This is a video of E singing the Jitterbugs song from her music class, taught by one of her very favourite people, Karen.
In case you don't speak toddler, here's what she's (sort of) singing:
Sing! Wiggle! Shake! and Giggle!
I just (wanna?) can't sit still
You know I gotta be free
I got the music in me
And I guess I always will
Hello Elle, How do you do?
Hello Mama, you're a Jitterbug too
Hello Ralph, How do you do?
Hello Dada you're a Jitterbug too
I think she has a future in the music business. But that's just me.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The Imaginarium of E
It must be the stellar array of gifts she received this Christmas, or maybe it's just a strange coincidence, but my daughter has FINALLY discovered the joy of playing by herself. She especially enjoys her Little People Animal Village, her pianos and her growing reindeer "family". She talks to her little animals and feeds them milk and muffins, she bangs away on the pianos singing Jingle Bells and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Just now she was opening and closing her backpack saying "I'm very busy right now" over and over. Then she said "California!" and came over to get some help putting the backpack on. Now she's walking around the apartment with the backpack looking for New York City and exclaiming "That's funny"!
I've always known she is stinking adorable, but I just love being able to sit back and watch her get her imagination on, all by herself. It's a new phase that I hope sticks around for a while, not only because it frees me up a little, but it's just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. She's now playing the drum saying "Ra-ta-ta-ta-tat...come with us, Drum!" And every time she catches me looking I get a huge, hammy smile as a reward.
Sure beats the pants off of the "MAMA! PICK YOU UP!!!!" phase.
I've always known she is stinking adorable, but I just love being able to sit back and watch her get her imagination on, all by herself. It's a new phase that I hope sticks around for a while, not only because it frees me up a little, but it's just about the cutest thing I've ever seen. She's now playing the drum saying "Ra-ta-ta-ta-tat...come with us, Drum!" And every time she catches me looking I get a huge, hammy smile as a reward.
Sure beats the pants off of the "MAMA! PICK YOU UP!!!!" phase.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Snow Day
Christmas with E: The Sequel - Bigger and Better!
Christmas this year was awesome. Just plain awesome. E knew exactly what was happening, and was in a perpetual state of enthusiasm that infected just about everyone on the planet. Somehow, and if I didn't believe in miracles before this might have just done it, we drove from Brooklyn to Kingston with a baby, without stopping, and without a single complaint from the kid. She slept for some of it, but woke up at the indecent hour of 11pm and chatted her way through the last two hours, trying to fool us into believing that she could "See GrammaPapa's house from here!" and reminding us that it was "Cold and dark outside!"
We rolled into Kingston just before 1am and it took about 3 seconds from key-in-lock for GrammaPapa to spring out of bed to greet the intruders. I don't seem to remember them being so perky when I did this as a teenager. Nevertheless, everyone was very excited to see each other and by about 2:30am J and I managed to get the three kids back to bed before collapsing ourselves.
My hopes of sleeping in were dashed around 7am when a little voice announced "All done sleeping Mama!" I tried valiantly to restore us to a peaceful state of unconsciousness, but gave up the battle after an impressive 90 minutes and released the beast to torture someone else for a while. It turns out that grandparents are willing victims. Christmas Eve was a whirlwind of last-minute shopping, wrapping and chocolate indulgence, followed by some baking and the hanging of stockings. We set out some treats for Santa and the reindeer, we read a few Christmas stories and we ran around naked for a bit before being convinced that Christmas morning comes faster when you're sleeping. After E went to sleep the four Santas got down to business, two of us doing the heavy lifting while the other two supervised from the couch. I'll leave you to guess who got the cookies and who had to settle for the carrots.
My hopes of sleeping in were dashed around 7am when a little voice announced "All done sleeping Mama!" I tried valiantly to restore us to a peaceful state of unconsciousness, but gave up the battle after an impressive 90 minutes and released the beast to torture someone else for a while. It turns out that grandparents are willing victims. Christmas Eve was a whirlwind of last-minute shopping, wrapping and chocolate indulgence, followed by some baking and the hanging of stockings. We set out some treats for Santa and the reindeer, we read a few Christmas stories and we ran around naked for a bit before being convinced that Christmas morning comes faster when you're sleeping. After E went to sleep the four Santas got down to business, two of us doing the heavy lifting while the other two supervised from the couch. I'll leave you to guess who got the cookies and who had to settle for the carrots.
Christmas morning. It was perfect. E slept in until 8am so the grandparents were already awake. As much as I had wanted her to wake them up with squeals of excitement, she wouldn't have been able to pass by the tree without noticing the avalanche of gifts and I'm glad that we were all there to see her eyes pop open with surprise and her face engulfed in her smile. She distributed gifts, she waited her turn when opening them, she played with everything and she only ate one or two chocolates, preferring to snuggle with one of the eight million stuffed animals she received.
Shortly after waking up from her nap, the other GrammaPapa arrived from Toronto and the gift-opening frenzy started all over again with a hearty "I need more presents!" She ripped and shook and clawed her way through another mountain, and even helped mama and dada with their gifts. By then she had worked up quite an appetite.
