Birthday Card etc. - 8/1/2010

So a few weeks ago we were hurriedly cleaning and must have mixed up one group of items and either threw them away or misplaced them...cleaning is always a little different with a small helper. Anyway, I learned the morning of my birthday that some of the items that were in that pile were the b-day cards from Grant and Alexis. So early the morning of my birthday, Grant took Alexis to pick up my birthday breakfast (chocolate croissants) and decided to get a replacement birthday card. He told Alexis that she could help him look, thinking that she would just look at the Dora cards or the ones with bright colors. Well she started pointing to one that was pink, so he handed it to her to look at without reading it. She opened it and it played music and she just thought that was so cool. He took it away and put it back. She didn't want the music to stop and said they had to get this card for me. So they came home and she handed me a card that was not so appropriate to come from a child and would be more appropriate if we were (ahem) newly weds. Before I opened it Grant warned me that he let her pick and as I read it I gave him a "what in the world?" look and then my question was answered. She grabs the card, opens it and says "isn't the music pretty mommy, we have to dance with it" and she starts dancing around the kitchen. The card has not made it to the mantle, but Alexis has been thoroughly entertaining with it.


We also went to get Sprinkles cupcakes for my birthday. They are truly fabulous, though I'm not sure that I could really justify the drive (40ish min each way) and the extra money for cupcakes, but it was afterall my birthday and they sell Dublin Dr. Pepper at Sprinkles. This is not the same as regular Dr. Pepper for those of you that have never had a Dr. Pepper from Dublin, TX (as I had not prior to this day). Dublin Dr. Pepper is made with pure cane sugar and comes in a small bottle. The subtle flavor difference really does make the Dr. Pepper even better.














It was also great to have a cupcake for breakfast the next day. Yum!

Baby Brother

So my previous posts have all been about Alexis, but my profile says I have two children. Here is Andrew's introduction to the blog.











Alexis is great with Andrew; she believes that he was one great big birthday present for her because he came a month early...but the arrivals of my children are another story altogether!











While Alexis is busy learning new good and bad habits at preschool, dancing, and telling us very interesting stories that often seem like her very own version of a Dora episode, Andrew is growing at a rather fast pace (we're in our 4th size of diapers! - preemie, newborn, size 1 and size 1-2). He is now (usually) skipping one feeding at night (woohoo!!) unfortunately, I wish he would shift that schedule and skip the feeding that comes 3 hours after the one he is actually skipping, but I guess that is all in due time. He is also trying to figure out his voice. He can make some coos and some high pitched happy noises now which are much cuter, though definitely not manly, than the constant grunting and wimpering that he did at first. He still grunts during his fussy time and occasionally makes his puppy wimpering or bird sqwaking noises but he has definitely made strides to advance his "vocabulary". His current likes are staring at the ceiling fan in the Master (not a fan of other fans apparently), sitting in the Bumbo as a centerpiece during dinner, and getting hugs from his big sister. His current dislikes are not being able to see us while he is awake and can hear us, the time period between 4 and 6 a.m. and diaper changes.

Iron

Iron sharpens iron like one man sharpens another is great...but the iron will that keeps the iron sphincter shut is not. Our daughter has both an iron will and an iron sphincter and I am quite tired of both. She is perfectly aware of what happens when she refuses and yet she will choose punishment regardless of what it is over doing what her body needs for her to do. We have things to aid in the process, but that now seems to just make her more determined. I think her muscles have gotten stronger instead of training her body to relax. We had about 2 weeks where we thought the situation was improving and then she held it for a day and the one that she had to go to get to do something fun was uncomfortable and now we have regressed again a step further than before. I'm so ready to let her have more stickers for her chart (I have the prizes that she gets after getting enough stickers to fill the rows and the whole chart) but she has been lying about it now too, so we had to take her pretty stickers away. It's really quite sad.

Preschool dictionary part 1

We all know that kids don't always hear things quite right...they also associate their own meanings with things, so here are a few that we have heard lately. Any apparent theme is purely coincidental.

Barking Spiders: farts

Clausit: misheard "pause it"

Colors: Christmas lights or fireworks

Grapeable: misheard the word breakable.

Slippers: Roller skates, as in upon seeing a carhop, she yelled "look mommy, she's walking on slippers."

Sparkles: anything that makes something more appetizing. For example we call Miralax sparkles as in Alexis you get sparkle juice today. Other examples are pop-tarts are sparkle bars, koolaid makes sparkle water, you get the idea.

Special Treats: prunes, benefiber tablets...anything needed to aid in digestive issues that can be eaten.

Feel free to submit your entries to the next part of the Preschool dictionary! I'm not even going to touch the sentences and verb tenses that come out all wrong.

The Genesis

So, I've contemplated writing a blog for a little over two years...since we started having funny stories from Alexis. But it just never happened...until now. What finally pushed me over the edge to write a blog was Alexis' stories from preschool yesterday.
Me: How was your day at school?
Alexis: Good, I danced today.
Daddy: What did you do at dance?
Alexis: I arabesqued
Me: What else did you do? Did you like your new classroom?
Alexis: Jaelyn peed on Isaiah
and then she ran off.
I may enter some retro-posts of anecdotal items that took place prior to blogging and I will do my best to keep up with it so that people will no longer have to beg me to send pictures, stories and the like, instead they can just check the blog.