We have the most amazing daughters. I thought the miraculous developments in the first year would be the apex of the wonder since so much happens so fast, but I'm continually surprised by our toddler. I shouldn't be, she's always been so inquisitive and observant and advanced, but I am. The sitter mentioned to me the other day that she's doing 25-30 piece puzzles that 6 year olds do. It is so difficult for me to remember not to expect too much of her because I do often think of her as being closer to 5 instead of almost 3. It's not fair to her; I'm afraid I s
ubconsciously put too much pressure on her. She has started memorizing her stories. It's so cute the parts that she really knows by heart. Lines that I will sometimes skip because the story can go on without them - those are often the ones she recites when she's "reading" to me. Tonight she did something that surprised me. After DH and I each read her a story, she reread them to us, but started at the end with each and made her way back to the beginning. Of course she recognizes the pictures on each page to know which set of text corresponds to them, but it surprised me because I would think it would be more difficult to tell the story in reverse than in the order you always hear it. I wonder if it's easier though because you to remember the most recent events (the last page) best and that helps her to connect to the older events (first pages). Regardless, she did an adorable job telling the stories.
And lest we not forget our baby girl, she is adorable as well. When S was a baby, she would reach up and grab my facial features while she was eating her bottle and trying to settle herself to sleep. And boy did she pinch! I think she started with my lip/mouth, and then as she got bigger and could reach further, she would hold onto my cheeks, then my nose, and finally, my ears. She settled on her own ears for self-soothing. To this day, she still rubs them when she's tired. Baby R's thing is hair. She does care
ss my face sometimes, and grab at the protruding parts occasionally, but if I'm holding her upright and carrying her around, she'll take a tiny fist-full of hair at the nape of my neck. Talk about a controlling place to hold! I can't move without disengaging her first. She has so little hair of her own, just short, fine fuzz all around except for a tuft on her crown with a few dozen hairs that are a couple of inches long. Her short little arms allow her to barely reach them with her fingers, and when she's tired, she pulls on them since their the only ones long enough to do so with. I imagine she'll be a hair-twirler when she's bigger. For now it's very cute; I'm just hopeful she doesn't give herself a bald spot.
We started feeding her solids, though I haven't been very consistent with her. She's not a big fan of cereal, but she does like carrots and cauliflower. I think peas will be next. I need to start making sure she's eating every day. I hop
e that will make her sleep get better. The spring weather is a wonderful change, but the extra daylight is wreaking havoc on the girls' schedules. As S says, "But Mommy, it's not night-night time. The sun is still out." Oy. Room darkening curtains aren't enough. Plus, we've been crazy busy since last Friday, so they haven't been getting to bed on time. My MIL's 60th bday was Friday, so my SIL came into town from Cali, and my FIL took her, us and my other SIL and her two kids to dinner Friday night. We had a sitter and didn't get home til 10pm. Baby R was still awake when we got back. Sigh.
Saturday morning, I took S to get her haircut. She won't let me brush it and she rubs the back of her head from side to side when she's tired and in bed or sitting in her carseat and it gets terrible knots. So I told her we were going to cut it short. She has the cutest angled bob now. Still struggles with letting me brush, but it takes MUCH less time. Anyway, after that, we came home to discover that the baby had only napped for about 30 mintues while we were gone. Not good. S was needing to go to sleep, too, but
it was the first non-rainy day that I'd been home for awhile, so I took them to a park and we had a picnic. It was really hot and muggy though, so we only stayed for about an hour. Then we got back and I tried to put them down for naps, but S was fighting it. She finally went to sleep, but only for a little over an hour. Baby R was about the same. Saturday night my FIL had a surprise party for my MIL, so we had a sitter again. This time at least the girls went to bed a little easier, but it was still a little later.
Sunday was the series finale of "Lost".
I invited a few friends over. I had decorated a little and made "island" cupcakes with "sand" and little umbrellas, as well as had pineapple and other tropical fruit, and made pina coladas. One of my friends and her husband printed out Dharma Initiative Soda and Diet Soda labels for the Dr. Pepper they brought and made Rice Krispie treats with a little bit of orange dye and cut into fish shapes for fish biscuits. We had a great time watching the show - LOVED the first
2 hours - and although the last 30 minutes were a bit anti-climactic, it was still a good finale ov
erall. And talk about a discussion piece! The theories were flying. But I digress... While we were watching the show, DH was putting the girls to bed for me, sweet man that he is. I did go up and say goodnight and snuggle with S a bit, but I left most of it to him. It was about 8pm when she finally went to bed which was a little late anyway. Then around 8:45 she was screaming - turned out she had something in her eye, I thought maybe a splinter. So we tried to flush it, which was of course impossible with a 2 year old. But that resulted in a tantrum and a crying fit which was the best thing for it. Around 9:30 she started screaming again and every time DH went in to ask her what she needed, she said me. He told her I couldn't come up right then and he could help her, but she wasn't having it. He finally gave up and thought she was just being a pill. Unfortunately, she had to go to the bathroom but wouldn't tell him, so she finally ended up peeing all over the bed. So we had to change the sheets and clean her up. So not only did I miss two important chunks of the finale (aack!), it was almost 10pm before the little darling was asleep. Needless to say she was super cranky Monday. And she and her sister have been getting up at 5am or 6am and staying up which is making me tired and cranky.
Tonight we got the girls to bed (I thought) by 7:30ish, so I got ready to go for a run and was just about out the door when baby R started crying. (Side note - I've started running in a 5k group. Well, in theory. I've only gone for about a handful of runs since the middle of April when we started. Between a horrific allergy attack due to running on the day with record-setting tree pollen counts - DUH, working 60 hour weeks, and 5 days of rain in a row, I've been less than successful.) Anyway, I was really looking forward to FINALLY being able to run again, and ended up spending until 8:45pm trying to get Baby R to sleep. Ugh. I did go for a quick 15 min. jog around the block which is better than nothing but not quite what I'd hoped for. So after getting up at 5:30am this morning and vowing to get to bed early tonight, it's now almost 10:30pm, and all I got done after my run was one load of laundry, my most recent photos downloaded and tagged, and the post written. Haven't finished tidying the house, doing the dishes, or doing the work I brought home with me. There just aren't enough hours in the day. Even when you are awakened an hour early....
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