Funny note from Grandma

On Monday when Anna came here for lunch following a ride on the little train, She walked  by the guest bedroom and noticed that the bed a guest was sleeping in was rumpled. She asked, "What happened to the bed?" in a very concerned fashion. Said guest HAD pulled the covers up--just not that neatly.  In fact he said, "Oh I guess men are not that neat." And Anna pulled herself up and replied stoutly, "My, daddy is!"

Anna's first day of school

Breaking news - Anna started school! (Four weeks ago. I am somewhat behind.)  As you can see from the picture, it wasn't the smoothest start.  September has been hard on everyone, maybe hardest on Anna.  Her sister is getting a lot of attention for starting Kindergarten, her brothers are turning into real little people who now require mental, not just physical attention and there has been a lot of work travel lately -Dave and I have been at home at the same time only 13 of the last 44 days, good times.  

Anna is not that pleased with the situation and she's pretty good at letting us know.  We have had some epic meltdowns.  A lot of epic meltdowns.  Topics vary, but are usually very well designed to absorb 150% of the attention of the nearest several adults.  She is quite talented.  She needs to be carried everywhere (she claims her back hurts) and she needs to be in costume at all times.  She's clearly exhausted but isn't napping.  Her shoes are all too small, her socks are all too bumpy, her pants are all too short (or too long), the food is always in the wrong place and the wrong thing, the books are read in the wrong order and brushing teeth, combing hair, putting on pjs - forgetaboutit.  I know that everything is a phase, even the good stuff.  I'm ready for this one to be over.

Outside of that, she is actually very happy when she's at school.  She's doing a lot of dress up, art and playing with her kids.  She LOVES a new boy named Blake; he's often the daddy when she's the mommy.  Her other special friends are Eliza (who she goes to swimming lessons with), Ella and Siena.  No matter what the scene that got us into the car, once she knows where she's headed, she can go with a smile.  

Here are the outtakes from our first day of school photo shoot.  As you can see, as soon as we got her sister involved, things started looking up.  It's good to have a sister.

Birthday party

The girls, who were born Aug 19 (Anna) and Aug 22 (SJ)  asked to share their birthday party this year.  I happily obliged.  They requested a bouncy house, WITH A SLIDE, and cupcakes that were blue and pink and purple and green and yellow.  Other than that, they were pretty vague on the details.  For guests, Sarah Jane wanted "all her kids", Anna requested "Greta and Violet and Teacher Alison."  Greta and Violet are Teacher Alison's daughters age 7 and 9.

The bouncy house arrived at 9am sharp and we could have stopped there. The joy was intense.  The girls plunged in immediately, the boys were not so sure.  The girls looked like they were having so much fun that I joined them. So did Dave, Aunt Whitney AND Grandma.  Unfortunately we have no pictures.  We were too busy jumping.

 The guests arrived and were subsumed by the giant fun factory.

We had some dress-up.  Chloe, SJ's friend (far left) is wearing my prom dress.  Next to her is Violet wearing my 8th grade dress.  Then Emma wearing Anna's birthday dress from GG.  Then Anna wearing a Turkish harem hat delivered by Aunt Whitney, all the way from Turkey!

 Inside the bouncy house. 

 The boys never warmed up to the jumping but enjoyed the sugar.

 We had some soothing piano music

Then the cupcakes. I delivered on the multi-colored request.  These tasted less toxic than they appear.  We sang one at a time...

 First Anna

 Then Sarah Jane

 More sugar for the boys

 Anna with the guest of honor, Teacher Alison

 Sarah Jane was there too but she was running so fast I got hardly any pictures

 Anna and Sienna

 In case you are wondering, this is what 7 cupcakes, 3 pieces of pizza, 2 juice boxes, 18 kids, 6 hours of jumpy house and no nap looks like.

Sarah Jane fared slightly better.

Despite the aftermath which lasted well into the next day, the bouncy house was a success.  Would do it again but glad I can wait at least a year!

Shout out to Sarah Jane

Today we were at Brady Chun's fifth birthday at their new house in Larkspur.  Or more accurately, Sarah Jane ditched school and hung out with Brady and her other two special friends at the Marin County fair all day.  A very brave thing to do for someone who is not always brave. 

I picked up Anna after school and drove over the bridge to pick SJ up. Erin saved some of the festivities for us - pinata, presents, cupcakes, running in the sprinklers, etc.  Anyway, Anna fell asleep in the car and when we got there she was not feeling 100% her usual Anna-the-party-starter self. 

We did the pinata first and all the kids took a turn but Anna.  After several rounds, Andy took over (why do they make pinatas so indestrucable?) and when the candy finally spilled, the 4 and 5 year olds jumped in but Anna hung back.  Sarah Jane gathered two or three pieces of candy for herself, chucked it in her bag and grabbed two or three more and said, "Anna, Anna, here", threw them in Anna's bag and then went back for more for herself, alternating until in the end, both girls ended up with enough candy to fuel them all the way past bed time. 

