Friday Focus: Bolt

Bolt is a good name choice for this girlie.  She is so fierce and tough and independent, but she still rocks her pink bows.  She makes me laugh every day.

 

She's on a wicked nap boycott lately- just doesn't feel like she needs to sleep much.  Some days she refuses to nap at ALL and yells at us when we try to put her to bed.  No tears, not sad,  The chick is angry.  Just yells.  The minute you get her up she's all sunshine again and just goes and goes.  She's very much The Little Engine That Could.  Much more than meets the eye.  :)  She's one that I could easily see being an Olympic gymnast.  She's wiry and strong and so determined.  Nobody's gonna tell her she can't do something.

And she's so snuggly and koala bear when she feels like it.  She settles in and holds on tight around your neck and just grips harder if you act like you're putting her down.  It's especially fun to snuggle her in her pink bear suit.  It's full length and has ears and feet and the whole shebang.  Pretty awesome.

Being as independent as she is, feeding her has been interesting the past month or so.  She would rather die than let us spoon anything into her mouth like a baby.  Although she sees no problem with eating oatmeal with her fingers… we sometimes do.  :)  It gets pretty messy but she has such a good time and it makes for really fun photos.  I didn't realize how many I have of her eating!

Not a fan of kale the first time we tried!

Her name is one that's pretty easy for the other kids to say and so she's kind of like Norm from Cheers.  She comes in and everybody yells her name.  When she gets picked up in the afternoons, Maid Marian will yell "BOLT!" and then run to her and pat her on the back, just to make sure that her dad knows which kid he's supposed to take with him.  It's hilarious.  The other day MM was out and he joked that he wasn't sure who to pick up without her help.

She just adds so much fun to our days!  We love you Miss Bolt!

Friday Focus: Russell

I've had this post in draft for months because of the picture issue.  I just think posts are more fun with pictures.  But it's taking forever to work out the bugs and Russell is going to be leaving us soon, so I have no more time to wait.

He's getting a nanny that will come to his house!  I will say, one of my favorite non-baby things about this job is the zero commute, so I totally approve the idea of having one less place to go.  It'll be super easy for them to not have to trek over early, especially on rainy days.  We will miss him though.  :(

Russell is such a happy kid!  He's got the most awesome goofy grin and he just wanders around finding  stuff to do on his own.  He's mobile and pretty independent and he's perfectly fine to figure out his own entertainment.  I love when they do that- it's really fun to watch his mind at work.

Oh and of course, now that I try the pictures one last time, they work.

He really likes to put his head down on the girls' backs while they're trying to crawl.  He could pin them down pretty easily if he put his mind to it, but usually it's more like a fierce hug.

See?  Such a great smile.

He falls asleep in his breakfast on a semi-regular basis.  He eats fast and gets tired of waiting for his friends to hurry up and finish, so he just takes a snooze on the tray.

Nothing bothers him  So happy.

Sharing a toy with Mufasa.

This monster poncho pleases me so much.  I think, far more than it pleases him.  He looks so cute with it on though and he always gets compliments when I take him up to the school to get O'Malley wearing it.

We love you Russell!  Have a great time in your next adventures!

Friday Focus: Violet

It's Violet! Her mama decided pictures were okay after all, so you get to meet her officially.  She's not so sure about the idea, but I like this picture.  Shows off her gorgeous eyes.

She cracks me up- I'm convinced there are actually two Violets.  There is the one that her mama knows, and then there is the one who comes to daycare.  Both are fabulous, but they act so differently that it's comical.  Every time I say something about what she's doing, how she acts in different situations, the things she likes to eat, the way she sleeps, ANYTHING, it's almost always the exact opposite of what she does while she's at home.  I'm always so surprised to hear about her evenings and weekends, because I never get to see most of the things that she does there.

Here she's very deliberate and kind of serious.  She gives out big smiles, but I think I've only heard her laugh once or twice, and she's cautious and careful.  She gets her feelings hurt pretty quickly and will be upset by people coming too closely, even if they don't touch her or knock her down.  Rather a large personal bubble.  :)  And at home, she sounds really giggly and carefree.  Of course, Mufasa is never at her house trying to crowd her, so there's that.

