Nicole's first day of school

Today was Nicole's first day of kindergarten. Mark and I took her there together to drop her off. The kids waited in line outside, then the teacher came out and took them inside. A quick wave to Mommy and Daddy and they were gone. Yes, I cried. But I knew I would.

I picked Nicole up from school, expecting to hear all about her day. But it some poking and prodding to find out anything! In the end I found out she had a good day, made a couple of friends, learned everyone's names (but can't remember them now), learned her teacher's name is Mrs. Van Elfen but she can be called Mrs. Van (to which I said "I doubt that, please call her Mrs. Van Elfen") and had to close the door to go to the bathroom (they tend to leave it open at daycare which I've always found strange) and would therefore be closing the bathroom door at home now.

On the way home after picking up Julia, they saw a UPS truck. Someone told them a while ago that they are called "Monkey Trucks". So in car Nicole asks me if they are really Monkey trucks. I told her that they aren't really, that they're for delivering large packages. Then Julia jokingly said that they are Cow Trucks. Nicole said "No Julia, you can't deliver cows, I learned that at school today". lol Anything to appear smarter than your sister I guess. ;)

Spiderman

Nicole has recently labeled Mark as "Spiderman". Is it because he is able to climb walls or catch the bad guys with his webs? Oh no, it is because he kills spiders for us! So, "With great power comes great responsibility." And I'm happy to leave that responsibility to Mark. ;)

Don't eat the seagulls

I haven't had much to post lately, things have been pretty quiet. But I had to share this story because it makes me laugh.

We were driving today and passed a field full of seagulls. The girls were facinated. Then Julia said "we don't put all the seagulls in our mouths". Weird, but okay, Mark and I agreed, we don't eat seagulls. The she said, "we eat them one a time". We are always telling her to stop shoving food in her mouth, to eat a bite at a time. I guess we now know that she is getting the message! :D

Princesses are the new Santa

Nicole is obsessed with princesses. She told me other night she wants to be a princess when she grows up and asked how she would be able to do that. I told her that Mark and I would have to be a King and Queen which we're not, or she would have to marry a prince. She agreed that marrying a prince would be the way to go. Then she said "I'll marry a prince like Daddy". :)

Anyway, yesterday Nicole was asking lots of questions about princesses, where they live, why we don't see any here, etc. We told her that some countries have princesses and some don't and that we don't have any in Canada. She proceeded to tell us that Florida has princesses. Not catching on at this point, we tell her that no, the US doesn't have princesses. Then she tells us about Cinderella, Belle, Ariel, etc. who live at Disneyworld. Right, we get where we are going now. So we start to tell her that Cinderella and Belle aren't real and that those are just people dressing up. Silence. Mark and I look at each other, realizing our mistake. A quick whispered conversation (we were in the car) between Mark and I determines that we are okay with her believing in princesses for now. Luckily, Nicole doesn't believe me and tells me how she met Cinderella at her friend's birthday party, so she has to be real. Phew, crisis averted.

Julia is poopy

She would tell you if I didn't. So I figured I would. ;)

When Julia moved the preschool room at daycare a month ago she refused to tell them when she had a dirty diaper. This was nothing new to me, she won't tell me either. You can smell her across the room and she'll deny it. Her daycare teachers spent the whole month getting her to fess up when she needs a diaper change (as a precursor to potty training). She finally started telling them about a week ago, which makes them very happy. Thanks to her daycare teacher, she will now tell anyone and their brother when she is poopy - random strangers, the cat, etc. The weekend she told me to tell Bethany (her daycare teacher) that she was poopy. Yeah, I'll call her and tell her that right now!

We're going to Niagara Falls next week, including a trip to Marineland. Nicole is super excited (and as a result, so is Julia)! Coincidentally, this is "ocean week" in Nicole's room at daycare. So Nicole is learning all about sea animals. Nicole thinks she will see all these animals at Marineland. We were watching tv the other day and Emily Young had an episode at Marineland. Emily was feeding the dolphins, swimming with the dolphins, and riding the dolphins. I've had to explain to Nicole multiple times now that we will not be swimming and riding with the dolphins! So all in all, this could be a very disappointing trip for Nicole! ;) In all seriousness though, I'm looking forward to the trip, I do think the girls will have a great time!

Oh, here is a random video of the girls singing their babies to sleep. I thought it was cute. :)

The Monster in the Clock and Wolves in the Bathroom

Yikes, I can't believe how long it's been since I wrote anything! I need to get better with updates.

A funny story first. Nicole has a very active imagination and has now taken to scaring Julia. Nicole has Julia completely convinced that there is a monster in our grandfather clock. Julia won't go near the clock and now and gives it the evil eye when she walks by. Nicole also managed to convince her that there are wolves in the bathroom. I had a terrible time getting Julia in the bathroom to brush her teeth this morning. I guess potty training isn't going to go so well now.

Nicole had her first dentist appointment yesterday (late, I know). At my prompting, the dentist gave her a good speech about thumb sucking and how she has to stop. The dentist is going to call Nicole in 2 months to make sure she's stopped. Surprisingly, Nicole has taken this very seriously. Last night she told me I had better take her blankie away (yes, THE blankie) because she sucks her thumb when she holds it. I didn't have the heart to actually take it away, especially when Mark is away - I want to sleep! She still did very well and said that anytime she found herself sucking she would stop. So maybe she's on the road to being done. If only it could be as easy as taking away Julia's day time soother!

The dentist also said that some of Nicole's 6 year adult molars are in which surprised me (she's 4 1/2). She hasn't complained of any mouth pain. The dentist said we should expect she will lose her baby teeth early too, possibly starting within the next year. How can my baby be losing her baby teeth? It seems like just yesterday she was teething.

That's all for now, I'll try to update more often!

