Chief Strategists

At 8 1/2, the girls' milestones are not what they used to be.  They've learned to roll over...to walk and talk...to ride a bike.  Surely one day they'll learn to swim proficiently too (!!!), but it seems less frequent as BIG KIDS that there's a write-it-down milestone.

What happened earlier this week, though, I'm counting in that camp.

Monday night, I came home and made Hubby's belated birthday dinner, and I had just a few minutes to chill out with the girls before their bedtime.  I was tired, but when A asked to play Connect 4, I thought that sounded like a great activity.

Game 1, she won.  She pondered...she postured...and she won!

OK...best out of three, I offered her.

Game 2, she won again!  Night over!

I've never followed a let-the-kiddos-win philosophy.  Nope, we play fair and square.  And my A beat me twice in a row!  With actual strategy!  Slightly bruised though my ego may have been, I was one proud mama!

I challenged A to a rematch on Tuesday night.  I won our best out of five series, 3-1.  I had to work for it, though!  I was watching her consider different moves.  And from my vantage point through the blue plastic grid, it was amazing to see her little mind work.

B wanted in on the action, and I suggested she play the winner of our series.  I am still chuckling that she said, "I don't wanna play the winner!"  HA!  And -- knowing she likely wanted to play me -- does that mean she had her money on her sister to win???  Ack!!!

B pondered and postured, just as her sister had.  I managed to win the best of three series 2-0, though.

Stepping back, this little exchange over the past couple of nights has been invigorating.  Wowza!  Bring it on, milestones!

UNO!

The girls got the game UNO Moo for their third birthday (I think).  We’ve played off and on, even relatively recently, and it’s a fun little game.  I’m not sure where the girls glimpsed the original UNO card game, but a couple of weeks ago, they started asking to play.

Hubby and I used to spend hours playing, keeping our point tallies and talking a big game.  We were pretty excited to think about the girls joining in the fun.

We played our first game last Thursday, the evening before we left for our little getaway.  Baby A teamed up with me, and B with Hubby.  The girls were mesmerized!  And they were giggling all the while.  I knew they had fun, but I wasn’t certain how much of the game they got.

On Friday, the girls asked to take the UNO cards to St. Louis.  When we got to the hotel, it was the first thing they asked for!

We didn’t find time to play UNO in St. Louis, but Monday when I got home from work, the girls were READY.  “Sissy and I are going to play you and Daddy,” they both insisted.

I really didn’t know how well the girls understood the game, but they were so excited to play, we let them roll with it.

I could.not.believe that the girls BEAT US in their inaugural game!!!!!

The past two nights, the girls and I have played after supper.  They team up against me.  Last night, they won two games to one, and tonight I pulled out the victory.

I love seeing how much fun the girls are having!  I love seeing them conspire together to plot their strategy!  And I love all the big-kid fun I’m having, too!

Super Stuff on a Monday / Tuesday

We have had a busy-but-fun week…thankfully full of super!

1)      Over supper one day, B asked me what “stressful” meant.  As I was forming my response, Baby A piped up, “It means when you have a tough day.”  It was so cool to see how she rephrased something so well!

2)      After sustaining a bump on the face on Tuesday evening, I was worried that B had hit her front tooth.  I got her in to see the dentist on Wednesday morning.  The girls have been SO excited to see the dentist on our last couple of trips, but sweet little B was pretty emotional.  She was so brave, though!  She sat in my lap for her x-ray, but following that she was all smiles.  (And I was all smiles, too, after hearing everything was OK.)

3)      After our trip to the dentist Wednesday morning, and a haircut a couple of hours later, the girls and I rewarded ourselves with lunch out.  They chose our favorite Mexican place, and we had a great meal.  I still sometimes marvel…a year ago, I was still nervous about taking the girls out to eat by myself…but now – dare I say? – it’s almost relaxing for all of us!

