I took Kate trick or treating for the first time this year. I was pretty excited about it, and Kate was just happy to wear her costume again! I wore Ember in the mei tai and Kate held my hand as we went from house to house. Den stayed home to hand out candy (to the 2 trick or treaters we ended up having). This, continued for the entire time, was pretty much how it went:

“Mama, punkin!”

“Fwashlight!”
(No you can’t have it, mama holds the flashlight.)

“More twick oh tweet?”

“Punkin! ‘Nudder punkin! Two punkins!!”

“Ghost!”

“Fwashlight, mama?”
(No.)

“More door?”

“Twick oh tweet.”
[takes the chococlate bar… grabs another and tries to grab a third before I stop her]

“That.”
(No, mama is holding the flashlight.)
“Fwasshhliiiiiigghtttt…”
[whining ensues]

“Mama? More punkin? Punkin? Mama? Punkin? Punkin? Punkin? Punkin?”
(YES there are pumpkins!!)

“Bwoken.”
(Put down the stick, Kate. Put it down. Yes, it’s broken. Please put it down.)

“Done walking.”
(Then stand up so we can go home… please get up.)

We went to 8 houses. It took us half an hour. I feel like that was just fine! Toddlers really are slow as molasses, though. Every leaf, stick, pumpkin, car, bike, door, light… everything was pointed out and stopped for. But she seemed to get the concept of going to the doors and getting candy in her bag and everyone who answered the door thought she was the cutest thing ever. Then when we were done that stretch of the street I held her bag of candy and handed her the flashlight for the walk home, which made her day!

I think Kate is having an adjustment period now that Den is home. Unfortunately she’s taking it out on me. She’s super happy whenever Daddy is home, she gets all I’m so freaking excited I’m going to run back and forth and Daddy will PLAY with me ALL NIGHT OMG! And really, I love her joy and excitement. It’s awesome! I love how he jumps right in there and lets her stand on him, hang off of him, push him around with different games. Unfortunately when he’s at work – which he has been all weekend – she’s driving me freaking insane. She isn’t sleeping well and she wakes up sobbing because her paci fell 3 inches to the side and she can’t find it. She throws tantrums over every little thing, from screwing the lid on her sippy cup herself to throwing something in the garbage can. And most notably she is refusing to sit with me on the couch. It’s almost like she’s too wired to sit still, but at the same time she’s sobby and hyper-sensitive. Yet when I pick her up she squirms and says, “Down.” If I ask her if she wants to lay on the couch with Mama she says, “No!” It sucks because that was our daily routine, every morning we’d get up all bleary-eyed and tired and lay on the couch together watching TV. Sometimes just 10 minutes before she hopped down wanting breakfast, sometimes an hour or more while we waited for Ember to wake up. I loved that time with her, and I also really feel like it helped Kate organize her thoughts and start her day… not that she needs it, but it worked. Now she’s just a mess.

Ember has a little cold and for the first time something is really messing with her sleep. She napped okay, but yesterday she wouldn’t go to sleep until 10pm and today I got her down at 10… and back up at 10:30. Her nose is stuffed up and every time I take her in the bedroom she’s just screaming from being overtired and pissed off that she can’t breathe right. When she woke back up screaming at the top of her lungs she woke Kate up. Yay. (They’re in different rooms still… but the walls aren’t exactly thick.)

I hope all of this settles down and things go back to normal soon. Especially because we have several transitions planned and I’m not doing a damn thing while they aren’t sleeping to start with. I’ve decided it’s time to get Kate a twin bed so that we can move the crib into our bedroom for Ember. She’s going to be rolling and crawling in the next couple of months and she doesn’t seem particularly keen on the cosleeper. She’s been sleeping in my bed while Den was away and since I have to transition her into her own bed I figure we might as well just make it the crib instead of doing one thing now and another switch later. Then at some point we need to tackle the “paci fairy” and somehow convincing her to give up her pacifiers… I have no idea how to do that one though, since not only does she use them in her mouth but they’re her comfort objects that she carries around. And then potty training. And I have no idea what order all of that is going to go in.

