Michael

has been changing things on the computers. Putting things here and there, archiving, etc. He found out that I was using the archives instead of the current files for things (I didn't know, of course...) and changed a whole bunch of stuff. Then I would be getting the current files, not the backups. However, in the process, he made it impossible for me to access our photos. Of course, I had no idea how to fix it myself, so when I finally remembered to tell him (this took several days, since I would try to upload photos, remember that I couldn't, try to find them again without success, then forget all about it by the time he got home), he fixed it for me. Of course, because that's the kind of guy he is.

So, since I haven't posted photos in a while (since I am technologically challenged, apparently), I thought I'd post some today for you.

It goes on...

Me: I have to call Dada.
Naomi: Actually, he's Horace Vandergelder.
Hannah: Naomi, don't correct Mama.
Naomi: Actually, I'm Hello Dolly.
Hannah: Hello Dolly, don't correct Mama.

Overheard

while Hannah was reading to Naomi this morning:

Hannah: Just a second, Naomi, I have to go potty.
Naomi: I'm actually Hello Dolly.
Hannah: Just a second, Hello Dolly, I have to go potty.

Unexpected

Today we went to the park with cousins and grandparents. It was a beautiful day (we've had a beautiful week of weather, we're beginning to be spoiled) and a bike and tricycle came with us. Our crowd got there first, so the girls rode up and down for a while, waiting for the cousins and grandparents. They finally arrived, bringing a rubber-band powered propeller plane. Grandpa Joe fired it off several times, then Hannah asked for a turn. She began to twirl the propeller to get it wound up for a flight. Grandpa Joe came and sat down.

Presently, one cousin came running over to ask Grandpa for help. Hannah had gotten the airplane stuck in her hair. After he tried for a few minutes, I began to realize that this wasn't going to be a short process, so I called them over and suggested that they go throw rocks in the water (since flying the airplane wasn't going to happen for a while) while I got the airplane out of Hannah's hair.

Oh.My.Goodness. Apparently, Hannah hadn't been paying enough attention as she turned the propeller to wind the rubber band. A piece of her hair that was hanging down had gotten all wrapped up in the thing. Luckily it wasn't in the rubber band, but it was definitely stuck in the propeller. Grandma Cinda and I both had a crack at it and ended up dismantalling the airplane in order to finally unwind it from her hair. Then I had the task of getting the snarls out of the hair. It was craziness. I think it took us about 45 minutes to get it out and the hair combed again.

Throughout the process, Hannah was completely calm. When she first came over, she asked if it would ever come out, and she also at one point suggested getting the scissors from the emergency kit. I'm really glad we didn't have to do that, since it would have meant cutting off at least 3 inches of hair in a prominent front/middle spot, which would have meant an impromptu haircut for the rest of her hair when we got home. And Hannah had just expressed a wish to not have a short 'do for summer this year. Phew.

There were some highly comical moments in all of this. Hearing one's nephew call for help, "The airplane is stuck in Hannah's hair!" You're not going to hear that very often. Watching Hannah come trotting across the field, one arm swinging free, the other holding up the airplane by the tail while the propeller remained quite stuck to her head. Joking with Hannah (once she knew it would come out, of course) that it might be uncomfortable to sleep with an airplane on her head, or that her hats would fit differently, etc.

But just so you know, if you're operating a rubber-band propeller plane, you should definitely keep your hair up and away from the propeller. This way you can avoid being dubbed "Airplane Head" for the rest of the day.

Keeping up

I was fixing Hannah's hair yesterday and asked if she wanted the purple or pink hair band on the first side.

"Purple, because it's my favorite color."

I was somewhat surprised, because I hadn't realized purple was her favorite color. So I said as much.

"Oh, it's been my favorite for a couple of days. After a couple more days, pink will be my favorite color again. Then it'll be back to purple."

I think I'm just going to have to ask her what her current favorite is, I'm not sure I can keep up with when it all changes!

Talent

We went to a cookout this afternoon. The kids had a great time, thanks in part to one of those jumper toys -- the kind kids get into and jump. This one had a slide and stairs and all kinds of fun. Naomi had arrived at the gathering in her fancy dress with her Hello Dolly dress over that. She was also sporting a pink "Houston Zoo" baseball cap and her rose-tinted sunglasses. She fairly quickly discovered that Hello Dolly dresses do not make it easy to climb into and out of jumper toys, so that was discarded without much ceremony. However, the adults were all commenting how much talent it took for Naomi to keep both sunglasses and hat on the whole time whilst sliding and jumping.

