Conversations

In the car, we drive by a small war memorial in our city just about anytime we go anywhere. There is a plaque, many pairs of metal boot sculptures lining the pavement, a burning torch, and a small parking area. We talk about it from time to time and this weekend as we were driving by, the following conversation happened.

William: mom, dad?
Dad: yes William?
William: sometimes I feel sad. I feel sad for all those people over there who lost their boots in Missouri. I hope they find their boots soon.
Mom: (laughing) (John and I cannot look at each other without bursting out laughing)

....................

Today at lunch:

William: but what did she look like? (Grandma Heidt)
John: oh... Well (distracted by helping Amelia with her lunch)
William: what color was her hair?
John: it was shiny and dark brown. Sometimes it looked black.
William: what color were her eyes?
John: gray. Sometimes they were blue, but most of the time they were gray.
William: what color was her skin?
John: white.
William: what?
John: her skin was the same color as ours William. Whatever you want to call it.
William: my skin is peachy colored. I'm peach. Was grandma peachy too?*




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Gemma wants to dance

Here is Gemma peeking in the doorway to the dance studio. She would love to be with the big girls!

Trigonometry is next

The last few nights have been tiring. Monday night Gemma was up every 30-45 minutes for no explainable cause. Then Tuesday night, she slept better- only up twice. However, William was up 3 different times with painful foot cramps. So, I was up 5 times. I think. Kind of all runs together.

On Wednesday, we were driving to ballet class in our minivan (Gemma, Amelia, mom). Amelia is vigorously kicking the back off Gemma's seat.

Mom: Amelia please stop kicking please.

Amelia: mom! I'm not kicking! I'm stomping.

Mom: Amelia! Stop stomping then.

Amelia: ok (kicking noise stops)

(Kicking noise resumes, although to a different rhythm.)

Mom/ (tired, patience gone): Amelia! Stop! Kicking!

Amelia: but mom! I'm not kicking. I'm dancing ( even though she is 2 rows behind me, I can tell she is smiling)!

Mom(arg! Is it bedtime?): Amelia! Keep your feet quiet!


(Quiet for a moment, then very soft kicking noise resumes)

Mom: AMELIA! (I'd like to tell you it wasn't shrieking, but I'm afraid it was)

Amelia: my feet just wanted to go for a quiet walk mom.

(Head exploding, silently praying for patience)

Amelia: what is 3+3?

Mom (what? I'm still busy talking myself down off of a cliff here and trying to see a color other than red)
What?

Amelia: what is 3+3?

Mom: I don't know? What is 3+3?

Amelia: 3+3 is 6!
Mom: you are right! 3+3 IS 6!
Amelia: that means there are 6! Seats! In our van!

Mom: whaaaat? (Am confused..)

Amelia: there are 3 seats on this side of the van (points to the left) and 3 seats on that side (points to the right). That means there are 6 seats in our van.

Mom: mouth hanging open. Yes! Yes! 6 seats in the van! (Seriously? Addition, word problem, grouping numbers together? There are MANY mathematical skills involved in this little statement here)



*this is what parenting is like for me. It is 90% the absolutely hardest work I've ever done....and then there are these moments of clarity and brilliance that remind me about everything. Why I'm working so hard, why this is so important, how special these kiddos are, etc. But the late wake up calls, mountains of laundry and constant fighting? This job isn't glamorous y'all.


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The highlights of today

I just discovered this entry in my "drafts" folder from September.  Enjoy!



Today is Monday.  Sure, the clock and calendar officially now read Tuesday, but I'm still working on Monday.  We did have several blog worthy items for you today, so here they are:


A dinner conversation:

William: Issac Newton invented the color wheel....(long winded, convoluted lecture on primary colors, color wheels, etc, etc, etc)...Did you know you can mix colors? (who had art today?)  Mixing colors is so interesting!  What does red and yellow make daddy? (without waiting for an answer) ORANGE!  (we continue on in this vein for a few more minutes discussing what color makes what when mixed with...you get the idea, right?)

Amelia: Hey!  What happens when you mix pink and purple?  They both have a lot of letter "p" in them.  What word would you make then?

This is the kind of stuff that makes my day!
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Amelia: I want to go outside and play hop chalk (hopscotch, drawn with chalk)

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Amelia: Mama!  Do you like the stem of the pizza?
Mama: What?
Amelia: Mama!  Do you like the stem on the pizza? (points at crust)
Mama: Oh!  Yes!  Yes, I do like the stem.

