Target

It's no surprise to people that I love the store Target, however, my daughters are starting to be the same. The best part it that they are not old enough to whine that we aren't buying them toys. So here is how a typical shopping trip at Target goes.

We enter the store and Grace leads us directly to the toy aisles. We always start in the boy aisles which she loves the most and are the most age inappropriate. Then we make our way through the pink overload aisles, Disney, Barbie, kitchen stuff and end up where the baby toys are and we talk about who we should buy all the baby toys for.

We pry Grace away from the toys long enough to get the few things we actually need and somehow 6 toys have ended up in our cart as Grace's favorites. We allow her to press all of the buttons in the Vtech and Leap Frog aisle long enough for us to put everything back, check out and head home. Who needs a playground when you have Target.

I thought this secret was ours until tonight I noticed another guy with his two kids doing the EXACT same thing. I couldn't help myself. I said to him, "We usually come here to entertain our kids for an hour and then leave," to which he responded, "I do the same thing." That's all I needed to reassure myself that it is COMPLETELY NORMAL to treat Target as a playground!

Nemo is Dead!

So, sometime in 2011, Rita brought over two Beta fish for Grace and Charlotte. Of course, we named them Nemo and Dore. One was orange-reddish, and the other was blue. Before Papa Dave and Brandy moved in, we had to check on these fish every day. Grace had to say hi and see them. She loves these fish. Well about two weeks ago, when I came in the house, Paul said to me, "Kristin, N-E-M-O is D-E-A-D. At first, I thought he meant that our DVD was broken and I was like, "Ok, whats the big deal" but then I quickly figured out why he was spelling it out as he was motioning towards the fish tank. Now, I could have easily disposed of Nemo but I wanted to include Grace. I mean, she is too smart and if she had just seen one of the fish the next day, she would have noticed. Soooo.... I said, "Grace, I think there is something wrong with Nemo." She wanted to see so I brought him over to the table along with the other fish that was moving.

Now let me also say that at the same time that Rita bought the girls the fish, she also brought one to her parents house so that the girls had a fish there. His name is Sharkbait. Haha. Since they have had that fish, Grace has poured syrup and sugar into the bowl amongst other bad things that have required Paul's mom to change the water. Can't believe that fish has survived the wrath of Grace.

So, back to the Nemo story. Brought the fish to the table and Grace said, "He's sleeping, let's give him food to wake him up." I told her, "ok but I think if Nemo doesn't wake up and eat the food then he might be dead." So, when we put the food in and Nemo didn't move I told her I thought he was dead and she said... Are you ready for this????? Scroll down...

"Cool, let's color!" Hahahahaha. I couldn't believe her reaction. So, of course due to her lack of sympathy for the fish, I had to take it one step further and I asked her if she wanted to help me flush it down the toilet. She ran to the toilet in excitement. As I was flushing the toilet, the realization finally sunk in as she said, "MY FISH" and started crying. This only lasted a couple of seconds before we started playing another game and she was fine. Oh and of course after I promised her that we would get another fish.

Disney World

It's official. We have booked our kids first trip to Disney World. I am so excited. We are celebrating 5 year anniversary, me turning 30, gonna have a third kid soon so I want to go while i'm not pregnant, and anything else that allowed me to convince Paul that this is a good idea. I know they will have a good time, but really my expectations are just that we can manage this and Paul will have a good time so he'll want to go back. I'm not even showing him all the pictures of our hotel so that he can be surprised too:) I showed Grace the hotel pictures on the computer and said, "Do you want to go there?" to which she replied, "No, I don't want to go there, I want to... wait, where do I want to go?" I then explained that the hotel is where we sleep and then we would get to meet Mickey Mouse. "Oh, ok... then I would like to go there," was her response.

