Christmas!

 Today was the Big Day of Christmas.  The day when all little children in our country realize that the threat of Santa not bringing presents was again merely an empty one, and the Getting, along with Present Count Comparisons between siblings is what truly matters most.  My children I am proud to say reign supreme in such fields.  Gavin got his two rocket ships, Navy ships that float on the water (which, mind you, are NOT a dime a dozen), and his stuffed shark, courtesy of World Wildlife Foundation donation by his parents.  Annah got a dollhouse, which she has been captivated by, lots of various furry creatures to populate said house, and paper doll toys.  I have to admit she is a supreme girlie-girl, though a very tough one.  She has won more than her fair share of toy arguments with her brother, a boy who is over twice her age and a foot taller.  Gavin, as seen below, spent the entire day in his PJ's. He switched out midday for a new pair, as seen below.

Two nights ago we went on the Polar Express to see Santa Claus at the North Pole, which Gavin reassured us (ie himself) really WAS going to the North Pole.  Really.  Been a bit warm up there since there was no snow, and its a shame those elves have to live in cardboard cutouts, but the North Pole nonetheless. Annah was dancing in the isle.  Gavin has gotten a little cooler since his Groupie-esque screaming of "Santa! Santa! I want a car carrier!" Two years ago, but he was still pretty stoked to see the guy.

We have otherwise been doing well, other than a little viral bronchitis that the kids have had.  Gav was coughing fairly bad the other night, so we gave him a nebulizer treatment with Annah's machine.  She did not react gracefully to that situation. I think she may have turned slightly purple and alerted every dog within a mile radius of her distress of the situation, but she dealt with it.  I  was a wretched mother and laughed at her, but I had the wherewithal to at least cover my mouth.  But we had a great Christmas, and as Itty Bity Annah (her self-description) has been putting it, summoning the spirit of Charles Dickens, "merry Christmas, every one."

While Mommy and Daddy are Away...

  Ryan and I went to New Orleans this past weekend for a conference that I was attending.  I didn't really want to go to anew Orleans all by myself, because that just seems sad. Ryan has been there, and has always wanted to take me, so he joined me.  I was probably not as productive at the conference as a result, but it was the first time we had been away for more than a night without the kids.  So my parents were saints and played nanny.  Gavin was really excited for that.  When I told him that I was going to miss him, he told me "You can just call me, Mommy.  That way you won't miss me any more."

I was very good and the only thing I brought home for the kids was free Mardi Gras beads.  They were obtained in a strictly G-rated manner.  The day after I got home, they were running around with nothing but Gavin wearing his cowboy boots and Ani wearing Gavin's sneakers and their Mardi Gras beads.  I got a picture of them facing each other and howling.  But I'm not going to post that one on the Internet.  Here is a picture of Annah looking civilized instead.

We also took the kids ice skating the other weekend.  Gavin is signed up for both hockey and downhill ski lessons this winter (oi), so we decided to get a little practice.  Here is the only photo where Ani is not screaming:

We also met Santa.  Well, I had to work this weekend, so it was really just the kids and Ryan.  And Ani was terrified of Santa, so only Gavin got to have some one-to-one time with the Big Man.  He was pretty cool about it.  Mostly because he has already sent his letter, which required an addendum, since he forgot to mention the stuffed shark he wanted, in addition to the ship that floats and two rocket ships.  Side note: Mattel, Lego, or Fisher-Price, there is a paucity of rocket ship toys on the market.  Please fill.  I am not sure what Santa is doing to Gavin's face here.  Ani may have been smart to be scared.

I think the kids are essentially ready for Christmas.  Annah has even demonstrated how good she can be by washing Gracie with all the water in the dog dish and clearing out some of the mason jars on the shelf.  We can't go barefoot in the pantry for a while.  Gavin has been reminding Annah of the risks of such behavior: "Annah, you know Santa is watching you.  You KNOW that, right?" What Gavin does not know is that Santa is a total pushover, and that Naughty List thing is just a big farce.

