Olympics

John and I love the Olympics. We don't follow any sports or team. We don't have time and are honestly not interested. We don't follow any of the Olympic sports outside of the Olympics either. However, every 2 years we lift the sports ban and watch as much Olympic television as we can. I just love the Olympics.

Most evenings when I am home from work, we have been going downstairs to watch the recorded Olympics. William has enjoyed pieces of the snowboarding and ski jump competitions. Amelia has been the best fan thus far, she's watched and enjoyed everything. William watches for a few minutes and then wanders off to build Legos within earshot. If something exciting happens, he will pop his head up and see what is going on. However, out of everything, Amelia and Gemma loved the ice skating. I was getting ready to fast forward through the skating*, when Amelia hopped up from the couch and began her own performance. It was gorgeous. She was so inspired by the jumps, leaps and twirls. She loved the dresses and the music. Before the segment was over, she was begging for ice skating lessons.

Just after these pictures were taken, Gemma hopped up and joined Amelia briefly in dancing.


* this is going to sound terrible, but ice skating is SO LONG. I enjoy it in very short doses. I'm a much bigger fan of the luge, skeleton, ski jumping, etc that is done and over in about a minute. I'm fine watching 1-2 ice skating routines and then fast forwarding through the rest.

How to get work done

This one is an old one from last year. I was trying to finish a work presentation and Gemma was.....helping. It is important to note that while this video is short, this game of peekaboo had been going on for about 45 minutes (which explains my lack of enthusiasm for the cuteness).

Honestly, it is just as hard to get work done now, although less cute. Now she is aware that the buttons are fun to push and produce immediate reactions from mom and dad. Now I do not even attempt to work while she is awake unless John is home or she is sleeping.

How to have perfect table manners

Twoish behavior

I took Gemma to the doctor on Monday.  She has been out of sorts for a week or so.  A few days is understandable, but after a week of grumpiness, lack of eating and interrupted sleep, it was time to confirm there wasn't anything else going on.

We arrived at the doctor appointment and I checked us in.  Amelia sat next to me and paged through a magazine she brought from home.  Gemma sat on my lap and eyed everything/everyone cautiously.  After a few moments of examinations, Gemma hopped off my lap and approached the wooden toy found in every doctor office.  She played happily for ten minutes of so, occasionally pausing to smile and send flirtatious looks at the other patients waiting.

It started to feel like a long time.

Everyone who was there when we arrived was called back to the exam rooms (separately, obviously) along with a few people who arrived after us.  The toy wasn't holding her interest quite so much anymore.  A slew of new patients arrived.  The majority were parents with teenaged children.

Amelia was showing me a page in the magazine she was reading when I saw it the first time.

Gemma drew her foot back and kicked the activity toy.  Every bead and attachment jumped/slid/jangled.

"Gemma!  No! No!"

Gemma's face then broke into the most devilish, delightful smile you have ever seen.  Two of the parents of teens laughed out loud at the sight of her angelic curls and naughty smile.  In the space of a heartbeat, she dramatically pulled her foot back again, checked to be sure I was watching and kicked the toy again.

I covered my smile with my hand and I pulled her onto my lap for a short time out.

Moments later, she wiggles away and pretends to look out the window for only a second before returning to the toy in the center of the room.  This time she stands on the side furthest away from me before completing the same routine: check to be sure Mama is watching, dramatic wind up with the leg and a swift kick.  And then again as I'm walking around the toy to pick her up again.

Back to my lap.  I remind her we don't kick and she giggles and tries to wiggle away.

We repeat this over three more times until she has kicked each side of the toy (and back to the first side again) to determine if the rules are going to be consistent.

They were.

We were finally called back to an exam room, which ended the game.

She did not have an ear infection or any other physical ailment that the doctor could diagnose. Her only physical problem was that her bottom molars are broken through and her upper molars are starting to come through. 

Amelia funny

This actually happened last spring, and I may have even written something then.  However, I'm afraid I didn't write it down, so I'm doing it now.  I'm doing now because I'm still laughing about this.


