Cutest Easter ever

As most celebrations do, our Easter began with lots of preparation. First, we started hinting that a big, fun holiday was around the corner, complete with family, tasty treats, and bizarre customs that none of us could live without. Kalina became properly excited.

Then, we began talking about the meaning of the holiday and making crafts.

Daddy likes to play "fighter
pilot" with Elise. Elise likes it
too.

And finally, Daddy dragged out the extra-large pot, filled it with water and eggs, and officially kicked off the Easter holiday. Having attended an Easter egg dying playdate earlier in the week, Kalina couldn't wait to get started. Elise, who had been up for hours the night before with a cold and hadn't napped well, managed a posititve attitude nonetheless.

Matt and I decided to divide and conquer: I would mix up the dye with the toddler while he and the baby prepared a spot on the deck, the playdate having convinced me not to attempt this project on the kitchen table unless I just wanted to stand around telling Kalina "no" the whole time. (No splashing! No smashing eggs! NO pouring out the dye!!!)

Kalina enjoyed watching the 9 dyes spring to life, and then putting on her "Easter egg dying clothes" once everything was ready. We gathered my camera and a few other things and handed it all out to Matt on the deck. Then, and only then, would I let Kalina head out as well.

The girl knew just what to do. As Matt and I stood back and interfered as little as possible, the girl began picking up several eggs at a time and plopping them into the dye, and didn't stop until she had one in each cup.

Then she put them back in the carton to dry, continued with the 5 additional eggs and was finished. Three minutes had passed. We had 14 lovely Easter eggs, only 2 of which were cracked.

But wait! There was still much work to be done as Kalina created a veritable egg factory. Dyes had to be mixed, eggs had to be put back into the dyes and switched around, and some dye, even, needed to be dumped out.

The empty cups (from dye that had been poured either into other dye or onto the table) were handy, too, as egg storage facilities for eggs in transit to other colors.

Quality control, unfortunately, was not a big priority in Kalina's egg factory. Crack! A blue-y purple egg was dropped in to an empty cup. Crack! A greeny-brown egg met the bottom of the mug. Crack! A rare orangy-pink egg split its shell before being added to the coffee-colored dye.

Only the strong colors survive in Kalina's factory. Pink, yellow and orange were the first colors to be fully obliterated, while blue, green and brownish often won out. Nevertheless, we ended with 13 reasonably colorful eggs (as long as you consider browny-purple and orange-y green-blue to be real colors), and 1 blueish-green egg that had gotten cracked and smooshed beyond recognition. Our nine cups half-full of springtime-colored dye eventually became 1 full-to-the-brim cup of greeny-bluey-brown water.

I was planning to make deviled eggs out of these, but changed my mind, as nothing about this project was appetizing.

And then came the challenge of cleanup. All of Kalina's extremities were green.
 We hosed her off (which she didn't mind) and then gave her a bucket of soapy water to play in for a while. She washed a rock, a stick and a dandelion, and in so doing, managed to get a little of the dye off her hands.

After some more scrubbing in the bathroom, I no longer worried about little green handprints and footprints covering my house.

Elise, by the way, simply enjoyed the show.

And the Easter eggs were dyed, and we could then focus on the next day's events.

Kalina needed quite a few reminders that the next day would be Easter:
"Kalina, what day is it tomorrow?"

Blank stare.
"Kalina, what special day will it be tomorrow?"
Blank stare.
"Easter!" I answered my own question. I'm pretty sure she'd have gotten it right if it were her birthday.

But on Easter morning, the girl only needed to be told once. She trooped down the stairs and we began the hunt for the Easter baskets: one for her, one for Elise, and one for Gray, all of which it was Kalina's duty to find, being the only one whose intellectual development matched her locomotive skills.

Elise's was the first one found: under her Exersaucer seat. Kalina was happy to hand it over, perhaps expecting hers to be more grandiose and possibly knowing that the books inside would be read to her, anyway. In addition to the books, Elise received the family bunny ears (they were in Kalina's basket last year) and a small stuffed lamb so that she can build her own entourage of "friends," just like Kalina's, if she so chooses.

