Cheerleading

This morning, Naomi was watching Michael shave. Here's what I heard:



"Need help, Daddy? You got it, you got it! [pause] Need help, Daddy? You got it, you got it!"



We've been using that mantra a lot lately as she becomes more proficient at various tasks, and she's happy to use it to offer help to her family members, too. Of course, if Michael *did* need help shaving, I'm not sure that the 2-year-old would be the best person to ask...

Oh my goodness

It's so cute I can barely stand it: Michael and the girls are downstairs, sitting on the couch, singing Easter songs together. Right now they're singing one that the girls know only the refrain, so he sings the verses, then they sing the chorus all together. Naomi seemed to prefer adding dissonance in the first couple of choruses, but she's getting it now.

Odd aquarium inhabitants

We were standing in front of a huge tank at the aquarium today, watching a diver feed the fish. It was mesmerizing, and the kids and I really enjoyed watching for a while. Then Naomi pointed to the top of the tank: "Bald eagle! Bald eagle! Bald eagle, Mommy!"

Needless to say, there wasn't a bald eagle in the tank. I have no idea what she was looking at. We'll have to try to straighten out this particular confusion with some pictures, and maybe a trip to the zoo.

Overheard

Yesterday, as Michael was getting the girls ready for bed, I heard Hannah say this: "Dada, I'm so glad you're my Dada and nobody else is!"

We found

our camera. Thank God! And thanks to a certain brother-in-law who suggested that I went to the new house the other day, did I set it down there? Indeed I did. Our contractor, who was there mudding the walls when I got there today, said he was wondering about it being there, and whether we didn't want it over Easter weekend. Well, we did, but that's okay. Some of the things we'll want to remember from this Easter we wouldn't have had a camera for anyway.

Like when the girls both got up at 6:30 and went downstairs, got their baskets, brought them up, and opened them on the floor of our room while Michael and I blearily cheered at each new find. They had the mercy to only turn on the hall light, not the light in our room. But there was no way, even had the camera been in the house, that I would have gotten up and fetched it at that point.

Or when both girls were singing along with all the songs at Mass and Naomi was doing all the parts, including the priest's, for certain sections of Mass. Very, very, very cute, but not really the time to whip out the camera.

Or when Naomi stuck her hand in the herb paste covering the yet-uncooked lamb. It's moments like those that soap and water are the first things you need to grab -- not the camera -- before the herb paste gets smeared all over everything.

Or when I was trying to man the door before the egg hunt, surrounded by several rabid kids and several toddlers who honestly had no idea what was going on, but thought going outside sounded fun. I think if I'd had the camera then it would have gotten smashed in the melee.

Or when I found a slug inside one of Naomi's Easter eggs she'd just found in the hunt. I'm sure the look on my face was priceless, but I'm glad it's not caught for posterity.

Luckily, others had cameras for the egg hunts and caught moments that were truly cute and memorable. Perhaps I'll post some soon.

I would have liked to capture the girls together in their matching Easter dresses with their new Easter sandals. Hannah also had a special hair decoration and the gloves that her dear aunt had given her for Easter. And the two seconds that Naomi wore her new headband with the bow on it were so cute, but I probably wouldn't have been fast enough with the camera to capture those two seconds, anyway.

SO...hopefully that gives you a bit more of a picture of our Easter, even if I haven't posted any actual pictures.

The echo

at our house isn't because it's so spacious and open since we cleaned for showing. It's because Naomi copies what people say on a startlingly regular basis. Rob was talking on the phone the other day to someone and said, "I hear that." Naomi, immediately, said, "I hear that."

She loves to copy what Hannah's saying, too. Right now, they're downstairs pretending to be characters from the Little House books.

H: "A wolf! A wolf!"
N: "A wolf! A wolf!"
H: "A panther! A panther!"
N: "A panther! A panther!"

Yesterday, when Hannah was talking to another little girl, Naomi was faithfully copying everything she said...until she got to, "anyway," at which point she decided she *really* liked that word, and just repeated it over and over.

About the Beavers

(Michael here)

Just to clarify matters, She-Beaver is the name of the mother beaver in the first Narnia book, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." Hannah and I have been listening to it on CD. Mrs. Beaver is quite on top of things: before the good characters all flee from their home to escape the Witch, she takes the time to pack a picnic lunch and laments that she doesn't have time to get pillows to sleep on. She is the epitome of quality housekeeping. (I mean, besides Monica.)

So, if Hannah is going to raid the "Saints from A to Z" book for names, and start with Z, I figured Narnia was fair game.

I admit, though, that She-Beaver was probably not the best choice.

Hannah wants to read

and do it NOW. She can actually read a bunch of words, she just doesn't have confidence, and when she encounters a word she doesn't know, she gets nervous and figures she can't read.

However, today she was spelling something. Here's what it was: NHR. Here's her explanation: "I put 'N,' which says 'nnnnn,' then the 'H,' which says its name [aitch], then 'R,' 'rrrrrrrrrr.' It spells 'NATURE!'"

I'm beginning to feel better,

thank God! Thursday I suddenly didn't need to lie on a horizontal surface all day, I didn't feel sick to my stomach once (a great blessing!), and I went shopping after the kids were in bed. Which is saying something, because usually, lately, after the kids are in bed, I'm in bed, too. I started putting my pajamas on when they put theirs on...around 6:30 or 7 p.m. But that night, I went shopping.

