Twisted Bath-time and Other Squiggle-isms

Squiggles has added two new characters to her bath-time repertoire.  Please forgive the cell-phone photos.

Aunt Cami (a fish / nailbrush):

And Uncle Peter (the whale):

The girls and I like to have bubble-bath parties.  Tim often overhears strange things:

“I need to wash Aunt Cami’s face.  Her has ketchup all over.”

“Lily is trying to eat Uncle Peter!”

“Nana, go to time out!”

“Look, Uncle Peter is in a cup.  Now Nana is in the cup with Uncle Peter.  Now Nana is asleep with Uncle Peter.”

“Aunt Cami died.”

“I’m going to squirt you with Nana!”

“Lily don’t bite Amelia!”  (Crying ensues as she rescues the frog in question…)

“Mommy, I’m am sitting on Uncle Peter’s head!”

“Aunt Cami is hungry.  You want some tea Aunt Cami?”

“Daddy, you need to listen to me! I’m sorry I yelled at you, but you have to clean up your toys.  RIGHT NOW!!!”

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While we were fill-in parents for the Jones kids, Squiggles was a very good sport about sharing us with her cousins.  She was a little disturbed a couple times when she was sick and I went to go Calvin and Bryn at the bus stop without her (Tim was with her).  She got over it quickly enough, but has been singing  the following little diddy a hundred times a day for the last three weeks:

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I have been sleeping in Squiggles room with Lily on the sofa bed because we only have one humidifier and we all need it.  As a side benefit, I have been able to listen to Squiggles’ ramblings as she falls asleep.  Mostly she  pretends she’s mother to her doggy, wipe, tissue, baby doll, or plastic ice cubes (one of her favorite Christmas presents). 

“Go to bed, Darling, sweet dreams.  I will give you a hug in the morning when you wake up.  I am your mommy and I love you.”

But occasionally she breaks character.

“Now I’m your daddy, so I can drink soda!”

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We are madly, truly, deeply in love with that Squiggles.

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And finally, some pictures of my Lily girl.

Lily Love, 5 months

 

Lily, Lily.  Five months old… sigh.  Lily is 15 pounds of pure delight.  I love her, love her.  I do.

She has hit so many milestones lately.  Grabbing (and sucking on) her toes, rolling over and over and over, jumping, rocking, grabbing every object in reach and sticking it in her mouth.

She laughs and coos and smiles and giggles.  I have no idea what she’s so happy about.

And oh how she babbles, nonstop, for hours at a time.

On and on she prattles.  If I look away, she grabs both of my cheeks, looks me straight in the eye, (“Pay, attention, Mother – this is important!”) and continues her story. 

Then she’ll suddenly laugh, like she’s just told the best joke ever.  She is starting to be so affectionate.  I’ll be playing with her and suddenly she’ll grab my face and give me a huge, slobbery, mouth-wide-open kiss on the cheek, giggling all the while.  Such kisses are  a little hard to escape from – she has a pretty strong grip.  Also, she loves my hair so much – she runs her fingers through it, bats at it, squeezes it for dear life, and … of course… munches on it.  All. Day. Long.

She’s so proud of her accomplishments.  She beams whenever she thinks she’s doing something brilliant, like standing up or doing cobra pose.

But she’s not all giggles.  She has a short fuse.  She goes from elated to devastated in nanoseconds, and occasionally in the midst of playing starts screaming obscenities (her version… I can tell from the inflection they’re meant to be profane), and then sobbing hysterically.  Luckily, she has some self soothing mechanisms.  She sucks her thumb and rubs her arms, face, or head in circles – especially when she’s trying to fall asleep.

Occasionally (read: very rarely) she settles down and observes her surroundings. 

But it always ends the same way:  “Are you made of matter?  Very well, then you shall be mine and I shall attempt to ingest you forthwith.”

Oh, how we love our little Lily Love.  It is so strange that she has only been here for 5 months – I feel like I’ve known her forever (cue 80’s Mormon musicals). 

I could (and do) kiss these sweet cheeks all day long.

Christmas 2012

Squiggles was pretty excited about Santa this year.  She even sat on his lap at the ward Christmas breakfast a couple weeks ago:

And left cookies for him.  The next day we told her that Santa ate the cookies.  She asked us about a thousand times, “Did Santa eat my cookies and drink my milk?”  Very pleased little girl.