Sarah Jane gets the best big sister ever medal in my book.

Anna at two and a half

I also owe an update on Anna.  "Anna-at-two-and-a-half" should now be titled "Anna at nearly three" but we'll leave it as is and call it good.

Anna has met lots of important milestones since I last wrote her update.  First off, she potty trained herself in January in a mere three days.  One day she refused to wear a diaper during the day.  Two nights later she refused to wear a diaper at night and that was it.  Just like that.  She's had a few slip-ups (though only during the day) mostly because she gets very excited about whatever she is doing and forgets to go but in general it was as effortless as could be.  Good thing as her parents were rather distracted by other small people.  When she does make it to the potty (nearly always) she says, "I didn't have an accident Mom!" and when she doesn't make it to the potty she says, "I had an accident but that's ok mom, these things happen," with her signature Anna head tilt, hands on her hips and grown up voice.

Anna can do her own "clicks" on her car seat (a HUGE advance for me) and she has also kicked her bottle habit.  She still has milk three times a day (warmed up with a straw) but our mornings no longer look like this:

Anna loves many, many things.  Here's a list of a few:

1) Music and singing: Anna is a huge fan of singing and knows the words to lots of songs. She always asks for music, Cinderella music in the morning and Sound of Music soundtrack in the car.  We might be approaching the world record for number of times listened to "Doe a Deer."  The other day I confessed to Dave that sometimes when I get back into the car after dropping the girls off at school, I forget to turn it off and catch myself half way down the hill singing "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..."  Dave looked at me funny until I looked at him funny back and he too confessed to (more than once) singing with Julie in an empty car...  Add that to things we never thought we'd do five years ago.

2) Dressing up and princesses: Anna LOVES dressing up.  She wears the princess dresses we got from Uncle Matt and Aunt Lauri every possible moment from the second she gets up until bed time.  For a while she insisted on wearing them to bed.  When she isn't wearing them (I wouldn't let her wear them to school) she dresses herself in several layers - dress, second dress, skirt and pants.  She went through a phase of never leaving the house without her raincoat and boots, no matter the weather and she can usually be found in her ladybug wings.  When she arrives at school her first stop is the back room where she fetches a particular dress up dress and a pink cat purse.  She puts it on over whatever she's wearing and carries the purse all day.  Lately she's started smuggling Teacher Bari's dress up clothes home under her normal clothes.  I use the word "normal" loosely.  Teacher Alison gave us a big bag of hand me downs from her daughters, size six.  Pretty much all Anna wears.  Here are some of my favorite Anna outfits:

This was taken at 7:03am - it was her third outfit of the morning:

3) Dora, Boots and Unicornio: Every once in a while, usually when someone is sick or we're on a long car ride or plane, we let the girls watch Dora.  Anna LOVES Dora and Boots and given how much she talks about it you'd think she was on a steady diet.  The other day I asked who she wanted to invite to her birthday party.  "Emma and Ella and Dora and Boots."  Every night when I ask her what she's going to dream about she says "Unicornio! How bout that Mom?"

4) Reading and books: Anna LOVES reading.  She can sit still by herself for nearly an hour flipping through books.  No matter what kind of chaos is going on around her (and there is often a great deal of chaos,) Anna can simply disappear into her own world. 

She does it at home and at school.  She gets a bit pile of books and carefully looks at each page.  As I mentioned before we've just started reading a chapter book and Anna is entranced.  She has added Betsy-Tacy to her pile of books and will sit quietly and thumb through every page looking carefully at the little black and white pictures.  When Betsy and Tacy's older sisters call "Betsy... Tacy..." to come to dinner, Anna calls "Betsy... Tacy...."  Anna has a very hard time going to sleep at night (she should drop her nap but the late afternoon gets really ugly.)  Every night when she gets in bed I deliver a big pile of books which she carefully looks through and then tosses on the floor.  Her favorite at the moment is Eloise.  

5) Counting: Anna can count!  And not just recite the numbers in order but actually point to things and count them.  I've heard her get all the way up to 13.  I'm really impressed.  I know someone else that didn't do that until she was four. 

6) Life: Anna thinks just about everything is pretty great.  Here she is, thinking something is great:

Things she thinks great includes "her kids", especially Emma, Ella and Sinjin.  Her teachers (Bari and Alison).  Pickle (Zeke and Grandma's dog, always gets a mention when I ask who she loves.) Her sister (she pretty much tolerates her brothers at this point but SJ is a different story.) Her grandparents.

With three of her favorites:

With another favorite:

She also loves purple, her "poka-da" blankie and her huge "mommy bear." 

