No Crying

After a week and a half of crying, whining, fussing, yelling, thumping, screeching, stalling, and NOT SLEEPING (and that's just on Mama's part), Max and Molly finally seem to have sorted out their differences. Tonight was the first night that I put them both to bed at the same time and they went to sleep without any crying and without me having to go tuck them back in a bizillion times.

Of course, that isn't to say that they actually went to sleep in a timely manner, but I'd much rather listen to laughing, talking, and singing over the baby monitor than crying. It's so cute to hear them singing songs together and making up funny little games. This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. ;)

Cabbages and Kings

Sometimes I jot down funny little things the kids say or do, intending to blog about them later. Usually these anecdotes make it into a similarly themed post in a fairly timely manner, but sometimes they hang around and gather virtual dust. So, here are some funny little things about Max and Molly, along with some photos I never got a chance to use.

Max finally started using pronouns a few months ago, but he's still trying to get the hang of the syntax. A common request around our house is, "Need help, me!" He also still suffers from acute Bob Dole-itis and often refers to himself in the third person. Whenever he wants to do anything, he announces, "It be Max's turn!" And, of course, one of my favorite things to hear – "I make a mess!"

Molly is big on giving kisses. When I go to put her into bed now, she gives me a big kiss, gives me a little wave, and says, "Bye-bye! Night, night!" So cute!

Max and Molly usually watch DVDs instead of actually watching shows on TV. Since our stock of kiddie DVDs is limited (and we don't often buy them), I regularly check DVDs out of the public library for the kids to watch during their allotted daily "screen time." They seem to like having new videos to watch each week and I like being able to test out titles before actually spending any money on them, since sometimes my best guess as to what they'd most enjoy is terribly off (Disney's "The Sword in the Stone"? No interest. A DVD of the AWFUL "Blue's Room" show that I accidentally picked up, thinking it was the regular "Blue's Clues" show? M&M LOVED it, but Dad and I HATED it.). Today I was gathering up this week's DVDs and books to take back to the library after work. Max was eating his lunch, saw me collecting the library items, and instructed me to, "Get more videos, Mama." I told him I would and he gave me even more specific instructions – "Get more videos, Mama. Little Einsteins! Be right back? Be right back! Ok?" The kid cracks me up!

On occasion, Max wakes up in the morning or from naps to discover that he's peed through his diaper and has wet the bed. Usually this means that it is time to move up to the next size diaper, but sometimes he does it if he drinks too much water in the evening or if his pjs ruck up his diaper. This morning, when I went in to get him up, he announced that there was "pee in there." I got him up and, sure enough, he'd peed through his diaper and his pjs, blankets, and sheets were wet. Max stood up, took a look at the wet spot on the sheet and said, "Uh oh, pee. Look at that! Big pee, all wet!" Thankfully, his special angel blanket, his stuffed monkey, and his stuffed bunny avoided the deluge. As I started pulling wet bedding out of the crib, I asked Max who peed in the bed, hoping to use his confession as an opportunity to segue into some potty discussion. I laughed out loud when, instead of the expected answer, he shook his head sadly and replied, "Monkey peed." Hehehe, that naughty monkey ...

Molly is talking up a storm and has a lot of funny things to say. Whenever she wants something, she points at it and exclaims, "This! This!" When she wants to nurse, she grabs her cloth diaper lovey and wanders around forlornly muttering, "Need a bubbie two. Need a bubbie two!" Since her lovey has always been her "bubbie," the use of "bubbie two" cracks me up. Molly has also been super clingy and needy lately and wants to us to hold her, so we here a lot of "More, nup! More nup, peese!" ("More up, please"). This, of course, is a lot less cute in the middle of the night. :P

Max periodically asks me to "go flying" with him. I think watching "Peter Pan" and reading "The Snowman" has given him the idea that this is something we can go do. The other day he asked me to go flying and I asked him if we should bring Molly and Daddy – he said no ("No, Mama, no Molly go flying. No Daddy. Daddy sleeping."). I wish I could take him flying, but we usually have to settle for a walk. He's also taken to pointing at planes in the sky and excitedly declaring that the plane is Rocket (from Little Einsteins) or Super Why!.