I've never had anybody do this before and I think it's the cutest thing!  I bet her mama will be the kind who puts cute notes in the lunchbox every day.  I always think I'm going to do that at the beginning of the school year and I never actually do it.

Friday Focus: Maid Marian

Maid Marian has turned one recently and is ready to attack the world with both hands. She's such a sunny little kid a majority of the time.  Lots of fun to hang around! 

She's pretty much always willing to do the cheesy poses.  I can't remember if she put this hat on herself or if we staged it, but she loves having the camera in her face either way.

See!  I will come closer now and show you my cuteness!  Also can I have a bite of whatever you're eating please?

Again with the hats.  I didn't realize we have multiple pictures of her in headgear but apparently that's how we've amused ourselves this summer.

She's not been wildly enthusiastic about making the transition from hand-fed by us to doing it herself.  I could never get her to eat a banana, until I remembered a little guy I took care of years ago who refused to eat cut-up food.  Sure enough, she's the same way.  I mean really, who wants to eat broken food?  It needs to be large so she can drag it home to her den and gnaw it to death.  Clearly.

Uh, no thanks.  Little pieces are for babies.  I'm all grown up and I am far too cool for this stuff.  But check out my snazzy accessories!

She loves being able to pull up and just come stand next to us if we're on the couch.  She does that a lot while I feed one of the babies.  Sometimes she wants to try to sneak a sip of the bottle she's no longer getting, and gives the most pathetic and dramatic lower lip when we tell her no.  Anna says she's a graduate of a bad actress school for babies.  It's so true.  Or maybe soap operas in her future?  Such overblown gestures and melodrama.  I can't help but laugh at her every time.

She's also getting into the stage where suddenly things are scary that never were before.  Highly suspicious of park swings, this one.

She's just full of life and love.  So happy.  I read an article somewhere on facebook (and of course now I can't find it anywhere) that talked about the shifting of balance in the way we talk to baby girls.  There's been that whole thing where you're not supposed to start off by telling them they're pretty because then they think that defines them, and how we should focus on what they DO and who they ARE, not what they look like.  All true.  However, this particular article focused on a study that was done with dads and their daughters.  It found that girls who had dads who regularly told them that they're beautiful ended up more confident in themselves and tended to believe it more.  Even if they roll their eyes and say, "Oh come on dad, you're the only one who thinks so", there's a sub-conscious connection there that does super good things for their brains and the way their self-image is shaped.

Maid Marian's daddy, every single morning without fail when he drops off, tells her "daddy loves so you much baby girl, you're so beautiful.  So beautiful."  She smiles like the sun every time she hears it and it makes me all gushy inside.  You can tell she's hearing it in her brain, not just her ears.  Daddy thinks she's beautiful, and so she is.  I love it so much.

Friday Focus: Mufasa

Ah, Mr. Mufasa... such a character.  This kid is going places in a hurry.  He's amazingly strong and has a crazy tight grip.  He loves to try to help me do dishes and when I attempt to scoot him back, he can lift the entire bottom rack and pull it onto the floor with him.  I don't think I've ever had anyone pull the whole thing off before.  Legendary persistence, this one.  It's terrible when it comes to pinching though- he leaves marks that stay on the back of my arm for days.  Must channel strength into productive avenues!

But seriously, when he's this cheerful, how can you be annoyed about a little pinch?  Usually it's only me or Anna who gets it- not the other kids.  He just motors around being happy.

He, Bernard, and Flynn are pretty much like the three musketeers these days.  It's fun to watch them discover new skills and be alternately annoyed and delighted with each other.  They take turns leading the mischief and like to travel in a pack.

As hard as he plays, that follows into his sleep.  He's happy to crash out anywhere, and doesn't mind if you transfer him from a car seat into your arms and into bed.  I'm super jealous of that ability, as neither of my kids would do it. 

He couldn't make it home from school- we went and had lunch with O'Malley the other day, where the attendance secretary fell completely in love with him.  She's always sad when I don't bring him with me.  Oh, where's my smily boy?  she says.  :)

All that charm is hard work.  He almost always sleeps all the way home. 

Merida is learning to say his name and I love the way she does it.  He has a three syllable name and she takes the middle.  Using Mufasa, it would be like she calls him fa-fa.  So cute.  I call him that half the time now too.

