Gabbyism from 9/01/06

Email from Mum:

Walking past an ant bed we've been fighting with Viper dust, and speaking of Viper, Gabby said, "Mama put some yots on ants and Nanay put some pyenty on ants." So lots and plenty were the nouns we put on the ants and some was the adjective describing the nouns. :-)

Gabbyism from 9/01/06

Oops, double post. Why does this silly site persist in saying there's an error, but then it publishes my post anyway? Hrmph.

Another conversation with a 2 year old

I called Zoe and she came running in, "Yeah?"

"Can you say yes ma'am?"

She said, "Yeah!"

So I said, "Can you say yes?"

She said, "Yes!"

Much praise.

"Now can you say yes ma'am?"

"No!"

(It is interesting to note that Gabby has consistently more success than I do in getting Zoe to pronounce words. She also translates for her, since Zoe's "no" usually means "yes" [but it also means no, so a little deciphering is sometimes necessary]. I'll ask Zoe a question, and she'll say no, and Gabby will promptly pipe up, "No is means for yes, Mama." She apparently thinks I forget every single time, so I need to be reminded! :o)

Progress

Gabby has started taking off her shoes and putting them in the shoe box, without being told.
She's also started putting her "Doopwo" away when she's done with it, without being told. And no complaints - just matter-of-factly puts it in its box. :o) Zoe is starting to follow her example, which is very nice for Mama!

Conversation the other day - I told her she couldn't have something for one reason or another, and she started fussing about it. I asked her why it was fuss-worthy, and she said, "Because I want it! It make me so terrible for you to say no!"

Couldn't have said it better myself, kid.

Conversations with a 2 year old

By request. ;o)

This morning in Mum's kitchen, I called Zoe. "Zooooeeee!"

From the living room, I heard, "Yeah? Yeah? YEAH?" and she came running into the kitchen.

I said, "Hi, honey! Can you say yes ma'am?"

She grinned up at me and said, "Yeah!" and ran off.

Conversations with a 3 year old

Gabby loves to talk on the phone (portent of things to come?) even if she doesn't know who she's talking to. So yesterday she talked to my friend Andrea who is (hopefully) coming to visit soon. It went something like this (one-sided):

"Hi! ... Fine ... Um, eatin' my dinner ... uh huh ... uh huh (at which point I gently reminded her to say yes ma'am) ... yes, ma'am, I'm eatin' my sweet 'tatoes, and I'm drinking my juice and I'm lovin' my mama and ... I'm done talkin' to you now. Bye!" and she handed the phone back to me and reapplied herself to her dinner. :o)

The good times and the...

Well actually, just the good times. I need to make note of when Gabby is especially good, as it gives me hope for the future. ;o)

Zoe went to Nanay's house today and Gabby and I stayed here. I worked on lunch for her daddy, and for two hours, Gabby quietly and happily entertained herself. She played with the duplo, made wonderful little structures, played with the kittens (and yelled at them when they insisted on knocking over her duplo creations LOL), and a couple of times put one or the other of the kittens IN the duplo box, which she thought was hilarious.

No whining. No fussing or "I can't do it, it's too hard". She'd come in the kitchen and tell me what she was doing, and then disappear back into the bedroom and get back to her playing.

She calls the duplo "doopwo" and is getting better and better at putting it together. (If anyone is at a loss for gift ideas, additions to her duplo set are always a hit.) Zoe calls it "po!" and will bring me two pieces at a time, asking me to put them together for her. She then runs off with that and comes back with one more piece at a time to add to the structure. Each time I do it for her, she says, "Kankum!" and hurries away for more. :o)

Zoe is in a naming phase. Everything needs a name or a label. She's adding three or four words to her vocabulary every day, and it is so much fun to watch her process and learn. Both kittens are "Hammie" (which is an improvement - all cats used to be Jakey). All dogs are Snorkel. Horses used to be "a hoas", but she's started calling them "hoasy" and if I find out who got her on that kick, they're in trouble. :-P

