Wade got me a new iPod Shuffle for Christmas so we gave my old one to Hayley.  Kate would not be left out, so Wade gave her an old MP3 player he got for free from work.  But instead of calling her player an “iPod,” she calls it an “ear-pod.”  She’ll say, “Can I listen to my ear-pod?”

Another funny thing Kate says is “lasterday.”  We think it must be a combination of “last night” and “yesterday,” as in, “Lasterday, I took a bubble bath.”

Hayley continues to do well in school and Kate continues to progress with her potty training.  Other than that, there isn’t much news.  We’re looking forward to seeing everyone back East over the summer!

So Kate has a little more free space in her room now and feels proud that she sleeps in a big bed.  On a similar note, she didn’t want to sit in her booster seat at the kitchen table tonight at dinner.  Somebody stop her–she wants to grow up too fast!

Hayley has been most affected by this loss because it is her first real brush with death (that she can remember).  The death of a beloved pet is hard on anyone, but it is especially difficult for a child who cannot understand why it has happened, why she just can’t have her kitty back.  Hayley cried off and on all day in school, and she wrote this on the back of one of her coloring papers (this is verbatim, and spelled the way she wrote it):

“We loved Rod.  We liked Rod.  We cerd for Rod.  We fed Rod.  We peted Rod.  We loved Rod so muh.”

Poor Hayley.

Since Kate turned two on November 1st, she has continued to make progress with her speech and with potty training.  Wade and I have noticed that Kate doesn’t really stop talking from the moment she wakes up until the time she goes to sleep.  She pretty much has a constant running commentary going on about what she’s doing or what’s going on around her.  And she’s started the “repeating-thing” that we remember from Hayley’s younger days–she gets stuck on one thought and says it over and over again or asks for something about twenty times.  We say, “Okay, Kate, we heard you.”  The great thing is that she can communicate really well with us, so we usually know what she wants or how she feels because she can tell us.  But we also expect that that gives her less excuses to be “two” by throwing tantrums and whining.  If she doesn’t get her way, sometimes she starts the water-works and drops to the floor.  We immediately say, “You’re certainly not getting what you want if you do that.”  Overall, she’s pretty well-behaved and doesn’t have too many little fits.

She says quite a lot of things that crack us up.  When she’s excited she says, “Ip Ip Er-Yay!” (translation: Hip Hip Hooray).  And yesterday when Wade asked her to say it, she said, “I said that <i>earlier</i>.”  I always think it’s cute when she sees our President’s picture somewhere and says, “Barack Obama!”  She also talks to the t.v., especially when she watches Dora or Diego.  She gets very animated when Swiper the fox comes on, actually going up to the t.v. and putting her hand over him, trying to make him go away.  “I told Swiper don’t you dare do that!”

Kate’s getting a little pickier with her eating.  She would love to eat candy all day if I would let her.  But she’s still much better than Hayley’s ever been about eating fruit.  Kate loves any kind of berries, especially blueberries.  It’s often hard to get her to eat her dinner, though part of that is because she doesn’t stop talking long enough to chew.

Recently, Kate’s really been into puzzles.  We have a number of puzzles in a little cabinet in the hall and she will open the door and get one and want someone to sit on the office floor and complete it with her.  And as soon as it’s done, she picks up all the pieces, puts them back in the box, takes it back to the cabinet, and gets another one.  I think we did seven or eight puzzles this morning, some of them with 100 pieces.

Kate’s been peeing and sometimes pooping in her potty over the last few months, but for about the last week or so, I’ve been letting her go without a diaper at home (a lot of times she takes it off herself).  She does really well when she has a naked bottom–she runs right to the potty, pees or poops, wipes herself, and throws the toilet paper into the toilet.  But if I let her wear underwear–which she likes to do–she occasionally has accidents in them.  Thankfully, the weather’s warm enough here that she can run around half-dressed and it doesn’t matter.  Twice, first thing in the morning, we have found her completely stripped, standing up in her crib, waiting to use the potty.  She’s a funny kid.

Our Hayley is growing up so fast, getting taller and learning to read.  She does a great job sounding out words and even surprised Wade one night when she read the words on his t-shirt, even the word “computer.”  She loves school and was quite upset recently when she had to miss a few days due to an ear infection.  She never had an ear infection until last November and now she’s had two in three months.  Thank you, public school system.  And poor Kate has been sick a lot this school year, catching whatever germs Hayley brings home.

