John Mayer was FREAKING AWESOME.  It was the best concert I’ve ever been to and we had absolutely fantastic seats thanks to Keith’s friends Amy & John.  The rest of the trip was equally as fantastic….the best birthday/christmas/birthday/christmas present ever I think!

Claire really surprised me today when she announced that she wanted to play up in her room with her new dolly that Grammy bought her at Target today.  She’s never wanted to play in her room by herself, but I told her it was ok.  In the 10 minutes she was upstairs, she came down no less than 10 times to tell me/ask me something.  And shouted a few things from the top of the stairs.  One of the things she announced is that she “cleaned her room” (I haven’t checked it out yet for validity) and that she had to go potty, to which I told her just to go.  After I heard the toilet flush, she announced she wanted to come downstairs and watch Diego with Madeline (a good thing, since I need to cook dinner).  She stood at the gate, ready to be let into the living room looking like this:

I asked for an explanation as to why she was wearing my glasses and she said “Silly Mommy, my baby needed me to see so I could feed her”

Go figure.  I guess Claire was full of surprises today.

Jonathan’s Dad and Uncle have be vising from North Carolina this week.  They brought with them some treasures from Jonathan’s childhood, including this bamboo flute.  Claire has claimed it for her own and refers to it as “her accordion”.  When I caught her cuddled up with it on the couch this morning, I took this picture:

She informed me “Wow Mom, that is REALLY REALLY Totally Cool that you took a picture of me with my new new favorite accordion”.

Claire says the most hysterical things.  I suppose she’s the age of having very little filter and a LOT to say and a lot to ask about.  It’s totally endearing and totally obnoxious all at the same time.

Like today…… she told someone at St. Pius a knock knock joke.  It went like this.

C:  Knock Knock

P:  Who’s there?

C:  Um. um. um, well, um. a hey….where did you get that sticker?

P:  It’s not a sticker, it’s a Valentine

C:  Can I see it?

P:  Sure.  What about the knock knock joke?

C:  Um wait, who’s this on the valentine sticker?

P:  It’s Pooh.  What about the joke?

C:  Ohhhhhhhhh yeaaaah.  Knock Knock

P:  Who’s there?

C:  Orange

P:  Orange who?

C:  Do you want a loaf of bread banana?  (she breaks into hysterical laughter)

Today, she also has asked me “why” approximately 54 times (I tried to keep count, but I lost count somewhere in Barnes and Noble while Madeline was screaming “Choo Choo” and trying to escape the stroller to get the train set), and let me know that her best friend is named Chia and lives in a tree with the yellow birds and the dinosaurs.

Hmm.

If adults had days like this, they would ask what we are on.

Instead of writing an incredibly boring narrative trying to explain where the heck we’ve been in the last 2 weeks, I thought I’d share it via photos.

Madeline has a BIG drink. (don’t worry friends, it’s water)

Amanda rocked the house as Gabriella Montez in High School Musical

“Mommy, I’m doing my ‘nastics’ in here.  Is this too dangerous for Madeline?”

(well at least she asked)

Cookie visits!  We have a great time, with the exception of the worst concert ever (at least the people sitting in front of us were nice).  He taught Claire how to ride a bike and we only had a teensy bit of medical drama (everyone is fine!)

I also finished 2 knitting project which I can’t post here until a reader receives them.

We’re back with a vengeance now!

…in the other room.  I was doing dishes and the girls were in the family room.  Since we weren’t home for the majority of the day, I never did open the blinds.

Usually, quiet is a bad thing.  I peeked around the corner and saw this:

I asked Claire what they were doing and she said “playing nap time”.

Cool.

I’ve been struggling with what activities to do with Claire that stimulate her little mind . She really thrives on structure and being that she’s been in child care/preschool her entire life, this being home with mom routine just isn’t working for her. So we’ve started to do a specialized “learning activity” every day during Madeline’s nap. A homeschooler friend recommended the book Teach Your Children To Read in 100 Easy Lessons. The name of the book is pretty cheesy but the content is great. We’ve been doing lessons this week and Claire is taking really well to it. It’s a phonics based approach, which is a challenge for me to teach since I was never very good at phonics. Anyway, 5 lessons down and she knows the sounds for M, A, S and can recognize them in words and can associate them together….like…am, as, ma. Pretty cool.

