Jonny & Amanda: October 2007

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

My Little Goblins

We had a fun Halloween! Some people really get into it in our neighborhood - we are talking more decorations than Christmas. The Monterey misty fog rolled in right as we were eating dinner, so we had the perfect spooky atmosphere for trick-or-treating.

Emma was a princess - if I addressed her as Emma she would say "No, I'm princess Emma." This is her checking out her loot.

Here she is with a Halloween tattoo that her Mimi (Jonny's Mom) sent her, and with a face painting that she got at our church party.

My sweet Matthew was a pumpkin. We had a little bit of a tough time convincing him he wanted to be a pumpkin, but after a few minutes he conked out in my arms and slept through most of the night.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

This is why...

They tell you not to leave your small babies alone with your other children. Usually I am very careful about this, especially after the time that Emma put a pillow over Matthew's face (I am convinced she was just trying to make him more comfortable, not smother him for coming along and dethroning her). I had to run to the bathroom and I left him in his exersaucer. I was only gone about one minute. I came back out to find Emma rubbing diaper rash ointment liberally on Matthew's head.

Monday, October 22, 2007

The Mystery Spot

We went to the craziest place the other day. It is in Santa Cruz - which is mysterious in and of itself for reasons I will enumerate later. Anyhoosers, they have a redwood forest there that is so beautiful and in that forest lies The Mystery Spot. I don't even know how to describe it really. Basically, when you stand there in a certain area, you are standing at this crazy angle, even when you are standing straight up. I realize that makes no sense...just look at the pictures and the website describes it better than I do. However, I am technologically impaired and cannot figure out how to make a link...just google The Mystery Spot. Emma couldn't even stand up - if I let go of her hand she would just fall down. Some of us also felt kind of dizzy and weird while we were there. It was crazy and so fun. Emma still talks about The Mystery Spot.

So....Santa Cruz. Just saying the words sends a little shudder down my spine. I realize that we are in Northern California and there is naturally a proliferation of crunchy-granola hippy-dippy-trippy type of people here. However, it seems to be magnified about a zillion times in Santa Cruz. I've really never seen so many creepy stoner, homeless, pothead, dressed like witches/psychic palm reader characters in such a concentrated area in my life. I actually walked in on a homeless man bathing in the sink in the unisex McDonald's bathroom. After yelling at me for walking in on him, he apologized and admitted that he should have locked the door (you think?) and invited me into "his" bathroom. Had my bladder not reached explosion-at-any-minute point, I would have run like a madperson out of there. As soon as I reached the car I proceeded to wipe down my entire body with hand sanitizer. We are not in Kansas anymore...

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Say Cheese!

We are definitely entering "weird smile phase" with Emma. I don't know what it is that causes kids around this age to be unable to smile in any sort of normal way, but we are there. Finally the other day after telling her "Smile for the picture," and getting the freaky smile, I told her "For crying out loud, just stop smiling!"

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Rice Cereal...yum!

Today we gave Matthew his first try of rice cereal. I get such a kick out of feeding babies food for the first time. I love to see their reaction - they make the greatest faces! He was a little dubious at first, but after a minute he started eating with gusto. Whenever he would loose some and it would come back out, Emma would tell him he was naughty for spitting his food out...something I have told her many a time. For some reason I get a little crazy when she does that to me - especially when there is string cheese involved.

The Magic of Motherhood

5/22 I found Matthew in his closet looking for some shoes today. I said, "Which ones are you looking for?" thinking I could help him look. He replied, "Ummmm, the ones I'm looking for." He wasn't being snotty or anything. Just a perfectly logical answer in his little boy mind.
Emma loves to decorate the house and make it all fancy. In the midst of one such decorating frenzy she told me, "If you want, you can call me designer girl!"
Emma asked me the other day, "Why do the policemans have these, like, wand things that they can conk the bad men on the heads with? Maybe it is so they can under arrest them."
I heard Emma say to the little kids, "You guys! Get out of here! I am making a bra for my boobies!" I looked in their room and sure enough, she was fashioning a bra out of tissue paper.
Matthew gave me a big kiss good night and then announced, "That makes us happy. It makes me happy and it makes you happy. Yep, it makes us happy."
5/11 Matthew fell and had a big red rug burn on his forehead. Emma told him, "Well, at least it is red and matches your hair, perhaps."
5/11 Matthew was telling me a big story about how "I got this on twos-day and this on threes-day..."
4/23 I put Sophie in a time out this morning for hitting Emma. I could tell I really got through to her because when I went to let her out she was hopping all around. She beamed at me and said, "I dancing!"
3/20 Matthew told me today that he wanted to wear some of my jewelry and I told him that boys don't wear jewelry. I know they do, I just didn't want him to wear mine. Emma was listening and replied "Boys can wear earrings if they're in a band and they're rockin' out."
After a game of hide and seek I told the kids they were good hiders. Matthew smiled a self satisfied little smile and said, "Yep! We sure are hidey!"
Emma was eating breakfast and naming all the fingers on her hand, "This is the pointer finger, and this is the ring finger, and this is the pinky..." and Matthew stuck his thumb up and said, "Yeah! And this is the good job finger!"
Matthew and Sophie were in one of their frequent squabbles the other day and Emma informed me that Matthew had hit Sophie and then Matthew informed me that Sophie hit him first. Does your head start to hurt when you read that? Because mine does when I hear it...So I started lecturing Matthew,"Just because she hits you it doesn't mean you hit her back..." and he interrupted me to say, "I didn't hit her back! I hit her tummy!!"
Emma was trying on a bunch of clothes that her cousin had grown out of (thanks Jenny!) and there were three swimming suits in the box. She loved trying them all on but one was a little loose in the bosom area. Emma announced, "This one doesn't fit me. It's a booby poker outer."
I am always reminding Matty "make sure your hoo hoo is down" when he is going potty so we don't have a big mess (and then he doesn't slip and fall in it - true story). So one day at a restaurant I had Matthew and Sophie with me in the stall and as I sat down Matthew reminded me, "Mommy, make sure your hoo hoo is down."
Matthew was in the bathroom going potty and I heard him tooting up a storm. Then I heard him say to no one in particular, "Maybe the toots are talking. And they are saying 'Po-op! Poopy!'"
Dec 21 When I woke up this morning I found Matthew rubbing his hands all over a bra that I had left out by my bed. He told me, "I just love this. It is so beautiful." Do they just come hardwired with a boob attratction?!
Dec 15 Emma picked up a piece of ribbon today and said, "This looks like Santa's wacker for his reindeer." It took me a minute to figure out she meant a whip.
Dec 9 Emma came out of the bathroom this morning just as Matthew was heading in. He told her, "Emma you are stinky!" She was all offended and yelled back at him, "Matthew! It's not my body! It's my POOP!"
Dec 5 Today Emma was eating her lunch and she knocked her napkin on the ground. She announced to me, "Mom. My napkin falled on the ground." I asked her if that was my cue to jump up and get it. She told me, "Welllll, I wouldn't want you to get bored."
Dec 1 Emma had a friend over to play the other day and they were talking about watching the movie "The Princess Diaries." Matthew heard them and complained loudly, "NO! I don't want diarrhea!"