10.31.19 - joy statuses

 

10.31.19 - Kid snippets: Calvin's pacifier falls out

Just now I was singing The Rainbow Connection to Calvin and he grinned so much that his pacifier kept falling out of his mouth.

10.27.19 - Witches Tea and Trunk or Treat

real time notes I took about Sunday (10/27):
Jane didn't wake until 730am, cuddled awhile, I felt nice and awake
pancake breakfast with jack Johnson
Calvin was easy going, happy while we worked in kitchen
Clara used the potty, got ice cream
Girls ate pancakes
Girls got along playing together well
Jack didn't have to get up until 845

Enjoyed making Erin laugh at witches tea
happy to win bingo (twice) and get a cute fall decoration
talked to Neil to and from on the drive

Girls both wanted to be witches for trunk or treat and looked adorable
Clara played several games, Jane even tried a few, but the bouncy house was the big hit
Kept saying 'Get you!' at my girls plus a couple others including little girl with dragon face paint, really fun, laughed a lot
Both girls ate enough pizza dinner to get a piece of candy each for dessert and they were psyched
After they went to bed Jack and I stayed up and sorted gluten-free candy from the rest, Jack googled a lot of candy to make sure and he and I hate most of the gluten candy together

10.27.19 - Kid Snippets: bossy 2-year-old

Jane: Mama, more singing!
Me (singing): There were ten in the bed and the little one said--
Jane: No! Two!
Me: Oh, ok. (Singing) There were two in the bed--
Jane: No! My turn!
Me: Ok...

And then she sings the rest of it without me.

10.26.19 - Pumpkin Patch Day!

This weekend was full of Halloween festivities: Saturday was the Pumpkin Farm followed by painting/carving pumpkins and eating pumpkin seeds. Today I went to the Witches' Tea with Erin and then Jack and I took the kids to Trunk or Treat at Arden Church of Nazarene. I tried to take a lot of pictures and videos, but here are the points I want to remember (some of which we didn't capture):

Pumpkin patch (10/26):
Saturday morning Clara woke up grumpy (possibly because she woke up alone--Calvin and Jane were already in the living room wit me). She joined us with a scrunched up face and when I said "Today is the day we go to the pumpkin patch!" she responded "NO! I don't WANT to go to the pumpkin patch!" Of course later she warmed to the idea. Just a rough start for a little girl.

Jane chose three other previous Halloween-based shirts before we settled on the Nightmare Before Christmas one. I was pretty happy she wanted to wear the "princess skirt" (the gray tulle skirt that had come with Clara's elephant costume) all day. It was adorable. I originally was going to wear my Jack-o-Lantern shirt, but it was a bit too small and definitely too warm. However for the brief time I had it on, it inspired Clara and she too wanted a pumpkin shirt. I tried the black Jack-o-Lantern shirt (which is only 3T) and it just barely fit her. She's had it since 2016.

Henry arrived right on time, of course, but we still had to get the kids ready. We got to the pumpkin patch maybe 10 minutes late, which I am pretty sure is less late than years past so progress.

Unfortunately I'm too tired to write out all the details, but the kids loved basically everything. Clara saw the bouncy castle from the entrance and couldn't wait to get there, but we had arrived just after the place opened and there were literally no other kiddos using the bouncy castle yet. Clara got inside but sat very still and said she couldn't do it. Jane wouldn't even go inside in the first place, but just wanted to watch Clara closely from the safety of the outside. Fortunately the kid who had punched their tickets said they could just come back later when there were more kids to model the behavior for them. In fact staff told us more than once that because we were there so early when it's not busy, we can try some of the attractions more than once or longer than is typical.

I was worried we'd wasted our money buying kids passes for each of the girls (events are $3/person piecemeal but you can save a little money if you get the passes to cover a bunch of events--assuming your kids actually participate in each event). However once Beth, Jake, and Hunter arrived, Hunter also couldn't wait to go in the bouncy castle and he got Clara to join too. At this point there were only 2-3 other kids so it was not at all crowded or too intimidating. Clara watched Hunter closely and soon was bouncing around herself, and he even got her to go down the bouncy castle slide. One of my favorite things about this entire day was watching what good buds Hunter and Clara are. <3

Jane saw Clara enjoying herself and eventually decided it was probably safe for her too. She went inside and even though she never actually stood up or tried to bounce at all, she seemed to love the feeling of everyone bouncing around her because she was not a quiet girl: loud squeals of sheer delight over and over.

