Tot School...as Sophie sees it...

Hi! Sophie here.
I don't think Mom is going to get this post done...she keeps saying I wear her out. Whatever that means.

I like to color. I really like to use the "big colors", Mom calls them "markas". Clearly they are just "big colors", I don't see any reason to use flowery language.
Mom is also big on saying "only on paper". I think she means the big colors. But where is the fun in that? I like to experiment with different mediums. I love the way the colors are so vivid on my skin. See?




















But then I discovered how effortlessly the big colors glide across the floor. OOOOooweeeeee!! See?















But then! Oh my! I discovered I can draw fruit! I call these Banana and Banana & Pear.  Notice, I chose 2 different mediums.  Freedom of Expression, I call it.  Disobedience, Mom calls it.  The way I see it, she should be glad I randomly picked a washable marker.  





















Here's my sister. She's so clean it scares me. She never colors herself, even when I encourage her to. Party pooper.

 

I ended Tot School with a bloody nose. Sometimes I just want to get out of bed, and I can hear Mom telling Sarah not to get out of bed unless she's bleeding.  So, I'm just trying to stay ahead of the game.
I look real unhappy, don't I?

h

Naptime Part Deux

Ok, so I was pretty defeated yesterday. So I stepped up my game today.
Originally I was going to strap the drawers closed. But, that looked too challenging. So then I did what I swore I would never do... totally inconvenience myself for a strong-willed child.
See exhibit A.
It's a dresser. Or a chest of drawers, maybe? Or, as we found out yesterday...bunk beds.
It's a sturdy thing. But I've learned not to believe everything that goes on between my two ears.
What to do, what to do.
Turn it around.  Yep. Terribly inconvenient. A complete waste of money. But a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.
So I pulled out the most used items. Jammies, shirts, and pants/shorts.  I learned two things. 1) Poor kid doesn't have much in the way of clothes (See exhibit B). and 2) Those glider thingies you can put under furniture to move it...man, they are awesome!!!
Now her pretty cute baby's room is looking more and more like...well, that padded room I mentioned before.  I moved her bed a little further in the other direction because it looked too tempting as a step to the top of the dresser.  Well, that necessitated me moving the rocking chair... because it looked. Rocky.  I don't think I'll be able to stick with that move though. My Sophie loves her "rock-a-baby"...and mommy loooooves to rock her baby.  Yeah, the chair will go back.
Sophie noticed a problem right off the bat. "ugh oh. not right mommy. pull out." I sat there smiling at her.  "mommy, pull out, not right."  To which mommy said "Oh dear, the ladder is broken."  Poor thing. I'm not sure she even knows that she is keeping me on my toes.
Of course today she dropped off into la la land
before the 1st song ended so I'm not sure what will transpire. But, at least I can rest easy, as the next move is hers.
Exhibit A.                                                             
 

Exhibit B. (the colored buckets are all her clothes.

  Hard to believe I bought a dresser for that, huh?)

I sure would love for her to have this to play with at nap time. (hint hint Granma or Papa ;) )
And I happen to know it's on sale at Wal-Mart right now. :)

Meet my teachers

I've decided to spread the insanity of caring for Sophie around a bit. :)
Sarah is BRILLIANT and all, but even she needs some quiet time to learn. So we've signed Sophie up for MMO for this year. She'll go 2 days a week. I'm thrilled on the one hand, because, well, you know. And I'm nervous too. She's a handful. And she eats anything. But...

Today was "Meet the Teachers" day. Sophie isn't much on change. Um, at all. So it's only fitting that she has the same teachers that she had for MMO this summer and for VBS before that. She was supposed to have a different teacher this summer but she, um, refused to go in any room but Ms Jue's and Ms Jeans. And by "refused" I mean...she would only go to their room. The director finally relented and just moved her. Have I mentioned she is a bit strong-willed? Anyway... now she's with them because she actually belongs there. :)

And here they are:



They are special to us. Sarah had them too. Sophie will have a great time. She is already sooooo proud of the stuff she makes in Sunday School, so she is going to thrive with this class.

Long silence??? Must be Hurricane season...

