All She Wants For Christmas...

 I guess we're to late for that song, but look who lost ANOTHER tooth.  That makes six so far.  Losing those top two has made her look like such a grown up kid.  I know she's only going to look even older when those top permanent teeth make their awkward appearance.  They always look so big!  How the hell did she get to be at this stage of childhood already?  I swear it was just yesterday when I was squishing her with a swaddle and shushing in her ear, just to get her to stop screaming for five minutes.  I think I do enjoy this stage better though, despite all the eye rolling.

Unexplained Food Mysteries

Last night during dinner, Georgia dropped one of her tomatoes on the ground by accident.  When it happened she looked over at me not sure what to do and I said,


"Go on, get down and pick it up."


She climbed out of her booster seat, disappeared underneath the table for 30 seconds, then climbed back up into her seat.  After settling herself, she looked around her plate and said,


"Weaw my tomato go?"


"Isn't it on your place mat?" I asked.


She looked around, picked up her napkin.  Nothing.  We looked under her chair, I made her stand up at her seat, to look under her.  Still nothing.  


"Georgia, where did it go?  Did you eat it?"  I asked.


"NO!" She insisted, and I believed her.  Then she shrugged her shoulders and said to me,


"It must have wawked away."


"It did not walk away," I told her.  "What did you do with it?" I still wasn't positive that she didn't have it hidden somewhere.  Although that didn't make much sense, because she loves tomatoes and wanted one to replace the missing one.  


Then she said again, "It must have just wawked away!"


"Fine, Georgia, it walked away.  Finish your food," I told her.  


I let it go figuring I'd find it when I cleaned up later.  Turns out I didn't.  I honestly have no idea what the hell happened to it.  Now all I have is a picture in my head of a cherry tomato, with little feet, hightailing for my back door.  So maybe she was right and it did just "wawk" away.  Or maybe I will find a decomposed cherry tomato underneath my washing machine years from now.  

Leaving the Last Bits of Babyhood

So yesterday my heart broke.  It happened.  I mentioned in this blog post that I would have a hard time when this happened and I did.  


Georgia and I were playing a game yesterday.  Her sisters were both at school and I don't usually give her a nap anymore, unless I really feel she needs it.  Or I need her to stay up late for some reason.  Otherwise, giving her a nap only means getting her to bed is next to impossible.  I decided to spend a little quality time with her, since it was just the two of us and she wanted to play this game called S'match.  It's similar to other matching games, but you have to match either color, number or category.  It was her turn and she was trying to match colors.  She turned one card over and it was green.  The other one was orange.  Orange is her favorite color, but she has always called it "orangin", adding the extra "n" on the end.  So I said to her,


"Do those match?"


"No," she correctly replied.


"Right, because what color is this?" I asked.


"Green," she said.


"Yup, and how 'bout this one?" I asked.


"Orange!" She CORRECTLY said.


"What?" I asked, not sure if I heard her right.


"Orange," she said a little more unsure this time.  She didn't understand why I was questioning her.  She knew the color was right.


I looked at her sadly.  Here it is was, the day the baby talk starts to completely go.  


"Mommy, what?!" she asked, looking at my sad face.


"Not orangin?" I asked.


"Yeah orangin, orangin!" She said trying to make me happy.


"No, it's okay G.  Orange is the right way to say it," I told her, but in my head I was saying, 


"NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!"  


So sad.  Do they HAVE to grow up this fast?

Dealing With Sadness In Her Own Way

Remember how I said Lana didn’t seem to care at all about when we put Jazz to sleep?  Well, I may have been wrong about that.  She seems to just be dealing with it differently than those of us who cried it out that day.  Her coping mechanism was to become attached to something else altogether.  A Christmas decoration, no less.  Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

Years ago, CVS starting selling little stuffed animals from the animated Rudolph special that comes on CBS every year.  It has always been my favorite Christmas special. My best friend, Melissa who also loves Rudolph,  and I were so excited when they started selling those dolls.  We bought as many of them as we could.  At one point we lived together and had quite the menagerie at Christmas.  I have all the main characters from Rudolph, with maybe the exception of Clarice, Rudolph’s girlfriend.  I even have some Frosty the Snowman ones, which CVS also sold for a few years.  I don't think they have them anymore, but I know you can find the toys on ebay sometimes. 

Every year I put them out as part of our Christmas decorations.  Before I had the girls and when they were just babies, the toys were  there only to look at.  However, once they got to an age of knowing what they were, I couldn't keep them away from playing with them.  Good thing I'm not one of those crazy collectors who don't wan you to even breathe on their toys.  I didn't care if the girls played with them.  After all if you you've watched any of the Toy Story movies, those guys were dying to be played with.  However, in the past, the girls have always been fine with them leaving when it was time to put the decorations away.   

