Little Ears are Everywhere!

Now that the kids are getting a little older, I really have to remind myself that little hears can hear a whole lot! It's amazing how much the kids pick up on, and even more amazing still when they might decide to drag up some of the information they know or have heard.

Sienna has been the source of a lot of laughs lately with what she comes out with -- all of which serve as reminders that even little kids DO listen...at least selectively. We were in church yesterday and the minister was giving the sermon, talking about a scripture lesson that included a man named Jonathan. While doodling on the bulletin we gave her with a pencil from the back of the pew, Sienna all of the sudden whispered (very loudy!), "MOM... he's talking about JONATHAN!" and I knew immediately that she was referring to out next door neighbor. I told her that she was right, he had been speaking about Jonathan - but it was a different Jonathan than her friend next door. A minute later, the minister went on to say '...and Jonathan was killed." Ok, a bit above the two year old, I thought. But Sienna stops drawing once again and turns to me with huge eyes and says, "MOM!! Jonathan was KILLED???" I didn't know whether to be amazed that she was actually listening to the sermon or concerned that she was hearing things a little over her head in church, but in the end it made me laugh.

I got my second little Sienna surprise of the day when we were driving home from church and all of the sudden Si started singing the following:

"I kissed a girl, I kissed a girl! Taste of her Cherry Chex..." repeat, repeat, repeat....

Obviously Sienna has taken in (in very short order!) the lyrics "I Kissed A Girl" by Katy Perry, which comes on the radio sometimes while we're driving. She hasn't got it quite right, but close enough! (You can tell that Chex is one of her favorites, LOL.) Last week I was fairly flippant in my response to a question about whether that was the kind of song I would let my girls listen to. But something about hearing your 2 year old singing does just sort of bring the topic front and center, huh? Another prime example of little ears picking up on everything!

Maddie gave me a good reminder today that even if some kids stories are funny to me, it may not be so fun for the kids to hear me recounting them to people. Last week at Sunday School Maddie was told all about the kids in foreign countries (India, Haiti, Kenya) that the Sunday School is going to be sponsoring through their donations, which will go to helping kids that are not as fortunate as those in her class. At the end of class, I asked M what she had learned and she handed me the info. sheet, answering "You're going to have to spend a LOT of money!" It totally cracked me up, and I've told the story to my mom, etc. and recounted it to the Sunday School teacher today. I just thought it was cute, and yeah, funny to that the prime message she took away seem to be that Mom and Dad were going to have to pay a lot of money...somehow I doubted that was the primary message! In any event, it must have been bothering M to overhear me telling the story, because this morning she got a bit sulky and when I asked her what was wrong, she said, " I don't want you to tell everyone that I said you were going to have to pay a lot of money! I don't want you to tell people that story, I don't like it!" I instantly felt bad and wanted to acknowledge that she was right, and I was wrong -- I didn't mean anything by telling the story, but I did tell her that I was sorry and that I would not tell people again if it bothered her. She does seem very concerned that people are going to laugh at her for some reason, and I definitely felt bad. At 4.5, she is certainly old enough to know and appreciate when she is being talked about! So key lesson learned: Mom needs to be a little bit more careful when telling stories around little ears!

Potty Obsession

Lyla is completely fascinated by the toilet. I know kids tend to have a natural curiousity about it, and we definitely had a few instances with Madelyn and Sienna where we had to tell them not to get into the potty, let's stay away from the toilet paper, etc. But Lyla has a crazy interest in all things toilet related!

Last week, she put blocks in the potty, along with some Little People. Fun to get those things out and all, but no big deal - they went right in the dishwasher, then back into the toy rotation. A couple of weeks ago, she blocked the whole toilet up by putting about a half a roll of TP in the potty at once. Annoying, but again no big deal. This morning? Madelyn's brand new Stride Rite back to school sneakers. Yep, right in. GRRRRrrr!

I swear we do watch her, and we try to keep the bathroom door closed. But this stuff happens in an instant - she is SO quick! Add to that the fact that a toilet lock isn't really an option with a recently potty trained 2.5 year old, and you can see where we get into trouble. Hmmm...too bad this fascination with the toilet isn't a sign that she's ready for some potty training!

