Merry Christmas!

When I sat down with Rosalie to write her letter to Santa, I asked her what she wanted for Christmas. She said, "Candy cane!" Wow. Done. After some coaxing, she also asked for some watercolor paints (which she already has, but hey! We could always have more) and a snuggly tiger. If I only had bought her the things she asked for, her loot would have cost me less than $15. As it was, we were fairly frugal, because we don't want to overwhelm her and we also knew that there would be some grandparental gifts as well. In the end, it was a pretty good balance. But she sure loved discovering that she got a candy cane.

To mitigate the incoming riches, I asked Rosalie yesterday if she would go through her toys with me and pick out some ones that she could donate, so "Other kids could have some toys too." She did a good job! I was impressed--we took 2 boxes of toys to Goodwill. There might have been more but I admit that I back-pedaled when she tried to give away her play-kitchen. I'll be able to separate from it all in good time, I'm sure.

Last night, we went to our friends' house for a bit--they had a Christmas Eve open house and a possible Santa sighting in the neighborhood. We wound up leaving early to go look at Christmas lights in the neighborhood before Santa showed up near our friends' house, but I started to think maybe that was a good idea...

The other day when I was explaining "The Deal" about Santa to Rosalie, I told her that he'd come down the chimney when we were asleep and leave us presents. She looked mildly alarmed when I said this. As in, "He comes down the CHIMNEY?" and "He comes into our HOUSE while we're ASLEEP?" As the story was coming out of my mouth I wondered how parents all around the world dish this tale out. It actually is a little unsettling, now that I think about it. When did I get so grown-up and practical? Oh yeah, they can't fit an entire global population's worth of toys in a sleigh. To be fair, though, I think there were a lot less people on the planet when that story got started.

Anyway, I started downplaying The Big Visit to avoid scaring Cutie Pie, although we did make a plate of cookies and pour Santa a glass of milk. We also wrote him a note. Michael suggested that she thank him for coming, so she did. "What else do you want to say, Rosalie?" I asked. Here's what else she wanted to say:
"Here you go." So simple, to the point. By the way, obviously, this shot is after Santa showed up, the next morning. Rosalie said, "Santa bit the cookie!"

Anyway, Rosalie had a busy day, doing puzzles, building "Lincoln Logs" houses for her little animals, painting, drawing, sending Slinky down the stairs, "cooking" with her new cooking equipment, attaching things to her Silly Putty. We even fit a walk to the Locks in there somewhere. After a nice dinner prepared by Yours Truly, Rosalie was actually talking about how she was ready to go to bed. It was a totally nice and relaxed (as relaxed as an almost-three-year-old gets) Christmas. I hope yours was great, too!

Have You...

Succumbed to the holidays yet? I have to admit that we have. It was on purpose, though, not because television commercials or displays at Bartell's got to us in October.

After we were snowed in a couple of days (and after making the world's smallest snowman),


I had time to think: December is going to be nutty with culinary school finals, so since we were stuck in town due to snow, we might as well make the most of it and be Those People who decorate their trees the weekend after Thanksgiving.



I might be one of Those People from here on out. Here's why: after eating tons of food, with 3 or 4 vacation days coming, I start to get that woozy, sleepy, unfocused feeling that's impossible to shake. Some people enjoy that feeling. After a day of it, I start to feel yuck-a-doodle. Having something fun and productive to do, something already on the checklist, sounds snazzy to me. It does feel mildly grown-up and organized, especially since we agreed that we'd clean up the living room before adding loads of decorations.

This was the cutest holiday decoration session with Rosalie, ever. She kept jumping up and down as I put the lights on the tree, saying, "Yaaaay! Christmas Time! Yay! It's Christmas lights!" And when it came time to put up the actual ornaments, the Big R was quite helpful.




At the beginning of the ornament-adding, Rosalie started tearing through my adorable little labeled boxes, pulling out the ornaments in rapid-fire succession. I had a mini-anxiety attack and put a momentary halt to the frenzy. For a minute I thought I had to come to terms with my ornament control issues. Then I realized, "No, I don't!"

Here's the deal: I have some filler ornaments, but then I have a large box of meaningful "heirloom" ornaments, that I've wrapped, boxed, and labeled separately. It fills me with immense pleasure to take each of these out slowly and admire its beauty individually, remembering all the nice things it reminds me of. I should get to have some of those moments. They're pretty wonderful. So I separated out the ornaments that are actually for--or about--Rosalie, or at least were relatively unbreakable, and I let her have a heyday with them. Next year I'll make sure she has her own special box filled with her own heirloom-type ornaments. Someday she can be neurotic about it, just like Mommy.





