Best Sisters

I posted on my FB status this morning that I was really enjoying hearing my kids play so nicely together...and truly, it was probably one of the best Saturday mornings we've had a in while in that department! Our girls really do seem to be good friends, and because they are close in age they really play together most of the time. BUT they also fight really well together, and can go from best of friends to what would seem like lunatic enemies in the matter of seconds. Not fun.

This morning, after baths and shampoos for everyone, Lyla ended up taking a morning nap - which is rare for her these days. Madelyn and Sienna began playing together and just seemed to go from one happy little activity to another together - also rare! Madelyn, as usual, played the role of ringleader/activity coordinator, and for whatever reason Sienna was just being easygoing this morning and happy to oblige. So they started off by putting on costumes, and getting ready for the big show that they were going to put on in Lyla's room (which is a big empty "bonus room" on the second floor that has cathedral ceilings, and nothing in it but Lyla's pack-n-play and a clock radio the kids have been using as a boom box for mega dance productions) as soon as she woke up. Madelyn then decided they needed to dress up the costumes a bit more, so they moved into the kitchen and we set up craft stuff. Maddie drew huge flower petals on all different pieces of construction paper, then drew a belt for me to cut out for her (kids scissors are among the missing!) so she could glue them on to the belt and dress up her outfit. Sienna preferred to practice letters, but did a little jazzing up of her own with a headband.

After finishing up and determining the costumes were ready, Madelyn started teaching Sienna the words to her new song, "Best Sisters." The two of them sang together, arms around eachother, and it nearly melted my heart. I always wanted sisters (sorry Dave and Rich!) and I just think they're so so lucky to have each have two sisters. Amidst all the fighting that goes on each day, it was such a nice change to hear them loving on eachother and appreciating having eachother around. Soon they were singing at the top of their lungs, which probably woke poor Lyla Lu. But she woke up in good spirits and quickly joined in the singing and production. By then M had taken off her costume, but Sienna was still looking all Jane Fonda-esque in Maddie's dance leotard (backwards, of course), ballet slippers, and elastic headband. Besides being sweet to watch, the whole morning just allowed me to get so much done! I was able to wash and fold a load of laundry, make pancakes from scratch with homemade blueberry syrup, and get a whole batch of fresh tomato sauce made while they played together. Alas, it didn't last forever...the fighting eventually did start up. But it gives me hope that despite the fighting, they really are developing into the best of friends.

Hose Her Down!

What kid doesn't love a nice, messy bowl of spaghetti? Lyla seems to be no exception...you give that girl a bowl of spaghetti and it's a recipe for instant mess. Not much news to report on this front, but last night she was so cute stuffing spaghetti and red sauce in your mouth and wearing half a bowl down the front of her. When all was said and done, I had no choice but to throw her right in the bath -- and sink the sink was handy, we opted to put her right in the sink for a bath so as not to trail pasta throughout the house on the way up to the bathroom.

She loved being in the sink -- probably because she was guaranteed to have the space all to herself, with no possiblity of having to share with her sisters! But even so, Sienna stayed close by and was happy to help shuttle soap bottles, toys, etc. to make Lyla's bath more enjoyable.



I had taken Lyla for her 15 month appointment yesterday morning, a bit late since she'll be 16 months tomorrow! She is still very much a little peanut, and has dropped even more in her percentiles. She's only inthe 7th percentile for height (which explains why everyone wonders if she's really old enough to be walking) and in the 13th for height. So very proportionate, just petite. Not too surprising given the short genes that her mother donated to the mix! The ped isn't too concerned at this point, but hopefully she'll have a growth spurt soon to catch up a bit. She's right on track or ahead with all of her other milestones, so she's doing great overall! She's been a bit cranky today after having several shots yeterday, but I guess that's to be expected. She's also working on her one year molars and her eye teeth, so I guess we'll forgive her crankiness a bit.

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...

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!

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!

YAY for videos!

I finally figured out how to make the videos on my camera small enough to put on my blog... hooray! So here's my test video. A little bit of singing, a bit of fighting, a bit of painting...it's all in there, LOL!



(ETA: I've resolved the technical difficulties...I think. For those wondering about Sienna's crazy hair, I'm in the process of growing her bangs out - but it's driving us all crazy so I think we're going to have to cut it!)

Sisters

It's pretty obvious that my kids each know they have sisters, but I've noticed that they are really starting to act like three sisters these days, too. Maddie and Sienna love to take turns holding Lyla, and like to put on "concerts" for her in her room before they all go to bed, singing and dancing up a storm. For her part, Lyla rewards each of them with huge smiles and shrieks every time they come anywhere near her, like being next to them is just the highlight of her day. Yes, there are arguments...but so far, they are far outnumbered by the happy times they seem to have just being together. I just love watching them have fun together and love eachother -- I think they're so lucky to have eachother! Some recent pics of bedtime:

I'm getting a vision...

Of my daughter in her teenage years. Scary, my friends, scary! Just kidding, of course. But take a look at how I found Madelyn this afternoon:



What a character. She's such a fan of the camera these days, and after posing from some pics, proceeded to ask me to videotape her singing a song, etc. She put on her best "fancy" poses (a la "Fancy Nancy") and had quite a bit to say. I'm going to have to try to get that one up on this site, but I'm not quite that good at blogging yet, LOL.

While Sienna wasn't dressed for the occasion (and it would have been hard to top Madelyn, though she would have tried!), she decided to join her sister for a pose or two. I just love how the two of them play together now, and love to be together. They do their share of fighting, but seeing them together always reminds me why I wanted a sister.