4)      If the girls get their toys cleaned up after supper in a timely fashion, their reward is that we have time to play a game before bed.  They were super fast one day, while Daddy and I were still worked to get the kitchen clean.  They decided to move forward with a game of dominoes by themselves…a first.  They were doing so well, working together.  We got a big laugh when Hubby went over to check on them, though.  They had all the dominoes turned over, even in the “boneyard”.  They’d just pick which one they needed!  After Hubby called them on it, they would pretend to cover their eyes as they drew the exact domino they wanted.  HA!

5)      The girls and I dyed Easter eggs for the first time ever this year.  They were so very excited when I told them of our plans.  Baby A went running upstairs to get an Easter book, saying it would be a good “reference”…HA!  The girls were so intent to watch and help, ever-so-carefully, in getting the eggs in and out of the cups.  After we did blue, yellow, and pink eggs (the only dye tablets we had), we experimented with a couple of mixes.  They were absolutely delighted when I put the blue egg in the yellow dye…and it turned GREEN!!!

6)      I saw a notice on Facebook on Saturday morning for the Kids’ Club at the local craft store.  On a whim, I decided to take the girls there to make an Easter egg / chick craft.  They were SO excited!!!  Among other things, Baby A exclaimed, “I haven’t worn my new shoes to Michael’s yet!” which just made me laugh.  The girls followed directions so well, and they waited patiently on our turn, too.  After our craft, I had a little shopping to do there, and the girls always love pulling the little rolling carts.  It was such a fun morning, all the way around!

7)      For Christmas I got the girls some magnetic foam blocks.  They haven’t played with them very much…until this week.  I happened upon the little insert that came with the blocks that shows how to build different figures.  The girls were so intent on building each and every figure…and I was amazed at how well they could translate from paper to blocks.  So cool!

8)      The girls got a surprise package in the mail from Uncle Tommy and Aunt Janet.  They squealed, almost in unison, “WATCH!!!!!!!!”

9)      For supper on Sunday night, I asked the girls if they wanted to peel the eggs that we dyed on Friday.  They were super excited, and they worked so hard.  It had been a while since they last peeled eggs, but they still had the touch!  The funny thing was that they only wanted to eat the white, not the yolk.  They loved stuffed eggs, but apparently they need their onion and mayo to like the middle.

10)   Baby A saw me making a grocery list.  She came up and said, “Crayons!”  And then she started sounding out the word for me to write it down…”Cr...cr...cr...”  She was serious about that addition to the list!

11)   And my Baby A quote of the week?  Upon seeing everything her sister had strewn out on the floor, she stated, “This is a big mess...bigger than ever...I think it's time to pick up, Sissy."

12)   And B had a few quotable quotes…

"Mommy, can you help situate my animals?"

Pretending:  "Mommy, I see a camel on the ceiling. He is purple, and he speaks Serbian, English, Spanish, and Russian. His favorite foods are beets, tomatoes, and cucumbers."

"I'm going to draw a bumblebee sipping nectar."  And then, she did!

So thankful for another week of super highlights from my baby girls!

Super Stuff on a Monday

Lots of super stuff to fill our week!

1)      As I was making breakfast one morning, Baby A was telling me a very long, very involved story.  It was about her puppy Bingo and his older twin brothers and his new baby brother.  One part she kept repeating was, “I took him to the hospital every day so he could pick one [new brother] out.”  She went for at least 20 minutes…and I think it was one big long run-on sentence.  I loved it!!!

2)      Baby A cracks me up.  She has been pretending a lot lately about new babies (usually stuffed animals) being born.  She says, “When they were getting born”, though…and I don’t really have the heart to correct her.  It’s so adorable in her little raspy voice.

3)      The girls have recently picked up a couple of new games at school.  They’ve been playing “Red Light / Green Light” while chasing each other, and also “Freeze!”  They roped me into a game of Freeze one day…unfortunately while we were coming down the steps.  I played along (because it was so cute!), but we had to remind ourselves of the rule that we don’t play on the steps.  Still, I love these games...and have since I was about their age.

4)      The girls seem to have been fixated on “rhombuses” this week.  We were looking through their letter books from preschool, and B was naming each letter.  Instead of “D is for ‘dots’ and ‘diamond’”, she said, “D is for ‘dots’ and ‘rhombus’”…HA!  And while I was having some one-on-one time with A on Thursday, she saw an argyle pattern on the wall of the café.  “Rhombuses!” she exclaimed excitedly. 

