Tag Archives: kids

Five Under Five

When my friend Sarah and I started having kids, we started at just about the same time. We’d get together, have fun with our two babies, take piles of pictures and go home rested. Then we each had another… and then she had one more.  Now with five kids under the age of five we take no pictures, think that we possibly had fun and go home exhausted.  Last weekend we saw each other for just a few hours and I was determined to get a picture.  The kids were clearly unimpressed by my efforts and I don’t blame them – these are not my best pictures ever.

But crazy monster faces and stick to the forehead aside no one is actually crying and we do now have proof that they’ve all been together –  I’m calling it a success.

Uncle Tyler

The girls have many uncles but the one they spend the most time with is my brother, Uncle Tyler.

Which is good because little princesses need a healthy dose of Uncle Tyler every now and then. As much farming and hunting that we do we just can’t compete with the fascination of Uncle Tyler. For starters he’s not us, so therefore he is automatically cooler in the eyes of his nieces. Second of all he shoots more stuff and happily shows the girls what he’s doing as well as finds them cool things to see and trees to climb. He also is fascinatingly dirty while he’s hunting – that’s really here nor there just a good side note. Grime aside they were excited to see him so many days last week.  Since all the time spent with Tyler was the middle of the gun season it involved an extra amount of grime and plenty of opportunity to check out the hunters successes.  The girls happily went with him to see dead deer while he showed them who shot which deer and what he was doing when he helped butcher them.

Clara told everyone “Tyler shoot big buck” with her arms in the air for emphasis just in case anyone missed his bow deer of a few weeks ago. Then after John shot a very nice doe she added “Dad shoot done” (rhymes with stone) to her deer hunting talk. She got rides from Uncle Tyler and anyone else who would carry her to and from the shed to see the deer every chance she got. Ivy took her friend in to see all the deer and was perhaps a little miffed when she wasn’t interested in identifying carcasses with Ivy and instead bolted for the door.  In short my girls are not afraid of dead things and they love their Uncle Tyler so I was more than a bit taken aback by Clara’s bedtime conversation with me the other night:

Clara: Uncle Tyler shoot big buck!
Me: Yup.
Clara:  Dad shoot big doe! (we worked on pronunciation since last weekend)
Me: Yup.
Clara: Uncle Tyler cut up dad doe.
Me: Yup he helped. (A clarification to pacify those who did cut up Johns doe (Thank you!) Tyler did not in fact cut up that deer, but he cut up some others and I was trying to get the girl to go to sleep since she was up and talking far past bedtime.)

Then there was a thoughtful silence, followed by a very worried:

Clara: Uncle Tyler no cut me up!

Me: No Clara, Uncle Tyler would never cut you up. (shit… and excuse my language but there is really no other phrase that better suits the fact that at 8:45 at night your two year old is suddenly worried that her beloved Uncle is going to carve her up like a deer.) 

Clara: Uncle Tyler have big knife….. Uncle Tyler no cut me up!

So we talked about all the fun things that her Uncle Tyler likes to do with her and the conversation was going well until I mentioned that he likes to climb trees with her.

Clara: Uncle Tyler cut up trees!

Me: (shit!)

Fifteen minutes and one futile phone call to Uncle Tyler later(Tell me please – is there anything more annoying than a brother who falls asleep before your daughter, who is awake because of him???) I had her mostly convinced that her Uncle was not going to cut her up because she is not meat, and he wouldn’t do that even if he does have a big knife. She finally fell asleep and I haven’t heard any more about it since.

This weekend we will again be spending time with Uncle Tyler.  The girls are already excited and I’m just crossing my fingers that we’ll all be able to sleep when we get home!

Pink and Blue

Just in case you missed it I’d like you to know that Ivy loves pink.

In case she wasn’t the one to tell you that I”ll just quick clarify that her favorites are dark pink and dark purple, she wouldn’t want you to be confused about that.

She also loves, horses, fairy’s and princesses.

Ivy is my daughter who goes to pick pumpkins in an outfit like this:

I love the girl but some days most days the girly girl stuff completely baffles me. (Skirts in November? Why Ivy, why?)

Then there is my bug lover Clara.

She also loves dogs,  shopping and her “pink blanket”  which is green.

Clara is baffling for other reasons. (Shopping?!? Real shopping and pretend?)

Love of shopping aside I must say that it warmed this mothers heart more than reasonable when Clara and I were looking at a book together and she said:

“Me wike boo Mom.”

After four years of all pink all the time, I think I’m ready to add a bit of blue!

Oh Teddy!

Last night Clara’s toy of the moment was an old beanie baby style stuffed teddy bear. The bear has seen better days part of an ear has been mostly chewed off by Storm, it’s got the distinctive slobber crusted fur of an animal that’s been loved by Piper and Clara has gotten into the unappealing habit of sucking on one of it’s paws.

But looks aside, Clara loves her Teddy.

(Pretend there is a nice cute picture of Clara holding her Teddy here because that is really what this post should have. While you are at it pretend I’m a computer whiz and am not still arguing with my computers.)

Last night I listened to her talking to her Teddy, it went a little something like this:

“Oh Teddy!!!” Translation: Oh Teddy I’m so happy to see you!