We put up most of Christmas decorations the weekend of Thanksgiving, before we put Jazzy to sleep.  The girls were playing with Rudolph and friends throughout the week, but I would always put the toys back where they belonged every night.  The next weekend was the sad one where Jazz left us.  I didn’t realize it at that point, but Lana started to hang on to Rudolph a little more.  

Soon he was going everywhere with us; the grocery store, gymnastics, Target, play dates, in the car before school, and Heaven forbid he wasn’t there waiting for her when she got out of school.  (She had a huge tantrum when I forgot one day). Every time we left the house, she asked if she could take him. Most of the time he got to just come along for the ride.  She slept with him and carried him all over the house.  If there was a moment she couldn’t find him, she would break down into sobs.  And I mean sobs.  Usually when Lana can’t find something, she just gets, angry, whiny and ornery, but this was different.  She cried like she lost her best friend and he was never coming back.  My heart broke for her every time.  

It all came to a head the week after Christmas. Andy and I were still in bed one morning and the girls were up and playing.  Side note: can I just say how awesome it is to have more self sufficient kids who will entertain themselves on a weekend morning?  Andy and I can BOTH sleep past 7am most weekends.   Something for you parents of babies to look forward to one day.  I swear you won’t be up at 6am forever.  Anyway-we were still in bed one morning and she came in and said to me,

“Mommy? Can you call Rudolph and Clarice, so they can come visit me?”

Huh??  Wait, what was she saying?  What was she talking about? I opened one eye and questioned her and she said it again,

“I want you to call Rudolph and Clarice so they can come here!”

Still half asleep, I couldn’t really figure out if she was playing a game or what, so I just said, 

“Lana, let’s talk about this when I get up in a bit, okay?”

“FINE!” She said begrudgingly and stalked out the room.

Fast forward a few hours later. She came to me again insisting I call Rudolph.  What she meant was she really wanted me to call Rudolph on the phone so he could come to our house and play.  A Reindeer play date!  Why not, right?  

Ummmmm....Oookkkaayyy...except that, you know, he doesn’t really exist, so that might be kinda difficult to get him to our house.  Well, I couldn’t very well tell her that so I tried,

“Lana, he can’t come here.  He lives in the North Pole with Santa, and he only comes to our house once a year.”

“Call him though!  Can’t you call him?” She questioned.

“Well, I.... don’t have his phone number,” I quickly said. “I can’t call him.”

Now she was getting frustrated, “OOOOOHHHH!!  PLEEEEEAASSEE!!”

“Lana, I can’t.  Rudolph doesn’t just go to anybody’s house at anytime.  It doesn’t work that way,” I said.  

She would not accept it, “But mommy!  I want RUUUDDOOLLPPHH!!”  

Then she started to cry.  And again, not her normal whiny I want my own way cry, but the sobbing, “my heart has been ripped out” cry.   

I sat there, hugging her while she cried for about twenty minutes saying over and over again, "Ruuuuddddoooolllppphhh!!!  Ruuuudddooolllpphhh!!"

In that time I had to talk myself out of trying to find a place to rent a deer and somehow make it’s nose red.  I had never really seen her this miserable.  I mean, we all know the child gets upset and cries, but this was different.  This was the same cry I comforted Sonya the day Jazz died.  Lana just took a little longer to get there and seemed to have displaced her sadness into another situation.  

After she finally calmed down, she was exhausted and decided to go to her bed where she napped for about two hours.  Something she rarely does anymore.  She seemed better when she woke up, clutching her Rudolph doll. 

She never again asked if we could call Rudolph but continued to drag the stuffed animal everywhere.  She kept questioning me about when we were going to put the decorations away and was Rudolph going to go too?   When we did put all the decorations away last week, I just couldn’t bring myself to take it from her.  He has become her companion and her best friend for the time being and let’s face it, it’s not hurting anyone.  Well, it may hurt my sense of Christmas decorations being out past their time, and he is getting a bit worn, but it something I can handle, especially if it helps her get past losing her pet.  I’m sure in a few months, she will find something else to become attached to, maybe even a new pet.   Then I can retire Rudolph  to the attic until December.  Although by then he may look a bit more worn than the rest of the cast.  Oh well, at least it's for a good reason.  

Yakety Yak-Don't Talk Back

Last night I was trying to get Lana to eat her dinner, as usual.  We were even having something she usually likes.  I swear I think I could serve warm chocolate chip cookies for dinner and that child wouldn't eat them.  Lana just does not do dinner.  She finished her milk and asked for more.  I told her she was not getting more until she ate her dinner, because that's the other problem.  She would drink her calories for dinner if I let her.  (Insert like mother like daughter joke here.)  Anyway-after I told her she wasn't getting anymore milk until she ate, the whining started.  


