The Bear

I am officially just terrible at keeping track of life now. 3 kids can keep you really busy, sheesh! So I thought I would take a moment and share about our baby Bear, who is growing so very quickly. I had a moment the other day as I got her out of her crib where the transition from baby to toddler was heartbreakingly evident.

She is a new adventure, not like either of her sisters before her. Her heart is far more tender or sensitive. I joke that she is my most hormonal girl so far. When she was born she "passed out" during birth so she was taken from me quickly and once they got her crying she continued until the moment that they put her in my arms, and then she completely stopped. Well she has been like that since. A mommy's girl through and through. More skeptical of strangers and men than Bean or Cec. See face here:
                                               
and here: (this was being very unsure about the car wash)    
                                               
She is also my most snuggly baby, easily and often offering up hugs and holding on a good long time. Be still my heart. For a while I could bring her to Jayme while he was still in bed and she would just lay snuggled up beside him in bed until he got up. look at that snuggly face.

My little artist, she adores finding a paper and marker and creating. 

She takes it seriously too

She has surprisingly good hand-eye coordination as we witness frequently in the way she she puts things on her head and face without any puncture wounds.

She loves "explaining" things to us. Pointing and jabbering on as if that little brain holds a lifetime if information

And if we are having one of those break-down moments, the be-all end-all for her is The Backyardigans. This is something that she shares in common with Bean.That was her all time favorite at this age too. Pablo for President. She now sings the them song and shakes her hips from side to side. It is the very best. 

 And like at the heart of every child, she loves to explore, to feel a freedom, to find, to touch,

and some of her favorite places to explore are our bedroom closet, the master bedroom, drawers of any kind, the bookshelf, the pantry, the toilets, the dog bowl, and under the dining room table.

Just the last few weeks we have entered that place where she understands so much of what you say. Jayme said to her the other morning as she walked into the room with nothing but a diaper on, "where are your clothes" so she proceeded to head to the living room, find her pajamas, and drag them back to him. She absolutely hates being wrapped in a towel after her bath and just says "stuck stuck" until her arms are free. She has also begun a game where she stands on the stairs and looks at me and says "sit, sit" and laughs. and I can now ask her if she wants a specific thing to eat and she will say "no" if she doesn't want it. She says "Mommy" "Papa" "Hi Bean" "book" "go go" (when she wants to get out of the house), "1,2,3," and "un deux, trois", "Shoe", "night night" and many other things I'm forgetting I'm sure. This girl loooooves her night night. She is much like her mommy in that when she has just had too much she just needs to go to bed. she knows it, she owns it, she loves it. 

Two Things I'll Miss

Our bedtime routines consist of the usual putting on of pajamas, brushing of teeth, reading books, prayer and snuggles. All of this I love. But 2 things that Evangeline and Cecily do right now which are strangely and uniquely their own, are the things I realize that I will miss when they pass. Cecily must always ask, "is there going to be funder (thunder) tonight?" and on the chance that I say "I'm not sure actually." She will reply with "Can you just say no?" haha and as long as I say there won't be she is satisfied and sleeps easy.

Evangeline's only happens when Jayme is home. He typically puts Cec to bed first while I read to Bean and then when I am leaving Evangeline's room, she says to me, "Tell Papa to sit on the lump he sees!" and proceeds to hide under her covers and wait for Jayme to come in and pretend he can't find her so he just decides to have a seat on the big lump in her bed. What follows is 10 minutes of giggles and tickles and snuggles.

I love it all and I can't wait to see what Verity's will be. Right now she sleeps with her ducky, blanky and 2 pacis. Before she can settle down to sleep she has to switch one paci for the other a few times. It's weird and adorable.

"M" is for Mist

Today Evangeline read her first word unprompted while we were watering the garden. "M, mmmm mist".

Dress Rehearsal

Recital time is next month. Today was parent observation in class and a dress rehearsal of sorts. I can't handle the bigness.

 Aren't they adorable?

Poor Eisley. Evangeline is so very easily distracted, and adding us sitting there to the mix, well it definitely didn't help. Not a multi-tasker. Total daydreamer. Complete deja vous. 

Take from the big, give to the little

Any way to make this stop?

Cecily the WIld

Oh my Cecily. She is joy, humor, intensity, intelligence, particularity, antagonism, boldness, curiosity, strength, bravery, independence, cuteness, snuggles, and sweetness, all rolled into this adorable blonde-haired, blue-eyed tiny package. These days lately she has given me a run for my money and I am still navigating her and how she works and what works on her. She is so much fun and so tiring all at once. I think the biggest adjustment for me in learning her personality vs. Evangeline's is that she doesn't stop. Hardly ever. And while she can play well by herself, she prefers to be at my side most of the day. TV doesn't hold her attention for more than 5 minutes, which overall is a great thing but let me tell you there are many days when I am internally screaming, "please just watch a show!" Because when she is with me she is not just ally sitting by my side, she.is.busy! always. 