This morning, I got up and took a shower before I ate breakfast! This may not seem like much of a milestone, and it's how I used to do things before getting pregnant, but I haven't been able to do *anything* in the morning without eating lately, unless I wanted to court the possibility of passing out.

These are huge milestones. Another one: Naomi is sleeping, Hannah is in quiet time, and I...am not completely sacked out! Not to say that I'm giving up my daily nap...but I didn't feel like I needed it today.

Michael, I'm sure, is just worried what comes next. With Hannah, the second trimester was when we did our househunting...well, we've already covered that. With Naomi, the second trimester was when we remodeled our kitchen...well, we're not quite ready for that. Since we're moving in less than two weeks, the second trimester burst of energy will come in handy for that, but what comes after that to satisfy the second trimester need for action and adventure is anyone's guess! :)

Happy Easter!

We all enjoyed a wonderful Easter here. Mass in the morning was lovely, and both girls managed to make it through without melting down.

Naomi was introduced to jellybeans and chocolate bunnies. She liked both. Hannah had been campaigning for an early Easter egg hunt since Thursday, but she was forced to wait until yesterday, and she was not disappointed. Despite rain in the morning, by the afternoon things had cleared up enough to hunt the eggs outside. We did have some slugs that were trying to get involved in the hunt, but that just makes it all the more Northwest. Naomi caught on quickly to the egg hunt idea and got quite a few. We've misplaced our camera, so you'll just have to imagine it all...

The Great Name Debate

has begun. This morning, I overheard Hannah and Michael discussing names for the new baby, should she be a girl. Hannah suggested "Zita", a name which she'd just come across. Michael, on the other hand, said, "I think if it's a girl we should name her "She-Beaver"."

Hannah disagreed, "No, Dada, she's not going to be a beaver."

Perhaps Hannah and I will decide on a name for this baby, and let Michael sponsor a whale to name or something.

Uncle Rob

is in high demand. He's at our house this afternoon, and he's being carefully scheduled so that each of the girls gets enough time with him. They would prefer pretty much everything be done by Uncle Rob instead of me. He was happy to allow me to change Naomi's smelly diaper, though, so I don't have to fear that he'll take over all my duties. :)

We have a cold

complete with restless nights and 1,000-tissue days.

Hannah is really not enjoying her cold. She told me today, "A cold entails lots of whimpering." She's right, too.

Opinions sometimes change

When Hannah first found out that I'm pregnant, she was rooting for a baby brother. Yesterday, however, she told me she'd changed her mind. "I want a girl now. Because she'll be like me. If we have a boy, it'll be crazy."

Most kids

prefer to eat bread without crusts. Hannah has recently started pulling the crusts off of her bread and eating only the middles. To her credit, it really is usually just the crusts, without a large margin. If the heel of the bread is all that is left, Hannah would probably rather go hungry than eat it.

Naomi, on the other hand, doesn't like the middles. She only wants to eat the crusts. Under duress, she may eat pieces of crust with some middle attached. But she's just as likely to pick off the softer middle pieces (and give them to Hannah) as she is to eat them. And then she asks Hannah for her crusts. The only time she'll eat an entire piece of bread is when it's the heel. She was enchanted when I finally figured out that she'd probably like the heel. A whole piece of bread with crusts? It's almost too good to be true!

I have never experienced a child who only wants to eat the crusts. It does make for cleaner mealtimes, of course, since she eats the crusts Hannah usually leaves, and Hannah eats the middles that Naomi leaves.

Hannah, appalled

at the holes she discovered in Michael's socks, told him that I would make him throw them away. (She's right.) When he expressed regret over having to throw away socks, she said, "It's okay, Dada, she might let you keep them for cleaning rags!"

Things we learned from Naomi's party

Happy Birthday is a song we can all enjoy. Even if you're the birthday girl, you can sing it to yourself. And then you can refuse categorically to have *anything* to do with blowing out the candles, clinging to your father as if you're about to be burned at the stake (by said birthday candles) if you let go.

Also, an activity involving planting seeds at a 2-year party goes over very well. The seeds will not all get planted, some of the dirt will get scattered on the driveway, some nameless older sister will plant 4-5 pots herself, the kids will get pretty dirty, and a good time will be had by all.

When you're two, it's good to have an older sister to bring your gifts to you and help you open them, because otherwise you might get too involved in admiring one present and forget about all the others. Also, if you get a beautiful crown as one of your gifts, one that has ribbons and streamers coming off of it and a beautiful flower on it, it will be a most admired gift. You will refuse to wear it for longer than 3 seconds, but you will love it all the same.

Banana bread with chocolate chips works very well for a birthday cake, especially if bananas are your absolute favorite food on the entire planet.

Shakespeare

in the making: Hannah often likes to invent her own words. A few months ago, she explained to friends of ours how she was sitting and looking "starelessly" across the room. Today she wrote in a letter to her pen pal about how we have to have the house "spacelessly" clean before we leave, since it's on the market. She seems to prefer the "-lessly" words.

How cute can she get?

Naomi is standing here, doing a shape sorting game, and singing, "I see the moon and the moon sees me. God bless the moon and God bless me." Over and over and over.

Naomi just turned 2

but that's not what she's claiming:

Michael: How old are you, Naomi?
Naomi: 6 months old.

Anyone at her party: How old are you, Naomi?
Naomi: Six.
AAHP: Are you two?
Naomi: Yes.

2 days later: How old are you Naomi?
Naomi: Six.
2DL: Are you two?
Naomi: No.