Cute or Creepy? And Other New Things

It was clown day in Charlotte's class at preschool. I have no idea what that means, or why it happened, but when I picked her up she looked like this, which was in turns adorable and then somewhat creepy.

I couldn't decide, actually: cute or creepy? And then I came back from some errands, and I saw her in her bedroom window, and I decided DEFINITELY CREEPY.

(I know Miranda agrees.)

Okay now I feel like I have to post something legitimately adorable to make up for sharing that picture, so you aren't left with Clown Charlotte nightmares and never want to read blog posts about her again. So. Here is Sunday's instagram of her, taking a shower (which no longer involves crying!) (and is therefore really freaking precious):

Hmmm what else is new today? I got new headbands for the gym (outlet shopping! yay!) and besides being way more bright and fun than the random Goody ones from Target I have used for years, they are also soft and comfortable and stay put (with my usual bobby pin method) and hold way more stray bang pieces back.

I can only post this picture because I somehow did a great job covering the bald spot behind my ear, which is no joke. Anyway, Adidas headbands. RECOMMEND.

Also Anneliese has started in a new round of swim lessons.

Mark and I both took her (he happened to be off work and the other kids are at school/church on Tuesday mornings, and I blew off grocery shopping since I wanted to come and I was sort of in slow motion anyway) and it was a fun odd thing to be out alone with just our middlest baby. Fun and odd and lovely.

Mark and Erin: preventing middle child syndrome since 2011!

Yesterday Today Tomorrow, v2.0

Yesterday: Mark made a giant breakfast, which is kind of his territory, because he and the kids all love breakfast and it is a special Daddy bonding thing. Sometimes I partake, sometimes not (I do not love breakfast food very much) (oh stop clutching your pearls, I'm fine) but yesterday when I woke up, they were all about to sit down to their feast, so I joined them for one coffee and one non-buttered non-syruped pancake, which I ate like a piece of bread, because that is how I like pancakes. Plain. Like bread.

(I have VERY STRONG OPINIONS on syrup, which I could rant about for thousands of words, but there is no need, because it basically boils down to I STRONGLY DISLIKE IT. Like, I don't even want to smell it on my kids after they eat it. Oh sweet baby you want pancakes? Sure! Now time for a bath and some teeth brushing before I can hug you again.) (Not really.) (Well, kind of yes really.)

After breakfast Mark wanted to go watch a church basketball game, and he was all, suuuuure I will just take the kids, I'll take 'em all! Which means I got to sit under a blanket and drink coffee and read my book for an hour, and I guess I don't really need to say this because hello obvious, but it was GLORIOUS. Alone time in my own house is precious and rare and I was not going to waste it doing dishes or some such nonsense.

After they got back, and after I went by church to take care of some prep work for Youth Sunday this morning, Mark and I got to go on a rare Saturday DATE. My mom was in town last night and offered to get the kids down while we went out. We ate empanadas and drank spicy pineapple margaritas and were home by 9 because we totally know how to partaaaaay when we have a free sitter.  (No, it is because Sundays start early for us, especially this week.)

But seriously, being downtown was lovely and chatting with Marky alone for several hours was fun (we have this opportunity at home almost every evening, but it is more fun downtown on a date because obviously) and it was an easy laughy delicious way to hang out with my love, and I therefore loved it.

Today: I was up and coffeed and out the door and at church at the sparkling hour of 7:30 to help with three services of Youth Sunday, which has a million pieces and a million people and a million helpers but it all came together kind of great, actually. Our youth choir (the part I officially help with) was for real awesome, the best they have sung in any of the years I have been involved, I think.

After church and lunch, Another Nathan (also thoroughly exhausted, you would not believe the amount of effort and work it takes him for Youth Sunday -- and every Sunday, of course) took me downtown to see the composer of the Gospel Mass conduct it in a concert/service.

