Born to ride

Zac took Alice outside with him so she could "help" him with yard work while Simon and I napped.  While getting rakes and brooms out of the shed, Alice noticed a bike in there.  It was a second-hand little kid's bike with training wheels that we got a while ago from a coworker.  Alice rides tricycles at daycare (although sadly I've never seen it) so Zac got it out and let her try it in the driveway.  She did great, so later (after a snack), we took a family walk and let her ride it around the neighborhood.  I thought she might make it a block, but we ended up going a mile and a half.

Popcorn

Tomorrow is Alice's daycare thanksgiving feast, and we signed up to bring a dessert. Zac googled healthy toddler snacks, and found a recipe for Apple pie popcorn. It has dried apple slices, popcorn, sugar, and Apple pie spices. Stuff like this used to be considered work, but now anything that can be done with Alice is regarded as a fun activity. So right after supper we had Alice don her apron and start washing some apples. Then we used our special apple peeler-slicer thingy to prepare the apples for the dehydrator.

She loved turning the handle on the apple slicer. Then she helped arrange the pieces on the trays for drying. 

Then she got to see how popcorn was popped for the first time.  She helped turn the handle on the whirly-pop.

  The first batch was slightly burnt so we had to eat it. Alice thinks all cooking involves a whisk and a measuring spoon, so after stirring her popcorn with her whisk she tried to eat it with her whisk.

 She quickly resorted to the more traditional method of shoving a fistful of popcorn into her mouth. 

It was a good evening. 

Evening smile

Dinosaur attack!

Well, at least they're playing together.

Simon photo shoot

Simon had to stay home from daycare today because he had too many poos yesterday.  Zac took the day off, and my only request was that he try to get a good photo of Simon.  I think he got quite a few.

Brushing hair

Alice wanted to brush Simon's hair with him sitting on her lap the way we always brush her hair before bed.

The story of a carrot

As told by Alice, while eating ham bone soup with sliced carrots in it:

"The carrot is sad. 

 He wants his mommy. 

I stab him. 

I eat him. 

I'm hungry."

Alice on a pig

The whole way to Pullen Park she talked about riding the ostriches on the carousel because that's what we rode last time, but she ultimately chose the pig. She rode by herself for the first time. 

Here are a few other pictures from the morning:

Car wash

Zac devised a great way to keep Alice busy on a warm Sunday afternoon in November--help him wash the vehicles.  She did great, and talked about it all week, noting how "shiny" the cars were each morning.

Baby spatula

Alice is obsessed with cooking utensils lately, and she gave this mini-spatula to Simon.

Bacon

Alice was happily playing with her trains when I started talking to Zac about cooking bacon to have BLTs for lunch. Alice inexplicably got up, ran excitedly to the kitchen, pushed a chair up to the counter, and started asking for scoops (measuring cups). Zac and I were confused until I figured out that when I said "bacon" she heard "baking" and was all ready to help Zac whip up a batch of cookies. 

It's all ok though because it turns out she likes bacon too. 

Alice's greatest hits

These are the events if her life so far that she refers to a lot. In chronological order:

Popping the butterfly balloon

Knocking down the airplane at grandpa's house
Going to Marbles with Grayson, and his mommy and daddy

Falling down on the sidewalk, her nose bleeding, and getting a bandaid

Going on the hayride

The beanstalk video

The pumpkins getting moldy and being put in the compost bin

Throwing up in the grocery store

Morning dialogue

Alice and I walked down the driveway this morning to pick up the newspaper.

S: There's the newspaper. 

A: What happened?

S: What happened to what?

A: What happened to him?  (Pointing to guy on top of paper.)

S: I don't know. Do you think he is happy or sad?

A: He died. 

S: What?!  Alice, where do you get this stuff?

A: From Kaelyn and Braeden. 

Actually, I think she gets it from her father. Since I had a cold this week, he's been in charge of reading the bedtime stories every night. Last night my voice was better so I took a turn again. The last part of the bedtime routine is where we have to "tell the spy camera."  Originally, she just requested that we tell it, "Don't scare Alice."  Then we had to add "No bean seeds!" And last night she said I also had to tell it "Don't bite Alice's head off."

To the mall!

At Alice's parent-teacher conference on Monday the only complaint her teachers had was that she tended to run inside and that she didn't have a hat and mittens for playing outside. She outgrew the ones from last year and I hadn't gotten her new ones yet.  We'd been sending her in warm jackets since it's still been fairly warm during the day. But, as the teachers emphasized, the playground is cold because of the sand and shade.  And they pointed out that Alice had a runny nose, so that was the evidence that her attire was inadequate.