Pretend

Naomi has fully grasped the idea of pretending to be someone else. She hasn't fully grasped the idea that sometimes her parents forget that she's Hello Dolly and will (horror of horrors!) call her Naomi or Mimi. Hannah dealt with this at her age by saying that whoever she was being, Hannah was her nickname. We've tried to suggest this to Naomi, but she hasn't fully embraced this idea and still feels the need to correct us if we forget.

She's also decided that Michael is Horace Vandergelder. She calls him "Horace" all the time. It's hilarious. Of course, she also corrects me when I say to Sim, "There's Daddy!" Naomi: "That's not Daddy, that's Horace Vandergelder."

Luckily Sim doesn't get it yet or he'd be hopelessly confused. For now, only the rest of us are.

Opposing teeth

Sim has two top teeth and two bottom teeth. And he learned how to grind them. He gets this concentrated look on his face and grinds, grinds, grinds. I can't stand that sound, but he's having a great time. With four teeth. Hopefully he gets tired of it soon!

Well, they like our friends

Today we had some friends over in the morning. As we were finishing lunch and getting ready to start Quiet Time, Naomi asked, "Will they stay with us forever?"

Hannah followed up with, "I wish they could! I wish they could live in an apartment in our basement!" She went on to add four other families she'd like to live in apartments in our basement.

As fun as it might be for five families to split up our basement for apartments (!), they didn't take us up on it. Of course, they live less than a mile away, which may be part of the reason.

Naptime wakeup

In the wake of an exciting and energetic weekend, Hannah took a nap today. This is definitely noteworthy, because she hasn't taken a nap in Quiet Time for over a year. Naomi still occasionally falls asleep in Quiet Time, and she's a bear to wake up. However, she greatly enjoyed the novelty of waking up Hannah, who was a very pleasant little girl upon being awakened. Some pictures were necessary.

I wonder why?

This evening, after a long and full and fun day, Hannah was tired and ready for bed. She didn't think she was, though, and through her weeping over all the small and sometimes imagined things that were going awry in her life, she said, "I don't want to go to bed! I want to stay up for hours and hours. I'm not even tired! I'm wide awake!"

What about weeping copiously does she think will be convincing in this argument?

Sisterly love

This afternoon I was home with Naomi and Simeon, and I suggested doing singing time, which is something that we've been doing on and off with the girls. We just sing songs and dance and have fun.

Naomi: We can't do singing time without Hannah! That would be too sad.

CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN!!!!

Naomi has been having a rough week. This means that she's been napping in the afternoons, which in turn means that she's been awake longer after being put to bed. Hannah has not been napping, which means she's asleep immediately after we leave the room at bedtime. She's a sound sleeper, which on many occasions is REALLY helpful.

The girls trade nights for picking the bedtime CD. We've found that playing music is an effective way of getting whichever girl is a non-sleeper to stay in bed -- she just listens to the music. Usually she falls asleep. Sometimes, like last night, she sings along to the music. Naomi was singing along to the soundtrack from Sound of Music. We didn't really hear her until the end of the song, "Climb every mountain." At the end it gets very dramatic and loud...and so did Naomi. She was screaming along to the music, and at first I thought something was horribly, horribly wrong. So did Michael, who immediately headed upstairs. Then I realized that she was just trying to get loud and dramatic like the woman singing.

Michael came back downstairs and said, "I asked her what was wrong and she said she was just singing along." I think she's going to need some voice lessons before she takes that starring role in a musical.

Ummm...no.

After field tests, we've confirmed that the device is not terribly successful at keeping the drums quiet. I think Michael's would work a lot better. Apparently it's enough for Simeon, though, who's still asleep.

More on the neighbors

The neighbors stopped by the other night to let us know that they got a device to make the drum more quiet. (Michael says he has one, too, but they didn't ask. His is also used for chopping up logs.) They also mentioned that they've got a big concert this Saturday and invited us to come. Which was very nice. But we've already heard their repertoire -- over and over -- so I think we'll pass.

"Lingo"?

Hannah: I'd like to learn Spanish. It seems like a good little lingo to know.

This from the child who's afraid of cows

"Daddy, can you tell me a story about a dinosaur who eats us?"

Sitting up

Recently I realized that Simeon's about the age that sitting up independently happens. Sim hasn't mastered this skill and as I thought about it, I realized that maybe it's because I don't sit him up on a regular basis and let him practice. I mean, he sits on our laps and things and can definitely hold himself up -- he loves the horsie games wherein we bounce him on our knees -- but I hadn't let him practice much sitting up on his own, so I decided to give it a try.