Hey, man, a child as methodical as her is sure to appreciate the ritual. Even if the tree still inspires a certain amount of couch-climbing mischief now.



Another thing I succumbed to this year was Black Friday. I was "on duty" with Rosalie on Friday morning, and in truth I really had been wanting to go to Fred Meyer and get her some snow gear. Plus, her feet had been getting larger, which you can't tell from this pic, but I'm telling the truth:



So it was time to get her some new snow boots. We did not find her boots, but while we were looking at shoes Rosalie had a first. She went over and picked out her own shoes without any prompting from me. Hey, they were on sale.

Plus, they sparkle and have every imaginable color in the known universe. You gotta respect that.

One last thing I wanted to mention has nothing to do with the holidays, but it's a family moment that I don't want to forget years later, so with the hopes that the Internet is still around in the future, I wanted to tell about our bedtime ritual these days. It's lovely. It has evolved over the three years of Rosalie's life, and it's now become something all three of us find pleasant.

We have some music we play downstairs, the "milk" music. It's from a Putamayo World Music CD series called "Asian Dreamland." We read a few stories while R drinks a little milk. Then we say, "Let's go upstairs and look at the sky!" This gets everyone upstairs for something fun.

We go up and carry the cutie out on the back deck and look for stars, clouds, the moon, windy weather, rain, whatever's out there. Obviously on the snowy nights we just stand inside and check it all out. Sometimes we still open the door. Then we do the teeth brushing and flossing, which goes along with some singing and flashlights (Don't ask. Whatever works).

We go into Rosalie's room, put on ANOTHER CD, Ocean Suites, and read two books. Rosalie gets to turn the music off herself, and then we sing a lullabye to her 2 times. In between the 2 rounds of lullabye, she stands up in bed and gives us each a hug and a kiss. While I'm singing the 2nd lullabye I put the blankets on her while she gets settled in, and Michael turns off the lights. Then we leave! And she's cool with it.

The whole thing is dreamy and good for the soul. I'm not a good do-er of routines, so for some reason I get very excited that we do this. The more pleasant parts we have, the less of a fight it is, and the more likely we are to do it. Anyway, thanks for reading. I just wanted to share, and I wanted to remember.


Alrighty, that's it for now. Hope you have had a great holiday weekend, and here's to some more upcoming holidays!

Warm & Cozy

The T-shirts shown above are for "Mack's Flax" from Silver Hills Bakery. I wrote a report on Silver Hills Bakery and our favorite bread of theirs, "Squirrelly Bread." It was for my sustainability class. Anyway, I hit it off with some people who work at the bakery and they sent us some coupons and t-shirts.


We have had such a fabulous time with Rosalie these past weeks. Someone who knows about this stuff commented that she's entering a stable 3-year-old time. And stable she is--solid as a rock. She's tall, lean, graceful, funny, and busy.

I'm still blown away by how easily she took to potty training. Looking back on it, with the wonderful teachers of Berry Patch, we just eased the thing forward as soon as she seemed open to it. And there was never a whole lot of pressure on her, though I know the fact that some other kids at school going potty definitely helped.

I think the empowerment she gets at school really helps, in general, too. I noticed how much more independent she is at school with some things. For example, at home it seems like we're "helping" her wash her hands, when I've totally witnessed her getting down to business at the sink by herself at school when the teachers ask her. Or there was the day when I saw her, totally confidently and with no ado, putting on her own shoes and socks at school. Since then, we've wised up and she sometimes does it at home, too. I think we parents get on a roll sometimes and don't click in to how much our teeny tiny baby is growing up.


Meanwhile, I think I need to get that girl some safety scissors. She's ready to start cutting paper. She has started drawing pictures of people a lot lately (and likes me to cut them out and hang them up). Her people-drawing started with circles:





Then the circles turned into a head and eyes, with a mouth. This one is really good (representational).

Sometimes the mouth is optional and becomes something like eyebrows or hair. And then she also adds legs (see vertical lines below head). :

Sometimes people have got to have a house:


Here's a "happy baby and mommy." Pay no attention to the grumpy expression on the baby--Rosalie will assure you that it is happy. There is grass growing under their feet, sun shining in the sky above left, and the line in between them is a plant growing from a black bean.