Right now, though, I’d be happy if my kids went back to sleep. Somehow while writing this post I ended up with both kids awake and sitting with me. They must have a cold. :(

We have the cold that never ends. Actually I’m pretty sure it’s two colds, one from Kate and one from Denis. I had a very minor sniffle for about a week and was feeling better when it felt like a second wave hit me upside the head (and throat). Both girls have runny noses, and Kate had a croaky frog-voice for a few days that was both hysterically funny and kind of sad. The good side is that no one’s sleep has been messed up this time around, which is huge!

On the bad side we hadn’t left the house in over a week. Kate gets extra dramatic when sick, and add that to not getting out and having fun enough and she was a friggin disaster by the weekend. Denis came home on Friday and I said, “BYE!” and grabbed my purse and ran out the door. I am still not feeling great but since I am an adult and don’t rub my snotty nose on everything in sight I figured it was safe for me to be around some other adults for a little bit. It’s amazing how much it helped for me to get out for a couple hours a day! I no longer feel like locking myself in the bathroom to sob while Kate throws yet another tantrum. And because I am in a better mood and able to spend quality time with Kate she is responding well and getting back to her happy not-a-little-shit self. Also, could be because Denis – the fun guy – is home and playing with her too.

Kate is being quite the little chatterbox lately, and a lot of what comes out of her mouth is amazing, sweet, or hysterical. (Although if I hear her yell “Mama!!” in my ear 50 times in a row again I may lose my shit. I AM RIGHT HERE! I keep saying “Yes Kate?” and she just keeps yelling “MAMA!” Aggghhh!) I have a lot of funny things to share – some I already mentioned on Facebook but I wanted to put them down here to keep them!

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Den trips on toys frequently. Now when he does it Kate glances over and admonishes, “Careful, Daddy.” (You can tell we say that to her often!)

When he managed to stub his toe and gave a yelp she asked, “You okay, Daddy?” He gave me a look that very clearly said OMG my heart is melting!

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Hiding and finding are big games around here. Kate always says the same things, with the same toddler inflection.
“Where paci?” (Or whatever object she’s looking for.)
“Don’ find it.” (= I can’t find it, or I can’t see it.)
“Dere ’tis!!” (= There it is)

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I put Ember straight down for a nap when I got back from an outing. When she woke up I went and got her but apparently Kate didn’t see. After a little bit Kate turned around and saw Ember sitting there. She gasped. “Emmer! You back!!”

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Kate has very nicely been offering toys to Ember, but is unprepared for the grip on that kid and her inability to get the toys back. The other day they are playing nicely and then I hear Kate’s sweet little voice: “Emmer, let go! Let go! Thank you, Emmer.”

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Kate’s big into the alphabet and phonics right now. She was pulling out flashcards of animals and we were practicing letter sounds.
“Goat!”
“Guh. Guh. What letter says guh?”
She’d go and pull out her G letter. “G! Guh-guh-guh! Goat!”

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Kate was following along a video for letter sounds, she gleefully shouts out as it goes along.
“C-c-cat! D-d-dog!”
And so on through the alphabet.
“O-o-octopus!”
Then it showed a parrot for P. “P-p-…. bird??”

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Not to be outdone Ember is also making noises. Happy shrieks, “Ah!” sounds, and now some close-mouthed “guh” sound that she keeps experimenting with. She’s not a particularly loud kid, though…. she gets very intent on what she’s doing. (Unless you count the noise from her banging her toys around. She really likes to whip those suckers and smack them around. Dainty, she is not.)

Doing it all the second time around has really been no less amazing. It is still so exciting to see Ember learn all these new things, like passing an object from hand to hand. I could see her thinking about it, moving her hands, and I held my breath with nerves. And then she did it, she gripped it with the opposite hand and let go with the other. That was a few weeks ago and she is quickly becoming a pro at it.

She just started sitting up on her own. She has the strength now, easy, but she gets so excited about things that she throws herself straight backward! I make sure to keep a pillow (or myself) behind her. Despite her core strength she still doesn’t roll over yet. She’s almost there – so close. From her back she is constantly rolling onto her side to play with toys, but her lower arm is still pinned underneath and she can’t quite get all the way over. It will any day now.

