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A Tale of Two Weekends

After a totally crazy Friday, Matt and Tabby left for their very first daddy-daughter weekend. They flew to Nashville to meet our new niece and cousin, Baby Autumn. They had a great weekend, filled with baby snuggles, fun outings, and plenty of attention for Miss Tabby. It also made us realize that there will be a day in the not too distant future when air travel with the kids will be a helluva lot easier. Like when Ben is Tabby’s age (or maybe a bit older). I missed having them around like crazy, but I’m so glad they had a nice trip.

Meanwhile, back in CO, Ben and I had a wonderful time together too. Friday night we had a Team Umizoomi mini marathon (2 eps) and CHICKEN NUGGETS for dinner. Saturday we went to the gym (always a hit), ran some errands and then he had a very long nap while I got some things done (cleaning). He was my date at a dinner party with our friends and their kids and he had such a nice time being one of the big boys, running around playing with toys and dressing up in costumes.

Sunday we went grocery shopping together and then Christmas shopping with my mom and sister. We finished up by having dinner with Papa and GiGi as well and then straight home for bedtime. He was pretty exhausted.

He was super cuddly this weekend and kind of unsure about not having Daddy and Sissy around. He only wanted Mommy to hang out with him and hold him and help him. A bit exhausting, but sweet. It was so nice to be able to focus only on him and really hear what he has to say (a lot) and sing (Jingle Bells!). He is coming along so well developmentally and I think sometimes I don’t notice it as much because there’s so much more going on around us. I also noticed his behavior was somewhat improved. No doubt the extra attention had something to do with that.

 

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Music City Weekend

Tomorrow, two lucky people are heading to Music City for the weekend. See Matt’s sister had a beautiful baby girl a couple of weeks ago and they are headed to pay her a visit. We were initially planning to wait until February to go see our new niece and cousin, but we just couldn’t wait. Unfortunately we’re out of vacation time, so a weekend was about the best we could do. Of course taking two kids for a weekend trip (out Friday, Back Sunday) seemed a bit too insane even for us, so we decided it would be best for just half of us to go.

Of course I wanted to be part of the half that gets to snuggle the beautiful Miss Autumn Grace, but it didn’t seem fair for me to go see Matt’s sister and the rest of his family. So I encouraged him to take Tabby with him and proposed that I stay home with Ben. So that is the plan. I know they’re looking forward to some daddy-daughter time – Tabby always relishes alone time with any adults. And of course I am looking forward to some time with just my Ben.

We’ll try not to get too crazy.

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Hooked on Phonics

Reading fun is afoot at my house. Tabby, who will enter Kindergarten next year is in the midst of learning a bunch of pre-primer sight words. Every night this week we’ve been drilling her on them (truly a record for us as far as consistency goes). It’s making a difference too as she seems to be learning one or two new ones every day.

Though I know she’s supposed to learn these words just by sight (some of them can’t, in fact, be sounded out), we have been trying to help her through some of the phonics as well, knowing it will come in handy later on and give her clues even now.

So apparently, all the phonics and learning to read stuff is working its way into my brain. This AM at the gym, while doing Turkish Getups, we were listening to Ke$ha’s “Tick Tock,” I made some comment about the song and called her “keeeeesha (long E).” My sister, all-knowing corrected me. “It’s keh-sha (short E).”

“Ahh,” I said, “well actually that makes more sense. I guess I thought the $ made the E long.” It was probably a mark of how early it was, as opposed to my wit, that we al laughed like mad.

That would have been a bitch of a phonics rule to teach to Tabby, alright!

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Tabby at 4.5

Hard to believe our girl is half way to 5 years old. She seems like such a big girl in so many ways. She has gotten to be incredibly independent and I’m always quite proud and slightly wistful when I see how capable and self-assured she is. She does so many things all on her own … brushes her teeth, puts away her dirty laundry, makes her bed, picks up her room, writes letters, washes her plate, buckles her carseat, gathers her stuff for school, etc. etc. We have to spot-check some things of course, but it’s less and less. She is hugely social and pretty much nonplussed with new social situations. She truly enjoys being with people and likes to chat up people in public who interest her. And she’s forever asking who we’re going to see or who’s coming over.