We had a lovely Christmas morning.  Squiggles was so excited about the M&M dispenser fan in her stocking that the rest of the presents were just icing on the cake.

Lily thinks the camera is really fun.  In a “I want to eat that immediately” kind of way. 

We had an awesome Christmas dinner.  Tim made grilled shrimp kabobs and steaks wrapped in fresh sage leaves and pancetta.  Joanne and Joe brought a delicious and huge honey-baked ham.  The rest of us provided side dishes and desserts.  We thought there would be way too much food, but we were all a bit gluttonous and there were very few leftovers.  Cami was hitting the bottle all night, as per usual.

Lily would like to eat Tim’s head.  Either that or she thinks he needs a haircut. 

We have an unofficial east-coast tradition of getting the local grandkids new pajamas for Christmas.  Unfortunately, Mason’s needed to be exchanged for a bigger size.  I really love how Ivy is rocking out in this photo.  All the kids were happy because they had just ingested six or seven thousand times the USDA’s daily recommended sugar.

Leftovers

From our insta-family days…

They were NOT watching Nemo for the 3rd or 11th day in a row… they were, ummm, doing meditations:

Playing beauty parlor.  NO, THEY ARE NOT WATCHING NEMO!!!

Lunch with Their Royal Highnesses:

And ice cream with the whole gang:

Final recap:

• With the possible exception of Ivy and Squiggles, who you may recall were battling several infectious agents throughout our stay, the kids did great with limiting screen time to less than a half hour per day.
• None of the Jones kids was sent to time out in twelve days.  Squiggles, however, was sent to time out about six hundred times.
• Bryn and Calvin both expressed sadness about their parents being gone a couple times.  I’m not sure Ivy noticed they were gone – she was busy eating fast food and watching movies.  Overall they all did great.
• Cami and Peter came back and stole 60% of our family back.  We miss those kids!!!  It was a grand 12 days, and we’d love to do it again.  Next year.
• Apparently the Johnstons found a pair of toddler princess panties a couple days ago.  Mystery solved.

Insta-family, Days 6-11

First, proof that we went to church on Day 1:

Days 6-11 were mostly a blur.  Ivy woke up in a puddle of vomit on day 8, Squiggles woke up in a puddle of vomit on days 7, 9, and 10, and Lily – well let’s just say that regurgitation is her specialty, bless her heart.  Lily and I battled conjunctivitis, and Squiggles and Lily have the croup and possibly a whooping sort of cough.  Tim caught the nastiness as well and lost his voice days 5-9. 

I bought the following puzzle, thinking it would be well worth the $2.99 because it would provide the kids hours and hours of entertainment.  I obviously underestimated the Jones children – Calvin and Bryn had it done in under five minutes.  D’oh.

We had a pancake palooza Saturday morning – it was a big hit.

There are only two adults here, so Bryn has been helping out a TON with the younger girls.  She is a snuggle master!

As well as a baby whisperer.  (Don’t tell Cami, but I’m going to be taking her home with me.)

Sunday, we had a cookie-making adventure.  Bryn made the most important letter in her alphabet.

Ivy frosted her cookies daintily.

Bryn:  Calvin, if pugs are your favorite dog, why would you make a bulldog?

Calvin:  Because I’m going to EAT this dog.  I would never eat a pug!

Sick Squiggles.  She has been asking to take naps.  Not okay.  We’ve changed sleeping arrangements about seventy times on account of The Sick.  Right now Lily and I are sleeping on the couch / bouncy chair and Tim and Squiggles are in the big bed.

Last night Tim took the Jones kids to Arby’s and the carousel in Marlborough.  They apparently ate their weight in quasi-food while I took our kids to the doctor.

Tonight Tim helped the kids make a gingerbread house.

Squiggles didn’t really understand why it was a problem that she kept taking bites out of the candy before placing them on the house.  We tried to explain that she’s a walking petri dish, but she was like, “Hey, you guys are over there talking about germs and sounding stupid, and I’m over here eating sugar and being awesome.”

It was a mighty fine gingerbread house in the end. 

(Finishing touches.)