An update in pictures...

Josie at gymnastics class at Central High School.


Ready for class to start!


Eve - happy to see the camera!



A happy girl in a twirly dress, ready for a teaparty at the Gronaus, followed by her very first play - HSM at Maplewood Community Center.



Finally! A swingset all their own.



She'd sleep in there if we let her.



Fall festival at church. Loved the pony rides.



Josie has picked this EXACT horse all three years we've taken her.



Bouncy thing = Big fun.



Eve spent most of her turn getting tossed around by the big kids. But she still loved it.



Fancy princesses.



Pre- (or post-) soccer practice at the playground with Eden.



Pat took this picture... during the game.

Yup - also during the game. Must be discussing plans for the tire swing.

Okay - that's more like it!

Tossed my cookies

Pat's dad's side the family held a little impromptu "pow wow" at his aunt Kathy's house last Saturday. We had been invited previously to a kid's Halloween party/baby shower that afternoon, as well, so I decided to make some cookies to take to both parties while the girls were napping. A while back I read on a friend of a friend's blog about a yummy recipe for oatmeal/Craisin/white choco chip cookies found on the back of the Craisins package, and decided to give them a try. And they were, indeed, very tasty. Josie helped me mix them up before she laid down, and I had to promise her all she was going to miss was the actual putting of the cookies in the oven and baking process. There weren't going to be any more cookie-related festivities happening while she was forced to sleep.

The girls woke up, we suited up, packed up, and headed for the car. I had our usual baggage in tow, plus the additional jackets for later on, since the girls were wearing their costumes, and, of course, the two plates of cookies. And that's when I made the fatal error. I put the plates of cookies on top of the car while I helped Josie in, and buckled her. I know - you see where this is going, right?

It still amazes me how I managed to get into the car without seeing them on the roof, especially considering that the roof is directly at eye-level. But see them, I did not, and away we went. The traffic on White Bear Avenue was pretty heavy, and we needed to wait to take a left-hand turn out of our alley. I happened to take notice of a car driving by and one of the passengers in the backseat pointing out the window at us... just as we had our chance to turn, and I remembered the plates of cookies at that exact moment. The very same moment that I saw them take their fatal dive off the roof and into the street in my peripheral vision.

I'm not going to lie to you - I actually shed a couple of tears. Not so much for the loss of cookie-life... but for the waste of my time. Sweet, sweet, precious time - with nothing to show for it but a bunch of crumbs in the northbound lane of White Bear Avenue. Patrick even pulled over to see if, by some act of God, either of the plates remained somewhat covered or intact... but it was not to be. My cookie dreams were crushed.

In all the commotion, both girls were scrambling to attempt to piece together what in the world was going on with their parents. Mommy in tears in the front seat, Daddy running around in the street while they sat, buckled and dressed in their Halloween costumes. Eve, in particular, was very distraught over the fact that I was so obviously upset. She wanted desperately to give me a kiss to make it better, and had to settle for giving me a kiss on the hand. The dramatic cookie events have lead to a script, which I've had to endure as a painful reminder, salt in the wound, each and every time we get in the car. It goes a little something like this:

Eve: "Where cookies go?"
Me/Daddy: "In the street, Evie."
Eve: "They on the roof?"
Me/Daddy: "Yup. They were on the roof."
Eve: "Cookies all gone? Yucky?"
Me/Daddy: "Yes - the cookies are gone."
Eve: "Mommy - you sad?"
Me/Daddy: "Mommy was sad. But she's okay now."
Eve: "Mommy - you okay now?"
Me/Daddy: "Yes - Mommy is okay now."

And then we usually have to run through the script a few more times. 'Cuz once just isn't enough.

On a different note-
I decided to wear a skirt to work today. Very unlike me as I tend to choose pants as my primary work attire of choice. This is a full, knee-length skirt with fun, big pleats. Josie has rarely, if ever, seen me in a dress or skirt before, and when she saw what I was wearing, she gasped and said, "OH - Mommy! Do you get to go to work and twirl today??!"

In her honor, I'll admit - I've twirled at work today. :)

Completely random kid updates

I'm currently reading (if renewing 3 times from the St. Paul public library qualifies as "reading")Raising Your Spirited Child, by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. I've long suspected that Eve is a "spirited" child, and I'm quickly confirming, by Ms. Kurcinka's standards, at least, that I'm right. The interesting thing is that I'm also discovering lots about Josie, and myself, through reading this book. The theories surrounding extroversion and introversion have always fascinated me, and even if you're not a believer - it makes for good bedtime reading material. I'm very grateful for the recommendation from a co-worker whom I greatly admire, and also read another book she read years ago when raising her own three boys - Siblings Without Rivalry. I'm going to have to buy this one, as there was just too much to learn and retain in one reading. Great tips and things to try... but I can't remember them in "the heat of the moment," and digging around for my notes doesn't always cut it when the girls are in the middle of a fight.


