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December 29, 2006
Sibling Rivalry
Will's newest love is Spongebob Squarepants. He does not blink when it's on.
Anyway, the last week of 2006 is going great. We are all getting over colds, so feeling better. There are more toys in our house than in all of Walmart and ToysRUs combined, and we have so much food that we have trouble deciding which to eat at any given moment.
Sadly, though, it's Signa we worry for. Not ABOUT, but FOR. We worry ABOUT Will. And what things Signa plots to do to him. There isn't a lot of room to pay in our house, what with all the baby accoutrements all over the place. Signa is constantly reminded of this when she goes to spread her stuff out and is told that she can't because the baby could get it. But then it's scary to have this conversation:
Signa, don't take the childproof thing off the under-the-sink-cabinet handle.
Why?
Because Will could get in there and drink poison.
And then he'd be died?
Yes. And we'd be very sad.
And we'd have to get rid of all those baby toys in the living room?
Great. A solution to all her problems and why isn't that damned childproof lock actually childproof???
Posted by Debbie at 11:29 AM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2006
Christmas
Christmas is always wonderful, but when you have a baby and a 4-year-old, it is really, really wonderful. In your head.
In reality, the pure overload that the entire December month havocs on the 4-year-old makes you wish that you'd converted to some other religion. But then you imagine the Christmas morning joy and jumping up and down and screaming over what awesome parents you are for getting her x, y, AND z and figure that it will all be worthwhile. In your head.
Because when Christmas morning comes around, she's so damned tired from all the other excitements that she really doesn't care about anything except whatever the baby is playing with.
After I explained to her why we were disappointed in her reactions, she did start actually jumping up and down and saying, "Yay, I'm so glad I got this!" but it was so exact to what I told her that it clearly wasn't real.
Oh well. The baby liked all his stuff. Especially his very first choking experience. Tape from the floor. Mmmmm He really enjoyed choking and vomiting for those full 5 minutes of terror.
I sound bitter, but really I loved it all. It was great to be able to assist in providing the overload and then witnessing it and loving it and partaking in making it even more joyous. I love that yesterday (the Day After) she never stopped playing with her new things and that the baby actually now has some toys of his very own that didn't used to be Signa's.
We spent Christmas Eve with the Spencers and Goulds at Mom's house and then Christmas Day at home quietly (except for the above-referenced fake jumping up and down). We all were nursing colds (again) and so it was a pretty relaxed holiday.
And now the Signa-ism for the day:
Signa: (about the ToysRUs logo) I wish Geoffrey the Giraffe was still alive.
Us: He *is* still alive.
Signa: Then why is it always a guy in a costume?
Posted by Debbie at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
December 12, 2006
Jeeves
There was a commercial on last night that referenced a "butler". Signa giggled profusely and said, "She said 'butt'." As I went to write this down as a Signa-ism on our white-board, I heard the following:
Signa: Daddy, what's a "Butler"?
Marc: A butler is a person who does stuff for you. He brings you the stuff you want and when you want it.
Signa: Like you, Daddy! You are a butler.
With love from,
Debbie, Signa, William and The Personal Family Butler, Marc
Posted by Debbie at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2006
Over and Over and Over in My Head
We are sick. Again. I just got it last night, so by my calculations, the pneumonia should be hitting in about 10 days. Plenty of time for steroids before Christmas! Hurray! I wish I were over the last bout before getting this cold.
Last night I told Signa that Daddy wasn't going to sleep in the bed because he is sick and doesn't want to get us sick. And she worried, "If Daddy's sick and you get sick, who is going to take care of ME?" Poor girl. We re-assured her that we are not at all too sick to take care of her. Or her brother who she conveniently forgot all about in the "taking care of" department.
I've been following the Kim family events. Because: a) they are from our area; b) they were in (sort of) Dad's area; c) they have a 4-year-old; d) they have a 7-month-old; e) it was on the news every moment of every day assaulting me.
I can't stop going over the conversations that might have occurred in my head. The reassurances to the 4-year-old. They must have got angry with her at some point with all the questions and whining and not being able to do anything about it. We would have. And we would have argued about Marc going out to get help. See? I can do it now. Recreate their whole horror only with my family in their place. I just am so sad that they don't have a chance to go on with their lives and make other memories with Mr. Kim to overshadow these. They will always have to remember this. So very sad. I mean, I'm thrilled the mom and babies are okay (hurray, breastfeeding!), but still so sad.
