These are a few of my favorite things...

When the dog barks when the bee stings when I'm feeling bad I simply remember my favorite things and then I don't feel so bad. That song actually sums up the two things my girls are most afraid of but the part about thinking nice thoughts and anxiety dissapearing does not apply to them. This applies to Bobo much more so than Ella who seems to be coming to the end of her I am absolutely terrified of everything stage. Seriously Ella would not even go near the library's pet hamster who I should point out is contained in a glass cage. So just in time Bobo will slide nicely in to the position of scardey cat. I guess watching Ella's fears all those months finally made a impact on her. We went to Fort Williams on Sunday for a picnic and the second Bobo heard the distant sound of a barking dog she wanted to "go home" we are familiar with this response these are the same words urgently sounded when we encounter a bee in the yard at home. Even though we are yards from the house Bobos response is always the same " I want to go home" shortened to "go home" in emergencies. Although she really wanted to leave at first with a group effort we convinced her to stay and she actually had fun and so did Ella who loves to point out that she was brave at all times. While the girls both have things that scare them they have things that with the same intensity please them. Ella's object of affection is a small oatmeal colored bear named Morris, named Morris because in her words he is a Morris too. Morris was actually left behind at toys-r-us last weekend when the lure of a new pool and sprinkler became too distracting. Not to worry he was back together with Ella in less than an hour. You can see Morris in both the photo of Ella and daddy holding hands and the shot of them standing up against the railing. Not to forget about Bobo's favorite friend she is a Mermaid named Nori and she (in my opinion) is not nearly as lovable as cute little Morris, she is hard and plastic with bright blue scraggly hair but Bobo adores her. She goes everywhere with Bobo. You can see how delighted she was when Nori was passed to her (it's the picture with her hand up on her check).

You'll come get me in an hour mama?

Bobo has never been a great sleeper, you know when you bring them home from the hospital that they won't sleep for a leisurely 8-10 hours but you hope that it won't be too terribly long until they give you a decent nights worth of sleep. I wasn't a first time mom so I knew that at least the first few months were going to be hard but... This child resisted sleep every step of the way. The first year of her life this girl got by on less sleep than I would think is humanly possible, I don't remember exactly how old she was but I clearly remember her slapping her little cheeks to keep herself awake. I couldn't believe it, I had never seen anything like it just how much could someone despise sleep. Which by the way I LOVE, I mean really I love love love to sleep, so clearly this little girl and I were going to have issues. Now that Bobo has grown a bit she seems to go through "sleep cycles" she will sleep like a angel for a few weeks until the devil takes her place and she will wake repeatedly or fight nap time and bedtime with determination that could break the best of us. At one point she was going to bed then right as I was drifting of to sleep around midnight I would hear her. I would lay in bed and try to convince myself that tonight would be different, that if I just ignored her she would settle back down. But that just didn't happen and so we would begin our nighttime ritual, from about 12:30 /1:00 a.m until about 4:00 a.m every night I would repeatedly put Bobo back to bed. I would let her cry but then I would start to panic I did not need two of them awake. So back to her room I would go, this routine got old really fast so in desperation one early morning (2:00 a.m) I brought her downstairs put on the lion king DVD and laid down on the couch. Now why would I think that someone as sleep deprived as I was would maybe possibly fall asleep, no I won't, I wouldn't do that. Well I woke up when I heard Nick say HONEY! I look down and on the hard wood floor her body half wedged under the couch was my little Bobo, finally exhausted. Now Bobo is by no means a great sleeper but I seem to have found a magical combination of words that has changed everything in regards to her sleep patterns. Now I am not sure if I should write this down, I may upset the God's of sleep, but the words are "I will come get you in an hour". This works at nap time and bed time as she has no real concept of time. She now asks me every time I put her into her bed "you come get me in a hour mama? For now this is working like a charm, except for the fact that big sister who is much more wise in the ways of time and keeps trying to explain to her at bedtime that I will in fact not be back in an hour, shaking her head at how silly her baby sister is as she talks.

Is spring springing?