Despite all the princesses and dress up, Anna is pretty tough.  Don't mess with this one:

She somehow got a second degree burn on her arm and never said anything.  She thinks running into the wall is pretty funny.  When she hangs out with the four and five year olds at Sarah Jane's school she is always in the middle of the pack and more often than not the center of attention.  If there is a bouncy house, game over, Anna is gone.  See picture of insanely big waterslide containing said two year old as evidence of said toughness:

Anna is very reasonable.  Weirdly so.  I'm always surprised when she asks for something and I say no, bracing myself for a big fight, and she looks at me all stubborn and mad and then says, "ok" and runs off to do something else.  My prior mothering experience has not led me to believe that "ok" is a possible outcome. 

One of my favorite things about Anna is that she always says, "I be 'cused mom?" at dinner and carefully carries her plate to the sink.  Every time that happens I feel like I've added to the universe.  She used to eat her food but she is now entering into a no eating phase.  Sigh.  Cooking for non eaters detracts from the feeling of adding to the universe. 

Despite the non eating, Dave and I have thoroughly enjoyed the back half of two.  We're looking forward to seeing what three will bring.

Sarah Jane at two-and-a-half, and Sarah Jane at three, just for fun.

Anna, chowing burrito at off the grid

SJ had a pizza and pajama party at pre-school.  The boys stayed with Vicky.  Anna got a date with both her parents.  We rode the bike to pick her up at the park.  That is Dave rode the bike and I perched on back. In my work clothes.  And yes, I felt totally ridiculous, but Anna thought it was pretty awesome to see us ride up to the park to pick her up.  All worth the funny looks I got on the way there.  We hit Off the Grid for burritos, fancy Vietnamese Street food and extra fancy cupcakes and sat in the median people watching whilst pretending to have only one child.  Anna was lovely.  We loved our date with her.

Disneyland with the ladies!

The girls and I left Dave and the boys home this weekend and headed off to Disneyland for a ladies weekend.  Exciting times!  Erin and Brady Chun joined us for the fun.  Grandma dropped us off at the airport on Friday afternoon.  She took this photo.  I'm pretty sure it's the only record we have that I was there too.

Poor Sarah Jane had a 102 degree fever when we left.  She had her five year old shots on Tuesday which were a doozy.  Two shots in each arm!  Followed immediately by a fever which last four full days.  We kept her home from school but didn't let it get in the way of our time with Mickey.  She was a very good sport.

We hit the pool as soon as we got there.

Anna didn't hesitate a second but headed straight for the HUGE waterslide.  I walked her up to the top thinking she'd chicken out when she saw how high it was (this is just a tiny portion, it was all twisty and loopy) instead she jumped right on.  I raced down to see her pulled from the water by the life guard sputtering and spitting, no idea what was up and down.  I thought we were going to need some major damage control but as soon as she got her feet under her, she headed right back for the stairs.  Pretty impressive for two.

 The moms enjoyed the pool too.

 Saturday morning Erin arranged for us to have breakfast with the characters.  Micky, Minnie, Goofy, Daisy and Pluto were there.  SJ was not a fan until I revealed that there were people inside the costumes.  At that point she relaxed enough to agree to a picture. 

 Anna thought it was pretty magical.  Here she is seeing Goofy for the first time.

 One happy kid.

Once we got in the park we bought autograph books and waited in a LONG line to meet the princesses.  It was SO worth it.

 First the girls met Arial, Belle and Tiana.  We got our books signed and took pictures. 

Then we went to the princess show and learned how to do a princess dance, curtsey and dance around a May Pole.  At the end of the show the mommies in the know knew to wait around for about 10 mintues for a meet and greet with the Princesses who had been in the show.  I am not a mommy in the know but I was traveling with one.

Cinderella was the highlight.  As far as these ladies can tell they are taking a picture with the real thing. The actual lady who lost her slipper.  You are witnessing an actual magic moment.  Disneyland - the happiest place on earth.  For real.  Disney Princesses are not really my cup of tea.  I'd rather not have my little girls think the secret to life is looking beautiful and waiting for some handsome stranger to come rescue them with a kiss.  That said, I wouldn't have traded this joy for anything.

After the princesses, we did the usual things - waiting in line, a ride, waiting in line, a ride, etc.  Brady who loves Starwars, got her Jedi training and battled Darth Vadar on stage.  That was pretty cool.  We got hats, we watched the parade (my favorite!) and we pushed it way too long, returning to the hotel with three very tired and fully sugared little girls at 9:30.  Worth every minute.   Next time I'll bring a double stroller but other than that, full success.  Added bonus: Both girls seemed to have kicked their four-bottle-a-day habit.  I would have flown to Cincinnati and sat in a Motel 6 if I knew I could get that done in a weekend!