This just happened now: yesterday I sent him home with no pants on, just a onesie.  By the end of the day neither his dad, Anna, or I could remember what pants he'd been wearing or where they had gone.  About thirty minutes ago O'Malley came home from school and I noticed he was wearing them.  As shorts.  He's so skinny they fit and he just thought I must have bought him new shorts and stuck them in his room.  You know, because I always throw his new clothes on the floor... crazy man.  He's SO mortified.  18 month pants.  All day at school.  He rocked them.  Guess I'll be washing those and returning them!  Mystery solved.  :)

Friday Focus: Flynn

Sometimes a last minute phone call just works out so great.  This cutie pie interviewed on a Friday afternoon and started Monday.  His family is friends with some of my extended family and they called when he was born, but it was before Anna started with me and I didn't have space. Since things have changed, it worked out for him to come play with us now.

Just lounging under the table, you know, like people do...

I really can't remember ever having a smoother transition with a one year old.  He's amazingly, delightfully cheerful just about all the time.  With the exception of trying to cut about six teeth at the same time, he just doesn't get sad much.  He's really fun to hang out with.

All you have to do is nod your head or open your eyes wide and he busts out laughing.  I mean, I get that I'm funny lookin', but he takes it to the next level.  :)

Not a great eater yet, but he doesn't seem to be in danger of starvation.  Live on those cheeks a bit if needed! 

Pensive.  That's about as upset as he's looked in the past month.  Aren't those eyes to die for?

Recently he got a big boy haircut.  I can totally see why momma was putting it off.  It does change the look of his face so much and really takes away a lot of the "that's my tiny baby" vibe.  However, I LOVE IT SO MUCH.  Such a handsome tiny man now.

 
Vanellope's mom (pre-haircut) and Bernard's mom (post-haircut) have both thought that he was theirs from the back.  I love having a group of kiddos that are so close in age and who play so well together that it's hard to tell them apart from across the room.

Here are my three musketeers boys.  They play like brothers- really well most of the time with the occasional fight to the death moment.  :)  Flynn is a fabulous addition to our day and we're so happy to have him!

Friday Focus: Vanellope

Vanellope turned one last month and her birthday theme was "Vanellope in One-derland".  Of course she had to wear an Alice dress.  This wasn't during daycare but it's so darn cute that I had to show her off.  I loved this one especially because it looks like the chair is too big and she just drank the "drink me" potion to become too small or something.  So fun!

Back at school, she finds all kinds of fun things to keep herself busy.  The Viking hats continue to be popular items.  Best $2.99 I ever spent, I think!  I love how pleased with herself she is here.  (I also really like the contrast between these pictures- it's just like the movie, with uncomfortable Princess Vanellope in fancy clothes vs. the sassy racer who's comfy in her hat and jammies.)

Here she is with Bernard.  She was trying to put the hat on his head too but all the pictures I tried to take of that came out really blurry.  It was super cute though.  You'll just have to take my word for it.

And here's her new "twin", Flynn.  He started a few weeks ago and they look really alike, especially from the back.  They're only about six weeks apart in age and they play really well together!

Spaghetti and blueberries for lunch was a big hit.  She's getting better about eating more things.  Still pretty hit or miss, but when it's a hit, she'll eat more than you ever thought possible for somebody as little as she is.

She's getting pretty close to taking steps here.  Haven't seen her do it yet, but her mama says it's happened a few times at home.  She'll stand up in the middle of the room and just look around wildly with a big smile.  Sometimes it kind of reminds me of a meerkat scouting out danger.  :)  Right now she still thinks crawling is a lot faster though, so if she decides she needs to be somewhere quick, she drops and is off like a shot. 

Vanellope is Anna's girl in a BIG way.  She tolerates me enough to be happy to come to me in the mornings, which is definitely a good thing.  Once Anna gets here though, I am chopped liver.  It's only occasionally that she decides my lap is better than the cold hard floor.  If she can't have Anna, I'm usually not an acceptable substitute unless I have food that looks good.  It makes me laugh how often the kids will pick one of us to LOVE.  A lot of them do it, and sometimes they switch.  I suppose most kids do that with their parents too though, so it's reasonable.  Spending a lot of time with two people, it makes sense that you feel closer to one than the other at different stages.

