Rudolph, the moose

Here's a post in the category of "kids say the darndest things"...

Every night before bed, the kids get to each pick out a book or two and we read them before turning off the lights. A couple of nights ago, the boy dug out a book from the inner depths of the bookshelf about Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.

As he sat down, admiring the front of the book, he said, "And this is a book about the most marvelous moose in the rain forest."

Priceless.

Skinny Girl, Drama Queen

My fingertips are raw and sore - I've been sewing by hand for the last couple of nights. Maybe I should back up...

1st Topic: She's a skinny little thing.
Until Friday last week, we were all still wearing shorts and T-shirts here in Houston. Finally, on Friday an actual cold front came through and forced us to dig out the long pants and figure out that all of the kids' pants are too short for them now. This is not a huge surprise, but what I was somewhat surprised about was the fact that the girl's pants totally fall off of her now. She's no longer wearing a diaper or pull-up during the day (...but she has at least one accident every day), so the only pants that fit her waist are 12-month size and those are about 4 inches too short.

I went out looking for some 2T pants for her and discovered that the standard waist size for 2T pants is about 2 inches too big. So I've been sewing. A tuck here, a tuck there, some ruffles on the bottom of these pants because they almost fit her waist... Uhg.

2nd topic: She's a drama queen.
As if on cue on her 2nd birthday, the girl became an absolute drama queen! And the poor thing - we just watch her and laugh. She definitely doesn't get the desired result from her "tantrum".

Here's a typical tantrum-

The girl: (sobbing with mouth wide open and huge crocodile tears running down her face) I cah fih ma lah!
Us: (with sincere concern) What? What do you need?
The girl: WAAAAHHHHH!
Us: What's wrong? What do you need?
The girl: (still sobbing) I can't find my lambs! WAAAAHHHH!
Us: Lambs? Lamb is right there on the floor. (And we get lamb and give her to the girl.)

Immediately, the crying stops and she starts laughing and jumping up and down because she found lambs. It's really hard to take her seriously. And even when she is serious, nothing could compare to the boy's "intensity" about certain things. So, we end up being a rather apathetic audience for most of her tantrums. Poor little drama queen.

The Cheering Section

One benefit to having a 3.5-year-old is that we now regularly have a cheering section for many things that we do. I guess we didn't read this article soon enough and we've now poisoned the children with the notion that they can't do anything good unless they have reinforcement from us (or something like that, according to the article - oh, what are parents to do?!).

As a result of our telling our children "good job," (especially when they poop or pee on the toilet! - I am not about to stop telling them that just because I don't want to somehow damage their psyche. No, no, I want to positively reinforce that behavior as much as possible...) they will tell us "good job" for doing various things around the house.

"Good job!" I hear when I'm using a screwdriver to put something together. "Good job!" I hear when I'm washing my hands. "Good job!" I hear when I'm putting clothes into the washing machine.

But I'm especially fond of the "Good job!" I hear when I'm using the bathroom. Thank you very much. I'm happy that I have such incredibly impressive toileting skills. :)

The cake

Well, you'll be happy to know that I didn't explode before we were able to give the girl her birthday present on Saturday morning! She was excited about it and has been playing with it ever since Saturday morning (when she's not asking to watch Caillou - uhg!), so I'm happy about that!

And her birthday party went well, too. She was a little overwhelmed by all the activity, but still seemed to have a good time.

In planning the party and the decorations, however, we initially had a hard time trying to figure out what to put on her cake. In the end, though, it was a pretty easy decision.. :)

Still Patriotic

Remember the story about the Flag Shirt? Well, the fascination continues to be a source of many loads of laundry great amusement for us. The girl loves her flag shirt and, in general, American flags. When she runs for President someday, we'll be able to tell everyone she's been training for the post since before she was 2! :)

And in order to give ourselves a break with the laundry load, I made her a couple more flag shirts from some clip art I found online and some iron-on transfer paper. (yep, the inner-Martha has really come out.)

I think they turned out pretty well, and considering the difficulty I had in trying to find any size 2T, plain white T-shirts, I'm darn proud of them:

Secret, secret, I've got a secret

Ok, it's not a big secret or anything super-exciting, but I just can't wait until this coming Saturday.

It's our baby girl's 2nd birthday party on Saturday and my parents are coming to town, so we're going to give her birthday presents to her on Saturday.

And I'm really excited about the present we got for her! Check this out:Is that not the cutest kitchen you've ever seen?! (And most horribly gender-stereotyped! But darn it, I don't care. Do you see how cute it is?!)

Of course, we've gone waaaaayyyy overboard and gotten her a toaster, a 1-cup Bialetti espresso pot, a little microwave, pots and pans, kitchen utensils, play food, and another storage cabinet to go next to this - you know, for some additional counter space!

We're keeping this all in the closet in our downstairs bedroom and every night I have to go look at it and see how cute it is. Saturday can't come quickly enough.