Thanksgiving

  We have survived Thanksgiving.  We had it at our house, and it was fairly potluck style, which made it easier.  It went pretty smoothly.  Except for the strawberry pie that was no-bake which I put into raw pie crust.  So that was a little bit of a mess, but I managed to cook the pie crust, and then added more gelatin to make the pie solidify, then had to heat the filling to re-melt the gelatin, then we all had jello pie, but whatever.  It was fine.  The kids spent a fair bit of time making self-portraits with my phone:

However, my favorite moment was before anyone got there.  Annah was a little sulky, and decided that sitting in the fridge was the only way to comfort herself.

The kids also enjoyed watching the parade for about 5 seconds.  Then we changed the channel to Mickey Mouse Club.  I can only deal with so much Matt Lauer.  Gavin was enjoying his ski helmet and his goggles.  The world looks better in goggles.

We tried a little experiment tonight with a "sleepover" in Gav's room.  It failed fairly miserably.  Annah could not stay in bed, so she went in her crib.  She has started learning manipulation.  I left the room, and she started crying for water, so I gave her water, then she started yelling "I'm pooping! Mommy, I'm pooping!" I'll feel mighty bad if I find her marinating tomorrow morning, but I'm pretty sure she was lying.  She has definitely turned two.  Ani is a master of the drop-and-cry, which she apparently only breaks out for her parents.  She did it for Ryan at daycare once, which shocked the workers.  I think this is actually proof of some civilizing, so I am holding out hope.

Annah is Two

  Annah has survived to see her second birthday.  We are both surprised and delighted.  She had a great birthday.  I got her a little baby doll, which was a big hit.  She has taken great delight in feeding Babydoll, burping Babydoll, and putting Babydoll down just so in her crib with a blanket and a pillow.  Sure Babydoll is laid face down in the bed with a bottle, but Annah has a few years before see things count. She and Gavin were playing house together, which was pretty cute to see.  

Annah is growing up.  No longer is she calling her brother Gaggie, but now she is able to pronounce her v's, so it's Gavie.  Tough I'm not sure she will ever grow, as she does not seem to like food.  She has been sick for about 3 weeks now, and yesterday her breathing was pretty rapid.  I was a little worried we would need to bring her to the ED if it continued, but today she seemed fine.  Maybe it was that nebulizer treatment at 1 am, after which she zoomed into her brother's room and hid under his bed rather than settling down back into bed.

Gavin also made out well today.  He and Ryan went to the ski swap, and we got him all decked out for this winter.  He wanted to wear his boots and skis all night, so he was restricted to the rug, but he was particularly excited about his helmet.

Annah is quite the little girl.  She also got a rainbow tutu from her Ma Taunte which she loves.  It is, fortunately, washable.

The Wedding

  I am currently laid up on bed with a GI bug, so I am taking this rare moment of solitude to update.  I have what most of the extended family had at my cousin Lacy's wedding.  The Show went on, the bride being an amazing person who can overlook any negatives.  I would not have had such grace, but that's why I went to Vegas I suppose.  

Other than the GI bug, the kids were great.  My favorite exchange from the weekend is as follows while we were in the car:

Ani: "I farted." (Then she holds up a leg) "see?"

Gav: "You can't see a fart!"

Ryan: "This is true."

Gav: "You can smell a fart."

Ryan: "yup."

Gav: "And you can hear a fart."

Ryan: "Also true."

(Long pause)

Gav: "And, sometimes, you can feel a fart."

So there you have it.  But they clean up nice, as you can see:

Though from our drive up there, one would not know how well they clean up.  Gavin was wearing his John Deere sweatshirt, pretending to talk on a phone, saying to the imaginary person on the other line "my tractor has a flat tire.  Come to my farm and see how flat it is.  And bring your tire flashlight."  Meanwhile Annah was yelling at Ryan to give her his coffee.  "My coffee daddy! Annah coffee!" Because clearly she could use more animation.  As you can see from this picture with her second cousin Evelyn, she is not the greatest at sitting still.

Gavin however got to be the ring bearer, which he took very seriously.  He held his Dino pillow and very solemnly presented the rings when asked. I was proud.