The baby showed immediate interest in her basket (next time I picked it up, the handle had a mouth-sized wet patch) and no objection to the bunny ears, which fit her perfectly and were among the very few objects that could add to her cuteness. She then watched her sister continue the hunt.

Kalina had a little trouble finding her own, but was that much more exhuberant on recovering it. Inside, she found a small assortment of candy, including a lamb Pez dispenser, and an Easter dress for Gray (it didn't fit in Gray's Easter basket, which held one of each color of jelly bean except black).

Our next steps were to:
1.) Sample one of Kalina's jelly beans (she, too, had one of each color except black)
2.) Sample the chocolate bunny
3.) Dress Gray in Gray's Easter dress
4.) Find Gray's Easter basket
5.) Sample a chocolate egg
6.) And finally, open the Pez dispenser and eat two of them. Why is it that I could easily load those things as an 8-year-old, but fumbled with it for quite some time as an adult?

After some low-key play and Elise's nap, it was finally time for the Easter dresses. Kalina happily submitted to hers (she's growing up!), which she'd picked out for herself weeks ago. Elise, who did me the favor of waking up exactly 2 minutes before I was going to have to, reluctantly, rouse her, squirmed up a storm as I stuffed her into hers. She must have sensed we were in a hurry as Mommy really, really, really didn't want to be late to Easter church, but also wanted to take the time for a quick family photo, courtesy of Grandpa.

And then we were off to the main event. Kalina sat as good as gold in her seat the whole time, probably a bit intimidated by the rules Mommy regrets imposing on churchgoing (whispers only, no loud noises, no running away--nothing difficult but I should've realized that Kalina didn't really need them and would only worry about them the whole time). She commented later that she enjoyed the songs.

Elise, for her part, cooed and blew raspberries at the music and anyone who so much as glanced in her direction. I let her sit in her carseat for all of one minute before I couldn't resist scooping her up and holding her the entire time. She and I headed to the cry room together during the sermon, where three sets of parents with little boys watched her the entire time, no doubt enchanted by her wide smiles, intent play, happy squirming and adorable dress.

After lunch and naps, we then headed up to Grandpa's place for an Easter dinner and the big Easter egg hunt. Kalina, who remembered the hunt from last year but had forgotten all of the best hiding places, had a blast. Her favorite foods were ham and homemade ice cream with Aunt Nancy's carrot cake, and I do believe she would've celebrated all night if we hadn't had to get home so her little sister could get to bed.

Elise also "found" a few Easter eggs, with help from her Daddy, and got to try mashed potatoes for the first time. Her favorite thing, though, was playing with the blocks I'd also played with as a small child, and looking irresistably cute the whole time. Even Kalina couldn't stay away from her (see photo of the girls playing nicely together!).

I couldn't be prouder or more grateful for my two adorable, sweet girls. Hopefully we managed to do the holiday justice. Either way, we'll be celebrating for the rest of the week as Kalina's already planned for Gray and Gray's kittens (formerly known as "the cats") will be hunting Easter eggs and packing Easter baskets for days to come. Maybe I'll even let Kalina have another jelly bean!

The world of a 7-month-old

Playing with Kalina's doggie
during Kalina's naptime. Fun!

If you are ever blessed enough to spend much time with a baby, you will notice that the baby spends much of her time starting intently and open-mouthed at the world around her. Drooling a bit.

The better to shove everything she sees into her mouth, I suppose. After all, the world is pretty tasty to behold.

If you don't spend much time with babies, you may, in fact, think the baby rude for all her open-mouthed staring, or even dull, but I'll assure you this is certainly not the case. As a matter of fact, the conversation going on in the baby's head may sound something like this:

"Ooh! What's that over there? Moving and furry? A cat! Wow! Oh, and over here? Shiny and bright? A window! Shiny. Wait, what's that noise? A toddler? Hmm. But what's that? Oh, cool, a table. What's that on the table? A spoon! Ooh, I want that. I want to hold that. Oh, wait, that other thing looks even cooler. Maybe it even jingles. Lots of things jingle. But what's that over there? And now what is the toddler doing? To the cat? Now I have the giggles."

