Cassie Quips

The understanding, or lack thereof, of a 5 year old never ceases to amaze me. This morning she discovered some "new" costume jewelry that I unearthed from the depths of our pantry while cleaning it yesterday--still in the packaging, but opened.
C: Please help me put this on. ("This" was a sparkly necklace.)
Mommy: Okay.
C: Do we have any more jewelry like this? It's beautiful.
Mommy: No, we don't.
C: Where did I get it?
Mommy: I found it in the pantry yesterday when I was cleaning.
C: Can you go find some more?

Just try it

The last few weeks have been a battle at almost every meal, as I've decided not to "short order cook" for C anymore...at least not until she's tried everything on the regular, adult menu. All I ask is one bite of each item, including all the little bits that are included in some meals, like the peppers in my hoisin beef dish, or the veggies in the chicken & biscuits that F made tonight. To her surprise, she's even discovered some new things she likes! She discovered that she liked the beef part of the hoisin beef, and said mmmm, to the cauliflower and carrots tonight. Funny thing is, she's been adamantly refusing to eat carrots for months now...in any shape or form. Tonight was the real breakthrough. She said, "Mommy, I have to try everything, right?" When I said yes, she put her fork to the broccoli and ate it. "I tried the broccoli, just like last time." Then, she ate a carrot ("mmmm") and a cauliflower, ("mmmmm") and a piece of the chicken in the sauce. I asked her if she'd tried the peas. The answer was "No, Mommy," but the significant thing was that nothing else followed. She put her fork into her peas and ate them! No argument, no hiding them, no bargaining, she just ate them! Then, she ate more of the biscuit, a bit more chicken and another carrot. Happily! A carrot!

C-isms

I love the way little kids maneuver the English language to suit their understandings. Here are a few of the things we've been hearing around our house lately (along with the translation)

Twinkibird (Tweety Bird)
Elegator (Elevator)
I begive you (I forgive you)
Bgraffe (Giraffe)
Pangaroo (Kangaroo)

My favorite thing we've been hearing lately though, is not one of the words that has been reformed, rather a statement heard at meals.

"Mommy, we have to pray!"

When we had a family over for dinner a week or so ago, C and their little girl sat at their own table. While the adults prayed, the girls joined hands and C could be heard: "Dear God. Thank you for food. Thank you for good today. Thank you for thank you for. Amen."

Can I really be the mother of a 3 year old?

C's birthday was a month ago. That month has gone by like lightning. Then I think of the last three years, and I'm trying to figure out where the time went. It's all a blur, punctuated by moments of clear memories in vivid detail. Suddenly, instead of a tiny baby that admittedly was born with her own Personality but otherwise simply a baby with basically physical needs, I have a little girl with ideas, opinions and an attitude. How does so much happen in just three years--or 6 months, for that matter? Since we moved, she's learned so much, and developed so many new interests. Her latest "thing" is ballet. She's been interested since catching a snippet on a show I'd recorded. After that, coupled with her dance classes, she asked to have a ballet birthday. I asked our guests to wear their ballet gear and I made ribbon wands for C and her friends to dance with and for the girls to take home. They turned out beautifully and the girls boogied down to music from the Imagination Movers and some other Disney favorites. The preparations for the party were nothing but a labor of love. I spent several hours making ballet slipper candies and decorating a ballerina bear birthday cake. The moment she saw the cake, those hours were worth it to see her face. The girls went home with Angelina Ballerina books and ballerina coloring pages I printed from the internet. I'm pretty sure everyone had fun, not just the birthday girl, and that's my goal for her birthday celebrations. 

In more detail #3: AppleFest

Honestly, I wrote the most interesting thing about Applefest on my previous post: that C was chugging the apple cider. I mean, seriously, I asked her if she wanted a sip of mine, and she took the cup and handed it back to me, empty, about a minute later! However, we also got to go on another pony ride. Here's the pix. 

In more detail #2: Ciderfest

South of Kansas City is a little town called Louisburg, "famous" for it's apple cider and the mill that makes it. During apple season they offer tours of the mill. There's also a quaint little country store where they make quite tasty cider donuts. The first weekend in October it's the site for the Louisburg Ciderfest; we went on Saturday, the 4th. There's a corn maze, and a big ol' pile of pumpkins to choose from. The crowd was crazy that day, and the craft vendors were plentiful. Along with the craft fair, a vendor offered pony rides. Of course, that was something C had to do. She sat that little pony so confidently that the man running it asked if she'd ridden before. Maybe horseback riding is in her future? (Every time I think something like that, I imagine all the number of things that could be in her future...how wonderful to have so many possibilities!) We got to taste the Louisburg Cider on Sunday at the Weston Applefest. C loved it. She guzzled down a full cup and a half of it. I'm thinking that sometime soon we'll have to get down there and buy some. 

