Moments of the Month

This month...

Claire got up about 20 minutes after we had put the girls down for bed. Her excuse? "Mom, I'm tired." Hmm... didn't think that one through.


Claire loves to say the prayer to bless our food or for bedtime. She is also two. So she will begin her prayer, then stop and look at me wondering what she should say next. I will offer a suggestion, to which she will immediately yell, "No! I do it!" and then copy what I said. Then she will pause again and sometimes even whisper, "Help me," before hearing my response and yelling, "No! I do it!" and the cycle continues.


Gabby thinks that going to French school is the normal thing for a kid to do. I recently had the following conversation with her:
Gabby:  Is [my friend from church] going to be at my school next year?
Me:  No. He will be at a different school.
Gabby:  A different French school?
Me:  No, it's an English-speaking school.
Gabby:  [Jaw drops open.] But he already knows how to speak English! Why does he need to go to English school?

Claire decided to color on her face recently. I know - I have seen worse pictures of other kids and she can't compete. But this was the first time in my years as a parent that my child has colored on her own face, so I had to document. I managed to keep a straight face and told her that I would take a picture so she could see what she looked like in the viewer. I just love the mugshot she gave me:

The best part is that after she decorated her face, she said the following in her dinner prayer, "We are thankful that I could color on my face."

Claire talks a lot. Especially while she is going to the bathroom because she knows she has your undivided attention. Here is just a tiny snippet of how she carries a conversation from one topic to another all on her own: "If you drink tea, you will die. And then turn to dirt. Flowers grow in dirt. Worms are wiggly." (No, we do not tell her that she will die if she drinks tea... she came up with that one all on her own.)

Gabby loves skirts and dresses and insists on wearing them almost every day. In fact, she is so into them that she has begun tucking her shirts into her skirts so that she can "see them better." She refuses to cover one inch of skirt from her viewing pleasure.

Claire has been having many playdates with her friend, Reese, while her mom and I swap childcare. The two of them are so alike that they tend to fight over the same toys, but they always walk away loving each other. The last time that I picked her up from Reese's house, we had the following conversation:

Me: Did you have fun at Reese's house? What did you do?

Claire: [Silent pause. Then determined voice.] I am not going to tell you that I hit her.

Moments of the Month

The photo above shows how I know that my girls are awake in the morning.  While I am getting ready in the bathroom, they stick their limbs under the door.  And no, I do not have four children (yet), the girls are sticking both their fingers and toes under the door at the same time.

A favorite line around our house lately has been, "Somebody needs a nap today," (with the word "somebody" drawn out for emphasis).  But the line doesn't come from the parents.  The girls say it to each other if one of them is being whiney.  As you can imagine, the whiney child loves being told that by her sibling.

Claire is our more adventurous eater.  She loves vegetables (she has been known to finish off entire bowls of broccoli while our backs are turned) and will try just about anything if she is in the right mood.  Recently, she wanted to try salsa and upon discovering that she liked it, she began eating it alone by the spoonful.

For Christmas, Gabby received some Hello Kitty underwear from Target.  As I was folding a pair recently, a word caught my eye and I read what one of them said: "I am as heavy as three apples!"  Excuse me?  Did I just read that right?  Indeed, I did.  It repeats that phrase over and over on that pair of underwear, with a picture of a kitty holding three apples.  I am not even sure if being as "heavy as three apples" is a good thing or a bad thing, but I know it is a weird thing.  Who comes up with these phrases?

