Evil twin

I've noticed that when I give Emma her toothbrush with the toddler toothpaste, she just kind of chews on it and eats the toothpaste - not necessarily doing a very good job at brushing her teeth. Today she saw me brushing my teeth and wanted to brush hers, too. "My teeth are yellow, Mama. I gotta make 'em white." When I grabbed the toddler toothpaste, she freaked out and asked for my aqua fresh. I figured a small dollop wouldn't hurt too much, gave her some and told her to have at it. She tasted it and said, "Ooh, this toothpaste spicy, Mommy!" and actually brushed her teeth properly without fuss. When I gave her the water to rinse and spit, she rinsed and swallowed - but she hasn't complained of a belly ache all day and her breath actually smells lovely for once!

It was supposed to rain all day today - the clouds have come in and threatened a few times but no actual drops yet (it is now 3:45pm). So we wanted to get to the park early and get all the wiggles out before being contained in the condo all afternoon. We hit up the "squirrel" park and as we were pulling in Emma announced, "We are gonna go play with Porter and Lawrence and Baby Russell and Sara and chase the squirrels." I explained to her that sometimes we come to the park and make new friends and that her old friends wouldn't be there because we hadn't arranged a playdate. She didn't like that very much but decided finally that it was okay. Of course, 10 minutes into our play, guess who shows up and makes me a big giant liar? Yep! So we happily all played for the next hour or so before the big trip to Costco (my excitement for the day). And just to show you how hard we played, here is a pick of Ben at Costco. He was like this the entire time we were there:



I was going to write this whole post about the hours from 4pm to 7pm yesterday, but Mom always said, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." Let's just say Emzilla was visiting - it was truly the worst visit ever - and hopefully she doesn't come back for a long time. I will chalk it up to the full moon and forget it ever happened. Sweet Emma is back today and I kind of prefer her over her evil twin.

Play by play.

Tonight I got the POOP Play by Play.

"Mommy, my belly hurts. I gotta go poopy."
We run into the bathroom and situate her on the big potty.
"Mommy, sit with me."
I sit across from her on the mini plastic potty/stool.
She makes a pouty face and says equally pouty, "Mama, here comes the poop. It's in my butt. I gotta push it out, Mama."
Finally, seconds later, she proudly announces, "I did it!"

Aren't you glad you read my blog?

And just to warm the cockles of your heart... Today I had a voice gig so I dropped the kids at my sitter in North Hollywood. As I was leaving, Benny looked at me sullenly, ran over and climbed into my arms saying, "Ma ma ma ma ma ma maaaaaa," snuggling into my neck. It was the single most beautiful most giNORmous explosion of love that made my heart melt EVER by that little man. Awwwwwww, shucks.

A typical afternoon around the Batter pad:

Mr. Sandman

We had to stop by Petsmart to get Apollo a new harness the other day. Emma LOVES the pet store as she enjoys seeing all the animals on display. When I asked her what kind of animals we were going to see, she said, "We are gonna see doggies, and birds, and fish, and Linny and Tuck." HA! Linny is the guinea pig and Tuck is the turtle from one of her favorite shows, The Wonder Pets.

From there we headed to the mall to meet Daddy for lunch and playtime in the playground. As we pulled into the parking lot on the Target side of the mall, Emma got all cranky with me, "NO, MOMMY! WE NOT GO TARGET! WE GO PLAYGROUND!" I tried to assure her that we were just parking in the parking lot next to Target which is next to the playground, but she gave me the stinkeye from the back seat as if I were trying to pull one over on her. What does that tell you about our shopping habits that my 2 3/4 year old recognizes a Target when she sees one?

We enjoyed another lovely day at the "squirrel park" with our buddies yesterday. The usual fun and games ensued, but rather than tell you about them, I will provide visuals and you can imagine the fun we had... (click on the pics to enlarge them)



Yes, Emma is upset because she is stuck and can't climb down and I had to go get the camera and take the picture before rescuing her. That's okay, right? She got over it quick, as witnessed in the the adjoining picture of her and her pals "chasing squirrels."


Finally, Ben consumed about a pound of sand while playing. He falls face first into the sand pits with his mouth open every time. Will he ever learn? Good thing his good looks will get him far in life...

My purple pansy

We have had tons of fun in the past 36 hours. But, wow, tons of fun equals one tired Mommy!