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Tonight, I was shutting off lights and putting the last things away before I got ready for bed when I noticed a mosquito buzzing around on Amelia's door.  I will not be able to sleep tonight if I know there is a mosquito friend in the house, so I try to lightly squash the mosquito on the door.....when I realize banging on my sleeping daughter's door in the middle of the night probably isn't the best plan.

You try and quietly squash a bug without making a noise.

PS I got it.

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I have a confession to make:

I hate glitter.

It's messy, it sticks to everything, it is impossible to every get it all the way cleaned up, I always end up with some on my face and I hate seeing it sparkle on the floor and then being able to find it to clean up.  I hate glitter so much that if I get a card in the mail with glitter on it, I won't take it out of the envelope inside the house.  I'll take the card outside, open it, read it, and then discard it immediately without going into the house.

Weird? Yes.

Tonight I opened the dryer and found someone had a pocket full of glitter in their pants of some other glitter explosion had occurred.  Glitter exploded over a load of CLEAN laundry.  Ugh.  I wanted to cry.  After close to 2 hours of clean up, the mess is about contained.  Notice I didn't say cleaned up?  Because it isn't.  There is still work to do tomorrow on that front.

7 months old

Here is a really big shocking event: I am sitting at the computer with the camera card in the slot and I'm planning on uploading quality pictures.  We'll see if I remember how.  Well then, that wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be!

One of my favorite pictures from Amelia's baby hood was this sweet little white dress a friend picked up at a thift store....when I looked at the photos this morning, I realized I took those pictures on Amelia's 7 month birthday.  So, you know what I had to do, right?  I had to pull out that sweet little dress and wipe down that white rocking chair.  And here are the results...

 "This little piggy went...."

 

Chewing on the window ledge...mmmmm!

 Pulled up and peeking out the window

 The 7 month sign didn't fare very well

 Poor Amelia was so patient.  I finally told her to make her "sad face" to match Gemma's sad face. 

Gemma was not super cooperative and she wanted no part of holding still.  At all.  I was hoping to get a sweet moment between my girls, and I got a few.  Not exactly what I was hoping for when I started out though.

Gemma bean

Somewhere along the line in the last month Gemma has become a bean. Similar to a jelly bean, a Gemma bean is small and sweet. I don't know where it came from, but now I can't stop saying "Gemma bean, Josephine, I love you!"

Gemma is racing through milestones and I can't hardly keep up with both the online scrabble game I play with my mom and posting here what the bean is up to.

Before Christmas:
Pulled self up to knees
Crawled on all fours, left the army crawl behind for the bugger, better mode of transportation
Cheerios to mouth accuracy calculated to be precisely 9%
Started on baby purée foods, eating took along time. Getting her to open up was sometimes challenging and I felt like she just didn't quite get it.

2 days before we left for Christmas with the family, Gemma mastered the crawl to sitting move and from sitting to crawling became more graceful. ( previous method started from a sitting position and found catapulting herself forward which resulted in her face planting and then crawling)

Over Christmas, Gemma learned:
To pull herself to a full stand. Most pictures of her will now include at least 3 bumps/scrapes/bruises/injury to the head of some kind for at least the next 12 months.

Increases her Cheerios accuracy to 64%, and increased speed a great deal.

Waves hi using 1) a karate chop 2) open close motion of one hand. Both are accompanied by an adorable grin. If you wave and say hi back, she usually giggles like crazy. It's fun to communicate!

In the same vein, she also will mimic clapping if she sees one of us doing it.

Became more comfortable with purées and opens mouth like a baby bird

Tried a multitude of new foods, some of them on purpose: pears, peas, English muffin, Olive Garden breadsticks, pizza crust, ice cream, snicker doodle cookies, saltine crackers, and lots of wrapping paper. No wonder she quit sleeping through the night! Keep in mind, most foods she either got a tiny taste or extremely small quantities, but enough to give it a try. Overall, she appears to still prefer carrots over almost everything else.

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The silent flush

We have been having a problem with a young boy in our house not flushing. Not to name names, but someone isn't
flushing.

(William coming out of the bathroom)

Dad: William, did you flush?
William: uh huh, yep
Dad: are you sure? I didn't hear anything. Can you go and check?
William: you didn't hear it because it was a silent flush. The kind you CAN'T hear.

(Lots of muffled giggles)

Dad: I think the silent flush might not be doing the job. Might want to check again.
William: oh man. Ok dad.

(Flushing)
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