Parenting lesson backfire # 1: When you are taking a trip and it is 6 weeks away don't tell the 2 year old. I was dancing around the house acting like this trip is the best thing that ever happened to me, so imagine my surprise when I picked Grace up from the Augles on Tuesday and she wanted to go to Disney World. (Enter sarcasm) Even after I explained that I had to get us ready for the trip and that we weren't going for a few weeks, she repeatedly said, "I want to go to Disney World, NOW." I took her home and on the way, she said, "I can see Disney World." I said, "No, you can't. It's too far away." I told her we need to take a plane to which she asked where the plane was. When I told her it was at the airport, she said she wanted to go to the Airport. She the had a complete meltdown with head and arm thrashing and refused to take her shoes off. It took at least 5-10 minutes to get her to stop crying. LESSON LEARNED! Keep the excitement to a minimum until right before. I am going to make her a countdown so she can start to get the concept of time, however. I will not be taking Andrew's advice and telling her Mickey Mouse is Dead. HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Char-Char- 15 month Stats

At Charlotte's most recent doctor's appointment, she was 22 lbs 10 oz and 30 in. That is the 50th percentile for weight and 25th-50th percentile for height. Her head circumference was in between the 50th-75th percentiles.

She already is saying lots of words including, Pat, Papa, okee dokee, bird, ball, dog, bam, no, done, more, bath, book, (hm... lots of b words), out, up, mama and mom, da da, eeta for Rita, and I know I'm missing some... hmmm. She also Roars when I ask her what sound a lion makes and she tweets for a birdie sound.

She is obsessed with her shoes and her coat and always wants to go "out." She loves her blanket and her elephant wubbanub also. I would be upset that she is so attached to them however she goes to sleep without any problems and stays asleep so it's a battle I'm not fighting.

She hates getting her diaper changed and cries and squirms, however when I say "Legs up," she pats her belly and says, "Pat, pat, pat," to which I finish with, "Raise your arms up high," because she learned it from Little Einsteins. Not sure why she does this when I say "Legs up," but it is really cute.

Her Aunt Rita always asks if anyone has to go to the bathroom when she gets home from work in case Grace would like to go. Grace ignores this, however Charlotte smiles and walks right into the bathroom. She proceeds to take the little step stool and attempts to either put it in the toilet, stand on it, or sit on it, depending on her moods. Don't worry, we won't be potty training her any time soon.

Ever since 14 and a half months she has been walking or now running from place to place. She was such a late walker however she seemed to wait until she had mastered it in her head and executes it perfectly. She can run around a corner so well, it's amazing. It's like she was just observing Grace for all that time, waiting until she was ready to make her move. She likes to climb on things (stairs, empty boxes, etc.) but can't manage to climb on our couches yet. She slightly tries it and then whines until we help her up.

Charlotte's 15 month appointment

Funny story from Charlotte's last doctor's appointment. We had just been to the doctor the day before for her dermatologist appointment and so we were really not in the mood to be back in the office the following day, however off we went. I met Paul at the doctor's office with the two girls and so we ran in and were hanging out. About one minute before the nurse told us we could weigh Charlotte and take off her diaper, we noticed she had pooped. Well Paul had just used the last of the wipes that were in the bag before I got there so we had one diaper and zero wipes to work with. I asked the nurse if they had any wipes and of course she said, "No." Sooo I had to take Charlotte to the bathroom and change her "Mr. Mom" style. By the way, if you haven't seen that movie you need to. We all know that those Changing Tables in the bathroom cannot be trusted and Charlotte's poop was ridiculously disgusting. I had to use toilet paper and water and keep taking her from the table to the sink and back again to clean her off. Needless to say, I was breaking a sweat but we got it done. Don't worry, I gave her a bath as soon as we got home. Poor Char Char! More to come!

spaghetti

I know this was already on Facebook but I can't help it... I love it!

video of Grace in bath tub

Charlotte Pictures

Charlotte's Trip to Dermatologist

Charlotte's spot on her arm that she has had for about a year still hasn't gone away so we decided to hit up the second dermatologist. There are two possibilities for what her spot is, both apparently nothing to worry about and should go away over time on their own.

# 1:Juvenile xanthogranuloma (JXG) primarily is a self-limited dermatologic disorder that is associated rarely with systemic manifestations. Infants and small children are mainly affected.

JXG consists of lesions that may be single or multiple and appear as firm, slightly raised papulonodules several millimeters in diameter. They are tan-orange in color and occur frequently on the head and neck, but many extracutaneous sites have been reported.

