The good news: The Packers won, our party was fun. The bad news: We were so busy (which is what happens when you have 15 kids running around the house) that we took no pictures of the festivities. But Q did manage to get a pre-party shot of me and Zoe…
-M
In our household, the Super Bowl is a bit like a national holiday. This morning we’re gearing up for the game and readying for our annual party – and I hope to have at least a few pictures to post later.
Happy Football, everybody!
-M
Our big activity yesterday was Giants FanFest at AT&T Park. Despite a huge crowd and long lines, we managed to get in fairly quickly. And though Zoe was initially confused by the nature of the event (“Where are all the players?”), we had a fun time strolling around the ballpark, picnicking on the field and going down the giant Coke slide. We’ll be back next year!
-M
Avery meets up with her friends Greta and Natalia at least once a month. When Zoe was a toddler she had few girl friends, so it’s a real treat for me to watch her sister hang out with the girls! Here are a few pics from yesterday’s get-together.
-M
One more I had to add:
Zoe and I were playing a new game that she got as a present, Toy Story 3 Yahtzee. One of the dice has Lots O on it and if it lands on that, you take the die out and only play with the remaining ones. When I was quizzing Zoe on how to play, she said “If it lands on that one, you take it out…and then you die.” I then had to explain the concept of die vs dice, but I got a kick out of that one.
Q
A few entertaining Zoe comments/stories:
-We’ve been working with Zoe to stop sucking her thumb over the past few months, and she has just about kicked the habit. But one morning, after we gently reminded her about it, she told us, “But I have to suck my thumb to get the big sleepiness out of my head.”
-One evening a few weeks ago, I told Zoe that she was going to go to bed early. Realizing why I thought she was tired, she told me, “Sometimes when people rub their eyes, it’s just because they’re itchy. I did not rub my eyes because I was tired.” (Uh, yeah – right.)
-One of the songs we’ve been listening to in the car recently is Who Got Da Props, an early-90s rap song. When I asked her one day who had the props, she answered “Hippo.” But when I asked her just yesterday if Hippo still had it, she shook her her head sadly and said, “No. Not anymore.”
-We’ve been doing “letters of the day” for the last month or so, in an effort to help Zoe with her spelling. Our letter today was T and I asked her (to be silly) if “mat” started with T. “No, M,” she told me. “How about bath?” I said. “No, B,” she said, before giving me a funny look. “Do you just not know your front letters?”
As mentioned below, one of Avery’s favorite places to hang out is in the kitchen. (It’s a no brainer, really: That’s where the food is!) The other night she and Zoe set up camp in the middle of the room and dug into their snacks – and I just had to take some pictures.
-M
Today is Groundhog Day – a minor holiday that has taken on new meaning to me since becoming a mom. As great as being a parent is (I’ll spare you the cliches), it can also be very routine: Every day, it’s wake up, feed the kids, dress the kids, take the kids to school/daycare (or, on the weekends, entertain the kids), pick up the kids, feed the kids, bathe and undress the kids, put the kids to bed, go to bed, and on and on and on… It occurred to me at some point after having Zoe that being a parent is actually a lot like the movie Groundhog Day, during which the main character (unhappily) wakes up to the same day over and over again. The sameness of raising kids can really get to you, similar to the way the repetition got to the character in this silly movie.
And so today I feel not like honoring Punxsutawney Phil or Wisconsin’s own Jimmy the Groundhog, but instead all the moms and dads who deal with – and survive – the (at times, tough) routine of raising kids. We may not have a glamourous job, but at least we’ve got creatures way cuter than a groundhog to show for it!
-M
I told Zoe yesterday morning that Uncle Dan’s birthday was coming up, and she got very excited. (As mentioned before, she’s a big fan of birthdays.) “I wonder what he’s going to wish for!” she said, before asking, “Can we go to his birthday party?” When I said he wasn’t really having a party, she said, “Oh, I guess he’s going to celebrate on his own.”
Happy Birthday, Dan! You’ll have to tell Zoe what you wished for…
-M
I forgot how difficult it can be to capture a video of a toddler – while Zoe can sit or stay in one place for an extended period of time, Avery is always on the go. Still, I managed to take a few of Avery doing some of her favorite things: hanging out in the kitchen, playing with her baby, and laughing at her sister.
-M