dueling scissors

I cut Sim's hair tonight. She now has little bangs. They look ok but I wish they were a bit straighter. And, the rest of her hair isn't long enough to really do anything with so she's got a growing out sort of look. I didn't want to do it but it had to be done due to Sim's barrette eating habit, which has been driving me batty.

It's really hard to cut a baby's hair as they swivel their little heads around a lot and bat at the scissors, etc. I gave her a pair of child safe scissors to play with while I cut her hair because I figured if she had her own pair of scissors then she wouldn't be grabbing mine. That seems like a bright idea, right? Unfortunately, it didn't really work. She just used her scissors to bat at my scissors. Daddy watched us and laughed because he said it looked like we were dueling with scissors.

compliments :)

Ro's been complimenting me a lot lately. We'll just be out somewhere doing something and Ro will suddenly say, "Mommy, you're pretty Mommy!" Today, he said, "Mommy, you're a cute girl. Simone's a cute girl too." I thought it was so sweet and always comes as such as surprise.

school days are coming

Ro starts preschool in 11 days. He is beside himself and he wishes it would start tomorrow. He got to try out a school bus at the museum yesterday. I may take him back again for another showing. We picked up a bus safety book and he doesn't seem to follow it at all.
Q: What do you do if your backpack falls under the bus?
Ro's Answer: Pick it up.
Us: Noooooooooooooo!!! Tell the driver!
Q: What do you do if your paper falls under the bus?
Ro's Answer: Go get it.
Us: Noooooooooo!!!! Tell the driver!
(Augh! - another thing to worry about. I may have to do my wagon in the street demos again but hurl his backpack under the car or something.)

Today, we picked out his backpack online and I ordered it. He went with a fairly plain blue Kelty Minnow. I was surprised because it wasn't fancy or even themed. I was skeptical of how much he'd like it if the other kids had something more themed so I showed him all kinds of other backpacks with aliens, firetrucks, turtles, mice and pigs on them. He really got into looking at them all but was still happy with blue. It was certainly the most practical and affordable, so I was pleased.

About an hour after we placed the order, my kitchen timer dinged and Ro thought it was mailman ringing our doorbell and delivering the backpack. He was sooooooo disappointed when he realized it wasn't. He's going to be pestering me about the backpack for the next week. I wish I'd paid for expedited shipping now.

good bye house, hello house

Ro always wants to carry on conversations with things as well as people. Lately, he wants to talk to our house and I have to be the voice of our house of course. So, any time we leave home, Ro wants me to make the house talk and tell him that I, the house, will miss him very much while he's gone but I hope he enjoys his adventures with the car. On our way back home, I make the house eagerly anticipate Ro's arrival. Ro loves it and jumps out of the car to give the chimney a hug every time we come home. He really is a little homebody.

less monstrous and more cute

From about the time Sim turned one in mid-June until a few weeks ago, she has basically driven me NUTS!!! She apparently had about eight weeks of teething hell or something. I'm not sure. I felt like she cried and cried and I had to carry her around all day and everything was worth a good bout of tears. Plus, she fell down on her well padded bottom about 20 times a day and each one of those events made her cry plus crying about other stuff added up to lots and lots of crankiness and crying. I thought I was going to go MAD!!!! However, she's gotten a lot more manageable and cute again. evil baby teeth - a menace of motherhood.

So --- I can now write nice things about her again rather than complain. Sim is currently really into ring around the rosy. She'll do it about as long as she can convince someone to do it with her. Ro taught her originally and he'll do it with her almost daily.

She's also really into trying to do the handmotions to songs too. She loves itsy bitsy spider. She can't do the real motions yet but she waves her hands around and makes sing-song noises. She makes up handmotions for other songs too which mostly involve more arm waving and then touching her pointer fingers together, which I find terribly funny.

forklifts and wagons

Lately, Ro has been wanting to carry Sim. I finally worked out a way to teach him to do it. I tell him to pretend to be a forklift and to make sure he picks her up under her arms. It's improving his style somewhat. It's much better than seeing him drag her down the hallway way by her head and/or neck. Sim doesn't seem particularly troubled by awkward carrying/dragging but I don't like it. It looks like she's being half strangled.

Ro's wagon rolled down our driveway and into the street. Ro ran after it despite Me and Daddy frantically shouting NO! NO! NO! It was horrible. I have a huge fear of my kids getting hit by a car and this was the first time Ro has ever gone into the street without looking or anything. I was so upset. I grabbed his wagon and shoved it out in the street over and over and he freaked out and wanted to run for it every time. I kept asking what do you do? You tell mommy. Do you get the wagon? NO! Would you get a ball? NO! I think it's sunk in now but we'll be having a pop quiz in the next week or so.

night protection

For a long time now, Ro has been sleeping with Buzz Lightyear and Tigger. But now, Buzz and Tigger suddenly require bedtime hugs and kisses. I think it's funny that he sleeps with Tigger because he doesn't really know who Tigger is as he's never seen Winne the Pooh. He sleeps with Tigger because Calvin (of Calvin & Hobbes) sleeps with a tiger, so clearly it's what a boy should do. He's very firm about both of them being in bed. I always go in later and take Buzz out because Buzz tends to fall off the bed at 2 a.m., which scares the pants off me and makes me think we're being burgled. It never wakes up Ro though.

frog in my throat

A few weeks ago, I commented that I had a frog in my throat. Ro was astounded and perturbed. Once I explained it, he was less perturbed but still quite interested. Now, he revels in clearing his throat multiple times. The, in a raspy voice, he informs me that he has frog in his throat and requests a class of water. It's definitely a favorite phrase. He manages to use it almost every day. It takes many sips of water and much throat clearing to get the frog to go away.