A week-and-a-half ago, Gabby was kneeling on her chair at the kitchen table and we suddenly heard a loud clunk of a child falling.  We are used to this sound, so it didn't really phase us, but we turned around to see Gabby laying on the floor and crying a bit louder than usual.  I distracted her and within one minute, it was over.  Five minutes later, she was asking for ice to put on her shoulder.  Strange.  (How does she even know that ice helps wounds?)  I asked her to raise her arm and she couldn't without pain.  I called our in-house physician over and after a pricey evaluation, he gave me the look - "it's broken".  We could feel the bone sticking out a bit.  Luckily, she is young so the recovery shouldn't be too bad, she just needs to wear a sling for a while.  That night as I tucked her into bed, she said, "Mom, will I have to go to school in a wheelbarrow tomorrow?"  It took me a minute to realize that she meant a wheelchair, but I was able to reassure her that no, she would not need a wheelbarrow or a wheelchair.  :)

Moments of the Months

Since it has been a little while since I have posted a moment of the month, this post will have several memorable moments.

When I cleaned out my phone pictures, I was reminded of two funny sleep photos from the past:

This one was from the summer, when Claire was having trouble letting go of her caca.  She would spend so long sitting on the toilet that one time she fell asleep against my knees.

This one was also from the summer, while we were in Mexico.  Jason and I were quietly reading in bed while the girls slept next to us.  All of a sudden, we heard a whole lot of movement from their bed and looked over to find this:  Gabby had flipped all the way up-side-down and pulled the other side of the covers over her.  She had no recollection of doing so the next morning.

While we are on the topics of beds, I had the following conversation with my barely-two-year-old:

Mom: Claire, go hop into bed while I finish putting these things away in the bathroom.  I'll be right there.

Claire: [Obediently leaves the room.]

Mom: [Arrives in Claire's room to find her jumping up and down next to her bed.]  What are you doing?

Claire:  [Frustrated.]  I can't do it, Mom!  I can't do it!

Mom:  You can't do what?  It's time to get into bed.

Claire:  [Still hopping.]  I need your help, Mom.

Mom:  [Pause.  Puzzled look on face.]  Oh, wait - are you trying to "hop" into bed?  

Claire:  Yes, but I can't do it!

That's right, my daughter was trying hard to follow my instructions that she "hop" into bed.  She was satisfied when I helped her that day, but insisted on "hopping" into bed for at least a week after that.

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Gabby came home one day talking non-stop about a boy in her class named Jason.  She wouldn't stop telling me about how funny he was.  She especially liked that he said something along the lines of "Mouska, mouska, Micky Mouse" over and over.  Luckily, she has no idea that boys like girls and girls like boys yet, so I figured it would be nothing more than a friendship.

After two days of talking about Jason's greatness, Gabby told us her big news at the dinner table: Jason was mean to her.  The dialogue went something like this:

Mom: What did he do?

Gabby:  He kept saying, 'Mouska, mouska, Micky Mouse'!

Dad:  But I thought you liked him saying that.

Gabby:  Yesterday, but not today.  I was so sad.  Sarah made me feel better and told Jason not to be mean anymore.

Jason (the husband) and I looked at each other in disbelief.  Wasn't this teenage behavior?  Does this not give you the boy-girl relationship in a nutshell?  Boy likes girl.  Makes her laugh.  Girl likes boy.  Boy repeats what girl likes.  Girl doesn't like boy anymore.  Friend takes girls side and tells boy to leave.  Jason explained that this type of issue is exactly why it took him so long to get married.  Girls are so hard to figure out.  Just when you think you know what they like, they change.  I told Jason that boys were the difficult ones.  They keep trying the same old tricks and get annoying.  ;)

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We have recently had to have a few talks with our four-year-old about not lying (vegetables were disappearing off the table and reappearing close to Claire's chair, at which point Claire was accused of throwing food).  After one deep conversation with her dad one night (in which he had no idea if she was listening), I went in to tuck Gabby into bed.  "Mom, I have something to tell you," she admitted.  "One time, when I was two, I was standing on a chair in the playroom and I got down when I heard you coming.  But when you asked me if I was standing on the chair, I said . . . no.  But really, I was standing on the chair.  And Claire was on the chair and she got in trouble."

