!!! Spring Edition

I guess it’s officially spring, although we’re supposed to get a rain/snow storm this afternoon.

But that’s really beside the point, because more importantly it’s Friday, it’s FRIDAY! I’m so HAPPY that IT’S FRIDAY! The fact that it’s Friday, when I was SURE that Friday would never get here, is just proof that time, indeed, marches on. Speaking of march, GOODBYE MARCH, HELLO APRIL.

So in the spirit of time’s unceasing movement forward, here are a couple of my favorite !!! moments (intentional happiness) from the past two weeks.

What’s good for the goose …

Last week, Husband jokingly de-pantsed Monkey. He thought it was hysterical, naturally, and she chided him with “Daddy!”

I, however, did not find it funny. I gave Husband a very stern look and reprimanded him. “She’s going to do that at school in the fall,” I pointed out. “No way. DO NOT do that again.”

Several hours later, guess what happens. Husband is lying on the floor and Monkey comes up behind him and pulls his pants down. She laughs and thinks she’s hysterical. Husband exclaims, “Hey! No, Monkey don’t do that.”

Monkey ignores him and does it again, this time pulling his underwear down with his pants. Now he’s really embarrassed and Monkey’s still laughing.

I look at him with my best I told you so face and say, “See! You have to explain to her right now why that’s not okay and that you were wrong. Tell her that you need a time out.” Husband gets a gleeful expression on his face and says, “Whoopee! A 35-minute time out!?? Okay!”

Potty time

Monkey is only three weeks away from her third birthday, and she’s been potty trained for a year. But, she still wears a pull-up, or in our house, “nighttime underwear” for sleeping. Some mornings she wakes up and her pull-up is SOAKED, and other mornings it’s wet, but not drenched. She’s really been getting better about going potty on the toilet right away when she wakes up, as opposed to just peeing in the pull-up. We’ve also been emphasizing that she can get up and go to the bathroom anytime she needs to, whether it’s at night or for a nap and that she doesn’t have to call for us or wait for us. I even told her, “You know, Daddy and I do that all the time. We always wake up at night and go to the bathroom.” She seemed very surprised to hear this information.

Well it must have made an impression on her, because last night the unthinkable happened. Monkey actually got out of bed around 10 p.m., used the bathroom and then went back to bed!! Holy cow! I certainly was not expecting that to happen! Especially since most parents have told me that their kids were still in pull-ups at night until they were four. We’re not gonna be going pull-up free anytime soon, but I can’t believe she did that!

Hello (hello, hello, hello)

Carys learned what an echo was and spent the good part of an afternoon yelling hello in our front yard to hear her echo.

Bye-bye nappy

My poor little Beany. She’s just going through so much lately. She also seems to have officially dropped her morning nap, which I don’t think is helping. Even though she’s rubbing her eyes and acting tired, when I try to put her down in the morning she’s quiet in her crib for about 15 minutes, then she plays, and then she cries to get up.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, our whole morning just opened up. It’s SO nice to be able to do a morning activity, have lunch and a nap, and then do an afternoon activity. We have so much more flexibility now. On the other hand, it’s hard because I see that she’s tired and somewhat crabby and could benefit from the extra sleep. We’ll see how she adjusts over the next several weeks.

It’s all about me

The plus side of Bean’s major separation anxiety, teething and sickness issues is that I’m getting a lot of extra cuddle time with her. There’s no cry that apparently my arms can’t calm. When I pick her up, it stops immediately (or nearly). I think the instant ease that kids feel in their mothers’ arms is universal — they must feel so soothed, so protected, so safe! I wish I could remember the comforting feeling of my mom’s arms. We should develop a name for this instant ease — like Momease or Momcalm. What should we call it?

Vocab

I’m thinking Bean might be going through a brain growth spurt — which could be another contributing factor to her not sleeping well lately — because she’s mastered the word “Hi” and also is saying “Nana,” and attempting “buh bye” and “please.” I think her Nana is going to be pretty thrilled to come home and hear her say, “Hi Nana.”

Bed head

Finally, finally, finally Bean is growing some hair. Finally! Monkey didn’t have much hair either (she’s only had like three haircuts in her life), but even she had more hair at 14 months than Bean does. And Bean’s hair is just starting to get long enough that occasionally she’ll wake up with a small section of errant hairs that stick straight up. The first time it happened I thought it was so cute that I didn’t even try to smooth it down.

So what’s made you !!! lately?

Random Holiday !!!

I know, it’s been a long time since I blogged. In part because we’ve been gorging on turkey, stuffing, pies, cookies and chocolate! I totally missed the boat on a Thanksgiving !!! post, which would have been so appropriate given the nature of !!! (!!! = intentional happiness), which is to celebrate things that made me happy and to be thankful for. One of the things I was most thankful for at Thanksgiving was to celebrate with my brother, his fiancée and his fiancée’s  sister. The last time my brother was home for Thanksgiving was … 2006 maybe??

And while we’re welcoming my brother’s fiancée into our family, it’s nice that her sister is becoming my (pseudo) sister-in-law too. Even though she’s not really my sister-in-law, my kids feel like she’s another aunt, and let’s face it — you can never have too much family around.

So Thanksgiving was wonderful. Especially the part when after a delicious dinner my mom asked Monkey, “So, Monkey, did you enjoy your dinner,” to which she immediately retorted with a resounding “NO.” She was going for comedic effect of course, and we all delivered by busting out laughing.

And now we’re in the full swing of Christmas — shopping, baking, Christmas cards and wrapping. I still have SO MUCH to do and in just FOUR days we’ll be celebrating our first family Christmas gathering. Aaah!

In honor of the season, here’s some random Christmas !!!