The temperatures were forecast to drop this week, so I heeded their advice and that very afternoon I took Alice to the mall to get a hat and mittens. I'd already bought her a warm winter coat for $9 at the consignment store, so I had her wear it in order to find matching mittens and hats. 

It's so fun to be able to talk to Alice and have her understand. I told her we were going to the mall to get hats and mittens. For the short drive there, she kept telling herself, "We're going to the mall not the grocery store!" 

At the mall, Alice was interested in the Christmas trees. I managed to keep her fairly focused in order to get to the Children's Place store. Once inside I hobbled her by having her try on a pair of shiny boots that were tied together. I'm a sucker for the cute kids hats, so I got her two matching sets: one with kitty cats and one with owls. I figure she'll end up losing a mitten or hat this winter anyway, so it's best to be prepared. Did I mention I'm a sucker for the cute hats and mittens?

I thought we'd head right back home but Alice wanted to sit and watch "Christmas Claus" and she also wanted to see the train. Our mall has a cute little children's train that goes around one end of the mall. I hadn't planned on letting Alice ride it, but it turns out I'm also a sucker for cute little girls asking quite politely (and repeatedly) to "ride the caboose."  I think had she only asked to ride the train I would have succeeded in saying no, since we ride a much better children's train at Pullen park for half the price. But something about the word caboose in a little voice is quite persuasive. I also rationalized that she has a pretty short window of time in her life to get such joy from such a lame ride and that you can't put off things like this.  She was indeed quite happy to sit in the caboose, and was even happier when the conductor gave her a lollipop.  I told her she couldn't eat it until we got home, and I offered to put it in the bag. She was intent on holding onto it, but she did an impressive job coping with her delayed gratification. 

Every day since she has said something along the lines of "I'm sick. I need to go to the mall, ride the train, and get candy!"  I'm not sure what being sick has to do with it, unless she is remembering my telling Zac about her teachers saying she needed a hat because she was sick and that we'd go to the mall to get one. 

Busy

Keeping Alice busy can be a challenge, but she can occupy herself for a long time at the sink. 

Sick Simon

Simon was sick all day with a fever. He slept most of the day or was in a zombified stupor. He was super snugly and needed to be held constantly. Towards evening he seemed to be suffering more, so we finally broke down and gave him some acetametophin. We waited so long because we had really bad luck giving it to Alice because she would always gag and then vomit her entire stomach contents.  Simon did much better and was able to rest comfortably at night. 

"It's a poker!"

Alice found the top half of a broken plastic shovel at the park. Without hesitation, she picked it up and declared, "It's a poker!" as if she had expected to find it. Then she spent the next 20 minutes poking things with it. 

So this happened:

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Alice down on the floor in the kitchen near the cat food. I didn't think anything of it until she stood up and turned around and had water dripping down her chin. That's right--she was drinking the nasty cat water. She got a good talking to about that. 

I blame Zac. Yesterday Alice was watching the cat lap water and she commented on the cat drinking it with her tongue. Zac asked alice if she would like to drink water that way. 

It turns out the answer was yes. 

Tossed cookies

I took Alice to the grocery store in her undies this morning, so I was slightly prepared for an accident.  But it didn't happen in the way I expected. A lady brought around cookie samples and seemed so delighted to offer Alice one that I couldn't say no. Alice took one bite and started coughing from inhaling a crumb or something. In a move reminiscent of the first year of her life, she coughed so much that she vomited up the entire contents of her stomach. Right there in the meat department. It was all over her jeans and the shopping cart and the floor. I asked a nearby employee for some paper towels and one kind shopper asked if I needed any help. I wiped Alice and the cart off as best I could. The employee brought out the infamous barf powder that we all remember from elementary school, to cover the "spill."

Alice was fine, except for her stinky wet jeans. We completed the trip as quickly as possible. And she never tinkled in her undies. 

Whisks

If there's any whisking to be done, she's ready!

Welcome back, daddy.

Zac got home around 9:30 last night, so Alice had gone three full days without seeing him (not counting face time on the iPhone). This morning he went in to get her up, and the first thing she said was "You came back!"  She is pretty happy to have her indefatigable playmate back. 

Alice said:

"No, Halloween is not over. It's tomorrow!"  

She's having a little trouble moving on. 

Hieroglyphics

We are kind of lazily and randomly starting to teach Alice some letters of the alphabet. Sometimes we do this if a book has some words with nice big capital letters. I was pointing at a capital letter T that was right next to capital I. Alice corrected me though:  "That's not a letter T, that's a cinderblock!"