Maddie Knows Best

Maddie is 4.5 going on 30. More specifically, she's a preschooler going on being a mother. Her most favorite activity is to boss her sister around and "discipline" her as if she's a parent. She is driving us NUTS with this. Poor Sienna gets told how to dress, what to sing, where to dance, what she should go to time out for, what color cup she should drink out of, what to build with the mega blocks, etc. etc. Seriously, it's amazing that Sienna even knows what she wants at all or has an opinion on anything, given that Maddie seems so willing to impart her wisdom on every aspect of Sienna's thoughts and actions. As ridiculous as it seems, I often find myself trying to defend her and speak up on her behalf. I have such a hard time just sitting and watching her get told which play food to put in the play oven, for goodness sakes!!

The flip side of it is that even though her bossiness seems to have reached a new level lately, she really is a good protector of her little sister -- and sometimes with Sienna, you're really grateful that Maddie's always got her eyes out for bad behavior, LOL. Maddie's the first to let us know when Sienna is getting into trouble, and also the first to help keep her out of trouble when we're out and about. So I guess there's a positive side there somewhere.

The other day I had had enough of Maddie acting as if she was Sienna's mom (she was telling her she was going to have to go to time out for some little thing) so I said, "Madelyn, PLEASE stop telling her what to do. We have enough parents in this house!" Without a moment's pause, she shot back, "Moooomm! We ONLY have two!" Didn't even have a response for that one!

Sienna takes a lot of it in stride, but does get ticked off every now and again. And her repsonse is usually to squeal or yell back and say "NO Maddie! I'm NOT doing that!" or "No Maddie! I NOT going to time out!" And then every once in a while, she tries it out on me and sends ME to time out...because who wouldn't want to copy big sister? Gotta love it. I've already spent more time in time out as a mother than I can remember spending in TO as a kid!

This is one of those lovely behaviors that I'm really hoping is a phase...

"Drek-shuns"

Sienna has a habit of running into my walk-in closet as of late, and trying to get into my craft stuff. Generally, I keep a doorknob lock on our bedroom door and that does the trick. But those have never kept Maddie out, so if she opens it, or if I forget to shut it for whatever reason, Sienna tends to go right for the closet while we're getting the other two ready for bed. Tonight I was handling the bedtime routine on my own while Brad was out, and she made a beeline for the closet while I was finishing Lyla's bath up. Which was guaranteed trouble...even before Madelyn headed right in after her. Not two minutes after they went in, I heard muffled giggling coming from the closet. I went running in with a big 'ole "Sienna ABIGAIL!" and found the two of them hunched over a big pile of tiny colored eyelets from my scrapbooking supplies; I keep them in a little divided plastic organizer case and Sienna had opened it and dumped them everywhere. GRRR. Needless to say, I wasn't happy about it and had them in bed less than ten minutes later. They were overdue and I was worn out!

I went in to kiss Sienna goodnight, and she looked up at me with her huge eyes, sort of batted a little eyelash at me with what I think of as her "How on earth can you resist this magnficient cuteness?" look, and said: "Momma, I'm sorry I didn't do your drek-shuns (AKA "directions"), but I just don't CARE about drek-shuns!"

OMG, I nearly peed my pants. How much more brutally honest can you get? LOL. I think I'm headed for trouble. If she doesn't care about my directions now, I shudder to think how she'll react to the "drek-shuns" I'm going to give her when she's 16!

Ahh...Quiet!

Here is one of my favorite recent stories; I'm starting with this story because it leads perfectly into one of the strangest - yet very nice - aspects of our Memorial Day Weekend:

Lyla is in the clingy phase...teething up a storm, severe stranger anxiety, freaks out whenever Mommy or Daddy leaves the room or even puts her down. In other words, that really fun phase. So our days over the past few weeks have pretty much consisted of her crawling or cruising around behind me, wherever I go, screaming or yelling at me because I won't pick her up. If I stop for a second, she climbs up my legs; if I don't then pick her up, she yells even louder. It's obviously VERY loud.

