Annabel Turns 2!

We have a two-year-old in the house. Let me tell ya, she is two and then some.

We had a quiet birthday celebration for Annabel. Still lots of flags and balloons and the foods she likes, but we celebrated with just the four of us (Michiel, Lisa, Alexander, and Annabel).

Here she is, sharing ice cream with her brother:

And here's her birthday muffin...banana chocolate chip with fresh whipped cream and m&m's on top:

Reading her new book, Frog in Love:

In honor of her second birthday (well, actually, it's her third...if you count the day she was born, but that gets confusing) I thought I'd list some of her recent doings and sayings:

"Ta-da! I look nice pretty"

If you ask her to hop she'll sort of gallop around the house yelling, "Hop, hop, hop!"

She's fond of saying, "I want to do dat too-also," or "You do it too-also."

She calls cucumbers "Q-manders."

She loves the Frog and Toad books and always asks for the same stories: "Cookies" and "Spring." Other favorite books are the Gerald and Piggy series. She knows them so well she can sit in a chair and "read" the stories to herself. When she gets angry, she'll sometimes quote Piggy: "I am mad and sad!"

Favorite songs at bedtime(in her own words): Row row row, my only Sunshine, sing song sickpens peck of her nose. She also likes to sing, "happy birthday to me" and "head shoulders knees toes." The other day she padded down the hallway, cocked her head to the side and said, "I love you in de afternoon."

We have stopped nursing (Yay!)

As of today, she weighs 30.5 lbs. and is 35 inches tall.

Annabel likes her routines. Each morning after we drop Alexander off at school, she says, "Xander's going to sko-el."

"Yes," I say, "Xander's going to school."

"I go to sko-el too!"

"Yes, in a couple of years you'll go to school too."

Normally, the conversation stops there, but one morning a couple of weeks ago, she went on: "I not go to sko-el in a cuppa years. I go when I 39 and a half."

Later I discovered that my parents had weighed her a week before at 29 and a half lbs, so that's probably where she got the number.

Alexander's Birthday, Part 2

Last weekend we had a joint Alexander-Annabel birthday party with the family, and it was quite the event. Those kids got so many presents! Alexander is still in Lego-heaven. And he's got a bunch of books to read in his new beanbag. Annabel got(among other things) a ladybug umbrella and a ladybug pillow (from different people...apparently I didn't get the memo about the ladybug theme).

Alexander wanted a Lego cake, so here's what I came up with:

Annabel was happy just picking off the m&m's and stuffing them in her mouth.

And of course it wasn't long before the boys had to pop open the Lego boxes and start building.

Alexander Turns 5

It's official. We have a five-year-old in the house. I may be more excited than he is. I remember turning five. I remember what a great year it was. All the new things I learned. All the things I discovered I could do. It's exciting when your child gets to an age that you have very clear memories of yourself.

But on to better things. This lucky boy got two parties. One with friends on his actual birthday (Feb. 9th) and one yesterday with family. The friend party was a pannenkoeken (dutch pancake) party, though we americanized the toppings: strawberries and whipped cream, blueberry sauce, nutella and banana. Yum!

There were lots of balloons and party favors and little boxes of Dutch candies. At the end of the party, the kids got to light sparklers in the front yard as they were leaving. It was a brilliant way to end a party with no breakdowns or dawdling about leaving.

And then, Alexander got to open his last gift for the day. The mobile police unit that he's been talking about for months. Here he is demonstrating the door.

And here is the finished product:

I think I'll save the other party for a different post.

Dis Thing

Annabel's still nurses a couple of times a day, or less if I can finagle it. For her, it's nice quiet time with Mama, and she's not at all ready to give it up.

The other day she woke up from her nap really cranky, so I grabbed a book and she settled in to nurse. Normally, she'll nurse for 5 or 10 minutes then say, "Odder side. I want to nurse on the odder side." But this time she was nursing for 20 or 30 minutes before she sat up and said, "Mama, dis thing isn't working any more. Uh-oh, I tink it's broken."

Yup, I think I'm about ready to wean.

Sweet Potato Sausage

This was one of those lovely parenting moments that I'll probably always remember. Like when Alexander (at age one) toddled over to stand beneath the basketball hoop and I, thinking I wouldn't make it, thinking it was probably the safest place for him to stand, shot the basketball. Poor, unsuspecting Alexander watched the ball fly to the hoop. He tipped his little head back and watched the big, orange ball come down through the net, down, down, to smash into his little face.

Not one of my shining moments as a parent.

Here's another one, though not quite as bad. We were coming home late after picking Alexander up from school. Annabel was tired and cranky and hungry. She screamed hysterically when I set her down to prepare lunch. Then she wouldn't eat any of it, even though she loves sweet potatoes. She only wanted to be in my arms. So, I strapped her to my back and she calmed down.

As I got Alexander's food ready, I gave her bites of sweet potato on a fork. I couldn't see her eating them, but every time I reached around with the fork, the bites disappeared. After 7 or 8 such bites, Alexander said, "She's asleep. And she's got food in her mouth."

I asked him to get it out, since I couldn't reach, but he said it was too gross. Finally, I went to the mirror.

I had to take her off my back to get the sweet potato out, and she woke up during the process. A huge sausage of sweet potato came out of her mouth! I couldn't believe her mouth could hold that much. I don't think she swallowed one bite of what I gave her. She must have fallen asleep on the first bite. And I just kept shoveling it it!

My poor kids.

Bad Dad

Last week Alexander was drawing on the window with the window-crayons he got for Christmas. Mostly he scribbled. Rarely does he actually try to draw something.

After a while he started writing letters, practicing what he's learned in school. He would say the sound of the letter t-t-t then write the letter itself: T.

"d-d-d," he said, writing D.

"a-a-a." He wrote A.

"d-d-d." He wrote d. Then he stood back, looked at what he'd written and said (with delight and surprise), "Dad!"

It was the first word I've ever seen him create. I knew he was learning to write letters in school, but I hadn't realized he was putting them together to create words. Pretty cool.

So I asked him to write another word. Above "DAd" he sounded out b-b-b, a-a-a, d-d-d. BAD.

I started laughing before he had a chance to stand back and read the whole of what he'd written: BAD DAd.

It's a bit hard to read. If you squint (and ignore the P and R he added afterwards) the pink letters spell out BAD DAd.

A few mornings later at breakfast, I was grumbling about Michiel because he forgot to put the trash out so I had to run out there in my pajamas before the garbage truck came. Alexander looked up from his cereal bowl and said with all the wisdom of an almost-five-year-old, "Bad Dad."

It's Not a Joke

The kids have their own joke that they find hilarious. I have to admit, the more they do it, the funnier it becomes.

It goes like this:

Knock Knock

Who's there?

Broom.

Broom who?

It's not a joke. It's me, Broom.

Are you laughing yet? Give it 20 or 30 more times. Oh, and it helps to have a cute little not-quite-two-year-old trying to upstage her brother by yelling in her halting yet surprisingly well-articulated English, "It's me, BROOOOOM!"

Annabel is in a parrot phase right now. If you rest your elbow on the table and cup your chin in your hand, she'll do the same. She watches every move and tries to imitate everything, saying, "Ah-bell do it TOO!"

She tends to over-emphasize the last syllable of whatever she's saying.