Anyway. The reason I bring this up is that completely out of the blue one day at work - I saw a notice that the child care facility located in our building was hosting a parenting seminar about kids getting enough sleep... conducted by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka. How weird is that?? Not all that weird, I guess, considering that she's local, and has been a parent educator for many years in the St. Paul Public Schools ECFE classes and wrote an entire book on the subject. So I went. And we're *trying* to have the girls get to bed earlier at night, and take steps to ensure they get a solid night's sleep, and nap well. I type this as I listen to Eve an hour and a half in to nap time today... and not sleeping. *sigh* We can only try.

We woke up this morning to Eve yelling "I GOT BOOGERS! I GOOOTTTTT BOOOOOGGGERRRRRRS." Hard to ignore.

For some reason, the girls think it's hilarious to lean over the baby-gate when we go in the basement for something and yell "Barney... Barney..." No idea where it came from, or why it's so funny.

Josie has taken to calling us "Patrick" and "Carol".

We put the girls back into their own bedrooms about a month ago. As mentioned above - Eve isn't the best sleeper in the world, and Josie was suffering for it. So far, so good. Since then, we've started much more intensive "talk time" sessions with Josie as part of her bedtime routine. I love it, and so does she. We talk about everything from the day's activities to dreams to heaven. Oh, yeah- it gets pretty deep sometimes. I hope that this is only the start of lines of completely open and honest and trusting communication. I want her to know that we want to always talk to her, and have her talk to us. The subject of school has been a big one lately - and we were talking about teachers and trusting other adults and things of that sort - and she said "other people can help me, too - not just mommys and daddys." I said "that's right." And she coyly responded "sometimes even boys."

Eve has always been pretty good with her manners - but we couldn't get her to say "thank you" - it was always "welcome", instead. Finally, she has started to respond thank you... but when she says it, it comes out "wank you." Awesome.

Josie tells me secrets. I have to lean in real close, and she whispers in my ear. Usually - it's something to do with Daddy. Poor guy doesn't stand a chance in the house full of girls.

We got a not-new-but-new-to-us swingset in our backyard. Life is good.

Josie and I have been going to gymnastics. It's been super fun. The kids all do some stretching first, then the teacher sets up different stations for the kids and parents to go do... then everyone joins back up and the end of class for a little activity. The kids have learned about tuck, pike and straddle positions - but sometimes when Josie says them, she says "puck, tike and waddle," instead. Soccer ended a couple of weeks ago, and I think when gymnastics is over... we'll try skating lessons.

Jo is going to be a kitty, and Eve is going to be a puppy for Halloween.

When Eve gives hugs, she insists on hugging on one side first, then putting her head on your other shoulder and giving a hug on the other side, too.

Josie can usually be found playing either school/teacher or mommy/baby around the house. I'm often coerced into being "Betty" and taking care of her baby while she goes to "work." I have outline what kids will be there for the day, and what activities her baby will do, and what I'll be serving for meals and if her baby pooped or not that day. Kinda makes me wonder if that's how we sound when dropping off/picking up from Betty's house.

Eve is particular about where we all sit at the table, and apparently which dishes everyone uses. Pat picked out a bowl for cereal a while ago, and Eve told him he couldn't use that one because it was Mommy's, and he couldn't sit in that chair because it was Mommy's.

I was listening to Josie playing in her room a few mornings ago, and I heard her tell our cat, Baxter, who had just meowed at her, "Oh - Baxy... it's okay. You're old, and you'll go to heaven soon. But it's okay - Buford is there and he will be with you."

Told you - totally random. :) Gotta go - I hear a fight brewin'

Let me add that to my list.

One of the (many) things that drive me insane about myself is how I can keep the work version of myself so neat and tidy and organized and prepared, but I cannot transfer those traits to the home version of myself. Granted, I do manage to get away with just enough to make it through the daily rigamarole of our routines. But just enough just isn't enough, sometimes. I feel like our household is in a constant state of disarray - one project piled on top of another project buried underneath four more projects. I know some may argue that when you have little kids, those projects have to take a backseat. But I don't want them to take a backseat. I want to put them in front of the car, and run them over, give them a proper burial and never have to look at them or think about them again. If they try to get in my backseat, they run the risk of becoming buried under baby dolls, mismatched mittens from two winters ago and baggies of half-eaten cereal.