The eye, particularly the uveal tract, is the most frequent site of extracutaneous involvement. Approximately one half of patients with ocular involvement have skin lesions. JXG is the most frequent cause of spontaneous hyphema in children and can result in secondary glaucoma and eventual blindness.

#2: Urticaria Pigmentosa Mastocytosis- This just sounds worse and the symptoms do not seem like Charlotte's spot so I'm ignoring this one. Anyways... moving on... we have some cream to try otherwise it is just going to go away.

pictures

Updates

Don't really blame people for stopping following my blog. I haven't written in what 3 months. So sad. Oh well...

Let's see. Grace is all signed up for Pre-school. She is going to go to St. George in Tinley and here is what already gives me anxiety, She will be in class with two very large 4 year old twin boys... and she has to do everything in the bathroom by herself. Grace is very capable of going potty on her own, however, what if she needs help? What if she forgets to wipe? Or wash her hands? She does all these things now probably 95 percent of the time... other times she gets lazy and forgets a step. Ha... Her teacher will be Sister Maria which is a bit intimidating. I'm a bit rough around the edges so I need to learn to be sweeter:) Also, Grace has been playing church with my dad. She presses the music on the Fisher Price Little People Nativity Scene and holds a book up like the bible. We may be in trouble. She loved the classroom though and began playing almost immediately. She even hung up her coat on the coat hook. She's getting to big too fast!

Other things about Grace... a couple of days ago we were in the car and I heard a sneeze. I said, "God bless you, Char Char," and Grace replied, "Hey...you're blessing me!" Hilarious. Apparently I had the wrong kid. Oops.

Yesterday Paul gave her the yellow pages which were apparently addressed to Papa Dave. Grace put it on the kitchen table, looked at me and said, "This is for Papa Dave. Don't touch it mom, k? It's Papa Dave's." Where does she get this stuff?

She loves playing with her kitchen, especially serving us cupcakes. Even if Charlotte is in bed, Grace will still set a place for Charlotte too. She loves her most of the time, but steals everything and anything from her. Unlike my last post though, Charlotte is getting upset with her and will fight her for things. She is holding on tighter and Grace even lost one battle over a plastic teapot. I was rooting for Charlotte to hold her own. Ha.

Grace and Charlotte take baths together and each have their side. They play very well together in there. Grace hates getting her hair washed which is ridiculous because it lasts about two minutes each time. Grace pours water over Charlotte's head and Charlotte stands up and tries to escape. Don't worry, I supervise at all times. They love to laugh at each other and scream in each others faces. All in good fun I suppose.

Today, Grace and I were pretending to babble like Charlotte to see if Charlotte would talk with us. Grace was rolling on the ground laughing and cracking herself up but it worked. Charlotte kept coming up to us and babbling and then laughing and walking away.

Charlotte these days makes some animal noises, says dada, mom, book, more, up, dog, thanks, Gace, Papa, Ita for Rita, and mama for Grandma while looking at her, amongst others but I can't think right now.

She loves the book, Dear Zoo, and we read it pretty much every day. Charlotte goes to bed so easily that we don't make bedtime reading and song time. I work it into the nighttime because I don't want to ruin her being so awesome.

She is flying around the room. She started walking around 14 1/2 months and hasn't looked back. She wants to be everywhere. She wants to be everywhere we are but she will stay and play in the playroom for a long time, as long as Grace or one of us is in there with her.

She is super serious, always seems like she is pondering something and makes the cutest scowling faces.

She eats food as if we are going to run out... then again... so does my dad.

It's very interesting having him living here, that's all I have to say about that.

Last noteworthy thing I guess is that I started showing Grace picture of "my mommy" and telling her that was her Grandma Kit. I don't know why I waited so long, I guess it just seems weird. Today though, she ran to the photo album, took it out and said, "Come on, I'll show you your mommy." It was really cute. I'm thinking that I need to get more photos out and around but I just haven't so far. I'm not ready to answer questions that an inquisitive toddler may ask. How do I even broach the subject of "Heaven?"

Thoughts to ponder. Until then, I'm off to bed. See you in a few months.