Confessions of a preschool drama queen's mother

After asking about it for many months, Sophia had her first sleepover last Saturday night and I think it was harder on me than it was on her. I have never spent the night away from her, except when I was in labor with Tessa and I was a little preoccupied then. She had a lot of fun playing with Sydney, eating popsicles and having a tent in the living room. According to her friend's parents (maybe it was hardest on them!), she was insistent that she would stay awake all night long. Who tells kids that it is a prerequisite to having a sleepover that you are determined to never sleep?! And she made it to 1:30am, which is quite impressive considering her usual bedtime is 8 or 8:30pm. Then she woke up early the next morning, which made for one grumpy kid.

So, although she had a lot of fun, I don't think either of us will be ready for another one any time too soon. Maybe when she is 116. That's the age that Sophia has now decided she can do anything. Her new thing is to ask me to teach her how to do something, because when she's grown up and I'm dead, how will she know how to take care of herself? Hmm...

I picked her up Sunday morning by myself, so I could take her to see Wall-E in the theatre, sans baby sister. She was grumpy, and didn't really want to leave her good friend Sydney, but looking forward to the movie. We enjoyed the movie a lot and especially the time snuggling together watching it and munching on popcorn. It really is a cute movie even for adults. In fact, the theatre we were in (Sunday at 11am maybe isn't a popular time) had only about 20 people, 18 of which were adults! When the movie was over, Sophia clapped her hands and said "Let's go buy that one, Mommy!" But the picture above is Sophia on the way home, after the sleepover and after the movie...she was exhausted! So she came home and slept for about 3 hours, until I decided I better wake her up before she became nocturnal!

Tessa says...

Quite a lot actually. Just not when the video camera is on. I took about 10 videos of her today, trying to get her to say what a doggie says. I think it is so cute because I tell her a doggie says, "woof, woof." Then I ask her what a doggie says and she says, "fff, fff." I just noticed it a few days ago because we always hear a dog outside when we are in her room and I realized she would say "fff, fff" whenever she heard the dog.

Well, in this video she did it a little, but not much. Better than the others where she ignored me completely. Then I put the camera away and asked her and "fff, fff" she replies. Ahhh! But the video is cute anyway because she started dancing and you can see Sophia too.

She also says other things. Once she said "I want milk" and I held up her milk, thinking she must not have really said that, but she pointed at the cup and shook her head yes. She has said "High Five" a couple times as she went to give us a high five. She still says "yes" and "this" a lot. Sometimes it sounds like she says "thank you" when you give her something. When she came down from her nap yesterday, she leaned towards Sophia and I thought she said, "kiss" but Sophia thought she said "Sis." Either way, very cute. I asked her if she wanted milk the other day and she responded "yes" so I replied "yes, please" and she replied "please" so I replied "yes, please" and she said "yes." I decided to give her a break then and smother her with kisses, telling her what a good job she did with talking to Mommy. My favorite, though, is that it has sounded like she has said "I love you" several times. Then last night I put her in her bed and gave her a kiss, said "good night sweetie," then walked to the door. I turned back and opened my mouth to say "I love you" but Tessa said "love you" before I did!

She also communicates by shaking her head no, although she doesn't say the word. She has learned not to put certain things in her mouth and it is so funny because she picks something off of the ground and puts it towards her mouth and shakes her head no, checking with me to make sure. I tell her she is right and that is not for her mouth, but she keeps trying to put it in her mouth, stopping herself and slowly shaking no, no at the last minute.

She has stopped doing most of her sign language. I'm not sure if it is because she is trying to talk so much now, or she just lost interest for a little while. We keep it up though because I think it helps her anyway. She does sign "pick me up" but other than that she just points to whatever she wants. Sometimes a sign for "please" follows the pointing, though, so at least she is learning her manners!

Fly, fly butterfly

Sophia and I watched a butterfly on a flowered bush outside of Chuck's school Friday morning, and she told me that she had never seen a real butterfly before. Of course she has, but I felt we needed to head back to the Rio Grande Botanical Garden to see the Butterfly Pavilion. Fortunately, Chuck only had to work a few hours Saturday morning. So once he got home, we packed a picnic basket, stopped off for some take-out sushi on the way, and headed to the Garden. While we were eating, a couple of ducks wandered up to us waiting for some crumbs. Unfortunately, we didn't want to share our sushi and hadn't thought to bring bread crumbs...next time for sure! Tessa was amazed to see ducks waddle about a foot away from her, but I wasn't quick enough with the camera. After a yummy lunch, we checked out the trains, buterflies, children's garden, and the aquarium.

So proud

Chuckolate just graduated from NCO Academy and we are all so proud. It was a long 6 weeks, with long days, plenty of running, and lots of homework for him. It was a confusing 6 weeks for his girls, who got to see him daily, but often for only a quick hug and kiss hello and another quick hug and kiss good-bye. We went to see his class' Recognition Ceremony, followed by a Pass In Review and Retreat. The ceremony was interesting and included a humorous slideshow of the class...although Sophia might have stolen the show. We had to stand up at the beginning for the Distinguished Visitors and Honored Guests to be seated and again at the end for them to leave and she (loudly) asked, "Why do we keep having to stand up for them?!"

