Birthday fun

Today is my birthday, so the Rowe family decided to take a trip into Boston to visit the Public Garden and the Common. It was a fun time for everyone, most especially the kids. We got to ride the merry-go-round, swim in the Frog Pond, visit the Tadpole playground, and ride in the Swan Boat. For Madeleine, it was the first time ever on a merry-go-round, and she seemed to get much more enjoyment out of it than did Julia (who rode completely blank-faced) on her first merry-go-round ride:


Madeleine, August 2010


Julia, August 2007

Julia enjoyed seeing the ducks up close and personal during the swan boat ride, and we even had one duck that swam side by side the boat for a good chunk of the ride. We decided to give him a name, but we weren't in agreement on what it should be. Julia wanted to call him "Nice Duckie," but I thought that "Quacky" might suit him a bit better. At one point during the boat ride, Julia exclaimed loudly, "Mama, when I grow up, I think I want to be a DUCK!" I think she was a little disappointed when I told her that a human, no matter how grown-up, is not capable of morphing into a duck. After the Swan Boat ride we took a quick visit over to the gold "Make Way for Ducklings" statues, then decided it was time to head on home. The temperature was around 95 degrees, it was past time for Madeleine's nap, it was nearing snack time for Julia, and both kids began to melt down a little. Julia especially; she had a tough time on the car ride home because her bones hurt, and because she didn't want lemonade to drink because it always has little plastic things like plastic straw wrappers floating around in it. However, once we were home, with one child fed and one in her crib, all was once again right with the world.

New solutions

Julia has done a great job staying in her bed at night, even though she's still a little nervous. She seems to have found a way to hide from the blue tarantula and fall asleep in peace, since this is what we've seen every night when we've gone in to check on her:



Seems like a pretty effective strategy, although the poor thing is sweltering under that blanket; look at how damp and sticky her hair is:



Meanwhile, my other, fearless child has come up with a new, exciting twist on her usual dining room chair play:




(The blue shiny blur to the right is Julia, about to gallop into the frame. And yes, Madeleine deliberately knocked the chair over by herself.)

It's Jason's fault

ME: Julia, I see you took all your dress-up stuff out again after I cleaned it all up, huh?
JULIA: Uh, Mama, actually, my best friend Jason took it all out, but then he had to go home on the bus.

If I ever meet this Jason, I'll give him a piece of my mind for making such a huge mess.

What's wrong with this picture?

Take a look at the following picture. Can you find the thing that doesn't belong?














Scroll down to find out if you guessed correctly...














ANSWER: Madeleine in the refrigerator!

Blue Tarantula

Last night everyone but Madeleine got a very interrupted, very horrible night of sleep; consequently, we're all exhausted today. The reason for our poor night of sleep all stems from Julia being absolutely terrified of a video we'd rented from the library the day before. You're probably trying to think of what video is scary enough to keep a 3-year old up all night in terror; there are many obvious options. I'll save you guessing: it was a Max & Ruby video. MAX & RUBY. This is the child who has watched The Dark Crystal, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, Sleeping Beauty, Muppet Christmas Carol (with ghosts!) and many similarly frightening movies without ever having a nightmare about them. So we rent a Max and Ruby video from the library and THAT is what keeps her up the whole night?? I mean, the show is about bunnies, and it's about the dullest, slowest-moving show I've ever seen in my life. She was afraid of the blue tarantula that Ruby tells Max about before bed. It turns out, in the episode, that there is no blue tarantula and that Ruby was just trying to scare Max. Well, I don't know if Ruby succeeded in scaring Max, but she sure as heck scared Julia. Here is a synopsis of how the evening went:

8pm
Julia comes downstairs.
ETHAN: What's the problem, Julia?
JULIA: Uh, Mommy forgot to give me Benadryl.
ME: You don't need Benadryl anymore, honey. Your cold is better.
JULIA: Um, but I think I do need it.
ME: No, you're fine, and you need to go back to bed.

8:02pm
Julia comes downstairs.
ME: What, Julia?
JULIA: Um, Mommy? But I feel FUNNY.
ME: You're fine, Julia. You need to get back in bed.

8:05pm
Julia opens her door and starts walking down the stairs.
ETHAN: Can you tell her this is the last time she's coming out of her room?
ME: Julia, get back in bed and do not come out again.
JULIA: But Mommy, I'm scared!
ME: Of what?
JULIA: Of the blue tarantula! I think I need to sleep in your room.

This was followed by me walking her back to bed, teaching her some coping techniques I had used as a kid when I was scared, pulling away from her arms, desperately clutched around my neck while she pled to sleep with us, and leaving. After this she fell asleep with the blanket over her head, hiding from the Blue Tarantula.