She can be a very quiet baby, I often forget she’s in the room – and so do other people. I’ve been taking her out to various get-togethers and parties and everyone remarks on what a quiet baby she is. She doesn’t cry or fuss, she’s just happy to sit on my lap and watch everyone and everything… and try to grab anything that gets close enough. She really lunges for things, too… catches me off-guard still. She’s usually quite serious-looking. She’ll smile and laugh and then go right back to serious-baby. She always looks very intense.

On the other hand she can be in moods like she was this evening, blowing raspberries, laughing hysterically at everything, and jumping all over in her jumper. She was one happy kiddo and I have no idea what triggered it but it was friggin funny. I swear I would say “Boo!” all evening long if she kept laughing like that! Even just her leaning back to stare at me while sitting on my lap would trigger her to blow a raspberry, laugh, and excited flap her arms like a bird.

For many months Ember’s body just felt unfamiliar in my hands, so different from Kate as a baby. Now it’s second nature how my hands fit, where her legs roll, how her neck is so warm when I nuzzle it with kisses. Especially at night, when she is laying next to me nursing, my hand curved across her back, her legs are already long enough to rest on top of my thighs. Babies are perfection. I wish she would let me cuddle her more, but I take what I can get.

It is Christmas time!! I am so flippin’ excited. I just love the Christmas season, and I’ve already dragged out my tree, lights, stockings, wreaths. Kate is very excited by the “kwis-tas twee!” and very helpfully took all the ornaments off it and put them all in a basket. Later however she helped me put them all back on and they have stayed that way for an entire day.

Thanksgiving went well enough, even though I am still rolling my eyes at the American tradition of Thanksgiving a month before Christmas. (I mean, come on! That’s too close!) The food was great, our girls were very well behaved and happy, and there was no family drama like some families seem to suffer from. The girls really didn’t get much nap that day, as we were at one relative’s from noon until 4, then drove to another relative’s from 4:30 until 8. Kate slept in the car and we circled the block a few times; Ember took a couple naps in our arms. But despite the lack of sleep they were both in a good mood and well behaved. Kate spent her time playing with toys, cousins and an uncle who likes to play chase and tackle. Ember sat on the lap of this grandma or that grandma, just checking everything out. I got a few comments of, “Is she always so quiet? I haven’t heard a peep out of her!” She did let out a few complaints when she was hungry and tired, letting me know it was time to take her in the back to nurse her. (She’s at that stage where if there is anything at all going on she will not nurse, just cranes her head everywhere!)

I frequently get a happy, my family is awesome feeling. Because, well, they are. My girls are both such happy personalities (usually), well-behaved and sweet. My husband is also pretty awesome, and I don’t mention it enough!

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Kate is getting a little more into crafty things, which makes me quite excited. I’ve always known that she has a thoughtful personality – she likes to figure things out before trying them. I didn’t realize just how much, however, until recently when I watched her with crayons and playdoh. She doesn’t like to experiment. If I had her something new, like playdoh, she looks at it, pokes it gently, then puts it down and looks at me. Even after I show her some things to do she wants me to do them for her. Same with drawing. She is capable of drawing some simple things, but she doesn’t like to do it, she wants me to do it because I do a better job. I encourage her over and over again and I’ve been working with her to do some of it herself – I’ll draw the body, she can add on legs and arms. I’ll roll the playdoh, but she can make the shapes with it. It’s tedious work, but very exciting when she realizes she can do something and wants to do it again. I love the joy and pride in her eyes when she draws something (like a very squiggly line that’s in the approximate area of the arm) and I say, “Wow!! That’s so good, Kate!! You drew an arm!!” She’s going to be a tough one to watch go through school, I think. She absolutely thrives under praise but she totally loses it if something goes wrong or someone gets upset.

Ember, on the other hand, already shows signs of being nothing at all like that. Obviously she’s pretty young so things will change as she hits toddlerdom, but all signs point to her being unphased by what other people think or do. I think she’s going to be a child who jumps in headlong, who learns by doing and experimenting. She could also be the child who gets into everything and drives her parents crazy. We will see.