well...Caitlin is Caitlin. I'd at least like to have her wear it once, when she maybe, sort of understands what she's wearing, before she completely destroys it, you know?

Thursday, April 24, 2014

The Hunt!

Brigid is a big fan of Easter, mostly because she is a big fan of the Easter egg hunt. And why wouldn't she be? Her entire life revolves around when she can con me into letting her have her next treat of the day, so a chance to find random chocolate lying around on the ground, while her parents are actually encouraging her to find more, isn't one she's going to want to pass up. She did an egg hunt at Grandma and Pop-Pop's house on Saturday, one at church on Sunday morning, one with the eggs she dyed with Steve on Sunday after we did the baskets, one with the neighbor on Sunday afternoon, and then ANOTHER ONE after that by herself, when she made us hide some eggs in the yard, just because she hadn't had enough of looking for them, yet.
Caitlin, on the other hand, was set down in a nice spot during the church egg hunt, where she grabbed all of the eggs within her reach, then gave up on the entire process for the rest of the day.
I honestly have no idea how Brigid is going to react to sharing her hunts, and chocolate, with her sister in the future, but I guess we'll just wait to deal with that next year...

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Conversations with Brigid

Warning: This story is about poop. It's a funny story about poop (well, I think so, at any rate...), but it's about poop, nonetheless. Sorry.

Me: Why are you putting on new underwear?

Brigid: Because I like Rapunzel. 

Me: It's almost time for your bath, you don't need to be changing your underwear.

Steve: Did you poop? 

Brigid: Yes. 

Me: Did you get poop in your underwear? 

Brigid: A little. 

Me (pulling the underwear out of her hamper): Brigid! We do not put poopy underwear in the hamper. 

Brigid: I thought it could be mud. 

Me: Were you playing in the mud? 

Brigid: Yes, at Ty's house. 

Me: Were you playing in the mud in just your underwear? 

Brigid: No. 

Me: Then just assume it is poop, not mud, and don't put your poopy underwear in the hamper! 

Brigid: Why not?

Me: .....

(Lesson #1: You have to teach children not to hide dirty underwear in their bedrooms. This is not a knowledge with which they are born.)

(Lesson #2: Kids are gross.)

(Lesson #3: She was trying to hide her accident from us, which just proves that my eldest daughter is a sneaky, SNEAKY little turd. TURD!)

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Caitlin

Oh, Caitlin. Where do I even start with you right now?

This girl, man. She is just the absolute best thing going these days, I swear.

She is stubborn. She still refuses to walk consistently, because even though she knows she can do it, she gets places so much quicker by crawling. She hates the word 'no' and does this absolutely adorable face crinkling cry every time she hears it. She doesn't want to be stopped from doing what she wants to do, whether what she wants to do will get her into trouble or not, and she will THROW herself to the floor in a tantrum cliche of kicking legs and heartbroken wailing if anyone gets in her way.

If you ask for a hug, she will push away from you, unless the hug is for her sister. Those hugs, she offers freely, whenever and wherever she can get close enough to Brigid to do so.

She is opinionated. She has two books (Dr. Seuss, The Foot Book, and Sandra Boynton, The Going to Bed Book) that she wants to read every single night, sometimes multiple times in a night. Of course, when she's handing you a book with an expectant look on her face, there's no way you say no to that, so she gets what she wants. Then again, I get to watch her pretend to brush her teeth when we get to that part in the Boynton book, so I'd say everyone wins in this case.

We're trying to grow her bangs out, but she refuses to keep a barrette in her hair. We're trying to get her used to shoes, but she refuses to keep shoes (or socks, for that matter) on her feet. We're trying to get her to feed herself, but she prefers to rub food in her hair or on her shirt instead of putting it in her mouth.

Every time I take Brigid to school, I have this shaggy, food encrusted, barefoot baby in tow, to really tout my expertise and success in motherhood, so at least I have that going for me, which is nice.

(Seriously, I don't even understand how she does it, most days. The kid can eat DRY CEREAL and end up with stains all down the front of her. That is TALENT, right there.)

When she is super tired, she will throw herself onto my shoulder the minute her sleep sack and pacifier are in place. You should see the fat lips I've left her room with after bedtime, on those nights I haven't been watching for her to collapse into me. Even her cuddles are sudden and violent, that's how much of a force my baby can be.

She likes to throw everything. When she's eating in her high chair, she can't just take a drink of milk, then put the milk back on the tray or hand it to me. She has to throw it to the floor when she's done with her drink. Every. Single. Time. I really hope milk isn't dangerous for dogs to ingest, because at this point, I've lost track of the number of milk puddles they've cleaned up for me after the lid to Caitlin's glass has lost its battle with the floor. Toys, DVDs she's pulled out of the cabinet, pictures she's pulled off of the shelf, food she doesn't want (or food she just wants to see the dogs go running after...); you name it, she will throw it. Then she'll smile this very self-satisfied smile that I think is going to start driving me absolutely insane when she gets older, but which I find completely adorable and irresistible right now.

Much like I find Caitlin, herself, now that I think about it...

I don't even have the words to describe how happy her goofy little smile or sweet sleep face make me, every time I look at her. She is something else, this youngest child of mine. It is going to be so much fun watching her grow up.

(Fun, and probably frightening, but whatever. I'll focus on the fun for now...)

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

I'm not TIRED!

Yeah...sure, kid.


Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Family Time

The smallest room in the house happens to be the only room in the house with doors that can contain the wild beast we lovingly refer to as Caitlin (when she's not pulling everything out of every cabinet or off of every shelf within her reach), and it also happens to be the room in the house where we've shoved all of the toys. So of course, it's going to be the room we all tend to congregate in when we're looking for a little bit of hassle-free togetherness.
Did I mention it's also my favorite room in the house?

(Ok, fine. My favorite room in the house is the sunroom, because it has comfy chairs, pretty views, and a fireplace. But the playroom is a close second...)

Monday, April 14, 2014

Brigid Says...

Last week, in one of the nightly battles during our ongoing fight to get Brigid to sleep in her own bed, she came into our room around 2AM to tell me that she was scared. When I asked if she needed me to walk her back to her room, she said yes. About halfway down the hall, I realized she wasn't with me anymore. I went back to my room to find that she had waited for me to get out of bed, before climbing into my spot and going back to sleep.
Brigid spends most of her days lately pretending to be Princess Elsa from Frozen, creating imaginary snowstorms and ice skating rinks around the house. She runs from us in mock concern, crying 'Stay away! Don't touch me! I don't want to hurt you!', which is what Elsa says in the movie when she thinks her freezing powers are getting out of control. In the middle of one of these adventures a few days ago, Steve had the audacity to ask Brigid if she thought Elsa tooted icicles, to which Brigid replied with some heavy scorn, 'NO! Because she's a princess, and princesses DON'T TOOT!'
After school one day, Brigid told me, 'Mommy, I really need hot chocolate right now. For my head. My head hurts. So I need hot chocolate. With marshmallows.' Totally sounds legit, right? My argument that her head hurt because she just doesn't sleep through the night, EVER, was judged to be completely incorrect, and hot chocolate won the day.
For St. Patrick's Day, Steve made corned beef and cabbage, and we told Brigid it was chicken, because the only way we can get her to eat ANYTHING is to tell her that it's chicken. She loved it, but she wouldn't stop talking about the 'pink chicken' we'd eaten for dinner. All I could think about was how we were going to get a standing reputation as the salmonella house when she decided to tell her teachers about it the next time she was at school.

Thursday, April 3, 2014

Sisterly Love

If you ask Caitlin to give you a hug? There is an almost guaranteed chance that she will look at you like you are speaking the crazy talk, before taking off at full speed in the direction that will get her the furthest distance possible away from you.

If you ask Caitlin to give Brigid a hug? You'd better not be holding that baby too far off of the ground, because she will NOT HESITATE to throw herself out of your arms in her hurry to get to her sister. In fact, there have been MULTIPLE times where I've almost dropped her on her head at preschool drop-off or pick-up, because Brigid has come in to give me a hug, and Caitlin will not allow herself to be left out. If Brigid is handing out hugs, you'd better believe Caitlin wants in on that action.


I think I'm going to frame this series of pictures, along every other picture I manage to take in the future that even slightly indicates that these girls like each other, to hang in their shared bathroom, for the inevitable teenaged blow-outs that I am sure are coming our way. 'See?!?!? You two DID get along at one point in your lives. YOU WILL DO SO AGAIN!'

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Let's even things up some, shall we?

I was told by my mother that it really wasn't fair for me to post so many pictures of Brigid yesterday, without including at least ONE of Miss Caitlin, if only to prove that I wasn't out taking Brigid for a walk while I left Caitlin sleeping alone in the house (I mean, that part wasn't explicitly stated, but I'm sure that's what she was getting at...*), and I realized she was probably right. My poor youngest child is already going to be suffering from birthday party envy as soon as she learns to understand what she's looking at in the various picture books we have lying around here and there, so do I really want her to think I couldn't be bothered taking pictures of her every other day of the year, too?

No. No, I do not.


Oh, that kid. She is so very, very cute. And...so very, very BLONDE.

Seriously. Where in the world did that come from? Why don't either one of my kids look like me in any way, shape, or form? This is so ridiculously unfair.


*I know that's not what my mother was getting at. She just wanted to see pictures of what used to be her youngest granddaughter, but is now her middle granddaughter, as my younger sister just added a THIRD GRANDDAUGHTER to the family. My parents are so excited about spoiling another little girl, and I ABSOLUTELY can't wait to get up to Indiana at the end of April to meet my very first niece. BABY!!!

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Scootering

Last week was not such a great week for me. Because of various work activities I had going on for the end of March, I was in the office for 12-13 hours a day, which meant I missed seeing Caitlin completely on two of those days, and I only saw Brigid for a few minutes of cuddling after she had already fallen almost completely asleep.

I hate those weeks.

Yesterday was the first day of Brigid's spring break, and while I was working from home, the three of us took it easy for most of the day, to enjoy spending some time together and to make up for the time we'd missed together the week before. We ate breakfast on the couch. We colored. We watched some television. Brigid helped me make my in-the-car breakfasts for the rest of the week. We stayed in our pajamas until lunchtime, then took Brigid's scooter 'Pasta' out for a ride around the neighborhood.

(Brigid also wanted to walk the dogs while we were out there, but I have enough trouble keeping Brigid and the strollered-up Caitlin under control at the same time, so adding one or two idiot dogs to the mix isn't really a possibility on our solo walks.)

As is generally the case, Brigid's comment that she wanted to 'walk all day' far exceeded her actual walking ability, and she spent the last quarter of our trip sitting down on the sidewalk every few steps, to whine about how she couldn't walk any more and to ask for snacks that I didn't bring along with us (because we were only walking for MAYBE 30 minutes at the most, and who brings snacks on a 30 minute walk, when you've just had lunch less than an hour earlier?), but I'd say we had a pretty good time before we hit that point...




This kid, man. She just really is the best...