This means that putting Sienna in Time Out for hitting Madelyn could nearly put you over the edge, since the volume level more than doubles. But that's where she ended up the other day after getting a little too agressive. So, she was in Time Out (in a small hallway off the kitchen) screaming that she didn't want to be there. Lyla was crawling around behind me in the kitchen, screaming because I was dealing with Sienna and wouldn't pick her up. Thank goodness Maddie wasn't really hurt by the little incident with Sienna, and therefore was NOT crying and was instead satisfied by Sienna going to time out. Lyla managed to crawl her way over in the general vicinity of Sienna's Time Out spot, still yelling and screaming at me. Sienna momentarily stops carrying on enough to shake her little index finger and Lyla and yell, "HEY! NO, Lyla! I'M CRYING!! You don't cry!!" I had all I could do to keep the tears from running down my face. We've reached a new level...they're fighting over who gets to cry!

So back to this weekend...my parents offered to take Sienna overnight after Maddie's dance recital, so that she could have a special night too, in the midst of all of the fanfare over Maddie's performance. Since we've been getting so little sleep lately with her waking up at all hours, we were looking forward to a night of sleep and some time with Maddie and Lyla. Maddie was pretty upset about the arrangement, so my mom and dad ended up taking Sienna on Saturday night, and then Maddie on Sunday night. It really gave us some time to spend a little more in-depth time with each of them. But the thing I noticed most? It is SO much quieter at our house with only two children! I missed them both terribly, but we found ourselves appreciating just a bit of quiet SO much. Obviously we love the loudness and the chaos and pretty much everything about our three kids, but sometimes it's so loud I can't think straight!

So we did some fun things... while Sienna was at Grammy and Grampy's, we took advantage of having no allergy worries and actually going out for breakfast at Percy's Place. OMG, it was delicious! Maddie, Brad and I all had EGGS and loved every bite of it! And little Lyla put away so much pancake I thought she might seriously burst. Then while Maddie was gone, we took Sienna and Lyla to the duck pond and the Grist Mill for a picnic lunch. It was a gorgeous weekend, weather-wise, and we took full advantage. I missed each of the kids tremendously while they were gone (it was especially weird not to have Maddie around after spending so much one-on-one time with her over the past several weeks at dance recitals, rehearsals, etc.), but I think it's always nice to get a little more time to focus on each of them - especially if it's a little quieter and less chaotic!

They're Curious

Curious George seems to be the preschool show of the moment in our house. Both Maddie and Sienna are pretty fond of the little monkey, and it's inspiring all sorts of interesting activity. Tonight at dinner we had lots of water experimentation, after Maddie filled up one of the clear plastic block buckets and wanted to experiment with how heavy it was, how it changed once you took some water out, etc. This led to a fun little tea party where she poured out cups and saucers full of tea and "soup" for her and Sienna, accompanied by a fun little ditty where she sang "It's a SOUPY day, it's a soupy day..."

Last week, Brad brightened my business trip by sending me these pictures of the girls and their latest adventures in curiousity...

A couple of comments about these pics:

- In case you couldn't tell, the girls were making a robot.

- Yes, Sienna has wacky rain boots on -- her choice, she is crazy crazy about shoes.

- Yes, Daddy did dress her while I was away...'nuff said.

- Yes, our sliding door is in fact an artwork gallery for Madelyn's creations; she tapes everything up there herself and gets very upset if anyone touches it. The newest sign reads "No Dragons. Keep Out." and she is pretty much insistent that it stay up.

So science is the thing these days. Continuing on with the kick, Maddie told Brad last night at bedtime that when she gets older in a couple of years, they were going to go to Home Depot to buy some wood to make a rocket ship, so they could take a trip to Mars together. What a fun thought!

Hey Santa!

The big guy definitely made a visit to our house this Christmas, and brought with him a big gift for three girls: a play kitchen! We were really thrilled by this, since Maddie had been asking for it for months and telling everyone she could think of that Santa would be bringing her a kitchen. So hooray Santa!

The problem? Apparently Mr. Claus didn't quite understand Miss Madelyn's request or...ummm...expectations.