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT #1 (I make a point of not looking at the clock when she wakes me up so I don't have any sense of how many hours I have before morning; otherwise I often have trouble falling back asleep. Hence the vague time-heading.)

JULIA: (coming into the bedroom) Mommy?
ME: What is it, Julia?
JULIA: I'm still scared.
ME: Well, you need to go back to sleep.
JULIA: But I want to sleep in your bed with you.
ME: No, you need to sleep in your own bed. Do you need to pee?
JULIA: No. I peed already.
ME: Let me walk you back to your room.

Thus began the clutching and pleading again in her bedroom, but I told her she needed to go to sleep and left.

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT #2:
JULIA: (coming into the bedroom) Mommy?
ME: What is it, Julia?
JULIA: I wet the bed.
ME: Okay, go sit on the potty to see if you have any more pee, and I'll change your sheets. Did you get any pee on your sheets or did you wake up as soon as you felt it coming out?
JULIA: Um, there's a wet spot in my bed.
ME: Going into Julia's room, failing to really find any pee in the bed, but changing the sheets anyway.
JULIA: Coming in after using the potty.
ME: Okay, take off your jammies and undies and get some clean ones.
JULIA: No, but I don't want to take them off! They're not wet!
ME: You just told me you wet your bed.
JULIA: But they're not wet!
ME: Why don't you just get new ones to be on the safe side?
JULIA: Okay. (Changes, gets back in bed, pleads for me to stay, but I go.)

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT #3
JULIA: Calling me from her room.
ME: Julia, you need to go to sleep.
JULIA: But Mommy, I can't fall asleep.
ME: Well, then you can sit here quietly until you get to sleep.

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT #4
JULIA: MAMAAAAA!!!!! MAMAAAAAAA!
ETHAN: (going in to her room) Julia! You need to STOP yelling and STOP waking us up!
JULIA: But I need to pee.
ETHAN: Then get up and go, and stop yelling for us. I don't want to hear from you again! Go pee, and then get back in your room and DO NOT come out again.

MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT #5
JULIA: Sobbing loudly from the bedroom
ETHAN: (going in) JULIA! BE QUIET, AND GO TO SLEEP NOW!
JULIA: Silence until she woke up in the morning.

1pm today:
JULIA: (prancing over to me holding the Max & Ruby DVD) Mama, can I watch this?

(And in case you are wondering, my answer was "NO WAY, Jose!")

DIRECTION!

Julia has been singing some version of the "Habitat" song from Sesame Street. You can see her arrangement of it here:



In case you want to compare to the original song, you can link to a portion of the episode, complete with "Habitat" rap, below. I think I also finally know where her use of the expression "Boo-ya!" came from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0b4c2DzRcs&feature=related

Shifting gears to Madeleine, she had the following to say to Ethan this morning:

MADELEINE: pushing one of the dining room chairs across the kitchen like a walker, stopping at the gate to grin with wild excitement at Ethan on the other side.
ETHAN: Hi, Madeleine!
MADELEINE: picking up a pair of sunglasses from the chair and holding them up to Ethan. Sssssheeeit. Ssssssheit.
ETHAN: I see. Those are some pretty neat glasses, Madeleine.
MADELEINE: gets too excited about the glasses and drops them while flapping them enthusiastically in the air. Uh. Uh.
ME: Uh-oh! You dropped them!
MADELEINE: crawling around after the glasses. Uh. Uh. Uh. Picks up glasses and holds them up again. Ssssheeeit. Sssssheit.

I look forward to the day when "shit" no longer means "look at this." Not that I want her using "shit" in any other capacity. But it will be nice if she chooses some other word, like, say, "look," or "see?" to show off her newly acquired items. However, given that we have WAY too many little toys and little pieces of things, perhaps her label is not so far off the mark.

Bathroom logic

Last night at bedtime, Julia kept insisting she needed to poop, then would proceed to sit on the toilet and whine about the fact that she couldn't get any poop out. When we would suggest she just get into bed and try again later if she needed to go, she would resist and insist she needed to stay on the toilet. And then would resort back to whining. Finally I warned her that if she didn't hurry and get to bed, we wouldn't have time to read a few chapters of "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" (or, as she calls it, "Right-side Stories from Right-side Pool.") That was enough to scare her off the pot and into bed, although she came down several more times after we said good-night to try the potty again, with no luck. She confided in me that she was scared of having an accident in her bed, but I assured her that pooping in the bed was a lot less likely a thing to happen in her sleep than was wetting her bed.

Today she has been back to normal, although she did have to go into the bathroom for round two late this afternoon. She had a very logical explanation for what is going on: "Mommy, I think the reason why I'm doing weird poops is because my tonsils are getting large." Well, there's some brilliant logic for you; good thing I have Julia around to explain the ways of the world to me.