She loves to help with almost anything we’re doing. Cracking eggs, stirring batter, chopping veggies. She helps me fold laundry and set the table. She is incredibly good with her little brother. She likes to teach him things and as much as she enjoys that because she enjoys being in charge, she truly enjoys helping him become a big kid. They play a game where she sings some words and he fills them in and she is super proud as he learns new bits of her favorite songs and new words for this and that.

Of course it isn’t all sunshine and roses. She has been testing us in some frustrating ways, relentlessly pushing for what she wants (now now now!) until I’m liable to snap that she won’t get it EVER if she doesn’t stop hounding me. She loves to push the limits of established rules for her own benefit but is quick to point out when rules aren’t followed – if it’s to her own advantage, that is. There are also moments of fake crying and SCREAMING that earn her time outs. We also had a lying incident a few weeks back that earned her a very early bedtime. The naps are fading away. More often than not she resists so thoroughly that I just give up. But she’s still required to be in her own room, playing quietly and not waking her brother up. It’s really lasted much longer than I might’ve thought.

We find that she really loves her little routines … movies on a Friday night; going to the gym on Saturday morning; samples at Costco. And she remembers things that absolutely amaze me. I really have to watch myself and not make any idle promises or threats because she will remember and call me on it. Good training for me, right? Say what you mean and mean what you say. She is less into TV than she once was. She loves to play her leapster or gameboy though and movies are still a hit. But she will spend hours writing in her workbooks or playing believe or coloring. I want to start getting into doing some more crafty projects with her. She really enjoys them.

She is a real joy to be around and we feel so very lucky to have her in our family. Every day is a joyful adventure with Miss Tabby.

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Little Brothers

Yesterday, while at his sitter’s house, Ben got a time out for playing in the toilet … right after Tabby had peed. Yea, lovely, I know. So while serving his time out he got a little bored … and hungry, apparently.

Lucky for him, sissy had done an art project at school where she used fruit loops to make her initials on a paper plate. I might add that she GLUED these (apparently stale) fruit loops on the plate.

School glue, however, is no match for Ben. He made short work of Tabby’s art project.YUM.

Tabby was pretty kind about it, actually. I think, though she wouldn’t admit it, that she thought it was as funny as the rest of us did. She said what she always does when Ben does something like this, in her best exasperated voice, “Little brothers!”

 

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This is What it Has Come To

A friend sent me a text (at 9:30 PM, no less) last night, wanting to see if I want to run a 10mile race with her on Sept 5 (i.e. less than two weeks from now). And of course, I said yes. I’m probably slightly mental and a bit sleep deprived, or maybe bolstered by the excellent run I had yesterday (4 mi). Or perhaps I was drunk on the chocolate frosting I nicked out of the bowl while making b’day cupcakes for my dad. Take your pick.

Anyhow. The kids started gymnastics last night. The class officially started last week, but we went to a going-away party for my cousin instead. Tabby is probably the oldest kid in the class. I put her in level 1 so I could just take them to one class. There’s not a LOT of difference, but there’s some. Mostly in how the kids behave. Ben is one of the youngest. He just runs around in circles and makes excellent use of the bouncy floor. And spring board. And anything to climb on. He genuinely seems to WANT to listen and “be good” but the urge to MOVE is great in this one. And even if Tabby is a bit advanced for the rest of the class, she’s having a great time being with her brother and advising anyone who will stand still long enough to listen.

I have been reading a lot. I am working my way slowly through JD Robb (Nora Roberts)’s “In Death” series. They are nice kind of fun reads, but formulaic enough that they don’t really stand out in my mind. The two most awesome books I’ve read recently are Nurture Shock and Bossypants.

Nurtureshock is about all the findings over the last 20 yrs or so about how kids learn and grow and develop. It is incredibly interesting and useful information and I highly recommend it to ALL parents and caregivers. We also learned that the curriculum our public schools use for the preschoolers and kindergartners is a really really well respected curriculum with amazing results and bragging rights. It’s called Tools of the Mind (check out the website, it’s got great info) and I’ve started implementing some of the ideas it uses with Tabby when we’re at home, including play plans (where the kids write out what they’re going to do during playtime) and buddy-reading (we read a book to Tabby and then she “reads” it back to us).

