New friends

Molly has been making new buddies lately -- friends who are closer to her age and don't push and hit and constantly fight over toys, which is always nice. She ran over to me at a play group at Devens this morning to say "I made a friend" and then ran away again. It turned out to be a girl who used to come to our neighborhood play group when Molly was a baby -- funny that of more than 20 kids in the room she gravitated toward somebody she actually already knew but didn't remember. I think Molly even thought to ask the girl's name (Ana), though she didn't remember the answer. :)

Here's another relatively new friend, Jadon, a boy in our mommy-and-me class on Mondays. Isn't he a doll? If we choose this preschool, they would be in the same class in the fall.

Together they're really shaking up the quiet Waldorf vibe in the classroom. This week they sat together during circle time and distracted the rest of the class all through the puppet show by doing some sort of hopping thing. I had to go sit behind Molly to try to get a grip on it and she looked at me and very loudly told me to "go back over there," which everybody thought was funny. Fortunately the teacher is absolutely unflappable and told us two moms afterward that it's just their exciting 3-year-old energy. She's going to spice up the puppet show next time for their benefit. Sounds good to me!

Thanksgiving

Photos from our Thanksgiving trip...

Molly meets Oma's new alpacas.

Cousin fun at the diner.

Getting a little close to the TV at Ganny and Papa's.

Wearing Christmas tie dyes on Trolly morning.

A little down time with Grandpa.

 

 

 

Molly says...

"Why do raisins come from grapes?"
Me: "What do you mean?"
Molly: "Why do they come from grapes and not, um, raisin trees?"


And this morning, right after she woke up:
Molly: "Mommy, how old are you?"
Me: "I'm 34."
(no response)
Me: "I was 33 but then I had my birthday and I turned 34. Is that old?"
Molly: (thinking) "No. It's new. The other number was old, but that's new."

Who's the baby?

We're just getting over a phase where I repeatedly hear the question, "Mommy, can babies (take off their shoes, go potty, crawl, put on their shirt, etc., etc.)?" At first this was cute. Then I realized it was always a prelude to Molly insisting that she can't do those things for herself at the moment because, "Mommy, I'm a baby."

At times I've been tempted to lie and tell her that yes, babies do use the potty (Some do, right? Define baby.) More often, it works to tell her no, babies cannot spoon their own ice cream into their mouths, but babies can't eat ice cream, so if she's a baby and can't use her own spoon, then she can't eat ice cream at all.

Anyway, this whole playing baby thing seems to be fading. So it was funny when I got out of the shower today and found Molly most of the way zipped into this sleeper -- size 18 months. For a kid on the tall end of 3T, it's amazing that she got it on.

She can't quite stand up straight.

There, it's a little easier with her knees bent.

She tried a 9-month sleeper, too, but didn't get very far. Weird as it sounds, I think this was less about pretending to be a baby and more about actually getting ready for little sister -- trying out the stuff to see what it's like. My belly got lots of big sister hugs today. So sweet.

Birthday fun

As usual, I forgot my camera and missed all sorts of fabulous photos yesterday on our visit to Vermont -- the Molly sandwich between Lex and Eve, the giggle fits, the princess outfits. Fortunately Lex captured the princess party. (See his photos here).
We filled up on cookies, cake and pizza. Molly got to go to a playground with her friends, I got to go to Joann's. I can't think of a better birthday party!

It's a ....

Girl!!!!

Everything is healthy and normal. Hooray!!!!!

Pictures of the little lady...

The white spot above her face is her hand.

And here are her feet...

The baby got wiggly when the sonographer was taking the foot pictures and seemed to be playing a game -- dangling the foot out and then pulling it back just as she was snapping the shot over and over. The woman said, "this one's going to give you a run for your money!"

Hurray for another feisty girl!!!

Rearranging

Last week out of the blue Molly said she wanted to switch bedrooms. We'd talked about this a little with her before, knowing our office/growlry would have to be converted into a bedroom for either Molly or the new baby. It seemed like it would be too disruptive to switch Molly's room though, so we haven't pushed it.

Anyway, last week she was pretty serious about switching so Jim suggested we move just her bed in for the weekend to try it out. I honestly thought she wouldn't want to sleep there when night time rolled around. Boy was I wrong. She's been in there four nights now and hasn't once expressed any regret or hesitation.

So we spent the weekend boxing up books and figuring out where to put the computer and generally shrinking our grown-up space in this house to crowded corners. And Molly gets this...

Really she's got two rooms at this point because most of her stuff is still in the old bedroom. And all we've got a bunch of boxes in the basement and a computer in the kitchen. Oh, well. At least now we're making a space for the new baby, which is fun. Two days until the ultrasound and I'll get to dig in to all Molly's old baby stuff in the basement and either get rid of the girl stuff or unpack it. Yay!!!!

As I was getting pictures off the camera, I discovered yet another series of Molly self-portraits. Here's just a sampling. Kinda freaky when you're not expecting it.

Halloween night

Rather than eat more of Molly's candy while she innocently takes a nap, I figured I should post some pictures from last night. (Oh wait, I can do both. Mmmmm.)

It was not much above 30 degree here by the end of the night, but Molly stayed out long enough to bring back quite a haul of goodies. It didn't seem like we had as many trick-or-treaters as some years, but we did go through about 120 bags of Skittles and a bag of Blow Pops, so I guess it was a good crowd.

Here's Molly playing in the basement in the afternoon. She said, "Wait here, I'll be back in a minute" and ran upstairs to get her witch hat -- getting into character early, I guess.

All day long she was asking if it was dinner time yet, because I told her we go trick-or-treating after dinner. Finally, we had dinner and it was time to get dressed. She wanted Daddy to do it.

I decided not to make Molly's costume this year. We just grabbed one off the rack at Target. I've been twitching a little about that decision because it seems like everyone I know was sewing for Halloween this year. The mom across the street made an amazing bumble bee costume and a lady bug costume, Melissa next door made a dementor robe from Harry Potter for one of her older boys.

I guess my only consolation was that it was so cold, any homemade witch costume would have been covered in a jacket anyway, like so ... (here they are heading out to tackle the neighborhood while I stay home to pass out candy)

 Notice the really cool rotten effect we got on our pumpkins. Guess we carved a little early. :)

About 45 minutes later, the doorbell rang and a cold little girl came inside. She made it quite a bit farther this year than last year. Jim said she probably would have kept going, but he called it off when his fingers grew numb.

 Sampling the treats before bed.