Signs

When Hercules came in this morning his dad asked me if we were using sign language here, because he started doing it over the weekend. Yes! Here's a site that has good examples of the top 100 signs to use with kids. The ones we use most right now are milk, more, all done, please, thank you, and no. I throw others in as I think of them. I use want sometimes, and bathroom and sorry. I started out as a deaf education major at TCU so I've had several years of sign. It's been years and I'm rusty and slow though. :)

Cravings

Hmm. The next day of the blog topics is something I crave. This one is a little harder to do in terms of work and kiddos. I think right now I'm craving sleep and a quiet mind more than anything. I feel like I am not all awake and I keep thinking. As Wilbur says in Charlotte's Web, "When your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it's hard to sleep."

As far as asking the kids about this one, I don't think they've got a handle on cravings yet. :) Can you crave the Backyardigans? I'm just not sure if that qualifies. Love and affection, enough sleep, and healthy food should about cover it for them.

So. Basically this is a post about nothing. Excellent.

Pictures Galore!!

Oh, I am excited. Today is Your Favorite Photo. It's going to take a lot of paring down to get to one particular favorite of each small child. I think I'll be leaving myself and Kanga out of this one. I We tend to be vindictive and take unflattering pictures of each other singing or dancing or leaning over with our backsides in the air. No need to post those.

My problem is that a lot of my favorite pictures have already been posted on other days. Oh well. Maybe you've seen some of those before. I guess the Hall of Fame just turns out like that sometimes.

Duchess:
My original Pink Lady, cheesy with bunny ears for Easter 2005. Sometimes I miss this tiny girl!!

O'Malley:
Boys with fair skin have to get sunscreen on their heads. It does marvelous things to their heads.

Mushu: When your brothers are having "dress like a pirate" day at their school, there's no way you can show up in regular clothes. He thought he was the coolest thing in the world!


Silvermist:
She decided she ought to wear my shoes around the house for awhile.

Aurora:
Chocolate is tasty. 'Nuff said.

Roo:
I took her with me to grab milk once. It was fun to be out in public with her and she was a big helper. :) This is the day she learned to say "I buy it?" Her momma didn't think that was as funny as I do.

Stitch: Breakfast makes her happy. Heck, just eating, any time of day or night, makes her happy.


Bianca:

She gets two pictures because I was trying to show her love of curling up in funny places, and then I realized that first picture was caught mid-blink and isn't actually a great shot of her.


Chip:
Weebles wobble, and sometimes they do fall down, right on top of their friends who are lying behind them!

Hercules:
Hello world, it's me!!

Tigger:
I particularly like this one because it was right after we put him in the hateful watermelon and made him scream. He's had a bath, he's with his mama, and he's so content. All is well.

Lady: Okay, I know I just put this picture of her up yesterday, but it's by far my favorite. I have a bunch of her sleeping and a few where she's being serious, but this is the only one where I've managed to catch the smile. :)


Mater:
I know you've seen this one before, but I have a limited number of Mater pictures just yet. :)

Fun Facts

Day 6 asks for fun facts. Yay! Bullet point list!!

• I won the school-wide spelling bee in 8th grade with the word megalopolis.
  
• Kanga was a child model in Singapore and was the trademarked kid for Lego. She also got offered the job to be the milk spokesperson but turned it down because she hates milk and was afraid they'd make her drink a lot of it on camera.
• Duchess's favorite animal is the penguin.
• O'Malley likes to prove me wrong- I said last week he was uninterested in writing but this week he's loving his schoolwork. I got him a big dry erase practice book with superheroes on it and apparently that made all the difference.
  
• Silvermist comes up with elaborate imaginary scenarios that I love to go along with. She'll come in and say, "I am MAD at you!" and I'll ask why, and she'll just smile real big and come up with something crazy. "Because you smashed me into the wall!" She's great at spontaneous answers when I ask more and by the end we're both laughing hysterically. She always finishes up with, "I so silly!!!"
  