I realized why I didn't get to let him practice. He doesn't want to sit up. Not that he doesn't like the way it feels muscularly. He doesn't think it's worthwhile, because when you're sitting up, you're not moving around, and WHY would you be on the floor if you weren't going to be moving around? Sitting up is far too stationary for Sim at the moment. He needs to be free to discover all the toys, cords, and sisters' beloved belongings that might be on the floor. So every time I sit him up, he immediately lunges to his belly and goes for the next thing he wants.

Because it's Mother's Day, not Children's Day

"Why is Mama sleeping so much this morning?!?"

Aaahhhh...sleeping in until 9 a.m.!

Michael is my hero.

There are, of course, many reasons that Michael is my hero. The one I'm writing about today is just one of them.

We have college students living next door to us. They're renting a small, fairly ugly house that is pretty close to us on the north. We're on a corner lot, so on the south we don't really have anyone, and behind us live an elderly couple on the other side of our back yard and theirs. They love to plant flowers, so their yard is full of flowers beginning with crocuses in the springtime.

The college students are probably fairly typical for college students. Except that they live in a neighborhood with a whole bunch of non-college-student neighbors. Neighbors who have children and sleep at night and wake up in the morning. This is not how the college students operate, at least on the weekends.

This was brought home to me in a big way a couple of weekends ago between 3 and 4 a.m. on Sunday morning. That was when Simeon woke up. Because there was loud music playing in our room. Wait, why was there loud music in our room? The white noise machine was on, not music. Oh, right, it was our neighbors' music. Waking up the baby over the white noise machine between 3 and 4 a.m. on Sunday. For some reason, this seemed unreasonable to me at the time. Okay, it still seems unreasonable. So when I had put the baby back to sleep, I woke up Michael, briefly explained the situation, and said that we either needed to call the police or ask them to turn their music down.

Michael said that he thought we should at least give them the courtesy of asking them before calling the cops. So, he put on his jeans and went over. Shortly, the music was turned down and Michael came back. He'd had trouble getting their attention because the music was so loud they couldn't hear him knocking on their door. He'd had to go to the window, which had frightened them quite a bit. They were sitting around, eating, listening to music. Between 3 and 4 a.m.

Of course, I was very grateful to Michael for going over there that time, and also grateful that the college students have recognized that we don't like loud music at odd times in the night and haven't disturbed us in that way since then.

They did, however, take to practicing with their band at bedtime. This wouldn't be so bad except for the drums. Oh, the drums. Have you ever tried to get a 7 1/2-month baby to sleep to the sound of drums? It's not easy.

So, last night, Michael took Simeon over to introduce him to the neighbors and ask them to please, please, for the sanity of his wife, muffle the drums. He didn't want to, especially since it's not after 10 p.m. when the noise ordinance is in effect. However, he went over and asked, and they complied. And they even said to tell them if they were still too loud.

I was able to get Simeon to sleep with no problem, and Michael continues to rack up the hero points.

I should have predicted this

Naomi used to ride her tricycle on the porch for 30-40 minutes at a time. Then, on Tuesday, a new-to-us tricycle that will handle hills much better came into her life, and she spurned her old tricycle for the new one. She has spent 3 days resisting riding her old tricycle on the porch. She still wants to ride constantly, and still wants to ride on the porch, but was insisting that she wanted to ride the NEW tricycle on the porch. OR -- she's open to alternative ideas -- we could go down to the sidewalk. Of course, that doesn't work so well when Sim's sleeping. I guess I should have seen that coming, since the new toy is SO much cooler...however, I'm also not interested in hefting it up and down all the time, so I've been telling her if she wants to ride on the porch, she would need to ride her old tricycle. She resisted.

Today, though, she finally broke down and is now riding her tricycle on the porch again. Judging from the sounds of happy singing and riding, things are getting patched up between them.

For some quick craft fun

we used this project. If you're like us and have at least one magpie for a child, you will already have all of the equipment for this project. If not, then you may need to get some Altoids. :) Hannah is currently running ours in our bathroom sink. There are big plans for the next bath!

I found the Instructables site via Alice Cantrell's website, which is also a good place to find crafts.

****UPDATE: Of course, it's all very fun, and all, but if the process of crafting is half the fun for your kid (like it is for Hannah), you may find this being said to you:

"That was a fun craft, Mama, but it was really fast. Can we do another craft?"

At which point, you pull out dried beans and glue and set the little crafter free to spend loads of time creating.

Absurdity in play

Today Hannah and Naomi were pretending to be two of the children of the All-of-a-Kind Family, which is a series of books about a Jewish family on the Lower East Side of New York in the early 1900s. Hannah was Charlotte and Naomi was Gertie. Naomi has recently gotten more insistent about being called the name of the character she's pretending to be, so there were some cute interactions:

H: Naomi, Mama said not to stomp because we'll wake up Simeon.
N: I'm Gertie.
H: Oh. Gertie, Mama said not to stomp because we'll wake up Simeon.
N: Oh.