My dearest friend Andrea is coming to visit! YAY! I am so excited! I haven't seen her in about 3 years, and I can't wait until she gets here. Gabby met her briefly when we lived in Virginia, but that was when she was about 7 months old - not very likely she remembers. ;o) But she adored her then and I know she and Zoe will both glom on to her now like white on rice. She's really great with kids. Her coming is a real answer to prayer because it's getting harder and harder to do simple things (like bend over!) and part of the reason for her visit is to help me during the pregnancy and after the twins are born. I've been praying for help in that area for awhile because I feel like I'm burdening Mum with so much more than I should, and I'm so grateful to God for answering my prayers. :o)

Oh crochet, why do you hate me so?

~sigh~ I have this absolutely lovely yarn that I am struggling to make into a hat. It is NOT cooperating. My rounds don't want to round, my picots don't want to picot, nothing is shaping up as it should. Instead of a hat, I have a lovely lacy doily. Truly, crochet is an excellent exercise in learning patience. (And if you think it's hard on its own, try doing all this with two kittens on your lap that love nothing better than to pounce on any piece of yarn that moves!)

Crazy kitlings

(No, Ash doesn't have an extra head growing out of her stomach - that's just Cammie.)

They are settling down somewhat, but they still have some serious hyper periods that drive Erich a little bit insane. They go rocketing through the house at warp speeds, bouncing off walls and ricocheting off chairs. It's pretty funny, as long as they're not using Erich for a trampoline in the process, which they definitely do if I let them out before he gets up in the morning.
They are great with the kids, though, so patient and sweet. Both girls sported a few scratches before they figured out that down means DOWN, but they're pretty good at reading the signs now.
Ash (the shy one) has really come out of her shell - she regularly seeks me out and is right now cuddled against my hip, which is her favorite place to sleep. Cammie's favorite place is right under my chin, which makes it a little difficult to do handwork or play on the computer.
All in all, they are entertaining and a lot of fun to have around, although if I find them on the kitchen table one more time, I may just skin them for footwarmers.

The girls

Gabby got to have a pony ride today! She loved it!

Introducing Sophie!

Here she is, folks! She's got the New/Neumann chin already, as you can see. Her little hand is up next to her face and her eyes are closed. Maybe I'm just being a doting mother, but I think she's lovely. :o)

Oops!

I completely forgot to call Mals and wish him a happy birthday. But I thought of him a lot all day long! ;o)

I am SO proud of Gabby! Since she's decided to use the potty, she hasn't had a single accident! In fact, if I put her diaper on before she's ready for bed, she'll ask me to take it off so she can use the potty, instead of just going in the diaper. The other day she did wet her diaper, and then insisted she needed a fresh one because it was wet. Sounds to me like the first step in keeping her dry overnight! :o)

Gabby's still pretty whiney, but I've noticed an improvement, albeit slight, over the past few days. Several times she's insisted on doing something herself, which makes me very happy - normally she's all too willing to have me do it for her.

She also got to see helicopters on Monday! What a thrill for her! Her daddy took her to the fire hall for a meeting, and they had training with the rescue helicopters (two of them), so Gabs got to see the choppers land and take off, etc. She was very animated and talked to the pilots non-stop about how she was going to fly helicopters when she got older, etc. She informed me that she was going to fly a "yittle" helicopter because she's "yittle". But Daddy will fly a "BEEG" helicopter 'cuz he's big! :o)

Oh, twinfant update! Sophie is still transverse but she's swapped ends - her head is over on my right side now and her feet over on my left, completely sideways. Deet is breech again - he's swapped ends back, and his head is up now (and Sophie is kicking him in it!) and he's sitting low in my pelvis. At this point, they're big enough that they can't turn easily, so it's anybody's guess whether this is the position they'll be in when they're born or not. They *could* conceivably still go head down again - we'll see. Thankfully, my doctor is not scalpel happy and wants to give them as much time as possible to go head down before doing a C-section. Right now the two of them are doing a great impression of a "T".