And, my favorite photo of the weekend:

Big Girl Undies

Gavin had picture day.  He prepped his smile with a big ear-to-ear grin, neck straining, eyes squinting, and wearing his new flannel shirt.  I like to keep it real with my Mainer kids.  He did class it up a bit the night before, as pictured below, but he left his tie and fedora at home morning of.

Annah has been growing up a mile a minute.  Her new phrase is "Wook, mamma! Wook!" As she enthusiastically points out her latest discovery.  Daycare has also graduated her into "big girl undies" at school, and she seems to do pretty well, though I don't know how long that experiement will last as she had a little #2 accident the other day and slacker mommy did not pack a change of clothes.  Here she is with her Baba taking a walk in the woods:

Both the kids have been reading. Lot of books lately.  We have been enjoying books together at bedtime now, which is nice.  Annah likes to wear her reading glasses.  I think she feels they give her an intelligent aire.  I however am not sure i agree with that...

In case you have forgotten, Annah is going to be a goldfish for Halloween.  She likes to wear her costume on a fairly regular basis, which is perfectly fine with me.  Here they are playing together on the iPad with a coloring game.  They played this for 10 minutes with no fighting.  It was fabulous.

Seaweed

Gavin told me I need to chew with my mouth closed tonight.  I have to admit he probably is a little right, but its something to hear your son giving you the same instructions your dad once did.  Monsieur Omnipotent also likes to debate.  Annah was coloring (a favorite pastime of hers) and Gavie was noticing how dark blue her crayon looked.  "That's because it's purple" I told him.  "No, it's not."  "Okay," I said, "look." I colored with the crayon, and showed him a clearly purple line.  "It's blue on the outside and purple on the inside" he exclaimed, holding his first finger up in the air to highlight his point. "I have seen this!"  I don't know how to argue with this reasoning.  He is clearly much smarter than I am.  However, my favorite quote from him this past week was while he was drinking apple cider.  "Cider washes on the shore of my mouth, and it stays there like seaweed."  Where he gets this stuff I do not know, my little poet.

Annah has been her usual and adorable wild self.  She led us in a rousing rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at the dinner table tonight.  I momentarily lost my sanity in the grocery store the other day, and did NOT grab a cart with a baby seat.  I managed for about 5 minutes and and the kids work together to push the cart.  But then Annah got bored, and started to run off.  She disappeared in about 2 seconds when I turned my head, and I found her halfway down the next isle over laughing hysterically.  We like to keep things interesting when we go out.  But we started music class, and she loves it.  It's the only time she sits still.  She is getting by proficient at practicing sitting on the potty too.  Here is a pic of her in her new coat.  Around her head is just a faux fur lining.  Baba was a little confused.

Moxie

Ryan made an observation about Annah that I think sums it up nicely.  I was saying how she has a quality in her spirit that none of the other members of this family have, and I wish I had some of it.  "You mean moxie?" Ryan asked me.  Exactly.  That kid's got moxie.  We went to Target today (because that's about as exciting as our life gets), and she would not ride in the cart.  I don't have the will to fight her, so I typically just give in.  I like to keep my parenting standards at a rather low bar.  Anyway, she promptly ran laughing hysterically to a bra rack, grabbed two florescently colored brassieres, and ran screaming into the pants section, waving them over her head like a deranged pirate.  I finally managed to get her into the shoe section to get her a new pair, and she insisted on putting on a pair of pig slippers, which were way too big, and meandering about the department.  Here is the evidence:

It's a little blurry because I could not get her to stand still.  We also got her a fall coat, which is a really cute little pea coat, and again, she ran screaming down the isles while wearing it.  I am so proud.

Gavin apparently is really loving pre-K.  Although he develops acute amnesia when I pick him up in the afternoon.  Our typical conversation goes like this:

Me:  Hey buddy, how was school?

Gav: It was AWESOME!

Me: Oh yeah? What did you do?

Gav: I don't know.

Me: Did you color a picture?

Gav: Uh, yeah.

Me: Of what?

Gav: I don't remember.

Me: Did you read a book?

Gav: I didn't. The teacher did.

Me: What was it about?

Gav: Something.

Me: Don't you remember?

Gav: No.