This was our art activity for the morning. And now we have a lovely gallery in our sunroom of her very prolific art work.

On the Madeline front…it turns out her saying “A Potty” all the time really is a request to go to the potty. Last night she said it about 80 times, I checked her diaper and it was dry, and I put her on the potty….and she went! Claire and I did a happy dance for her in the bathroom. She went a little again this morning before her bath. Pretty cool. I wonder if this is the beginning of potty learning for her….

Claire has started this OBNOXIOUS habit of eye rolling.  She does it all the freaking time, but most especially when she’s tired.  It drives me up the freaking wall.

Any idea how to get her to stop?

I’m really not sure which one of them is the teacher, but I think this a good first lesson.

Claire would like to write her name:  CLAIRE

……that I get to do with the girls now that I’m home. The mall. I think I’ve been to the mall more times in the last 3 weeks than I’ve been the rest of the year. It’s just a nice, quiet place to take the girls in the morning when I don’t feel like cleaning up the playroom with them or getting out the playdough.

Claire really needed a haircut, so we stopped by Great Clips and hit the grocery store this morning for a few things for dinner. Then I thought, well…its deceptively cold outside, and the girls really want to play, so we took a trip to the play area at the mall. They have so much fun there and it’s nice and clean and never very crowded on a weekday morning. Good times!

Oh and just in case you’re wondering, tonight we’re having Bruschetta Chicken Bake - a recipe that my friend Michelle Huber brought over to us when Claire was born and we’ve made it often! It’s so easy I haven’t been able to screw it up yet.

Yeah I wrote this whole post without realizing that Jonathan wrote an entire post on this already. Oh well. My version is funny and cute too.

On Sunday afternoon, the girls were playing in the dining room playroom and Claire started yelling about Daddy and a cat. The child has a very active imagination, so I just assumed that she was making something up. Then Jonathan, who was working outside, came to the deck doors, opened them (just slightly) and told me to go get some food for the cat.

Food for the cat? We don’t have cats. We don’t have cats because I’m extremely allergic to the little fur balls and (secretly) I think they’re creepy. Jonathan however, LOVES cats. Always had cats growing up. (I’ve had this hunch that if I wasn’t around for some reason, the first thing he would do was get a cat)

I look out the window and there is an admittedly adorable black and white cat all loving on Jonathan. He’s petting it. I can hear the purring through the window.

I say, “if we feed the cat it will come back”. Claire is like…”Mommy, he’s so hungry, you need to give him the food”. Then she proceeds to NAME the cat that’s on our deck. (His/Her name is Spots in case you were curious). Jonathan gives me the boo boo lip, so I take a can of tuna out, put it on an old plate and hand it to him outside.

Grumble grumble grumble

The cat devours the food. I mean in record time. Kinda like Madeline eating anything.

So here we are…Jonathan’s outside with the cat and the lawn, Claire and Madeline and I are watching him through the doors. Madeline is pointing at the cat and screaming her terrified little head off and Claire is telling me the story of the cat’s life (”the kitty is so hungry because it lost its mommy and didn’t get any food today. and if we don’t feed it it’s going to be bumped over by a car and squished like a bug“)

After confirming with the neighbor that the cat is a stray but has been living in the neighbor’s 3 season porch (and they’ve been feeding it!), and after about 20 minutes of fun, the cat takes off.

Madeline, who has been previously pointing at the cat and screaming her little head off, now stands at the back door to the deck says “where puppy?” Over and over and over. She walks through the house the rest of the day, looks out the windows by the front door and says “where puppy go”.

I’m so in trouble.