We had a great Easter with the girls and our family. The Easter bunny showered the girls with treats as did family near and far, and the girls give many thanks to all who indulged them. How lucky they are, not to have gotten so many treats but to have so many who adore them. We decorated eggs the night before Easter and we all had a good laugh at Bobo's expense when she ate a big spoonful of vinegar and dye, I wish you all could have seen the look on her face. Unrelated to Easter bobo is doing very well potty training she goes back and forth between diapers and underpants but the process has been so much more pleasant than it was with Ella. Not that I am pinning that on Ella I will definitely take the blame for that, we tried too soon and Ella being a bit of a perfectionist had a hard time with anything but perfection which led to some problems. So I am just happy to spare Bobo the inexperienced potty training mommy ordeal. Another unrelated tid-bit Bobo has learned the word jerk and although I sort of cringe when I hear her say it the immature part of me just wants to giggle when I hear Bobo say "don't be a jerk Ella". It sounds so funny coming out of her mouth and it could be a much worse word.
The weather has been warming up and the bulbs are beginning to pop through the ground , I love this time of year all the anticipation of summer. When summer has truly begun it slips away so fast in Maine that I almost like this time of year better when all the promise of summer fun is still all ahead of us. The other great thing is that the girls get to spend so much more time outside and in doing so expend so much more energy. Which in my book leads to the ultimate parents reward, girls who fall asleep as soon as there head hits the pillow and stay that way until morning. I love my children but the night time games just kill me, at the end of the day I have no energy reserved for those antics. Ella has a master inventory of everything in this house and she knows exactly what will be hard to find and therefore what to ask for in order to stall for the most time.

Come on Honey

Yesterday at lunch we were listening to a 80's mix I made years ago, the girls love it, and they now know the words to quite a few of the songs. One of the song's is Manic Monday by the GoGo's and there is a lyric that goes as follows- He tells me in his bedroom voice come on honey lets go make some noise. Well Bobo and Ella find this part catchy for some reason and keep on repeating it over and over, come on honey let's go make some noise, come on honey lets go make some noise. Followed by fits of giggles, then Ella looks at me and says "Oh mommy Bobo just doesn't get it"

Things I will miss

Someday the girls will stop mispronouncing their words and I am really going to miss some of their adaptations and creations.
Sheepers=slippers
Brecko=waffles
Hostable=Hospital
pokey dots=polka dots
zert=dessert
magown=nightgown
As well as cute words I will miss the thought process of the pre-school & toddler set for example-

Ella has been reffering to Nick and I by our first names when she is talking to other people and when I asked her why she said she likes to use fancy talk.

Or

Ella will say to me Mommy if I ever fall into a river if I get thirsty I will just drink the water, then I asked her if she was sure that was a good idea I mean what about all the fish poop? She thinks for a minuet and said to me, Mommy fish don't poop they have tails. I just love those kind of original idea's.

Or

Bobo was looking through the curtains last night and when her father asked her what was out there she said " A old man", there was nobody outside that's just what she thought up.

Or

The fact that we all have "house names" Nick is Randy Popper, I have no Idea what the origin of that one is but it makes me laugh every time one of the girls say's it, my name is suzie, Ella's name is Allison which she has now added Ariel to so it's Allison Ariel, and Bobo's name is J.J.

While Bobo is coming close to the end of her second year it seems like she is just beginning her terrible, temperamental, two year old behavior. Lately everything sends her over the edge. She can not STAND even a drop of juice or water or stray crumb landing on the perfect ensemble she has chosen for the day. She starts screaming and screetching demanding baby wipes. Yesterday she spent from 8:30 to 9:30 crying, as soon as she would start to recover something else would set her off. At the end of this episode she was lying on her back on the kitchen floor complaining that the tears were running in to her ears. Are you kidding me? I explained that the best solution would be to stop the flow of tears, problem solved right? I thought so but she didn't see it my way. I really thought she might just skip these type of antic's she has always been such a happy laid back baby, but as fast as I can type this she is back. My Bobo who says without moving her lips what's going on here or comes running in to the room wearing a bright red curly wig.

