My Daddy Dressed Me

I love dads who get involved.  There's something about a cute little girl and a daddy that is just awesome.  But baby girl clothes are so foreign to daddies.  One of the first girls I ever took care of is now about to finish fifth grade- her dad told me, "I knew I was in trouble when her mother told me I put her socks on the wrong feet.  Boy socks don't matter!"  And it's so true- girl socks have the cutesy little bows and ribbons and you're supposed to put them on the outside ankle, not the inside.  Hair is complicated, and clothes?  Forget it.  Men always think that a shirt should button up the front.  You never see any guy clothes that button up the back.  We get little girls coming in on a fairly regular basis with their clothes on backwards. It's immediately obvious to us and it's hilarious.  Or else they do things like put on a zip-up hoodie and track pants with no shirt underneath, so when you unzip you've got bare chest.    I love daddies who try.  I don't mean to mock them.  But it's still funny.

This whole episode made me laugh, partly because Lady was so angry for no good reason.  After all, her clothes were on properly.  :)  I was trying to take pictures of Perdita, who happened to be our backwards girlie.

 I'm happy!  But my dress is on backwards!

 No Lady, please scoot over so I can take a picture of Perdita's back.  You're in the way, sweetie!

 There, see.  It's backwards.  Want me to take a picture of you now, Lady?

 Oh wait.... apparently I offended you deeply.  My apologies.....

Words

I got out the dress up clothes yesterday- they've been in the attic for awhile so it's like they're brand new. Silvermist and Tarzan have been working through gender issues with the costumes.

Tarzan: "Silvermist tell me this not for boys!", waving a magic wand with a glittery star on the end.

Me: "You can use that if you want to! It's a wand. Like Harry Potter! He's a wizard."

Tarzan to Silvermist: "YEAH! See? I need this! I a LIZARD!!"

Peekaboo Boys

Watching Hercules and Tigger play makes me smile. It's so different than last year when we had girls this age. The noogies and horsing around make them so happy! They did this for at least ten minutes before I got the camera out.

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.

A House for Hermit Crab

I have been doing daycare for eight years and I've never seen anybody do this. Sometimes they scoot forward and crawl away with the chair on their back, but nobody has ever been able to stand up and WALK AWAY. Tinkerbell has some mad skillz.

Playing

Yesterday was low key and fun. Esme and Tink are both all over the place now- scooting, crawling, trying to pull up on things... they don't like to be in the living room anymore since I have to keep moving them away from the tv, so they spent at least an hour together in the playroom while the others were napping. They did really well- only knocked each other over a few times. Esme did pull a chair over on herself at one point, which didn't hurt her at all, and actually made me really proud since I didn't realize she was to that stage. They grow so fast.

O'Malley and Lilo are cracking me up on a daily basis with their imaginative play. I really like to sit at the table in the dining room or do the dishes and just eavesdrop on them in the playroom. They were playing in the kitchen area earlier and I caught this:

L: O'Malley!! Where you going? You need to come back here and help me cook dinner!
O: I don't want to.
L: Yes you do. Chop this... what is this?
O: It's tomato.
L: Oh. Yes. Chop this tomato. We are having lotsa vegetables for dinner! I making a big salad!

Then there is noise, and I peek in to see O'Malley looking defeated and halfheartedly whacking at the plastic tomato with the plastic knife.

O: I'm all done. I need to go find Catwoman.
L: No. First help me with dinner! Then we will go kill her.

Vegetables and Catwoman, that's how you balance some good gender-specific play. :) O'Malley got Batman Lego on the Wii for his birthday, and so he is currently obsessed with Catwoman. I love the Lego video games. When you kill the bad guys, they fall apart into a little pile of Lego bricks. It's adorable.

Size Matters

We have a couple of big baby dolls in the playroom that all the kids love to carry around and feed and wrap in my kitchen towels. Then when they're done, they usually end up tossing them face down on the floor. This causes Kanga and me to have heart failure when we come in and see a baby lying on its face in a corner somewhere. Just for a split second it's terrifying, even when you KNOW all the small babies are in the other room.

So. For comparison:

Mr. Hercules is in the middle. Baby dolls on either side. Slightly alarming, isn't it? :)

It Is Possum Day

Really? Possums? All the land mammals in the world and the curriculum people choose the lowly possum? Oh well. I suppose even possums deserve a special day. I'm having a hard time keeping the positive spin on it though. Look, kids! It's an ugly, nasty, ratty looking thing. And also MEAN! So I looked up some cute little possumy clips on youtube to get in a better mood about the silly rodents. The kids and I crowded around the laptop and watched baby possums do cute things for about half an hour. I especially liked the examples of the one playing dead in the yard. :)

Possum eating strawberries

Possum playing dead in the yard

Pet possum after his bath

Once you see the cuteness and carefully avoid any teeth-baring activities, they're not too bad. I do think it's giving the kids a pretty inaccurate view of what possums are really like though. :)

Other facts we learned today:
Possums are marsupials and carry their babies in a pocket like a kangaroo
They play dead when bad guys come
They hang upside down by their tails

And we made a cute art project with a bendy straw for a tail. :)

Aurora Thinks Produce Is Worth the Trip

I love this scene of K-Pax. I can't even remember how the movie ends, but watching him eat that banana makes me happy. I heard it was completely impromptu and that Jeff Bridges didn't know he was going to do it, which makes it even funnier.