So, you can see, discovering the world a mile a minute is pretty serious business.

Hanging out with Uncle Tom.
Ready to get back to Mommy.

But then there are times, when you're a baby, that the world needs to be discovered one piece at a time. One piece of mulch at a time, as a matter of fact. This proves especially tricky when the baby is placed on the center of a picnic blanket, and the baby can't crawl yet. No worries: simply bunch of the blanket until voila! Mulch appears! Like the rest of the world, mulch is delicious. Much more delicious, even, than the brightly colored, safe toys scattered about the blanket by Mommy in hopes of distracting the baby from the mulch.

In case you can't tell, I'm describing sweet, little Elise, who is currently the frontrunner as the cutest baby in the world (her big sister held the title for an entire year, until she graduated into "cutest 1-year-old on Earth" status).

Once I did set Elise tummy-down in the grass momentarily. I think the idea that she had been placed directly into Heaven was still forming when I scooped her up again.

While a baby's world is entirely new--every last bit of it--babies also have a way of making the unfamiliar familiar by breaking each new encounter down into its base parts. They are:

1.) New object. Goes in mouth.
2.) New person. Where's Mommy?
3.) New place. Is there anything I can put in my mouth here?

Despite having gotten it down to a routine, Elise seems to love seeing new people and places (from a safe spot like Mommy's arms, of course). She'll happily sit in her stroller and watch kids playing at a park, however, and I know we're only months away from her running to join in and pull anyone's hair she can get her little hands on, whether the kids like it or not.


In the "Elise and doggie"
photo shoot, Elise had her
eyes closed in 3/6 pictures.
Cute!



The most fun, however, is handing Elise a new object to explore. Already adept at manipulating toys for ages 1+, this baby quickly, yet methodically, learns about each new toy (or non-toy) in her path, leaving them sopping wet. She does, however, readily return to old favorites, especially those that are the most fun to chew. And she blows raspberries at whatever she likes best.

And Elise never stops discovering her world. Three minutes after having fallen asleep in my arms before bedtime after a long (read: short-nap) day the baby is likely to be found investigating the noise her foot makes when bammed repeatedly against the wall during a diaper change.

Within seconds of waking, Elise is already smiling, at or gnawing on anyone or anything within sight/reach. She never stops. But then, we wouldn't want her to.

How to avert a temper tantrum

Poor Kalina. Lately, she can best be described as a steaming mass of torrential moods that froth and boil directly underneath her sugar-coated exterior. Occasionally the mood is hilarity. Other times, not so much. 

Off to go stomp in puddles
with new rainboots!



It used to be that if Kalina became upset, she'd wander about 10 feet off, turn her back to me and refuse to talk. Although inconvenient if we were on our way out the door to the grocery store or something, her disgruntled display was one I could readily accept. A few minutes and a little coaxing later, and we were all happily in the car and on our way out.

I was even beginning to think that the Terrible Two's might not hit at all. Naive, I know.



So it took me by surprise the other day just before naptime when Kalina collapsed into a floppy ball of toddler frustration, gushing tears and emotions simply because I'd hinted that if she wanted to take each of her 17 crib animals poop and potty, she might need to move a bit fast.

"Kalina will not move fast," she steadfastly told me, her eyes boring into mine to see what I'd do.

I've been trained, through the ghostwriting of my parenting book (my name's not on the cover, but I did all the writing), that I do not need to get upset at such declarations, I simply need to offer a choice in a casual tone of voice. This will avert a power struggle and we can both get on with our day more peaceably. It usually works great, so I replied:



"Here, Hon, I'll help." And I moved toward the rather sedentary pile of critters.

At which point I expected to meet with a toddler zooming back and forth from her crib and the potty seat as her animals all prepared for naptime, but this was not to be the case. She instead took personal offense at my remark and spiraled the conversation (which was really not a conversation after all) downward as I began gathering up her "friends" to try to get on with the naptime routine.

 Seconds later, Kalina was lying flat on the floor screaming, I was speechless and Elise was happily giggling in the middle of my bed as she awaited her own nap. I'm really not sure how, but I managed to get us all back from the brink and the girls put down for their naps, during which at least the little one actually slept. Of the animals, only Lamby, I believe, ever went poop and potty.

