When the math doesn't work, use your imagination

L-bug was playing with her pet shops when she says, "mom there's no way these triplets can be different ages, but I wanted this one to be 15, this one 16 and this one 5... that doesn't work out anyway because they were 5 and 4 when she was born... That's okay I'll just use my imagination. 

L-bug has no lack of imagination.  She is the only child I know who will pretend to be in a show while watching TV.  She asks me all the time to play turtles, justice league, or x-men with her.  She makes up her own stories just using other people's characters, but she's always the center of the plot. L-bug is a prominent member of all super hero teams.

 The only thing that annoys the grown up in me... well two things, one she likes to watch TV and two she replays and rewrites the same scenario over and over and over and over and over again.  Sometimes there are slight revisions from the last time, things she didn't like or didn't quite work out right, other times it feel like we're in limbo playing out the same thing day in and day out.

I also love how different the girls can be. Ro-bear is Miss Literal and with L-bug nothing is what it looks like, she can imagine a world on a rock.  The favorite form of teasing of L-bug is to tell Ro-bear she is something she is not, such as Ro-bear is a horse. No, Ro-Ro is Ro-Ro! and this usually ends with Ro-bear breaking down in tears until I tell her that yes, she is Ro-Ro. 

So as you go about the rest of the week just remember that if things are working out the way you want them to, just use your imagination and anything is possible. Unless you're Ro-bear then you're just Ro-bear, nothing more- nothing less.

AHHHH late

Sooo, its Monday right? not Tuesday, you're imagining it being Tuesday... So I brought my camera to our friends' house Friday for a sewing group we're trying to do and Sunday sat down to write up the blog and no camera. Okay I tell myself I let it at her house.  She tears the house apart looking (not sure it was that dramatic, but I have a flair for drama so I imagine her tearing it apart) no camera.  So my next thought is okay I dropped it on the way home.... it would be long gone by then, but L-bug and I get the babies in the stroller and walk up and down the street, nothing obviously. So I ask L-bug if she remembers the camera at all Friday. L-bug says "oh yeah, I remember setting it on the coffee table." (face palm) to which Ro-bear adds "oh I hid that."  I spent the rest of the day looking everywhere until our field trip which is a totally different story... so then I don't sleep well all night wondering what happened to the camera and get up all cranky, start tidying up some stuff and there it is on a shelf of kids books. So here I am a day late and dollar short writing last weeks life in the life of us.

Okay, so Monday I introduced Ro-bear's activities for her. First she went for the shoe tie, because she loves lacing.  Then she wanted to try a scoop the pom poms into the muffin tin.  She loved this activity so much that she wanted more poofs, and more poofs and more poofs.  I'd started out the week trying to do some activities loosely based on Goodnight Moon because Ro-bear loves that book.  Therefore I'd picked only red pom poms (balloons) but Ro-bear didn't like that so I ended up just giving her a ton of pom poms and she had a field day. 

 

Boo got some blocks to play with and a handkerchief to play peek a boo with. She still thought the pom poms were cooler though.

 

My two cheeseballs hiding out under the school desk. I assume trying to hid that glue stick they were playing with.

 

Monday was also exciting because Daddy had a week of vacation this week and stayed at home with us.  This was the day we went out and picked out a new washing machine for mommy who hasn't had a dishwasher in a while and wanted one... so we got me one for our 9 year anniversary.

 

Tuesday my dishwasher was delivered so of course we had to take a break from school to play in it... I mean help daddy assemble the dishwasher.

Just wait until you see what that box looks like now a week later....

 

Wednesday was gymnastics day. L-bug got a new biketard because unitards have never fit her very well and hers was too small. 

 

Wednesday was also the first bomb tot activity.  I gave Ro-bear a clothes hanging game with a little line, pins, and felt socks and mittens... she couldn't do it on her own.  She hated the activity so much that she packed it all up in the little Ziploc bag and hid it in her room.  I promised her she wouldn't have to try it again for a while. 

 

Ro-bear was so cute in gym class, but I already talked about that back in the post about how well she suddenly can talk (yay Ro-bear).  Here's Ro-bear helping with dinner after her so so sorry when she broke the ladle, she did a really nice job pouring in the sauce.

Not too sure why she took a picture of the chicken, but she took a decent shot save the finger up in the corner, so there you go, chicken by a 2 year old :).

 

So Thursday we headed out to the store before school, which was so really cool in one way, but we were still sitting down at 2, well after the store and lunch break. But neither L-bug nor I are very motivated to DO school sit down work after lunch, sure we still learn things after lunch, but we like to have all our must dos done before lunch. 

 

 Taking a much needed littlest pet shop break after school.