Normally one ticket is supposed to be 6 minutes in the bouncy castle, but because there were so few people around he let us stay indefinitely, so the girls enjoyed it at least 15 maybe 20 or more minutes.

When we took both the train ride and the hay ride, Henry ran ahead to get a bunch of pictures of us approaching. The kids would get excited to see him and wave at him. We joked that he's even faster than a train because he could easily run alongside it. When the train circled back and we were disembarking, Clara darted off back toward the bouncy castle and Henry was quick enough to catch her before she got too far away from the group. So helpful having him around.

--This is as far as I got recording everything when it actually happened, and now it's a month later so I'll write what I can remember.--

Erin, Jake, and I took the kids (except Calvin) on a hay ride and they loved it. It was slightly longer and a slightly different route than the train ride, and it included an intercom recording explaining a lot of the weird and creepy statues around the pumpkin patch and what they were supposed to be.

When we finished we went over to the actual collections of pumpkins. Henry grabbed a wagon and I told the girls we could pick one large pumpkin (to carve) and two small ones (to paint). But they basically just kept choosing pumpkins and adding them to the wagon as I kept removing the extra ones. That lasted a while, then I let them actually get in the wagon (with the pumpkins we settled on) and I pulled the wagon while Jack pushed the stroller and we all caravanned to the corn maze. I pulled them through that for awhile. I think around there is when Jake, Hunter, and Beth joined us. Hunter also got in the wagon to be pulled around the corn maze.

After not too long we emerged in a playground made largely of haystacks but also with a few slides and tunnels and things. The kids loved it. There was even a small house made of hay stacks and corn stalks that they kept running through - it was just right for their height. There were also some fenced in chickens they were checking out.

By now we had actually been at the patch for over two hours, a record, and I was getting tired and figured Jane would need a nap soon.  So we went and bought our pumpkins (plus a mini pumpkin for baby Calvin) and got our now traditional family photos in front of the Pumpkin Farm sign. Then we drove home and, amazingly, the girls didn't fall asleep.

When we got home I tried to get Jane to take a nap but she was genuinely too wound up. She didn't throw a fit or anything, she just hung out in her room awake and after 20 minutes I let her come back out. Jack scooped the large pumpkin and then found a pumpkin seed recipe involving olive oil and Parmesan that was excellent. Meanwhile we set the girls up to paint their pumpkins but Jane actually only wanted to color hers with crayons. It really didn't work at all but she seemed happy with it and it was a lot less messy than paint, so okay. Clara did paint her pumpkin a bunch of different colors and it turned out really well, like a tye dye pumpkin.

I carved the larger pumpkin Jack had scooped, and the girls were pretty interested in watching me. When I was done we went ahead and lit a real candle so they could check it out, and Henry helped teach Clara how to blow the candle out. She was very excited.

We spent the rest of the evening just hanging out. Henry went to get Costco pizza for us and frozen gluten free pizza for the girls, but Costco was so packed we had already put the girls to bed before he returned. (After we kissed them good night, they told us "Happy Halloween!" So adorable.) We still enjoyed pizza and visits with him before he had to leave.

10.24.19 - Kid Snippets: Calvin cooing

I just said hi to Calvin and he smiled and cooed a little bit. I asked him "Are you trying to communicate?" and he cooed longer. I told him I loved him and he smiled hugely and then sighed, and basically I'm dead. Death by cuteness.

10.23.19 - Kid Snippets: my blister

Jane refers to all Jack-o-lanterns (and all pumpkins) as "punkee pie." She also insists it's not "mummy," it's "mama."

I got a (tiny) blister at work today and put a band aid on it. Tonight Jane was sitting in my lap and noticed the band aid. She peeled it off and was very upset by the tiny blister underneath. She kept pointing it out and saying "Ow!!' I asked if she wanted me to put another band aid on it and she said yes, and once I did she seemed to feel better.

10.16.19 - Back to lab

Today was my first day back at lab since going on maternity leave. It was great.

It was nice getting to visit with Erin on the drive to lab. I had gotten used to chatting with her for hours every week and I missed it while I was home.

