Talk time

It's been about 5 months since we cut the landline. We couldn't be happier. Not only are we paying less for phone service than we've ever paid, but we also love the portability (and textability) the cell offers.
One of the greatest benefits, however, is one I never could have predicted. Because the cell phone is smaller and less bulky than a landline cordless phone, it's a lot easier for the girls to hold. When we call my parents or L's parents now, the girls will chat with them on the phone forever. They like to look and act like us holding the phone, and the conversations are just priceless. (They also use their play phones to mimic texting like we do, which partly cracks me up and partly disturbs me.)

We used to have to chase them around the house with the cordless phone, pleading them to talk to Grandma or Grandpa. Now this phone -- combined with us cracking down on manners a bit -- makes the whole process effortless and provides entertainment for the grandparents.

My baby bird

It has been a busy and draining couple of weeks. My parents came to visit for Easter and were here for a week, and in the meantime all four of us have passed around an awful chesty cough/cold that sapped us of our energy for a few overlapping days at a time. (I'm just waiting for the e-mails from my parents that they've caught our bug)

The girls had fun with their grandparents, even when they were under the weather. And L and I managed to keep up with cleaning the house, grocery shopping and being hospitable for the duration of the visit, despite being wiped out and caring for wiped-out kids.

Yesterday and today, finally we are simultaneously healthy and energetic for the first time in two weeks. Peanut made my day (possibly my week!) today, and I thought I'd share.

She had awakened early from her nap this afternoon -- another sign of being healthy -- so I brought her to the couch to read a book and rest a bit more. We finished the book, and she lay across me with her head nestled in the crook of my arm. She looked up at me, and in her little 1-year-old (almost 2, I know) voice she said, "I'm in my nest." *melt* We sat like that for about a minute more, and then she shoved off the couch and went to play.

Retro reads

My mom is a pack rat (hoarder?), and because of that we have many (too many, probably) toys and items leftover from my childhood. Not just the requisite old baby blanket, but also two boxes of Barbie junk, random toys, a stuffed Ernie and about 50 books and...I'll stop there because I want to discuss the books.

From those old books have emerged some of my girls' favorite stories. A few have been re-issued, like my old Mr. and Little Miss books, but others are available at libraries or your favorite online book trader (I'm a Paperbackswap.com type myself). In the interest of fairness, I also traded for L's fave so the girls could enjoy that. I'm sharing these in case you're in search of old-school reads to go along with your Elmo-does-everything, Disney-redundancy, and learning-with-Dora selections that are a dime a dozen.

Here are our good old books, in no particular order:

The Little Engine that Could, by Watty Piper -- the Loren Long illustrated version is beautiful, and of course the story is timeless

Mrs. Duck's Lovely Day, by Vivienne Blake -- we read this on really rainy days

Frog and Toad are Friends, by Arnold Lobel -- four separate stories in one little book

Little Toot, by Hardie Gramatky -- L's favorite, about a harbor tug boat that also happens to be a modern-day environmental hazard (bygones...)

Buzzita, by Rhoda McBain -- actually from my mom's childhood (!); one of my favorite stories ever

The Little Squeegy Bug, by Bill and Bernard Martin -- has a character with a gun, but that gets reproached, and the rest of the story is adorable

Corduroy, by Don Freeman -- the original story, not tampered-with new Corduroy, which isn't near as good

Most of our books are in pretty good shape, but a few need a new binding. I have no idea where to start with that or if it's even possible in this day and age. Not to mention, I'd have some 'splaining to do if any of these books went AWOL for any period of time.

Attention...what was I doing?...span

When my kids were little (I realize they're still young now, but 2 kids under 2 is a totally different category), I remember looking at parents of preschoolers and thinking that their kids were so old! What would that be like, I wondered, to have kids that can ambulate and communicate? Now I'm starting to find out.

Example: I no longer have to carry Peanut everywhere we go. She can walk pretty good distances, and most of the time she is very good about holding my hand and staying with me. She also recently learned how to climb into her own car seat. It takes about 15 minutes (exaggerating), but at least it saves me a hoist.