Wow.  The only time that I could think of having to enforce a no-standing-on-the-little-chairs rule was when Claire was learning how to walk and went into climbing mode instead.  That was at least a year-and-a-half ago.  Had this been on her conscience since then?  If that is the worst she had to admit, I think Daddy must have done a pretty good job teaching her not to lie.

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For the children's program in our church (Primary) the theme of 2012 was "Choose the Right".  We have been working on this concept the whole year.  In November, our bishop (the leader of our congregation/"ward") came in and talked to the kids about choosing the right.  Apparently, he made a little bit more of an impact on her.  That night, and for weeks following, Gabby would suddenly announce something like, "Claire wants me to climb up on the top bunk, but the bishop said, "Choose the right,"so I am getting my pajamas on like I am supposed to."  Maybe we need to have him speak to the kids more often....

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The girls recently put on the following one-minute performance for me:

"I'm Just a Little Girl" from Jennefer Boyer on Vimeo.

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Maybe I shouldn't be ending on this note, but this is the type of humor I live with every day.  The girls one day were very excited to have the treat of a hot dog.  Claire is still learning English and said, "Mom, I want my hot dog on a bum!"  This drew laughter from her sister, who now knows what a "bum" is, but Claire did not understand the humor in the situation.  Claire continued while waiting for her hot dog to warm up, "I want my bum warm, Mom."  More laughter from Gabby.  And finally, as I gave them their food at the table, Claire finished with, "I have a little bum, Gabby."  After that, we realized we better teach Claire how to say "b-u-n" so that she doesn't get made fun of in Middle School.

Happy New Year everyone!  May 2013 bring many more moments to remember!

Moment of the Month

I'm not sure how, but Claire has managed to top her last moment of the month.  Although she has been technically potty trained for 6 months - she only goes in the toilet and can wear underpants all day - she still has some issues to work out.  Big ones.  I won't go into the frustrating details, but basically she has a fear of letting her caca / poop out.  She holds it for as many days as she can before it forces it's own way out into the toilet.  She has been on laxatives for a long time now, so it doesn't hurt, it is just all in her mind.

At her 2-year pediatric appointment, her doctor advised us to take her Miralax up a notch, so we did.  Apparently a little too much.  But it wasn't until we were at a party that we found out that the new amount of laxatives worked very quickly.  Our good friends, the Keunes, invited us to a "Low Country Boil" at their home in Seattle, basically the southern version of a barbecue, but cooking everything together in one big pot.  As soon as we started to take our first bites of the delicious meal, Claire's urges began as usual and she wanted to go hang out on the toilet.  After 20 or 30 minutes in there, she decided she was finished trying and wanted to return to the party.  I thought I would ease her stress by having her change into a pull-up so if she felt like she needed to go, we could at least tell her to go in her pull-up.

5 minutes later, her pull-up was full.  This was the first time she had ever gone caca out of the toilet for the last 6 months, so we were already impressed and I was glad I brought that pull-up along.  We changed her back into her pull-up thinking the potty issues were done for the day.  But Claire had something else in mind.  15 minutes later, I was talking to someone at the gathering with Claire bouncing around behind me.  I heard Jason's voice, "Uh, Jen - she has to go again."  Then I noticed him focus in on her with a look of shock.  There was runny caca flowing out of her underpants and plopping out of her dress onto the grass!

Claire was completely unbothered by it as we pulled off her now messy dress and underwear and tried to keep her from spreading her trail even more around the yard.  Keeping the other kids off of the territorial markings was not an easy task.  Luckily, one of the many people we met that day had a very large 10-month-old that had a diaper we could put Claire into and she spent the rest of the time running around nearly naked.  Classy.  I took a photo of Claire's trail in the grass, but it was too disgusting for me to post.  I hope some very nice flowers grow up on that fertilized plot.  Jen & John were very accommodating hosts and humored our troubled family.  They may never let us inside their home again, introduce us to their friends, or have their own children following this incident, but they kept smiles on their faces nonetheless.  And now we have lowered Claire's Miralax dose to something she can handle.