Oh, and she still hates painting.  We're starting the Very Hungry Caterpillar unit again, and I had to hold her hand around the brush while she yelled and slapped it on the paper.  Not to paint the leaf, you understand, but in violent protest of the entire process.  The end result was paint on paper though, so I'm counting it as progress!  :)

Friday Focus: Merida

We're living on borrowed time with Miss Merida these days- she's already got a June graduation date set.  A space is opening up at the preschool where her big sisters go and they're willing to take her early.  We are less willing to give her up and will miss her lots, but I completely understand the reality of wanting to have all siblings at the same location.  It will make pickup and dropoff so much easier for her family. 

So with only a couple months left, we're just trying to eat her up every day.  I love this kid.  She's so funny and her little personality is just so original.  Right now she's really enjoying the growl.  We try to set her up for success by reading lots of books and playing with wild animals- lions and tigers.  She really wants the horses and cows to growl too though.  She roars and growls at everything that moves and then falls down laughing.  I'm trying to transition it into a vroom noise for cars too- that works on occasion but mostly it's very lionesque. 

She's super lovey and will look for people who need hugs.  She likes to sneak up on us from the back and tackle our legs, and her favorite thing is for me to lie on the floor so she can jump on my back and pounce.  It makes her really happy when I pretend she's killing me and make OOF noises while she bounces.  Sometimes I don't have to pretend all that much.  She's energetic!  :)

She's our best eater- loves grape tomatoes and peas, we've discovered lately, so there's been a lot of that on the menu.  It's always nice to find veggies the kids will eat. 

No pictures for you, sorry.  :)  You'll have to just keep imagining her gloriousness.

Friday Focus: Alice

Look, it's Alice!  I like this picture of her.  It's the current one on her cubby. She's very excited about "hair pretties" these days.  Her mom brought me a whole bunch so I can continually put little piggies in.  Makes everyone happy.

She really is pretty happy most of the time.  This was a rare sad moment I caught and it doesn't even look too sad.  More horrified, or possibly constipated.  :)  Mostly she just plays and talks and makes cupcakes and talks and reads and talks.  Oh, and also talks.

This post has been sitting in draft because she has SO many awesome one-liners that I get bogged down and overwhelmed when I come to write them down.  She makes me laugh out loud every single day, and her vocabulary is pretty amazing for her age.  She's spending the night tonight.  I was sitting at the table eating mac and cheese with her while my iTunes played on shuffle.  Some song by Material Issue came on, I don't even remember which one.  She starts bopping around in the chair immediately.  "OH!  Ms Kelli, do you like this song?  Will you rock out with me?"

Rock out.  I could die from the cuteness.  And then other days it's like still having Kanga around.  She'll follow me around and say really grown-up sounding things like a coworker would.  "Oh, are you pouring Perdita milk?  That sounds like a good plan."  FOR REAL.  She says things like that all the time.  "I think actually we ate pears last week Ms Kelli."

And I'll say, "would you like some more milk?"  And she says, "That would be a yes."  She kills me.

She got super huggy awhile back- this picture is kind of old since Mater was still here, but it was a really fun morning.  They all went around and took turns hugging, and she was orchestrating it all.  "Okay, now I will hug Remy.  Lady, you hug Mater.  Now I will hug Mater.  Remy, you hug Lady."  It just went on and on and then they started spinning around till they all fell down. 

Right now she's enjoying cupcakes and dinosaurs.  Oh, and the Three Bears still.  Officially we've finished the unit, but we still talk about it and read the book at least a couple times a week.  I eat pretend cupcakes probably 30 times a day too.  And she still loves anything blue.  Cracks me up.  "This is blue!  Blue is my color!  I like it!  It is pretty like me!"

And it absolutely is.

Friday Focus: Lady

Lady is my oldest kid!  I know I say all the time how quickly it flies by, but it's so true.  She's getting ready to graduate and it seems like just yesterday that she was a new baby. 

I have trouble getting good pictures of her because she usually lunges forward and wants to look at the picture on my phone before I've finished taking it, so I get big chunks of nose and forehead, or else her eyes are closed.  This one turned out really well though, finally!

She's not one of my more adventurous eaters.  This was Green Eggs and Ham day.  Note the clean spoon and untouched food.  Milk maid at work.  She'd probably drink a gallon a day if I let her!

