Coco turns 2

Our Mickey Duck has been around the sun twice.  It's been quite the ride.  Even with two doting older siblings and of course, two doting parents shaping her, she's certainly and undeniably her own person.  And she'll make sure you know it.  She's also ridiculously sweet and lovey and radiates happiness.  She's the epitome sugar and spice.  She's currently obsessed with Dora, Mickey Mouse, pistachios, yogurt pouches, books, and her baby cousin, Violet.  She loves to be tickled, chased and flipped upside down.  She is an art lover and likes "paintin'."  Her favorite songs are ABCs, BaBa Black Sheep, Row Row Row your Boat, and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  She's our petite princess at the 20th-30th percentile for size.  In true third child fashion, she's simply advanced for her two  short years.

In honor of the monumental 2nd birthday, we had a Mickey Mouse themed dinner for her.  We celebrated with MiMi and G-ma and G-pa and she finally figured out the whole presents thing.  She is certainly spoiled by the immediate and extended family who love her and shower her with gifts.  She's a lucky gal to have so many people who  love her and there's nothing like a birthday to remind us of that.  She received such great gifts and for that, we are truly grateful.


Oh, and in case you are wondering why I called her Mickey Duck above, it's because she had Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck confused for a little while and was saying "Mickey Duck."  And because it was just so darn cute, we have nicknamed her Mickey Duck.  


The Cake:

Birthday girl on her actual birthday (day #2 of the cake):

At her party:

Opening an alphabet toy from Aunt Karis, Uncle Tommy, and Violet:

Opening Mickey Mouse figurines from Aunt Emily:

Sporting her new coat from G-ma and G-pa:



























Opening various gifts from Mimi:

Halloween

We had such a beautiful night for Halloween this year - warm, no rain, no sleet, no snow. We'll be paid back with at least 3 consecutive years of traditional Upstate NY weather in the future.

 On Friday, I volunteered in Adrienne's classroom for her Halloween.  Let me tell you, gone are the good ol' days of sugar laden school parties. Adrienne's Kindergarten class had a "Naturally Orange" party.  The "treats" included oranges, sweet potatoes, orange peppers, mangoes, orange juice, and squash - all organic, of course.  I felt bad for them, I really did.

In the afternoon, I took the kidlets to my office's Halloween trick or treating where they easily claimed 5 pounds of candy.  My personal office took a hit and I had to clean it up on Monday when I returned to it.  Sticky notes with scribbles everywhere!  And my swivel chair that I had perfectly positioned the way I like it was all sorts of rearranged.  We had a great time but my little moo cow refused her costume so she went dressed as a toddler who was refusing her Halloween costume.  



















On Saturday, G-ma and G-pa came up to help with the absurd amount of leaves we had in our yard and to see everyone off on their way to trick-or-treat.  We were having a nice dinner until some trick-or-treaters came very early and thus sent our crowd into panic mode. Hurry, get your costume, it's started!  And then the kids moved like I've never seen them move before.  Here's the clan!

Amazon Dollars

Matt and I are the type of people who like to put our own spin on the the traditional.   Life would be much too boring to stick to the standard or status quo.  Our parenting style is no exception to this theme.  Usually children have some sort of opportunity to earn an allowance of sorts but our kids are earning Amazon Dollars.  Apparently, the frequency of my Amazon purchases led some people in our household to believe that everything on Amazon was free.  And thus, the idea of Amazon Dollars was born.  For good deeds, chores, basic good behavior and the like, Luke and Adrienne can earn dollars toward purchases on Amazon.  This has turned out to be a tremendous bribe motivator.  So far, most of the purchases have been Playmobils but Luke is now saving up for a golf cart.  Rest assured, this will never materialize because his Amazon Dollars burn a hole right through the paper they are tallied on and he uses them up rather quickly.  Adrienne, on the other hand, has already learned the reward of delayed gratification.  This little system of ours has been the most successful of anything we've implemented so we are going to stick with it as long as we possibly can.  This "tool" if you will,  benefits Matt and I as well.  For example, I almost forgot my running sneakers as I was trying to get out of the house this morning.  I already had at least 5 bags balanced on my shoulders and coco in tow when I figured out I was missing them.  Luke was standing right there so I said, "Hey Luke, I'll give you an Amazon Dollar if you run upstairs and grab my sneakers for me."  And just like that, I had my sneakers in hand and Luke had an Amazon Dollar. A win-win in my book.

Dressing Up

All I have to say is that my people are cute and full of personality!  Ok, that's not all I have to say.  We went fancy style for Nick and Ashley's wedding last weekend and I have just a few pictures because I literally had my hands full all weekend and was unable to take many pictures.  A quick rundown of how dressing up goes with young children...

