Mama Sutra

AprPoMo #15

Dear me on a "bad mommy" day in the future,

Hey, I know how it can be.  Some days you/I/we just stand there, teeth-grindingly annoyed, thinking, "get a job! go back to work! why am I home with these children? why did I think I should be doing this SAHM thing?"

Well, today was good, the kind of day that makes me think "I'm not so bad at this after all."  So, when you're feeling crappy, check this out.

• Wakeup, cleanup, showered, out the door to the library for toddler program.
• Meet up with our friends.  Hang out at the library.  Come back here for lunch, playing, and a visit.
• Worn out from everything, girls fall asleep quickly and have a big nap.
• DaddySutra has one of his rare work all day then go back to work days (and another tomorrow: fantastic), but I planned ahead and started the slow cooker in the morning, and thawed out buns to bake, and bought salad yesterday.  Yes, a festival of convenience foods.  No, not the healthiest stuff in the world.  But, we all like it, and it's easy, and it was ready when everyone needed to eat.
• Finished supper, made bathtub paint for the girls who were covered in bbq sauce and needed to be cleaned up ASAP.  The had a great time painting the shower, while the conditioner soaked in, then I just hosed them down turned on the shower.  They even cleaned the shower, wiping off all the paint with washcloths.  Excellent.
• Let them watch some shows while I cleaned up and took my sanity break to read blogs.
• Baking!  We made orange coffee cake for the first time.  After making the apple crumb cake last week and eating way too much of it because it was really really good, I got smart and decided to make the cake (for DaddySutra to take to work tomorrow), but also make 12 mini muffins with the batter so I could try it but not overload myself with the calories.  Great idea.  And it's really good, like a creamsicle cake.
  • Not such a great idea: letting your kid (younger sis) play with the baking soda, because baking soda is cheap, right?  And how much of a mess can she make?  Well, she can make a huge mess, and even after cleaning up there's a weird residue on the floor that makes the chairs kind of stick.  And I also gave big sis the box of salt, because salt is cheap, right, and how much of a mess...yeah, so roughly two pounds of white crap on the floor.  Bleargh.
• And then Daddy came home and there was much rejoicing.

Not a perfect day, but we did lots and had fun and I feel pretty good about things.  So, don't be discouraged: I know that day will come, maybe tomorrow, maybe on the next full moon...but it'll be okay.

love,
MamaSutra (me)   

AprPoMo #6

Dear preschool place where I signed my first born up for this fall,

Please take care of her.  I don't expect her to be able to read or whatever by the end of the year.  Academics shmacademics.  I just want her to like school, and get along with the other kids, and not get bullied.  She's not a baby anymore, but she's not very big, and she is incredibly special.  Just wanted you to know that. 

I will also try not to be the parent from hell.

Thank you,
MamaSutra

Toddler Tuesday

I want to do neat stuff with my kids, and I spend some time looking for good ideas in books, on the internet, talking to other people.  Here are some of the things I've come across lately:

• Gymboree book: I found this book at costco a week or so ago, and read through the activities for 3 year olds section (it's divided between 3, 4, and 5 years) and we made animal collages the next day.  I cut out shapes for the kids to paste onto cardboard (from an old cereal box), then got out cotton balls to stick on to make sheep and bunny fluff.  (Actually, my book might be for preschoolers and not toddlers; I'd check but one of my kids has hidden it, and I can't find a different link on amazon.)
• Gymboree dance book with scarves: I haven't officially done any of the activities, but my kids went cee-razy with delight as soon as they got the scarves out and danced all over. 
• Colouring eggs for Easter: old school, food colour and vinegar; I put the dye into lidded glad containers so no slopping while we waited for the eggs to get sufficiently pretty
• Painting in the shower: I found this post at Pepper Paints and we did it one day after lunch when the kids were covered in egg salad and needed to be hosed down.  I mixed body wash with corn starch and food colour, making four colours of paint, then let the kids loose in the shower.  They loved it, told everybody about it for the next couple days, sort of forgot about it once Easter happened, and today started asking when they'd get to do it again.
• Easter collage cards/bunny plates: My go-to activity for whenever.  I buy cheap stickers and note cards and paper plates and have these for when the kids want to make something and aren't so interested in "just" paper.
• Not something they made but I made for them, these really lovely embroidered felt egg and chick sets at Making Ends Meet.  They were inexpensive and relatively quick to put together, kept the kids occupied during church, and got rave reviews from my mom!

