… because the chocolate left on her face was nothing compared to what the rest of her looked like.
Which is also reason #34 you shouldn’t let a one year old help you dip pretzels in chocolate…
… now I know.
Tag Archives: kids
Going To The Zoo, Zoo, Zoo…
Clara, Jane and I took advantage of the weather and headed to the zoo.
We weren’t the only ones happy to finally have warm weather, most all of the animals were also out soaking up the rays, including Ivy’s favorite lion Henry.
Jane was not only happy to be running outside but very excited to be at the zoo.
She looked for animals through all the fences she saw (even when they just contained flower gardens) and added a new word to her vocabulary: “See!”
Otherwise known as “See, see, SEE, SEEEE!”
Otherwise known as a very slow trip through the zoo.
Fortunately I had my camera and, despite the look on her face, Clara was just as happy to hang around and watch prairie dogs for days for hours for a while as Jane was.
Watching Jane’s excitement over everything today reminded me of one of the first trips Ivy took to the zoo when she was fully mobile and newly chatty.
Ivy was frantically running from animal to animal. Excited to the point of mania she had already seen the “LION!”, the “SEAL!” and we had just moved on from her current favorite the “GIRAFFE!” when she turned, stopped dead and shouted, “DINOSAUR!” 
I gently corrected her that while it did certainly look like a dinosaur it was actually a rhinoceros. Ivy promptly called it a “rhinosaur” and continued to do so for at least the next two years.
A pronunciation I never corrected, because really, just look at it…
Ivy was right they should be called rhinosaurs!
Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above
Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above
Because it’s the little things that make life great and because it’s the little things I forget, here are a few little things I’d like to remember from today:
Jane: (16 months, pictured above) Told me “Thank You” after I changed her dirty diaper.
Clara: (3 years) Ran out the front door, fell down the two steps off the porch into the front garden, rolled to her feet and came up smiling and waving at the neighbor who was driving by on his tractor.
Ivy: (6 years) Came home from school with a math homework sheet she had made for me to work on because it would be “good practice for my brain” and then I could be as smart as her.
Ultimate Insult
Near the end of a long and difficult evening Clara looked up at me with a face full of frustration, pulled herself up tall, swelled up her chest and said:
“Well, Dad makes better pancakes than you!”
Please note, this is NOT the look Clara was giving me this evening!
Which is true.
Once we were done with our “pancake discussion” I laughed my way downstairs and made a batch of this (http://ourladyofsecondhelpings.com/2012/02/02/super-bowl-snacks-sugar-and-spice-popcorn/) Sugar and Spice popcorn.
I’m planning on saving her some.
Any girl who can make me laugh (though she certainly didn’t intend to) after such an evening is worthy of a popcorn treat tomorrow.
Who needs pancakes?
Besides, when Clara is “discussing” things with her Dad she might need to know that her Mom makes way better popcorn than he does!
Three Reasons Having Your House Torn Down is a Good Thing
1) When you catch a kid coloring on the stairs the biggest worry is that it might be habit forming.
2) To do lists disappear. No longer any need to update, repair or change….well… anything.
3) When the three year old pulls the screen door halfway off the house, a hammer is all that you really need to fix it.
Eating Out
As I was going through drafts of posts that had been started and then abandoned I found this one from back in February all written up and ready to go. I’m not sure why I passed it over the first time but it made me laugh when I read it now. I hope you enjoy it as well.
So…
We were headed home on Sunday and the weather and roads were, shall we say, less than ideal. After about two hours of driving we made a stop for dinner. While all five of us got out of the truck and went into eat for the purposes of describing what life with a three year old is like I’m going to ignore them all (sorry guys) and just tell you what Clara was up to.
First, she needed to be carried in, but not by Dad, by Mom. She did ask very politely – so I carried her inside.
When it came time to order it required physically holding of her face in front of mine to get her to focus and discuss with me what she might possibly eat for dinner.
While we waited for our food in the empty (remember the roads) restaurant we let the kids go nuts over in our corner and Clara careened around tables and ran into chairs (and I do mean that literally) until it was time to sit down.
Dinner came and it was great.
Until the star of our story tried it, deemed it icky, bad and too spicy as she chewed and spit back out multiple bites.
“Done” with her dinner Clara moved on to her ice water and promptly spilled it down the front of herself.
All of it.