On a related note, remember the Fred Meyer play area incident?  We returned for another attempt this week.  I made sure Claire emptied her bladder first and I was happy to see that the child supervisor was different than the one who witnessed Claire's last moment.  But Claire refused to go inside.  She just kept saying, "No pee pee in the play area.  Pee pee in the toilet."  For months, she (and I) could not wait to go and now, thanks to the negative association, she has zero interest in returning and would rather travel the store aisles with me, trying to reach anything she can off the shelves as I maneuver around.  Fabulous.

Moment of the Month

The above photo may not have anything to do with my story, but sometimes I just have to capture how Gabby is drawn to all things girly.

Now for my story of the month.  As you just saw from the last post, Claire turned 2.  Two days later, we made our weekly grocery shopping trip.  Usually, this is not a joyful hour for me, but this day would be different because Claire was two years old and could go to the play area, where someone watches your kids while you shop (for free)!  Needless, to say, I was pretty excited to drop off both of my children and shop in peace and they were both very excited to play instead of being stuck in a cart and hearing me say "no" over and over.

As I was signing the girls in, Claire started talking about needing to go potty.  We had just come from the beach, where she also said that she needed to go and when I took her she immediately changed her mind.  This happens from time to time, but luckily, my girls have bladders of steal, go only 3-4 times a day (only because I make them before and after sleeping) and have never had an accident while we have been out.  I took her to the bathroom again, knowing she would change her mind and she did.  She was too excited to be in the play area and not as excited about the bathroom.  Oh well, off to the play area she goes.

Away I went, with no children!  Ah, the freedom!  The peace of --- [interrupted by Claire's worst scream in the short distance I had made it away from her].  I returned those ten steps to the play area.  Claire was sitting at the coloring table screaming as if she was in horrible pain.  I didn't understand what the problem was until - oh, no, she couldn't have.  She peed in her little shorts her first time in the play area!  She has been potty trained for 6 months without any accident and she chose that time and place to let it go.  And because she has never needed them, I stopped carrying spare clothes around.

Those who have heard this story assume that I left the store at that point.  What mother in her right mind would do an entire grocery shopping trip with a child covered in pee?  Well, me.  I had way too much going on that week to be able to make it back to the store and we needed dinner that night.  Claire would just have to deal with it and I would just have to hope that we weren't leaving a trail of urine smell behind us.  With Claire's wet bum sitting on the cart and Gabby in the play area, we did our shopping in record time and hurried home to finally change her.

The moral of the story?  Wipe down your shopping carts with the wipes they provide at the store entrance.  (I did try to clean down the cart with wipes, but I still wouldn't want to be the next customer to put my purse on that seat....)

Moment of the Month

Here are some quotable moments that have taken place in our home recently:

1. Claire is quite the talker these days.  We used to wonder what she was thinking.  Now sometimes we wish we didn't know every thought.  For the last few months, she has been saying, "No pick your nose.  Tissue - yes, yes," many, many times each day.  This "no, no / yes, yes" comes from a favorite book.  And while I am glad that she seems to have learned something from it (she doesn't pick her nose), I find it a little disturbing at how often she thinks about the act.
2. Claire has also developed a phobia (which seems to run in the family, thanks to Jason teasing his poor sister early in life).  She doesn't like people to go up the stairs behind her.  If I do go up behind her, she says, "You no tickle me.  Daddy tickle me.  You no tickle me," as she holds her hand out in a stop signal.  I admit that when we are trying to speed her up from her preferred tortoise approach up the stairs, we will pretend to chase or tickle her.  Apparently, she really doesn't like it when Daddy does this.  We'll claim that it is he who has scarred her for life.
3. Our children love babysitters.  They get easy (which equals tasty in kidland) dinners and a playmate who focuses all attention on them.  About a month ago, we had one babysitter bring another of our babysitters with her while she was watching the girls.  When we were expecting a babysitter a few days ago, Gabby suddenly announced, "Mom, two babysitters are much more funner than one."