Do I have anything else planned for the kids right now?  Uh, no.  We have a playdate tomorrow and next week will be back to our schedule of soccer, music, library, etc.  And I still feel terrible...dumbest cold ever.

Toddler Tuesday

I had this vision of posting every Tuesday, coming up with something cute that I did with my lovely daughters, yadda yadda.  Instead, I dragged them out of the house this morning to arrive late (as always) to the library for craft and story time.  Then we hung out and Helena removed every book from every bin in the board book section while Meredith eavesdropped on the other parents while they were reading stories to their kids (meanwhile I was reading this book which had arrived in the mail this morning, and it's quite adorable), and/or starting up conversations with anyone she could make eye contact with (very new this, such that it feels a wee bit creepy, though I don't think it's completely unusual for kids her age...is it??).

Then they did crafts while I put together supper in the slow cooker.  Then we went for "rest time" (because I am the only person in the house who likes the word "nap"), and we read most of the new library books, and I almost fell asleep but the girls ran laps around the bed room until Helena pooped and I had to get my lazy ass up to change her.

Then we hung out until daddy got home.  Then they didn't like supper.  And then I had that crazy look in my eyes so DaddySutra sent me out and I bought a whole bunch of stuff at Costco.  And now they're having bedtime stories with DaddySutra and that's hopefully it.  Mama of the Year, thank you very much.

I did omit mentioning our little lunch outing because it seems like the one thing that went really well (thus not fitting well with the description of the rest of the day).  We went to the grocery store because they have good sandwiches, and we sat at the tiny seating area by Mama's favourite coffee place (I'm down to 2 or 3 visits per week, and I have decreased my total caffeine intake dramatically, like one cup half caff in the morning and then maybe one decaf in the afternoon...and ohmygod do I miss the caffeine.  Seriously: I have a cup of regular coffee and I'm ready to renovate the house...or something).  I digress: they were very good and very quiet and didn't disrupt anyone or break anything and they ate really well. 

We're out again tomorrow morning, for music and then a lunch/playdate thingy.  If I'm really on the ball, we're going to do some baking for our neighbours and stop by, because I have been meaning to do that since I started staying home with the girls in September.  My current favourite thing to back with the girls is this oatmeal loaf from a Dorie Greenspan recipe.  It's great for kids because it can all be mixed by hand, and it's very adaptable.  I made it first as written, with raisins.  I made it again a couple days ago and realized we were out of applesauce but we did have canned pumpkin.  I think that I might have even liked it better.  It's a keeper recipe; I'm thinking we might do a pumpkin-dried apricot combo next.

In other news, I learned via fussy.org that National Blog Posting Month has now been extended to year round, ie. blog every day for a month, but not just in November.  And March is the month of the list.  Sounds like something I can get into, maybe.  But, I did say that about thing-a-day, didn't I?

Who we are

Nothing like totally unverified quizzes for getting to know your family members better. 
But, much easier than composing a post, which, today, would consist of multiple descriptions of where the children peed in the house (I think that we've had about six incidents since midnight, between the two kids).

Moving on...

This is for Big Girl/elder sister/Meredith:

My child's talent is Creativity.

Your child has strong spatial ability. Your may be living with the next famous astronomer such as Carl Sagan or the next cutting edge artist such as Picasso or Frida Kahlo.

These children can spot everything, including candy hidden behind your back. They know where everything is located in the house. They are great at finding lost items for other family members. They think in pictures and forms.

What is your Child's Learning Talent?
by Montessorimom.com: Educational Resource

Then there's me:

What type of Mother Hen Are You?
by Montessorimom.com: Educational Resource

And for Baby Girl/younger sister/Helena:

My child's talent is Adventure.

Your child has exceptional charisma and physical ability. You may be living with the next great athlete, Tiger Woods or Serena Williams. These children can even grown up to be actors. Don't be surprised if your child is the next Richard Burton or Nicole Kidman. Your adventurous child may even grow up to be the next Sally Ride or Neil Armstrong. Your child loves to move, climb on things, and loves activity and adventure. These children are sometimes labeled hyper active when they don't have outlets for their energy.

 
What is your Child's Learning Talent?
by Montessorimom.com: Educational Resource

 

(Pardon the weird order and other strangeness; the copy and paste code stuff wasn't working for me and I am giving up on trying to make it pretty now.  Time for chai and my book.)

Hurry

As in, hurry up and be over, week.