In the spirit of the Christmas traditions I remember (and I've been reflecting a lot on the fact that I just automatically want to recreate some of those traditions in our home...so I'm thankful for the fact that my mom and dad really went out of their way to make holidays special for us!), we gathered up the kids and sat them on our stairs, while I went down and checked to make sure Santa had, in fact, come. In other words, I turned on all the tree lights, took photos of the calm before the wrapping paper storm, and got ready for action!

Video camera rolling, we brought two very excited little girls into the living room, where the first thing they saw was this:

(Another aquired tradition: gifts from Santa aren't wrapped in our house!) A rather subdued Madelyn - and by that I mean no high pitched exclamatory remarks or shrieking, which is generally her way of showing excitement - stated matter of factly, "He brought me a kitchen. Not a REAL kitchen, but it's ok I guess..." HUH? Mommy Santa experienced a moment of pure disappointment followed quickly by serious anxiety over the fact that this was the MAJOR gift, particularly for Madelyn. If she didn't like this, Christmas was pretty much going to be a bust!

Me: "What do you mean, a "real" kitchen, Maddie?"

M: "You know, one that works. This one isn't real, look. The sink doesn't have water and the over (turning knobs back and forth) doesn't work."

Me: "Oh well I don't think Santa could bring a real kitchen, Maddie. Kids can't have real kitchens you know, they're kind of dangerous. You know, working ovens get really hot and..."

M: "Well it's ok. It's cool anyways."

And with that, the excitement actually kicked it, she recovered, and she was off... ooohing and ahhing over the kitchen and everything else, including the not-so-fun things like her new winter coat.

PHEW. And thanks for okaying it, Princess M! After my moment of temporary panic, I actually started thinking about how funny it all was and how happy I was to have caught it on video. She didn't come off as ungrateful or anything (and I'll admit I was a little horrified at first, thinking she might be about to act truly spoiled), just genuinely perplexed by the fact that she had wanted a real kitchen and this one wasn't going to actually cook stuff. I guess Santa can come around again next year after all...

Out of the mouths of babes...

So I have to 'fess up... we left the below mentioned toy store with toys for all three girls. How the heck do you go to a toy store and not buy them all something??? Maddie had asked if she could get a toy, and I told her that when she was Sienna's age, we did the same thing with her - and she traded her paci's in for her baby doll. Now it was Sienna's turn, because she was giving up her paci's, etc. etc. Well, Maddie quickly figured that she could get a toy too -- she just needed to give something up! So she runs upstairs and comes back a few minutes with a baggie of her own, stuffed with her two yellow silk "lovies," which are little 1 foot square security blankets. She's had these since she was about 1, and I honestly wasn't even ready to have her give them up. I wouldn't even care about paci's if they didn't interfere with speech and teeth. So I said, "Are you sure you want to give those up? I'm not sure you're ready..." And she said, "Why, are you worried I won't have anything to love on, Mommy?" In any event, we brought them to the store, and she fell in love with a Disney Princess cash register. She was so cute, and so willing to give up her lovies to get it. But in the end, she said "Mom, I'm just not sure I'm ready to give up my lovies. Maybe in a few more weeks..." My heart just melted, she was so cute. There was no way on earth we were walking out of that store without the cash register. She was so well behaved, and didn't ask for anything while we were there because she knew that she needed to give up her lovies to get a toy. I was really, really proud of her - and I didn't want her to give up her lovies. You're only a kid once.

When we got home, we let all three kids play with their new toys (because of course Lyla had to get one too!) and it was the first time that I've really seen them ALL fight over toys. They played well together for the moest part and were so excited to have new toys. In our house, it gets a bit desperate by fall because both Maddie and Sienna get all their gifts during the same time of year, wheras most kids have birthdays that are somewhat separated from Christmas time. So our toys are really "stale" by this point in the year, LOL! But man, Lyla is becoming quite the scrappy little thing, especially now that she's mobile and can pretty much army crawl her way anywhere. She was all over that Disney Princess cash register! At one point, I saw Sienna push her little arm right out of the way and say "No Lyla, that's not yours!" Guess the third one has to fight for everything, huh?