Whether it is turning the lights off and on, changing clothes and costumes, dressing her doll and having an extremely frustrated fit because she can't get the sleeve over the doll's arm, pushing buttons on the remotes, buckling and unbuckling every buckle on Verity's toys and seats, trying endlessly to figure out the password to unlock my cell phone, having imaginary conversations on said phone, asking for an apple squeeze incessantly, opening drawers, packing a lunch box, hanging from the table, jumping from the couch, finding a cup and getting ice and water from the fridge, playing her "Hello Time" Kindermusik cd on one particular song over and over again until we all want to scream from mad repetition, yes, she is just going all the time. 

As I typed that out, I thought, "yep that pretty much sounds like a typical day around here." She is busy but she is wonderful. I laugh so much and enjoy seeing the dramatic play that spills over from her imagination. I love to watch her play "Hello Time" and sit her dolls on the floor next to her as she asks them which motion they would like to do and leads them in song. I adore how inviting and friendly she is to people. "What's your name again?" is a favorite question to both strangers and the familiar friend. I love how much she loves and needs physical attention and snuggles. She asks to be snuggled every time she goes to bed at night and for every nap. "Mommy, please snuggle me". She asks us to "open her back" which means to lift up  her shirt and rub her back. She is so independent lately and pretty much gets dressed all by herself. I can tell her to go put a pull-up and her pajamas on at night and she does. She is a fast learner. Once she sees something once, she's pretty much got it and remembers it. 

She is fully potty-trained and has been since about the end of August. It's been an adventure. The thing that made it easier with her is that Cec didn't really have accidents, she erred on the opposite side and would just hold it and not go at all. The main motivation for her  to not hold it and go was a princess potty that we bought her. She took to it right away and mastered pee-pee in the potty pretty quickly after that. A Whole Foods run was the first outing with no diaper and we haven't gone back to them since. Pooping however has been a different and comical story. She will still hold her poop usually until we make her go or until she absolutely can't hold it any longer. To describe what it is like when she has to go poop, well, the only thing I can liken it to is having future glimpses of her labor experience. She panics, screams, sometimes cries, yells at me with hurried demands "hold my shirt up!' and makes me hold her hands while she goes. It's seriously hysterical. but getting better. 

And sadly, I am just now adding stuff from notes that were last updated in July so it's mostly from over the summer months and a lot of this has passed or she's already outgrown but I'm still going to put it in this entry. And some of it is still relevant, mostly the things that I will put last. She runs around the house and chants, "I win!" and "whoo-hoo" when she gets excited about something. "give it me. I do it". "Mommy, how bout?" is a new thing. Like "Mommy, how bout the yellow marker?" Vitamins are now "nianins" and she used "it" in place of "ing". Mommy I'm pooping = Mommy I poopit. Bang-it. = "Mommy, I banging." etc. Says "oh my goodness" when she makes bodily noises. Is very particular about my hair being pulled up. The second I throw my hair up in a bun she charges toward me and stomps that little foot and demands, "Mommy, keep your hair down!" I have no idea why but it makes me laugh. She has known all of her colors for several months now, (she caught onto those insanely quickly) but will still call blue "baloo" and orange "orange juice". She calls Evangeline "Beanie" and on the rare occasions that she calls her by her full name, it's 'Ebangeline'. Her "F's are S's, for instance: Slush, slashlight, shruit snack, are flush, flashlight and fruit snack. "Kway" is how she says "OK". "Hand polish" is nail polish. Instead of saying, "I'm Cecily" if someone asks her what her name is, she says, "My Cecily". She has a big problem with waiting in lines. Totally impatient. Whether it's traffic or the line in a drive-thru she shouts from her little car seat, "Go away cars!"

Walden and Gentry

It's fall! And farm time! Thus begin the traditions. We had a perfectly chilly fall evening for our family trip to Walden Farm. 

 Picking the perfect pumpkin.

 Bean was very specific. It had to be a little dirty so she could clean it, no stem, and just the right size.

 washing the pumpkin

 Getting a good shot is only proving more difficult with 3 of them!

 Tractor riding

Traditional dinner at Martin's BBQ following Walden.

 Gentry's Farm with the Galls and Jenkins

 All this hand-holding is melting me

 Another tractor ride and Verity's first one.

 Cecily keeping her fingers away from the chickens

 Just smiling at Papa

 Remember what I said about getting a good shot of all of them? ...yeah....