And when I got to lab pretty much everyone welcomed me back as they saw me. The lab manager, Angie, yelled "Welcome back!" as soon as we walked in. Several people asked me how Calvin was doing and how it was at home, and I showed them these two pictures to illustrate how it's going:

Jane shares one of her favorite toys - the fake birthday cake - with Calvin.

The administrative manager, Ledia, even hugged me when she saw me. They also had this cute note on the In/Out board.

Apparently today is National Bosses Day, which means Ledia brought in all these gourmet "cronuts" (croissant donuts). There was cappuccino, lemon, chocolate, almond vanilla, maple bacon, and cinnamon sugar. I tried a little of most of them. They were wonderful.

And best of all, Ledia and Alisha had prepped a room for me to pump. They added a comfy chair and table lamp. They put butcher paper over the office window so it would be private (but left some uncovered window near the ceiling so people could easily see if the light was on inside). Best of all they made me these laminated signs to post outside the door while I'm using the room.

I was pleased to see how quickly I remembered the job. They had left plenty of evidence for me to deal with so it was good to cut my teeth on and get back into the groove. I had enough work to get done all day so the day went quickly. It's nice to be able to focus on just one thing (work) and it actually relaxes me because for at least 8 hours I don't feel like my mind is being pulled in a million directions. I feel like I can actually focus and get something useful done.

And it was great sitting at lunch with everyone again. It's one of my favorite parts of the job, because everyone gets along so well and seems to genuinely enjoy each other's company. Gary returned from testifying in court this morning so he was all dressed up, and when he saw me he patted my shoulder and said welcome back and told me he'd dressed up just for my return (haha). The place has great camaraderie.

Pumping went smoothly - no one bothered me, I got to watch Sneaky Pete, and some evidence actually did come in while I was busy but Zach just took care of it. Such a supportive team.

And then we drove home and Erin and I got to debrief about what's going on with lab and talk about a timeline for me pushing to get into the actual lab. She is confident I will learn quickly and she believes everyone else is confident of that too, which makes me so happy.

Overall it's a great job. I told her on the way home getting this job has been one of the best things about this year.

10.14.19 - Kid Snippets: angry meowing

Jane woke up very crabby from her nap. She's trying to tell me what it is she's upset about but she also wants to pretend to be a kitten. So she is just saying "meow" over and over again while pointing at different things but she is completely serious and almost in tears because I won't fix whatever it is she's meowing about.

Update: she is now meowing more neutrally so I guess things are improving. I have changed nothing so I'm not sure what it is that's improving but I'm glad to hear it.

--

Me: Go eat your noodles. They have cheese on them!
Clara: No, but it's not tasty.
Me: You didn't try it!
Clara: No, I DIDN'T try it.
Me: You can't know unless you try it.
Clara: Yeah but I can't hear you!

Debate 101: You don't have to have a real rebuttal if you can't hear your opponent.

10.13.19 - Kid Snippets: I love you. Yeah.

Clara: Jaaaane!
Jane looks at Clara.
Clara: I love you!
Jane: yeah

10.8.19 - Kid Snippets: axe to fix bunk bed

I took out all our Halloween stuff today, which included a toy axe. Clara just came home from school and found it.

Clara: What is this??
Me: It's an axe.
C: Oh, an accident?
M: No, an *axe*. You use it to chop wood. [imitating chopping wood]
C: OH! To fix the bunk bed!
M: Uh sure.

10.3.19 - Kid Snippets: we are just fighting

Clara and Jane have their own arguments. They are simplified versions of adult arguments where they both emphatically disagree. But I don't think they really know what they're disagreeing about or why. They just know that they're annoyed with each other and are trying to find a way to express it.

For example this morning I gave them each a chocolate donut and then they sat across from each other in the kitchen and said with increasing ferocity "No! That's *my* doughnut!" despite neither one of them touching or interfering with the other's donut in the first place. I asked "Why are you guys arguing?" and Clara responded matter of factly "Because we are just fighting."

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, Jane calmly said "Ow."
Clara turned to me and said "Jane said ow."
Me: "Why did she say that?"
Clara: "Because she's hurt."
Jane: "No! No ow!"

I started writing this post and Jane said "Wait."
Clara responded "No, don't say 'wait'!"

And on it goes.