5)      One night as the girls were cleaning the den after supper, Baby A finished her chores, while B was dragging around, playing.  Of her own accord, A said to B, “I’m not helping you until you start working.”  HA!

6)      I heard B flipping through the pages of a book one morning.  I asked her what she was doing.  “I’m just looking for Rockefeller Center,” she said nonchalantly.  I think these girls are as ready for a NYC trip as their mama!

7)      On Wednesday, the technical first day of spring, the girls both tossed questions at me the very first thing in the morning, even before they were out of bed.  A asked, “ "Mommy, is it spring?"..."Can I get a new bike today?"  She didn’t know the wind chill was in the teens!)  And B asked, “Mommy, what is gravity?"

8)      One freezing cold morning, B looked outside and exclaimed, “Mommy! I see a seagull!" And then a bit later she pretended to check the weather and said, "It's 69 degrees today."  I think she’s ready for SPRING, too.

9)      The girls have been asking to play with modeling clay, and I finally acquiesced over the weekend.  In comparison to the last time we played (when I felt like I had to really keep my eyes peeled to make sure they didn’t smear clay into anything), they did a great job!  They had so much fun playing…for probably a half an hour!  It was so funny to see what they made, too.  Baby A kept making “groundhogs” (???), and B was intent on making “monkeys”.  And of course there were lots and lots of snakes.

10)   I was so proud of the girls this week.  They’ve been practicing buttoning their pajamas, and they both got it on Sunday night!

11)   Typically, when the girls’ clock turns green each morning (indicating it’s OK for them to get up), I hear, “Mommy!!!  My clock is GREEN!!!  I slept WELL!!!”  This morning, as B had been awake for some time already, singing to herself, I heard instead, “Mommy!  My clock is green!  I slept pretty well!”  At least she’s honest in her assessment!

12)   And perhaps my biggest laugh of the week came from B, as she was commenting to herself on her own drawing: "Oh, this looks quite different from what I expected."  I understand, Honey!  I really do!!!

Super Stuff on a Monday

So much “super” to be thankful for this week!

1)      I watched Baby A, counting out blocks.  She was intuitively grabbing two at a time…she was so close to counting by two’s!

2)      Baby A has been fixed on “100”…and she’s trying to figure out comparisons.  My favorite this week was, “Mommy, I love you more than 100!”

3)      On Monday, our task was to make a present and card for GG’s birthday.  The girls worked SO hard and SO diligently on it…it just warmed my heart.

4)      My Baby A has been quite the snuggle bunny lately.  A few nights, after supper, she’s asked me to come into the den.  “Mommy, please come snuggle with me.”  Of course I obliged…and she lay with her [now very long!] body entirely on top of mine…conforming to my lap and outstretched legs…as I read her a book.  Mommy was in heaven.

5)      I told the girls about the Superhero Photo class I’m taking.  B has been so cute to ask every day, “Mommy, what’s your photo challenge for today?”  And at least so far, they’ve been [relatively] willing participants.

Watching to see how high the ball bounced. :)

 6)      One afternoon after nap, I declared that it was “Game Day” at our house.  The girls and I each took turns choosing a different game to play.  B and I alternated board games and card games, while A picked “Frisbee” every time.  The girls had such a blast!  It was a great change of pace to focus our collective effort on one activity…everyone played…and everyone was a good sport.  And the girls have asked to have “themed” days several times since.  B’s request is usually for “Book Day”, while A would play games all day long, I think.  

7)      Daddy was out of school on Thursday and Friday, and the girls were BEYOND thrilled that he would be able to come with us to school, and that he would be there to pick them up.  They counted down the days all week, leading up to Thursday.  It was so very sweet.

8)      Baby B picked the nighttime story a couple of evenings.  Each time she said, “This is in honor of Daddy’s long weekend.”