Thomas, memory, and retching

Thomas (the tank engine) goes on the back burner for awhile but then he suddenly becomes Ro's favorite toy again, which I find quite strange. One thing that's different is that he now "travels" to the island of Sodor and then he returns home again. His play with them is about the same but the travel bit interests me because I know he got it from seeing Thomas and the magic rail road (the world's worst movie) about a year ago... but it hasn't come up in his pretend play until now.

Memories have an odd way of resurfacing though because Ro freaked me out the other day by telling me he was sick and then exactly mimicing everything I did when I had severe morning sickness back when I was pregnant with Simone. He went and got the "barf bowl" out of the kitchen took into the bathroom, pretended to enthusiastically retch into it, mimed pouring it in the toilet, and then rinsed out the bowl in the sink and washed his hands. Ro was about 2 1/2 when that was going on and now 18 months later he suddenly gives me a replay of it. It's so bizarre. No one has thrown up since I had morning sickness. I'm so afraid that Ro's first memory will be of me puking my guts out while he cried in terror and tried to drag me away from the "evil" bathroom. sigh.

clothes hangers

It seems like we always have a few of those white plastic kids coat hangers kicking around. Ro can be quite inventive with them. Sometimes he uses them as a crane or a fishing pole. The other day, he made me wear them to be antlers when he wanted me to be one of Santa's reindeer. Lately, he uses them to be robot hands. When he found the kind, with pant clips on them too, he used them as people for whatever game he was playing. I think it's neat he can look at something and see so many different possibilities with it.

spider capture

Ro got a bug viewing jar as a late birthday present. I was quite pleased with it because I like bugs but Ro doesn't share my enthusiasm really. So, I used a stick to knock a spider out of it's web and into the jar. Ro was really interested in it. He seemed to like looking at bugs as long as they were safe in the jar. So much so, that he whipped through breakfast Saturday morning and ran out in the backyard to play. We were still drinking tea and watching him idly through the windows. Then, I saw him throw down a stick and run off with the bug jar in his hand. I went out and was totally shocked that he'd managed to catch his own spider and get it in the jar with the lid on without hurting it or anything. It was a pretty large garden spider too. I would've never done that at his age.

anthropomorphize everything!

Back when Ro didn't really say much, people always said," Just you wait, once he starts, he'll talk all the time and then you'll want him to shut up." About a bazillion different people said that to me and I was always appalled. Ro is now four and he does talk non-stop and it does drive me crazy sometimes but not when he talks and asks questions. Mostly, it's his demands for me to talk that are driving me nuts, because he basically wants me anthropomorphize everything in the whole world from his napkin to the food we're eating to his little sister. I have to pretend to be cooking bacon and say what the bacon might be thinking, so Ro can converse with the bacon. It's really gotten especially hard since he's gotten so focused on Sim and he wants me to be the Voice of Sim. I think this is absolutely wonderful and I'm glad he cares what Sim is thinking and that he wants to have frequent conversations with her but it's so tiring to try to think for other things all the time. My brain is fried by the end of the day after I've attempted to personify the rug, bacon, the toilet, water, spiders, my daughter, and a million toys. I thought the most useless class I took in college was drama and here I am wishing I paid more attention. I find it difficult to find my character's motivation when my character is a paper towel. Ha! That would've really challenged my drama teacher. Pretend you're paper towel soaking up bacon grease. How does it feel? Why do you do it? Be the paper towel.

naughty sim, pillow skiing, and other randomness

Ro continues his winter play. He covered the whole living room floor with blankets and pillows in order to make snow. Then, he stuck his feet into two of my couch pillows to be his skis and spent about 20 minutes repeatedly leaping off the sofa. Then, he wanted Buzz and Zurg to have a snowball fight and then play with penguins and baby polar bears.

His Buzz play has been changing slowly. First, it was sort of cut and dry good guy/bad guy. Now, he likes to help Zurg after he's defeated him and then befriend him. Then, Buzz and Zurg go on adventures together and Zurg isn't bad anymore. This week, it's all about being a victim and requiring a lot of medical assistance to recover.

Tonight, I undressed Sim for bath time and she toddled out of the bathroom and into Ro's room. Ro blocked his train set so Sim couldn't get to it. While he was telling her to not touch the trains, she peed on the floor. Ro was speechless. Then, he said,"Simone, you're naughty!" and demanded a towel. I was in stitches.

I've been putting Ro and Sim in the truck cart together when I go grocery shopping. Mostly they're fine until Sim drops her cookie. Ro usually still has his so Sim starts flailing and thwacking him trying to grab it. It's funny to watch them. Sim just can not keep hold of her cookie. She seems to crumble it to bits and then drop the pieces everywhere. Their interaction goes like this.
Sim: **Thwack**
Ro: No!
Sim:**Thwack**
Ro: Stop Simone!!!
Sim: **thwack, thwack**
Ro: Gentle Simone!
Sim: AAAAAAH! **Thwack**
Ro: Be nice, Simone!!!
Sim: **Thwack, thwack**
Ro: Be nice!
Sim: **Thwack**
Ro: AUUUUUUUUGGHHH!

Mommy has learned to only give Sim half of her cookie at once now to protect Ro from cookie attacks. Our last trip to the store went smoothly and Sim rested her head on Ro's shoulder most of the time and they had a lot of fun.