Oh. My. Word.
Let me preface this by saying, Sophie is the most fun, precious, expressive, inquisitive, bundle of love I could ever lay my hands on. (O.k., 1 of 2) She is either all the way up or all the way down. Find the grain of rice that tips the scale and carry it with you at all times. She forgives and forgets immediately (just ask Sarah). And she is not afraid to express her opinion. She also is not afraid to run from Mommy, or eat anything that might resemble food...except the food in front of her. She's determined, never shying away from a challenge...like a baby gate, child-proofing gadgets, or being told "no" when she's sure we meant "yes".

So, where have I been??

A week ago yesterday I'm working in the kitchen and suddenly hear footsteps behind me. Really little ones. Sophie had figured out that if she got a running start towards the older baby gate (you know the one that Sarah just dutifully just stood behind until someone picked her up?) it would fall right down. At which point she used her aquired knowledge (that when doing something totally against the rules, one must be very quiet about it) to pull out very nearly every school manipulative she could reach in the school room. (Need I say that she did not put them back??)
*Note to self* move those science experiment thingies up a smidge higher. I know I don't want to be the one explaining to the radiologist how the iron filings got there.
So anywho...
I admit defeat and reason that we'll probably need a gate for a good bit longer so I'll invest another $40 in my hurricane containment system.
Clearly, she wasn't looking for victory...she needed a challenge.
At nap time that day... yeah, you guessed it. She's popping out of the crib like a bird learning to fly.
She's not ready for freedom, I mean, a toddler bed. So I look on-line for one of those crib tent do-dads. $80??????!!!!!! Ugh, no. We'll just have to take the side off the crib and go to battle.
*Editor's note* I'm not sure we made the right choice. :)
Sophie is rising to the occasion. She called all her friends and planned par-tays for every morning at 2am. The girl would literally be up dancing. Seemingly fresh and recharged.
I had to buy more child-proof doorknob covers. What a joke. Took her 2 seconds to figure those out.
O.k. We'll put a gate in front of her door...raise it a bit (you know, because that challenge had already been met.).
Yeah, that worked for about 3 nights.
Next, it was time to play dirty. We taped her light in the off position. No more late night parties. I turned the doorknobs around so they lock from the outside. No more having to sleep with 1 eye open.
Then, suddenly, it seemed all was well.
(My fellow coastal residents know this is called "the eye of the storm")
Naps had been so nice. Today... oh, today.
When I lay her down, she tells me "tummy hurt". So, I know, I pretty much have to wait until, um, it doesn't hurt anymore, if you know what I mean...before I can leave.
Finally, 45 mins later, I thought I was safe to assume her tummy was all better. But she didn't seem the least bit tired. I had a raging headache, I couldn't lay on that floor any longer.
As I laid on my bed trying to relax, I could hear that she wasn't sleeping. A knock here and a knock there. I convinced myself it was the magna doodle. I mean, surely, given a choice, she'd play with her toys right?
After an hour of ignoring the fear building up inside of me...I decide it's time to check in.
Oh wait...grab the camera because this might be good. (See? I can find the humor in it.)
As I round the corner I gasp. Oh no. Her tummy must have still been hurting...if you know what I mean? Then I suddenly remember my prediction from early on "this will be the one who paints with poop." I take a deep breath (and gag)... and, well, turn on the camera because, well, did I mention she's pretty funny?
I opened the door and saw this.



Oh how cute!!!!
As I get closer I realize she's got something in her hand... oh. my. word.
It's Vaseline!!!
And she's scooping it out by the handful and saying "rub 'otion mommy".
And it's all over her legs, arms, hands.
But, do I lie? Is she cute or what?



So there I am trying to figure out how to get her to the bathtub and I notice she has a swim diaper on. Hmmmmm. Oh Lord, please please don't tell me.....
"Where is your diaper honey?"
She points over there. (I'm still surprised to actually get an answer to my questions half the time.)

Well, Sophie, God bless you for trying to change yourself. Here is her dirty diaper rolled up just like mommy does (pretty much)...and she put a diaper back on. How resourceful is she???