Unsure about what, exactly, hit me, I resolved that this little scenario would not happen again. But it did, and then again, and pretty soon I was switching all of my previously successful (albeit wimpy due to Kalina's rather easy personality) parenting strategies and just trying to figure out something that would work.

Here's what I found:

 1.) The more obviously I push, the more she pushes back. Therefore, if I can offer Kalina the choice of "Either you can quit throwing Elise's toys or you can just go play in your room alone" in a firiendly, non-confrontational, conversational tone of voice, she's much more likely to play nicely. Easier said than done when you're annoyed, frustrated, mad, in a hurry, exhausted, or a combination of those three.

2.) Flattery will get you everywhere, even to the grocery store. "What a pretty song you're singing as we're getting our shoes on to go out!" and such.

3.) Kalina has a very different agenda for her day than I do. They frequently don't mesh, but a little give and take will work wonders. So yes, we can give 1 or 2 animals a doctor checkup before we both go empty the dishwasher, but the other 15 will live (probably) until the next opportunity.



4.) The less I can boss Kalina around, the better she'll listen and respond. So rather than direct Kalina like she's a personal servant, I need to find more subtle means to get her to do what I want. This is where my advertising career comes in handy every single day. It's less about "Pick up your toys," than it is about "Do you think we can get this entire rug completely cleaned off?" with a big smile on my face.

In other words, with lots of psychological manipulation, you can make sure you and the toddler have a pretty nice day. But hey, it's a job.

And it's an exhausting one. While Elise is still testing the limits of "when, exactly, will Mommy feed me at night?" (after 12:00 and again after 3:30, plus any other time that I'm too bleary-eyed when I look at the clock to make any sense of it), Kalina is testing me to see how loud, to the decibal, she can be in the house. It takes every ounce of my brainpower (which, admittedly, isn't much nowadays) to keep us all on an even keel so we don't all three spend the entire day in tears.

The number of times I've copped a jovial attitude when I've felt nothing of the sort, simply to keep Kalina from sinking into negativity, is uncountable. Beyond 11, even (the highest number Kalina accepts as true).

But it works. Kalina is slowly learning the rules of the house, usually at the pace of one manageable meltdown a day.

Fortunately, it's just a phase, right?

Elise's sleep journey: Part 3



I think this is my first-ever picture of a
sleeping baby. My general rule is that
you don't jeopardize what you work so
hard to achieve.

 Sometimes it seems to me that of all my friends, I'm the most neurotic about my kids' sleep--and yet my babies are among the very worst sleepers of the bunch (not so with my toddler!).

I've even had friends tell me they use me as an example to other friends to let them know "it could be worse--you could be Mary!" followed by a rendition of my latest horror story. I don't mind--if I could brighten someone's outlook with my sleep-deprived state of suffering, I'll be happy to.

I do find it ironic that I'm approached for advice on a regular basis, being "the one who knows about sleep," but yet have failed so miserably with my own very young children who, apparently, have pored over none of the sleep books that I have.

When I last wrote about Elise's sleep (in the post entitled Yummy, Delicious Sleep, which was actually the second part of Elise's sleep journey), she'd learned to suck her thumb as a method of self-soothing and was only waking up once or twice a night. As late as a week and a half ago, we'd both slept a glorious 5-hour stretch.

However, whether she's willing herself across portions of the rug to reach the really cool toy 6 inches away (she doesn't quite understand that she's not yet able to crawl, and won't let that stop her from achieving her goals) or screaming for the whole neighborhood to hear because I didn't quite get the bite of mushed mango into her mouth fast enough (I may have wanted to take a bite of my own dinner, for instance), Elise can be a persistent little bugger.

"But I liked seeing Mommy 5 times a night!" she began to insist. And to prove her point, she contracted a head cold so that I had no choice but to visit her.

As I dutifully trekked into Elise's room to settle my poor, hoarse baby, my only consolation was that "it has to get better when she's over her cold." It didn't.