Friday: still unshowered from yesterday, still in pyjamas, let the kids watch too much TV, pancakes and eggs for lunch (my new formula "birthday cake pancakes," so called because they smell like cake because I add cinnamon and vanilla to pancake mix); I was pretending to clean up, but now I'm at the computer and the children are playing a wonderful game where one sits in their kitchen cupboard (the one with the playdough and cookie cutters and crap) and opens and closes the door while the other sits in there with her animal flashlight that makes monkey/tiger sounds when you turn the switch.  And now they've run off and I have no idea what they're doing.

Thursday: no shower, ran out of time before soccer class; made arrangements to host a playdate (how it went: the other mom and I discussed it, then approached the kids; other mom says "we're going to have a playdate" and elder daughter says "and it can be at our house!" and I smiled but completely freaked out inside because I do not really know these people but I do know that our house is a bit of a disaster, but, having been a socially challenged kid I want my kid to have a friend, and now she has one, so I will support that even if it means that I will not sleep for the next several days trying to get ready for this).  And I was in a pissy mood for myriad reasons, and fell asleep while the girls took their nap.  Things improved over the evening, but I didn't fall asleep until 2:30.  And at some point during the hours between, I decided that we MUST have DaddySutra's co-workers over on Thursday.  Well.  I have officially lost my mind.

Wednesday: the day of the monumental meltdown of the elder daughter, where I reacted so poorly and helped escalate the whole thing (good one, mama) leading to us missing music class and a girls lunch date and me spending half an hour of precious babysitting time sitting  under the covers crying because I am such a terrible person.  Then I went out and bought knives (seriously, I felt much better by then and these are decent knives for cheap and one of my resolutions, sort of, is to start using knives and my sharpening stick (or whatever it's called) so I bought knives).

Intermission: get elder daughter to nap (oh look she just woke up), then entertain younger daughter while viewing as much Gordon Ramsay video online as possible.

Intermission 2: make supper, clean up a bit, set the kids to work on their money laundering (okay, they had bowls of soapy water and were washing coins...I got the idea from somewhere on the interweb, and it's very sort of Montessori, and they're so fascinated with coins; at least they way they're playing with clean coins), go out by myself to see "Juno" which I liked a lot, though I wasn't so thrilled with sitting through a movie with a theatre full of high school kids, especially the punks in front of me who had to loudly give their commentary through the entire thing, also the girl behind me with the cell phone with the light on it that my peripheral vision would not let me escape.  Inhale.  Holy sentence, Batman.

Tuesday: play group, don't remember much except that it was very busy.

Monday: soccer class, and younger sister, after just watching everyone the previously week, suddenly jumps into action and does everything the instructor throws at her: warm ups, chase games, kicking the ball.  Also, after I fretted all weekend because elder sister had been talking about her best friend at soccer and maybe this best friend didn't like her as much, the two girls were holding hands and running about, giving hugs, standing next to each other in the circle.  Very very cute.  Possibility of play date came up and I think this is why I ended up staying up until 2 am, cleaning house because someone might actually visit.

I've been meaning to post all week.  There it is, in most of its wonky glory.  I just had such a need to commit it to words, even a jumbled mess like this.

I'm thinking it's time to change the girls' blog names, as younger sister isn't really Baby Girl (don't ask me to elaborate: I can hardly accept the fact that she suddenly has these long legs, like a big kid, and she's starting to use the potty...well, the potty thing I'm not too broken up over, but growing up already?).  So, I'm making a transition, referring to them as the totally un-poetic elder sister and younger sister, but I think I have their new blog names picked, finally:

• Big Girl/elder sister becomes Meredith or Ellen...not sure which, but it's a nod to Meredith Grey/Ellen Pompeo because of her hair.  Meredith would probably be the more accurate, as it's more a medical resident look my kid is sporting...gotta think on that one still.
• Baby Girl/younger sister may become Helena, for Helena Bonham-Carter, and the lovely crazy tangly curls.

Thoughts?  It has taken me forever to think of new bloggy names.  As my kids names are pretty unique, particularly in combination, and I like to maintain our anonymity, I'm definitely going to stick with nicknames...funny how picky I'm being.

 

First day after holidays

I haven't posted in ages.  I started a great post a couple days ago about treating mommying like it's my "job" and putting some effort into it, making it the creative act that teaching was when I was working.  But everyone woke up after naptime, and I never got back to finish it. 