Max LOVES it when I take him downstairs and let him play in our finished basement. We keep the "out of rotation" toys down there, which I think is at least part of the appeal. When he wants to go down, he stands by the basement door and says, "C'mon, Mama – lets go more backstairs, get more toys!" Downstairs, backstairs, what's the difference?!

Although Max and Molly aren't always the best about sharing, they are pretty good at swiping. Molly, especially, loves to snag Max's snacks when he isn't looking. I gave them both snack cups full of crackers today, and, as per usual, Molly scarfed hers down before Max finished his (Molly could not live on bread alone, but she thinks she might be able to subsist on crackers). When Max left his unfinished crackers unattended, Molly grabbed the last two crackers and stuffed them in her mouth. Max caught her in the act and, being overtired and greatly in need of a nap, started crying and howling, "My crackers! My crackers!!" Molly was a little taken aback by the outburst and looked a little upset. She then walked over to (the still crying) Max, reached in her mouth, pulled out the stolen crackers, and handed them back to him (a little soggy and the worse for the wear). Awwww!

Wanted: New Roommate

Quiet, studious chap seeks new roommate to share spacious flat. Amenities include comfy furnishings, extensive board book library, a multitude of stuffed animals, and a rocking crib (complete with the latest in interactive media). Must be calm, collected, and low maintenance. Must refrain from dancing, jumping, singing Wiggles songs, squawking, disrobing, kicking the wall, crying, or calling for Mama. Deep sleepers preferred. Pesky little sisters need not apply.

Roomies

Seeing as our house is short a bedroom, we always planned to have Max and Molly share a room. We figured that as soon as Molly was sleeping through the night -- oh, around six months or so -- we'd move her into Max's room. Of course, since Molly slept through the night a few times at four months of age and then refused to do it any more, this plan kind of fell by the wayside.

But, now that Molly is actually sleeping through the night on a regular basis (even though she sometimes decides that it is time to get up at 5 a.m.), we thought it was time to evict our little roommate and reclaim our bedroom. So, since Dad is off of work for the week, we thought this was a good time to make the switch. I played with Max and Molly downstairs while Dad took Molly's crib apart, moved it to Max's room, and reassembled it. Since this took longer than anticipated, it was already past bedtime by the time the room was ready.

Max and Molly were excited by the change, and Max insisted that he did want Molly to sleep in his room. Having not slept well the night before, Max was a little on the cranky side and Molly was heading towards melt-down mode. The bedtime routine was a little rocky, but we read stories and sang songs and said prayers and attempted to tuck everyone into bed. Unfortunately, Molly was having one of those "I don't want to go to sleep" nights and started howling when I started walking away from the crib. Then Max, who was definitely overtired, started crying because Molly was crying. Dad and I spent the next half hour trying to settle everyone down, but by that time Max and Molly were too worked up to sleep.

Dad ended up bringing Max downstairs to read with Mama, while Molly fell sleep. Left to her own devices, Molly promptly corked out and we took Max up to bed. I think it took three more rounds of tucking in (and lots of sniffling and whining) before Max finally fell asleep. I heard a little bit of whimpering here and there throughout the night, but nobody woke up completely. They slept in their room until 5 a.m., when Molly decided it was time to start her day. I went and retrieved her from the crib, gave Max a kiss and told him to go back to sleep (which he actually did), then brought Molly back to our room. After she had her breakfast milk, she agreed to go back to sleep with Mama for another hour or so.