They then went to the Easter bunny's house. While there, Naomi mysteriously morphed from Gertie to another Easter bunny.

H: Gertie, let's ---
N: I'm not Gertie, I'm an Easter bunny.
H: Oh. What happened to Gertie?
N: I became an Easter bunny.
H: Oh. I'm Charlotte.
N: Oh, hello, Charlotte!
H: I'm Jewish.
N: Me, too.
H: You can't be Jewish, you celebrate Easter.
N: Oh.

We're awaiting the next plot twist with eager anticipation!

Meal names

don't really matter much to Naomi. This morning she woke up and said, "I'm ready for my dinner." And right after her 8 a.m. dinner of oatmeal and O.J., she said, "Can I ride my tricycle?" I saw that one coming.

In the meantime, Hannah was annoyed because I interrupted her hour and a half reading time to ask her to get dressed and make her bed.

LOL Saints

Have you guys seen this yet? This one in particular cracks me up as a mom of small kids. Especially today, when Naomi refused to eat sweet potatoes, a food she usually LOVES, and told me repeatedly that she doesn't like sweet potatoes. What?!?

Suddenly Seattlites

When your mom goes to the second-hand kids' store and comes home with a new-to-you more rugged tricycle and a new-to-you big girl bike, suddenly a bit of rain in the afternoon doesn't bother you any more. You realize, in a flash of clear-sightedness, that rain doesn't hurt you, and that many activities (including triking, or learning to ride a two-wheeler) can be done in a light rainshower. This clear-sightedness lasts only until your mom then tells you it's time to go in. At which point, if you're three, you realize with sadness and despair: "I'm all wet!!!"

This doesn't prevent you from trying with all your might to convince your mom that you want to go back out and ride some more, though..."How about we play outside for three minutes?"

Yes, he's a calm baby

Yesterday I was feeding Sim some mashed up sweet potato off my finger and felt a tooth on top! Then, I felt further and realized that there were two new teeth on top! Good grief, I didn't even know he was teething. That has NEVER happened to me before with any of my children, including Sim with his first two teeth. He wasn't even cranky.

Another reason to love gardening

This morning a friend and I went to the Seattle Tilth annual plant sale. I've been for several years in a row and I love this sale...it's terribly addictive, since they have all kinds of vegetable and herb starts and they're awesome!

Well, it turns out that we got there 35 minutes after the sale started and the line was INSANE. No, really, it was crazy. They set up differently this year, so people had to wait to get into the sale instead of waiting to check out. All in all, that's probably a better setup than before, but when we got there and it was a line that would probably take about 2 hours before we even got into the sale, we decided we wouldn't be able to wait.

But we spotted a booth that was outside the sale, and there were plant starts there. We decided to check it out. It was the Seattle Youth Garden Works booth, and they were selling starts that they had grown. There were teens manning the booth and answering questions. I decided to have a look, since I needed to get some tomato starts for another friend.

The two teenaged boys behind the booth were so pleasant and friendly, and I asked them whether they'd grown the plants themselves -- yes, they had -- and what got them into gardening. One young man said he had loved to plant things for a long time and planted wherever anyone would let him -- his church, etc. -- and liked the opportunity to do more. The other said (this is a shortened paraphrase), "I needed something different in my life...I find gardening relaxing. I love watching the garden change from spring to summer and having a part in that."

It's not often anymore that I feel like I have a whole lot in common with teenage boys -- at least, not ones that I've never met before -- but I really felt like I had a connection to this kid because we both grow in the garden.

As we were headed back to the car with our starts, my friend asked if I knew about Seattle Youth Works. I had vaguely heard of them, and my friend was telling me that they're a program that works with inner city youth to give them somewhere to go and something positive to do in the out-of-school hours. So the gardening program is an offshoot of that.

I have to say that I was so favorably impressed by these kids -- and by connection, this program -- and it's another reason to love the power of the garden.

Overheard

Yesterday, after Grandma Ellie and Grandpa Larry arrived:

N: Where will you sleep, Grandma Ellie?
G.E.: I thought I would sleep in your bed, Naomi. [Grandma said this jokingly, figuring that Naomi would reject that offer.]
N: Oh, you would be welcome to sleep in my bed!
G.E.: [Somewhat surprised] Oh, but where will you sleep?
N: I will sleep with you in my bed.
G.E.: Do you kick?
N: No, only babies kick.