 Playing in the back yard after dinner.

 Summersaulting on mommy.

Love that girl.

 (not sure why she brought a foam piece from her Thomas the train couch into bed with her, but love her to pieces)

 

Onto Friday. Daddy's last day of vacation... well except for the weekend which he gets off anyway.... Friday started off with the cutest bed head I've ever seen, but it eluded the camera much to my dismay.



 After breakfast I catch two little bugs hanging out on the kitchen table.  This is why Moms should always have cameras on their arms.

 After all our sit down work and lunch we headed over to our neighbors to start sewing with the kids.  The kids designed bookmarks and cut out the pieces from felt and started sewing them together.  Next week they'll finish the fronts, probably the week after that work on tassles and start the blanket stitch to finish up the front to the back.... but it could be longer, could be less, who knows. That's the fun part about kids right? I'm just hoping their enthusiasm holds out as long as the project takes!! They did well through I'm proud.

 Boo has herself a little boy friend who sat and fed her tomatoes... sooo cute.

 This brings us up to the weekend and an update on the plants.  Boo's sunflower took off like a weed.

 Ro-bear's spotted plant has a little sprout. Its a little hard to see, but it is there. It looks bigger in person.

 

 








L-bug's cactus hasn't sprouted at all... I'm almost tempted to go buy her a little potted cactus.  She's doing a good job of checking on it and being happy about her sissy's plant, but I'm totally feeling bad for her. 

 

So that was our week at the Blue Rabbit Academy. Craft wise nothing happened, I had a little tummy trouble through the week and wasn't motivated to do anything aside from the basics... Hope you all had a blessed week and can't wait to see you back next Monday... yes Monday.

Watching them learn- Watching them grow

Ro-bear counted today! For those of you who do not know Ro-bear this is a huge thing.  Ro-bear regressed in her speech as in at 12 months old Ro-bear was speaking in complete sentence such as "I go too." or "Oh look a meow meow" then around 18 months she stopped, she seemed to not be able to say any of the words she knew and slowly started adding words, but 'dog' became 'arf' but she didn't reach whole sentences again until after two when she started things such as "ro-ro a wanta ojuice" she adds A in random words, who knows.  But today she counted and spoke clearly.  We went to walmart and Ro-bear said "mom, four birds" followed shortly after by "mom look two hellophones" then at dinner she came up and says "mama I help you a lots"... I don't know how it happened, but it happened.  Ro-bear went from a closed up little girl to a confident little toddler.

Well, she's still painfully shy, but she will either just be shy or that too will pass.  Yesterday she would not go to gym class because there were other children there she didn't want to be near or touch them.  When one mom asked if Ro-bear wanted to do class in two weeks Ro-bear leaned in close to me and said "Rathzer nama teese sandmich" (I'd rather eat a cheese sandwich), but she's becoming more comfortable with the world.

Yesterday she came to help me with dinner, but the grease was too hot, so she busily started working on scooping oranges with a ladle... and the ladle broke. It never was a very good ladle- but Ro-bear starts crying and says "Oh mama so sorry soo soo sorry" Of course I told her not to worry and L-bug assured her that we love Ro-bear more than any old ladle, but every time she passed by the trash can she said 'soo soo sorry.'  She's thinking about more than just herself- its amazing to see her growing so much. I don't care about the ladle, but to see Ro-bear worry about someone else's feelings (which even L-bug has trouble with sometimes) was so sweet and warmed my heart.

I think its funny that the things we worry about so much, like Ro-bear's speech, work themselves out.  It is up to us to provide kids with good examples: to talk and talk and talk, to model proper behavior and to live like we want our kids to live. It is not for us to worry.  Of course everyone of us is doing things wrong, of course we're not perfect- we're human, but we're trying. We are each doing what's best for our kids, our spouses and our families. 

Maybe I can learn from this lesson and start to ask for help instead of worrying about temporary problems.  Between friends, family, professionals, and of course God Himself, there is always someone to ask for help.  We need help every day and the only way we can stop the worrying is to ask.  I hope you all have a blessed day and we'll be back on Monday with more adventures at the Blue Rabbit Academy.

On the road again

We just took a lovely trip up to see my relatives in Cincinnati.  My mother in law had a class up near my mom, so she took the girls and me with her. 

Monday we spent the day getting presents ready to bring on the trip with us.  Salsa Verde and Chocolate chip cookies... well chocolate cookies without the chips and a chocolate glaze on top.  We were out of chips and yeah... but they were delicious so it worked out in the end.  If I can remember we'll share our recipe on here soon.

Ro-bear had her own bowl of ingredients and kept stopping to taste hers.

