City Mouse, Country Mouse

We were at my brother's house last weekend to celebrate my niece Sydney's Eighth Grade Graduation. We were having fun in the back yard, playing with the cousins and swimming in their pool. The cousins went down to the playroom in the basement. I asked Henry, "Do you want to go play with the other kids in the basement?"

My poor little apartment-dwelling son looked at me with confusion and shock and said "They have an elevator here?"

Fresh Girl

Having an older brother has taught Molly lots of things, both good and bad. Here is a sampling of the not so positive lessons.

When she falls and gets hurt now and I ask "Molly, are you OK?" She screams "Noooo!" in her snottiest, sassiest voice.

Yesterday when I told her to sit down in the bathtub she looked at me, kicked some water with her foot and said "Funny!"

Today at lunch she wanted to get out of her seat. I asked her if she was done and told her if she was it was naptime. She looked at me and said "No. TV."

When I was filling up the bathtub recently she wanted to get past me. She pushed on my legs and screamed "Mooooove!"

Whenever I go to change her diaper now she says "Ewwww!"

Henry also goads her on to throw her food and spit food on the floor. Charming.

Henry Funnies

Henry is quite the character these days and has a great sense of humor. Here are some recent quotes. I ahem think he got a few of them from me.

He wanted me to do something for him and of course Molly was being a crazy loon in need of supervision. He instructed me to just take care of it and he said "I will deal with Molly."

Molly has taken to throwing quite the epic temper tantrum. Man, can that girl scream! He sighed very loudly, kind of grunted in frustration and hollered at her "Molly stop that screaming, I can't take it anymore!"

He asked me when it was going to be Halloween again. I asked him why and he said he wanted to know when he was going to get "that basket of junk again." I said, "Oh no, you must mean Easter. Did you like getting the junk?" He replied that he indeed did like the junk; it seems like Daddy's feelings on my Easter basket selection have inadvertently colored his vocabulary. I guess I need to educate him on the real meaning of the word "junk". I should put Mr Know it All in charge of the baskets next year and see how the baskets of nuts, fruit and positive messages go over with the kids.

I attended a Baby Shower this weekend for a friend from Connecticut. He wanted to know who it was for so I explained that it was the people who had the bounce house at their last party. I had on a fancy sleeveless shirt with a kind of ruffling on the front. He inquired why I had "butterflies" on my shirt. When I got home, he kept asking me how the baby shower was. I was a bit confused when he kept using hand gestures, asking about the size. Was it a little baby shower or a big baby shower? I finally figured out that he didn't understand that it was a party and that he thought we were literally giving a baby a shower. He also wanted to know if I liked jumping in the bounce house.

This morning I was resting in bed reading. Adam came down the hallway to holler at Henry for some repeated transgression. I heard Henry say "Hey, don't you look at me like that. Mommy, Daddy is giving me that dirty look again!"

Happy Half Birthday Molly!

My little baby turned 18 months old today! Molly is our little miracle and marvel and the joy in our life.

She speaks really well, I'd guess she has a few hundred words. She is an incredible mimic and is always repeating things that I say. She surprised me by counting to eleven yesterday, I have never taught her that. She can also sing a little song where we insert people's names, asking where they are.

She runs around with the most adorable drunken sailor gait. She refuses to sit in the stroller, be carried or hold hands. She tries to jump but her feet never leave the ground. When I give her a little lift with her jumps she yells "Higher!" When she wants to get Henry in trouble, she screeches and then says "Henry!" while swinging her arms back and forth, indicating (not always honestly) that he has hit her.

To this day, she has only slept through the night three or four times. She loves her Mama and will scream and scream until I go to get her. If I don't get there fast enough she wakes Henry up (and then laughs about it) and all four of us are jammed into a queen sized bed. She is the first one to wake every day and it is before the rooster crows. She woke me recently by stroking my lower back and saying "Tushie" over and over. She has been impossible to wean from nursing and still was going strong until I cut her off cold turkey yesterday. The only way I could get her to nap today was to send her to bed with a Twizzler. (Can-deee!)

She writes on the walls and jumps on the couch at any opportunity. As much as Henry was a rule follower, Molly is a rule breaker. She dumps her drinks and throws her food and shimmies herself out of the seat belt of her high chair pulling herself to a stand. She cannot be left alone for a second. If I do squeeze a few minutes away to perhaps cook dinner she finds me and literally hangs from my legs. She shoves her head between my knees and I walk dragging her behind me. Otherwise she screams "Up!" until I relent and let her help me cook. "Taste!" is one of her favorite words; she tried to jam a clove of raw garlic into her mouth today. I cannot leave a stick of butter in her reach or else she will start gnawing on it.

She loves her brother and Daddy with abandon and will not be left out from their adventures. Earlier this week we tried to keep her home during the nightly trip to the ice cream truck but she had other plans. Despite the fact that she was just wearing a diaper she went to get her sandals and her purse and ran into the kitchen yelling "Ready!" and "Dollar" clutching some money she had stolen from my wallet.

She gives the best hugs and kisses but she always tells you no if you ask. She will only relent if you beg. She has a big toothy grin that she shares with you and everyone we see all day. She loves to read and be read to, dance and sing her favorite songs. She makes the funniest animal noises and loves to pretend to scare you. Her best friends are Roen and Finn; she will hold hands and hug Roen but she won't give Finn the time of day and is always growling and yelling at him.

Molly and Henry are the best of friends. They run around with capes around their necks, pretend to camp in their tent, color and paint together and hang together on the couch watching their favorite shows.

She is just the sweetest little baby and we love her so much.