We had an impromptu pizza party playdate last night with Emma and Ben's friends - oh, yeah, Mommy's friends, too! It helps that so many of them live here in the compound. I hit up Trader Joe's and got a few frozen pizza pies and some salad fixings and we had us a good 'ole time. It was supposed to be a play on the playground then come up and eat date, but they are putting in a kinder surface around the play area so we just came to the condo and played away here. My personal chef - i.e. Daddy - was home for the night, so I didn't even have to cook the pizza! The best playdate ever! The funniest part was at 7:00pm, Emma was D, O, N, E, DONE and she let everyone know exactly this by announcing, "Everybody has to go home now, Mommy."

Then this morning while Emma was still asleep, her buddies Porter and Lawrence stopped by for a quickie play session. Emma can be a bit of a grumpicus when she wakes up, so I had Porter have the honors knowing she would be very happy to see him, which she was - she got a huge kick out of the fact that they were there so early in the morning. When they left a little over an hour later she was so sad because she wanted to ride in their new car with them (continue to play) but she kept saying, "Mommy, I want to ride in Porter and Lawrence car." I don't blame her, really. I kind of have new car envy... I know I shouldn't covet my friend's minivan - but it is so big! and roomy! and I could actually fit my whole family in it with the dogs and the stroller! And when Gramma Lou came to visit we wouldn't have to take two cars out to dinner... But alas, I will simply save my pennies knowing that I will have one soon enough - and by soon enough I mean by Fall. I will. You'll see.

I gave Benny his first "official" haircut the other day. His bangs were getting crazy long and his sides were growing out over his ears all crazy like. So I popped on the Wonderpets after his bath and spiked his hair up into a mohawk and chopped into it like I see my hair dresser do to mine. The result? It actually looks pretty good! Who knew? Here is proof (and yes, he is chewing on the pointy end of a comb, and yes, that is perfectly safe. You want make something of it?) :



Finally for today, I truly realized I gotz me a SoCal city kid that needs to be rescued. Emma is turning into THAT KID who is afraid of everything. I grew up in the country, played my days away in the woods building forts out of trees that had tumbled over from the storms. Emma is still afraid of bugs - though thank goodness she is not bursting into tears at the sight of them. Now she simply demands I get it out of her sight. Today we dropped by the mall play area and she was having a blast until the EASTER BUNNY wandered in and she froze. All the other kids were loving on him and getting their pictures taken. Emma ran over to me all shy like and said, "Mommy, let's go. We gotta go to the new house. I don't like the Easter Bunny." So we hightailed it out of there after I spent 5 minutes trying to convince her he was a pretty cool dude who even brings CHOCOLATE. Didn't work. After we got home, we were doing laps of the compound to waste energy and time before dinner and she saw a squirrel who wasn't the least bit interested in running away from her. He was actually so tame he was within a foot of her sniffing for cheerios and she pulled the whole FREEZE, then SHY, then "I wanna go to the new house." I am going to have to leave her with Aunt Lisa and her cousins on their 220 acres to toughen her up a bit before we moved to NY!

Giant Windy

The "Ducky Park" (Lake Balboa) is getting more and more challenging. Ben loves to explore and I can handle both kids until he catches sight of that darned lake and all the duckies and wants to go check it out. The kid is fast and I give him his space trying to foster independence, but today I was chastised by three little old Asian ladies for letting him be "too far" ahead of me on his trek to the lake! They were yelling at me, "Be careful!" And I was like, ladies, relax, I am a lettered athlete. Sure, that was 20 years ago, but I like to think I got a little something left in me. Also, my blood pressure always rises just a bit as he is going down the hill as if I am waiting for him to bite it.

Yesterday we enjoyed the morning at the "Squirrel Park" - dubbed so by Emma after her squirrel chasing adventure with Porter and Lawrence. We played in the sand for a good chunk of time, then headed out to "chase" the squirrels when a little girl with a very unattentive mother was taking our sand toys right out of my kids hands all bratty like and I felt if I didn't move along I might have had to "discipline" a kid I didn't know. Anyway, the squirrels were MIA - we only saw one and he was high up in a tree cleaning himself. Emma kept wandering around saying, "Oh, squirrels! Come out come out wherever you are!"

On the ride home, it was a beautiful day so I had the windows all the way down. Emma yelled at me from the back seat, "Mommy, It's a GIANT windy. Can you put up the windows and make it just a little windy?"

Driving me buggy...

Yesterday while getting dressed, Emma wandered in and this time queried as I was putting on my bra, "Mama, you gettin' your boobies all warm and toasty?"