Jellybean has reached the phase that I remember my friends with older kids telling me about, and I never believed it was true: Her attention span has lengthened considerably. She will now sit for 30-45 minutes doing the same activity -- especially if that activity is artistic in nature. No more dragging out the crayons/colored pencils/markers and paper, only to turn right around and put them away. She would create art all day if I would let her (I do let her quite a bit). See Exhibit A, the marker picture of a sun, rainbow and flowers; and Exhibit B, a dot painting.

I remember when I couldn't wait for Jellybean's attention span to grow; I looked forward to settling in with activities. Here's the irony, though: Now that it's been almost 4 years coming, I am having a hard time adjusting. I'm so accustomed to bouncing from this toy to that toy and this project to that project, that I've forgotten how to sit down and do the same thing for a while. I'm not sure MY attention span is capable of this kind of time! Maybe by the time Peanut is almost 4, I'll be ready for it. In the meantime, I'm going to practice. I may even adopt a mantra (sit down, sit down, sit down...).

Vocabulary lesson

Have you ever noticed how families seem to have their own dialect? I noticed when I was growing up that there were certain words that my friends' families and mine used among themselves that I didn't always understand, almost like inside jokes that evolved into terminology. Now our family is starting to do this same thing, and I'll share an example.

When Jellybean was born, in typical new-parent obsessive style, L and I (okay, mostly I) became conscious of making sure we called all the body parts their correct names so she would learn them. I'm not talking about private parts; I mean stuff like schnoz instead of nose. One of our choices was to refer to her backside as her bottom: "Sit on your bottom, please."

We got our swing set when she was almost 2, and we spent countless hours pushing her on the swing. I swear, she could've set the Guinness World Record for time spent in a swing without getting bored. So to keep ourselves from getting tired of pushing, L and I came up with little games and songs to do with her while she was swinging.

One of her favorites involved us drumming on her bottom when she swung toward us and yelling out "Drum!" She cackled every time. One day I heard L saying "Butt drum!" instead of just "drum." I thought that "butt" was not a word I wanted my 2-year-old repeating -- to me or anyone else. So I made him cease and desist use of "butt," and on the spot I came up with "Bum drum!" as a replacement. Same effect, gentler synonym, everyone was happy.

Over the past 2 years and with the addition of another child capable of speaking, "bum drum" has merged into our family's unique dialect. "Bum drum" = "bottom" at any given time. As in, "I fell and hurt my bum drum." Or, as Jellybean said to me yesterday when I stood up from coloring with chalk outside on the sidewalk, "Mama, you have chalk on your bum drum."

The sun also rises

Spring and summer in Michigan are the best seasons. Nice weather, lots of sunshine, pretty foliage. At the peak of the summer, it stays light until 10 p.m. (!), which is fantastic if you don't have little kids who need to be asleep at a decent hour.

Two years ago in the spring when Jellybean was almost 2, out of the blue, she stopped going to sleep at bedtime. She stayed up and jabbered to herself, sometimes working herself into a hyper lather, necessitating that one of us calm her back down to sleep after an hour or so. L and I finally put together -- duh -- that the lighter evenings (it's light past 8 p.m already at this time of year) were contributing to her inability to fall asleep. So, we shifted her bedtime later and eventually found a balanced time that she would drift off. We were prepared for the same last year with her and shifted her bedtime accordingly as we saw the same pattern emerging, and it worked out fine.

Peanut was still unaffected last year, as she was still 9-10 months old and needed her baby beauty rest. But this year, Peanut is definitely noticing the lighter evenings. About 10 days ago, we put her down for bed, and she was not her automatic lights-out self. She started talking and singing and even screeching -- happily -- to herself. L and I didn't know what to do; despite the pleasant tone, we couldn't help but think something was wrong. See, she is "old faithful" when it comes to bedtime and naptimes (don't worry, it wasn't that way at all in the beginning). We put her in her crib, leave the room, and she's asleep instantly. Not so with the daylight evenings. We've had quite the concert at 7:30 for the past week; she mostly sings "Annie" songs, but whatever comes to mind apparently will do. We've pushed her back to 7:45-7:50 and have had more success (translation: fewer songs), but it looks like we'll be sliding even later as the summer progresses.

I've decided that the ever-changing kid's bedtime in the spring and summer is just another of the warm-weather rituals in Michigan, like getting out the patio furniture or putting on sunscreen. Now if I can just get myself to keep the same bedtime when it's light at 10 p.m.