DaddySutra had a two week Christmas break, and we were all home together, and it was great.  He went back to work this morning at 8:15.  By 8:30, we'd dumped a tiny pitcher of blueberry pomegranate juice all over the table.  By 8:32, I'd dumped a full cup of water all over the counter and floor and front of me.  By 9:30, Baby Girl was crying because I'd snapped at her for digging stuff out of my diaper bag/purse, and then I started crying because I couldn't find Big Girl's second soccer shoe (the good velcro ones; I did have another pair of lace up ones in reserve).  And it's freaking cold outside (-20C/0F). 

Soccer was great.  I thought about not signing the girls up because this time of year is usually very cold and it sucks to get them out of the house.  But, then we'd be in the house, all going crazy.  It was much better to let them run around in a big open space for 45 minutes, even if they really don't get the idea of soccer.

This is Big Girl's third time in the soccer program for littles.  She's pretty good about using her feet and not her hands, but about halfway through today's class, she just grabbed one ball and sat on the sidelines holding it, refusing to play Ring Around the Rosy and Red Light, Green Light.  She knows what they're expecting her to do, she just needs to do it on her terms, so I didn't waste and energy encouraging her.  Once they brought out the parachute, she joined us again.  For the first time in any of our parent and kid classes, she took off and sat beside the teacher, not beside me or Baby Girl.  She followed instructions perfectly, once she was engaged.

Baby Girl is just old enough now to be in this class.  She really doesn't get the feet only rule, and would pick a ball up, carry it to a foot away from the net, then set the ball down and kick it in for the goal.  But she does know how you score in soccer!  She went into the kids-only circle for Ring Around the Rosy, no mama and no big sister, and held hands with two boys she's never seen before.  One of them leaned over to get a look at her, and she gave him quite the stare for that!  Hee!  Red Light, Green Light was probably her favourite.  She ran and ran, and laughed when she stopped.  She even tried to run backwards for round two.  Oh, and I am quite proud of myself for figuring out how to get her to use her feet to kick rather than just letting her pick up the ball: hold her hand and walk with her!  Duh!

Getting ready for soccer: not so good.  Soccer: great.  Leaving soccer: not so good.  Lunch: ugh.  To get us to a perfect three for three record for today, Big Girl had a crying fit when she decided that she didn't want the frozen pizza I made. 

Now, I'm blogging, finally, while they use up an entire magic finger paint kit (the kind with the weird waxy-oily paint that only works on the special, very expensive paper).  Eventually, I'll hose the paint off them (maybe it'll be good for their winter-dry skin), and we'll watch a "show" and I'll clean up a bit.  I don't really want to, of course.  But, I'm glad I'm here and not at work, having to come home to all this lovely mess.

24 for Baby Girl at 24 Months

You're two!  Okay, two and several days, but let's not dwell on that, my snuggle.