slowing down

Ah, finally, a slow-down. This week we had an ear infection, which meant lots of mommy & me time for the little one. It does explain why she's been so ultra-clingy lately, not to mention cranky and just plain unpleasant to be around. Granted, we've been so busy, I'm pretty sure that she hasn't had enough at-home, attention-from-mommy time. We also had some guests this week: my friend Leta and my 20-month old goddaughters (twins!) What an eye-opening experience. Leta has my utmost respect for being able to handle having two toddlers going through all the same stages--at the same time. They were here for 3 1/2 days, and now that I am back to the one, I'm feeling really relaxed. I'm really glad they came though. C enjoyed playing with the twins, even asking a) if she could keep Katie and b) where the friends were when she woke up the morning after they left. It was so nice for Mommy to have a grown-up to talk to in the evening and the night time. That's the hardest time, I think, during a deployment. For now, though, we're back to the new normal.

For her card...

This is what I want to write in my daughter's birthday card this year. 

Dear C,

Months ago you started talking about your birthday. How you would eat cake and be three! Then you decided you loved ballet.  I think you dress up as a ballerina (aka princess) every single day. You also love kitties right now, and talked about the kitty-fleece-fabric we saw one day at Wal-Mart for three months. Since we're celebrating you today, it's all about the things you love. So we're having a ballet birthday party. You're dressed up as a ballerina. I'll be making your cake this year, and I've made the ballet ribbon wands for your friends to dance with at the party. I bought that fabric and have spent hours making it into a blanket for you. I really wanted it all to be perfect, because I love you so much. I tried really hard to make that blanket perfect. Then I realized something: you'll love this blanket. Right now you'll love it because you're three, it's soft, it's got kitties on it, and it's pink! But later I hope you still love it, when you realize how imperfect it is...because your Mommy made it, thinking of you and trying to make something you'd love. Mommy did her best. When you're older, maybe it will have a message for you about perfection, about love, or about doing your best. I hope it does.

Oh, how the days go by...

Well, I wanted to make sure that C and I had plenty to keep us busy with F gone. I have succeeded far beyond my wildest imaginings. Our ability to "go and do" at this post is so far beyond our ability to "go and do" at Irwin, it astounds me. Let's see, lately we've been to gymnastics class, dance class, a Raggs concert (visit www.pbskids.org for who Raggs is.) the Louisburg Cider Festival, the Weston Apple Festival, the Weston Red Barn Farm and pumpkin patch, a production of Richard Scarry's "Busy Town" by Theatre for Young America, the KC Renaissance Festival and KC chocolate festival, and that's only in the month of October! Of course, there's still more on our calendar to get us to the end of the month, then even more to get us to Thanksgiving and I think we get to breathe a little before Christmas...oh yeah, then we get to get ready for Christmas! If I have a chance later, I'll give some of the details of our outings, but right now, I just wanted to let y'all know what we're up to. 

We said bye-bye...

to the diapers. That's actually why I haven't updated this in a while. My life has revolved around the potty-training issue lately, and I didn't want to scar C for life by publicizing every detail of her potty-ing. However, it's been a week since she said that the diapers could go away and she'd use the potty. She's doing quite well so far, and her Mommy is keeping calm...mostly. 

Little Girl Firsts

I can hardly believe my little girl is being, well, a little girl. She's more little girl than toddler these days. We have "firsts" and "she's started..." happening all the time these days. Where to start. In the past week, she's had her first horse-ride (she loved it and every time we drive past the place, she asks if we're going to ride the horse again), set up her first "picnic" for her stuffed friends, and she's gotten her first library card of her own. I don't know that she was all that excited by it, but she was thrilled by the books we got to take home.  We went to Oceans of Fun for the first time. C calls it "the water carnival". C got her first (and quite likely only) kitchen set with play food. She spends copious amounts of time "cooking" and "cutting" and "baking." I get to eat a lot of pretend strawberries. She calls it a "chichen" (another one for the pronunciations). She's also started making up the most delightful little songs. She takes whatever is going on in our daily lives and turns it into a song, pounding on her Baby Einstein octopus piano at the same time. I keep trying to get a picture of it, but she's started noticing me take pictures and as soon as the camera comes out, she mugs for it. Last, but not least, she's started helping in the real kitchen a little bit. She buttered her own bread for a grilled cheese sandwich the other day, and, boy howdy, she thought that was the best sandwich ever. Guess we're going to start cooking more and more together. I just wish it didn't take so much planning and preparation in order to have her help. I'm enjoying all these firsts, I can hardly wait to see what she comes up with next. Hopefully, it will be going potty. 