Nurse Molly

Yesterday morning Molly had her 15 month appt. Of course by last evening she was a crabby mess and sporting a fever. I took her rectal temperature in the evening while changing her diaper. She was crying, I was home alone and I had fried chicken on the stove so I didn't wash the thermometer right away (ick I know) , I just left it on my nightstand.

Fast forward to this morning. Molly climbed out of our bed very early and we were watching her with one eye half cracked while she walked around our room. I woke up pretty quickly when I felt the vaseline on my lips as she was putting the dirty thermometer in my mouth. Is it possible to boil your mouth?

She is a handful for sure!

The Politician

I think Henry has a future in politics.

At our school this week, one of the moms was handing out snacks to the kids. She handed them all cheese sticks and turned to me and the other moms with babies asking if we wanted them for Molly etc. She only had two left so we were going to break them up to share.Henry pipes up in his sweetest most innocent voice. "Mommy, do you want my cheese stick? You can break it up and give it to all of the babies." The other moms started swooning..."Oh Henry, that is so sweet!" I thanked him of course but I was slightly suspicious of his motives. I took him to the bathroom a few minutes later and told him how nice he was and that was very good what he did. He laughed and said "No, it was very bad!" He admitted that he just didn't actually want the cheese stick and didn't want to hold it anymore . I have to admit, I love his methods! A 3 year old trying to play a bunch of 30 somethings

Professor Henry

Henry has taken his role of big brother very seriously. For the most part, he is a big help and sounds the first alert when she is into something she shouldn't be. Which is often. Here are a few recent times when his lessons have gone haywire.

I left him with paper and watercolors on the coffee table recently while I was cooking dinner. He has always been extremely careful and doesn't make a mess. I came into check on them and Molly had painted the bottoms of her feet, much to Henry's delight.

I came into the bedroom recently and asked him what they were doing. He told me he was teaching her to pick her nose.

Henry is always giving Molly little pep talks. A few nights ago, he had to hop out of the tub to take care of some "business." He was chattering away, here is an excerpt from the conversation."Don't worry Molly, I am going to come back into the tub to play with you after I finish making poopy. When you are a big girl you will make pee pee and poopy on the toilet like me. When you grow up to be a big girl you will get a penis and you won't have a bagina anymore!"

Mission: Impossible

There are days that the success of our mission rests partially on Henry's slim and wiggly shoulders. I have to admit, I dread and fear these days. He is after all, just three years old; a constantly changing mix of stubborness, willfullness, sweetness, mischief...I never know which Henry I am going to get.

We have some fresh snow here in NYC, so I try to get Henry out sledding as often as I can. In perfect conditions, this is a pretty painful outing to do with just one adult. Molly doesn't have a real snowsuit or boots (she could never walk in them), so she is bundled in about 100 layers. By the time I get Henry bundled and myself somewhat covered, we are all a sweaty, crabby mess. The stroller can't make it through the snow, so off we trudge with Henry walking, Molly strapped to my front, a pack on my back and our sled.

Molly is ambivalent about the snow, but she is fairly positive she doesn't want to stay strapped in the carrier or sit in it by herself. This forces me to send her down the hill in the sled with Henry. He of course, doesn't want her in there most of the time. Or if he lets her in, he wants her to sit in the back (she cannot). Or, he doesn't want to hang onto her (Clearly another problem). Since all of the "negotiations" have taken so long, she is a screaming snotty mess going down the hill.

This week was a perfect example of the tenuous bargain we strike. Henry finally agreed to let her sit in front, and hang onto her. I am dragging the sled down the hill, trying to catch some speed. I turn around and Henry has let Molly go and he is dragging his hands in the snow, slowing us down (purposely. just for kicks.) I holler at him to hold onto Molly. Which he does. He takes his now snow covered hands and grabs her right across the face. Now Molly is slouching, snow covered and screaming. He improved it slightly after more hollering by putting her in a choke hold. She doesn't really need to breathe does she? He then offers to give her a ride in the sled while he pulls. He doesn't seem to get after repeated warnings that Molly cannot take hairpin turns and actually remain in the sled.

We enjoy a little more winter bliss before Henry announces that he needs to leave right that minute before he pees in his snowpants. After the fun ends of me dragging him on the sled through the park, he decides he no longer can walk. I cannot carry him while carrying his sister, the sled and the backpack. So he proceeds to wail at the top of his lungs for the remainder of the walk home.

School Yard Rules

As Molly gets older, it is fascinating to see the inter-play between her and Henry. In the beginning, she was at his mercy. Unless I intervened, he took her toys, told her what to play with and ignored or paid attention to her based on his own agenda.

Now that she is fully mobile, she is quite the fiesty little one. She now knows which toys are his favorites and the minute he turns his back she strikes. She holds her own when he roughhouses in the tent they share. She doesn't play with any baby toys at all. Once she puts on a few pounds I think they will be an equal match.

It was funny watching them in the bathtub tonight. We have a set group of tub toys. The stacking cups, the foam letters, the fish, the boat, the temperature duck and bucket. The grand daddy of all the toys are two foam characters from Spongebob (Spongebob and Patrick).

Since Henry is the Big Man in the Tub, it is the unspoken rule that he rules the bucket and the Spongebob characters. Tonight, Molly had enough and decided to make her stand. Literally. She stood next to him and screamed right at him, pointing furiously at Spongebob. I told him he had to give one up so he (unwillingly) handed her Patrick. Not enough for little Norma Rae. She wanted Spongebob as well . She screamed and screamed until I begged him to cave. He handed off Spongebob, she sat right down and went on with her bath.

The Lady Has Spoken.

Big Day!

Henry wrote his first letter today, independently and without help. The letter "H" of course! Mom, Dad and Henry all are very proud.