Thursday we stopped by the library to return some dvds. Because of CA cutbacks, the library hours have been cut and they weren't open when we got there. I deposited the movies in the outside return bin and drove off. Later that day Emma informed her Daddy that I "threw the movies in the trash at the library."

The time change wasn't as horrible this year as in years past. Ben adjusted pretty quick. Emma goes to bed later but she also sleeps in later giving me more solo Ben time in the morning. Their sleep has been pretty good for a few solid weeks now, except for last night when they were both restless. Hopefully that was just the excitement of having their buddies over for a late night playdate and they will be back on track tonight!

As Daddy's birthday kind of got lost in the shuffle of an emergency trip to Florida and a scheduled trip to NY, we really didn't get a chance to celebrate it properly. Therefore Thursday when we were in the baking aisle at the supermarket and Emma plucked a box of cake mix off the shelf and said, "Let's make a birthday cake for Daddy!" I actually thought it was a nice idea and we got all the ingredients. She helped me mix it up when we got home, and put all the cupcake liners in the pan for me, then helped me frost and sprinkle the finished goods. When Daddy got home we surprised him with a song and homemade card:




I love the last thing she says in the video. She is truly her father's daughter.

On a crazy note, Emma is all of a sudden PETRIFIED of bugs. We were playing on the compound slides the other day and she saw a gnat - teeny tiny little gnat - and went ballistic. I shoo'd it away and calmed her down, but whenever she sees anything, A LEAF, A LEFTOVER PIECE OF DINNER, anything - ANYTHING - she bursts into tears screaming, "I don't like bees, Mama, I don't like flies, I don't like bugs!" This happens at least 5 times a day. I don't know what to do. Yesterday she saw a green leaf on the slide and freaked out because it looked like a frog to her... OI YOI YOI!

Neverending Paparazzi

One of the celebrity rag mags has a section called, "Who wore it better?" I propose that question to you:

Emma is 17 months old in this picture and Ben is 14 months.








Then I found another of shot her and NEEDED to post it. Look how far Benny has come along!

Outhouse

I couldn't get out of the house soon enough this morning. No, it wasn't the usual kids driving me crazy... Daddy was coming home and we had to pick him up! Trouble is, we got out too early and traffic was a bit hectic so daddy took the flyaway which left us with about 30 minutes to kill out and about. I smartly settled on a quiet park right next to the Japanese Gardens on Woodley. Wait, did I say smartly? Yeah, very small park, no other people - but also, no proper bathrooms - only a porta-potty. Of course, 30 seconds into our kill 30 minutes playtime Emma needed to pee. I had to put a sleeping Benny that I was carrying around in my arms back into the car, grabbed the mini portable potty seat (THANK GOODNESS! - kept the experience somewhat sanitary...), and plopped 'ole Princepecia onto her seat in the very stinky potty. Of course, she touched EVERYTHING. Then commented that, "This potty has no flushie!"

I was done with the park after that yuck, and buckled Emma into her seat and just drove to the bus station. I figured she would get a kick out of people watching there and seeing all the busses. Yep! She fooled around on the waiting seats, ran around the lobby and watched a bus pull inand people get off. What she didn't see was Daddy get off the bus and I didn't tell her he was coming. It was a giant surprise and when she saw him, she dropped everything and ran into his arms saying ever so excitedly, "DADDY!" It was a Hallmark Channel reunited moment. Good stuff.

We got home and Daddy unpacked and I got another hair up my butt to declutterize yet again and tackled the storage closet even though we just moved and I got rid of a ton of stuff. I decided that if I haven't used it in the past year I probably wasn't going to and I sure a heck wasn't going to pay to have it shipped across country. I am Goodwilling a bunch of cool carry on bags, curtains galore, a bunch of fabric, my unisex size 9 women / 7 men rollerblades, some wicker storage baskets, just to name a few items. If anyone out there in bloggyworld wants any of it, let me know and I will set it aside for you!! As I was doing this, Emma said, "Whatcha doin', Mommy?" I made the mistake of saying, "Gettin' rid of a bunch of crap." She immediately parroted me - and I must admit it sounded adorable - "You're gettin' rid of a bunch of crap?" Lets just hope she forgets it by tomorrow...

Tonight after dinner, I stripped Benny down for his bath. I let him walk naked down the hall and encouraged him to go into the bathroom where the tub was ready and waiting for him. He instead streaked into my bedroom and peed all over my carpet floor. Awesome.

