The Wiggles Rock

Kayla and Megan Dancing to The Wiggles

I posted this on my Facebook this weekend, but in case you don't follow me there, there you go. This video is proof that the Internet is at once the most wonderful and horrible thing ever created. In 10+ years, when the girls are too-cool-for-parents and need to be taken down a notch, I can just pull this up when their friends are over and embarrass them beyond words. On the flip side, however, the girls will probably learn to keep it uploaded on whatever phone/device they carry around, and regardless of what they've done - break curfew, wreck the car, start an intergalactic war - it will all be forgotten the moment I see Kayla clap and yell "Yay!" halfway through the video.

Granny was down for this week, coinciding with a week off work I had as well. Originally our daycare was going to be gone on vacation this week, but that was cancelled, so I ended up alternating between doing a few chores around the house and watching Granny work her magic. Every time she's around the girls for an extended period, they seem to have a quantum leap in development. It's the teacher in her I'm sure; she naturally sees in them/does things with them that we mortals cannot. This time the leap was in play. I (finally) baby-proofed the girls room, so Granny brings up from the basement the Disney Fairy Princess table and chairs Grandma Ruth got for them a while back, and they spent a significant portion of the week playing Tea Party, or perhaps Business Casual Lunch, whatever the cool 22-month-olds are into this year. I cleaned out the garage, Granny sees the two doll strollers stored there and forgotten, and before I can finish sweeping the floor the girls are challenging my parenting skills.

I see things like this happen, and it does not escape me that I'm very fortunate to have an extended family filled with teachers (including my wife, who is a teacher herself, if not in title, then in spirit). When small humans have needs that never stray too far from Hungry, Tired, Soiled, and Mad At The World, they fall right into my wheelhouse. It's the scientific method, really.

Hypothesis: Baby Is Hungry.
Test Hypothesis: Feed Baby.
Is Test Positive? Negative.
Proceed to Secondary Hypothesis: Baby is Sleepy.

If all tests fail, endure 30 minutes of crying and repeat. It's all very predictable and orderly when you think about it, and it should not be surprising that a man who is rarely more than 50 feet away from a computer would manage infant care in such a manner. The equations become more complex, however, when things like knowledge, language, emotions, wants and preferences begin to erupt from our charges. This I am less equipped to deal with, and though I'm sure I will find a way to adapt, it is comforting to know that there are those around me willing and able to pick up my slack.

Wordless Wednesday 7/28/10 - Room For Two -- Usually

Faces of Kayla

Little Miss Kayla sometimes likes to ham it up for the camera.  Even when there isn't a camera around. Lucky for us there often is one nearby in our house, although sometimes in the form of a phone.

Kayla has gotten so expressive lately. Little things will cause her to make the most surprised face -- complete with the perfect little oval-shaped open mouth and wide eyes, frozen just long enough to make it more comical.

She's absolutely adorable when she does it!  It's hard to catch her in full-surprised-mode, though.
She's turned into quite the climber, too!  I keep calling her my little monkey girl.  If we take the tray off the high chair, she'll climb up into it all by herself!

But sometimes, she just wants to lay in a chair and watch Dora or Diego.  She does suck her thumb -- usually only when she's tired, though.  We haven't tried to stop her yet -- figure we'll give it some time and let her be a kid for a while.

Hugging is fun!  And sometimes -- she gets overzealous and hugging becomes near-strangling.  But even strangling can be cute when it's a stuffed animal.  When she's excited she'll run at you and throw herself into your arms for a big hug!

She thinks watermelon is fabulous.  She makes an awful mess with it, with juice going everywhere.  Especially when she smooshes it in front of her.  Here she's actually showing me her mouth, in response to my request that she put it in her mouth instead of smooshing it on her tray.

 And she doesn't care what she looks like eating playing with it.  Here she's quite proud of her accomplishment of getting her finger stabbed through it without it breaking into multiple pieces.  I was actually pretty impressed!

She's the ultimate girly-girl.

Okay, maybe this was a rare moment caught with a bow in her hair.  She left the bow in her hair for quite a bit that morning, probably because she found it on the dresser and wanted to wear it.  Everything's better if its not mommy's idea, right?

She's almost always the helper girl.  If we leave something within her reach, she'll pick it up -- and if we scold her, she doesn't stop -- she just proudly brings it to us so we can put it up.  She's pretty good at sharing things with her sister -- if you give her two sippies, she'll take one to Megan.  If Megan puts her sippy down, Kayla will often pick it up and take it, giving Megan hers.  Any opportunity to trade -- after all, Megan's might have something better!

And she'd would love to be Mommy's little kitchen helper if we'd let her!