Anyway, on to other things, since dwelling on that makes me crazy. Signa has been great since Monday, so maybe it was just a bad (very bad) day. Will has been archy-backed and farty, so I think something is up with him, but that's to be expected. He's growing at monstrous proportions and teething, too. Poor kid. He's, lucky for him, super cute and smiley (when he's not archy-backed and farty). I guess that's it for today.
Signa-isms:
* Diggin' the Dead. Signa wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up, but she also wants to work in a cemetery. She wants to "put there name on there and put them in there." She said she wants to take care of the dead people, but "they have to stay dead."
* All I Want for Christmas. Signa's favorite Christmas song is Mariah Carey singing "All I Want for Christmas". They You-Tubed it and found Mariah singing it at Disneyland. So now she wants to be an animal doctor, a grave-digger, AND a singer at Disneyland. And here I thought my childhood goals of being a nurse AND a pilot were out there...
Posted by Debbie at 07:37 AM | Comments (0)
December 05, 2006
Stolen Pie
Our weekend was fun. Friday night we decorated a gingerbread house. Saturday we went to dance class and then to our downtown event where they made snow in a fountain and had free horse drawn carriage rides through town. Saturday night was a parade and tree-lighting. Sunday Marc and Signa went out shopping and Will and I played all day.
Yesterday was my La Leche League meeting. Our meeting allows for all the children to go, even those no longer nursing, so I bring Signa. Signa knows that the kids are younger, that it's a meeting, and that she has to be gentle and quiet or she can't go. She was fine last month. This month? Not so good.
She was THAT kid. The kid that no one likes and everyone talks about afterward. She was picking up the babies, taking toys away, not sharing, tattle-telling to the other moms, whining, running through the room screaming and being horrid. All this in front of the kind of parents who speak softly, don't use the word, "NO" and never, ever yell. So finally, I tired of smiling fakely and trying to explain stuff to her so that I didn't look like a bad mom and I just said, It's time to go, between my gritted teeth. I started packing up and she got out of the "trouble chair" I put her in. When I grabbed her arm, she freaking BIT me. That was it. I told her that I was taking away all her toys for 24 hours and we left.
Marc swatted her on the butt when we got home and I told him how she behaved. We just don't know why this is suddenly happening. She is just getting worse and worse. It all seems nap-related, but yesterday's meeting was at 10am. We are going to enforce naps for awhile (we get lazy, because we get busy) and see if it helps. The swatting on the butt doesn't help, so we are going to stop that. If naps don't work, I don't know what to try next.
Thankfully, coffee with one of the moms of a friend of Signa confirmed that it might just be a 4-year-old thing. She is going through a lot of the same things right now. And now Sheri is mentioning a lot of the same. So maybe it's four??? And normal????
And just to show that I do love her and do still find her amusing, here are some Signa-isms.
* M-I-C K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E. On the way to Disneyland, we were telling Signa that when we were kids they had a different Mickey Mouse song. We taught it to her and she liked it. We also told her about the Mickey Mouse Club that was on TV. She wanted to watch it and so we will search out Netflix for it. Anyway, while at Disneyland, we went into Mickey's house in Toon Town and there is a picture of the Mickey Mouseketeers. I showed her and she said, "Which one are you, Momma?"
* Horses and Bugs. When telling Signa that we were going to go on a horse drawn carriage on Saturday, she looked at me like I was insane. I started to explain that "drawn" means pulled and what a carriage is and then decided to just change the words. "We are going to go on a horse buggy ride."
You would have thought I said we won the lottery. And it was up to 89.2 kajillion. "A horse AND a bug?" I stopped her before she started shouting out that she wanted the caterpillar or ladybug or beetle.
*Manda the Snake. Signa loves her Littlest Pet Shop guys and has a snake that she named Manda. We were listening to her play with all her guys and heard this, "They are all asking Manda why she stole the pie. Well, all except this one because he has a dentist appointment." Maybe it's not as funny in writing as it was in person, but I couldn't stop laughing.
*Stinky Breath. Last night Marc and I were and Signa was sitting between us on the couch. She sometimes interrupts (and by "sometimes" I mean every time I open my mouth) so we just talk over her so that she doesn't get to interrupt. She started going on and on about something and then grasped her hand over my mouth. "I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY." Marc asked what and she grinned her silly cute grin and said, "Does my breath smell like hot chocolate?"
Posted by Debbie at 02:45 PM | Comments (2)