The worst timing
It’s been about three weeks since I’ve been needed overnight at my brother’s… my sister-in-law was on vacation over the holidays, and RC took vacation last week. While it was a nice respite, being able to sleep in my own bed every night, I’m now out of practice. The girls were SO excited to see me, even the four-legged one – you’d have thought they hadn’t seen me at all during that time! And they were terribly cute, playing “let’s dress up and pretend we’re playing in the snow”. Wia has such a big imagination for a three-year old, and Emma follows right along behind her.
Yep, they were cute until bedtime rolled around. Wia took the opportunity to get up no less than 10 times… “I need a little drink of water”, “I need to make a stinky”, “I need to take out my ponytail”, “I need a little drink of milk/juice/more water”. I finally had to threaten a spanking, and fortunately it worked, because I don’t think I could follow through with it.
But poor Bailey suffered the most… she’s now 15 weeks old, and is 99.9% house trained. She’s so good – she lets you know when she needs to go out, and will even come and get you if you’re in another room. But she still takes a long time when she needs to do her business, and I wasn’t paying attention to the cues tonight. I sort of hurried her back in after she squatted, and didn’t give her time to… you know. Wia and I finished up her evening ablutions, and came into the kitchen to get a sip of water, and there it was. In the middle of the living room floor, a steaming pile of Aunt Amanda’s Mistake. Poor puppy. She was so embarrassed; she just stood by it and kind of whined. I felt terrible. Thankfully she forgives easily.
Bookworm
When Wia was born, I decided I was going to be the aunt that gives books. I’m a lifelong reader – it’s my relaxation method of choice – and I’d love nothing more than to instill that same love of reading in my nieces.
Wia loves to be read to, and so it’s a good thing that Grandma has enrolled her in the Children’s Book of the Month Club. So far, she’s received:
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff
If You Give a Pig a Pancake, by Laura Numeroff
Mother Goose, illustrated by Mary Engelbreit
Last year for Christmas, I gave Olivia four of the Bing Bunny books. She loved them, and now Emma loves them, too. She’s happy to sit on the floor all by herself and “read” the books to herself. It’s the cutest thing – she has those stories totally memorized. Her favorite is Bing: Paint Day, by Ted Dewan.
It’s only my favorite because of the way she tells it, with all the same inflection that we adults put on the words when we read it to her. She’s so smart!
Bo-ring
Life just got a little boring all of a sudden, there. USA network started showing reruns of House – and just like that, I became addicted. Add to that the new fall season of TV has started, and I’ve been sucked back onto the couch. Sorry ’bout that. But hey! I’ve done a few things over the last couple of weekends…
I went to the Indianapolis Vegetarian Society’s Great American MeatOut ’08, which was awesome. Good food, okay music… cool prizes. I’ve always wanted to go, but never really paid much attention to when or where it was until this year. Indiana HRS was invited to have an information booth, and since I knew a couple of other HRS friends would be attending just for the food, I figured I could volunteer to do the booth and maybe I’d get to eat! It was moved to a larger venue this year – the historic City Market – but I don’t think they had as big a crowd as they usually do. I will say, though, that this crowd was much more my speed than what showed up at Ribfest…
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This past weekend I spent some time with my girls. Both of them are getting so big, and so grown up. Emma has learned “stop it!”, and if you annoy her just the right amount, she growls it at you. It’s fun to pick on her, I suppose because she’s so gullible. Oh, and, she’s discovered clocks. Only, when she says it, it’s definitely not C-L-O-C-K. The L is kind of silent. She’s precious, I tell you.
Wia is well on her way to threedom, and not in a good way. I’d always heard that the Threes were worse than the Twos, and she’s living proof. She’s generally a very good girl, but she was very bad this weekend, doing things specifically to taunt Emma and flouting Mommy and Daddy’s instructions whenever possible. She’s testing, testing, always testing, to see where the boundaries really are. The other night as I put her to bed, I said “Now, you’re going to stay in bed for me tonight, right?” Her response: “Why do I need to stay in bed, Aunt Amanda?” I don’t believe in the ol’ “because I said so”; I don’t think there’s anything wrong with actually answering the question. It might require some thought, but why shouldn’t a preschooler get an explanation? Of course, I’m not the one stuck answering questions ALL. DAY. LONG. I suppose it would get old after a while. Anyway, I told her she needed to stay in bed so she could sleep, to which she queried, “Why do I need to sleep?” Hmm. “So you have energy tomorrow to play, and read, and run, and play some more!” “….” I guess that stumped her! I AM smarter than a 2.9 year old!!
Oh, and in a brief moment of continuity…
Oh, how time flies.
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