9)      Baby B cracks me up…if she spies I’ve left the pantry cracked open, without fail, she’ll ask, “Mommy, may I close your pantry?”  Her organizational tendencies just make me smile.

10)   On Friday we enjoyed a family lunch out at the Thai restaurant.  We haven’t been there in a long time, as they only serve their lunch menu through the week, and we rarely eat out outside of the weekend.  It makes me so happy to see the girls experimenting with different kinds of food…and asking for THIRDS out of the large dish I ordered for the three of us to share.

11)   We usually go out to eat lunch on Saturday, but this week the girls and I had some errands to run, so instead we went out for a mid-morning bagel in between tasks.  The four of us ate lunch at home, and B said, “It’s a special treat to have lunch at home on a Saturday.”  I didn’t realize how much she would enjoy an “ordinary” lunch on the weekend.

12)   We took advantage of Daddy being home for a couple of extra days to score some one-on-one time.  Baby B accompanied me to the grocery store one day.  The next day, Baby A went with me to the mall.  It’s so easy being out with “only” one of them…we have such great interaction over the most ordinary of experiences…and I love observing them apart from each other.

13)   And a couple of quotes…

B was explaining to me the picture she'd made with her magnetic shapes. And what are these red ones? I asked her, of the shapes she had on each side of the cookie sheet. "Those are the cardinal directions, Mommy." Well, of course they are.

The girls were pretending to make up Easter baskets for their baby dolls. Baby A said, "She will have a chocolate, a Peep, a new book, and a toy rattlesnake." Just what every kid wants, right? I personally think I might faint if I found even a toy snake curled in the bottom of a basket...eek!!!

Looking forward to another "super"-filled week!

Super Seven Stuff on a Non-Alliterative Wednesday

This last week has been a challenging one, with one sick baby, and then two, followed by a puny-feeling mama.  Still, I am very thankful for the glimmers of great in the midst of the glop.

1)      I took B to the pediatrician last Monday, and he wanted to test her for the flu.  He told her he was going to “tickle her nose”.  I added my standard line, “It will only tickle for a second, and then it will be all over.”  When she didn’t fuss a bit, he was so impressed…that, on top of no crying last week when they got their four-year old shots.  I saw him mouth the word “amazing” to himself as he jotted a note in her chart.  Proud mama!

2)      I didn’t realize that B knew the general steps in baking a potato, but it was so cute to observe her “cooking” in her kitchen one day.  She pretended to peel a plastic potato with a plastic knife.  (Her technique was relatively accurate!)  She then emptied a plastic bag of some wooden pieces and used it as foil to wrap the potato and put it in the oven.  Of course I don’t bake potatoes once they’re peeled, but I appreciated her attention to detail!!!

3)      One night after supper, Sasha was lounging in front of the fireplace.  In order for the girls not to disturb her, I suggested they sit on the couch and read her a book.  B picked a “Splat” book, one I didn’t realize she’d memorized.  She “read” it, word for word, to Sasha.  She said she chose it for Sasha since it was about a cat.  So sweet!

4)      The girls and I were playing Go Fish last week.  We went through the pictures of all the different kinds of sea life, the majority of which were already familiar to the girls.  Despite that, they kept asking each other for jellyfish, saying, “Sissy, do you have any jellybeans?”  Perhaps a Freudian slip???

5)      Part of our ailments last week included some GI issues.  I’ll spare any more details, but the answer to one question was, “I have a skunk in my belly."  I could almost believe that!  

6)      It always baffles me a little bit…and certainly warms my heart…when one baby calls me on behalf of the other one, even in the middle of the night from their perfectly dark bedroom, “Mommy!  Sissy needs her nose wiped!”

7)      More on this to come, but we made the spur-of-the-moment decision to transition the girls from the zipper blankets they’ve known since they were born to regular, “big girl” blankets.  The looks on their faces were priceless…they were so proud!!!

 


[I wrote this back on Monday, but I'm just now sitting down to post it.  The girls are well, except for finishing up their coughs.  I am much better, but still snotty and tired.  How many days 'til spring???  Ah, well...this, too, shall pass!]