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Amelia, William and Gemma spent the day with our baby sitter/day care provider/friend while I had to work and the kids were off of school.  Her children and ours play together reasonably well most of the time and BOTH sets of kids love this special treat.  I always offer to pack lunch for the kids to make this easier for her, but she usually declines because it is easier to feed everyone the same thing.  Ie: If I bring something she doesn't have on hand, it is guaranteed that her kids will desperately want what I packed which will lead to unhappiness.  So, I usually don't pack a lunch and pay extra for the days she is feeding our crew.

I returned several hours later when my class I teach was over and asked how the day went.

The sitter replied that they kids had played and played and played together.  Everything was wonderful until lunchtime.  For lunch, the sitter told the kids that they would be having spaghetti.

Amelia LOVES spaghetti.  She loves noodles and she loves tomatoey sauce.  She likes it when I make it mildly flavored or when I spice it up.  The loves all varieties of noodles and is extremely accommodating to most alterations to our recipe - I follow a general recipe, but it rarely turns out the same twice.

When the kids were called to the table for lunch, Amelia was so horrified by the spaghetti, she refused to eat any of her lunch.

See, the sitter made spaghetti-o's.  This was NOT spaghetti in her book.

Later in the car we discussed:

Amelia: MOM.  MOM.
Mom: What Amelia?
Amelia:  Mooooooom!  (insert sitter's name) said we would have spaghetti for lunch!  But it wasn't TRUE!  She made something with noodles, but is was NOT spaghetti.
Mom: Oh.  That sounds interesting*.  What did you think?
Amelia: (voice gets louder and louder)  She called it spaghetti, BUT IT WAS NOT SPAGHETTI.  I did not like it. I did not eat any lunch.  I can't believe she thinks THAT IS SPAGHETTI.
Mom: Amelia!  She made you lunch.  You don't have to like it, but you have to be polite.  I hope you were polite and said "thank you"!
Amelia: I was polite!  I said, "No thank you because that is NOT spaghetti."  I did not like it at ALL mom.  It was not spaghetti.  I didn't eat ANY MORE OF IT.  It was awful!
Mom: Okay, Amelia.  (make a mental note to call our sitter and apologize for Amelia's impolite behavior).  Let's talk about something else now - what games did you play?
Amelia: Humph.
William: (in a quiet voice)  I loved that spaghetti.  I ate all of it.  It was awesome.
Amelia: GAHHHHHHHHHHH!  MOOOOOOOOM!



*For the record, I am not a fan of the spaghetti-o's either.  They smell funny and I think they taste funny.  I'm not opposed to other people eating them, I just would prefer not to eat them.  Or smell them. 

Observation

Gemma is the third child I have taught their colors*.  Each and every time I have worked on colors with a child I am blown away by the complexity of our world.  There are not just 3-5 simple colors in our world.  No.  There are hundreds of colors and a multitude of variation.  Is that shirt blue?  Or green?  Buses are usually portrayed as yellow, the one in this book appears orange.  What color is it? The overlap and sheer volume of possibilities is staggering.  Especially when you are trying to break it down and explain it to a one year old.



*I use the word taught here loosely as I'm not sure that I did much.  It seems months go by of prompting, instructing, and standing on my head with no response.  Then boom.  Without warning in the course of a day, the child knows all the colors.  Did I assist?  Yes.  Did they learn it because of me?  No.  This was true with all 3 of the kids. 

More valentines

A few years ago, I made these felt envelopes to hold valentines. I pull them out every year and stick in the valentines from family that arrive for each kiddo. The kids love pulling out all the love from the envelopes.

This year was a little rushed. We had freezing rain in the morning and William was off school. Amelia still had her Spanish class at school. I ran to the big grocery store while the kids had a play date. I ran my groceries home and my battery in the car died. Which meant my 3 kids were at a friends' house and I was stuck.

Luckily, John came home early and it wasn't a big deal to get the car up and running again. However, we got busy with the installing of the new battery and related details that I forgot to take Amelia to her school valentine party. I feel terrible! Luckily, she had a lot of other great things going on so she didn't complain too much about missing the party.