Maddie eventually wanted to play with the Dora castle, but Sienna was still very much engrossed in it and was having a hard time sharing. So Maddie says, "Hey Si Si, why don't you go play with my castrator??" OMG, I almost died laughing. I asked her to repeat herself, and she said "I want Sienna to go play with my castrator!" Guess cash register isn't quite an everyday part of her vocab yet!

Handy Mandys

In our house, the kids pretty much only watch programs that we record for them on TIVO. They usually watch the same two or three shows in rotation until we get tired of it (mainly, when Brad and I find ourselves humming the catchy little theme song in public places and wondering how on earth it came to be that Noggin preschool tunes are topping the list of our most listened to music). So even though it’s not a new show, my kids have just discovered the fascination of “Handy Manny” … or, as Madelyn calls it, “Handy Mandy.” For some reason, she can’t seem to drop the “D” out of poor Manny’s name – though interestingly enough, Sienna has no problem pronouncing it correctly. But since we have all girls in our house, Handy Mandy seems to suit us just fine.

If you haven’t seen the show, it features a cute little Spanish-speaking handyman with 8 talking tools that accompany him everywhere, fixing whatever problem one of the townspeople call him to assist with him that day. He answers each phone call with a peppy, “Handy Manny’s Repair Shop! You break it, we fix it. This is Manny!” And the tools are all appropriately named… the hammer’s name is Pat, the tape measure is Stretch, the pair of pliers is named Squeeze, etc.

Since becoming huge fans of the show, the girls have taken to becoming their own little versions of Handy Manny. Madelyn has always had a fascination with Brad’s tools (think back to her helping us with the kitchen renovation project in Chicago…) so we had given her a set of plastic tools the Christmas she turned two, so she could help with projects. Well, the tools have now made a huge comeback in our house, and we’re constantly finding Maddie and Sienna (or Handy Mandy and Handy Mandietta, as I’ve now nicknamed the dynamic duo) working together to fix something in “need” of repair. Yesterday, the two of them dismantled the paint tray from the front of their easel. Madelyn is regularly measuring Lyla with Stretch…whether Lyla is interested in the idea or not. And we suddenly discovered that the wheel is missing off the bottom rack of the dishwasher… we’ve got a hunch the Handy Mandys might be behind that effort, too. Even if they’re not quite learning the ins and outs of actual repairs, at least they’re learning some useful Spanish. Sienna can count to 10 in Spanish now just about as well as she counts in English, so that’s something. And watching them with those tools is pretty entertaining!

Houston, we have a problem!

My 3.5 year old is getting married. Yes, that's right. Married. At least that's what she has been insiting on lately. She and Jonathan, our neighbor, are getting married -- his idea. His aunt is going to make her a chocolate chip wedding cake, he says. He has told her this numerous times lately, and she has seemed pretty excited by the idea of scoring her own wedding cake. But then one night last week she told me, "Umm...I don't really like chocolate chip wedding cake, Mom." Hmmm...

This is the picture that is hanging in our kitchen right now:


It's a picture that Maddie drew of her and Jonathan. (She's the one with hair on the right, in case you couldn't tell.) I love how each of them have a million fingers. It's just too cute.

But after she hung that up on our sliding door, she told me that Jonathan says he'll come over for a sleepover one day. And I watched him plant a big kiss on her cheek a couple of times this week. (I'm starting to get nervous -- how are we gonna make it through the teenage years if we're starting at age 3, LOL??) Jonathan leaves her notes in our mailbox regularly, cute little drawings he has done with "messages" for her. She's also left a couple for him...who cares about violating postal laws when you've got a preschool romance to maintain? Guess I'll be looking for that wedding invitation to appear in the mailbox soon. Man do they grow up fast.