Finally, Emma has recently been commenting on the whole red light green light adventure when we are in the car. AT EVERY INTERSECTION, she will let you know if the light is red or green or "orange" and whether you should stop or go. EVERY INTERSECTION. She had an absolute fit when I turned right on red - if she had a CB radio, she probably would have called the police and had me taken in. She also chastised me for driving through a yellow light, "Mommy, the light was 'orange.' You gotta stop when it orange!" Let's hope she is this conscientious when she turns 16.

Graduation from Clown Academy

I bit the bullet today and bought poor Benny a new pair of shoes. You know what that means. Surely the missing shoe will turn up in the next 24 hours. I saved the receipt and the string that held them together and the tag so I can return them if it does. Wow. I just reread that sentence. I really am a cheapo!

As it is a beautiful day and I haven't exercised much other than chasing toddlers around, I decided to walk to the supermarket to get some fruits and vegies. We strollered up and headed down Ediwanda, through the tunnel under the 101, around the hospital and to Vons. It only took about 15 minutes each way. Emma is really digging the Joovy Caboose stroller these days. It took her a while to grow into how to enjoy riding on the back, but now she loves it - and so do I. It makes my strollings so much easier when she is not fighting me or lollygagging behind us.

We especially enjoyed our trip to the Topanga mall this morning. Again, beautiful day = kids playing outside at the park. Not this Mom and kids! We needed to go to Target so I chose the mall one. The play area was EMPTY and Emma and Benny went crazy and I got to relax just a bit knowing they weren't getting run over by bigger kids. I even sprung $3 for the carousal. See, I am not that cheap! Emma loved it. I held Ben in my arms and he squirmed and squealed most of the ride. He either wanted to ride a horsey or get off - I wasn't sure, but it didn't seem as though he liked it much just yet!

Mama Mia

Parents make a lot of sacrifices (I just accidently wrote 'scarifices' and spell checker yelled at me, I corrected it, then laughed - some of them are SCARifices!) - some happily some not so happily. One of the big ones I recently have been noticing is the giving up of listening to "my" music, i.e. not kid music (although I must admit, some of it I truly enjoy...). All that changed yesterday when I dusted off the "jukebox" and hit random play while making breakfast. It settled on the ABBA Greatest Hits album and I danced like a madwoman around the kitchen much to the delight of my 2 yr and 8 month old daughter and 14 month old son. Turns out I still have some rockin' dance moves - okay, fine, I can't dance - but I have fun doing it and the kids don't know the difference. I even had Emma singing "Mama Mia" by the end of the last chorus. GOOD TIMES.

I am so very good about feeding my kiddos good food. I can count on one hand how many times Emma has eaten fast food, we don't eat very much processed crap - but we DO enjoy our DARK chocolate... YUMMMMM. Therefore, you can imagine how pissed I was when I returned home from Costco with a 36 pack of Motts applesauce. I always read the ingredients on packaged items before purchasing them, but for some reason I fell for the darn marketing ploys of the packaging, "Heart healthy" and "high in fiber" and "100% pure" and all that sunshiny goodness of lies. I busted open the box, put them all in my pantry, and as I was tossing the box into the recycling bin my eyes caught sight of the 2nd ingredient - high fructose corn syrup. AAAAAACCK! Not to mention a host of other ingredients I could barely pronounce. The ratfinks! I am so used to Trader Joe's applesauce, where the ingredients are: Apples. Boo! And shame on you Motts!

We had such a great day at the park in the morning yesterday. So much so that a tuckered out little Benny napped for almost 3 hours then also slept 11 hours through the night straight. Emma had a blast chasing squirrels and being a tomboy in a princess dress with her pals Lawrence and Porter, and Mommy got to jibber jabber all adult like with their Mommy. Unfortunately, Emma did not get the memo though that states when you run around like a mad woman all morning you should either, a) take a nap, or b) sleep through the night. She did neither. As a matter of fact, I fear she has inherited her Mommy's childhood "Sleep Walking" gene (my parents found me wandering around outside our home in the night on more than one occasion. SCARY!). At 12:30am, she was sitting in bed screaming at the top of her lungs for me to give her her polka dot jacket back. Luckily it was hanging on the rack next to her dresser and I quickly handed it to her, she immediately fell back onto her pillow in a dead sleep. Then at 3am I heard - KERPLUNK followed by waaaaaaaah! She had fallen out of bed. Ouch. I scooped her up, laid her in bed with me, she again immediately stopped crying and fell into a deep sleep. I waited 3 minutes and put her back in her bed. Finally at 5:30am she was hollering about something - I was too delirious at this point to try and decipher what. I snatched her up again and tossed her in my bed and left her there until she woke up at 7:30. "Oh, what a night!"