Okay so here's the thing abut Another Nathan: he gets a wee bit adorably nerdy about stuff like this. I mean, he brought his own copy of the score. To follow along. With a pencil. And also a sharpie. To get it autographed WHICH HE INDEED DID.

See? Adorably nerdy. This is why he is my people, y'all.

And the Gospel Mass was indeed very interesting and cool and beautiful to hear. Also being in church and listening to lovely music and not having to do any of the prep work to make it happen was the perfect thing for a friend date after a busy youth morning.

And then we came home and watched the Olympics closing ceremonies with Marky, and now I am typing this blog post with one eye open because I am tired like whoa.

Tomorrow: will be a normal Monday, I suppose. Gym, school dropoffs, diaper laundry, making lists for the week, playtime with Charlotte, mayhaps some cleaning. Oh! Wait! I also get to go for a tiny bit of outlet shopping (I don't need anything, but it sounds delightful just to wander, and I won't say no to some Harry & David coffee if we're going) and then beer/pizza/trivia at our favorite beer/pizza/trivia place. (We always think we are so good, but then we always lose, in case you are curious about our trivia baller status.)

Hm in reading this I realize it has been kind of an indulgent few days with all the outings and shopping and restaurants but ehhhh we worked hard too, so I won't apologize.

Outlets, ahoy!

Daily Nathan, Suddenly Older

We took advantage of the pre-snow snow day a couple of weeks ago to go pick out new glasses for Nathan, whose old ones were getting a mite small. He found some he liked, and even though I am still getting used to how much older he looks in them, I like them too.

But really. So old. How is this my baby??

Unrelated to anything (except maybe to getting older? kinda?) he also came home from school with this completed "how-to" assignment on jumping into a pool:

His schoolwork is all, oh jumping in the pool is easy. You just get a pool. And jump in it. I can do that. Is he for real? He absolutely cannot do that. (I mean, not by himself.)

So anyway, yeah, growing up and stuff.

Snow-Delayed Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day, Wake County!!

The kids finally got to take their valentines to school and church today. They were excited, especially Nathan, who I always forget loves Valentine's Day more than I remember. An excuse to make cards for people he likes, telling him he likes them? He is all over it. He has been making valentines for weeks. I myself have received several already. I'm not sure if it's true, but he claims to love me more than a handful of t-rex stickers covering the paper heart they were stuck on. (That's my version of smug these days.) There are still several valentines for various people floating around upstairs that I should probably find, now that I don't have to hold him off on delivering them anymore.

Anyway.

For their school parties, Nathan and Anneliese had cards I printed online, because what they said they wanted doesn't exist at the grocery store, and I'm not trying to be all super homemade. Print, cut, attach candy, done.

Spinosaurus valentines for Nathan, because obviously:

Rainbow valentines for Anneliese, because OBVIOUSLY:

Owl valentines for Charlotte, because they were in the one-spot at Target, and *I* liked them:

The big kids had fun putting theirs together, but Charlotte was less than helpful because SHE'S TWO, although she did like handing me stickers and talking incessantly about them. And she pronounces valentine like bamentime, so I am happy to make as many silly cards with stickers for her fellow two-year-olds as she wants.

Happy heart day, late! Especially to my own favorite bamentime Marky!

Our House! In the Snow!

We have had more snow adventures in the last 24 hours than I am currently able to articulate and recount, so for now -- just look at my pretty house in the pretty snow! (I only find it pretty because I am writing this safe and warm at home. Even at that, lovely thoughts about snow are... difficult.)

This is day two of falling snow, on the second snowy week this year. That's unusual for us; we still aren't used to seeing our (new? ish) house like this:

That's after we shoveled ("we" hahahahaha) the first round off the sidewalk, then it rained some and froze ice on it, so that we had a perfect storm of winter mess waiting for the new snow to fall on. Sarcastic yay!