Soon, Elise lost any ability to settle herself at nighttime, and naps were beginning to be endangered as well. I stumbled through my days, refusing to succomb completely to my exhaustion other than using it as an excuse to let the house go a bit. I ventured to the online sleep forums and was greeted with the sunny advice to either:

1.) Just get someone to watch the kids while I catch up on sleep during the day. (Anyone want to come over every day for 8 hours and cook dinner and get groceries and clean the floors while engaging both kids in age-aapropriate activities?)
2.) Put the baby down for naps every 2.75 hours after waking. She's clearly overtired. (She clearly wasn't.)

I also evaluated my personal notes showed that Elise seemed to be getting frustrated at waking up so often, and wide awake when I ventured into her room. Could it be that she wasn't really a fan of these night wakings anymore either? Maybe she wanted a change as much as I did.

Friends, who kindly told me that I didn't look at all the worse for wear started to talk about their success with sleep training. I took the hint. It was time for a little more cry-it-out.

I did have my limits. I insisted on relatively frequent checks, and I would not let the baby cry endlessly. And so we began, with me putting the baby down for bed and then heading out for dinner and a pep talk with a friend. Before I left, I made Matt promise in blood that he would check/comfort Elise regularly and call with updates on her situation.

Partway through dinner, the phone rang. Elise had quieted for a while, but just started crying again. A few minutes later, another phone call: Elise was definitely asleep!

And she mostly stayed that way, except during two nicely-space feeding intervals and until 6-ish in the morning. I have never been so happy to endure two night feedings.

But how would the daytime sleep go? I braced myself, but crying never came (except 30 seconds of sympathy crying when I was dragging a crying toddler out of the baby's room at the start of naptime). Nor did she cry when I put her down for bed last night. Was the worst of it over?

And then 9:30 rolled around and Elise popped awake. Awake she stayed for the next 50 minutes, followed by just enough sleep for me to almost drift off, followed by a couple more minutes of crying that left Matt and I wondering whether she had rolled into a quite awkward position.

The next person to wake up was me, at 3:30. I couldn't resist: I sneaked into Elise's room to check on my littlest. Who of course woke up, but not before I could ascertain that she had flipped onto her tummy and her little legs were sticking out the side of the crib.

And that was the position I found the baby in again at 5:40, when I again fed her so that that whole family wouldn't be up for the day pre-dawn. The must be something I'm missing about how snugly crib rails are.

At 7:13, I again found my newly formed tummy sleeper awake, and we happily started our day.

Naps, by the way, have been shorter now that Elise's night sleep is more consolidated. I will miss them, but I think my babies are simply unable to regularly get more than 13-ish hours a day after a certain age. And believe me, I try.

I'm pretty sure it's only going to get better from here--but I'm equally sure there will be a few more bumps in the road. Stay tuned to hear the rest.


 The story of the photos: I'm not usually blessed with the need to wake Elise from a nap, but it does happen. On this particular day, I mentioned to Kalina that in a few minutes we'd need to wake Elise up so we could head out to _____ (I forget). She disappeared up the stairs as I readied 2-3 snacks for Kalina, water for both of us, a meal for Elise complete with bib and spoon, and a million other little things. I figured the girl was collecting her cats to bring along.

Kalina came back down a few minutes later to inform me that Elise was awake. "That's strange," I thought. "The baby monitor is quiet." I attributed it to toddler error. "Yes, Kalina." I said, probably patronizingly. "We're headed up to wake the baby pretty soon. Should we go now?"

"Yes!" said the girl with a knowing smile. She lead me proudly up the stairs. I knew something was wrong when we came to Elise's room, which had lamplight streaming out of the open doorway. As my baby usually (read: always) sleeps behind a closed door in near-complete dark, my heart almost left my body as I wondered what other surprises Kalina had in store for me.

I think I laughed when I was greeted only by my sleeping baby! Somehow Elise can sleep through a toddler intrustion, but not a middle-of-the-night Mommy check. There was only one thing to do: I rushed downstairs to grab my camera and happily snapped away.

Elise did wake up moments later, and only appeared slightly confused--albeit not squinty-eyed--at all the activity in her room.

Adventuring with Kalina

Kalina's first canoe ride!