Always a cutie, even when she isn't doing anything special.  Here she's showing us the buttons on her top and telling us what they are.  Over and over. She doesn't have many outfits with buttons on them, being a choking hazard and all, so this was pretty special to her--the buttons on her top, instead of mommy's or daddy's!

She's definitely a daddy's girl.  His hat is a much-loved toy, although she hasn't quite got the hang of it yet. In her defense, it is a tad big for her still.

She is absolutely precious to me.   I cannot even imagine what life would be like now if she weren't a part of it. She's got me by the heart.

She's pretty good at making other people smile, too.  After all, who could resist this face?

Faces of Megan

Mighty Megan prefers to be held a lot of the time.

That started from birth and hasn't stopped. She's always reaching to be picked up, and asks with a persistent and insistent "Up!  Up!" and who could resist her cute little demand plea?

She does have a determined streak in her.  When she wants to do something, she doesn't like to be told no.  Like sneaking food to the dog from her high chair, for example..

Eventually I predict that determination will work into a beneficial attribute.  Right now, though, it's inconsistent.  She's very quick to say "Hep, hep!" when she wants someone to help her do something -- often before she's tried to do it on her own.  She's learned already that people will do things for her if she asks them to.  Manager in training, perhaps?

She's quite vocal, learning more words every day.  She's very good at picking up what people say and do, and mimicking it.  I'm not sure where she got this one, though -- it's certainly not something I do!

We have to watch Megan carefully, and be careful where we leave the laptops. Megan looks quite at home here, though, in this rare moment where she was able to get to a computer without being on someone's lap.  I have no doubt she'll have more than her share of early exposure to PC's in our household, but so far, it's limited to watching clips of preschool TV shows on the internet, and seeing pictures of herself on daddy's screen saver. 

She's pretty good at identifying the usual body parts.  Here she's demonstrating her skill at identifying her belly button.

When Megan gets determined to do something, that tongue comes out.  My daddy had that same tendency.  Here, she's determined to climb up into mommy's lap in the recliner, but mommy won't put down the camera to help.

Here she's intent on using that spoon.  Even if it is backwards...

She loves being outside, and loves to ready-set-GO!  She often plays keep-away-from-Mommy when mommy wants her to come here.

She has a passion for reading already.  She's even doing well with pointing at items as we count them.

She has an artistic streak to her eating style.  A while back, she balanced toast pieces on end.  The other day, she worked hard to balance a piece of cheese stick on the top of her sippy cup.  She succeeded!

Megan often makes it hard to get good pictures of her.  As soon as she sees the camera, she comes over wanting to see the pictures on the screen.  Every time she sees one of her or Kayla, she identifies it as Kayla, though.  Apparently, she can't distinguish herself from her sister yet in photos.

She's not shy, although she looks it in this shot.  What's really going on here is that she wants to sit on the other side of the chair, and so she's climbing behind Kayla (in pink) to get her to move.  This is just one example of Megan forgetting that she's little, and pushing to get her way.

Megan is quite playful at times.  Of course when she's not she has no problem saying "no!".  Here she's playing a game of peek a boo from behind the chair.  She thinks she's hidden.

She tends to play in her crib for a while before going to bed.  One morning we found all her babies from her bed lined up along the wall, watching her sleep.  (I haven't decided if that one's cute or creepy.)

She brightens every day for me, more than I ever expected.  Life would not be the same if she wasn't with us, an I'm so grateful that she is!  I'm smitten.

She's good at capturing people's hearts.  It's hard to resist a cute little face like this -- who once again, is after the camera!

Pretty Toes!

I admit it, I enjoy having my nails done.  It's my one real girly-girl thing.

Well, my girls like having their toenails done.

I can tell by the way they say, "more, more" after I finish.  And the way they smile when anyone says, "Oh, what pretty toes!"  I had a hard time getting a picture, though.  But they're cute anyway!

Here they are, ready for bed....

Kayla, Megan

Truth is, although they enjoyed blowing on each others toes to dry the polish, they still managed to smudge it.  And since they like to watch, it's hard to get it on properly anyway, being that they keep wiggling and putting their toes up where they can see.  But that's okay -- it's about making them smile, not actually making their toes look perfectly painted.  

I didn't paint their finger nails.  They wouldn't have stayed still enough for it to dry,  Also, because Kayla sucks her thumb, I'd be afraid of her eating the polish.  I won't paint Megan's without painting Kayla's. That wouldn't be fair.

Wordless Wednesday - 7/21/10

Drive It Like A Rental

Yes, that's a Mustang.
And yes, that's a rental.

We took a little vacation this last weekend.  The girls stayed with Mike's parents, Granny and Grandpa, while Mike and I galloped up to KC.  We left our Equinox (affectionately referred to as "the truck") with the girls (Granny and Grandpa drove, though), so we thought we'd have a little fun transportation.  I wussed out at 100 MPH.