 

Luke - at age 8, was excited to be in his "tuxedo" which was really a black suit.  He now wants to wear said tuxedo for school pictures this week.

 

Adrienne - at age 5, if she's not into it, she's just not into it.   Luke was off doing other things and she wanted to be with him and so she almost refused to wear her dress.  She also was upset  because the dress was "itchy and scratchy."  Luckily, she was thrilled to visit the salon to have her hair and nails done and we made sure to tell her she needed to wear the nice dress because her hair and nails looked so nice.  She managed to snag her dress on one of the church pews so I had to quickly remove part of one layer of tulle on the dress.  She could not wait to get that thing off and into her bathing suit for the hotel pool. 

 

Coco - at almost 2, decided she liked her dress but was going to forego any shoes.  So my little pixie was barefoot for the church ceremony but came around and wore her gold sparkle shoes to the reception.

And on top of all that, add in the fact that we had to carry many extra layers on account of the non-cooperating winterish weather!  

 

Luke did a great job as ring bearer and looked so handsome.  Adrienne received many compliments on her beautiful hair and sat nicely in the pew during the ceremony.  In true Coco fashion, she wanted to nurse as soon as we arrived at the church and for the majority of the ceremony that she attended (all of 10 minutes).  We scared some groomsmen with the nursing  and then quickly exited stage left (when the squawking began) and went down to the church basement to play in the sink in the ladies room.  We popped back into the ceremony for the very end then stuck around to wrestle the kids into a family picture with the photographer, who was clearly not amused by the kids. 

 

We made it to the reception and the kids did a few spins on the dance floor (with the background music playing) and then we sent them up to go swimming and had their food boxed up and sent to them.  Lucky for us, Aunty Em played the role of nanny for the weekend! 

 

My closing comments are in regard to Matt.  He had a really humorous and thoughtful best man speech that brought down the house.  He's truly blessed with such natural charisma.  He should've been something akin to a diplomat. 

 

It feels so good to get back to normal life this weekend and to attend to things we've neglected for the last week and a half.  We are looking forward to enjoying the last of the fall weather and then onto all the exciting holidays, including Halloween.

 

Out of the Mouths of Babes

A few funny Coco-isms: what she's been saying these days that we love so much we can't correct:

Mickey Duck (Mickey Mouse)
Mommy Rachael (mommy)
Nigh Nigh Den  (nurse again?)
Fi-fi (this way)
No, Zay Zay, no! (telling her friend Isaiah to stop)


And here she is jumping off the sidewalk on our way out of the JCC:

Kindergarten!

And she's off!  Ade, to Kindergarten, that is.  She's such a cool customer that this transition hasn't fazed her one bit.  She's used to attending 4 full days and 1 half day of school per week so this 5 half days is small beans.  Luckily, she will also have the Kindercrew program at the JCC 3 of 5 afternoons per week for some extra enrichment.  She's such a difficult kid, begging to learn how to read and to be drilled with sight words.  Adrienne has Mrs. Mugnolo and attends in the morning.  Her class is very ethnically diverse and Matt and I joke that she's already in the AP class.  Guess what she likes best about Kindergaren so far?  The playground and the monkey bars

The picture with a pantsless Coco was another morning waiting for the bus.

!

Dewey Beach 2015

 

I'm always wanting to improve myself, you know?  And making us better "beach people" seems like a good place to start my improvement plan.  Well, I'm happy to report that we have once again continued on our year-over-year progress path.  Sure, there are still some areas of improvement like, mainly, Coco's sleep, Coco's ability to detach herself from my person, Coco's ability to behave in a restaurant, etc.  As you can see, we have one specific area to target for next year.  

 

So let's visit the areas that seem to be well on their way to perfection:

 

• sitting on the beach for hours on end - we are just really, really impressive in this area.
• We have absolutely mastered sending Luke and Ade to flag down the Planet Ice truck on the beach and retrieve treats for the adults.

• Overall beach setup: chairs, umbrellas, snacks, coolers - set in a very strategic alignment

• Wave jumping  - ok, maybe not me, but others (I did get in a few times), Luke =MVP
• Exploring new Dewey Beach offerings - this year's highlights were:
•    Dewey Beach Beer Company
•    Jungle Jim's water park (so much fun!)
•    Que Pasa mexican restaurant
• Visiting our annual mainstays:
•     The Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk
•     The little breakfast place about a block away that seems to have no name
•     Outlet shopping
•     35 trips to Walmart

 We thoroughly enjoyed having the Gordons join us this year! We had lots of great food and conversation.  I think my favorite part about our trips is witnessing the shear, uninhibited joy of the kids on the beach, in the ocean, on the excursions, etc.  This was obviously a very quick recap of a fabulous trip!

