A 4 Year-Old Love Triangle

Jayson usually volunteers in Audrey's classroom once a month. This month he's insanely busy with taxes, so I took a personal day to volunteer. Audrey asked me for weeks when I was going to teach her class. I kept explaining that I would be a helper, not a teacher, but she still asked every day. When the big day finally came, her teacher and student teacher told me that Audrey had been so excited every day and counted down the days to me coming in.

Audrey has twins in her class, Ethan and Preston, and she is constantly talking about them. She walks around the house singing, "Audrey and Ethan and Preston sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G..." I keep trying to explain to her that that's not quite how it works, but she insists it's fine. It just so happened that Ethan and Preston's mom was also volunteering on the same day I did. She immediately told me that the boys talk about Audrey constantly at home and I told her we get the same thing about Ethan and Preston in our house. I got the pleasure of working on a dinosaur puzzle with Preston, and I have to admit, Audrey has good taste. The kid was smart, polite, and very sweet.

Ethan and Preston's told me a story about how they Skyped with some of their family and they asked Ethan (or maybe it was Preston?) if he had a girlfriend. He immediately told them that Audrey was his girlfriend and they all laughed and thought it was sweet. Then they asked Preston (or Ethan?) if he had a girlfriend and he got a little flustered and said, "Well I like Audrey too!"

I was just cleaning up some papers the girls had left out and came across this gem:

Charlie is Insane

Charlie is now just a couple months shy of turning three. And she is completely and totally crazy. She walks around the house saying completely goofy and unexpected things. She growls at people. She yells at her sisters. She gives the BEST hugs and then quickly transitions into digging her fingernails into your face. While growling. She is a maniac at the pool and flops herself into the water head first and hangs out beneath the surface until she needs a breath. Then she jumps on you and forces your head under the water while growling, "You lay down in the water now." She pees her pants and then walks around like nothing happened and she isn't leaving huge wet spots behind her. She pretends our foam roller is her boyfriend. She freaks out and says she absolutely does not want that book by her and when you move it, she cries because she wants the book. Right by her. She makes silly faces and her favorite is one where she rolls her eyes up into her head.

Oh, it's 2013

So, Christmas and New Years happened and I didn't post anything. I always look forward to winter break. I love Christmas. I love spending a ton of time with our family and getting to see them in the morning. Today was my first day back at work and it was so hard to leave a sleeping house. Here is a recap of some of the things we did...

We visited Santa. Some enjoyed the visit more than others.

Santa came!

We played in the snow.

Friends from Madison came to visit.

We visited friends in Green Bay.

Charlie was overserved.

I redid our bathroom cabinets!

Peculiar Audrey

All three of our girls have their quirks. Lydia hates socks. Audrey refuses to wear jeans. Charlie sucks her thumb and holds her ear when she's tired. However, Audrey seems to have a few more quirks than the other two. As mentioned above, she hates jeans. I think she's worn jeans only once or twice in the past two years. She asked me to get rid of all her jeans. She will occasionally cave and wear corduroys, but she prefers leggings and sweatpants. Audrey also asks to be alone when she's upset. I don't blame her. We have a small house and I frequently want to cry and be alone too, but I'm 33. She's 4. It's a little different when a four year-old asks for some time alone.

This is Audrey's diamond.

It's currently on our Christmas tree because its previous spot was hanging from a nail on the wall that is now behind the tree. It is currently on the black side. The other side is blue. When it starts to get dark at night, she turns it to black. In the morning she turns it to blue. She does this every day. She has bee doing this for a couple months. As soon as it starts to get dark out, she runs to change her diamond. I have no idea where she got it. She either made it at school or at home, but I don't remember how or why it appeared. But, she must change it every day.

This is Audrey grocery shopping.

Audrey loves brussel sprouts. She has cried at the grocery store when we bought frozen brussel sprouts and wouldn't let her eat them immediately in the store. When she was allowed to bring a snack to school because she was Star of the Week, she asked to bring brussel sprouts. We talked her out of it, but I still think it would have been funny and I like to imagine Audrey cheerily eating her brussel sprout snack while the other kids looked at her with disgust.

This is a picture Audrey colored.

It's creepy. You can say it. It makes me very uncomfortable. She gave it to Charlie and Charlie was very pleased with her gift.


Now, not despite, but because of Audrey's little quirks, I love her so much. I love that she's goofy. A lot of her goofiness is rooted in her intelligence and individuality and I just love that. I can't wait to see how this quirkiness manifests itself as she grows up.