Also, it is hard to get a picture of snow while it is falling. It's a skill I am lacking as a southerner, I think. Or maybe not as a southerner, but as a person who mostly just takes pictures on my phone. Anyway I put my camera on "snow" setting (yes really, feel free to laugh at me) and this is what I got. So, okay.

Tomorrow will be the SEVENTH day of missed school for snow this year. What? WHAT. Where are we anyway? Is this North Carolina? (Not just this year, but seven missed days out of the last three weeks. Eight for Nathan, since he had a pukey morning on Monday and got sent home.)

But the good news is that since school canceled for tomorrow, the preschool valentine party isn't happening tomorrow, which means there were preschool valentine cupcakes for lunch today.

So at least there's that.

The Booler, Two and a Half

Charlotte is two and a half!

I keep doing that thing where I compare her age to the other kids' ages when we were doing X or Y or Z in years past, and it keeps blowing my mind. Like, Charlotte is now a year OLDER (a year! older!) than Anneliese was when we were renovating this house and moving in. She is now older, by many months, than Nathan or Anneliese were when they became big siblings. (Yet, Charlotte is still somehow the baby whom I carry around, a lot. Hmmm.)

We had her preschool conference a few weeks ago, and I was all ready to write a fighty post about how she is FINE and even though she seems a stitch baby-like compared to some other kids her age, we are FINE and she is FINE -- and I have several theories about why that could be, but mostly it boils down to her being a relatively shy kid, with relatively babyish hair, and she doesn't have a ton to say in big groups, and she is FINE. I don't want to write that whole post.

I do need to say, post-conference, for myself and for the record, that she totally and most definitely does talk in short sentences, saying things like this below, all the time constantly over the course of every day (not that I am counting or making a mental note or anything because hoo boy that makes me look more defensive than I like to think I am, but here goes anyway):
1.) Mommy look! (wook)
2.) I come too!
3.) I'm hungry.
4.) Daddy's at work.
5.) It's Nathan's bus.
6.) I see a puppy!
7.) I want oatmeal.
8.) It's my blocks!
9.) It's my Daniel!
10.) It's myyyyyyyyy!!!! (x1000)
11.) Bowden's barking.
12.) That's too loud.
13.) I go to school.
14.) Mommy please help you?
15.) I did it! All by self!
16.) I fall down! I'm okay!
17.) That's mommy's phone.
18.) Anneliese is going potty.
19.) It's a house. And a car!
20.) I found it! (also x1000)

Ummm actually just by reading those sentences you can get an idea of what it is like to hang out with Charlotte every day, actually.

She is sweet and funny and tiny and gentle and very much our baby, which I'm sure Mark and I perpetuate, Nathan and Anneliese too for that matter. But she is increasingly brave, and increasingly more insistent on doing what the big kids do. She does not want to be left out. If they are outside, she wants to be there too. Or playing legos or painting or watching a movie or any of the other myriad things we have tended to let them do while Charlotte does her baby things (like take a nap), and she is over that pattern. Over it. So she toddles after them, trying to keep up, and then after a spell she gives up and crawls back into our laps, or lies on the floor talking to her toysies, or hugging her blanket (bank-o-link, she calls it), and we smile because that place between toddler and kid is just kind of delightful. (Until she is three. Three is looming. I will not be scared, I will not be scared. For now, absofreakinglutely DELIGHTFUL.)

Last week she brought me this cape, wanting me to put it on her, and she asked to "be super?" -- in case you were wondering what I mean by delightful.

Oh! And she finally knows her actual name (shah-laht!) and doesn't insist it is Night-night, so there is also that.

Happy half birthday,Charlotte Booler!

Winter is Exciting, Yo

I have the winter doldrums. Does anyone else have the winter doldrums?