After wanting one for years, Hayley finally had a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese’s last month.  She invited all the kids from her class, a couple of kids from the soccer team, and a little girl on our street who rides the school bus with her.  Including a few younger siblings, we had a total of about twelve kids at the party.  And Hayley seemed to have a great time.  The kids played, ate pizza, were serenaded by Chuck E. himself, had cake and ice cream, and Hayley opened her presents.  Then they played some more.  Kate wasn’t really big enough to do much besides going up through the tunnels and down the slide, but she sure enjoyed that (that’s another cute thing she says: “I sure liked that” or “I sure want some of that”).

So, Hayley is six now, and she really loves to draw and color, she still LOVES t.v. and movies (“Kung Fu Panda” has been her current favorite for the last six months), and playing her Nintendo DS (mostly a Kung Fu Panda game).  She likes going with her Daddy when he has Comedy Sportz shows or practice.  She likes being read to and recognizing her “popcorn words” from school (short, simple words like “can” or “like” that she has learned to recognize by sight) in the books we read.

We had a nice, though brief, visit with family in Virginia over Christmas.  We flew into Raleigh on Christmas day, rented a car, and drove to Kenbridge that night.  We spent two nights with Aunt Beth, Uncle Tony, Ashley, and Blake.  The girls really liked seeing their cousins again.  Then we saw Aunt Jenny, Grandma and Granddaddy Estes, Great-Uncles Randy and Buddy, and cousin Tessa over the weekend.  We spent Monday with Grandma Queen and Bill, and Tuesday with Grandpa and Lele.  The only blemish on the trip was some sort of stomach bug that Kate got, causing her to vomit about five times on Saturday and once on Monday, and to have diarrhea off and on for several days.  It took nearly two weeks for her little digestive system to get back to normal.  She was pretty scared when she was throwing up because she didn’t remember that ever happening before and she didn’t understand what was going on.  Of course, she’s probably forgotten about it again by now…

Well, that’s all for now.  Again, I’m sorry about the long time between posts, and I will try to be better about updating here.  Thanks for reading!

“It’s a monkey, Mama, it’s a monkey!”

I can only hope the delivery man could not understand her.  He didn’t seem to have a reaction to what she said and I ignored her.  (The poor man was not good-looking, but I don’t think he looked that much like a monkey.)

You just never know what’s going to come out of your kids’ mouths and how embarrassed it will make you.

The other day, Grandma Queen’s iPod was sitting on the end table by the couch.  Kate tried to get it, but I told her that she couldn’t play with that, it was Grandma’s.  Kate said, very seriously, “If it’s Grandma’s, it’s mine.”  That really cracked me up.

This morning, like nearly every morning, especially since Halloween, Kate wanted some candy.  She knows she can’t have candy before breakfast, but she always asks anyway.  She took my hands and said, again seriously, “Can I have some candy?  Don’t say no.  Let me have some candy.”  It’s hard to say no to those blue eyes, and it’s even harder not to chew the insides of my cheeks to pieces as I fight not to laugh at what she says.

Last week, Hayley got the sniffles and this morning, Kate woke up with a runny nose again.  Argh.  Thank you public school system.

The only upside to Kate being sick so much now is that she probably won’t get sick as much when SHE goes to school.  For now, we’ll have to keep plenty of lotion tissues and chicken noodle soup on hand.

Since she was about three, Hayley has taken soccer classes but the program she was in didn’t focus on any real skills at first.  Within the last year, they focused a little more on skills but they still never played real games.  They would divide the class up into two teams and basically just throw the ball into the middle of the group and let them have at it.  It was fun for the kids, and good exercise, but not much team-player preparation.  However, they were 3-, 4-, & 5-year olds, and I suppose the coaches did what was appropriate for those age groups.

Hayley had one soccer practice this past week where they dribbled the ball and took some shots on goal.  Then today, her team and another team (of 5- & 6-year-olds) squared off against each other in what was pretty close to a real game.  There were no goalies, but they had a referee, two goals, two teams, and they lined up four kids from each team in the center circle, then had one kid kick the ball to start play.  Each team tried to get the ball to their goal and, overall, I thought all the kids did a decent job.  Hayley’s team scored early on, but that would be the last goal for them.  Enter “Pele.”

One little boy on the opposing team was almost unstoppable.  If this kid got the ball, he would tear down the field and score.  I stopped counting after his sixth goal in just a few minutes.  Finally, the coach of his team called for substitutions because she could see where this was going.  That meant that Hayley got swapped out too, but they continued to sub the players in and out throughout the game so Hayley played about three or four times.

