I've been working on this post for weeks, adding a little here and there.
The Boogie was given some soup. "There's celery in here," she complained, "I don't like celery."
"Fine, then don't eat the celery," I told her.
"Well, there's a lot of celery. And I don't like celery. And what's this little green stuff?" she persisted. It was parsley flakes.
"Just seasoning. You can't taste it," I promised.
"Well, I just don't like celery," she whined. Meanwhile Peabody, who had been inhaling her own soup, suddenly decided that she didn't like celery either. I had no energy to fight that battle. I put the soup in the fridge and told them that when they got hungry they could have it.
"By the way," the Boogie said slyly, "the reason I said I don't like the soup is that I want something else."
"Oh no," I said firmly, "soup is for dinner. If you are hungry you can eat that."
A little later I turned around to see the Boogie holding her bowl with a fake smile plastered on her face. "Guess what?" she said brightly. "I like this now!" Yeah, right.
I warmed it for her, and allowed her to pick out the bigger pieces of celery. She poked around, searching for tiny and tinier pieces. Exasperated, I said, "Just eat those tiny pieces in a bite with other stuff. You won't even taste it! See?" I shoved a spoonful in her mouth. Her face lit up. "You're right!" A minute later she said, "Hey, I just ate some of that seasoning, and I didn't even taste that either!"
"See? I told you," I said.
"Wow," she said thoughtfully, "you are ... smart."
I'm gonna remind her of that someday.
Peabody found a book that had been colored in. "Did you color in dis book?" she demanded of her sister.
"Oh, yeah, I did," the Boogie admitted, "I did that when I was little, before I knew anything."
Peabody normally wakes up dry in the morning after sleeping all night but for a few nights she's been waking up in the middle of the night and shouting, "Huuuunneeeeee! Daaaaaddeeeeeee! I needa go pee really baaaaaaad!"
One night she woke up multiple times. The final time she called, "Huuuuunneeeeee, Daaaaaaddeeeeeee, I'n all done sleeeeeepin'!" Since it was about 4 a.m. I gave up and brought her into bed with me.
The last few days we've had several episodes of crabbiness whereupon she is sent to her room and told that she can come out when she's finished crying. This morning instead of calling to me that she was awake, she instead yelled, "I'n happy now!" When I went in to get her she asked, "Is it a li'l, li'l, teensy tiny mornin'?"
She says that a lot, the li'l li'l, teensy tiny. Usually it's describing an imaginary injury. "Honey, I need a Buzz Lightyear bambaidge [bandaid], for my sing-ger [finger]. It's a li'l li'l, teensy tiny ouchie." Sometimes she adds very very to it: "It's a li'l li'l, very very, teensy tiny ouchie." She makes me laugh.
She's learned that she can get my attention by calling me Aunt Rachel if I'm not responding quickly enough to Honey. (Who, me? Ignore my children's constant demands? Never!) Lately I've been hearing, "Um, An Rayshel? An Rayshel?" on a regular basis.
I took the side off of her crib to change her bedding, and she asked to "leave the door open, not closed" during her nap that day. She did well, so we've left the side off. After she goes to sleep we push two small chairs up to the side and lay the Boogie's enormous stuffed elephant across them -- if Peabody rolls off the edge she won't go far, and will land on the elephant. In the early hours of the morning a few nights ago I heard her crying. When I went in I couldn't find her in the dark. I was feeling all around on her bed and telling her, "I'm here! I'm trying to find you!" while she wept. After several seconds my eyes adjusted and I realized that somehow she had squirmed off the mattress and then some -- her legs were on the elephant but her upper half was hanging off the side! Last night when I went to check on them she was fast asleep on the floor. At first I wondered how in the world she rolled off without waking up, but then realized she must have been roaming before falling asleep and never made it back to the bed. Naughty child.
For Christmas my parents sent the girls electric toothbrushes. Since they both love to brush their teeth I thought they would be very excited. The Boogie was unsure at first but quickly grew to like hers -- she says it tickles. Peabody, however, was initially totally freaked out. She cried if we talked about brushing her teeth; she cried while she had her teeth brushed.
Eric soon realized that one toothbrush was quieter than the other, so he switched to that one for Peabody's teeth and that took care of her fear. I guess it was the noise that frightened her. Now she likes it. She calls it the zoom-zoom toothbrush and begs to go first when it's time to brush her teeth. Whew!
We went to Baltimore a couple of days ago, to visit the aquarium. Eric and I had gone a couple of years ago during a little anniversary getaway to Baltimore -- we thought it was amazing and looked forward to taking the girls. Despite a late start we had just enough time to see all of the exhibits. Sadly, my favorite exhibit was closed for remodeling. I was so disappointed! I didn't know that it was closed and was really looking forward to seeing it and showing the girls. Other than that it was the perfect day to visit. Because of a late start for local schools most of the school trips had been canceled, and the ones that did show up were leaving by the time we arrived. There were hardly any people there so that meant no crowds! It was nice and we look forward to going again, after my favorite exhibit opens back up.
My friend Mrs. Cowboy told me a long time ago that her daughter listens to audio books. I thought that was really smart, so for Christmas I bought the girls The Caboose Who Got Loose and Corduroy with accompanying CD. They love them, so on our next trip to the library we found several more books with CD. I also picked up the audio version of Beezus and Ramona and Ramona the Pest -- we've been listening to them in the car and we've all really enjoyed them. I read every Beverly Cleary book I could find when I was a kid -- some of them over and over and over -- but it's been years since I have, and Eric said he'd never read any of the Ramona books. Next will be Henry Huggins, and then I'm going to try to find The Mouse and the Motorcycle. It's fun to start introducing the Boogie to books that I loved. Peabody is not so thrilled with them ("No, I not wanna listen to Ramona! No Beezus!") and much prefers the Mary Poppins soundtrack. Still, she will happily listen to Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel and Katy and the Big Snow!
They are cute and funny, these girls.
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