Her Hiding Needs Work

Today starts my co-hosting week over at The Red Dress Club!  Please come over to visit today, where I'm talking about overcoming fear in writing, and the rest of the week.  Don't worry; I'll remind you again!

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With Dylan soundly asleep in his crib, Abbey curls into my side, bringing a book or two or a pile to read, a combination of trusted friends like Angelina Ballerina and new books from the library. 

Minnie Mouse.  Cinderella.  Vera Rides a Bicycle.  Her head grows heavy against my arm, and I take a moment to inhale her hair; our moments alone, calm and still, are fleeting.

Napping is out of the question.

Some days, the books lull her into relaxation, and she wants to watch "a little TV," which means an episode of Angelina or The Cat in the Hat or WordWorld.  Those days, I steal a little time with the laptop on the couch, letting her lean into me and point out her favorite parts.

Other days, reading rejuvenates her, and we have quiet adventures - crafts, trips to her imaginary zoo, well-known games, and those she invents as we go along.

And so began our hide and seek adventure, a game quiet enough to play with a sleeping toddler paces away, our giggles muffled into hands and pillows, rushing back to the counting spot in the kitchen if we grew too rambunctious.

She's an excellent seeker, despite (or maybe because of) her varying counting times.  She counted to fifteen.  She counted to three.  She counted to eight.  And then eleventeen, which she continues to use no matter how often we talk about it not being a number. 

Standing in the middle of the living room, she scans the room and checks possible nooks and crannies until she discovers me with a teasing: "I fooouuund you!"

But we need to work on the hiding.  She has three strategies.

 

1) Hide behind the couch cushions, burying her head and using the "I can't see Mommy, so she can't see me" approach.

2) Hiding in the exact spot where she just found me, sometimes as I am walking to the kitchen (our counting spot).

3) Telling me where she's planning on hiding.

We need to hone her hiding skills before she starts playing with people who don't pretend that it's tough to find her.

behind the couch cushions is her favorite hiding spot 

she fits under there much better than I do 

sometimes she thinks if she can't see you, she's invisible 

like I said, she likes hiding behind the cushions 

coat closet 

she turned into a princess while I was counting to fifteen

The Wake-Up Game

I spy...

...someone sleeping 

not if I can help it!

(in the interest of full disclosure, I stopped him before he could actually wake her up)

(because no one wants a tired, crabby Abbey)

Beating the Heat - RemembeRED

Summer in Michigan is a chain of beaches and lakes and warm, sunny days linking Memorial Day and Labor Day. But there are also those other days, the days baked by a heat that made it impossible to go outside with bare feet, where jelly shoes seemed to create a conduit of fire between tender toes and the oven of blacktop stretched across parking lots.

Even ice cream couldn’t touch that kind of heat.

Heavy.

Humid.

Sticky.

Bees stayed close to their favorite flowers, buzzing lazily in the shade.

That kind of heat made you ache with wanting a pool, wet and refreshing, filled with floating rafts and filmy swim goggles.

We didn’t have a pool.

We had trips to the beach to play in the lake and a makeshift slip and slide stretched across the backyard and plenty of sprinklers that shot water so cold they made us shiver and gasp until the sun immediately scorched our bathing suits dry.

Even running through the sprinklers required too much movement of arms and legs under the sun; we eventually had to retreat inside.

But during the seemingly stifling summer days of my childhood, even our house wasn’t a haven from the sun; my parents hadn’t yet installed the central air conditioning that now keeps their house cool and comfortable in the summer heat. Without any breeze to blow through the open windows, the air inside was as stagnant and exhausting as it was outside.

Except for a single oasis: the approximately fourteen by fourteen square feet that comprised my parents’ bedroom, where a window air-conditioning unit could be turned as cool as you wanted, contrasting so greatly with the air in the hallway or my west-facing bedroom.

Our sleeping bags, mine pink and covered with images of Barbie, were rolled carefully into a corner for nights when the heat seemed too unbearable to sleep in our own, non-air-conditioned rooms.

The problem with the room was that between the king bed and the large dresser, and our sleeping bags, and us, there wasn’t much room for much else.

Thankfully, my parents were resourceful and generous, and their oversized bed became an island of board games. Board games like Sorry and Trouble, with its plastic dome, keeping the die from rolling off the bed to the floor. Later, we graduated to Clue, with its endless possibilities of murderous scenarios.

Those were fun and passed the time and fostered healthy sibling competition, but none of them could usurp Memory as my favorite way to waste a too-hot afternoon.

Organized rows and columns of cards, patterned on one side, matching pictures on the other. I would methodically flip, flip, replace, flip, flip, replace, flip, match, add the match to the stack growing carefully next to me on the bed.

I would play with my brother or a friend or my mom or myself, trying to match all of the cards in as short a time as possible, using fewer flips than I did the game before.

Sorry and Trouble and Chutes and Ladders meant hanging your luck on the roll of a die or the spin of a plastic arrow; Memory depended only on brainpower.

Interestingly, Ryan laughs at me now, because I’m constantly forgetting things absentmindedly, depending on lists and my planner and post-its to keep my life organized.

But back in that air-conditioned room, I didn’t need lists or jotted notes.

I was the Memory queen.

This post is in response to the RemembeRED prompt "Let's Play"
This week, we want you to recall the games you played when you were young.  Did you love Monopoly, Yahtzee, or Uno? Or did you prefer backgammon, Trouble, or Scrabble?  Write a piece that explores one of your memories.

