The songs we sing

I have very little time to post right now, but I wanted to get this down before I forgot.

Being winter, getting out the door with two kids is always a bit chaotic. I sing songs while layering up to keep everyone cheerful. My boot-putting-on-song is "These Boots are Made for Walking", obviously. Now Amelia sings a variation of this tune with her own lyrics. She comes by it honestly since changing lyrics is a favourite pastime in this family, passed down from my Dad to me, and now on to a third generation. Anyway, the best version of this song was sung a couple of days ago in the car. It went like this:

"These cars are made for driving, and that's just what they'll do,
And one of these days these cars are gonna drive all over you."

Kendrick and I both burst out laughing.

As with all kids now a days, "The Wheels on the Bus" is a popular and often-requested tune in our house. Of course, we never stuck with the "original" lyrics of this song either. One of my favourite verses came from Amelia when she was pushing three years old. It was a great closer to the song:

"The lion on the bus goes roar, roar, roar,
Roar, roar, roar.
The lion on the bus goes roar, roar, roar,
And eats all the people."

My kid is awesome!

Heidi's language skills (@ 17 months)

Heidi can now correctly sign:

thank you
please
mommy
daddy
drink
food
more
milk
yes
no
all done/gone/finished

These are all the signs Amelia did too, but she understood a lot more. I was much better at signing to her all the time. Now I'm just too busy to teach Heidi... poor second born. At least she's exposed to more spoken language than Amelia was. I actually felt weird talking to Amelia all the time when she was a baby since I knew she didn't understand me most of the time anyway.

Her speech has really taken off lately too. She says: bottle, ball, bounce, baby, no, uh oh, ding, cheese, and shoe (okay so cheese sounds like "chhh" and shoe sounds like "shhh", but it works!). Oh, and she wolf whistles.

Quirks

Heidi loves to:

- grab some books, climb into bed, pull up the covers and "read"
- give "schnoodles" (cheek to cheek hugs)
- take baths
- talk to and touch animals
- drink from straws
- give me raspberries on my stomach

Amelia loves to:

- get her little sister water and snacks
- play in forts
- pretend to be a mommy
- make cards
- play Mahjong (with the cheat button) on my computer

Heidi hates:

- soap bubbles
- swiss cheese
- Loblaws, but is okay with most other stores (!?)

Amelia hates:

- having her hair brushed
- wearing pants
- someone singing while she's chewing

Nicknames

I'm stupid with nicknames. It started with my parents' cats. I began calling them dumb nicknames (Winnie went by Supermergantroy and Motley was Halaroo). Then it moved on to my cats. Moe is Schmoo, Schmozly, Schmoopie-Poo, Moo, and the list goes on and on. Artemis is Buttface, Smartemis, Bartemis Fowl, etc. Kendrick was always afraid of what I'd call our kids. He was right to be scared.

Amelia:
Monkey
Babycakes (when she was a baby)
Monkeyface
Monkeypants
Monk
Bunky
Bunny

Heidi:
Bear
Barely bear
Heidelberg
Ditty (usually preceded by a "hey")
Dittles (see above)
Professor Ditty Von Bear
Ditty-ditty Dumpling Head
Billy-Bong

They're going to hate me when they're older. But then again, my mom used to call me Chrissywitch...

Holy shrimp, my kids are cute!

Amelia makes me laugh every day. Here are a few snippets of life with my three year old:

Today at Farm Boy we noticed their Christmas decorations. Amelia's exclamation upon noticing the giant wreath: "Holy shrimp, that's a huge wreath!".

When something is not going her way she stamps her foot and says: "Tartar sauce!". I love SpongeBob.

We used to be concerned about her social skills. Kendrick is convinced that her school experience will be as bad as his was. I'm not so worried anymore. She's only been taking swimming lessons alone since September and she has grown so much. She would barely open her mouth at the beginning but now she's always talking to the instructor and conversing with the other children. She's the most out-going child in the class, and the youngest to boot. Now to get Heidi to detach herself from me a little and we're all set.

Speaking of Heidi... man, she's a troublemaker. She throws a fit when her demands are not immediately met and she throws it with gusto. Looks like she's just like her sister in respect to her terrible twos starting early. Hopefully, unlike her sister, they'll end early too.

The two of them do get along very well though. I have been really busy with work the past couple of weeks, usually putting in a couple of hours a day, and Amelia "takes care" of her little sister for me. She gets her water and snacks and plays really nicely. Yesterday they were playing in Amelia's room while I was working and I heard Amelia very gently asking Heidi to sit on her bum in the chair. "No Heidi. Bum or knees. Look at Amelia, Heidi, bum or knees. No standing. ... Good girl." They grow up so fast. I can't believe this is my last year with Amelia full-time. I will definitely miss her when she starts school, but also be very thankful for the time I'll get with Heidi.

Mushroom Ragout

I made a delicious mushroom ragout for dinner tonight. I roasted tomatoes with a couple cloves of garlic and olive oil for about an hour. Then I simmered the lot on the stove with a big pile of coarsely chopped mushrooms and a dollop of red wine. Served on pasta with fresh grated Parmesan. Yummy! Kendrick would have preferred meat in it, but I'm sticking with what's good.

Where does the time go?

I'm a terrible blogger. I can't believe it's been so long since I've updated this thing. I'm going to try to be a better blogger, I promise.

This was a good weekend. I actually got to sleep in this morning (well, until 8:45, but that's a huge deal around here). We had an impromptu family gathering here on Saturday: slow-cooked ribs, fried rice, and butter tarts. Yummy. Then today we had went to get a family portrait taken. I can't believe it's taken this long for us to do it. Amelia picked out identical dresses for her and Heidi. They looked positively princess-like. Of course Heidi smashed her face on the edge of a table 5 minutes before getting in the car so she had a nice bruise on her cheek for the photos. Yay for photoshop! Now hopefully Kendrick didn't "Chandler smile" for every picture...

Heidi spent some time at the in-laws house without us there today too. I look forward to that becoming a regular occurrence. An kid-free afternoon every weekend. Bliss!

I also finished my Christmas cards, watched "Serenity" (now can David Milch give "Deadwood" the same send-off?!), and made a roasted tomato and mushroom ragout for tomorrow. All-in-all, a successful weekend.