Since Clara’s reaction to spilled water is akin to that of the Wicked Witch of the West I decided we were going back to the truck for pajamas (we still had a few hours of driving left) and made a pit stop at the bathroom on the way out.
In the bathroom she refused to use the toilet while managing to pull the Koala Kare changing table down and bonking herself in the head at least three times before I got her back out, grabbed her hand and told her we were going to the truck.
Frustrated and tired from the circus that was dinner I was doing my best to stay pleasant walking hand in hand with the anarchist. As Clara happily approached the truck my mentally planning of how I was going to get some sort of chocolate fix for the rest of the drive home was interrupted as she piped up with:
“Yeah, I was gettin’ bored here.”
The face that results from asking Clara to “smile.”
I did a mental head slap, stuffed her in her p.j.’s and braced myself for the rest of the “boring” ride home.
This Moment – Sick Sisters
A Friday ritual . A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week.
A simple, special, extraordinary moment.
A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.
Did I Just Say What I Thought I Said? IX
This week the weather has mostly looked like this:
and Jane’s good moments have looked like this:
So, perhaps without too much trouble you can imagine that my own mood is dipping south of Merry Poppins territory and headed more toward Evil Monster Mom land.
Unsurprisingly Evil Monster Mom lost her cool this afternoon shouted at Clara during lunch:
“Clara, get that pork chop off your head and sit back down at the table!”
Fortunately, though I didn’t let Clara know it, the humor in it struck me enough that instead of implementing my plan to run away from home to someplace childless and sunny I have instead decided to eat all the chocolate in the house.
… for now….
A Study To Determine Jane’s Favorite Items At The Age Of 15 Months
This study is to determine the subject’s (Jane’s) favorite items at the age of 15 months. While the subject’s verbal skills are consistent with her age, they are not adequate or reliable enough for this task and conclusions will need to be drawn from direct daily observation of the subject.
Observation of Jane to determine favored objects:
-In the bathroom a wire basket and a half eaten piece of toast are abandoned for a pink golf ball. (Observer was surprised that the golf ball left the bathroom with the subject as usually such objects are left on the floor so that the subject may leave both hands free to empty drawers of toiletries. This drawer emptying behavior was not exhibited during the study and will not be used when drawing conclusions though the lack of this behavior does make the mother of the subject hopeful.)
-A pile of plastic bottle caps are left strewn over the floor in favor of the wireless mouse which is in turn discarded for the batteries inside the mouse. (At this point the observer was forced to interfere with study subject to prevent ingestion of batteries. A phenomenon known as “Moms ruin all the fun.”).
-Looking at a book in subject’s parent’s bed ends as soon as the subject remembers she can turn the clock radio on.
-Small rocks from the driveway are returned to the ground before the subject was able to taste them when she started to chase a “CHIEN!” across the yard. (Judging by the results, the object in question is a chicken and it is less excited about the chase than the subject.)
-Subject drops all food and toys for ChapStick.
In conclusion the observer believes that ChapStick and chickens are the subject’s favorite items.
Interestingly, the child is also either lacking in developmentally appropriate toys or developmentally appropriate toys are boring and ignored in favor of general household detritus. The answer to this question is beyond the scope of this study and warrants further testing.
Lullaby Litmus
When I was very young my Grandpa sang “Go Tell Aunt Rhode” to me at bed time.
I can’t say for sure that this hampered my singing ability in the opposite way that one says playing classical music to infants will enhance theirs. All I can tell you is that not even my Granny’s lullabies could outweigh the effects of the rest of the family’s singing and my innate lack of musical ability.
Well meaning people try to convince me that I exaggerate and that I must be a fine singer.
They are wrong.
All that being said, I also have children.
Which means that, they have been, or are, babies. Babies require lullabies, which means that I, their mother, need to sing.
So I sing.
The songs I choose to sing to my kids have one criteria – they must fall into my lowish, five note range. A range, that I have discovered, could be named the “drunken, dying range.”
I sing songs about, dying of sickness, and drunkenness, horses falling through the ice, dying at war, drinking whiskey, drowning, and people who have gout. Not your average nursery themes.
Unorthodox as the songs may be my singing, like my Grandpa’s, puts the kids to sleep. Whether it’s the soothing sounds of our voices or self defense is still a subject up for debate.
Written in response to Prompts for the Promptless – Episode 8 The Litmus hosted by Rarasaur and accidentally published before final editing due to a slip of the thumb -sorry!
Behind the Willows 