The Schaellings: February 2011

Ugly Babies and Old Maids

>> Monday, February 28, 2011 – conversations, Leonora, Lillian

The thought process of a 4-year-old can be....interesting. Here are two examples from just the last week. For her birthday, Lily was given the card game, Old Maid. Most games we'd played up to this point had a single winner (Memory, Candy Land, etc.). Old Maid, on the other hand, is really more about not being the loser. So the other day, she and I sat down for a game of Old Maid. I dealt out the cards and we started. As we had fewer and fewer cards in our hands, I realized there was still an even number of cards in play. Now think about this for a second: Old Maid is all about making matches and the one with the Old Maid loses. An even number of cards means they should all match up. I knew I didn't have the Old Maid, so I cheated a little and asked Lily to see her cards.

Me: Lily, where's the Old Maid?

Lily: I took her out.

Me: Why?

Lily: If you have that one, you lose, so I took her out before we started.

So no loser means everyone wins, right? She's so diplomatic.

The second venture into Lily's mind is a little less diplomatic, and I hope I don't have to explain to some poor mother why my kid just said that. When we first brought Timothy home, we said something along the lines of "He's pretty cute. Do you think we should keep him?" The answer was always yes, of course, and now she says a variation of it at least once a day. "Should we keep him?" "Are we going to keep Timothy? He sure is cute." But out of the blue on Saturday, Lily confronted me with this question:

What do people do with the babies that aren't so cute?

Trying my hardest not to laugh, I asked what she thought people did with them. Apparently, they get rid of them. See where I could have problems if we run into someone with a not-so-cute baby? Luckily, there's no such thing as an ugly baby, right? Then again, maybe it's time to introduce her to the word, breathtaking.

Plain White T's

>> Friday, February 18, 2011 – Erik, Leonora, out and about, video

Looks like February is our month for concerts. Last year, we headed to Vegas for Jack's Mannequin. This year, we stayed close to home for Plain White T's. I LOVE Plain White T's, so when I found out they were coming, it was a no-brainer. And I'm so glad we went. They put on a great show, and we had a blast. And during a surprise change up in where they were singing, we ended up being super close for the all-famous Hey There, Delilah.

Once there was a snowman

>> Thursday, February 17, 2011 – daily life, Erik, Lillian

After a couple blissful days of Mother Nature's toying with my emotions by giving us some semi-springlike weather, she went and dumped an obscene amount of snow on us. I wasn't too thrilled. Lily, on the other hand, thought it was fantastic. In fact, this morning, she got herself all dressed, including her non-snow boots and informed Erik that she was going out to shovel. This turned out to be not quite the whole truth and was really just a ploy to get to the park. After tromping through the snow and getting completely soaked, she came back in only with the promise that they would go out and build a snowman once I came home and could wrangle Timothy.

At our office Christmas party, we had a white elephant exchange. We managed to snag a snowman kit. I know...how hard is it to build a snowman and what would be in a kit since the majority of a snowman can't survive in a kit? But it was awesome. It came complete with hat, matching scarf, eyes, mouth, carrot, and pipe. Somehow, though, in the two months since Christmas, we had yet to use it. It seemed like whenever it snowed, we didn't get to the project before the snow had lost it's optimum snowman consistency. So as much as I hate snow, this most recent storm was actually good because we finally managed to use this dang kit.

Even though the forecast said it was supposed to snow today, too, it was blue skies and sunny while we were out, so I carted Timothy along and even Laddie took a few romps around the park...I like to call it frolicking, really, since the snow reached his belly and he had to leap everywhere he went.

In the end, Lily and Erik managed a fairly decent snowman - although the eyes and mouth have already been brought inside because they fell off. I'm hoping we don't lose the rest of the kit before we can snag it all and put it back in the container. You'll also notice the hat and scarf don't match. Lily decided she'd rather use the lid to the container than the actual hat, but it still worked. Plus, she's pretty convinced it's magical. She keeps trying to check on "Frosty" with her flashlight from inside the house. I'm pretty sure she thinks he'll get up and walk away...

Lily turns 4!

>> Wednesday, February 2, 2011 – Lillian, motherhood

So I'm totally late posting this...like two weeks late. But I guess it's better late than never, right?

On January 19th, Lily turned 4. I know, right? Can you believe she's 4 already? I know I can't. Since she's older and the kids who would be coming to her party are now older, too, we decided not to have the party at our house. There's really just not enough space for everyone who would be coming and the kids wouldn't really have anywhere to run around since we live in the arctic and have to stay inside. So Erik suggested we have the party at the Cache Valley Fun Park and let the kids do the soft play (a HUGE McDonald's-like playground).

Lily and all the kids had a great time, and the Fun Park provided the food and cake. Oh yeah...and the clean up. That was worth the cost right there! :) There was one minor break down for the birthday girl when she wanted the cake and not the pizza while we were eating dinner. But it didn't last long and we moved right along to cake and presents as soon as the pizza dwindled.

We may have made a bit of a mistake, though. She's already talking about wanting to have her birthday there next year. We have set the precedent, I suppose, so we'll see what happens.

So yeah...the fact that I have a 4 year old just blows my mind. I was watching her do something the other day and I realized she's not a little girl any more - and she's sure to tell you so because she's a big girl. And she really is. It always amazes me how much she develops each year. I always think that nothing will compare to the changes we saw that year and then the next year always makes me take it back. You'd think I'd learn, but apparently not because I'm going to say the same thing this year: There's no way she'll change next year as much as she did this year.

She's so articulate and methodical. Even her pediatrician commented on it at her check up. I mean, you always like to think your kid is ahead of the rest, but then don't all parents think that? It was kind of nice to receive some validation there. She's obviously very interested in reading and writing. She can write her own name by herself and can write the rest of the family's if we tell her the letters. She memorizes entire books and then reads them back to us or her babies. Word. For. Word. She sings all the time, which makes our life very much like an opera since she just sings about what we're doing at the time. Her imagination is great and so detailed. I love it!!

We still have the normal toddler mis-behaviors, of course. And honestly, they should call it the Terrible Threes because this last year was a million times worse than those so-called Terrible Twos. It seems like the breakdowns were less frequent, but their intensity was much worse. That seems to be subsiding now (thank goodness), and we almost don't dread going out in public any more. But we still have our days... I'm actually reading a book right now that would label Lily as "spirited," and in just reading the first 3 or so pages, it described Lily and our life perfectly. Apparently, there is hope that she'll end up a normal, functioning adult, so I feel better now. :) And the big thing: her spirited-ness wasn't our fault! Seeing other kids who just comply with their parents and don't go from elated to devastated 10 times a day made me wonder what we'd done wrong. But it turns out she just came that way. The trick is to learn to deal with it and help her do the same. Wish us luck!

So even though I can't believe the changes and growth we've seen this year, I do know that we'll see even more in the next year. And while I'm excited to see who she'll become, I do admit it's a little bittersweet. She'll always be my little girl, but I'm a little sad that it's going so fast.