Me: Did you play with some friends?

Gav: Yeah.

Me: What are there names?

Gav: I don't know.

You get the picture.  Fortunately he gets updates sent home which are only one-liners, but more than I can get from Mr. Omertà.

We got our Halloween costumes this week.  It might seem early, but all the good ones are gone unless you jump on it.  So enjoy the Halloween preview picture.

We also went apple picking last weekend.  We have been making applesauce, apple crisp, and apple pie.  

Have a great week everyone!

The Big Boy Bus

Gavin has now officially started school.  This morning I drove him to daycare, and he put on his little backpack, his name badge for the bus, and marched up those oversized bus stairs to school.  I left for work late and got out early so I could pick him up off the bus.  Here are his pre-bus pics:

Then he got off the bus this afternoon, and getting information from him was like getting trade secrets from a Columbian Farc fighter.  With the exception of the fact that he didn't eat his lunch (he was told it was too "snacky") and so was given a lunch of corn dogs and chocolate milk instead (here is where I cried), and Joey told him he was mean.  I don't know why Joey told him this, but I was also informed that Joey has a small head.  So it's not entirely clear how it went, but Ryan composed a very nice letter to the teacher asking to give Gavin his lunch that was brought to school instead of hot lunch, and we retrospectively paid for lunch.  So goes day one.

Ani is doing well.  She is a very precocious, very tough, but she loves being a little girl.  She's a big fan of baby dolls and bracelets.  She has a little stuffed monster sho she likes to sing songs to at night to go to bed.  Her language skills are exploding.  She has learned to say "bless you", but she doesn't limit it to sneezes.  She likes to walk around to random people with a little smile on her face saying "bless you" like a little miniature pope.

She also likes hanging out in "Gaggy's" bed now too.  They're starting to play together a lot, which also means their arguments have gotten a little more spirited, and she typically wins them.  Annah told me the other day as we drove home from daycare:

Annah (In a sad voice): "I fall down" 

Me: "oh, what happened?"

 Annah (now very chipper): "I ohhh-Kay!"

We went to a beach at Morse Mountain in Phippsburg yesterday.  We walked along a hiking trail for 1.7 miles to get there, and we watched the kids play in the sand before walking back.  The kids did great - Gav walked most of the 3.4 miles.  Next time I will do my motherly duty and pack lunch, towels, and a kid carrying pack, but it was still lots of fun.  Here are some of our memories:

Mr. Know-It-All

We had a very posh mommy day today.  The kids had a photo session in Portland (that I had gotten as a gift certificate from a Winterkids event, so nothing personal, Uncle Ron), and after that I took Gavin to his skills assessment testing with his new pre-K teacher. So I'm sure she now realizes he's a bit of a know-it-all.  Driving down to the city today:

Me: Look Gavin, that's a van just like ours except it's dark blue.

Gavin: No, that's a black Swagger.

Me (not just ready to have my willpower crushed by a 4 year old): I'm pretty sure that's dark blue, buddy.

Gavin: no, it's black.  You have your sunglasses on, and they're dark.  In clear glasses you can see colors well, but yours are dark, so it just looks blue. It's really black.

Me (my willpower now just looking like stubbornness in the face of reason, all be it flawed): oh. Okay. Sure, it's black.

For the record, it was blue. I stand by that.  But in case the Tea Party wants a scientist to explain away global warming, I think they may have their man in my four year old son.

First fish.  

At the risk of making this a Gavin-centric blog, he starts his Pre-K next week.  School bus and all.  Looking forward to the blog update next week.

Annah is doing well.  Her language has exploded over the last few weeks.  Pick an animal, any animal, and she'll give you it's corresponding mating call.  Zebra? Easy.  White rhino?  C'mon, this is supposed to be a challenge.  Snow leopard? Pa-cha.  Or she'll just take it down.  Either way, it's in the bag.  She's really into picking things in our garden.  We have lost no small number of tomatoes in the very green stages to her exuberant hands.  But she loves to eat the husk cherries.  Or "usk chaw-wee" as she calls them.  Her annunciations are the best.  She found a old DVD and kept pointing to the man on the cover, going "Daddy?". "No Annah, that's not Daddy.  That's Hugh Grant." She peers back down at him, the photograph still bearing a striking resemblance to her father in her very generous mind's eye.  "Hue Hant" she finally concedes.  What a sweet little pickle.  