• Aurora is happy with the status quo in relation to potty training right now. While I wouldn't exactly classify it as a FUN fact, I have to hide my smile when I ask if she'd like to sit on the potty and her reply is, "No. I poop in my diaper. You clean it."
  
• Roo is in a big pirate phase right now and goes around yelling ARGH at everyone.
  
• Stitch is extremely territorial. She's cheerful about it, but everything is MINE. Her mom thanked her for letting the family live in "my house." She brings diapers from "my Target" and wants to play with "my Silvermist".
  
• Bianca calls that black and white striped animal a "beez-ra". I LOVE THAT.
• Chip likes to grab his mama's face in both hands and smush her cheeks together when he gives her kisses.
  
• Hercules has recently become fascinated with blankets. He loves to carry one around and rub his face on it. Kanga has taken to calling him Linus.

• Tigger's Kunyai was happy when he was born because she got a grandchild that looked Asian. She tries to make him laugh a lot because when he smiles big he looks even more Asian.

• Lady and Mater really aren't quite to the stage where I have specific fun facts about them. They're both easygoing and happy and are still in the time of life where they eat and sleep and don't do a whole lot else. :) And they look very cute while doing it.
  

Favorite Quotes

Day 5 is quotes. I could definitely go on for awhile choosing original quotes from various of my charges. I suppose this is asking for notable quotes by famous or at least partially famous people though. I guess I'll do both. So let's see....

"Be very careful with that pig- we think he is the BEST in the world... " from Small Pig by Arnold Lobel. I call the children pigs on a regular basis. It's a great compliment around here to be called The Best Pig.

"Tell me, what did you do? Did you have any fun?" from The Cat in the Hat. Great stuff.

The ones that the kids say are some of the best, and become the things we quote more often than "real" things. One morning I was changing Hercules's diaper when Aurora arrived for the day. She's usually not nearby when I change diapers, since we do it in a different area from the play space, obviously. She marched over to inspect the process and looked horrified. Pointed, and said, "What pee-pee is THAT?!?!"

I almost fell down laughing and it still makes me laugh every time I think of it.


Then there are the very tongue-in-cheek quotes that I never say TO the children, you understand. But there are days when I mutter them under my breath to Kanga, especially in reference to my own kids. :) Spending all our time with small children means we have to take our snark in small doses where we can get it, just to amuse ourselves and let off a little steam.

"And then, the word she used to describe them both was tiresome...." from Dancing Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, after the distant relative the girls are pawned off with has decided she doesn't like taking care of them. :)

"It'll be so fun! We'll have ice cream!.... and bourbon...." Bebe Neuwirth's character in Jumanji. LOVE this one, as she's going up the stairs talking to herself...

And one of our moms told us that her co-worker always says, "You are making Mommy want to drink! Do you WANT Mommy to drink?!" I'm pretty sure that's one of those exaggerated-for-comedic-reaction things that she doesn't actually say to her daughter. At least I hope so. Because then it wouldn't be funny. But around the water cooler with a donut in your hand? Pretty amusing.

Friday Focus- Tigger

I think I'm happy, but maybe I'm about to cry! I'm so confused and I don't know what I want to do!


Tigger is ten months old now and he's pretty sure that he is no longer a baby. He's got the lightning fast crawl down pat and is starting to do the bear walk, on his hands and feet rather than the knees. He pulls up and cruises around and uses walking toys and gives us all his fabulous one-dimple smile.

And even when he's feeling sad and serious he's just as cute. Those eyes just kill me. He's got Puss in Boots eyes all the time without even trying. Thankfully he hasn't learned to bat his eyelashes yet but look out once he does! :) I did have a two year old one time who would blink slow and bat his eyes on command when you asked him to "flirt". If Tigger does that, he will be denied nothing. Ever.
Roo calls him Bubba and it's kind of sticking as a nickname for everybody. His name is a little bit longer, and while it's not terribly difficult to say, Bubba is way easier when you're two. The other day he was under the weather and so Kanga and the kids stayed home. I was hanging out in the playroom with the girls and Stitch kept asking me something I couldn't understand. I thought she was talking about a baby, since we were playing with the baby dolls. Then I realized she was saying Bubba but I still didn't connect it with Tigger. She was super frustrated with me. Finally she stood up and came very close to my face and said, "HEY! Where is the BUBBA of ROO???" OH! That guy. :) He's home sick today, babe... and now he's Bubba all the time to all the girls.