They say opposites attract.   To some degree, that's true.  Mike is a pretty conservative driver. 
I'm not.
I blame my sister. 

I still remember the first time I rode with her on icy roads.  She fishtailed.  On purpose.  Until we got stuck in a snow drift.  She wanted me to get out and push -- and I was afraid she would drive off and leave me if I did (after all, she was my older sister).  I don't recall any more than that.

She drove us to school a lot of the time her senior nyear.  Drag racing in a fake-wood-sided station wagon is a lot more exciting than it sounds. 

At 21st and Maize, the intersection used to be a 4-way stop.  It went to four lanes right before the intersection -- and back down to two shortly after it.  Great for drag racing at the intersection...with a touch of chicken thrown in.  After all, you're going to run out of road if you're on the outside...But I digress.

(And my mother is now rolling her eyes and will soon tell me she's never been told any of these stories before......what, you thought my Monza lost the ability to shift into second for no reason?  Or didn't I ever tell you about that --- since I skipped second gear a lot of the time anyway.  Yeah, and I was proud that I could scratch in second when I did use it....but I digress further)

My driving has tamed a lot since those days. 

So we went on this vacation to KC.

We spent most of our time on the Plaza, at The Legends mall, or in the hotel.  It was a good trip!  We had some plumbing issues with the hotel the first night....but the manager made it right, so all's well that ends well.

We made it to The Cheesecake Factory to share a slice of 6-carb cheesecake.  YUMM

And yes, I took a picture of the actual piece of cheesecake....after we'd started eating.  Obviously I don't have a future in photography or product marketing -- but I do know where to find good cheesecake!

I only called Granny about 10 times to check on the girls.  Okay, that's a slight exaggeration.  But hey, I'm used to coming home late from work and having to peek at the girls in bed -- but I'm not used to not seeing them in the morning,. and not being able to peek in on them in bed!

They had a great time at Granny and Grandpa's.  I don't have pictures of that, so how about a couple of pictures of the girls at Outback with us from a few weeks ago, instead.  Totally unrelated to the vacation, but what would a post be without pictures of the girls?

Kayla

Megan

And yes, that is broccoli.  And no, it's not for me.  That's Megan's chewed-straw milk, too.
You see, I feed my girls a lot healthier than we eat.

So back to the vacation...

We also discovered that Harry and David's, in The Legends mall, has a section of sugar free candy.  Who knew?
There's a sports shop a couple doors from Harry and David's.  We ALWAYS find a couple of sports-themed outfits for the girls there and spend way to much for them.  This was the first time we didn't find anything worth splurging on.  Seriously.  The clothes in their size weren't anything to write home about.  I guess it's back to Ebay for me to find some new Jayhawk gear for them! 

Before we went into the Carter's store, I asked Mike, "So is it okay of I spend an obscene amount of money on the girls here?"  You see, every time I go to that store, I walk out with enough clothing for 6 girls.  At least that's how it seems.  Maybe it's because they sell onesie's in sets of 5 -- and I always had to get a pink set and a purple set.  And so on.

Well -- mark this one down on the calendar --- I went through the entire store and walked out without anything.  Not. One. Thing.

They had some cute fall clothes -- and I was tempted -- but nothing that knocked my socks off.  Especially since I don't know what size they'll be wearing then.  (I was sure they'd be in 18 months this summer --- but they're in anything from 18 months-2T, depending on the brand) 

We did get a pink and a purple coat from Osh Kosh -- and two shirt/short sets from the Gymboree outlet store, but that was it.  I must be growing up or something.

We went to a movie -- got there 30 minutes early, and watched commercials in the theater.  For 30 minutes.
After about 10 minutes, another couple walks in -- now there are 4 of us in the theater.  Where do they sit?  One seat away from me.  Seriously.   So for another 15 minutes or so, we were the only four there. 

Finally it movie start time.  Well, the advertised start time.  We got to see a preview -- and another commercial.  And another preview.  And another commercial.  We sat through another 20 minutes of as many commercials as there were previews.  It's not that bad in the theater in Wichita we normally visit -- and of course we don't get to do that often, so maybe I'm wrong.   We enjoyed it none the less though!

It was a really nice break to have some one-on-one time with my husband.  I sure do enjoy his company.  He makes me laugh like no one else.  He's definitely a keeper!

But the Mustang, we took back.

Swimming Pool

We got the girls a swimming pool.  Unfortunately, we didn't fill it up earlier enough before our swim, so the water hadn't gotten a chance to warm up enough.  The girls played a bit, but had more fun running around the yard.

Of course Loki thought it was just one big water dish.