Julia's love affair with her soother

Anyone who knows us, or even looks at pictures I post, knows that Julia is completely attached to her soother. I can't even tell you how many soothers we have kicking around the house. So I decided last week (mostly after looking through hundreds of pictures and seeing very few of Julia without her soother) that it was time to say goodbye to the awake time soother. I told her Sunday morning that she was a big girl and that she could have her soother for sleep time, but that was it. She had a few crying fits on Sunday, but was pretty easily distracted. Monday she asked about her soother, but easily accepted that it was in her crib. Wednesday, she didn't even mention it. Yep, it was that easy! I don't know if I'm just imagining it, but I swear she is talking more now, or at least I understand more. It's amazing as to how much I'm noticing it.

The funny thing is that Nicole has taken it upon herself to teach Julia how to suck her thumb. Luckily Julia isn't interested. I actually think taking Julia's daytime soother away is helping Nicole realize she has to stop sucking her thumb. I've noticed Nicole sucks her thumb a lot less these days. She went so far as to tell Julia, during a soother crying fit, that she only sucks her thumb in bed too (I tried not to roll my eyes when she said it).

Maybe we are on the road to getting rid of the oral fixation in this house! But would that mean I have to stop biting my nails? ;)

Nicole got her ears pierced!

When Nicole was born I went through a phase where I really wanted to get her ears pieced. I think I just hated when people called her a boy! But I decided to wait until she was older and asked to have it done. They're her ears after all. I figured it would happen when she was around 8 years old. But Nicole is always ahead it would seem! :)

A couple of weeks ago she started asking about earrings and holes in ears. I explained how it worked and she said she wanted to go ahead and get earrings. I told her it might hurt, that she had to take good care of them, and that she would have to sleep with them in. None of this phased her.

So, on Saturday, I took her to the mall. She picked out a pair of white gold, diamond looking (I don't remember the stone's name) earrings and then sat up on the stool and waited for the girls to get everything ready. It took them quite a while to get everything sanitized, I thought for sure Nicole would change her mind then. But she just sat there, clutching the teddy bear they gave her to hold on to. They made little marks on her ears and then were ready to go. Luckily it wasn't too busy, so they could do both her ears. I had visions of Nicole walking around with one earring because she refused to to the second ear. So, after a count of 3, in went the earrings. Nicole didn't even flinch. I was so nervous for her, but she was wonderful! I was so proud of her.

She's been doing a great job taking care of them (well, letting us take care of them) and she has been good about not playing with them. I'm sure her friends are tired of hearing about them, she is very excited!

My baby is growing up!

We Need A Snowblower and The Rules of the Table

I have 2 unrelated, but cute stories today.

Nicole declared tonight that "we really need a snowblower". I figure if a 4 year old says we need a snowblower, we've had too much snow! So we decided she was right and went out to find a snowblower. It would seem Nicole wasn't the only one with that good idea - the stores are completely sold out of snowblowers. So I guess Nicole will have to make do with shoveling for the time being. ;)

Nicole spent most of dinner lecturing us about the "rules" of the table. According to her, it is rude to talk with your mouth full, touch other people's food (this one was said as Julia had her hands all over Nicole's food), and put your hand in someone's face while they're eating - another rule Julia broke at dinner. Pretty soon we can stop parenting and let Nicole take over. ;) Nicole has become quite the little teacher, so much so that Julia is picking it up. Julia now lectures Nicole. This morning Nicole wanted jam on her toast and we had already put butter on it. So we said no to jam. Nicole threw a fit and Julia very calmly stated "no jam Nicole, eat your toast". I laughed out loud. Nicole wasn't impressed. But she did eventually eat her toast. :)

Double Why?

It's starting!! This was our dinner conversation tonight:

Mark: "Eat your pasta Julia"
Julia: "Why?"
Nicole: "Why is Julia saying why?"

Yep, Julia's started with the Whys. Unfortunately, Nicole hasn't finished with them yet, so we are now on double why duty. I'm now trying to figure out how I get Nicole to answer Julia's questions. That would really help me out! :)

"I have bad news"

When I was picking the girls up from daycare today, Nicole said to Julia "Julia, I have bad news. Daddy is coming home tonight." My first thought was, wow, I must be really spoiling them for Nicole to be dreading his coming home! But then she said "So we won't be able to see him until tomorrow which makes me sad". So the bad news was that she doesn't get to see him tonight. Phew!

Mark has been gone most of the last week and a half. I honestly don't know how single moms do it. I really miss having an extra set of hands around! It doesn't help that Julia's been sick (cold, cough, and fever) so she has been sleeping terribly. I've been really busy at work and existing on not nearly enough sleep. Makes for a cranky Mommy.

But Daddy is coming home tonight!!! :)

Disgusting!

This is Nicole's new word of the week it would seem. She was putting on her boots at daycare and there was a wood chip in her boot. I was informed that "wood chips are disgusting". There was dirt on her window in the van that was also "disgusting". She stopped just short of calling dinner (mashed potatoes) disgusting. It's amazing what a stern look from mommy will do. :)

Julia has some virus it seems. And so winter truly begins. She had a fever this morning and has been extra grumpy this week. I assumed ear infection since she's had a lot of them lately. But her ears look good, so she just had a virus. But the dr told me that he wouldn't be surprised if this virus gives her an ear infection. Oh goody, I see another dr visit coming up in a week or so. Tubes were mentioned by the dr for the first time today. I think if this does turn into an ear infection we will start talking about tubes.

Mark has been away this week, he gets back tonight. Julia has been missing him like crazy! This morning I went in to get her (she was crying) and she took one look at me and said "NO, Daddy!". Every day she looks at a family picture and specifically points out Daddy. I think Nicole missed him, but not in the same way. She has a better understanding that he's coming back.