Red light, green light

Vivian has discovered traffic lights. And she's very excited about it.

Let me explain. I like to use our time in the car together as an opportunity for learning (when possible. Opportunities for napping are good, too. Well, not for me . . . for the girls. Unless, of course, Curt is driving and then I'm free to nap too. Although Curt claims that I do that WAY more than I actually do. But whatev.) Audrey and I will sing songs together, or play games like "I spy" or "hangman" on her Doodlepro. She also makes up some bizarre games that make absolutely no sense and have no rules.

It's a little bit tougher with Vivian but she's getting there. One of her favorite games is to look for the "Big M" . . . which is our pet name for the Big House scoreboard that we see nearly daily as we head for home. "Bye, bye Big M," she says as we drive away.

Recently I decided it was time to talk about things like stopping, going and the colors found in the traffic lights. It took me awhile to get her to even notice the traffic lights. She knows her colors so I started there. "Hey, Vivian, do you see the red circle? Up there?" [Trying to get a two-year old to follow where you're pointing your finger is really challenging.]

But once she caught on, the allure of the traffic light was more exciting than I could ever imagine. Now she points them out and screams TRAFFIC LIGHT! at the top of her lungs when she spots one. Sometimes it really startles me.

She also calls out the colors when they change. Which is a nice feature if I'm busy applying lipstick, reading a book, texting or some other important task in the car. (I jest.)

So, now we're working on the difference between stop (red light) and go (green light). Unfortunately, it may be tougher to master the reason behind the yellow light. Audrey keeps telling Vivian that we're supposed to slow down when we see a yellow light.

Is this thing on?

As promised, the parts for the play structure did, indeed, arrive on Friday. [Actually hours before the selected "window" of arrival -- thank goodness our neighbor was home.] Curt spent many long hours this weekend putting together the the tower structure that holds the "Turbo Tube." YAY to Tiff for his help on Saturday!!

The kids were excited and spent quite a bit of time hanging out with Daddy while he worked. Curt was very relieved when I took the girls out to a friend's house on Sunday afternoon for a BBQ -- leaving him alone to work in peace. His brain was a little bit scrambled from their constant attention.

You'll see one reason why in this video.

The parts are coming in

When my husband tackles a house project, he does it full bore. Not content to do just enough to appease me (or anyone else for that matter), he goes above and beyond. He rises to his own standards - which appear to be pretty high. Higher than mine, anyway. Come to think of it, he's like that with most projects that he puts his mind to. He definitely washes dishes better than I do. He uses so much more soap. And he folds laundry better than anyone I've ever seen. I just don't have the patience for all of that precision. Now, if I can just get him to pick up his dirty clothes off the floor or put his shoes away.

Anyway, back to his projects . . . I'll never forget how meticulously he placed the ceramic tiles on the floor of our back foyer. He used those little spacers and everything. The lines in that floor are perfect! You would swear that we hired a professional to do that floor . . . and yet, this is the first time Curt ever tackled ceramic tiles. [I won't talk about that little incident with the grout and the muriatic acid, honey.]

And when he mows the lawn, he doesn't just mow the lawn. He mows, trims, weed wacks and edges the lawn. Yes, he edges.

But because he takes such great care with his projects, sometimes it takes all of his energy to gear up for doing them. He's his own worst enemy.

So, it should come as no surprise that when he finally decided, "yes, our children would love a swing set in our backyard," that he chooses to build the biggest, bad-ass play structure the neighborhood has ever seen.

I started my search for a simple swing set a few years ago when we just had Audrey. I looked at garage sales and Craig's list and even found a relatively inexpensive aluminum set at ToysRUs that I was perfectly happy with. For some reason, Curt was resistant to "mussing up" the yard with a swing set.

But this new creation of his sounds like it's going to take over the yard as far as I'm concerned. But I'm totally geeked about it! The slide alone is a Pièce de résistance measuring in at 7 ft! This Turbo Tube can hold up to 250 pounds!

The parts have been ordered so I know he means business. And they're starting to arrive at the house. Oh joy!!

I can already envision a few of our intoxicated (adult) friends sitting up 7 ft high on the platform at our parties this summer.

Be nice to George

Those were the last words I uttered to Audrey as I kissed her goodbye for school this morning.

Perhaps I shouldn't be too concerned . . . yet . . . but I learned a lot about Audrey when I went along on the school field trip yesterday.

Let me start by mentioning that Audrey has been surrounded by boys in her life. Her best friend is a boy (they were diaper buddies together and now he's her "boyfriend"). Her kindergarten class consists of 4 girls and 11 boys. She's even the only girl in her swim class at the Y. (Thank GOODness for ballet and some of our friends who actually created some girls!!)

You get the point. She's very comfortable around boys. And boy do they love her.

I found out recently that there's a little bit of rivalry at school for Audrey's attention. Jason, our wonderful after-school-care provider warned me with a smile, "you're gonna' have to watch out for her, the boys love her." Then I witnessed these little paramours scrambling to win her favor over some Lego structure thingy they built. "Audrey, do you like mine better??? Do you??? DO YOU??" She calmly (in a take-charge kind of way) picked Marisio's over George's -- MUCH to George's dismay.