Weeds...growing like one

I've been reading this fantastic book series by Lauraine Snelling. Well, an ongoing series that's been split into three parts. Astrid, one of the main character's daughters asks her mother repeatedly why weeds grow so much faster than their crops. For some reason, this helped me to understand the phrase, "growing like a weed"--finally. And that's been my theme about C lately. She's growing, rather like a weed. She's a small one still, but she has taken root in our family and she is assertive, persistent and unlike a weed, delightful, most of the time. She is also growing so fast lately! I predict I will be buying shoes +1 size within the month. Wasn't it just yesterday she lay there, wiggling her 2-inch, tiny baby feet? Now she's a big girl running, jumping, climbing and dancing in size 7. Granted, her journey through the clothing sizes has been less swift, but I look at her and think, could this really be my baby girl comfortably wearing a 3T? 2T may fit a bit longer, but I can't buy them, or the 24 month clothes anymore. I'm too afraid we'd miss wearing them, because all it's going to take is one more growth spurt. Still don't know what I'll do about pants when the 2Ts are too short. She's so skinny, I'm not sure the 3Ts are going to stay on!

Lessons from a Carseat

My carseat cover is in my washing machine, and the padding is sitting in my sink drying out. 

Lesson 1: water has an effect on yogurt-covered raisins, and it's not necessarily a good one

Lesson 2: wet yogurt-covered raisins stink

Lesson 3: Febreze doesn't take out the stink from wet yogurt-covered raisins. 

Lesson 4: carseat covers should be washed more often than once every two years, no matter how big a pain it is to get the cover off. 

Ew. 

Around the House

In the past couple of weeks I've been fighting quite the summer cold. This, of course, means that we've been spending quite a bit of time at home. I've had the opportunity to catch C in some of the sweetest moments. She's slowly learning how to play for short bits of time by herself. It's something I have to enforce a bit, but it's something she does need to know how to do, for the sanity of us both. She's discovered her dolls, and that she can play pretend with them. She's taking some time to "read" her books by herself, and she loves her crafts lately. She's constantly clamoring for us to make something. When Daddy was home for a four-day weekend, he even got to sit down and paint with her. The show of the moment is Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. She even does "The Hot Dog Dance" when the show's not on. She wants me to dance with her too. One would think that I'd be getting plenty of exercise this way. I wish. It's days that are filled with moments like these that motherhood seems easy and lovely, or if not these, at least not so frustrating.

Little Miss Energy

Some days I think C has enough energy for 10 mommies. I know she has a ton of toys, but I think we touch every toy we own at least twice a day, some toys, of course, even more than that. Her favorite words lately are "Mommy, want to play with me?" or "watch 1 show?" Even though one might think that the shows would let me have a bit of a breather, not so much. C wants Mommy to sit with her to watch her show, and interact with her throughout. I wish I knew where she gets all of it, considering she hardly eats anything. In addition to being Little Miss Energy, she's also Little Miss Fussyeater and Little Miss Iwantpantiesbutnotpotty. So, in addition to keeping up with her, I'm trying to convince her to watch fewer shows, eat a wider variety of foods (and more at a time instead of snacking all day), and use the potty. All of the challenges between the two of us just get exhausting. Speaking of eating and energy usage, I keep wondering where she gets the energy to grow like she has lately! I think it was in the course of a week, but she sprouted through a whole size of clothes. She's now up to 3T tops and 2T bottoms. I'd hoped that she'd even out for a while and be in 2T for both instead of the 2T top/18month bottoms she'd been in. No go. I'm now facing the challenge of finding shorts for her. As long as she wears a dress or tee with jeans, it's easy enough to dress her, but shorts seem to only come in sets, and she doesn't wear the same size on top as on the bottom! Frustrating. Our activities are coming to an end for the summer, so it's going to take just about all my creativity and energy to keep her occupied on a daily basis through June, July and August. I'm thankful for the child development center and child care there, as well as having good friends around with whom we can go on outings. Wish me luck. 

Open Door Morning

One of the blessings about our housing assignment is that our across-the-hall-neighbors have a 2 year old (6 days older than C) and the girls really enjoy playing together. Today they had a play date that started in their place and then C had a meltdown and needed Mommy. Because we were standing in the doorway talking, Pammie came into our house and started playing. After laughing about how the girls kept just making themselves at home, Rachel (P's mommy) and I decided to put a baby gate across the stairwell and just leave the doors open so the girls could come and go into the apartments and we Mommies could get our things done. At lunch time, Rachel and Pammy joined us to help out with our leftovers. It was so much fun, we decided we ought to have open-door-mornings more often!

