Funny Kids

I only have a few minutes to spend but months of blog-worthy stuff to post, so I'm going to pick just a couple of quick highlights. I've been putting off posting because I never seem to have enough time to do all the catching up I need to. But then I fall further behind, which makes it that much harder to post the next time. And I definitely don't have time to deal with pictures, but please picture two adorable sweet angels in your head, add permanent markers, purple grape juice, ketchup, and perpetually runny noses. You'll have a good picture what's been going on at our house lately.

Kira asked Jason a couple of months ago, "You a boy? You drive trucks?" I don't know if those questions were connected in her mind or not. Both were funny to me. But of course I launched into an explanation about how girls can drive trucks too, etc. All of which was met by a blank stare and a prompt return to playing with her toys.

About a month ago I took the girls for a walk around the block: I pushed Lia in the stroller and Kira pushed her baby doll in a doll stroller. Kira said she was "big and taller like Mommy, and I pushin' my baby daughter like my Mommy pushin' her baby daughter." (Note: Lia has grown tremendously since this occasion, and now she pushes her own baby doll in her own doll stroller when we walk around the block. I don't push anyone in a stroller, but I have to do lots of corralling to keep Lia out of traffic.)

Lia is *unbelievably* grown up now. She is very independent and quite headstrong. She is so, so sweet and happy. She is signing well (more, milk, shoes, fish) and talking nicely too (dog, ball, dada, mama). My little baby is disappearing and a sweet, round little toddler is taking her place. She is a lovey, lovey baby.

I asked Kira what she was up to about a month ago as she sat on the floor picking at her toes. She answered, "probly just my job... I just working at my job." When further prompted, she told me her job was "probly toe jam." (Apparently Jason taught her that word when he swiped sock lint from her feet getting her ready for bed one night.) She got mad when I tried to help her and said, "It NOT your work, Mommy!"

The girls are very sweet to eachother. They like playing together and (mostly) share. The problems arise with Lia when Kira lays on, holds in place, or otherwise detains Lia and restricts her movements in the name of "I just huggin' her." Lia *hates* being pinned like that. (Who can blame her? I blame my slight claustrophobia on similar experiences as a kid [being pinned under a blanket by my brothers].) The problems arise with Kira when Lia wants whatever toy Kira has. Kira (very sweetly) usually gives the toy to Lia, says "I sharin'" and gets another toy, only to get *irate* when Lia then wants the new toy. No amount of explaining to her that Kira herself is the attraction does any good. She just doesn't understand why she must be plagued with this grabby little sister when she has clearly taken the high road and shared.

Kira told me the other day that clouds move in the sky because wind makes them move. I was speechless. Amazing. She asked me what electricity was shortly thereafter. What sort of questions should I expect when she's three?

Lia is so, so smart. Over Easter she perfectly nested a stack of a dozen plastic cups which only stack if in the exact right order. She would look at one, then the next, and put the smaller inside the larger. Then she would look at a third and compare it to the ones she already had. If it was smaller, she'd stack it inside the smallest or if it was larger, outside the largest. That was impressive enough, but she would separate the already-stacked cups at the exact right spot to insert a new cup that fell somewhere in the middle. And there are a dozen of these things, not four! I was blown away.

Ok, enough bragging for tonight. I promise to try to get some pictures up sometime in the next month. Life has been very hectic for us with our Spanish house guest and everything, and now we are building a deck, and about a million other things are on our list to do. But I am cautiously optimistic that I'll get Lia's first birthday photos posted well before her second birthday. But definitely not before Kira's third birthday.

Farshfellows...

...Or marshmallows. However you want to say it. Kira's version is farshfellows. She loves going outside in the cold mostly so she can come back in and have hot cocoa with farshfellows. She says it so seriously, and gets a bit miffed if you express any amusement at her pronunciation.

Kira's into games now: Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, and the like. Jason asks her if she wants to play a game, and then tells her the game is giving him a kiss or some other normal everyday event. She says, "That NOT a good game, Daddy!" She puts up with none of his BS.

She has socks that look like shoes: some ballet slippers, some sneakers, etc. She loves them. The other day she looked at her feet, wiggling her toes furiously, and said, "look Mommy, it's Halloweens for my feet." The kid is a riot.

Lia is growing fast and saying Mama, Dada, Papa. We swear we heard her say Lia the other day. (While her sister is unequivocally her favorate person, "Kira" is a pretty tough name to say. Even Kira said "Lia" before she said "Kira." Kira used to call herself "KiKi" before she could pronounce her own name.) Lia saw a picture of herself the other day, and pointed at herself in the photo and then pointed at her chest with a huge grin. It was a big day.

The girls are sharing a room now since my Spanish cousin is staying with us for awhile. They like it a lot, as do I, except when one wakes up very early and thereby wakes the other. I notice Lia is much more content being in her bed now that Kira's in the same room. Kira says she holds Lia's hand in the night.