 

   

The Boss

We live with a tiny tyrant.  Corinna dictates how just about everything we do is done.  To paint a picture for you, I will tell you the tale of Wegmans:

I avoid grocery shopping with her at all cost so I plan this very regular, very frequent activity around when my baby boss can be kept at home. There are, of course, times when I must bring said small person with me and it never. ends. well. Yesterday I was having a weak moment and was feeling particularly brave at the same time and thought I'd give it a go at Wegmans with Coco.  Poor choice.   It didn't end well.  She was actually great in the store, entertaining herself with the plastic produce bags and throwing (and I do mean throwing) our selections onto the conveyor belt at check-out.  She was even having a wonderful time practicing her credit card slides (actually a good exercise for fine motor skills).  The moment came for us to exit the store and you would have thought I told her that she could never have chocolate again.  So I'm leaving the store with 1 ginormous cart of groceries, pushing it with one hand while I hold screaming, flailing toddler in the other, walking about 30 miles/hr.  We were turning heads left and right.  And then somehow and have no idea how, she is able to swing her body up so it appears I am carrying her in a fireman's hold (all while still pushing the cart) and her foot connects with my face!  I walk faster and faster and finally make it to the safe haven of the car only to realize that it was then time to wrestle the angry alligator into the carseat.  I'll leave it to your imagination to picture how that went.    By the time I was buckled in and pulling out of the space, she had turned back into Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide has receded.  And I swore for the 100th time that I would never take her to Wegman's with me again.  The tyrant won the battle.

It takes a lot of energy to throw a Coco fit so here she is resting up for the next one:

She's a little self-absorbed these days, here she is taking a selfie:

Violet

Sweet baby Violet finally made her grand debut fashionably late on June 9, 2015.  If she would have taken a little more time (just 2 hours), she would have shared a birthday with Ade.  I'm thinking they might be kindred spirits.  My kids are smitten with their brand new baby cousin and she's sure to be spoiled by them.  Adrienne and I were able to get down to Corning the day Violet came home from the hospital and Karis and Tommy were kind enough to relinquish her to us for a while.   I happen to find newborns intoxicating - there is nothing like the smell and touch of their skin and the sound of the tiny breaths they take.  Apparently Adrienne feels the same way because she asked Karis if we could take Violet home with us for "just one night?  My mom can nurse her."  We had a good laugh over that one.   We are hoping for lots of sleep overs in the coming years but I think we'll hold off until Violet is sleeping through the night.  As I type this, I'm thinking to myself that surely, if we took her overnight now, Adrienne would get up with her and feed her in the middle of the night.

 

It's the Little Things

I may have mentioned this on here before but I'll mention it again just in case I didn't or wasn't able to articulate it clearly.  Parents of young children are all too often reminded to "cherish the moment,"  "make memories," "live in the present."We are inundated on social media with articles such as "What I wish I would Have Done When My Kids Were Small,"  and "Because Someday the Children Will be Grown."  I'll admit it, I fall victim to reading these articles and try to follow the advice - hello, I have this blog.   combat it, I often here a voice in the back of my mind saying "Experience this and live it, don't just document it."

But because I'm sleep deprived and stretched way to thin for my memory to absorb many of the simple moments that I do in fact experience, here are some things I'd like to remember when once I'm one of those older parents spouting off the same advice...

The way Adrienne says mozzarella sticks...monsterella sticks
The way that Coco indicates she wants to be included... I, too.
The way that Luke, even at 8 years old wants someone to lay with him every night while he falls asleep.
The handstand talent shows that go on in the living room most days.
That Luke counts swimming as taking a bath and we roll with it.
That Coco LOVES to brush her teeth.
That Adrienne has a mad talent for self face painting.
That the tickle monster game creates the best kid belly laughs and leaves Matt and I panting and gripping at the cramps in our sides from exertion.
That Coco makes us take off our shoes immediately when we get home to indicate that we are staying and not going anywhere.
I want to remember the lego guys I pull out Luke's pockets and the treasures he keeps in his backpack (sometimes my jewelry, other times football cards).
I want to remember Ade's love of the match game and how she's "known" at the JCC for this.
And that Coco loves Ring Around the Rosie, Row Row Row Your Boat, and randomly yells out ABC! as if it is a real expression.

I've just realized I'm going to be one of those crazy old ladies in the grocery store asking all the young gals to let me see their babies. Eh, life could be worse.