"...Back Soon"

C is definitely a child of routine. We have finally found a nighttime ritual that works. As long as we can follow the routine, bedtime, even naptime goes off without a fight. Without the routine though...ugh...scary thought.

Step 1) When C starts the bedtime fussies, we ask her if she's ready to take her friends upstairs. If we ask if she's ready for bed, she says "no", "no likey bed". If she's really ready,

Step 2) she'll gather up her 'friends' and go to the steps, and says "uppease". She has so many stuffed friends, she can't walk up the stairs by herself.

Step 3) Place C in the bed, and she asks for "bug on" and "house on". The bug is her nightlight that she picked out herself when she developed her darkness issues. The house is one of those village houses that lights up. This one is decorated as though it's autumn and has pumpkins and turkeys and such on it. F thought it would be a good nightlight until C could pick one out of her own. They've both stuck.

Step 4) Turn on the bug and house.

Step 5) Tuck into Thomas blanket and Mommy blanket {the blanket I made for her while I was pregnant}. Depending on how tired she is, maybe skip to step 8.

Step 6) Read bedtime books in whatever order requested: Goodnight Moon, called "moon"; The Going to Bed Book, called "cow book" (I'm not sure why); and one of the following: Kittycat Lullaby, Have You Got My Purr?, or Guess How Much I Love You, called "bunny book".

Step 7) Pray and sing "Jesus Loves Me" together.

Step 8) C says "Mommy back soon." This is my signal that she's ready for me to give her kisses and leave her room. She doesn't like to say goodnight. I think she just needs to know that I'm coming back at some point.

Step 9) Kiss one hand repeatedly until "full", switch and repeat with second hand. Kiss each cheek, nose and head.

Step 10) C specifies what she's going to kiss on Mommy and Mommy bends to facilitate kisses, for example: "cheek" -kiss- "orcheek" -kiss- "kiss hair" -kiss- "kiss nose" -kiss- Yes, she only says kiss before the part on parts other than cheeks. Very odd.

Step 11) I say "Mommy loves C". C says "I wuf you Mommy." and I finally leave the room.
As I discovered in the hotel with my folks, if I don't leave the room, C does not go to sleep, no matter how much of the rest of the routine is adhered to. I can come back after she's asleep, but she needs to go to sleep alone.

Twas the Night...

...that C stayed away from home all night for the first time.

F and I returned today from an overnight stay away from C. We had a Regimental Ball that was out of town since there simply isn't anywhere here that will hold that massive number of people (92 tables of 10!!) There was child care provided on site there, but considering the number of children involved, we decided that we'd find a friend who could keep C here. A dear friend from PWOC and her husband and older children had her stay with them. C had been to their house before and spent a day with them when I was recovering from my surgery. She adores their boys and really enjoys their doggies. She ate well, napped, and even went to sleep at night without a fight! I am so impressed that she did so well. When I was her age, my parents would leave me with my grandparents or aunt and uncle. In the Army life, one doesn't always have the luxury of having family nearby, and friends are called on to stand in the gap. I am sooooooo incredibly blessed to have found such a family of friends here at Irwin-town. Makes my heart sigh that we're leaving so soon.

Tree's Up

and C is totally into it...all the time. I guess it's our own fault for having cute Hallmark ornaments that look a lot like toys to her. At first, the tree was a novelty, and she was good about asking Daddy and Mommy for an ornament to look at, would examine it, and then give it back to us to hang back on the tree. As the novelty wore off, she stopped asking, and just started pulling them off. She isn't very nice to them and has broken one or two. So, our poor tree looks awfully topheavy though. As she discovers new ornaments to mess with, I keep moving them closer to the top of the tree. Just another source for tantrums, but without the tree it just doesn't seem like Christmas.

Dreamin'...part 2

Well, we are finally dreaming again around the Wong house. I'm still not sure what exactly was the cause of C's sleep problems, but we've gotten to the point where she's sleeping through the night again, and in her own (TWIN!) bed. She's done well for a week, so I hope we're on a trend now. We've finally worked out a bedtime routine that she likes and works for us too. However, I now have Goodnight Moon memorized. C likes the bedtime routine so much that I walked into her room this morning and she was standing by her toddler bed (that she won't sleep in), tucking Kitty, George and Jammie George in and "reading" Goodnight Moon to them. She turned around and said "back check", kissed them and walked away. Then she ran back to them. She was mimicking our routine. It was so cute! I'm hoping to get a picture of it sometime. It would make a great scrapbook page.