Three Years Old Tomorrow

Can not believe it. Three years old? Already? If you ask Maggie she says she is "Three more old." If you ask me she is... MUHWAAAAA!!! WAA, WAAAAAA *hiccup*... my baby is gone forever!

I love you old lady! Here's a picture or two from today, the day we celebrated as a family.

A Frog is a Frog

Watching Princess and the Frog....

"Mom, that frog can talk! Mom! Frogs can't talk! A frog is a frog!"
"Mom, alligators can't talk! An alligator is an alligator!"
"MOM! Bugs can't talk! A BUG IS A BUG!"

Got that Disney!

Preschool Logic

Maggie wants to wear her tutu dress to dance class today. This particular dress really is more of a regular dress than a tutu...and given that after the last class the teacher suggested everyone leave their tutu's at home. I tell Maggie that we can wear the dress to class, but during class we can only wear our leotard.

"Why?"
"Because the teacher said no tutu's, only leotards."
"But Mommmm, what if the teacher says, 'No LEOTARDS! Only TUTU'S!' Then what would I do?"

Don't you try your Jedi mind tricks on me child!

About Cate....

Once again, darling Cate is the poor forgotten second child. There have been ground breaking developments in her life and here I am all "Maggie this, Maggie that, Maggie, Maggie, Maggie." Well Catie, I'd like to say this will be a limited time experience... you know, neglect... but such is the fate of the second born. I'll try harder though, I promise (because you truly are one special baby bird). Let's start with this post.

We can officially sit up without being held on to. The sitting started at just before six months, with lots of flopping, but now at just over seven months we have this skill nailed. We're showing interest in crawling as well, and can shimmy our body across the floor if in dire need of a lovey or teething ring.

These two feats are not nearly our most exciting though. We were really showing off when we decided to say our FIRST WORD on Saturday. Some may say it's just coincidence, but then it's a coincidence that has repeated itself about four times....Catie said Mama! I was holding her and loving on her and she had a huge smile on her face, grabbed my head and said, "Ma, Ma, Mama." I'll take it! (especially since Maggie's first word at this exact same age was "Daddy")

Let the Festivities Begin!

Next week is Maggie's third birthday, but the party has already started! Well, started and finished actually. Family will celebrate next Sunday, but today we had our "friends" birthday party. She had eight little kids, one from school, one from dance, one from gymnastics, sibling children of college friends, her cousins, and her neighborhood friend, over for her dance-party themed shin-dig. Two hours of craziness.... and she was in heaven. There was a tinsel curtain and balloons, which were both the most popular items at the party, and Katy Perry music to jump on the couch to (and get told to get off the couch to). There was a pink, sparkly cake and cheese pizza. We got to watch my nephew get terrorized by a three year old girl, and my niece give herself a concussion (j/k) bouncing off another little guest. Maggie danced and played, did somersaults and hoarded balloons, and she laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Happy Birthday Baby!

Words

Are there any words you remember mistaking in childhood - and fully believing that you were saying them correctly? For example... I was sure that Pizza Hut was actually called Pizza HOT, like a warning. And I was positive that a grilled cheese sandwich was actually a girl-ed cheese sandwich (they were only for girls... although this makes no sense because my brother ate them all the time). It wasn't until learned how to spell that I realized neither was true.

Maggie has words like this too. She thinks the hood on her coat is called a "hood up". I can see where she might get confused, I am almost always using those two words in conjunction, as in "Maggie, put your hood up sweetie." I figured it out today when she said, "Mom, I need to put my hood-up on!" Pretty cute.

Fish Fiasco

We have a miracle fish. His new name is Jesus. He came back from the other side today.

Jason has been harping on me to clean the fish tank for the past week, so today, when I realized I couldn't actually see the fish through the glass anymore, I decided to clean the tank. I put the fish in a Tupperware... the same Tupperware I usually put a lid on so he won't do something stupid like try to fly... and left him on top of the bookshelf. Then I started cleaning the tank, made dinner, ate dinner, and then (at least an hour and a half later) went back to finish cleaning the tank.

As I stood on the step ladder (our tank is on a top shelf) pouring water back into the tank I glanced at the Tupperware... AND THE FISH WASN'T IN IT! You know how in horror movies (or cartoons) there is a sudden zoom in and that EEH, EEH, EEH, noise when the "horror" is discovered? Well, that totally happened... in my head. The fish was laying about eight inches to the right of the Tupperware... not moving... not breathing... not even wet.