“Oh Teddy.” Translation: Yes I love you too.

“Oh Teddy?” Translation: Are you cold?

“Oh Teddy.” Translation: Here I have snuggled you under blankets is that should be much better.

“Oh Teddy!” Translation: Come on out and play!

“Oh Teddy.” Translation: I love you.

At least I’m pretty sure that’s what she was saying!

Right On Schedule

Almost a year ago I wrote about Ivy and the “Art Guilt” I was suffering from.  The problem resolved itself rather well in the last year. Ivy stopped drawing people, got into coloring books (which no matter how nicely she colors I have no problem getting rid of after a few days) and when she makes crafts at the library story time she likes to give them away to friends – perfect.

Today I’m worried the problem may be returning, she’s back to people, and now they have accessories.

Look: it’s me, with a river, grass, two anklets, a necklace, a bracelet and a pretend Ivy swimming in the river.

What do you think another year and I’ll get pants?

Now if you’ll recall my plan for last years art work was, “…go put them some place stupid, lose them, forget about them and probably find them years in the future having been eaten by mice. ”  When I went to add this picture to the others I discovered I’m right on schedule… I’ve lost them.

“Meself”

There comes a point around age two when kids want to do it all their selves, or in Clara’s case “meself”. 

And we are there, oh boy, are we ever there.

Clara was a bit under the weather yesterday. So after she helped me make lunch by pouring the ingredients in “meself” we went up stairs to read books which she picked out “meself.” After books it was time for her nap and since she was feeling rotten I spent a little extra time snuggling with her and rubbing her back. All of a sudden she rolled over and said “No Mom, rub back meself.” and proceeded to try to rub her own back. I asked if she was sure that’s what she wanted to do. She assured me that it was and very seriously informed me that “Mayme later Mom” I could rub her back again.

No doubt about it my little girl is two, oh boy is she ever…

One of Those Days

You know those days when you lose your sheep… …but you don’t know it until your neighbor calls to say they are in his yard but he can’t help you because he’s going to the dentist and then you have to walk them home through the fields with a two year old on your shoulders a bucket of corn in your hand while cajoling your four year old the whole way and then when you’re almost home the two year old grabs the electric fence while you are holding her other hand, which is an effective way to test the fencer but a really bad idea and then when you get all the way home you find out that your most wonderful dog has eaten a gigantic pile of dog food out of the bin while you were gone because some innocent looking girl… … left the pantry door open and the lid off the dog’s food and after puking the dog and monitoring her water all day and listing to the request of “Dammit Mom I need some ketchup please.”  and loading sheep to take to the butcher in the dark, your husband asks if you want some help putting the girls to bed and the combination of the day and the rampant hormones and the lack of sleep from the night before sends you off into something that’s like hysterical laughter but maybe is just hysterics, you know those days?

Yeah, that’s the kind of day I had.

I’d like to leave you for the night with words of wisdom from Great Big Sea, “…it’s a double edged knife but there’s always tomorrow…”

Cheers to tomorrow, I’m going to bed!

Pumpkin Patch

Once again the girls Great Gramps grew them a patch full of pumpkins, and once again I made the girls do all the work while I took pictures.

The pumpkins have turned into a tradition for the girls,  you can see a how some past years have gone on last years “Pumpkins” post.

This year while the picture taking was fun as always. Clara, just up from a nap, was not so interested in getting out and finding pumpkins. She was unsure of the whole ordeal until I showed her that there were bugs on the pumpkins. I’m not sure if we predisposed her to her love of bugs by nicknaming her Clara Bug or if it was bound to happen but give the girl an ant, a few squash bugs and a worm and she’s a happy camper.

She and Granny found all the pumpkin bugs, but it look like they were a little unsure of some of them.

Ivy on the other hand was the big pumpkin carrier this year.

Good thing because Gramps needs lots of help sometimes!They loaded up pumpkins until the cart was full and headed off into the sunset.Clara didn’t want to get left out of the ride……but my serious little girl picked an unsteady seat and Great Gramps tipped her on the first corner.

Pumpkins, they are all fun and games until someone falls off!

Pumpkin patch pictures are some of my favorites, the orange pumpkins, green grass, soft fall light…… you can even take a picture of your stockbroker with a few pumpkins and it turns out great!

Doing Dishes

Since the dishwasher broke seven million years ago I have spent three bazillion hours washing 17 quadrillion dishes.

Approximately.

This morning when the girls wanted to help I handed the whole shebang over without hesitation.  As they were stripping down I was told they had to be naked because otherwise their clothes would get wet. Yet when they got redressed it was in different clothes, which is a whole different problem. That problem is called reason 3,001 why I do too much laundry, because when the kids take off damp clothes and throw them on the floor they are then dirty and they refuse to put them back on even though they get just as dirty on a daily basis. But back to the naked dishwashers…

I left them alone and did some work in the other room while listening to them sing songs about waterfalls, swimming and soap bubbles. Fifteen minutes later they had had enough. When we were done cleaning up they were clean, the chairs were clean, the counter and floor were clean and one spatula was clean. It’s a start. Tomorrow I’m going to see if I can get them to wash a spatula and a bowl!