L-bug made a smiley face with the eggs and vanilla in the batter.

 

 

Tuesday we went up to Cinci and visited a bit, everyone was pretty tired and cranky at that point. We did stay up and try to see the meteors... no luck, but we took a picture of the moon....

I felt bad for L-bug because she was really looking forward to the meteors, but we'll try again next shower.

Wednesday was a nice day, we went to a park with Great Grandma and Grandpa and played on the playground and took a walk around a lake.  The girls had fun until Ro-bear got tired and passed out. I carried her the rest of the way. Let's say 26 lbs gets heavy fast :). 

 

 

Thursday we got to go to the aquarium.  I felt really bad because Grandma and Great Grandma couldn't come with us, but we all had a blast.  Boo the least because no one would let her pet anything lol, but L-bug and Ro-bear got to pet some different things like sea urchins and a crab, star fish an horseshoe crabs. Then later they got to pet sharks.  Silly me had misplaced my camera at this point in the trip and borrowed Great Grandma's camera which I forgot to recharge between the park and the aquarium and it died before the shark petting, but that's okay, its easier to help kids pet sharks without a camera around your wrist to worry about.  All in all we took a million pictures, here are some highlights....

 L-bug really liked this statue of a whale so we got a picture for her.

 

 Ro-bear had to say hi to all the fish for the first hmmm 15 mins of the trip.

 ...and wave to many of them too.

 This is where they could pet the star fish, sea urchin, horseshoe crabs etc.  The only bad thing was that they had just fed the critters that morning and there were still pieces of fish heads staring up at us (ew). Ro-bear wondered for a little bit if she was supposed to pet the dead fish or not, thankfully I was with her and steered her away.

 These are the shark rays which we learned are neither sharks or rays, but a type of guitar fish... they were really pretty either way.

 We learned that the otters play with ice.  They were so cute showing off, swimming around and playing.

Everyone had to take a turn on the giant frogs... let me tell you though they were slicker than they look.  I slid off of it the first time. And that little girl who's blurry kept kicking Boo... grr. I didn't say anything because she's so little herself, but it irked me. Each girl picked out a stuffy at the gift shop and Ro-bear learned how to say Hamma-head shark. So cute, Ro-bear saying anything is cute she is getting the hang of the talking thing.   



 

 

Friday morning we sat around the kitchen island and read about the 'new' animal the olinguito.  L-bug was curious and so we read about it, very interesting stuff.  If you haven't read up on the animal yet here's a link to visit.  Olinguito  Then we visited with a friend for a while our babies weren't too sure about each other, but they the end of the visit they were doing the baby thing where they play nearby each other.  For two kids around one that's saying a lot. Overall it was a nice visit.   We found my camera at this point (I'd hidden it in my mom's present to keep it safe- yes, safe- and she found it for me) so the girls had to take cheesy pics in the hotel. I have three cheeseballs who are always up for cheesy pics.

Ro-bear kept yelling TEEESE and then posing, so I guess it was mostly one cheeseball, but what mama can say no to a face like that... well, I do have to on some things, but not pictures.

 

 

Saturday was the long trip back home. The girls were mostly good, they got tired of traveling of course, but we took breaks and walked about and got such cute pictures as these.

And yes, I did say no to most all of the things Ro-bear was carrying around the stores. 

The girls missed daddy the whole week, we had to call him at random intervals to have him say hi.  It was mostly Boo and Ro-bear, neither really wanted to talk with him  (well, Boo can't talk and Ro-bear doesn't much) they just wanted to make sure he was okay. I can't imagine the families who have to send their daddy away for long periods of time!  I admire those families even more now after having a short week of the stress that puts on the wee ones. 

 

Today we planted some plants that we got from hobby lobby on our trip, though I'm not sure why I let L-bug talk me into them on the trip, we have a Hobby Lobby here, so we could have gotten them anytime.  L-bug wanted a cactus and Ro-bear got a polka dot plant, and Boo got a sunflower because L-bug said Boo is like a ray of sunshine and needed a sunflower.  Sometimes that kid can be so sweet. 

 

 

Oh and least I forget.... L-bug lost another tooth today. She is very proud of her lost tooth. Me, on the other hand, can't stand teeth, ew.  Yet, I have to act all happy for her :).

 

Well, that was our week off school in a nutshell.  I must say it still felt fairly educational for being a week off.  Just goes to show, learning is a way of life.  Daddy is taking a week off this coming week, hopefully we'll be getting a new dishwasher and doing a few odd things around the house while getting back in the groove of school and cleaning.  Our cleaning schedule is good, but not great for us, I need to find something that takes it up to great. I know nothing will be perfect, but great will suffice.