I happened to be sitting next to little Pele’s family (btw, this kid and his folks were white–I’m not making fun of Hispanics, I’m just referencing the famous soccer player, Edson Arantes Do Nascimento), consisting of his parents, his younger brother, and a set of grandparents.  The grandparents and the mom all were wearing red shirts and khaki shorts, in spirit of the team’s red jerseys, I can only assume.  Little Brother wasn’t really interested in Pele’s game, so Grandma had him on her lap trying to keep him entertained.  Dad was standing by with the camcorder.  Every time little Pele scored a goal, he would look toward his family and punch his fist in the air triumphantly.  The family would wave back, chuckling superciliously.

I know it’s probably difficult to make a little kid understand about being part of a team because at this age, they only DO want to score goals.  They even steal the ball from their own teammates.  Hayley was disappointed that she didn’t score a goal, but we praised her for the effort she made and for her numerous blocked shots (she kept Pele from scoring at least twice).  I hope that I can make my child understand in the future that if she is playing a team sport, she needs to be part of the team and not try to take all the glory for herself.

Was it a little bit mean of me to laugh on the inside when little Pele tripped on the ball five feet from the goal and ate some turf?  Perhaps.  His parents should be proud of him for being a good goal scorer; but I believe they have some work ahead of them in the future in helping him understand what it means to help out your team and not just yourself.

We are very proud of Hayley for playing well in her first game.  She came very close to scoring a goal and, like I mentioned previously, stopped several shots.  Hayley likes playing goalie with her Daddy at home, but they don’t appear to do that at this age.  Perhaps in another year or two she’ll have a chance to play goalie in a real game, if she still wants to.

It was a smaller-scale circus than, say, a Ringling Brothers circus but I think the girls enjoyed it just the same.  Before the actual circus commenced, they had pony and elephant rides, bounce houses, and other attractions, all available for a nominal fee of course.  We didn’t have time before the start of the circus to do any of the extra stuff, so we got the girls cotton candy and found our seats (Kate had been asking for cotton candy and popcorn for days, ever since we told her we were going to the circus).  We saw the standard circus acts–elephants, tigers, trapeeze artists, clowns, daredevils, etc.  I think we were all entertained.

Then during “half-time,” we went down to the floor to let the girls ride an elephant.  I had no idea I would have to ride it too!  Since Kate was so little, they made me sit behind her.  Um, I actually rode on an elephant probably twenty years ago but I didn’t remember how weird it feels.  There were about six or seven kids plus me on the back of this poor animal and I was on the very back, right above her hips, swaying from side to side as the elephant walked.  I’m not too keen on heights.  I’ve ridden a horse before too and I definitely prefer the horse.

We returned to our seats for the second half of the show.  Hayley covered her ears during the loud dirt-bikes-going-round-in-round-in-a-giant-metal-ball act, but she liked when “Cannonball” Smith was shot from his cannon.

When we were leaving after the show, Hayley said, “I’d never been to a circus before, but I think I’d like to go again.”

Well, Kate wanted to wear them as soon as we got home.  I let her since it was pretty close to bedtime and we would have to put her back in a diaper shortly.

The following day, she wanted to wear her underwear again.  Being a sucker, and feeling sorry for her because she was sick, I let her wear a pair again.  About 30 minutes later, she went to her potty, pulled down her panties and peed, much like Hayley and I had showed her how to do the previous night.  What a big girl!  I thought.  Wow, this potty training stuff is easier than I remember…

How wrong I can be.

I was busy doing housework and I heard Kate go into her bathroom again.  I went in to discover poop everywhere–in her panties, on her potty, on her legs, on the floor.  She had begun to go in her panties and tried to make it to the bathroom but in pulling her panties off, she just smeared the poop all over.  Oh, boy.  I couldn’t be mad at her, though–she had made a valiant effort.

After cleaning up the mess, I once again relented to letting her wear another pair of panties (thank goodness for the 7-pack).  But after two more accidents (both pee, thankfully), Mommy had had enough for one day and it was back to diapers.

Of course, what I should have done was purchase some Pull-Ups for her to use before real panties, and that’s what I’ll be doing this weekend.  I don’t want to discourage her desire to use the potty but I also don’t want to spend my entire day cleaning up mess after mess and washing out countless pairs of underwear.  I now realize that Kate can’t yet distinguish the feeling of the diaper versus the underwear.  If she’s totally naked on her bottom half, she’s nearly accident-free; she just runs right into the bathroom when she has to go and goes.  But I think having something on her bottom confuses her right now.  Which is why I’m hoping the Pull-Ups won’t be too much like diapers for her.  We’ll just have to try them and see.

Either way, she’s not even two years old yet, so I’m not expecting her to be potty-trained too quickly.  She’s already way ahead of where Hayley was at her age, and Hayley was totally day-trained by 2 1/2.