Silly Things We Do

"Can you say: Where's Abbey?"

A little voice asks me that several times a day, because Abbey likes playing hide and seek.  Well, she likes to hide and be sought; she's not so interested in being the seeker.

Her hiding skills have improved since her earliest attempts, when she would basically run to one side of the room and stand there, giggling in clear view.  Still, she doesn't make it too difficult to find her.

Now that Dylan's old enough to understand a little, I let him help me find her.

"Where's Abbey, Dylan?  Let's go find Abbey!"

I'm fairly certain he thinks I'm a little blind.

hiding in my mom's curtain

because there's nothing odd about a laughing curtain roll with feet

he cracks up when he "finds" her

Tea Party Redux

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  I'm not Irish, but Dylan and I will be decked out in green at the zoo today, while Abbey will be wearing some variation of pink or purple.  Such is life in the closet of a three-year-old in love with pink.

My days of celebrating with flat, green beer are over, but there are still many delicious beverages to be enjoyed on this day of the Irish.  One of those beverages is tea.  Invisible tea, to be exact.

Since our tea party playdate, Abbey has been into tea parties.

Since I stopped nursing, Dylan has been into napping (more on that in another post!)

Therefore, a few opportunities have arisen for Abbey and I to play Cootie (too many mini-pieces for Dylan's quick fingers).  And then have Cootie tea parties.  In case you aren't aware, all Cooties love to have tea parties with tea and pizza, even "Little Brother Cootie".

Unfortunately, Abbey's love of tea parties is overshadowed by her love of looking at pictures, specifically pictures of herself.  I tried to casually take some photos of our Cootie Tea Party (so I can blackmail her she can't deny these moments in twelve years), and she immediately went into picture mode, which involves making the goofiest faces and most contorted poses and then sweetly asking, "Can I see THAT one?"

Remember when you didn't get to see the picture until you paid to have it developed?  I am thrilled those days are over, because I would be paying for many, many shots of silliness and little hands grabbing for the camera.

Abbey is always, always the pink Cootie

I shudder to think of what will happen when she plays with another pink lover, like her BFF Brendan

she's dancing here

sister and little brother Cootie are having tea

mommy Cootie has fallen apart

daddy Cootie is going to get the pizza

(without his head)

When She Grows Up...

I try not to project future careers onto Abbey and Dylan.  Even when she asked, "Can I go to college when I'm older?" I calmly replied, "I hope you do, yes," because I know there are roads that lead in other directions than to ivy-covered university walls. 

Yet, sometimes her little imagination paints the picture for me.

Introducing Dr. Abbey...

The other doctors in her practice are Dr. Dylan (I like to think of him as a resident, since he mostly chews the equipment) and Dr. Mommy. 

Her most frequent patients are Baby Jess, Mommy, Boop, Baby Cinderella, Baby Dylan (no wonder he gets confused. doctor? patient?), and Sparty the stuffed dog.

Her favorite method of treatment is "I'm going to have to give you a shot today," but she also gives stickers (real or pretend) if you endure the shot bravely. 

There's something so precious about her fanciful imagination combined with the infinite promise of her whole life spread open before her.  In these moments when she invents and pretends and gets lost in her own world, I truly see the enormity of my job.  I've been entrusted with two little lives to nurture and protect and give strength, and the utter responsibility of parenting is awe-inspiring and wonderful and terrifying all at the same time.

New School New Year's

New Year's Eve is a holiday that comes with a whole year's worth of expectations.  It's actually shocking that the Waterford ball doesn't come crashing to the ground under the weight of unfulfilled hopes and partially realized plans.  Yet, skipping it altogether doesn't make sense, either.  A holiday that's synonymous with champagne can't be all bad, right?

When our friends brought up the idea of renting a house for a long weekend over New Year's, it sounded like a perfect way to redefine the holiday for our redefined lives.

So we packed up (Who are we kidding? That makes it sound like we threw a few things into a duffel bag.  I was an overpacker before kids; now I worry that we're going to need a tractor trailer to cart all of our gear on a vacation, even a short one!) and drove to the west side of the state for a weekend in a giant house with a hot tub, lots of rooms, and a woefully understocked "fully stocked" kitchen.

As with many New Year's past, there were some unrealized expectations.  We pictured snowshoeing but got rain and wind instead.  I pictured Dylan sleeping through the night due to days filled with fun; well, at least he slept in the pack and play.  We pictured Michigan State winning their bowl game, but that didn't happen.

Unlike past New Year's, there were countless moments that I couldn't have planned (but would have). 

Watching Abbey play with Molly and Lainey and having a little glimpse into her future with girlfriends. 

Laughing at Dylan crawling around and around the house and picturing him walking soon, all Frankenstein-wobbly-new walker-Gerry style. 

Remembering I'm not very good at Yahtzee but kind of rock at Boggle (don't underestimate the fun that can be had playing 40 year old games in cardboard party hats.) 

Facebook purusal via passed phones, packed together on a couch.

Hello 2011

I know it's late.  I haven't been on time to much since I became responsible for getting two additional bodies out the door.

party hat - check

bottles on the bar - check

toy duck on the bar - um, check?

Joe doesn't like his tiara

I didn't want to take her on, either

Amanda was a Yahtzee dominator