Also, Sophie weighs 4 pounds even (58th percentile) and Deet weighs 4 pounds, 13 ounces! (97th percentile!) Apparently my comment about him being a linebacker was truer than I knew! ;o) Since they're both above average in weight, the doctors aren't worried about the disparity.

I also got a wonderful 4D image of Sophie's precious little face. I will try to post it soon, as soon as I get it onto the computer.

An older Gabbyism

One day we were having pancakes for lunch and Gabby protested in her idiomatic English, "I can't like pancakes!"

I, being a cold and heartless mother, said, "Well tough, it's what we're having. You can like it or lump it."

To which she promptly replied, "LUMP IT!"

Ack!

Zoe being goofy (she gets it from her daddy - who claims that this is her Maori impression).

Cammie has discovered the joys of getting INSIDE my recliner. I'll be sitting there peacefully, all unaware, when suddenly my hip gets punctured by multiple sets of small but very sharp claws! Yeeks!

She, of course, thinks it's hilarious. She would.


She's currently stalking the ceiling fan. Don't ask me what she'll do if she ever catches it...

I got a new crochet magazine yesterday with lots of lovely patterns. (Already finished one of the gifts for my Christmas swappee - yay!) As I sat perusing it, Gabby leaned up against me to look at the pictures. She pointed out a little boy wearing a beautiful pullover sweater and said, "You make me a yarn shirt like that?"

I think I know what she's getting for her birthday now. :o)

Gabby-ism

From Mum, a few days ago:

"Wanting some of my Carmex, she was asking for it and I said, 'oh, you want the Carmex?'

Said she, 'mouth-mex, not car-mex, why you say car-mex?'"

Pictures!

Ash in foreground, Cammie behind. And Cammie the Supremely Comfortable.




















My beautiful Zosterops eating lunch.

Happenings

Rachel called me last night, and I think we're going to send Gabby down to her house when the twins are born. Of course I can't tell her that yet, because she'll be impossible to live with until it happens - she adores her aunt! We're also going to send the kittens down to get spayed - Gabby will love having her kitwins with her!

Speaking of whom, pictures coming up as soon as I get them downloaded.

Deep Thoughts

Do butterflies get airsick?

Brought to you today by my genius husband, who clearly has too much time on his hands.

New words all around!

Zoe has added a word to her vocabulary - "peet-zuh"! (I was also accused of child abuse for giving my children pizza for breakfast by a certain big brother of mine.)

And a new word for my dictionary - abecedarian. Someone who teaches or learns the alphabet. Gabby and I are abecedarians! :o)

Poor Gabby had a meltdown this morning - we were discussing getting the kitwins fixed and somehow she got it in her head that getting them fixed meant that they weren't staying with us. Lower lip started trembling and big eyes started welling with tears. I asked her why she was crying, and she stammered, "Because you're going to take kittens away from meeeee!" - dissolving into a wail. Reassurances and explanations ensued and she is fully recovered now - she does adore those cats!

Funny exchange between girls - Gabby says, "Pizza!" Zoe counters, "PEE-PEE!"

Don't ask me how their minds work - I'm just their mother!

Typing one handed due to kitwins draped over left arm, but that's okay - my baby bulge makes it close to impossible to reach the keyboard with both hands anyway.

I originally had my blog on LiveJournal, but we had creative differences. So I broke up with them. Besides, I already have a Blogger id because of my niece, Allie, and my friend Heather (ExLibris).

So here I is and here I stay, darn it. My apologies to those of you who registered on LJ just to read my humble blog - this means you, Mum. :o) I will attempt to keep my rambling thoughts confined to this page from now on.

(Disclaimer: read at your own risk. Author does not guarantee entertainment value. Author is not nearly as amusing as she thinks she is.)