The Grinch

MONKEY IS OBSESSED WITH THE GRINCH.

It all started at the beginning of November when I introduced her to The Grinch Who Stole Christmas book. She liked it, but she didn’t love it.

Then I was at the library and checked out an audio CD of classic Dr. Seuss books — and one the tracks was, you guessed it, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. As soon as she realized she was listening to the same story that I had been reading to her, she was hooked.

The recording is approximately 12 minutes long. Therefore all of our car rides hence are measured in number of Grinch listenings:

• Church or my parents’ house — approximately two listenings
• Nana’s house — approximately half a listening
• Grocery store — approximately 3/4ths a listening
• Library — one listening
• Target — approximately 1.5 listenings

And now there is the Grinch trifecta — the original 1966 animated cartoon. You wouldn’t believe Monkey’s face when I told her she could ALSO watch the Grinch on DVD.

So every morning we listen to the Grinch on the way to Nana’s house, she asks to watch it on DVD when she gets home in the afternoon, AND, we read the book before bed.

I’m pretty sure I could recite most of the story by heart.

And there’s this one line where the Grinch is talking about the Whos’ singing and he says, “For 53 years I’ve put up with it now.” Except Monkey thinks he’s saying, “For 53 years I’ve put up with a cow.” And she gets this big grin on her face and starts laughing. Every. Single. Time. Now it’s to the point where she looks at me to see if I’m looking at her to check her reaction.

But honestly I don’t mind. The original TV special was probably my favorite holiday programming event when I was a kid. In fact, when I was in college I bought it on VHS tape, and then a few years ago (still before we had kids!) I upgraded to the DVD version. So I think it’s pretty cute actually that we share a love for the story and cartoon. And bonus — she’s not scared of him! Oh, and double bonus! It’s got a great message about what’s really important at Christmas.

Splitting Hairs

Some days and nights in our house are particularly chaotic. More chaotic than others. Especially now because Bean is a walking menace.

Monkey calls her “Willer.” I have no idea why, except maybe because Monkey intuitively knows that Bean lives by the motto of “Where there’s a will, there’s a way” because that kid DOES NOT — GIVE. UP. Bean in a bathroom is just out of control. If she’s not pulling the toilet paper off the roll, she’s flushing the toilet, or grabbing the Kleenex box, or going through the garbage. Hmm, this scenario is familiar to me for some reason (except it’s happening about five months earlier than I expected).

If I kick her out of the bathroom, she knocks over the small Christmas tree in my room, or pulls the ornaments off the tree in Monkey’s room, or unloads her clothes hamper. Needless to say, she doesn’t have a tree in her room.

And when you tell her “No,” she just gives you this great big grin.

Menace.

I call her “Crusher,” but I may change it to “Bruiser.”

I’m sure you know what I mean.

So on one those particularly trying days, Husband said “I’m going to be gray by the time I’m 36.”

He’s 35.

That is all.

Starbucks Peppermint Mocha

I’ve been saying for years that I don’t like coffee. And theeeeeen … here and there I would give in to the peer pressure of my coffee-drinking friends and to the marketing machine of Starbucks. Eventually I started to like iced mochas. But only mochas. Which, let’s be clear, have lots of chocolate syrup and milk added. And only iced. Every once in a while in the last five years I would try a hot mocha (too strong!) or a something with a flavor, like hot salted caramel (too sweet!).

And then this year I decided to try the peppermint mocha again. It was by accident really. Starbucks was running a promotion for four days where you could buy one drink and get one free to share with a friend. But I work by myself, and none of my friends are close by. I didn’t have anyone to share with.

So I hatched a grand master plan. I would order an iced mocha for myself and then take a hot one home for free. The hot one, I rationalized, I could refrigerate and then reheat the next morning, whereas a second iced one would just melt and be watered down. I didn’t really like hot mochas, but it was free after all.

What I didn’t realize, until I started to place my order, was that I could only choose among three drinks for the buy one share one deal. Three holiday drinks, to be specific, and one of them was the peppermint mocha. Sooo, being the opportunist that I am and not wanting to miss out on a great deal, I amended my order to one iced peppermint mocha and one hot peppermint mocha. What the hell, right? Well, the iced peppermint mocha was pretty sweet. But good.

The next morning my reheated peppermint mocha was goooooood.

And right there, a peppermint mocha obsession was born. A Starbucks marketing coordinator appeared to me and I saw a great light and was terrified. But the marketing coordinator said to me, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people. You have joined the coffee-drinking masses and your friends will be so happy. This will be a sign to you. Turn over all of your discretionary income and find pleasure in peppermint mochas.”

(Which by the way cost $0.70 more than a regular mocha to accommodate for the shot of peppermint. Who came out on top of this little marketing scheme?? Not me! What would Alanis say?)

I think I’m going to have to reverse my position on coffee to: I like it — a little.

Separation Anxiety + Teething + Cold = Sleeping with me

My little Bruiser Menace girl. She’s going through another round of separation anxiety. AKA, “OH MY GOD, WHERE ARE YOU, WHERE ARE YOU, PICK ME UP, PICK ME UP, PICK ME UP, DO NOT LEAVE MY SIGHT, OH MY GOD, PUH-LEASE, I AM DY-ING HERE, CAN’T YOU SEE????”

On top of it she has a cold and is doing some teething just to mix it up. She’s been waking up 4-6 times a night looking for some extra comfort. And honestly, sometimes at 4 a.m., after you’ve already rocked with her three times, tiptoed out of the room only to have her wake up again 10 minutes later? It’s just easier to bring her into bed with you.

And shhh, don’t tell anyone, but I actually don’t mind. I kind of love it.

She’s so sweet isn’t she? I just can’t get enough of her.

Hey, where’s my peppermint mocha?