"Mooommmmmyyy!!   I waaaannnt moorrrree MILK!!"


"Lana," I said through my gritted teeth, "do not even start with me."


She immediately retorted back, "I wouldn't start with you if you would just give me more MILK!"


Sometime in the fifteen seconds it took me to decide whether I was going to laugh at her or smack her, I regained my composure then calmly and firmly said,


"You do not talk to Mommy that way, Lana.  Eat your dinner or no more milk."


"Fine!" she agreed and proceeded to take a bite of her food.  She, of course, she did not finish her dinner.  Not even close.  So she did not get anymore milk.  I WIN!  


Well, sort of since she still didn't eat.  


If this is the back talk I'm getting at four, I can't even imagine what it's going to be like at fourteen.  Actually, I can and I don't want to.  

One Last Piece of Christmas Cheer

I know, I know Christmas is over.  Although you wouldn't know it if you drove around my neighborhood and saw all the lights still up and on.  Even though we took everything down New Year's Day because I couldn't look at it anymore, I know some people like to leave theirs up for a bit longer.  I mean technically, Christmas isn't over until after tomorrow. The Feast of the Three Kings in the Catholic religion is January 6th, and the Armenians recognize that same day as their celebration of Christmas.  So keeping up your decorations until this weekend is allowable.  HOWEVER, by MLK Jr. day if I still see lights on, I'm knocking on some doors.  It's a pet peeve of mine when people leave their decorations up for to long.  Living in Southern California, some people think it's okay to leave their lights up ALL YEAR, even if they don't light them.  It is so NOT okay.  TAKE THEM DOWN PEOPLE!  Okay, I'm done with that rant now. 


My whole point of this post was to show you the video we made of the girls singing their Christmas songs from the shows they had this  year.  We recorded their actual shows, but the video on those is difficult to watch what with other people in and out of the camera view, so we made our own. It's cuter anyway, except Georgia keeps grabbing her crotch throughout and I'm not sure what that was all about, so I apologize for that up front. The first two videos are songs that Lana and Georgia learned at school and Sonya also learned when she was there. The last video is what Sonya did this year, which is the reason the younger two look a bit lost during part of it.    Anyway-without further ado, here are the girls singing their Christmas hearts out. Enjoy!

This concludes Christmas.  At least in our house. Don't make me come take the lights down at yours.

Twenty Questions

Happy New Year Friends!!  I hope you all had as great a break as we did.  Andy was off last week, so we got to spend some quality family time, and I got to go workout in the middle of the day!  It was awesome.  But now the decorations are all away and here we are back to the daily grind.  I was kind of ready for it anyway.  Sonya DEFINITELY was.  The school routine is essential  in her life.  Because we were trying to do things with the kids, I took some time off from writing and I hope you all took time off from what you normally do as well, to hang out with your family or just relax.  After the madness that happens BEFORE Christmas that is.  I did have a little story of something that happened well before Christmas that I just never got around to writing about.


Sonya is at an age where she likes to ask a thousand questions or maybe it's just her personality.  Perhaps a little of both.  Sometimes I don't have answers to all her questions and other times the questions just start to get a tad annoying.  Like the day we had this conversation before we took a shower;


Sonya- "I don't want to turn the fan on today when we take a shower."


Me-"Well, we have to."


Sonya- "Why?  Why does the fan HAVE to be on?"


Me- "Because it helps to get the steam out of the bathroom caused by the shower."


Sonya- "But why?  Is the steam bad?"


Me- "Ummm...It's not bad. We just don't want it to be steamy in there for so long and the fan helps that."


Sonya- "But what will happen if there is steam?  Is it bad for the bathroom?"


Me- Starting to get annoyed and just wanting to take a shower, "It's not really bad, but it's just better to not have it build up so much in there."


Sonya- "But what will happen if it does?  Will something bad happen?  Why do you not want the steam?"


Me- "YES!  YES Sonya!  Something bad will happen!  The bathroom will fall apart and we will all die if we don't get rid of the steam!!"


Okay, perhaps I went overboard, but I was all done with the conversation and she would just not LET IT GO!  These kind of conversations have become somewhat of a daily occurrence.  I like the fact that she's curious and she asks questions, but sometimes... SERIOUSLY?


Then a couple of weeks ago we were all sitting around having dinner, and she asked Andy and I a question about something I can't even recall right now.  There are always so many of them.  After answering her, she said,


"Yeah, that's what I thought."  She says that quite often after having a question answered, mind you.  Then ten seconds later she said to Andy and I,


"I know all the answers, but sometimes I just like to ask the questions."


Awesome, Sonya.  Nothing like finding out a way to irritate your parents at a young age!