A Trip to the Theater

On Sunday I took the girls to see the middle school's presentation of the musical The Little Mermaid. Jayson stayed home because it was in the middle of a Packers game. I was a little nervous about what would happen if Charlie had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the show, but luckily one of my friends brought her daughters too and I didn't have to worry as much. Also, Charlie didn't have to go in the middle of the show anyway.

The girls absolutely loved it. Charlie got a little antsy about halfway in. She started talking in a normal voice and even talked back to an actor at one point. I was ready to take her out in the hall, but she stopped. Then she turned around and stared at the two girls sitting right behind her, who luckily found it amusing.

I always love watching our students perform and there were several characters who were amazing, but I was really blown away by Ursula. After the show, the girls wanted their pictures taken with some of the stars. I talked to one of the directors and told her that I felt like Ursula stole the show.

When we got back home, Jayson asked the girls how it was. Audrey told her it was good, but a bad thing happened. He asked her what that meant and she said, "Some lady dressed like a jelly fish tried to steal some stuff!" I explained to Jayson that Ursula, the sea witch stole the show.

The high school is doing The Wizard of Oz in February and the girls can't wait!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a fun-filled long weekend for Thanksgiving. We did the standard Thanksgiving meals with Jayson's family on Thursday and my family on Saturday. Friday was fun as well. We went to Lakefront Brewery for a tour and to get their special Black Friday IBA. The girls hadn't been on a brewery tour in a while, so it was long overdue. We got there at about 10:30am and they had sold out by shortly after 9:00am. It was a little disappointing, but it was fine because we still went on the tour and had some of our favorite beers.

Charlie loves smelling things, especially things we're drinking, like coffee. Every time Jayson makes coffee, Charlie insists on smelling the grounds before he brews them. At the brewery, she kept insisting on smelling my beer and I'm sure to everybody around me, as I brought my cup to her nose, it looked like I was about to give my 2 year-old a sip. After she smelled it, she would insist I take a drink. Then she would say, "No, drink it!" and I would say, "I did," and she would say, "No. All of it." Moderation, Charlie!

After the brewery we helped our friends move. The girls loved the fact that they got to watch cable and stay out of our way. Lydia asked, "Mommy? Can we stay until 8:00? Because it looks like there's going to be a special iCarly on." Audrey decided to slap our friend's dad's butt? Then when he told her his name, which is the same as Jayson's sister's dog, she told him she would just call him Ralph.

When we left, Lydia made sure to get some email addresses of the people there because she just started using her email account and wants to email everybody.

Of course, after a long weekend, the girls were wrecks by Sunday afternoon. Audrey throws a huge fit whenever she has to clean up her toys. I told the girls to start cleaning up their toys and she threw her normal fit and wailed, "BUT I DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY GO!!!!!" So I said all cheerfully, "OK, that's fine. If there's anything that you don't know where it goes, just leave it. You don't even have to clean it up! I'll put it in a box and get rid of it. Because there's nothing worse than toys that don't have a place to go and we don't want toys like that in our house!" Then she got all mad and yelled, "I KNOW WHERE ALL THE TOYS GO!" So I said, "Then get in the toy room right now and put them away." She got really mad and "hmmmph"ed with her arms folded and went and cleaned up her toys. Mommy won that one.

November

It seems like we were just trick-or-treating, and now Thanksgiving is in four days. This month, Lydia and Audrey started swim lessons again, Lydia started skating lessons again, Lydia learned how to ride a two-wheeler (she taught herself!), Charlie has been making progress with potty training, and Charlie also learned how to ice skate (very slowly and cautiously, and only a couple feet at a time).

Charlie has also given up naps for the most part, much to Jayson's frustration. She doesn't go to bed well either, but it's actually kind of humorous because she sings to herself and tells stories and will randomly yell things, and eventually fades off to sleep.

Yesterday we had a very busy day. Caribou for coffee, Trader Joe's for groceries, Target for some odds and ends, Buy Buy Baby for some missing crib parts (yes, Charlie is still sleeping on a bed frame and we still don't have the correct parts to convert her crib into a bed, and we finally made some headway, but once again got the wrong parts.), Penzey's for some spices, Hockey Haven to sharpen some ice skates, skating at the Pettit for Lydia's lessons and then open skating with the family, Sam's for some pizzas, then our friends came over to eat dinner with us and watch the girls while Jayson and I had our bowling night.

The lack of naps caught up with everybody as evidenced by the breakdowns before we even ate breakfast and the constant arguing. So, after lunch today, it was family nap time. Usually family nap time isn't entirely successful. Usually one kid just isn't into it. Today it was Charlie, of course. But, after a while, she fell asleep too and the whole family was able to catch up on some sleep. The reward was sundaes after dinner.