Then yesterday, Mrs. Magos told me that all of the boys make huge efforts to sit by Audrey whenever there's an occasion. Oh man. It appears that George might be pouring it on a little too strongly. Poor guy. I think Audrey needs to throw him a bone every once in awhile but she seems to be having too much fun teasing him. ACK! She's only 5-1/2!! I didn't expect this so soon.

When we returned from the field trip and headed into the classroom, the kids were instructed to stack their chairs and get ready to be dismissed. Here's the discussion I overheard:


Audrey: "George, where did you put your chair" (flirty, flirty, bats her eyes)

George: "My chair's right here! Audrey, put your chair on top of mine! Right here! Right here! Audrey, put your chair here! Audrey!"

[Without saying a word, Audrey puts her chair at the top of the TALL stack -- not on George's chair.]

George: hrmph, grr . . stomp, stomp. "I'm never going to talk to Audrey again." [yeah - right.]


For the record, I made her apologize for teasing him like that. I don't think she even knows what teasing is but she has already mastered the art. Both kids were very confused about the apology. Maybe I should just stay out of it.

My husband laughed his ass off about the whole story and of course blamed womankind for all being alike.

His last words to me this morning were: "Be nice to Curt." Ha.

(love ya', honey)

All About Mom, by Audrey Waugh, age 5 1/2 (don't forget the 1/2)

Mom's weekend (well, maybe more than just mom's)

I couldn't have been happier with my Mother's Day weekend. It's so wonderful to be treated like a queen for a day . . . or a weekend in my case. I'll take it!

My wonderful weekend began with a luncheon held at Vivian's daycare. I was expecting the usual kids fare of grilled hot dogs and chips or something . . . but they pulled out all the stops for this! Grilled BBQ chicken, salad, fruit, flavored waters, cake, everything! They also decorated the entire place. It was so much fun. Vivian artfully painted a glass mug (in her 2-year old kind of way) and the mug was filled with chocolates and tea. SO nice! All the moms received a rose. Here's Viv showing my rose to the camera.












Audrey also came home from school bearing gifts. A potted plant with some mysterious "blue" flower. I can't wait to see what flower emerges but Audrey swears it's going to be blue!


[For the record, Curt very recently worked an entire weekend and then some painting our bedroom. It's beautiful and I love him for it. What a wonderful gift.]


After ballet on Saturday morning, we headed to my family's house in Ohio for a big family gathering. In addition to Mother's Day, it was also my Dad's 78th birthday and my niece's 30th birthday. BIG weekend! The cookout was fun and allowed Audrey and Vivian a chance to hang out with their cousins. There's just nothing better in life than to watch kids wear themselves out playing as hard as they can outside.

When we returned home on Sunday we were (correction: I was) too lazy to do anything but unpack and head out for dinner somewhere. (In addition to the BBQ, there was a party for my niece at a local bar, Mass in the morning, and a family breakfast -- oh! and we helped my nephew move into his apartment.)

After a few mistrials (geesh - do we need a reservation on Mother's Day??) we ended up at Champion House in downtown Ann Arbor cuz I was hankering for some sushi and hibachi. That -- and I thought the kids would be mightily entertained. We had to wait 30 minutes for a table, but we ordered some drinks and sushi as an appetizer. Turns out my girls really love California rolls! YAY! And Audrey did a number on a tuna nigiri.

She also had fun with Curt's beer. Here's a picture of me on his beer can. She created it with her chopsticks. What a family I have!

I love you all. Thanks for making my Mother's Day so special!

Funny fingers

When Audrey was about three years old she used to say "thingers" for the word fingers. It took a lot of prompting and reminding to fix her cute little faux pas. We still sometimes joke about it because it went on for quite some time.

Yesterday, I heard Vivian call her little digits "hingers."

LOL!

Food, glorious food

Kids have such crazy eating habits. When Audrey was a toddler, I used to be so proud of the variety in her diet. She would eat exotic things like feta, pickles, onions, carrots, cherry tomatoes, hummus, mustard, ketchup. Not exclusively mind you . . . and certainly not all at once. These were just the types of things that enhanced her meals. Now that she's almost 6, her diet has reduced drastically to a small pile of boring, processed crap. The only thing on the previous list she still eats are pickles. And even then, she carves out each pickle spear the way a beaver prunes a log . . . leaving a very thin layer of pickle skin on her plate. She does the same thing with apples.

Over the years her tastes had turned so bland (one speck of pepper is deemed "too spicy"), that Curt and I often had to force ourselves to remember to offer her little sister a variety of foods early in life. I distinctly remember ordering spinach cheese pastry puff triangles in a restaurant for Vivian to munch on once. Curt immediately said, "she won't eat that." But to his surprise . . . she did. Oh yeah, she doesn't eat what Audrey eats.

Vivian is starting to graduate into the phase of scrupulous eating herself, however. Now that she's 2 and stretching her wings a bit she has garnered her own version of picky-ness.

But once in awhile they like to surprise us. And for those moments, I'm very grateful.

Vivian ate nearly all of Curt's Donegal Fry at Conor O'Neills last night . . . completely ignoring her kids meal consisting of a pb&j sandwich and french fries. She also devoured a ton of crab from our crab legs at dinner recently. [Oh joy - the kid has expensive taste.]

And Audrey proudly announced earlier this week that she likes salsa and bruschetta now. Wha? Really? Turns out that her class made those items to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. Cool! I'll take that.

Oh! That reminds me . . . I must get that salsa recipe from Audrey's teacher.