On Friday Michael was at a late meeting, so Rosalie and I went out to eat at a sushi restaurant for a special Mom-and-Rosalie time (we went to one we have frequented before--they're fast and family friendly). Anyway, we sat at a table with chairs, not a booth. And Rosalie opted not to have a booster seat. She sat fairly still most of the time, and she carefully popped her edamame out of the pods, and the beans more or less made it into her mouth most of the time. We ordered a California Roll for her, and I also asked for some tamago nigiri (egg omelette on sushi rice) so that she could try it. It's in a sushi book we have at home, and I thought she might like it. Even though it looked foreign to her, she had a tiny piece of it. I'm really proud of the fact that she will have a tiny taste of just about anything if encouraged to do so. Who knows where she got this, but she'll even smile politely and say "mmm!" lots of the times, even if she doesn't eat any more of it. Where did she get the idea to do this??? It's cool how society--and the knowledge of social mores--just kind of happens to kids.

This morning we noticed that snow was starting to drift from the sky, so the three of us went outside to catch snowflakes. While we were out there Michael pulled out a rake, and the next thing you know the three of us were doing some much-needed yardwork in the gently falling snow. At one point Rosalie realized that the leaf piles Michael was raking up were pretty jump-worthy. It didn't take long before full-on "leaf angels" were happening. She was basically swimming in leaves. She learned how to catch snowflakes, and she (kind of) helped put away all the summer sand toys that had still been lying around the yard. By the time we were finished, the shed was straightened up, the lawn furniture was covered, and Rosalie was all pink-faced and tired. We came inside and I made hot cocoa with whipped cream while Michael made a fire. It was a wonderful way to celebrate the first snow of the year.

A Very Kitty Halloween

Rosalie had a blast this Halloween. She's an old pro at it now, since this is her third year of it.

We started Halloween week by carving the pumpkin that Grandmama had brought out this month. Rosalie wanted a "happy jack-o-lantern," so that's what we did! After I cut out the facial pieces, she really enjoyed putting them back in, jigsaw-puzzle-style.


She also showed us that she was "very brave" by cleaning out the innards of the pumpkin. Apparently at school some other kids were weirded out by the texture, but not the Big R! She reminded us a couple of times about how brave she was. We agreed. Here she is, working hard at cleaning out the pumpkin.


All that was left was the "candle," and we used a flashing light for the evenings leading up to the Big Night.



On Friday evening, Berry Patch had a party for all the kids and families, complete with costumes, pumpkin songs, and goodies. Although the kids started out a little wary of the whole scene--all the costumes and sudden addition of tall people in their school space--things started to loosen up with a little story-telling and singing. I must say, Rosalie is such a deliciously enthusiastic participant in the singing!


Party number two was back at the Patch on Saturday. It was "Parents' Night Out" and the kids watched Charlie Brown's The Great Pumpkin and made pumpkin pie. Michael and I are so grateful to that school!

Sunday was Ballard's annual trick-or-treat in the afternoon, put on by most of the retail & restaurants in downtown Ballard. It's a mob scene, let me tell you, but it moves quickly along, like a river of sequins, fur, and short people. Everyone wants to get to the next place for the next stop, so it's actually remarkably smooth. We saw many good friends/neighbors while we were out. As the event was coming to a close, Rosalie ran into her good buddies George and Owen ("big" Owen) from school.


As you can see from Rosalie's face, even though she was happy to see her friends, it's pretty distracting out there on the street, even with less people.


That night, there was much sugar. We decided against doing the house-to-house trick-or-treating this year. She'd already had so much activity, and the candy she'd collected was way more than sufficient. So she helped to greet the people who came to our door, and she handed candy out to the other kids. Meanwhile, between knocks, she ate more of her own loot. I was astonished by how well-versed I am at candy. I could name it all, each one she pulled out. Weird to think that she was tasting these for the first time and I'm fully fluent in all of them. Well, she's definitely had her practice with sweets the last few days. Here's one last shot of Miss Chocolate Lips.

Hope your Halloween was as fun as Rosalie's!

Culinarian in Training

This weekend Grandpa Livingston came into town to visit, and he and Rosalie had a grand old time, reading books, walking to the Locks, and strategizing pillow forts.

We also went out to dinner on Saturday and had a fine dinner--for dessert I ordered bread pudding. I offered a bite to Rosalie, and she tasted the sauce. "I taste cinnamon!" She said, with bright eyes. Well, how do you like that? There was cinnamon in the sauce, but it was not heavy-handed at all. I was blown away. Especially since earlier that day I had tried to trick her into eating a grilled sandwich that did not have mayo on it. She had requested mayo. There was tons of melted cheese, lovely butter, and turkey. But when she started eating it, she said, "There isn't any mayonnaise!" Okay, I know I'm in culinary school, but really, does mayo have much a flavor? Really? I totally couldn't trick her. Michael thinks she got her palate from me. Yes, probably, but as I say, I'm not sure I could have detected a lack of mayo on MY sandwich.