Oh my god, how am I going to explain this to Maggie? I yell, "Oh no!" before I realize what is coming out of my mouth and Jason comes running. "What's wrong?" he asks, and at the same time Maggie's psychic abilities make themselves known and she says, "What's wrong with the fish? I WANT A NEW FISH!"(disloyal, fair-weather-fish-friend). As I mentioned, the fish was on top of the bookshelf, no way she could have seen that fish.

I quickly scooped up the fish and dumped him in the the tank... then realized I hadn't treated the water in the tank yet so if he was still alive he was now breathing acid (chlorine) water. But to my great surprise he started swimming around like nothing had happened. Admittedly, he was limping a little, and giving me a dirty look, but he just kept swimming, just kept swimming (Nemo reference).

The Jesus fish is alive... and still swimming three hours later! It's a MIR-AH-CLE!

Smooch

I keep meaning to write about this - otherwise I'm going to totally forget it ever happened. Catie kisses. It is one of the cutest, yet most slobbery-disgusting, thing ever. She opens her mouth big and wide and plants a slobber wherever she lands on your face. At first you might think she just wants to put your ear in her mouth, because she pretty much wants to put everything in her mouth. But these kisses usually follow smiles, giggles, or kisses from Mom and Dad. She's definitely making out with me.

Anniversary

Our wedding anniversary is coming up this week, a fact I shared with Maggie this morning. I told her, "An anniversary is a special day when Mommy and Daddy celebrate the day we got married and became a family."
She said, "Ohhhh! The day Daddy was a Prince, right?" She is referring to the wedding pictures we have hanging in the upstairs hallway, the ones where Mommy is a Princess (it's all in the dress) and Daddy is a Prince.
I say, "That's right honey."
She responds, "Yeah, and I was at home, Granny was watching me. I not at that party." So funny, in Maggie's view of the World there is no World unless she is in it.

Have a Magical Day!

I want to live in Disney World. Really, I do. It's warm, there is no snow, it's clean and smells like roses. Everyone is friendly and happy, and most importantly, it's EASY! Disney might be a bit pricey, but oh my god, is it ever easy. I had no idea customer service could be so serviceable!

We were lucky enough to have our lovely Gigi with us. You should see Maggie's eyes light up when she sees her. She gets a little bit shy, we don't see Gigi as much as we would like, but warms up quickly, and all the while has a smile stretched across her face like she's just seen Santa Claus.

We had many special experiences while we were there, it's hard now to remember everything. Jason and I both nearly started crying when we entered the Magical Kingdom. It was all so beautiful and wonderful and wholesome... I know, we're suckers. Maggie met many, many princesses and characters, and got every single ones autographs. We enjoyed having lunch with all the princesses, and breakfast with Winnie the Pooh and friends. We danced to a German oom-pa-pa band and had front row seats at the Nemo stage show. We played in the fountain at Epcot and swam in the BIIIIGGGGG pool at our resort. We even got an extra day of vacation when the big blizzard hit Chicago the day we were meant to go home.

Can't wait to go back, we're already saving for the next trip! Any cousins want to join us? Disney 2013 people, look forward to it!

Airplane Clouds

Driving home today Maggie saw an "airplane cloud" in the sky. For those of you who are not familiar with the term "airplane cloud", an airplane cloud is the line of exhaust cloud that a plane leaves in the sky. I don't know what it's called, so now it is called an airplane cloud.

Lately Maggie has been very in to explaining how she is growing and getting bigger. Sometimes she gets smaller and she bends her knees and scrunches down close to the ground, but mostly she is getting bigger. These conversations often seque into talk of her upcoming birthday.

She looked at that airplane cloud and said, "Look Mom, that airplane cloud is a big girl, like me!" This is a comment regarding the fact that it was a vertical cloud instead of a horizontal one. "Him so tall, he can't fit in the car!" "Maybe him need to go home and see him Mommy." "Maybe him ate too much CAKE!" "Him so tall, him ate too much cake, right Mommy?" "Him have crumbs on him, silly goose!" "Him growing!" (as we drive closer). "I not little, I big, right Mommy?" I know there are parts of this converstaion I am missing, it went on for at least five minutes, but you get the idea.

I love, love, love seeing that preschool imagination shine through!

Boundries

Testing lots of boundaries lately, you can really tell when your kid is doing something different, developmentally, when all of a sudden she turns into a little pain in the ass. Out of nowhere we are hearing a lot of "No" and "NOW", my least favorite words. So today has been the day of many time-outs. After receiving her second of the day for using the word "No" after being asked to do something I could tell I was making a little progress. At dinner a plate of cut-up apples was part of our meal. When Dad reached for the plate she said, "No, don't eat them all!" and immediately slapped her hand across her mouth and gasped, "Sorry!" She said "no", she was worried about the repercussions. I'll mark that as progress.