Community

I should clarify that while Zac was gone for three days, I got help.  I knew that technically I could survive as a single parent for three days, since people have done it for lifetimes.  But, I also knew that it would be really hard, just in terms of sleep.  There is a lot that needs to happen in the evening: getting daycare bags unloaded, all the lunch dishes into the dishwasher, supper on the table, those dishes into the dishwasher, the dishwasher run, Alice bathed, read to, and put to bed, the dishwasher unloaded, the lunches and daycare bags packed again, all while keeping Simon happy and fed and Alice out of trouble.  I would need to accomplish all of that by 9:00 pm in order to get to bed shortly after Simon in order to wake up again at 5:30 am.

So I decided to ask for help.  The mission of our school focuses on community and citizenship, and while we try to instill these values in our students, I am always impressed by how well the staff practices them as well.  We do a great job taking care of each other, and I have been on the receiving end of a lot of that help since having kids.  We got tons of hand-me-downs and loans of baby stuff: from carseats, to strollers, to clothes and a pump, not to mention all the great advice and recommendations.  Plus, on my second maternity leave which left a sub in charge for two months, my colleague Lisa really helped out with communicating lesson plans and keeping the sub from going crazy.  All this is just to say, with no family nearby, my school colleagues have become my extended family.

So when I knew I would want help on these three days, I ran through a list of people from school.  The helper had to meet certain criteria though: she would have to want to do it, and not have kids of her own to take care of, and not have much school work to do in the evenings.  Luckily, DeeAnn was the perfect person.  She is one of those wonderful people who truly loves helping people.  She has grown kids, and since she teaches the special ed and study skills class, she doesn't have any grading or lesson planning to do. Plus, she loves holding babies.  All I needed to do what mention during lunch duty one day that Zac was going to be out of town for three days and I was worried about it, and she offered to help out.

The three evenings went as smoothly as possible, as she helped with the kids while I did the kitchen stuff, and she pitched in wherever needed.  I am so lucky to have her as a friend and colleague.  Alice and Simon took to her right away as well.

Hi back

Since Zac has been out of town, I've been doing drop off and pick up for both kids. The first part in the morning is going to the baby room to drop Simon off. Alice goes in too and the teachers (who took care of her when she was a baby) always make a big fuss over her and talk to her.  This morning when Alice woke up, she was kind of groggy and said, "Kenia get me!"  Ms Kenia is one of the really sweet teachers, so Alice must have been having a weird dream.  In the afternoon, when we went to pick Simon up, Ms. Elena came in to the room and greeted Alice, but Alice was kind of sulky and didn't respond. I stopped Alice and told her "When someone says 'hi' you need to say 'hi' back." So Alice looked right at Ms Elena and said softly, "Hi back."  They cracked up. 

Cynical Alice

I was reading Alice a book about fall. In one of the pictures there were two jack-O-lanterns on the front steps of a house. Alice pointed at them and said, "They're going to get moldy."

Part of a Complete Breakfast

Alice eats yogurt for breakfast these days and can usually get it out of the fridge herself.  This morning she was sidetracked by the pickles.  They are always in the fridge and at any rate every time she has tried them before they were spit right back out.

After spiriting the large glass jar out of her hands I picked one out for her.  Sera read somewhere that toddlers sometimes have to try foods several times before they like them and today, at breakfast time, Alice decided she liked pickles. She ate the whole thing.

Fall walk

We took a beautiful fall walk at Yates Mill Pond.

The family of jeans and sunglasses.

 She is compelled to climb anything that is climbable.

 Sweet sleeping Simon.

 Looking at turtles sunning themselves on a log.

Ever since she watched me put basil leaves in the spaghetti sauce, she is convinced every leaf is a basil leaf and can be eaten.

Stumps must be stood upon.

Watching a little furry caterpillar cross the path.

Rules

We only look at the rotting pumpkins in the compost bin once a day.

Don't put your fingers on the cutting board when we're chopping. 

Alice said:

"My butt hurts. I need an American flag."

Alice at the arboretum

We went to the arboretum to enjoy the beautiful fall weather today.  Because of the football game, we parked along the street and went in a different entrance.  Even so, Alice remembered where we were and immediately started asking for the waterfall.  We hadn't been to the arboretum in about four months, so we were surprised she remembered it.  In another part, she asked where the "jingle bells" were--referring to a large wind chime that she had played with in June.  On the one hand, it shouldn't be surprising that she remembers things, since she doesn't have years of information competing for space in her brain.  On the other hand, I suppose we are always surprised because it always seems as if she forgets things right after they happen.  Unless they are traumatic or super exciting, that is.

Survivor

This morning, when Zac opened her door, Alice said, "I'm awake!  No bean seeds get me!"

What a relief.