This morning Claire came downstairs and had REALLY bad morning breath.  I mean REALLY.  Like a fish had died in her mouth sometime during the night. (the kid has always been a mouth breather….probably because she had enormous tonsils until about a year ago)  I told her she needed to go brush her teeth — and she gave her very normal, canned response of “why?”.  I told her because she had bad breath and needed to clean the germs out of her mouth.  To which she said…”ew. Germs are yucky.  What is breath mommy?“  I paused…wondering how to explain breath to a 3 1/2 year old.  I said…”well Claire, breath is the air that comes out of your mouth.”.  She looks me in the face, with the nasty fish breath and exhales right into my face…”like this Mommy?“  (I refrained from gagging) “Yes Claire, like that,”  I said.  “Now go brush your teeth”.  She skipped off to the bathroom.

About 8 minutes later (yes 8 minutes…the girl is very thorough…and I think she really likes to make funny faces in the mirror), she returns and announces “Mommy, my air is ALL GONE, see?” (blows again in my face).  Aaah yes, strawberry scented air is much better than fish scented air.  Especially 1st thing in the morning.

When we landed last Wednesday, Keith told me that he had a surprise for Claire. One of his parishoners wanted to do something for her and it was ready for her visit. Thursday morning we went over to his Parish — met the staff who of course mooned over Claire. Then we went to visit a few parishoners in their homes. The second house we went to was a woman named Mary. Mary’s brother Frank was a tailor by trade in the Mechanicville area most of his life. He learned the skill from his father who was a tailor in Italy. He had heard Keith talk about Claire so many times that he decided to make Claire a very special dress.

The only words I have to describe this dress are breathtakingly beautiful. It is made of a duponi silk with hand appliquéd lace on the bottom hem, sleeves and front collar. What an amazingly touching gift from someone who doesn’t know me or Claire at all — just loves his pastor so much that he wanted to do something nice for his very special Goddaughter.

Now…this man is 90+ years old. Keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that he never had met Claire before — only knew that she was 3 1/2 years old. It fits her like a glove. This dress was finished shortly before he became seriously ill — so this dress was literally one of the last dresses he ever made. We had her pictures taken in it today, since we didn’t want to risk her outgrowing it.

What a beautifully amazing gift to us.

We just had this conversation.

C:  Mommy, where is Cookie?

M:  He’s at church.

C:  Is he singing Alleluia?

M:  Yes he probably is.

C:  Hmm.  Is he by Jesus?

M:  He’s close I’m sure.

C:  Is he on the Cross?

M: Who?

C:  Cookie.

M:  No honey, Jesus was on the cross.

C:  But he got raised from the dead?

M:  yes.

C:.  Oh.  Can we watch The Backyardigans? 

Claire and I are off on our big adventure to visit “Cookie”.  Cookie of course is Keith — Claire’s godfather.   He’s been at a parish in Mechanicville, NY for almost 3 years and Claire and i finally had the opportunity to come up for a visit.  We arrived here on Wednesday night — Claire was a trooper on the plane, even though it was incredibly past her bedtime.   She entertained everyone around her (as usual) with her “blast off” routine when the plane took off.  When we were in the Cincinnati airport between planes, we stopped at Qdoba to get something to eat.  There was a man infront of us, wearing a uniform.  Claire said to him:

C:  Hey Man, are you a policeman?

M:  No ma’am.  I’m a pilot

(her eyes widened)

C:  YOU’RE A PIRATE??? WHERE’S YOUR EYE PATCH?

M: (laughing)  I”m not a pirate ma’am I’m a PILOT.  I fly the airplanes.

C:   Oh.  (pause)  I like your silly hat.   What’s your name?

M:  My name is Ray.

C:  That’s not a very nice name. 

I think the plague of embarassing questions is upon us.  In the last 24 hours she told the pilot he didn’t have a nice name, asked Keith’s friend Mary Jean what happened to her teeth  adn told his friend Janet that she was bigger than her mommy.  (Janet is not bigger than mommy, FYI.  she replied….well…I’m older than Mommy).

We are really having a nice time.  More later…I need to help Claire color!

….went like this tonight.

 Claire:  Mommy…I need to tell you a secret.

Me: (leaning in close): What honey?

Claire:  (whispering)  I love you lots and lots Mommy.

Awwww.  Makes your heart melt.

Now if only poor Mads would stop coughing long enough to fall asleep…