Bossypants on the other hand is its own kind of great information. It’s Tina Fey’s extremely funny book. Sort of part biography, part show-biz anecdotes and part life lessons (many learned from Lorne Michaels). It’s short, sweet and made me laugh out loud at least 10x as I read it. Excellent photos as well.

I have about 6 actual paper books in my queue right now, one on running, two dealing with nutrition and kicking the sugar habit (see reference to chocolate frosting drunkenness above), one about two society girls who came to the CO frontier to teach around the turn of the century, and a couple of new cookbooks plus about 10 magazines I haven’t cracked yet. I plan to drag them with me this weekend and see if I can make a dent.

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A Big Ol’ Weekend

Quite a bit happened since my last post 3 days ago. For one thing, it is now August. Beyond that …

  • Friday Morning I ran N Table Mesa (this is a redundant phrase since Mesa = Table, but that’s what we call it around here) with Kelly in the AM. It was beautiful. Then I got to sleep while Matt took the kids to the gym.
  • I spent most of Friday cleaning the house. It was quite a slog with the kids to contend with, but it did improve.
  • Friday night we had the family over Movie Night. Matt and I made Chicken Parmesan salad which was AWESOME. Everyone liked it. Then we watched Freaky Friday (new one with Lindsay Lohan as specified by Tabby, though I still prefer the old one) and Tabby got her movie snacks. Not sure which she likes more: movie or movie snacks.
  • Saturday morning we hung around the house and had breakfast and then eventually went to Costco. After Costco, we dropped the kids off with my parents so we could have date day.
  • We had grand plans for FUN but as we are OLD, we spent a few hours organizing the house. We cleaned out both kids’ closets and bookshelves (our new niece has a box of books heading her way) and their playroom.
  • After that we went to Good Will to do a drop off. I almost lost it when I put Tabby’s old crib bedding in the bin. Of course it’s not the bedding … it’s what it symbolizes. *sigh*
  • After that we went to IKEA (you know, the one that just opened a couple of days ago) to embrace the insanity (we stood in a Disneyland style queue, only longer just to get in) and buy stuff for the pop-up camper and a new peppermill that I am in love with. Also we looked at beds for our kids who are officially growing up TOO FAST.
  • Of course after IKEA, we were starved, so went to dinner at Smash Burger (best burgers EVER) and then to Bass Pro (gag) and Target.
  • We came home, unloaded the car, gathered running stuff and passed out.
  • Because next morning we were back up on North Redundant Mountain running again.
  • We picked up the kids. They had an awesome time, of course. Ben was the life of the block party. Tabby got stung by a wasp. They both got pancakes, snuggles, and thoroughly spoiled.
  • We had to stop by Walm*rt on the way home. I spied the super-delicious food-like product you see on the right (it has not only slim-jim style beef jerky but also mini ritz crackers with cheese-product sandwiched between them) while we were in the check-out line. I did not buy it.
  • We had lunch then naps (for the kids). We thought they’d never wake up. But eventually they did. So we took them to the pool (it was SUPER HOT yesterday).
  • They didn’t want to leave, but we had to go home and have dinner. We made steaks and super super awesome zucchini feta fritters (highly recommend).
  • Amazingly after all of that, we could do little but put away some laundry and then put away the kids in their beds. We followed very shortly.

It was somewhat difficult to get out of bed this morning.

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You Just Never Know …

Even this fairly blurry camera phone pic is worth 1000 words. Sweet baby girl has taken to sleeping on her floor in a little nest made of all of her blankies (there are MANY). Loki sometimes joins her. Matt asked her why and she says it’s “more comfortable.”

So I’m wondering if it’s softer/nicer down there (and maybe we should think about getting her an even bigger girl bed) or if it’s just cooler (it’s been crazy hot here, just like everywhere else). We need to move Ben into a big boy bed before too long, so maybe it’s time.