Once I pulled her out of the drawer I discovered all the wipes she used to clean herself up. So what if she sort of rubbed it in all over her tummy...and missed part of her bu**. She tried.
We cleaned up in the tub, then reloaded the tub for a good soak while I investigated further.

I'm feeling pretty good that she was so diligent about the diaper. Wow. Almost makes the destruction ok. See?



Did you see it? Look again. If you watch Criminal Intent like I do and you've learned anything from it...you saw the problem. I did to.
Hmmmm... isn't it interesting that she turned the mattress up? Why would she do that?
I draw closer.
Is it? Yep. Poo-poo prints. Possibly made by, say, a small hand. Hmmmm.....
As the music intensifies, and the camera draws in... I pull the mattress down to discover the crime.



oh dear.
Now, I have to say, at least it wasn't a wall mural. I'm trying not to imagine how exactly it got to this point. Although there was some cleaning under the fingernails going on.

What did I learn? Tape the light off again (I untaped it thinking nothing would happen). Do not leave until she's asleep. Always, ALWAYS assume the worst when silence is involved. And finally...clean out the drawers of anything messy, toxic, or breakable. They are not safe. When possible, pad room.

Early on I would say "If I get to the end of any given day and haven't arrived at the emergency room or had to call poison control....it's been a good day." I'm officially picking that back up as my motto.

Now...if I could just get rid of this headache.

We are in session...

Oh my. School is in session. Um, mostly.
We didn't have any fancy "1st day of school" pictures this year. I love fancy first days. But in all honesty, nothing has gone as planned. It has gone as expected. :)

Sarah is starting 1st grade. Lots of new curriculums, some old favorites, some fun extras. So far, I'm just trying to get the 3 r's done. Because, well... have you ever tried to concentrate outside during a Hurricane? Yeah, Sophie strikes again. :)

God bless this sweet Hurricane. She is only 27 months old and absolutely acting her age. But sitting for any length of time for anything is not her priority right now. (the picture at the top is of the only 5 mins Sophie sat in one place!) She wants to do what ever Sarah is doing, so even sitting with a highchair tray of Cool-Whip isn't good enough. But she also doesn't want to sit still and do whatever Sarah is doing. So coloring is a full-on contact sport. For me. Because she won't sit and color...she prefers to wander and color. If she spots a book, or 20, that she likes she'll pull them out. Not to look at mind you (that I could deal with), she seems to be more testing the theory of gravity than anything else.
I pull out all the great toddler activities that I thought would be a lot of trouble changing out every 15 minutes. No such luck...she was done with ALL of them in about 8 minutes. *sigh*

But we are plugging away. Sarah is a hard worker most of the time. But she doesn't like if things get too independent for her. Some of it is just wanting to be with me, some of it is her jealousy that I'm with Sophie. Both of which we'll hopefully make progress on this year. She is so smart. It's almost freaky. But it is so fun to watch her make the connection with something. What a blessing to get to do this.

I haven't taken many new pictures. Today, when I was trying to get this post done initially, I needed a few quiet minutes. What to do? What to do? "Here Sarah take this bag of flour and pitcher of water (and Sophie) and go mix it on the patio." heehee... they had a blast, but would not touch it no matter how much I encouraged them to. Boy, did they miss out! But, it bought me a few minutes. Strangely, Sophie had it all over her face and on the back of her head. They did not appear to be self-inflicted splatters either. Sarah was pristine. Go figure. ;)
I wish I had not been downloading pics at the time... they were pretty cute.
But here's a little of what I do have right now...

Below is our VERY popular "why am *I* the one always in trouble??!!" looks. Just melts your heart doesn't it?? :)



I had soooo many great ideas for educational fun stuff (thanks to other mommy bloggers), but, well.... the Hurricane.
One thing I did manage to do is this growing sting ray. We measured it pre-water and everyday for a week. The thing really did triple it's size, just like the packaging said! I usually don't believe the hype on that stuff, especially from the Dollar Tree. But I figured we'd either learn about false advertising or measuring. :) Now I'm thinking those Sea Monkeys might be worth the investment!! ha! And the Obama Chia Pet. That would be fun too.
Anyway, here we are with Squishy the sting ray.









And then there is the end-of-day unwind.