As the compound turns...

I know I say this EVERY time we go, and yet I never do it, but we truly need to find a new pediatrician. Both of my children burst into inconsolable tears whenever the poor guy walks into the room. There is no way they are getting the thorough check ups they need. They squeal so loud and struggle so much that the doctor can barely look in their ears and throats let alone listen for any defects in their hearts! He is such a sweet little old grandpa type - and my insurance covers him for only a $15 copay... and he is close by... and we are probably moving soon... and and and... hang in their kiddos!

As I have mentioned in the past, when Emma is bored and she wants to go outside she says, "Mama, we need some fresh air." Well, yesterday, she said, "Mama, we need some fresh air and money." "Money?" I inquired. "Yes, we gotta buy some oatmeal."

I am enjoying Benny immensely at this stage of his life / development. I don't know if I don't remember Emma so much at this stage because I have a crappy memory (therefore I journal), or if it because I was almost 5 months pregnant with Ben at this point and who remembers anything when you are pregnant or nursing. Today I laughed watching him pull out every single crayon from the cup one by one and toss them onto the floor, then he meticulously picked each one up and put it back. Also, when he sees me cleaning toys up, he will waddle over and help out, putting anything and everything into the bins whether they belong there or not. I keep hoping to find the missing shoe, but alas, Benny is still in clown school.

Daddy got me a fancy nice long black nightgown for Valentine's Day and I was wearing it this morning as I often do in the a.m. hours. Emma said, "Ooh, Mommy, I like your pretty dress!" Daddy and I got a huge kick out of that because we could identify about 7 dried snot patches and two giant circles of dried oatmeal on it.

When I took Emma to the doctor yesterday it was just me and her as Daddy was hanging out at home with Ben. I parked the car, got her out, walked to the medical building, easily went up to the office and marveled at how much easier Mamaing was with only one kid. Then I read my girlfriend's blog and immediately smacked myself upside the head- she has four kids, including a very little baby and had gone to the bookstore with 3 of the 4 leaving baby at home with Dad. She, too, was thinking how much easier it was to not lug the baby but reminded herself - and me - that this stage of "lugging" is so fleeting and to enjoy every minute of it.

After we left the doctor, we headed over to CVS to get her prescription filled. We had to wait 15 minutes while they were working on it, so we wandered around the store. Emma proved every marketing theory correct by identifying with every "kid" item that was at Emma-eye level. We had constant conversations about one thing or another - I particularly had to put up a giant fight about not buying her Kai Lan Bandaids and Red Hot Candies...

Tonight for dinner I made my "mystery" homemade turkey burgers. Emma refuses to eat ground turkey - but she LOVES these burgers. Why? I steam up sweet potatoes, puree them in the Magic Bullet and add them to the raw meat before shaping them and grilling them up. They are so juicy and yummy and both kids eat them like they are candy.

Lastly, Emma loves to dig through my wallet and play with all the giftcards I have in there that I really should finally use up. Yesterday she pulled out the Victoria's Secret one and said, "Mommy, we gotta go shopping and get baby Emry a birthday present." (That was the birthday party we already went to last Saturday) I reminded her that we already bought Baby Emry a book, but she was adamant - the gift card had a pink present on it and therefore must be used to purchase something for baby Emry!

Class clown

I, once again, spent the better part of the morning searching for the missing Benny shoe. We had a few good weeks of both shoes, but we are now back to being one shoe wonders. It must be in this house somewhere - but I have checked all Benny's usual hiding places, all the laundry baskets, the toy chest, behind his dresser, in the hide and seek closet, the trash can. My fear is that he got it into the trash can and I didn't see it and took out the trash. I will give it a few more days before I spring for another pair. In the meantime he is being forced to wear Emma's old 12-18 month shoes. Abuelita, I know you must be horrified to hear he is wearing girlie shoes, but please don't despair - we are telling everyone who looks even a little bit funny at him that he is a clown in training. Here is a cell phone picture of his foot at the park this morning. Clown school - right??

Dishwasher fun!

I don't even remember Emma at this age! Yikes, I am so glad I started this blog! Here is a comparison pic. Ben is 13 months, and Emma is only 10 months, but I love the crawling into the dishwasher to help me. Someday when I really want their help, I will show them this pic and remind them how much they used to like helping...