When Grandmas Aren't Nice

This weekend Grandma Cindy was in town and stayed with us. David and I took advantage and went out to celebrate our 5th anniversary at a delicious Brazilian Grill in Seattle and then went to the 5th Avenue Theater and watched a great performance of "In The Heights". My sister and her husband also went out for their anniversary and brought their little ones to my place for my mom to watch as well. The next morning I was talking with Liliana about her evening with Grandma. Liliana said, "Grandma let me watch a movie with Mason. When the movie was finished, she put me straight to bed. That wasn't very nice of her."
I laughed out loud. Apparently the fact that Grandma had let Liliana stay up a little late to watch a movie was not good enough.
I asked Liliana what movie she watched. She told me, "It had one Cinderella and a mean guy with black clothes. It had two Cinderellas and Sleeping Beauty and swimming alligators and birds and a frog." I couldn't for the life of me figure out what movie we had that matched this description - especially since Liliana hasn't seen Sleeping Beauty and had only seen Cinderella once several months ago with Bapa (Grandpa Hernandez). I told my mom about Liliana's movie description and she said it was actually fairly accurate because they had watched Swan Princess, which has several princesses in it for part of it and does have alligators, birds, and a frog that all swim. They had watched it on Netflix, which was why it hadn't come to mind when I was trying to match Liliana's description to the movies we own. I'm impressed by how well she was able to recall and describe the movie to me. She's getting bigger and better at communicating all the time!
Emmett's 4th tooth on the bottom is starting to come through now. Once the two molars and this current tooth come in completely, he'll be up to 10 teeth. He is also getting better at standing for longer periods without holding on to anything, but he's still afraid to step unless he's holding onto furniture or someone's hand. It's just a matter of time before he decides to try and walk unassisted, but for now, I get to keep my "little" crawling baby.

More teeth = More drool

Emmett has been drooling non-stop all over and it is pretty gross. This morning I figured out what all the drool is about...he's got two molars coming through on top! I was surprised to seem them coming in already, but I guess he is approaching his 1st birthday. Liliana started getting her molars right about the time she turned one. Emmett's still about 6 weeks out, and I still haven't fully grasped that almost an entire year has passed since his birth, so I really wasn't expecting that yet. Oh, my little baby is getting so big, so fast!

Pre- preschool?

Today was my first attempt at a little co-op preschool with Liliana and some friends. Kids under 3 have an attention span of exactly 4 and a half seconds. I guess since 3 of the 4 have regularly attended nursery at church, I assumed they'd like sitting in a circle to sing songs and play some games. Wrong! Even though I kept each activity very short and had play breaks in between and offered a wide variety of things to do, it was more like I was singing songs and playing games with the other mothers than anything else. We were talking about our bodies and what they can do. I made up a little song/chant about great things our bodies can do (clapping, jumping, flapping our arms, etc.) and thought they'd enjoy acting those things out, but got very little response. We talked about how our bodies can show when we're happy and sang "If you're happy and you know it" with various movements to show our happiness - again, minimal reaction. All 4 kids were into coloring pumpkin pictures with happy and sad faces, so that seemed to go well. I bet they'll get used to it and more engaged as we continue our attempts at our co-op preschool.

I noticed Emmett's third tooth on the bottom popped through last week. He's up to 7 now. My baby just keeps getting bigger and bigger every day. He looks more like a little toddler boy than a baby now. How the time flies.

Conversation with a 2 year old

Liliana to me: "Wiggle your ears, Mommy."

Me: "I don't know how. Only Daddy does."

Liliana: "I want Daddy to stay home with me with no Mommy. I want her go to work."

Thanks, kid. Now that's loyalty for you!

Lili-isms

Last night as Liliana sat on the potty, she looked at me and said, "Pretty soon I will be a boy."
"Just a minute, I want you to tell Daddy," I responded. I called David in and had her repeat herself. He looked at me with a confused grin. "Why do you think you'll be a boy soon, Liliana?" I asked.
"Because I am."
My only explanation is that she is surrounded by boy cousins, a brother, and mainly boys in her nursery class at church, playgroup, and her preschool co-op that we're starting. Also, her cousin, Mason, had been here earlier that day and since they are both potty training, they would follow each other into the bathroom with real interest in what one or the other was doing in there. I asked Liliana, "Don't you want to be a girl like Mommy?"
"No," was her simple and very quick response.
"I'm sorry to break it to you, Liliana, but you're a girl and that doesn't change, honey."
No response. I guess I'll never know what she thought about that!

Words of Lili-Wili

Some days I let Liliana jump in the bath with me while Emmett is taking a nap if I didn't manage to get showered before David heads off to work. Today I put Liliana in the tub first while I finished gathering towels, clean clothes, etc. When I came in the bathroom, ready to shower, Liliana said, "Mommy, I don't want you get in the bathtub because I want to pee in it." I assured her that I didn't want to get in either if that was the case.

Later, while Emmett was still napping, she said, "I want Emmett to go away forever."
"But won't you miss him? Don't you want him to stay so you can play with him?" I asked.
"I want him to go outside. He can look for his daddy at his work," Liliana replied.
"Emmett is just a baby. He can't even walk yet. He would get lost if he tried to find his daddy outside all alone," I explained.
"Ok. Emmett can stay and play with me," Liliana decided.

Farewell Fangs

As of last week, Emmett's center top teeth have really started coming through, so he no longer looks like he could be Dracula's son. Since vampires appear to be "in" right now, it was kind of fun to joke about Emmett being one of them with his silly little fang teeth on top. None of the pictures I took really do his hill-billy vampire grin justice, so we'll just have to remember how funny it was.

Emmett is getting braver with his standing. He will let go of whatever wall, person, or furniture he is steadying himself with in order to get his hands on a toy or reach to be picked up. He can only balance for a moment though, so don't go thinking he's about to walk any day now.

Liliana continues her antics. She's talking up a storm and parrots every word or phrase she hears - especially the ones we don't want her to repeat! It's amazing how bad some things sound when they come out of a two-year-old's mouth. I thought I had such clean language because I'm not a swear word user, but even some of my expressions of annoyance make me cringe when I hear my little one repeating them. "Stupid thing", "dang it" and "jerk" are definitely not as innocent as I once believed. It's amazing the things I learn and change about myself by being a mom!