She was the star of the show during dinner with proud mama and dada and both sets of adoring grandparents all at one table. The meal was delicious, and the company was divine. It was a perfect end to a perfect day. It was just the right amount of fanfare, without the overstimulated meltdown at the end. We'll just gloss over the period from 3am-5am completely.
Merry Christmas everyone! It's true what they say that Christmas is about the kids. There's absolutely nothing as joyful as watching your little one light up on Christmas morning. And at this age, it's not about the presents. It's about Santa and furry reindeer and twinkly Christmas trees and just the magic of Christmas. The presents are nice, though.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Let it snow!
Really, New York?
It's hard to buy that tough image when all I hear is "Man, it's freezing! I'm so cold! I gotta get inside!" as my toddler and I are enjoying a leisurely stroll in the sunshine, the temperature hovering just above freezing.
A garbage collector called out to me "You're a trooper! You're out in this weather?!" I thought he was being sarcastic.
The manager at the butcher shop let me cut in line so I could get "the baby home and out of the cold". I graciously accepted the offer to avoid a 15 minute wait.
The park was empty, only two other kids showed up to gym class, and anyone brave enough to be out with a stroller had their child completely encapsulated and sealed in plastic. I wondered if E was as confused as I was, or if she was taking mental notes on parental negligence for her memoirs.
All of this took place on Thursday, just three days before the skies opened up and gave us an honest-to-goodness winter blizzard, the likes of which I haven't seen in years. It started around 2:00 this afternoon and it hasn't shown any signs of waning. It's supposed to continue until 6:00 tomorrow evening. It's kind of cold, but mostly it's windy as all get out and snowing like the dickens.
We were on the road today, and almost made it home before the snow started. By the time we pulled up to our house, there were already several inches on the ground. As soon as E's feet hit the sidewalk she yelled - "It's snowing! It's snowing EVERYWHERE!" She buried her hands in the snow and yelled - "Ahhhh!!! I put my hands in it!!!" I made her promise that we can go outside first thing in the morning and do snow angels. She made sure I knew where her snowsuit was.
Let's show these New Yorkers how it's done.
It's hard to buy that tough image when all I hear is "Man, it's freezing! I'm so cold! I gotta get inside!" as my toddler and I are enjoying a leisurely stroll in the sunshine, the temperature hovering just above freezing.
A garbage collector called out to me "You're a trooper! You're out in this weather?!" I thought he was being sarcastic.
The manager at the butcher shop let me cut in line so I could get "the baby home and out of the cold". I graciously accepted the offer to avoid a 15 minute wait.
The park was empty, only two other kids showed up to gym class, and anyone brave enough to be out with a stroller had their child completely encapsulated and sealed in plastic. I wondered if E was as confused as I was, or if she was taking mental notes on parental negligence for her memoirs.
All of this took place on Thursday, just three days before the skies opened up and gave us an honest-to-goodness winter blizzard, the likes of which I haven't seen in years. It started around 2:00 this afternoon and it hasn't shown any signs of waning. It's supposed to continue until 6:00 tomorrow evening. It's kind of cold, but mostly it's windy as all get out and snowing like the dickens.
We were on the road today, and almost made it home before the snow started. By the time we pulled up to our house, there were already several inches on the ground. As soon as E's feet hit the sidewalk she yelled - "It's snowing! It's snowing EVERYWHERE!" She buried her hands in the snow and yelled - "Ahhhh!!! I put my hands in it!!!" I made her promise that we can go outside first thing in the morning and do snow angels. She made sure I knew where her snowsuit was.
Let's show these New Yorkers how it's done.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Keep Calm and Carry On
This thing is everywhere these days, and it has been driving me crazy. I had no idea where it came from or why it was popular, but it kept popping into my head. I decided yesterday to make it my New Year's resolution. But before I could do that I felt that I needed to have a bit more information. I still don't know why it's popular now (anyone care to enlighten me?), but I know where it came from. It was a poster that was put out by the British government at the beginning of World War II to boost public morale (thanks Wiki!). I like it. And I think that the message it sends is the single most important thing I can do to improve my life and my family's life day to day. So I'm going to hop on the bandwagon and buy one of these posters and stick it somewhere where I have to look at it all the time.
I had a really nice chat with an employee at the Brown Hotel in Louisville the other day, a British lady as it happens, and she said that her secret to raising happy, well adjusted children was just staying calm no matter what. She claims that neither of her two boys ever had a tantrum. Well, I don't believe that for a second - time erases the pain of childbirth, I'm sure it can also wipe out a few of those humiliating writhing-on-the-grocery-store-floor experiences - but I do believe that it can make a big difference.
Another thing that I think goes along with this is doing things to prevent problems in the first place. Whenever E gets into things she shouldn't, I always ask myself why I left those things within her reach if I didn't want her to get at them. She's very good at not rooting around where she doesn't belong. She's not very grabby or destructive. So if I just make sure to not leave dangerous/breakable things lying around, we won't have a problem. It's one of those things that is so obvious, but when you're walking around with mom brain all day sometimes you need them spelled out.
There you have it. 2011 will be a peaceful, productive and HAPPY year for our family. Put that in your fortune cookie!
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
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