Halloween 2009

I am so far behind in posing anything, we have had birthdays and first days of school etc.

But here is a quick pic of the girls anxiously awaiting to go get some candy!!!!

L'enfant terrible. OK...not really.

We didn't really have any terrible 2s or 3s with Aubrey. I really can't imagine we'll have any in her 4s or 5s. If we have a complaint it's typically more that she doesn't listen very well. Or that she was a little too rough with Charlotte as they play together. No big deal.

It's mainly during meals that we're fighting Charlotte right now (though Tracy gets more during the day). She just won't eat and thinks its funny.

This morning I set some oatmeal down in front of her, she smiled, shook her head and said, "No...I'm not going to eat that". Perfect little sentence. And I made the mistake of smiling - impressed with her future simple verb tense.

Luckily she likes oatmeal, so the moment I walked away she started eating it. I guess hoping to eat as much as possible before I got back; when she'd have to act uninterested again.

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Over the weekend we spent a lot of time in the rain (rained all weekend). Backyard, front yard. Stomping puddles. I love that my girls like the rain as much as I do.

Tried to watch football sunday. Aubrey's response, "Are there any girls in this??". Um...no. "I want to watch something else." Tennis is OK. Girls play that. Track and field is OK. Girls do that. Football? Nope. No interest.

More happy tears.

Since today is Aubrey's first day of school...and her first real day apart from Tracy (which means Tracy hasn't slept in a week), I thought I'd share a quick story.

Aubrey has before talked about "happy tears". We've caught her teary eyed watching Cinderella when everything ends well. She's always going to be an emotional wreck, I guess. Too much drama for such a sweet little YOUNG girl.

So the other day at dinner Tracy and I were talking about how girls will always admit to loving their daddy, but it seems like every grown mom we know mainly talks about how she battles with her own mom. Can't remember what prompted this to come up, but I think it was a friend of hers who was having some sort of conflict with her mom. So I said something about how "maybe when Aubrey's a teenager sitting around with other teenagers griping about what their moms won't let them do - OK...maybe THEN Aubrey won't admit to loving you. But you'll know she does and she'll always tell you to your face, right?"

We didn't realize that Aubrey had been listening intently to this because we looked over and she was softly crying. We thought we'd upset her. Tracy asked her what's wrong? "No, mommy...these are happy tears. I will always love you and I will always tell my friends that I love you. I love you so much Mommy."

That of course was the end of dinner and a round of hugs. It's just so weird to me to have an almost 4 year old who gets so emotional over happy thoughts, not just sad ones. I don't think Charlotte has an ounce of this.

Growing together.

Talking and more talking.

Charlotte. 20 months old. She told me last night, "you're my daddy...and I love you VERY much". That's not a paraphrase. That's the exact sentence.

I must also add that as I bopped her the other night before bed I stumbled a bit and heard her mumble, "damn it...".

Yes, we have to watch our mouths better. The other day Jazzmin ran past and Aubrey looked at me and asked, "what the hell is she doing??"

Oops.

Sisters.......

As of July 4th.

Quick note on where the girls are.

Charlotte is grumpy a lot lately. Not sure why. She cut two big molars, but they're mostly in now. She still smiles a lot and giggles and plays. But it's SO easy to send her into a crying spiral.

Aubrey is a swimmin' freak. She decided she wants to swim on her on so no more floaties. She's pretty good for a 3 year old. She dives in and swims over to me under water. Mostly kicks. Not much arm movement yet. But she can hold her breathe REALLY well. She's had a few scarry moments when she swallows water and comes up coughing. But in every case she's ready to go a couple minutes later. Tracy's freaked out because she won't even warn us. She'll just launch off the steps and start swimming towards us. Or just out into the middle of the pool. If she could get her head up to take a breathe it would be OK. But she still needs us to pull up on to get her head out. Maybe in a month or so she'll figure it out. For now...it's a process.

Charlotte is also a great little swimmer. We put floaties on her and she just swims around all by herself.