Carolyn

This morning we decorated cookies during playgroup. Imagine four toddlers, icing, sprinkles and cookies. Now imagine four moms trying to prevent the four toddlers from sticking the icing spoons in their mouths and biting or licking every cookie they were decorating. It really was that much fun!

Carrie had a really interesting way of putting the icing on the cookies – she quickly tired of the “slop and slather” method, and proceeded to drizzle the icing in lines back and forth across the cookies:

My poor baby. I tell her all the time, when we see pictures of fire in books, or on the very rare occasion when there is a lit candle, that fire is hot, and dangerous, and we don’t ever touch it. This is a good message to impress upon a very curious toddler, I think.

Except.

When you go to a hibachi restaurant, you know, where they cook on the table right in front of you, they create fire. It’s not as though I’ve never been to this type of restaurant before. In fact, Carrie was there just last January, and it didn’t seem to faze her at all.

Tonight. Oh, I feel so bad. Those first flames shot up and she started sobbing uncontrollably that she needed a napkin (not sure what she thought that would do) and clung to me with all her strength. Sammy (we were out with the Lisa clan) had a similar reaction. (Though I don’t think he was asking for a napkin!)

I think it will be another year or two before we try to bring the kids there again! I feel like such an awful Mommy tonight. At least she enjoyed the food once the cooking was finished.

Yesterday, Carrie and I were at the mall twice – first around lunch, and then for my concert. At lunchtime we walked past Santa, and I asked Carrie if she wanted to go sit on his lap. Since we want to dress her up in her Christmas dress and take a picture of her sitting with Santa I thought it might be a good idea to do a trial run. She thought about it for a minute and agreed. Well, she happily sat on his lap, and actually told him her name when he asked. But when he asked her what she wanted for Christmas she didn’t say anything. So, Santa suggested she might like a dolly, and Carrie just giggled.

After the concert, Carrie asked if she could go sit on Santa’s lap again. I was pretty surprised, but agreed to it. Well, this time, when Santa asked her what she wanted for Christmas, she promptly replied “a dolly!”

The little stinker. She has at least a dozen dolls at this point, between the ones I’ve bought and the ones other people have given her. (That would just be baby dolls. Rag dolls…there’s easily another half dozen of those.) I’m pretty sure Santa’s helpers are not planning to put a doll under the tree. I think I’m going to have to bring her back to Santa and try to coach her into asking for a game or something…

Last night I heard from the kitchen, “Mommy, I under the mistletoe! I under the mistletoe Mommy, come kiss me!”

I tried to keep that sweet, funny little girl in my mind while I endured two hours worth of tantrums this morning. It started out like any other morning, but wound up being one mini-tantrum after another – about wanting to keep her pajamas on, which pants she was going to wear (mind you, I was just trying to put on the ones she picked out), which bowl she was going to use for breakfast (again, she picked it out in the first place)… Then she wanted a new box of cereal instead of the one already open, insisted that her cup (which had been in the cupboard just minutes before) was old and dirty and she needed a fresh cup, and ultimately decided she just wasn’t going to eat breakfast.

Don’t even ask about the fact that she was pretending to be a puppy and crawling on the floor in the mall a couple hours after that. I’m trying to block that incident out of my mind.

Yep. Some days are definitely better than others. Today was not one of those days. It’s a good thing she’s so darn cute…

As a child, I always loved Christmas. I’ve loved it as an adult, too, but I’ll admit it lost a little of the magic and sparkle for a while there. But now, watching Carrie experience it all, it’s just as magical as it was when I was a child. Maybe more.

This afternoon we watched A Muppet Family Christmas and then decorated the tree. Carrie loved the movie. She’s never seen Kermit or Miss Piggy before, but she was thrilled when the Sesame Street characters came caroling, and if you ask her what her favorite part of the movie was she says “Piggy!” She also really loved putting the ornaments on the tree. There’s a clump of several of our most child-friendly ornaments on two bottom branches, because she felt they looked best all hanging on top of each other. She was even excited to put the angel on top.

When you ask her what’s happening, she says “Santa Claus is coming soon!” I don’t know if she really knows what that means, but I’m sure she’ll be thrilled on Christmas morning regardless!

We had one of Carrie’s friends over for a playdate while her mom went to an appointment this morning. It was so incredibly beautiful – in the upper 60s – and it’s supposed to become a lot more seasonal tomorrow, so I decided to put the girls in the wagon and take a walk around the block.

I learned three very important lessons:
1. The wagon is really, really hard to pull with two 25-ish pound toddlers in it.
2. No matter how roomy the foot-well looks, it’s not big enough for four toddler-sized feet.
3. When you have to stop after passing every three or so houses to remind the two toddlers that we do not put our feet on our friends it takes a really, really long time to walk around the block.

Other than that, though, the morning went really well. Until, that is, Ellie bumped her head and needed boo-boo doggy. Then, of course, Carrie had a sympathy boo-boo, and there was a little spat over who needed boo-boo doggy more…