Moment of the Month

In May, Gabby was playing outside one day and came in to tell me that she found some bird eggs in the backyard, behind the playset.  Assuming that she was referring to her imaginary world (especially since I had just seen her pretending to cook breakfast in her outdoor playhouse), I responded, "Oh, that's great, Sweetie," and continued cooking dinner.  The next day, she told me that the eggs had hatched and there were five little birds inside the nest.  "Oh, wow, just like in your book," I told her, admiring her memory.  On the third day, she told Jason about it while he was mowing the lawn.  Being the good father that he is, he didn't doubt her words and went and looked behind the rock climbing wall of the playset.  When Jason came inside and said, "Did you know that there is a nest with baby birds behind the playset?" I naturally told him that yes, of course I'd known for days.  Then I snuck out to see them for the first time and took the picture above.  :)

Moment of the Month

Gabby loves to say prayers, but lately they have taken an unusual twist.  Here are some quotes:

• "We are thankful we are safe from the Big, Bad Wolf."
• "We are thankful the big dinosaurs can't bite us."
• "We are thankful that we could go somewhere else to eat."
• "We are thankful for whatever."
• "We are thankful for everything as well."
• "We are thankful we can go all the places Mommy & Daddy tell us to go."
• "We are thankful that we can all pray together."
• "We are thankful that we can spend some evening together."
• "Help us to not hit each other."
• "We are thankful that we can live in houses."
• "We are thankful that we can be SO good."

The hardest part about some of her prayers is that they go on in a list like this for 5 minutes sometimes and Jason and I cannot hold in our laughter for that long.  The few times that we have burst out unexpectedly, she just looks at us the way that parents look at their children when they are out of line and have no reason to be so.  

Moment of the Month

I suppose the most shocking moment of the month for January goes to Claire.  The day after she turned 18 months, the girls were playing hide-and-seek in the bathroom closet and came across Gabby's old training toilet. You would think it was a buried treasure chest, the way they were so excited about it.  The next thing I know, Claire is sitting on the toilet and going pee!

We all assumed it was just a stroke of luck, but when she asked to go again later, she did it again - almost instantly - and has continued to do so 3-5 times a day since then (for almost a week now) with mostly dry diapers.  I am a little confused because I still have her mentally categorized as a baby (it seems with each child you think they are comparably younger and capable of less, perhaps because you aren't looking so anxiously towards the next milestone).  So I guess I am being dragged into potty-training, ready or not.  The funny thing is that we thought that Claire would be our difficult child to train because she finds so much joy in doing the opposite of what we want her to do - oh, wait - she is doing just that.  Plus, this is only the beginning....

Moment of the Month

Gabby has a best friend, named Landon (pictured above).  They get along quite well.  It turns out they get along too well.  After the program was over at our church Christmas party, these two found themselves in the company of older children.  We are not quite sure what happened first - the kiss or the encouragement - but Landon and Gabby kissed many times on the lips, to the joy of the onlookers.  When we got home, I had a little chat with my 3-year-old flirt and told her that she shouldn't kiss Landon anymore.  Without hesitation, she responded in a matter-of-fact tone, "But Mom - I like it."  Oh dear.

Moment of the Month

I am going to start a monthly post to mention a funny snapshot into our lives that has happened that month.  There are certainly no shortage of amusing quotes and events during my days as a full-time mom.  The hard part is just remembering them and recording them.  So, the first one will be simple, just to get me going:

We have a doorstop to our front door that sticks out of the ground in the corner.  The girls are drawn to it. The other day, Gabby was standing on the doorstop and she and Claire were kind of shoving each other to be on it.  When I realized what was going on, I said (the phrase that we all vowed we would never say when we were adults), "Gabby, how many times have I asked you not to stand on that?"  She almost immediately answered, "5."  Then she counted on her fingers, "1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5.  Five times."  I was speechless.  I can't say that I really expected an answer from that question.