Let me give you an example.

One day a couple of weeks ago - I was feeling ambitious. I wanted to move the computer desk from our bedroom into our living room. So I did. The problem is that in order to do so - I had to unearth the desk from beneath gobs of unused computer-related paraphernalia, which I placed on the floor of our bedroom. And there it remained. And still remains to this day. Each morning I stub my toe on a discarded keyboard. But do I bother to move it? I think we all know the answer to that. (I don't know where to move it TO- which, in my mind, justifies leaving it exactly where it is.) I mentioned to Patrick how I'd like this stuff moved, with the secret hopes that I would wake up one day, and it would magically... be gone. Poof. No involvement required on my part. Whatsoever. And that is precisely what gets me in these predicaments in the first place. I want to come up with the idea, be involved in the fun part of the idea, and for someone else to clean up the mess behind me. Wherein, someone else = husband. But judging from the fact that there are still USB cords and broken printers blocking my path, I'm guessing he didn't get the hint.

Back to my story.

So having been so clever as to move the computer desk from the bedroom to the living room, this now opened up some space in our bedroom. So I decided to rearrange. Which then leads to another project of organizing the shelf I moved from the living room to the bedroom. And finding new window treatments. And getting around to buying more storage for Patrick's clothes. (And maybe someday we should act like grownups and invest in an actual bedroom set. And get rid of the brown/green/tan shag carpeting.) And organizing and moving the clutter from the kitchen counter to the newly-accessible desk. And finally getting around to downloading pictures from our camera. Oh - and I haven't mentioned the bag(s) of clothes still on our sunporch which I need to take to the consignment store. And don't get me started on the sunporch - that's a monster all its own. But I really should clean the vehicles, first (see above reference to baby dolls and stale cereal.) I could go on. And on. I have the lists to prove it.

Which reminds me - I found a bunch of lists when I was decluttering the kitchen counter. So now I have to go through those lists and make new lists. And perhaps a master list so I can keep track of my lists. Is it wrong to write "organize lists" on my to-do list? *sigh*

But, alas. There aren't enough hours in the day. And the hours there are in the day need to be dedicated to, oh - eating. And sleeping. And laundry. And enjoying the last remnants of warm weather the fall has to offer. So most of these projects will remain untouched, floating from unfinished list to unfinished list. And I haven't even begun to regale you with the tales of The Little Bathroom Sink That Couldn't, There's a Hole In My Kitchen Ceiling, and The Rooms That Didn't Paint Themselves.

84 DAYS 'TIL CHRISTMAS!

I saw an electronic countdown to Christmas sign in Target yesterday, and almost threw up a little in my mouth.

And because Josie is a little bit psychic and seems to be able to read my mind, she was asking questions about Santa Claus before bed last night. She's a little wary of this strange guy just barging into our house, ALL THE WAY in our house, but was reassured when I reminded her that this particular overweight stranger stuffs himself down our chimney and brings her gifts.

But don't take candy from strangers. No conflicting messages there.

She seemed satisfied with that, and contentedly stuck her thumb in her mouth and closed her eyes. But as I was reaching for the door on my way out of her room, she sat up in bed and proclaimed, "But Mommy! We don't have our Christmas tree up yet! We have to go buy a tree!"

It's going to be a long 84 days.

Parents of toddlers/preschoolers... if you want a sure-fire way to make a kid happy - go to Kohl's and buy them a stuffed bear or jaguar for $2.50. I was picking up a couple of things and saw the display by the checkout. The proceeds to go charity, so they claim, and when I brought the bear home for Josie and the jaguar home for Eve (my reasoning behind who got which one was that Eve is super cute when she says "jaguar," and does the little jaguar sound from Diego) you would have thought that Christmas DID come early in our house.

Except then this morning as we were trying to head out the door, Eve had a baby doll in her arms, and remembered the jaguar. She told Pat he needed to carry it for her, you know, since she already had her hands full, but we told her that she needed to choose between the baby and the jaguar. Man, how many times have I had to make that same choice - it's a tough one, and I felt her pain. She chose the baby, but was not happy at leaving the jaguar behind. And boy. Did we have to hear about it... down the steps. And down the sidewalk. And into the garage. And into the car. And ALL the way to daycare. And into Betty's house. And as we left Betty's house. Broken little sobs, punctuated by "jaaa (sniffle) aaggg (sniffle) uuuarrrrrr." Not nearly as cute as I remembered. Maybe I should have given her the damn bear.