Tangent: I just typed that up there, and then went to look up doldrums, because it turns out it's one of those words I toss around and I actually don't know at all what it means. I feel like it is something about boredom? but it is actually a maritime word having to do with a warm front (or something?) that causes warm air around the equator to still the winds. So yeah. Still, warm, air. On the ocean. Totally has to do with my winter restlessness, yes? (No it turns out my colloquial use is totally legit, so everybody just simmer down now.) (This is assuming y'all were all up in arms thinking I had a failed colloquialism there, which obviously you were, because you totally care that much, right? Say yes.)

ANYWAY.

I am listless. Mark is out of town and I am busy but bored with the stuff keeping me busy. Officially ready for spring. Blah blah.

So, here. See some pictures. (This is the equivalent of me handing you my phone and letting you scroll through the camera roll, telling you alllll about the everyday exciting things we are up to. Pretend you just scrolled past a lot of pictures of things I liked at Target and the mall I might want to buy, and photos of books I want to remember to read, because that is part of the fun! game! of scrolling through my phone!)

Okay so every night, Nathan practices his cello. He still does not know how to use the bow. As best I can tell, he isn't even allowed to use the bow. He plucks on open strings and learns to read music on C, G, D, and A. He told me D is his favorite because D is for dinosaur. (Seeeee? EXCITING TIMES.)

This week he did get out the hymnal and play me any! song! I wanted! (Just the D's and A's though. Any song he found sounded remarkably like the last and it was still the cutest thing he has ever done on the cello, so.)

(Also, where can we find a little chair for him to sit in when he plays? We literally have no chairs in our house that he can sit in with his feet touching the floor. Literally in the correct use of literally.)

Anneliese went to a fire truck birthday party a few weeks ago (we can barely keep up with her party schedule these days, she needs to find some celebrity shades and try to rein in her paparazzi; her appearances as an A-list preschooler are very in-demand). So she came home from this party having "rescued" the cat (from a Christmas tree) (she got to keep the cat) and with a rainbow painted on her face (OF COURSE A RAINBOW), and sometimes she is still my baby and other times she is basically a teenager, and I don't even know what's happening here.

The other day at lunch, Mark won me this little stuffed valentine in one of those vending machine toy game things. Note to my parents: you never let us do those things and now my husband does BWAHAHAHA I WIN. (That was my evil laugh.) (And no, I don't let my kids do them either. Shut up.) Anyway it was a random bar (grill? bar? we decided Restaurant Impossible should be dying to get into this place) and the food wasn't great, but a lunch date where your husband wins you an arcade toy is never not awesome. (I am trying not to remember the part where he tried to give it to Another Nathan first. OH HECK NO THAT TOY IS MINE.) (Well, mine until Charlotte loved it and wanted to hug it and then I am willing to share. Mostly willing.)

This is the part where I ask, what the heck I am I blogging about again? You're welcome.

Snow Day Bakers

Last week, by the fourth day off of school, we were getting sick of the snow and looked for some indoor entertainment. So, cue giant messy baking project. (Who am I anymore?)

Okay first - look at these two adorable little bakers, and everyone stop and close your eyes and say a little prayer that they will always be the bestest of friends that they are now.

I am serious. Pray and hope for them, please. I am mommy sentimental, and these two together make so happy it almost aches.

In my mind, this one below was an outtake, blurry with closed eyes and all, but I couldn't quite make myself delete it. Feels like some kind of Moment. Oh my happy babies.

Okay so anyway we made some peanut butter cookie batter, and cut them into all sorts of shapes like dinosaurs and stars and letters and airplanes and snowflakes and punctuation.

We burned some of them. We ate some of them. And we were busy for hours.

Toysies

So in the world according to Charlotte, why would you want to have one big soft lovey when you can form an emotional attachment to five tiny hard plastic toys? That makes total sense, right?

These are her toysies: 

A set of little figurines from the show Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood, a Christmas present from Another Nathan, her toysies. I don't know why she calls them that, but now that's what they are.

She wakes up talking about them, she falls asleep talking to them, they hardly leave her side all day. She carries them around clumsily in her arms and hands, or in her little cloth purse, or in any of the various buckets we have lying around, you know from happy meals and such (and such = plastic pumpkins from halloween).