Anyway. I have a big fruit basket on my table, and at night when we eat dinner it ends up on the floor behind the table because it inhibits eye contact and conversation. Depending on whose job it is to clear the table, sometimes we forget about it and it's still on the floor in the morning.

Nothing makes Aurora happier.

The word K-Pax has turned into a verb around here, as in, "Oh, get Aurora, she's trying to K-Pax a tangerine!" She never fails to notice when the fruit is down, and apparently she is not deterred by peels one bit. :)

Scuse Me, I Believe That's My Chair...

I love watching the babies get bigger. It is so much fun to get a tiny infant and watch them learn to do things. One day they're all just lying around on mats and the next they're rolling, sitting, standing... it's one of the best things for making sure this job never gets boring. There is always something new going on at each stage, for each kid.

Chip has learned to sit up alone. He is highly pleased with himself. He also really likes to grab his feet. We have learned two things from this:

1. If you put him in this particular bouncy chair, the effort of trying to reach his feet makes him fall over sideways. He's perfectly happy to hang there, but it looks really silly.

2. He does much better sitting on the floor. However, this results in a very Weeble sort of effect- he's constantly doing a slow roll sideways or backwards, because it's really hard to balance on just your bum while you're trying to put your toes in your mouth. Just doesn't work too well.

Roo was a few feet behind him in the living room, hanging out and totally minding her business, just chillin' on a blanket when Weeble Boy came crashing onto her from out of nowhere.

She was very startled.

Noses

We were playing outside the other day and I had Aurora sitting in the exersaucer since she's not quite walking yet. She likes hanging out with the big kids and looking at things, and they bring her things to do and talk to her pretty regularly.

O'Malley came over to say hi and she very carefully stuck her finger directly up his nose and laughed. I don't think she could have planned it any better. He freaked OUT.

"Aurora! NO! Boogers in mine nose! Uck! No touch!"

Then he comes to me to tattle: "MOMMY! Aurora touch mine boogers! So ucky! Need kleenex!"

These are the small things that make me laugh. :) My job is fun. We washed hands and noses and went on with the day.

Always Fun...

It never gets old for me to watch a baby falling asleep in his lunch. I love it every single time. Simba gets tired about 20 minutes before lunch is ready, but he's eating so much big boy food now that I hate to put him down without letting him eat what the other kids are going to have. He ends up dozing in his food on a semi-regular basis. It makes me happy. He's so cute.


Every kid I put in the jumperoo falls asleep in it at least once. O'Malley and ... (what did I used to call the baby I had last year... I can't remember his Disney name...) anyway, both of them used to keep jumping in their sleep. Girl Friday doesn't do that- once she falls asleep, she is OUT.


Oh! I remember now- Eeyore. That's what I called him. This one:

He'll be 2 next month- I bet he looks SO different. He probably has some more hair now. :) It always cracks me up when I haven't seen a kid in awhile and they've gotten tons of hair. It looks like they're wearing wigs.

Pumpkin Pie

I think it has been established (although, actually I think it was on my previous blog, not this one, so I'll see if I can find pictures of the last time...) that I enjoy stripping babies and taking undignified pictures of them in large melon-type containers. :) They are just too cute, even if they get mad about it! There's such a small window of time where they fit into fruits and vegetables that I just have to go for it whenever I get the chance.

Last spring I put O'Malley and Eeyore into watermelons. Oh look, I found the pictures! Eeyore was okay with it.



O'Malley not so much.

But now it's fall!!

My sister brought her baby Peanut over today and asked me what I was going to do with my big pumpkin now that it's November. I said I should probably get rid of it, so she cut leg holes in it and scooped all the gunk out. She had that boy down to a diaper and wearing that pumpkin in less than fifteen minutes.

He was a little uneasy about it at first, but then he settled in and decided it was okay.


I love that one with the lid on his head like a hat. It only stayed on for about four seconds at a time so we had to work together to get that picture.

Yum, first taste of pumpkin. I'm pretty sure it's better cooked!

Then Aurora woke up. She's younger and I wasn't sure if it would make her really mad, but I figured it was probably a once-in-a-lifetime event, because Peanut barely fit in there. She'd definitely be too big next time watermelons are in season. So I stuck her in there too.


It was kind of heavy and I didn't want to get pumpkin guts in her hair so I just held it on there.


I love this one, she looks so serious hanging on the side like that.

She only got mad when I took her out. Maybe it felt a little slimy on her back or something? This is a great face though- it's like she's just now realizing the indignities perpetrated upon her. :) Sorry Aurora and Peanut, but this is too much fun to pass up!

If One Is Good, Then Eight Is Better!

I went to Costco over the weekend and stocked up on fruit and veggies. Silly me, I left the pears on the floor while I figured out where to put all this stuff. O'Malley went to town, and I'm told by several unreliable sources that Snow White helped, but she denies any participation.