She sure does like her food. A common thing she'll say before something delicious: "My gonna eat it all up." (plus, the other day, "Ohh yeah." So adorable coming from her!)

Speaking of cute things she says that sound mildly grown up or borrowed from some super-hipster, did I tell you about the time recently when we were walking back from the farmer's market, and she started almost rapping, saying, "C'mon ev'rybody! Come on ev'rybody, you can do it! Dance! C'mon ev'rybody!" What will I do with all of this cuteness? I don't know. Keep blogging, I guess. Keep being amazed by this person who just keeps blossoming right before our eyes. Our wonderful Rosalie.

Joy

Rosalie has had a really great few weeks. They coincided, thankfully, with my first three weeks of culinary school, and for that I am very grateful to the Powers That Be. She had a great dental appointment in which the doctor "counted her teeth," and the dentist said she has a great set of chompers (pictured above). It's a good thing we floss, though! There's so much smile to attend to. Great problem to have. After the dentist appointment Rosalie informed me that she was very brave at the dentist. I agreed.

Rosalie is also just awesome with the potty now. She's able to tell us when she needs to go and she gets to it. We only do diapers at night at this point, and we haven't had a single accident in many days. We're so proud!

I may have already said these, but they're cool: She also pours her own water at the table, takes her dirty dishes to the kitchen counter after meals, and she sets her own timer when we're going to transition to new things in "two more minutes." She likes to have some responsibility and autonomy.

During this busy time I wish I could mentally beam over to this blog all of the funny/brilliant things Rosalie says, because there are many. Uncle Randall and Aunt Ethel visited us this weekend, and when the sun was setting last night, Rosalie pointed out that it was almost night-night time. Aunt Ethel told Rosalie that the sun was going to sleep. Rosalie said, "Noooooh." Like, "That's crazy." Michael told Randall & Ethel about how he has ruined all poetic notions of the sky for Rosalie because the two of them like to watch space documentaries together. Which, I think, is really cool. Rosalie really likes documentaries.

We're really excited for Halloween over here. Rosalie's going to be a kitty cat (which she already is, often, so she'll have lots of practice). Grandmama brought over a pumpkin that she and Papa Stan grew for her, and Rosalie loved it. Here she is, attempting various unsafe moves on it.



All in all, October 2010 has been shaping up to be a happy month for Rosalie!

Generosity

Rosalie, like all other toddlers, likes her own stuff. And other people's stuff. However, it's always so nice to see her share. The other day we celebrated Grandmama's birthday when she came to visit. Although Grandmama didn't want a cake for herself, she bought a cupcake for Rosalie, who had requested it.


Rosalie was quite enjoying her cupcake, as you can see, but when Grandmama asked her for a bite, she easily and willingly gave it to her. I love it.

Rosalie attended an "old fashioned" birthday party today, complete with party dresses--and she was so cool about coming to the toy store to pick up a little gifty for her friend with me. There were no requests for toys for herself. She helped me pick out stickers to go with the gift, and she put the gift in the bag herself. She was also excited to make her friend a birthday card. Just wonderful.

Getting Dressy

When Rosalie first learned to crawl, it made no sense to me to dress her in dresses: How hard to get around! When she first learned to walk, I felt protective of her little knees when she fell down. When she began Berry Patch, I loved that her time there is so messy with learning. So basically, there never seemed to be a time when I had a dire need to get her dresses. But today I was at a "gently used sale" and I bought her not one, not two, but FIVE dresses for cheap, plus some cute shoes that appear to be pretty comfy for her. I figured she has tea parties and maybe some other events to attend where a dress might come in handy.

We had so much fun this morning playing with these! Figured you'd like to see some of the fun.

Here she is seeing herself in the first dress. Pure pleasure. She loved playing with those purple flowers.


She also loved playing with the little doohickies on this dress.


This dress was pretty twirly. Good fun.


More twirling! This one is actually a knit dress, and could even be a "play dress" because it's stretchy and comfy.


This one can probably hold on until spring. It's actually size 5/6 (and she's a 4T at this point).

What a pleasure! Hope you enjoyed the eye candy as much as we did.