We love you, Spring!

The weather is finally heating up (to like 50 degrees, but still) and we're already busy busy busy. On April 12th, the Taseff's had their 3rd baby - Case William. We made them some chocolate muffins to celebrate, and Elise and Nora enjoyed "cleaning" the spoons. :)



Nora is still loving her Waldorf Mondays. And Elise and I love our one-on-one time. We play, we take naps, we run errands, we play some more. It's good stuff all around.



She's a busy girl!

Showing her baby leopard some love. She's very generous with the love these days, for stuffed animals and humans alike.

I think this one looks just like her Papa!

It's amazing to see how quickly all our moods have improved with just a little bit of outdoor time each day. It feels like the clouds of winter are passing and I'm REALLY looking forward to this spring and summer. Elise would spend every second outside if she could, and Nora is already talking about our garden. Nora wouldn't let me take pictures of her, so the following sunny shots are all of Elise. Maybe next time, right Nora?





Sportin' the gangsta lean...

We've also been thoroughly enjoying the library these days. I love seeing my girls develop a love of reading and they love going through stacks of new books and running around the kids section. And there's nothing like coming home and getting comfy with a new book:

Nora set up the pillows all on her own - Mama was impressed.




Wednesday was rainy, but luck smiled down on us and sent two new princess dresses in the mail! Oh, the cuteness.

Miss Elise

Elise is now 14 months old. That makes me the Mama of two toddlers! Yowza! She's growing and learning and cracking us all up so regularly these days that it's really tough to keep up.

Pillow fort!



Some highlights (other than being ridiculously adorable):

- She's full on walking now, although she still likes a finger to hold on to. She can stand up on her own (without using an object to pull herself up) and can maneuver the small step between the dining room and kitchen, which is a well known toddler trip up.
- She knows the signs for 'bath', 'all done', 'thank you', 'food', 'more', 'fish', and has a few signs that she's made up herself. The other day she made the sign for fish and then the sign for food and beamed when I gave her the goldfish cracker she desired. So smart!
- She says 'mama', 'papa/dada', 'sister' (sistauw), 'sadie', 'no', 'sit', 'hello' (hewo), 'uh oh', 'sorry' (sawee), 'turtle' (dirtul), and can repeat phenetically just about anything you say to her.
- She makes the animal sounds for dog, cat, cow, owl, and her favorite, duck. Today in the car she kept quacking to a piece they were doing on Huck Finn. Get it? Huck? Duck? Too cute.
- She is a dance machine, just like her big sister, and throws out some seriously killer moves that make us all laugh, but deep down we're just wishing we were as cool as she is.
- She understands simple commands, like "put X in the bucket", or "bring Mama the X". Smarty pants.
- She loves books, which makes me super happy. Her favorites right now are In the Night Kitchen, Olivia, Big Sister Little Sister, 10 Little Rubber Ducks, Skippyjon Jones, and anything her sister is reading.

We had to rearrange the furniture so that she could have full access to the windows in the living room - she is definitely an outdoorsy little thing.



I'm already seeing little bits of Elise's sassy toddler personality. She wants what she wants and doesn't back down easily, much to Nora's chagrin. And when she's pissed she screeches and swats or sometimes melts to the ground in a dramatic sob that passes as quickly as it came and she's back to her happy busy self.


Climbing...always climbing.


She makes me smile so many times every day I can't even begin to count. The heart swelling that comes from watching that little 4-toothed smile frankenstein-walk over to me for a hug is unbelievable.


And, in Sisterland: Nora seems to have taken the commonly heard "she's so cute I could eat her up"'s and "i just want to pinch those cheeks"'s to heart and often says "She's so cute, I just want to squeeze her!", which is adorable except for the fact that she actually does squeeze her, causing one of the aforementioned dramatic floor meltings. Ah, sisters. But mostly, there is much love and lots of laughs.



And sometimes, when Nora is especially good and shares her iPod, Elise politely thanks her by passing out and leaving her big sis to play in peace. :)



I'm impressed you read all the way to the bottom! As a reward, a video:

Growing up

It's been a month of self reflection around here, and there's still much to be done. 3 seems to be an age of change, or it is for our Nora anyway. And, in response I've found it to be a necessary time of change for me as a Mama. It's hard - and wonderful. I'm getting to know Nora as her own person and getting to know myself as mother to a person separate from myself. Not that she hasn't been her own person since the beginning, but we were so connected for so long that I had almost come to think of us as one. Now I'm seeing us as two and realizing that us as two can be both wonderfully fulfilling and fun and a little bit frustrating at times.

My biggest lessons of the past month or so have been: 1) let kids be kids...it's messy and time consuming and inconvenient, at times, but it's the way to go; 2) always apologize when I mess up; and 3) when I feel like lecturing, I should ask questions instead.

Nora, showing Maxy Cat some love. They have a lovely relationship blooming these days, which makes me happy.


Mostly, I'm learning that Nora is not one of those people who can hold in her disgust when being treated unfairly. That, and I'm really stubborn. I had gotten into a bad cycle of getting frustrated when her desires became inconvenient for me (which is a pretty regular occurence, really) and had started to use bribery and general bossiness to get my way. Basically, I was acting like a 3 year old but getting mad at her for acting like a 3 year old. Real mature, huh? So, I'm trying to choose my battles wisely and taking lots of deep breaths so I can let her be the 3 year old. So far so good.

Nora is a wonderful artist, but the Boy Monster drawing below is definitely one of her best masterpieces. It's a monster...who's a boy...whose name is Nora. A psychoanalyst would go wild with this one!




One of the rules we decided to throw out the window this past month was the no jumping on the couch rule. Nora's LOVING it!





She also enjoys team couch jumping at times...



Our Nora is a complicated, lovely, funny, independent, sweet, sensitive, growing girl. And she's damn good at silly faces...






Be happy folks.