One of my favorite things is when I can peer into a room and see Hayley and Breanna playing happily together. Even better if I can sneak off to get my camera and come back to get photographic evidence. These days they squabble a lot, and I mean that on both sides. I’ve seen Hayley refuse to share with her sister, and I’ve seen Breanna smack Hayley on the back of the head for no apparent reason. Still, sometimes they manage to get along for at least five minutes.

Breanna is so excited over her tea set that she wants to have a tea party with anyone who will sit with her. I have had more “tea” in the past few days than I’ve had actual real tea in the past few months. Tonight at bedtime, she was even telling me that her Pablo doll was going to have a tea party. I told her she had to go to sleep and she’d have to have her tea party tomorrow, and she said, “Okay Mommy. Pablo a tea pah-tee!”

Apparently Hayley likes the tea set too because the day after Breanna’s birthday, she came home from school and was so eager to play that I didn’t even have to ask her to change out of her uniform like I usually need to do. She flew into her room, came out less than a minute later in a shirt and some jeans, and immediately threw herself to the floor to play tea party with Breanna.

It was very cute.

Of course, about 30 seconds after I took this picture, both of them wanted the same milk pitcher at the same time (naturally – there’s four of everything except the one milk pitcher, one sugar bowl, and one teapot, so of course they fought for that) and there was a bit of yelling, some throwing, and matching meltdowns. Thank god a bit of distraction and a snack helped.

Good thing there are indeed the good moments to save you and get you through the crazy ones!

Is it too soon to say that? Because I know it’s only late November and I know we have a long way to go yet, but this first snowfall only served to remind me that I hate Winter and I don’t know what my ancestors were thinking when they came all this way and then just stopped. I know some of them kept going South but noooo, MY gene pool had to stay up here in the land of the stupidly humid summers and frigid icy winters. Yay!

No, okay, it wasn’t the end of the world today but it still sucked. On Wednesday, I stopped and took this picture of a path through a field. I was particularly taken with how vivid the green color of the grass still was, despite dropping temperatures and a bit of snow.

What a difference about 15 hours can make is all I have to say. Not that I can show you a picture because I wasn’t stopping for photo ops today and also I would not have taken my poor camera out and subjected it to the ice pellets that were falling at a 45-degree angle. Just trust me when I say that all of that field and path were covered in a crunchy mix of snow and ice pieces.

What was especially entertaining about being outside today was the lovely way that Mother Nature managed to have all that sleet blowing directly in your face regardless of the direction you were facing. Poor Breanna – I had tied her to me in my trusty Mei Tei wrap and she looked cozy all snuggled up against me until we actually walked out the door. I ended up having to shield her face on one side to block the pellets from hitting her in the cheeks. In her usual way, she looked neither upset nor impressed, but I think she was happy when it was all over and she could warm up on the couch while watching “Curious George” on PBS, something she likes to do these days:

Then she looked out the window for a bit, mumbled about snow, and propped herself up on the couch with a good book about babies and went back to pretending that nothing white and cold was falling outside the windows.

Hell, I like pretending that too.

Four or five months and counting…

The absolute perfect thing to cheer you up on an otherwise craptacular day: A Compendium of 150 Monty Python Sketches.

Just what I need!

I think that this year we’re going to be hit with a lot more snow sooner than we did last year. I remember that last year we didn’t have much snow at all until the new year, and I even remember writing about how odd it was, that it was almost disturbing even though I personally dislike Winter a great deal.

However, it’s not even the end of November yet and we’ve already had some light snowfall. It didn’t dump a whole lot on us but it did stick somewhat. It’s supposed to start snowing at some point overnight; right now it’s just foggy. Overnight we’re slated to get anywhere from 5-10 cm of snow, and the overall accumulation by tomorrow night could be between 20-25 cm. (That’s almost 8-10 inches for you Americans, and by the way, I thumb my nose at all of you people South of the border gearing up to celebrate Thanksgiving with delicious turkeys and stuffing and potatoes, and I know we already had our Thanksgiving, but this turkey envy that I have, it is not rational.)