Reference to aforementioned Spanish cousin: her name is Carmen and she is a cousin to my Spanish sisters Carmen and Maria. (I swear they only have about 3 names in the whole country they just keep passing around... cousin Carmen's mother's name is Carmen, while Carmen and Maria's mother's name is Maria.) I have known her 12 years, since the time I lived in Spain. She's out of work right now with the economy the way it is in Spain, and she wants to improve her English. Jason and I really want the girls to learn Spanish, so we thought it was a great solution. She'll probably be with us for several months. Kira's already saying hola, adios, gracias, por favor, and si. It's a good start, since Carmen's only been here 6 days. (Kira already knew poco, mucho, and leche from my rather sad attempts to teach her Spanish. She really resists it with me but seems to embrace it with Carmen.) I am looking forward to it all.

I have pictures from Spain and plenty of other stuff but they are on the other laptop, so they will have to wait. Coming soon...

Spain and Stuff...

Jason and I had a great trip to Spain. It was wonderful seeing the family. The baptism and particularly the party that followed it were a ton of fun. A cousin is coming to the US to stay with us for awhile to improve her English. I am excited about the girls being exposed to more Spanish. Even though I'm reasonably fluent, it is very difficult to have the discipline to speak Spanish to them regularly. So it will be very cool to have help in that department. Her name is Carmen and we're so excited to have her with us for the next few months.

Yesterday Kira belched really loud, which to my knowledge and judging from the very startled look on her face, she'd never done before. (Mostly she does petite little girl burps, if anything.) She said, "Mommy, I tooted out of my mouth!"

Lia is walking everywhere. She has it mastered. She started just before her birthday. Speaking of her birthday, we had a lot of fun. She made the requisite chocolate mess allover her face. I'll post pictures soon.

Kira's potty trained, and loves her panties. She is kinda obsessed with panties in general. She wants to know about other people's panties, which has led to some embarrassing discussions. ("Grandpa, what kind of panties do you wear?")

Both girls are doing marvelously. We have so much fun with them all the time.

Couple of things

In a house with two little girls, we have three laundry piles: lights, darks, and pinks. This is not a joke.

As she watched the Vikings in a huddle in the recent NFC playoff game, Kira observed, "Look Mommy. Those guys doing ring around the rosy." Astute.

Lia is the sole survivor in a class of about a dozen kids at daycare. She's the only one who hasn't come down with this ridiculous feverish fluish thing. Some kids have been out with it twice. The teachers marvel at it. She's the only breastfed baby in there, so I credit that. Kira has it too (missed 1.5 days this week) so I frankly think it's a matter of time until Lia gets it. Jason and I were up almost all night with Kira last night, and we concluded tonight that she probably also has an ear infection. Likely, we won't get much sleep tonight either. Awesome. Good thing I trained for this by pulling all-nighters in college.

We were at my grandma's house a few weekends ago. My grandma, who is a yoga instructor, taught Kira two poses: tree and turtle. She continues to do them all the time, especially turtle. It's super cute.

Lia's first birthday is two weeks from tomorrow. That went FAST. Jason and I are leaving for Spain a week from now to be the godparents of my niece, and we get back three days before her birthday. It's hard to believe a whole year has gone by already. What a big girl she is, toddling all over. (She hasn't mastered walking yet - falls after about 3-5 steps.)

Girls are doing great. We are weathering the storm of two so young. It's mostly fun with brief and intense periods of insanity. It's getting easier the older Lia gets. I feel like we'll have it made in the shade in a year. You know, I'm pretty sure the grass is greener...

More Pictures

Christmas was great. Kira was so excited. It's easy to have a lot of Christmas spirit when you have a 2 1/2 year old kid around. She loved opening presents, but I think she liked a lot of the Christmas preparations more. She loved decorating the tree, cutting out and decorating Christmas cookies, hanging the stockings, throwing magic reindeer dust (oats and glitter) in the yard, eating nightly from her Advent calendar, and other traditions. It was a very fun year with her. Lia was about as excited about Christmas as any other day. She liked the wrapping paper and even ate some big people food with us from Christmas Eve dinner. My dad came over on Christmas Eve and stayed through Christmas morning. In the afternoon after nap we went over to our friends' house for dessert. It was a really nice couple of days. Pictures are here.

Pictures I took for Christmas card candidates are here.

Other recent good pictures of the girls are here.

And finally, portrait pictures I promised in the last post are here.

One Kira story: she's obsessed with weather. She makes little circles with her fingers and puts them up to her eyes (binoculars) and looks out the window. The weather is always "party something." (For example, as it was blizzarding out recently, she said it was partly snowy.) The other night it started raining, so I asked her about the weather. She very seriously looked through her binocular hands and said it was partly dark.