While the new room situation wasn't a rousing success, it wasn't a complete failure either. I'm sure that, like anything else, they'll get used to the new setup and routine in a few days. It's just making it through those few days which is always tough! I have to say, it was SO nice to be able to read in bed or flip channels on the bedroom TV. Although, as nice as it was to have our bedroom to ourselves, I actually kind of missed seeing our little girl asleep in her crib at the foot of our bed. I won't wake up to a cheery little face peeking at me over the crib rail any more or laugh at Molly popping up and down in the crib like a little gopher as she plays peek-a-boo with me.

She is a Super Duper ...

... pooper! Molly seems to be pulling ahead in the potty training race. Today she pooped in the potty for the very first time! She had just eaten and I was getting ready to change her diaper when she started tugging at her diaper/pjs and saying she had to "pee potty." I stripped her down to discover that she'd already peed (I think she only asks after it is too late), but I let her sit on the potty anyway and encouraged her to "try." So, she sat down, looked at a couple of books, let out a couple of toots, and nonchalantly pooped on the potty! Max and I were very impressed, although she didn't quite seem to understand what all the fuss was about. I'm sure it was a fluke, but I'll take it! Max was a little miffed when Molly got to do the flushing honors AND got to play on the PBS Kids website for a few minutes. I'm hoping a little jealousy on his part will motivate him to enter the potty race in earnest. ;)

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope all of the other mamas out there had a wonderful day!

Perfect

Every once in a while, it's so nice to have one of those days where you feel pampered and treated and spoiled rotten. Today was one of those days. Weekends are always nice, because everything can move at a more leisurely pace, without all the hustle and bustle and time constraints of the regular work/school week. The weekends when Dad isn't working are even nicer, because I actually get to spend some quality time with my favorite person (as well as having the freedom to get things done without involving/lugging/overseeing Thing 1 and Thing 2).

When Molly woke up before six this morning, Dad got up with her and let me sleep as long as I wanted (bliss!). When I got up, there was fresh coffee in the pot and a happy family waiting for me. I got to take a long, leisurely shower and take my time getting dressed. A friend was meeting me at our house so we could drive over to another friend's baby shower. So, in addition to letting me sleep in, Dad wrangled the babies for a good hunk of the afternoon while I interacted with grown ups, ate a bunch of yummy food (which nobody threw on the floor or smeared in their hair), and swapped pregnancy and baby "war stories" with other moms.

When I got home, both M&M were napping and Dad had a surprise for me. My Mother's Day present had arrived while I was gone and Dad wanted to give it to me early. I opened the big box on the counter to discover that Dad had secretly bought me the Nikon D300 camera I had been drooling over for months, along with the 18-200mm VR lens that I had wanted for even longer. He had figured out the financing and even lined up a buyer for my beloved Nikon D70. Who knew that he was actually paying attention all those times I babbled on about cameras?

When the babies woke up, we packed everyone into the car and headed off to a street fair in a neighboring town. I wasn't overly interested in the fair itself, but had heard that Needtobreathe was performing there in the afternoon. Since I've been really enjoying Needtobreathe's music over the last couple of months (their "More Time" song was the one I used in my MOD slideshow), I really thought it would be fun to see them live. And, of course, it gave me a good excuse to try out my new camera and lens. Neither the camera nor the music disappointed -- both were rocking. ;)

Molly, ever the little fashion queen, decided that dressing up for this outing required her pink jacket, her "glasses," and her purple winter hat. Max and Molly thought the whole thing was a lot of fun, especially since there were both balloons AND puppies at the fair. Although Max was a little startled by how loud the music was, Molly was bopping along to the beat. It was fun to get outside and listen to some music with my family. As I mentioned, the new camera performed magnificently, even though I only half knew what I was doing. Any flaws in my photos from here on out are DEFINITELY not the fault of the camera.

After we went home, made dinner, and tucked the kids into bed, it was nice to relax and kick back with a cup of coffee and a slice of chocolate cheesecake (and the Nikon D300 manual) -- the perfect end to a perfect day. A million thank yous to my wonderful husband for spoiling me so much and making me feel so special and loved and appreciated – not just today, but every single day.