Cleese, Clackers, Lions & Bears. Ah-some

Well, that is what it sounds like when a 2 year old (Alice) is trying to say the following words: "cheese, crackers, wine & beer. Awesome." Yes, Alice's favorite snack is cleese and clackers. Her favorite (non-bedtime) book is "cleese book," aka Ratatoulli mini-book about food. The other day, Lizzie and Alice were saying lions and bears back and forth across the table. It was a funny day, especially because when a 2 year old says lions and bears, it sounds like wine and beer. Actually the game may have started with Alice saying wine and beer... Ah-some!

Pop-Pops

In a previous post, Eric wrote about 'Cair', Alice's love of the before-bedtime ritual of 5-15 minutes of time with either mom or dad in the rocking chair.  Officially, it's a time to cuddle and settle down; unofficially, Alice often uses the time to jump in my (or Eric's) lap in a weird sort of cuddle-mosh-lovefest with her bunny and the parent du jour.

Recently, through some joint initiative, Alice and Lizzie have established their own bedtime 'cair' routine.  But it's not called `fair' at all.  It's called "Pop-pops."  (I have no idea why, of course; I never do.  I am an obtuse parent with an opaque atrophied sense of imagination...)

In Pop-pops, Lizzie gets on the rocking chair and invites Alice to climb up with her in a sort of nested straddle, then the two rock together while Lizzie says sweet soothing things to encourage sleep.  In true young-kid fashion, the gentle snuggle quotes suddenly when Lizzie says in a totally matter-of-fact tone, "Okay Alice, that's it.  Tim to go to bed now," while unceremoniously shoving Alice off of the chair.  So sweet.  Sort of, anyway.  We don't raise the bar too high around here!

It finally happened.

One of Alice's favorite activities this fall (and late summer), has been picking and eating "teeteetoes," or tomatoes. She'll lift the electric fence over her head, and go into the garden and start picking and eating cherry tomatoes. She's pretty good, and gets ones that have turned mostly orange or red. Strawberries are a different story...she likes them green. Anyway, today she was picking teeteetoes when I looked over and she had a thai dragon chili pepper in her mouth. She bit off the end, and I yanked it out of her mouth. I don't know what made her cry, the pepper or me prying her mouth open to fish out the end of the pepper. Luckily for her, and true to form, she picked a green one, not a red one, so it wasn't that hot (I checked).

Crash!

Alice fell down the stairs the other day. A real fall. You see, going down on a small riding tractor doesn't count (Alice did that a few months ago). After she fell, she cried, I comforted her, then she climbed from my lap onto the side table, jumped onto the couch, and did a somersault off the edge of the couch. I told my lithe Ron law that I wished she would get hurt sometime so she would have some fear instead of none at all.

Cair

Alice's new cair game is to stand in my lap and press Bobby to my face and then press her face against Bobby. Its very cute, but unfortunately sometimes she gives me a head-butt. Update, she also likes to take my finger and point to all the "tars" in yaddie when we read it during "cair." She'll alsopoint to the sharks face.

Me and Mommy and Daddy and not Alice.

Today on the way to school, Lizzie proclaimed that she wanted to do pasting work with Mommy and Daddy while Alice was sleeping. Then she turned to Alice and said, "me and Mommy and Daddy and not Alice." So sweet!

Potty-mouth

Yes, Lizzie is almost 4, so she is learning her swear words! Just kidding, although we have heard a few... On the other hand, Alice is spending a lot of time on the potty, and she is learning lots of new words from the books that have been dedicated to the bathroom. Good thing...her vocabulary could use some improvement. She seems to be interested in animals the most right now. A week or so ago it was colors -- she knows most colors, but gets them wrong most of the time. There's a page in Yaddie (where's that fish) that has many different colored starfish. First she wanted to look at the stars ("tar, tar, tar"), but then she started getting interested in the colors. Now we need to get some ABC books and some counting books...

Bou, Teedalee

Lizzie and Alice's favorite games to play together are Bou and Teedalee. Bou is the game of bouncing on their beds before going to sleep. I'm sure there are some movies on Picasa. Teedalee is the game of romping on the couch, or other piece of furniture, or Mom or Dad. Very silly. Update, there are two other games similar to teedalee. They are called teedala and teedaloo.

2

Alice's birthday isn't for a few weeks, but oh my she is acting like a 2 year old. During a meal she'll exclaim "yucky," then "more," then "no," followed by eating whatever is in front of her. Its very funny. Sometime she'll say "yucky" and then throw her bowl...

Writing

As well as the recently mentioned drawing spree that Liz has been on, she has also been writing words lately. Mostly this means she is stringing together random letters, but she's trying. When we coach her, she can sometimes put together a simple word. As well as her own name, I think she can write Mom and Dad, and maybe Alice.