She lines them up on the kitchen table, on windowsills, on stairs. She sleeps with them on her pillow. (Once, I caught her sleeping on the floor while her toysies laid carefully tucked under a blanket on her bed.)

She holds them in her lap while she watches Daniel (the show), and plucks them up as each character comes on the screen. It is more adorable than you can imagine.

She seems to think they are the perfect toys for pushing around in her doll stroller, or in her grocery cart, and there is no convincing her (but why would I want to anyway?) otherwise.

She talks about them near-constantly. (We hear just as much about the toysies as we do dinosaurs, if that gives you any perspective.) She says all their names, she tells us what colors they are wearing (incorrectly, every time), she runs into rooms to announce which ones she is holding in any given moment. Or, more likely, which one she is in a panic because she can't find. (THERE. ARE. FIVE. My child is latched onto FIVE! tiny objects we are constantly trying not to lose track of.)

After a scare with Hattie a few weeks ago when we couldn't find her all night (she was sitting safely on top of the wastebasket in the bathroom, where she had watched Anneliese poop the day before, because of course), I am now thinking we should get some backup toysies, stat. (Especially Katerina. That little minx is a hider.)

So, yeah. Meet the toysies. They are here to stay.

Rainbow Power! (?)

Anneliese and Nathan, at the bus stop, booming "rainbow power" at any car that drives by:

(It mostly means... point with rainbow-mittened fingers at passing cars, then wave and yell? I think? As best I can tell?)

Neither of them seem to be able to explain what The Power does or where it comes from, it's just one of those nonsense games that has turned into an everyday activity. It is now an assumed fact that Anneliese has rainbow power and that it should be shared with the masses, and that Nathan is well qualified (but! not! mommy!) to be her sentry and assistant, staying on the lookout for cars coming in need of rainbow cheer.

So.

This is what my day looks like, every day, at 8:20am. Good morning!

January Unblogged

I'm not sure I did a great job at blogging through January (hence the catchup now) (actually I take that back, I am a fantastic blogger, and I blogged exactly the right amount and will continue to do so), but here are some things that I did when I wasn't blogging then, because I am blogging now, which is exactly the right thing:

1.) Mark and I always look and act nice at other people's birthday dinners:

2.) Charlotte and Anneliese did some shopping with their babies, and then took a break to make some calls:

3.) I dyed some burp cloths for Nick and Barbara's baby, our new niece who will be here in just a tiny few more weeks!

4.) Nathan had one really great hair day:

5.) Charlotte wore this outfit and yes, she got a million hugs:

6.) Anneliese got a haircut. It was her first time getting her hair washed and dried in a haircut place, and she loved it. "It feels nice and my eyes want to close!" Um, yep.

7.) She also got new shoes. The beloved colorful plaid shoes that we made her save until the day we left for St. Croix (and oh how she remembered that morning, in the wee hours before we got on the plane) are finally done. She chose new tennis shoes that are mostly gray with rainbow laces that "tie" with velcro. It's what I want, it's what she wants, SOLD.

8.) I did some nap creeping, of course:

9.) Nathan brought his toy spinosaurus to church and ended up sitting at the organ. It has only been a few weeks and I already don't remember the circumstances that led to this, but it's not every day you get to see a happy child pretending to play the organ with a spinosaurus, so here you go:

10.) I went on a retreat with the confirmation class from my church, and it was Something. Mostly it was really cold. Like, really cold. And it turns out NC eighth graders do not know how to dress for weather in the teens when they need to be outside (leggings are not pants! what do you mean you did not bring a coat?) but hey the train cars we slept in were mostly warm, so there's that?

11.) We rounded out the month with a snowless snow day, which required a pizza picnic on the living room floor by the fire. We don't need actual snowflakes do up a snow day right.

(The snow totally started while we were eating.)

Happy January!