I’m totally thrilled about having to get Hayley to school and back in the snow. Especially since snow tends to make me just want to curl up in bed with a book, a laptop, and a television remote. Perhaps a cup of coffee. Then again, rain does the same thing. So does cold, windy weather. I’m thinking I’m just not a fan of weather in general.

Let’s put it this way, as far as our weather has been going lately with all the rain, snow, freezing ice pellets, and whatnot. One of our local weather guys, Frank Cavallaro, had this to say on the weather forecast this morning: “We call it precipitation because we just don’t know whats going to fall from the sky, but something will!” Yeah. Great!

What are the odds of humans deciding to hibernate like bears?

I’ll be posting another entry later today (perhaps when I’ve had another coffee), but in the meantime, I received a complimentary copy of That Baby CD and That Baby DVD in exchange for a review. The short version is we loved both, but you can read my full review over here in my review blog.

November 20th, 2005:

November 20th, 2006:

November 20th, 2007:

I have no idea how she’s already two whole years old. I sit here typing now and know that this time two years ago, I was probably dozing in my hospital bed because I was too excited to sleep what with the new little person in the bassinet beside me. Or maybe I was sitting up and nursing her while cramming some of my leftover snack into my mouth (I eat a lot anyway – early days of breastfeeding makes me pretty much eat anything that isn’t bolted down). Maybe I was talking on the phone to George who was back at home trying to convince Hayley to go to sleep. I don’t remember. Sometimes I wish that I had been filmed at every second of my stay so I could remember what I was doing at any given moment during those first two days after giving birth. Well. Maybe not EVERY second.

I never could have looked at that little face two years ago, the one that was so new, and imagined who she would grow into. I didn’t know she would grow to have a funny sense of humor, that she would love to draw for an incredible amount of time, that she would be such a dancing fiend, that she would have such a high-pitched giggle, that she would hug me and pat my shoulders if I pretended to cry, that she would love her sister tremendously, that she would start slow on the talking but explode with vocabulary shortly before age two, that she would give me a few grey hairs by walking at NINE months, that she would make herself such a solid part of our family that we couldn’t imagine life before her.

Mostly I didn’t know that the cliche was true. Whenever someone is pregnant with their second child, it seems common to worry, “how will I love two children as much as I love one? How will I divide my love?” And parents of two or more will tell you that with each child, your love doesn’t divide, it multiplies.

I thought it was kind of corny but I came to find it’s true. Some things divide. Your time divides. Your attention divides. Your priorities may divide. But the love really doesn’t multiply. The heart isn’t a pie with each additional person taking one more slice. It’s more like the way the Grinch’s heart grows bigger – the first kid makes it grow bigger so you can love the person you’re with plus your new child, and then with the second it grows bigger again so that you can love that new addition just as much too.

Happy birthday Breanna, I love you!

(There’s a full birthday set on Flickr right here and you can read about my super-fast just under four hour labor was in her birth story.)

I’ve seen many people with a lot of crafty talent making felt play food, and I love the idea of making little treats for my kids to play with in their kitchen. Now, admittedly, I have no problem with plastic food – after all, we just got a set of 120 pieces (oy) to give Breanna from Hayley tomorrow. But my crafty nature loves the challenge of making some food too.

It was mostly for fun and for the sake of creativity. However, in the back of my mind I thought that it would be nice to have SOME damn stuff in our home that wasn’t made in China so I wouldn’t have to worry about a recall taking away a beloved toy and spending the next two decades wondering if the lead content has melted their brains.

So! While running errands this morning (between 6:30 am and 10:30 am, I got Hayley ready and dropped off at school, prepared and ate breakfast with George and Breanna, did some work, went to three stores, and came back home), I picked up a couple of packs of felt. There wasn’t much selection as far as colors go but I figured I’d start with that and if it went well – i.e., I didn’t explode in frustration – I could go to a larger store with a bigger craft section to choose some better colors.