1. You love going to the swimming pool.  We started in the summer, did two rounds of swimming lessons with you in the baby class.  Then, on our little vacation, we hit the hotel pools every day.  Now we've just finished our third round of lessons, and you passed the big kid class, first try!  I'm so proud of you!  You will stay in that class for a while longer, because the next level is for three year olds, and we'll start getting you ready to go into the unparented classes, but, wow!  You're so fun in the water.  You just beam and grin, and you come out of the water like it was the funnest thing ever.
2. You are starting to stand up to your sister.  My favourite thing you do is when she says "I'll take it [whatever you're currently scrapping over] away from you," you say, "I'll take it away from you."  You have this fantastic tough, stern voice that gets used rarely, but look out when you hear it!
3. You are making progress on the potty learning!  Tonight, you hopped out of the tub and peed in the potty.  Hooray!  Before that, you doubled over and, I think, watched yourself pee in the tub...I don't know, maybe it was just the sound of the water draining.  But, hey, good job on knowing when to go!  We have your chart up on the fridge, ready when you are.
4. You love books.  You sometimes disappear into your room and I'll find you there reading by yourself.  The day before your birthday, you took off and I found you, asleep on the new "I Spy" book we had as our advent surprise of the day.
5. You are way less picky in your food preferences than...we won't say who.  You devoured pizza at lunch today.  You love the pancakes and eggs we have for brunch.  Fish sticks are a recent discovery.  Mac and cheese, of course, toaster waffles...shall I go on?  And fruit, of course.  You will happily eat two or three mandarin oranges in a sitting, if we leave the box near you.
6. You can climb.  You can get anything off the counters, you get up onto the drawers of your dresser, the back of the couch.
7. You speak so well.  Daddy has been keeping a tally of how many words you can say in a sentence, and you're often hitting seven.
8. You like to speak on the phone.  On the real phone, we have to put it onto speaker phone so you can get your two bits in.  On Friday, it was "Daddy, are you coming home?"  You love our cell phones, and will open and shut them ad nauseum to hear the music.  Plus that time you called our hotel room when we were on holidays this summer.  And just about anything roughly phone sized is used for practice.
9. You have a family.  You are much more interested in stuffies than your sis, and you have taken over a number of hers.  I doubt that I could list them all, but when I last looked at your bed, where your family resides, I saw: your new crocodile, Bobo the monkey (we named him for the monkey in "Hug"), a couple other monkeys, my clip on mini Olivia...okay, I can't think of who else there is, but I do hear very clearly from you when someone is missing.  And you take very careful care of them all, and it is really sweet.
10. Coffeejuiceandmuffin is still one of my favourite things to do with my girls.  I love how you've been so good with our routine of going and getting our snack and then eating at the table, cleaning up and heading out to the car.  You guys are so cute.
11. You like food prep.  We took some awesome photos of you making pizza, little apron on, half the toppings getting eaten.
12. And the crafting!  You figure you should get to do everything your sister does, so I have to find a way for you to safely use the paints and glue sticks and all the other stuff that I waited much longer to introduce to your sis.  And stickers!  You love you some stickers.
13. You love the puzzles.  You are becoming a master of the peg pieces that go into the spaces on a board.  We borrowed a couple from the play place we go to most weeks, and you had them figured out in a day or two, which blew my mind.  You really want the jigsaw puzzles to "come together" for you (haha), but they're still a bit of a frustration.
14. You really want to figure out how to jump.  I love how you try to launch yourself on the bed or the couch (not that you should be jumping on those, but, hey, you're not really jumping yet, right?).
15. You really don't like wearing your winter clothes.  We'd just got you into a good routine getting into your snowsuit, when we bought you a new one (two piece, ooh, big kid!), and we make you wear your mittens, and you do not like it.  You're really good with running around in snow boots though!
16. Your hair!  I was looking at photos from your first birthday (wearing the same navy jumper your sis wore on her first birthday, and I wore on mine!!), and you had a neat little head of hair, that cute little line at the back of your neck.  Now you have curls, though they're starting to straighten out from the weight of your hair, and you can wear ponytails, and you even keep them in.  Big kid hair!
17. You are living in the wrong part of the country to have such nudist tendancies.  Okay, I know that lots of kids your age like to take their clothes off and run around, but do they all yell "I'm a naked baby!" while they're doing it?
18. You're starting to sing spontaneously.  Often, it's your sis that we hear, but every so often you'll sneak a couple lines of something in.  I didn't realize that you knew "Twinkle Twinkle," but then grandma gave you that book for your birthday and there you were, singing it!
19. You have wonderful balance.  One time I was watching you make your way from the car to grandma and grandpa's door, and grandma and I kept thinking that you were going to tumble, but you never did! 
20. You sometimes say your name like the crazy old woman said "Owen" in "Throw Mama From the Train."'
21. You love to tiptoe around, sometimes dancing on tiptoe.
22. You and your sister wear the same size clothes.  There's now about 2 or 3 inches difference in height, and 1.5 pounds. 
23. You have great focus for a wee one.  You can stay doing one activity for a lot longer than we'd expect a kiddo your age.
24. You have inherited a lot of the MamaSutra genes...should I apologize for that?  You have the lack of concern for other people's ideas and notions, you are much more interested in sweet stuff than your sis, and you've got our sense of humour (haha, just kidding DaddySutra!)...you've got a fantastic big laugh that we all love.

Oh Miss Baby Girl who is not a baby anymore...what will this next year bring? 

Mama loves you xoxo

Holy cow

I've been the only one awake in the house for an hour, and it's 9:30.  This.  Never.  Happens.  Our girls are night owls.  Big Girl still (usually) takes her afternoon nap, is miserable without one (oh, how miserable), and this pushes her bedtime late.  Baby Girl, almost as late, depending. 

I had big plans, big plans all written out in my notebook, plans A and B.  And I ignored them both.  We did not make it to the gym, we did not make it to the grocery store.  We did, however, paint, a lot.  We painted the Hallowe'en cookies we made and baked a week or two ago (not real cookies, but clay ones).  Once they were dry, I strung them on neutral thread and hung them from the drape thingies in the front window, varying lengths, crazy colour scheme and all.  Quite cute, though it might have worked better if we'd painted the backs as well.  I think they'll be most noticeable as silhouettes at night, anyway.  The girls are quite fascinated and proud of these.