Funnyisms

I just get endless hours of amusment out of my kids these days. It's so interesting watching them turn into their own little unique personalities, all totally different from eachother. Nothing really exciting happened today, but they all managed to entertain me at various points during my Monday, so here are a couple of cute little anecdotes:

Sienna is such a ham -- and she KNOWS it. She loves to make us laugh and she's the first to let you know she's funny. Today they all got up fairly early (nothing unusual there!), so all 5 of us were downstairs by 6:30. Brad was really reluctant to get up, so he was trying to doze on the couch for a few minutes while Maddie and Sienna watched TV for a bit before breakfast. Sienna -- not easily amused by television for more than a few minutes these days -- starts jumping up and down and dancing in front of the couch, yelling "WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP DADDY!" It sounded suspiciously like the Wiggles' "wake up Jeff!" chant... hmm...wonder where she picked that up?

At lunch, Rachael and I were getting her some food and Rachael tried to feed her, since I had heated up turkey meatballs and they were hot. She starts yelling "No, no, NO! Self!! Self! Feed self!!" Now she's always independent about feeding herself, but I found it pretty amusing that she was demanding to feed herself.

After helping to get lunch out, I figured I better head back up to work.

Me: "Well, I guess I better get back to work..."

Madelyn: "You know Mommy, if you don't get to work, Miss Rachael is going to GO HOME!"

Me: "She is?? Why?"

Madelyn: "You remember Mommy...when you and Daddy don't work, Rachael stays at her house. So if you don't go to work right now, Miss Rachael is going to go HOME!"

Me: "True enough, Maddie. Back to work I go!"


At bath time, I was having yet another little battle with Sienna over her paci, which she is totally addicted to. I keep talking about needing to take it away at some point and wean her off of it, but I just haven't been ready to face the process as of yet. So once again, I was trying to convince Sienna that she didn't need her paci (which she named "popeye" early on, for some reason) at bath time, that she would have it in a few minutes at bedtime. Maddie was still in the tub, and I was drying Sienna off.

Me: "Sienna, it might be time to use your popeyes to get a toy. How about that? Would you like to get all your popeyes together and bring them to the store so you can buy a new toy?"

Sienna: "No. Want popeye."

Me: "You don't want to get a new toy with them? That's what Maddie did when she was younger. She turned in all of her pacis for a new baby doll."

Sienna: "No. Want popeye. Where's popeye??" (starting to whine and get impatient now...)

Madelyn: "Mommy, I want to turn in my lovies (her two satin security blankie squares) for a new toy!!!"

Me: "But then you wouldn't have your lovies anymore, Maddie. You'd just have the toy."

Madelyn: "But Mommy, I want the toy -- I don't need my lovies!!"

HA! We'll see about that.... Sienna, in the meantime, snuck behind me and found her paci on the counter, and made off with the darn thing. Little devil!

Monday...already!

The rest of the weekend was uneventful. I really enjoyed my time with the kids yesterday, even though it was a lot of work. Madelyn and I spent a long time outside doing one of her current favorite activities -- writing the alphabet all over the driveway with sidewalk chalk -- while Sienna napped and Lyla kicked around in the stroller with her toys. Maddie's getting pretty good at writing many of her letters (though the loopy ones are always a bit more challenging!) and it's pretty funny to drive into the driveway and find string after string of letters written in brightly colored chalk. As much as I'm happy she has an interest in letters, words, books, etc., it always makes me a little bit sad to realize that one day before I know it, she'll be in school!

This morning Sienna was eating breakfast at the counter and Madelyn was jumping around dancing in the family room. For some reason, they were all a little bit energetic and giddy this morning. Sienna just broke down laughing, and looked at me and yelled. "That's SO funny!" and then "That Maddie!" (which she pronounces like "Ma-yee"). She cracks me up -- I forget how much "parroting" they do at this age. She sounded just like me! At the moment, she's napping. After a heads up from Rachael, I went in to check on her (did I mention lately how much I love working from home?) and found her sound asleep, butt in the air -- NAKED! She's wearing a little knit dress today and apparently decided the diaper was NOT something she needed while napping. Figures I just changed her crib sheet yesterday... She has been telling me whenever she has to go to the bathroom lately, and has even gone on the potty a few times. But we are a long time away from dry naps, LOL! Guess I'll be changing the sheets again today... but the laugh of seeing those cute chubby bum cheeks while she snoozed away is definitely worth it.