Tonight, after I put the kids to bed, I figured I’d start with one of the easier concepts. You can’t get much simpler than a fried egg. I drew it on cardboard, cut that out, and traced it on the felt, sewed it, stuffed it, finished sewing it up, and ta-da! One easy fried egg!

I am so pleased with it, even if the stitching isn’t great. Sewing is NOT my forte, so I’m happy it came out as well as it did. And I have one whole piece of non-China play food.

And then for fun, I flipped over the package of felt to look at the back.

“Made in China.”

Sigh.

Tomorrow we have to go shopping for Breanna’s birthday since the big day is TUESDAY. I can’t believe it’s two days before her birthday already. Two years ago, I was at a bar, watching George play. To this day, one of the guys in the band, who is also the bar manager, tells me how disappointed he was that I didn’t go into labor because he really wanted to deliver the baby and serve everyone free celebratory beer.

It’s hard shopping for the second chid. Most of the things Breanna plays with is stuff that Hayley had at that age. That’s great, of course, the more use a toy gets, the better. But still, it’s hard when you don’t know what to get brand new for someone.

I know we’re going to get her a tea set. She loves little else as much as playing tea party (“tee pah-tee!”). She serves us and keeps pouring her pretend tea for as long as we’ll sit with her. When we went to a birthday party last night, she remembered that the birthday girl has a tea set in her room and she dragged me up the stairs to go and get it.

We’re also probably going to get a little kitchen set with more dishes and play food for her. The only thing she really loves as much as tea sets is the play kitchen. She will spend a great deal of time making soup, baking pies, and filling containers with food. Also at the party yesterday, she went to the basement playroom and nearly died on the spot over the Dora kitchen and all the play food that is different from what we have, and I had to actually drag her upstairs to the kitchen at cake time because she would have happily continued baking her own pretend cake rather than look at a real one. (And really, I had to drag Hayley up to because she was content to keep drawing on the chalkboard, hence the reason I added chalkboard to the list of stuff I want to get for Christmas.)

After we buy those gifts, we have to also get stuff to make a birthday cake. I told her it was her birthday soon and she immediately asked, “cake? Cake?” Yes, baby. You can have a cake.

Expect me to be a bit blubbery by Tuesday.

I’m so happy that we have plans for this weekend. Last weekend, we didn’t have anything in particular to do and George was out for a good part of it, the weather wasn’t very accomodating, and we didn’t do much of anything. It wasn’t a complete bore-fest but it wasn’t exciting either.

At one point on Saturday, Hayley wanted to watch a movie so I asked what she wanted to see. She started looking through the usual selection and wasn’t particularly enthused. I had some dishes to wash and was tired of standing around while she hemmed and hawed so I looked quickly on the shelf and found my old video (VHS! Gasp!) of Fern Gully. I said, “here, watch this. It was one of my favorite movies, it has fairies, you’ll like it.” Actually, that movie came out when I was in college, and it was still one of my favorites. I still remember one of my friends and I used to regularly quote Batty. I’m not sure what that says.

In any case, she watched it and really enjoyed it. She liked it so much that she asked to see it again the next day.

On Monday afternoon, she came home and I asked what sorts of things she had done in school that day. It turns out that every Monday they get their little journal books, and since not many of them can write much of anything, they draw a picture or two of something that they did that weekend. I asked Hayley what she drew.

“I drew a picture of me watching Fern Gully.”

Sheesh! I have never had any problems with letting my kids watch TV or a movie (obviously) and I don’t hide that fact. But still, I was somewhat mortified that the thing that stood out the most for an entire weekend was watching a movie and that she actually drew a picture of herself sitting in front of the TV.

Good thing we have a birthday party to attend today and maybe some fun stuff tomorrow too. She did watch a Princess Stories DVD today though, so I’ll have to be sure to remind her of the party on Monday morning so that she’ll have something good to draw!