The story of this picture makes me laugh- she was fixing breakfast with various plastic peppers and asked Mater to come sit down by her.  He did.  And then she gave me this look, like "you see what I have to work with here?"  I'm not sure if she thought he should sit in a different place or what, but he did exactly what she asked and then it made her mad.

This one happened this morning- it's not really a great picture of her, although it's more representative of the type of shots I generally get.  She was engineering a "let's hide from Kelli" game and had everybody bring the chairs in.  They were all lining them up in a row and then they stood behind them.  They didn't sit or crouch or anything.  But their legs were behind chairs and I guess that meant I wasn't supposed to see them at all.

Then they yelled, "We hiding!!" at me for about ten minutes while they laughed. 

She likes to be the queen bee, but if somebody else comes up with an idea, she's a good team player too.  I think she has a good balance there.  She plays really well with Girl Friday, who is about four months older and is getting into actual play with friends, rather than just the parallel play that a lot of the kids here do.  She's going to have an amazing time when she gets to her new school and is one of the younger ones- she'll have no trouble keeping up with the older kids and will LOVE all the new stuff she gets to do.  I'm excited for her!!

Friday Focus: Roo

I think this may be the last post I do on Roo.  She's old.  :)  I haven't done one on Duchess or O'Malley in a really long time- they're off at school and they like their privacy.  MOM! You're not going to blog that are you?  Definitely don't put it on Facebook!!  And Roo is starting to be the same.  She's off at school every morning, and is busy hanging out with her Kunyai many afternoons.  I think she was only here 8 afternoons the whole month of October.  It's Thursday and I haven't seen her yet so far this week.

Roo turned four a few months back and is very much following the pattern I remember of four year old girls from Duchess and Belle.  For the most part, she's inquisitive, helpful, funny, and TALKATIVE.  And then she throws in such utter sass and disrespect that you want to find a large stick to whack her with.  And did I mention she never stops talking?  Never.  There are no secrets with this one.  Talking to her is so much fun though, and she's able to carry on real conversations with insight and witty remarks.  Plus she's in the "actually" stage, which is always a bonus in my book.  And she taps her chin with one finger and says, "I think..." before a lot of her sentences.  "I think... we have noodles and meatballs for dinner, mama."

Kanga went to parent conferences at school a few weeks ago and some of the anecdotes she heard are hilarious.  In the mornings, the kids all meet in the cafeteria to eat breakfast and hang out, and then when the bell rings they walk to class.  Teacher said that Roo wheels herself down the hall very slowly because she loves to be the last one into the classroom.  She stops in the doorway and yells, "Good morning everybody!  I'm HERE!!!"  Every.Single.Morning.  :) 

I don't get to see a lot of her therapy progress anymore, since it's all at school and the ECI ladies don't come to my house.  I hear she's getting really fast with her wheelchair though, and also walking the length of long hallways with her walker.  Here she's still our slithery snake.  She must have wicked upper body strength by now.  She's super fast at the commando crawl.  She'll go up on all fours and crawl if you ask her to, but it makes her tired a lot quicker and she prefers the slither.  Downside to this approach is losing your pants.  She still leaves them behind a majority of the time.  She's very slender and it's hard for Kanga to find pants that fit around the middle anyway, and then dragging her lower half on the floor like she does- off they go.  SO many times she comes into the kitchen and I say, "ROO!  Where are your pants?"  And sometimes she'll say, "They in the playroom.  Can you go get them?"  And if we suggest that she should be the one to get them?  "Oh actually?  I can't.  Because I have no pants!"  Circular logic if I've ever heard it, but it works for her.

This picture makes me laugh out loud and go "Riiiiiiii-cola" every single time I look at it.  She made herself hysterical blasting crazy noises into that pool noodle.


Kanga and Tigger were busy the day of Aurora's birthday party and so I took Roo with me when I took my kids.  It was SO much fun to get to have her out and about.  It was at a tea room and they got to dress up and have tea and then did a parade around the square outside.  She had a blast!

 Wings and a crown!

 Do you take one lump or two?

Duchess and Roo, making their way around the square.  O'Malley's along for the ride but not super excited about being the only boy at a tea party, even if he is the prince.