We have been raking the last of the summer out with wat fights in the backyard.  Ryan has started a very busy school year in his new role as Vice Principal (cue evil music in mind of all high schoolers: Duh-Da-Duuh), so he's suddenly gotten a lot busier and his work days are much longer.  If you happen to speak with him, please ask him to remember to eat his lunch.  Or send him a text around noontime.  Anyway, here is a picture of him and Gavin blowing off some steam in the backyard.

Butat least the boy is nice to his dog (well, this is prior to her becoming a water fight victim also).

Randomness

Here are some of the latest Gavin Notable Comments:

Gavin: All of my fish are boys.

Me (dreading his answer): How do you know that?

Gavin: Because none have long hair.

Gavin stream of consciousness in the car (this is interspersed with dog-whistle competitions between the kids):

Here's all the different voices I used to have: pooh huh, ooooh, aargh. Then the blood went to my mouth every day. So every day my voice sounds different. Hey, look at that giant cloud moving. It's moving that way and that way and that way and that way. Why is it moving that way? Is it a storm cloud? It looks very far away from us. Are the trees not being cut down right now?  

Not to be outdone, Annah has decided to compete via creative edible non-edibles.  Here is her list of recent snacks:

Crayons

Sand 

Grass

Dog biscuits

Styrofoam water noodle

Her brother

She has also become obsessed with the latest fashion craze - wearing 27 layers of clothing put on upside down, inside out, and backwards.  I keep trying to get a picture, but like so many other mommy endeavors, so far I have failed.  Here's a picture of my daughter staring at a screen instead:

Notice the giraffe tattoo.  I'm particularly proud of that little gem.

We went to a baseball game this past Sunday.  We actually sat through 8 innings, which is a family record.  I got the kids ice cream, which Ryan was super psyched about.  Enjoy the pics!

And last but not least.  This one is my favorite because Ani is so happy.

 

Camp Week!

This past week we were all "up to camp".  Every year the family on Moe Moe's (Barb's) side rents a camp in Wayne and we all just sort of veg out for the week.  We tried with the four of us to stay overnight several times, but Ani did not do well, and each time, no matter what we tried to do to get her to sleep, we drove home around 12 AM.  Or, one of us did while the other stayed with Gavin.  But otherwise, it was a fun week.  Gavin spent essentially all his waking hours in the lake, and was probably the best swimming lesson he could have had.  He paddled about and dunked and dove.  He got to meet his new second cousins, twin boy and girl Marty and Hopper, born to my cousin Tim and his wife Annie, who flew in from LA.  Gav was quite taken with Hopper.  My favorite line of the week was Gavin proclaiming that "If there was another Hopper in this world, that Hopper would really like this Hopper's face".  Ani also had a delightful time.  She played with her other second cousin, Evelyn (daughter of my cousin Dan and Sarah his wife) who is three days older.  They enjoyed causing significant havoc.  She, unlike her brother, has no qualms about jumping off the dock into water that is way over her head, life vest or no.  Heaven help us.

Ani and Evie

The Water Rat

Gavie and Hopper

Someone has to keep up on current events during camp week.

Gavin has started to develop an insatiable curiosity.  He saw a picture of the Mars rover, Curiosity on the latest time magazine, and this prompted lots of questions and lots of YouTube videos demonstrating the landing.  This took up most of our afternoon,which was fine with me, since both Ryan and I spent the day in a post-camp hangover state.  I actually took a nap while Annah was napping, and I think I slept around three hours.  Ahhhhh......

We go back to work on Monday, and Ryan has started his new job.  I start a slightly reduced schedule on Monday, finishing most days 1:20 minutes early.  Getting home at 4:30 instead of 6 pm will make life infinitely easier.  

Gavin, Annah, and Uncle E.

There is nothing sweeter than siblings sitting together and enjoying each other's company.  Unless they are covered in giraffe tattoos.