Then we painted pumpkins.  We bought four big pumpkins yesterday (no pumpkin patch here, just the grocery store), plus two little pumpkins that they carry with them everywhere, and three ornamental gourd squash things.  So, yeah, the painted pumpkins: well, for quick coverage, I thought finger paint would be best, as I don't have any big paintbrushes.  It doesn't look so great.  The finger paints I have are red, blue, yellow, and green, so we avoid the muddy browns in favour of muddy greens.  On orange pumpkins,  Kind of camo looking.  Yeah, not nearly so cool as the cookies.

We had lunch, and the girls went cee-razy over egg salad, which I only make once in a while.  Is it the excessive amounts of miracle whip I use?  The novelty?  I dunno, and Baby Girl also ate one hard boiled egg straight, first time ever.  Maybe they just like eggs.  It is nice to see my sometimes picky pants girls eat well.

Then, because I was too lazy to take them to the park (it started to rain anyway, so I probably would've had to leave the park, which would have been a disaster), we went on a Construction Drive.  My delightful older daughter is suddenly consumed with learning about trucks.  I think it started when the sidewalk in front of our house got ripped up and the new one built, a process that has taken almost two months.  Then she found some books at the library.  Now every time we go out in the car I'm getting the lowdown on all the stuff we see.  I'm sure people who grew up with brothers or who have sons are not surprised by this.  I'm not really girly, I don't try to steer my kids to the girly stuff, mostly just the stuff I like and am interested in, and DaddySutra does the same (hence their interest in baking and hockey).  I think Big Girl has officially passed me now in terms of truck and tractor identification.

We took a drive, stopped off at a few places in town where I knew stuff was getting built.  Big Girl had brought her road machines board book along with her, and would consult it when she saw a tractor or other vehicle.  It was very cute.

Then Baby Girl fell asleep, so Big Girl and I needed to find some stuff to do.  I took out some stuff I'd printed off the internet, colouring and cutting out pages (I found some Bob the Builder stuff; she's just starting to get into that show...I thought her head was going to explode when I showed her colouring pages with the different machines from the show).  Then Baby Girl woke up early.  Then I had to hide the kiddy scissors and the glue stick.  Soon we were all colouring, and I made some little puppets.  Eventually, I couldn't deal with being in the house anymore, so we went on a puddle walk.

This took us to supper time, and DaddySutra getting home, and I swear to God I am never having a day like that again.  No wonder everyone is in bed already.  I am just finishing my grocery list, and that's it for me.  We'll go to the family center tomorrow for play group and I'll let the facility entertain them.  If I wake up in time.  Yikes.

Poor neglected blog

We interrupt this lolling under the duvet with the knitting and the cocoa and the vampire book and the hot bag for your achy lower back while the daddy gets the girlies to sleep for

a toilet break.

The Big Girl is not quite rocking the toilet "learning" lately.  However, she is remarkably consistent about coming out after stories are done for her last pee o' the night.

She can:

• open the bedroom door by herself;
• close it behind her;
• trot down the hall;
• pull the step stool to the toilet so she has something to prop her feet on;
• pee (hooray);
• get down from the toilet;
• get her big girl wipes (the flushable kind) and clean up;
• put the wipes away (this is a bit of acrobatics, as we keep them propped on the towel bar over the toilet to keep out of Baby Girl's reach; so, Big Girl will climb onto the toilet tank and put the wipes back, which is a bit surprising and impressive and scary;
• move the step stool to the sink;
• come get me to turn the tap on;
• boost herself up onto the edge of the counter so she can get her hands under the water;
• lather up, scrub, rinse, dry hands on towel;
• I think she can turn the tap off, it's just trickier to get it started...but maybe I turn it off;
• hop down, give me a hug and a kiss, head back to bed.

I sometimes wonder if it's the little bit of Mama time that is the incentive to come out after stories.  We have so little time together, just the two of us, now that she and Baby Girl are on the same sleep schedule (not that I'm complaining about them being on the same sleep schedule, o gods of toddler sleep...nononononono). 

She asked me, after kisses and hugs, if we would have a fun day tomorrow.  I think we will pick out our pumpkins, and check out the new drug store (it's big!  it's open until midnight!  it sells (processed) organic food!), go for coffee-juice-and-muffin.

Funny: this isn't the post I'd intended to write when I opened this window up.