I am manly. I eat Kix. And if you do not agree with me, I will show you my tall one. (that is what the Wiggles call that finger when they sing Where is Thumbkin?. Kanga and I think it's hilarious.)

Snow and Books And Random Stuff

• May I just tell you how tired I am of snow and ice? I live in a southern state partially to avoid this entire season. Five snow days in two weeks is just too many. So I stayed open today. I'll be open tomorrow too even if the kids don't go back to public school. Some people didn't make it in anyway today- I just had Hercules, Bianca, and newbie tiny boy. I think he may be Mater. I've sort of been thinking of him as Mater since before he even started, but I had to meet him and see if it worked.
• We interviewed this week for a six month old and I think he will fit in SO well here. Hope we get to take care of him. :)
  
• Day 4 is favorite books. Whatever our Read It Once Again book is becomes their current favorite since we do read it every day. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Big Red Barn, and The Letters are Lost are frequent requests. They also love Small Pig by Arnold Lobel. I think that's mostly because I love it and want to read it a lot. It was one of my favorites when I was a kid and in fact I wrote Arnold Lobel a letter and he wrote me back with a HAND-DRAWN marker sketch of a pig and told me he was so happy I loved his work. Super cool. Anyway. Ten Apples Up On Top and anything by Sandra Boynton are big hits too.
  

Movies and TV

Days 2 and 3 of the blog challenge ask about your favorite movies and tv shows. I figured I'd just roll that into one day since we don't usually watch full-length movies here. Very occasionally we do- they're fond of the Aristocats, and sometimes they watch the chapter of the Jungle Book that has the elephants marching. I also throw in snippets of live action movies if our topic of discussion works with it. They'll get on kicks where they want to have Singin' in the Rain or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers on in the background. They don't sit and watch the whole thing but they come running for the dance scenes and try to duplicate them, which is greatness.

As far as TV, we don't have channels in the playroom, just a DVD player. Movie time is 11:30- we clean up and put something on for them to watch while we get lunch ready. I do get new stuff every now and then (new to us anyway- I love Movie Trading Company!) but mostly it's the same few shows in the rotation. Pretty much everybody is happy if we put on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Little Einsteins, Dora, or the Backyardigans. Second string shows that please certain people in certain moods, depending on the day, include Wow Wow Wubbzy, Magic School Bus, the Leapfrog factory series, Word World, and the Wiggles. Silvermist always asks for Barney, but then nobody actually wants to sit down and watch it. And sometimes I throw in a Veggie Tales or a sing-along that may or may not be well received.

Sick of Ice

Wow. No school for the past three days here. The whole neighborhood is pretty much one solid sheet of ice. There's not even any snow to play in- you step outside and fall flat on your tail, even in the grass if you're not careful.

My hubby hasn't been able to get to work either, so we've been hanging around here getting progressively more bored. The good news is that I'm farther along on the mess that is my taxes than I've ever been at this time of the year. :) And I DO have all your statements ready- remi,nd me to give them to you when I see you. Or you can call if you need the numbers right away.

As far as scheduling goes, I don't know how the roads are outside of my very small area. I made it to the grocery store today and it took about five times as long as usual to get home. I hear it's still not so good everywhere around here. But I am tired of things being on hold and ready for it to get back to normal, so we WILL be open Friday, tomorrow, if you are able to get out and want to bring your munchkin. In addition, I've decided not to take Good Friday off this year like I generally do. Since it turns out Duchess will be in school that day and Hubs has burned a few vacation days because of this week, we won't be going anywhere like we thought. So we'll be open April 22. Hope that helps as far as this goes- the weather is such a pain.