(Speaking of birthdays, Breanna turns two on Tuesday. TWO. I am somewhat in shock.)

Not to be confused with T & A. Because it’s not that kind of blog.

VTG asked several questions:
– as a mum (we don’t have moms here in Australia) I am always eager to read postings about parenting, sleep, breastfeeding (are you still for Breanna?), especially opinions
-food/recipes are always fun
-you obviously know lots about blogging with all your sites- tell us about blogging, how you get into it, etc.
-other blogs you like! (I found you from the carnival of family monthly summary)
-and I second the suggestion- what DID you do before you became sleep deprived in 2002???
-Also forgot- your photos show lots of cool toys behind. My bub is a year younger than Breanna, so I’d always be interested to know what she likes to play with/read/watch!

First things first, then! Yes, I’m still breastfeeding Breanna. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t but that generally coincides with coming down with a cold which is exactly when I wish I was able to take five different cold medications and sink into a blissful coma for 12 hours, but alas those things don’t mix well with nursing. Generally though, I am obviously a fan of extended breastfeeding, though I do look forward to the time when it comes to an end. As far as general opinions, I’m pretty easy to sum up – I am a big fan of doing what works best for you and your family. If you like co-sleeping, go for it; if it scares you or makes you uncomfortable then don’t (I did with Hayley until she was 3 and with Breanna it’s been a mix of crib and co-sleeping). If you want to breastfeed and can, do it, if you have trouble or don’t want to then don’t. If you like rewards charts then use that for discipline, if you like time-outs that’s fine, do what works. That’s pretty much the scope of my opinions on parenting. That and, if something parenting-related isn’t working, see what you can do to change it.

I am brain dead right now, I can’t think of a single recipe off the top of my head but my very dusty, neglected, long-unposted recipe blog is over here.

I started writing on the internet about myself in – no joke – 1996. Then I started keeping a proper journal online in late 1998 and like many people, I had the cliche of “I had no idea how many people were doing this too!” I was shocked to find several hundred people keeping online journals. At the time that seemed huge. Now it’s nothing compared to how many blogs, personal ones, are in existance. I started officially blogging because blogging software made it easier and faster to update and I got tired of maintaining a blog AND a journal a couple of years ago (shortly after Breanna was born), so I just kept the blog, though the journal archives are still there.

There are way too many blogs that I love to list. Seriously, I am subscribed to almost 200 blogs of varying types in Google Reader. I don’t read every single one every day but they’re all blogs I read to some extent. Some I skim, some I will read at the drop of a hat if I see they’ve updated. No, I don’t have as much free time as I seem. 🙂

Breanna plays with a lot of different things, a lot of which are Hayley’s old toys (or current ones, much to Hayley’s annoyance). She particularly enjoys “cooking” in the play kitchen, and her absolute favorite is tea parties. We’re getting her a brand new tea party set for her birthday because of that. She also likes Hayley’s Go Diego Go Rescue Center, a little car on a string that she pulls behind her, a doll carriage (but not the doll, just the carriage), and a basket full of different animals. As far as reading, she will not let me read to her. She hates it. However, she does like to sit and look through books on her own, and she’ll point out things she knows. Her OCD nature especially likes to point out anything that might be a “MESS” such as when Winnie The Pooh is covered in honey. Her favorite things to watch are anything Caillou, any animal-related Baby Einstein, Curious George, and surprisingly, Free Willy. She likes Happy Feet when they’re singing or dancing, and she likes a couple of things on Treehouse, but most of the time she watches something for a minute or two if it’s on and then carries on with playing. She loves music and will dance to pretty much anything but has a huge fondness for Rascal Flatts and Justin Timberlake.

Breanna, making soup by chopping up some toy vegetables and putting them in a pot. She even pretended to put some water in from the sink. She calls it “ssssoooop”.

Whew. I’m wiped out! More questions next time, and go ahead and add some if there’s something you’ve always wanted to know!