My Day

It is 12:20 A.m and what I should really be doing is sleeping so I can rest up for a rousing day full of interactions like this-
bobo- Mommy what king of juice is this?
Me- It's cranberry juice
bobo- Oh
bobo -mama what's this juice called?
me- it's cranberry juice bobo.
Now just multiply that times a hundred and imagine how intellectually stimulating.
Or you have Ella who wanted to discuss mermaids, she wanted to know if they are little girls that leaned over too far and fell off of bridges.
Then tonight after dinner I thought they could watch a video while I cleaned up, well I put in Free to Be You and Me and Molly started to scream and ran in to the other room when I came around the corner she kept whispering I'm afraid of the babies, what is that all about? She used to love that movie. When I finally thought we were coming to the finish line for the night Molly drew on the couch with pen, Ella got upset that I did not have the right cup for her evening beverage and then was further insulted when she insisted that her duvet cover and sheets did not match. Have you seen the way this girl dresses?

It"s Official

Molly has started taking her fashion cues from her big sister.

Why Why Why?

The other morning Ella and I got in to it over the soothies, in my opinion she's too old for them but its also my job to help her to give them up which I haven't really tried my hardest to facilitate. So I wanted to leave them all at home she absolutely did not, well she won that round. See while I do like the soothies while we are stuck in traffic and running around they really do help us all keep our sanity but there is a hitch. The girls are constantly dropping them out of reach and then having a panic attack about it which defeats the whole purpose of the stupid things. So ding ding ding round one goes to Ella weighing in at 31 pounds we make are way out to the car soothies in hand. Not ten feet out of the drive way Ella drops the soothie and all hell brakes loose. I decide to correct my weak parenting move of allowing the soothie in the car in the first place and make a firm stand. I pull over get out of the car open the back door find the soothie under the seat shove it in my pocket without a word and get back in the drivers seat literally and figuratively. Now who's in control, ha ha ha, well I shouldn't have gotten so ahead of myself. Ella is really putting on a show in the back seat and as hard as I try to keep my cool she is definitely getting under my skin. I break, I tell her if she can calm down and be quiet she can have the soothie back. This was a bigger mistake than I could predict. I pull down a side street put the car in park get out and shut the door, as I walk around to Ella's side of the car lecturing her on the fact that she is too old for soothies and blah blah blah it hits me I just shut the door with the keys in the ignition, cars running, kids strapped in, purse and phone in the car, ALL THE DOORS LOCKED! I scan the street no one appears to be home, O.K Heather keep your cool. I decide my best option is to see if I can get Ella to un-buckle her seat belt and unlock the door. This shouldn't be too hard right, fifteen minutes later no luck. Maybe Bobo can do it? No luck she just laughs at me, the joke in all of this eludes me, back to Ella. Five more minutes and we got one buckle undone one to go. Her little fingers just don't seem strong enough. Finally she does it!!!!!! Ella was the hero of the day, she has won the battle and the war, and learned a very bad trick (how to escape the carseat). So much for teaching her a lesson I was the one doing the learning that day.

Seen and heard around honey's house

I appolagize to you all for the lack of posts the girls have both decided to put naps in the past and I am trying to remodel our very ugly bathroom on a very meager budget which unfortunately (for me anyway) involves a lot of elbow grease. Since I have no peace and quiet I will just record some of the things I have heard around the house.
Ella- "sometimes chubby babies make me a little bit shy, what makes you shy boob."
Ella has been very curious about where she came from, she seems a bit young for this line of questioning but I have kept the explanations fairly simple. Me- A mommy has eggs and a Daddy has sperm and when you put them together them you can grow a baby. Ella- with a puzzled look on her face "is it a game?"
Ella- when we were on our way home from the grocery store the other day Ella wanted to stop at McDonald and I said no we can not afford to go out to eat today we just bought all kinds of yummy food at the grocery store Ella started crying, then she regained some composure and said "but you love to spend money mama"
Molly- She was laughing so much I had to find out what was so funny, and I found her standing over the heating vent and she said "look mama I have baby in my tummy"