"Rylie, NO"

Rylie has a new favorite game: Climbing on EVERYTHING.

If she leaves my sight for more than 24 seconds, it is pretty likely that I will find her perched on something that will require me to first take a picture, then to rush over and get her down. She's just recently figured out that she can slide the kitchen chairs over to the counter tops and is desperate to see what's up there. So far I have been able to reach her before she can slither up because, luckily, a 1 year old pushing a chair across a room is a noisy process. I spend about 3 hours a day plucking her off of the kitchen table (Pop asked me tonight if I had thought to tell her "no"...AHA, why hadn't I thought of that?!) where she typically goes to the pepper grinder and tosses it off first. Today she veered from her normal pattern and got on the DINING room table and dumped the sugar bowl, a nice change in our routine.

When Rylie is not climbing on stuff, she's most likely wreaking havoc somewhere in the house. Emptying tissue boxes and wipe containers, unrolling toilet paper, inventorying the tupperware cabinet (a nice way of saying "unloading" it), helping herself to the snacks in the pantry; these are her go-to acts. And yet, somehow, she pulls it all off while staying adorable and giggling so that I find myself putting all the tissues back in the box (for the 4th time that day) and laughing with her about it. Typically she has moved on to a new act of mischief before I have finished cleaning up the previous mess, so it is not unusual for there to be a pile of (clean) wipes in the tv room sitting next to the Goldfish container and every DVD from our tv cabinet strewn across the room. Whenever I try to redirect her to more "productive" forms of play, she'll go along with it as far as grabbing the stroller from the toy room, pushing it into another room, ditching the stroller and pulling every diaper out of the diaper drawer. I keep telling myself she'll grow out of this stage soon, but then realize that I can deal with the cleaning up if I can keep her tiny and cute for a little longer...

Paige's "Boobies"

Paige is not graceful (let's all refer back to her "dance" video). She falls at least 4 times a day. She falls when she walks, she falls when she runs, sometimes she falls when she's just standing still. This summer, I bought her a pair of cheap Target flip-flops, and they only made matters worse. She started falling even more and in two days managed to skin both knees in multiple places, both ankles and had bruises up and down her arms and legs. Needless to say, flip-flops have been banned.

While I hate the fact that she's covered in cuts and scrapes, Paige is proud of each and every one of her injuries. She regularly checks them out and shows them to anyone and everyone. Only problem is, she started referring to "boo-boos" as "boobies" (little boo-boos?). So imagine this: Paige, Rylie and I are shopping in Harris Teeter and I'm trying to decide which brand of tortilla to buy when another cart passes and I hear Paige declare, "Want to see my boobies?" That's when I grab the Old El Paso and pick up the pace a little, while loudly clarifying, "It's BOO-BOO, Paige." Poor thing just wants to show off her scabs to strangers.

Two other funny things Paige has done recently:
1) Told a lady in Kohl's, "I'm Paige, P-I-G, Paige" (we've started practicing spelling her name since that little incident).
2) Asked me why I have two "little" (thanks, Paige) bumps on my belly and she doesn't (verifying to me that she doesn't even know what boobies are).

Sour Puss

Happy Birthday, Girls!

Rylie is ONE!

Paige is THREE!

"Is it 'morrow, mom?"

Paige's birthday is "coming up." A fact that she will tell any person that makes the mistake of even glancing in her direction (for example: the cashier at the grocery store, random parents trying to pick up their children from her daycare, every person we pass in any store, the man leading story-time at the library last week, etc).

Unfortunately, she doesn't really understand the concept of a calender though, as I'll show her where her birthday is (May 7th), show her where we currently are (April 30th), we count the days until her birthday, and she'll look at me and say, "so my birthday 'morrow?" We have a count-down calendar hanging on our kitchen island, something I thought would help, but she just wants to fill all the boxes with stickers at once, so we can get to her birthday sooner. Which leads me to believe she doesn't get that either.

Since we'll be having her party this Saturday, I thought a good activity for us this afternoon would be to go to the party store to get stuff we "need" (as a side note, I could spend hours in that store). To say that Paige was excited for this trip is the understatement of the century. She was ECSTATIC. On the way there she started babbling on about presents, so I stupidly say, "what do you want for your birthday?" Paige responds with, "um....a car, like Mommy and Daddy's." And here I thought we had about 13 more years before I'd have to explain to her that she's not getting a car for her birthday, EVER. After I did a very drawn out, "oh reeeallly," she said, "and a box, to put my presents in." Now, a box is something a little more reasonable. I could easily get her 10 Xerox boxes for her birthday (one of the few perks of being a teacher). But Paige wasn't done yet, her final request was my favorite, a "sidewalk, a blue sidewalk." So to recap, Paige wants a car, a box and a blue sidewalk for her birthday. Great.

Rylie Walks

Pacifiers

So, Rylie really likes pacifiers. Unfortunately, for her, we have banned them from daytime activities, and they only exist in her crib and the car.

But she somehow solved the pacifier problem on her own....by creating pacifiers out of EVERYTHING she finds.

Like, puzzle pieces...

...and dolls from the dollhouse...

...and pretend shampoo bottles for Paige's dolls.

She also has been known to stand by the counters and put the knobs in her mouth as if they are pacifiers, but those moments are more difficult to capture because her desire to move outweighs her love of the paci.