I expected the girls to enjoy the Pass In Review and Retreat, as we would watch Daddy marching with his class and see the flag being taken down. Again, Sophia has a different outlook on things and wondered, "When are they going to start marching?" To which I replied, "They are marching. Shhh." Her response? "No, Mommy, that's walking." Oh well. Tessa enjoyed the music and danced in my arms to The Star Spangled Banner. I kept her happy the rest of the time with multiple snacks.

I guess that experience made up for us missing his Graduation Ceremony that night, because kids were not allowed. Instead, we stayed home and babysat a 2 year old boy visiting from another base, so his Mom could go. He was very sweet and we had a good time with him, for the most part. He was quite sad to discover his Mom had left...so there was a bit of crying. Sophia confided in me, "I am really not going to be happy if he cries like this all night." Fortunately, he did not and was lured into having fun by trains and later with the kid's show WonderPets.

In the meantime, however, he was a little worried about Tessa and screamed whenever she toddled near him. I had a wonderful opportunity to be proud of her, though, when she bent down and gave him a kiss on the forehead as he cried about missing his Mommy, then screamed about the baby getting close to him.

Sophia was also amazingly well behaved and gave him whatever toys we could think of to distract him. In fact, he dropped a Thomas the Tank Engine case filled with cars and trains over the gate at the top of the stairs while I was putting Tessa to bed and I told him he would have to wait a minute for me to open the gate. He cried again and Sophia stuck her hand through the bars to grab the strap. With him crying "mine, mine" (about her toys), she proceeded to pull the case up and over the gate and hand it back to him. I had the wonderful feeling of being proud of Chuckolate, Tessa, and Sophia all in the same night!

Here is a video of the marching in question.

Old news

Well, the old news is that Tessa, the girl who will eat anything, does not like cow's milk. After she turned one I started giving her a bit of milk in a sippy cup occassionally and she refused to drink it. Now, when I say she likes anything, I am quite serious. She hasn't had any shellfish yet and she wasn't supposed to eat nuts yet due to possible allergies, but her silly mother somehow forgot that pecan crusted chicken salad might have nuts in it and was happily feeding her away when the unfortunate realization occurred. Tessa did not have any reaction though, so I think food allergies are not in her future. She enjoys any fish, meat, vegetable, fruit, eggs, rice, pasta, soup, and loves to drink water. In fact, she appears to like everything she has tasted...even lettuce, bell peppers, and onions (Sophia's holy trinity of FOODS THAT ARE YUCK). In fact, last night we went to a Korean restaurant and thought the cucumber kimchi wasn't too spicy, so we let her try it. In it went with a thoughtful look for several seconds, then out it came with a shocked cry, then back in for another try...I think it took her four times but she finally kept it in and ate it.

But cow's milk, which is in the cheese and yogurt that she loves so dearly, not a chance. She finally started drinking a few sips at a time after several weeks, then we all had the stomach flu last week and avoided milk like the plague. So, with great trepidation, I offered it to her again. Her aversion to it held strong for a couple days. Until this morning. She drank almost an ounce at breakfast so I offered her more at lunch and she tipped back that sippy cup and devoured it. She chugged her milk like her Daddy used to chug beer at the dorm parties. Then she sucked on the empty cup for awhile until I gave her more, which she also drank. And so, the aversion to cow's milk? Old news.

Just swinging in the sun

Somehow these pictures of Tessa were not downloaded off of my camera with the others from Aidan's visit, so they didn't make it in the slideshow!

But, they could not be left out completely...she is just too cute!

Water girls

Both of my girls love water! Sophia just finished her first "real" swim class last week. She took one before we left Japan (she was almost 2) but it was a Mommy and Me...this time she was on her own! She had a wonderful time and learned to float on her front and back, kick on her front and back, swim on her front, swim down to the bottom of the pool to retrieve a ring, and throw in a rescue device to save someone. I'm a little doubtful about the last one as I imagine she would surely be pulled in if she actually tried to rescue someone, but the rest she can definitely do.

I tried to find a picture from that Mommy & Me class, but I guess I never took any because I was in the pool with her. So here are a few from long ago up until now. Click AUTOPLAY ON in the bottom left corner of the slideshow to see them in order.

Make a Smilebox postcard

Cousin Aidan

Chuck's sister Jenny and her oldest son Aidan came to visit last weekend. They were moving from Arizona to Indiana, so they were coming through Albuquerque and it was a great chance for the cousins to finally meet each other! They had a lot of fun together, although they also argued a lot! Aidan didn't seem to like Sophia looking at him or touching him, and she thought it was great fun to aggravate him...ahhh!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

They did like playing together though. We put out her little pool and slip'n'slide the first day...had a fun picnic at a playground the second day...and went to the zoo on the third day. Aidan had never been to the zoo, so I thought that was a must! He really enjoyed it, once I explained to him that ALL the animals were in cages or had big walls that they could not climb over. He wanted to pet them, but also didn't want them to bite him, so I think he was ok with that.



The lowlight of my day was (after promising ice cream to cool off at the end of the long, hot day) finding that the Dippin' Dots was closed. The ice cream store was also closed. So, finally we found soft serve ice cream in the cafe, but it was so soft it fell off of Sophia's cone immediately and I caught it in my hands! Yuck!