We've been eating pears for snacks like crazy the last day or two- I'm cutting off the bite marks and trying to foist these off on the family. :)

Channeling Bon Qui Qui

The big kids crack me up. I wish I could just follow them around with a tape recorder all day to catch the weird conversations they have with each other. I'm sure I don't hear half the things they say. I caught some stuff yesterday that has made me laugh again every time I think of it. Bon Qui Qui's customer service has nothing on these girls!

Our play kitchen is missing the plastic sheet that goes across the back of the refrigerator, so sometimes when you put food away it slides out the other side. They have discovered that if somebody stands on one side and somebody goes to the other, they can open the freezer and use it like a drive-through window. There is usually a line of kids on one side waiting for "food" and then a chef in the kitchen creating meals and handing stuff across. It's funny.

Ariel goes up and asks for "a taco shell with butter on it. BUTTER! Don't forget the butter, Snow White, I like it with butter!"

Snow's busy back there for a minute, hunting through our stash of plastic food for something resembling a taco shell, and finding nothing she passes empty air back- "Here you go Ariel, your taco with butter..." said in this voice that indicates such a thing is disgusting, but you're the customer so whatever.....

"This does NOT have butter! I said to put butter!" while inspecting the empty air and passing it back through disdainfully.

"Yes it does, see! Butter! it's right there!"

Ariel wanted to argue about it some more and Snow White was brilliant-

"Yook. I gotta yotta customers. I give you da food. You go away now. It's Sebastian's turn."

At least she didn't say she was going to cut her. :)

Influence of the Backyardigans?

The girls have been doing lots of really interesting imaginative play lately. I was in the kitchen cutting up nectarines and listening to them chatter. I couldn't figure out what was going on until I looked in on them-

Snow White was lying on her stomach on the floor screaming, "Huww-y! Da cwocodiwes ah going to EEEET MMMMEEEEEEE!" and holding onto Duchess's ankles.

Duchess was inching forward on her belly with Snow White hanging on her, while in turn grabbing hold of the toy vacuum and yelling at Ariel.

Ariel, the tiniest one, was in the front of the rescue line, pulling on the vacuum with all her might and trying to remove both her friends from the gaping maw of the "cwocodiwes." All we needed was a cliff and a raging river, and they'd be Indiana Jones and his team. Or Uniqua, Pablo, and friends...

I love this job.

Snow White One-Liners That Make Me Smile

My dad came in the other day and Snow White ran up to him yelling about her new tattoo and how he should look at it. He said, "Cool! Is it of your mother?"

I laughed and laughed and she looked extremely perplexed. NO! It's Diego!


This huge dragonfly sat on my porch wall for over an hour. I should have put something else in the picture to show the scale- it was almost as big as my hand. Everyone kept staring at it and talking about it and after awhile Snow came to talk to me, all worried. I love the way she sometimes talks in questions, and then other times she takes things that ought to be questions and phrases them as statements. It makes her really fun to listen to.

"That bug? That one on the wall? He is taking a nap? Or else he is dead!"

I opened the door to check and he flew off. She was pleased to know he wasn't dead and yet simultaneously highly annoyed at me for scaring him away.

Mr. Potato Squid

Snow White was so excited to show me her creation.

"YOOK!  YOOK, I make a SQUID!"

Sleepy

This is Mu-shu. If you haven't seen Mulan, Mu-shu is the little Chinese dragon that follows her around and talks to her, kind of like Jiminy Cricket but not so wise, since he's voiced by Eddie Murphy. I was trying to think of what I could call him and I figured this was a good choice since they live in China.

He's gone back home now, but I'm still going through pictures. Eating lunch is really hard work.

He was actually on the way up in this second picture because he heard me laughing at him, but he just couldn't get his eyes to open...


When I took the tray off, his head leaned forward and thunked into the side of the chair. Audibly. It didn't phase him a bit.

Greasy, Greasy Babies

I have referred to babies several times in the past as being greasy. I realize that needs explanation.

My sister read somewhere about a study they did on newborns to determine the reasons why some moms never feel like they're finished and always want another baby. Apparently babies emit some sort of pheromone- it's actually kind of like a grease, and it's addictive to adult females of all sorts, but most especially to their moms. It makes you NEED to hug and snuggle and kiss the baby because you need its grease. It's some sort of innate thing to make you want to bond with your baby and hopefully ensure it doesn't have failure to thrive, or I think that was one of the conclusions of the study. The effects of said grease taper off as the baby gets older, and disappear around age three. So, as your child hits age three, the grease wears off, you realize the terrible threes are SO MUCH WORSE than the terrible twos and why did nobody warn you, and you want another baby. Because you are going through grease withdrawals. Crazy, huh? I have no idea who "they" are or where she read about the study, but we have latched onto it because we like the concept, whether it's true or not.

So. When a baby is especially cute and delicious and we want to kiss it, we always talk about how greasy it looks. Nothing to do with hygiene or cooking oil or anything like that. :)