One of the coolest things about early childhood is that kids run around unfettered by social pressures, customs and influences--except those that you teach them or allow, anyway. 

 To me, this means that I can let Kalina develop confidently into herself--whoever she's going to be--for a few years without anyone trying to change her. And because I'm there for almost every one of her waking minutes, I also get to watch as my little flower blossoms.

Of course, you never really know what type of kid you have until your baby becomes a toddler and it becomes clearer every day that no, you won't be able to convince her that playing in a sandbox with even 1 other child or even an ant is fun, but that you also won't have to worry about her skateboarding off of a diving board.



Canoeing is serious business.



And yet, we still somehow thought Kalina would enjoy canoeing, an activity we'd been talking up since last year.

Having been watching the weather for several weeks now for a good opportunity, this past Sunday afternoon turned out to be the perfect one. Days earlier, we'd asked Kalina if she'd like to ride in the canoe.

"No, there will be spiders," she replied. And sometimes there are--the canoe lives in our backyard, which is the known range of lots of arachnids. Probably thousands, maybe millions. Kalina knows this full well.

"What if Daddy gets all the spiders out?" Daddy asked.

"No, there will still be spiders," insisted Kalina, apparently lacking confidence in her daddy's abilities to rid the world of the fell creatures.

Kalina kept at least 1 hand on her hat
at all times so it wouldn't blow away.

"What if Daddy absolutely positively promises that there will not be a single spider? Then would you like to go out in the canoe?"

"Yes!" the girl exclaimed, taking him at his word.
And so after naps on the perfectly still, 70-degree afternoon, we packed up a boatload of stuff and headed to the EPA lake, bringing Grandpa along, too (actually, he brought himself along since we can only fit 2 adults and 2 kids in my car).

Elise and I sat under a shady tree and played with the pretty grass while Kalina got suited up in her pint-sized life vest and forgot about her "friends" (Big Duck, Little Duck and Frog) long enough for me to hide them away in the stroller so Daddy wouldn't have to fish them out of the lake at any point during the afternoon.

I took a million pictures. There's almost nothing cuter than a toddler in a life vest getting ready to hop into a canoe. And besides, isn't it my job to be Kalina's own personal photographer and videographer? The girl seemed pretty excited--although more in the serious "now, I'm going canoeing" sense than in the "I'm thrilled to be here!" sense.
And then it was time to push off. Elise and I were watching from a bit of a distance, as I didn't want to off-road downhill toward the lake too far with our stroller, on which neither of the brakes works. That didn't stop me from snapping more pictures. Grandpa got in first, and then Kalina was lifted into the canoe by her Daddy. Then Matt pushed off and hopped in himself, sitting on his own seat and securing Kalina on a little stool he'd put right in front of him.

I took more pictures, and finally they were off!

Grandpa caught a fish, thus saving
the day for Kalina.

I wasn't privy to much of the conversation in the boat. What I did see: Matt paddling around, Grandpa fishing (and catching two fish!) and Kalina being prodded to turn toward me for pictures whenever I held the camera up. What I did not see: Kalina smiling, Kalina happily pointing, or Kalina clamoring to help paddle. I got some video, and pushed Elise along the path circling the lake as we followed the action (or lack thereof).

All too soon, I started to catch sounds of the all-too-familiar, "We'll be done soon. Just a few more minutes," as Daddy tried to turn an 8-minute canoe ride into a 12-minute canoe ride.

Elise in the big girl stroller seat!
It was fun getting to hang out
with my littlest!

And then my toddler was offloaded onto the shore. Did she have fun? No. Would she like to go again? No. A short time later, the girls and I were on our way home for supper, baths and bedtime while the guys stayed out and fished longer.

In the car, I asked Kalina whether she liked canoeing. "Some parts were good and some parts were bad," she replied. The girl has a wisdom all her own. She liked the fish, I found out, but not the way the canoe "tips back and forth." And she's willing to go out in a more steady boat sometime in the future.

We're pretty sure there will, in fact, be more adventures with Kalina in store for us. However, never without a sun hat, plenty of snacks, a stuffed friend or two, and the promise of coming home to a nice, comfy house.