Mommin' It Up!

February 12, 2008

Melissa Rivers has nothing on her

Maybe the red carpet over which the Rivers’ preside doesn’t belong to the Grammy’s. Or maybe Melissa Rivers doesn’t even do red carpets. I’m not entirely sure. But whoever did the commentary for the Grammy’s this year better watch out for a my three-year-old!

Here’s Kate’s commentary on the brief portion of the Grammy’s we watched.

“Her heart’s sticking out.” (And if she isn’t careful, so other things will be sticking out as well.)

“He looks like a freak.”

“Look! She forgot her pants!”

Performing alongside a 1950s video tape, bringing back someone formerly known as a star, and singing about getting revenge on a cheating boyfriend didn’t impress Kate very much. She shook her head and said, “This show is silly. That’s why I watch Playhouse Disney.” Couldn’t have said it better myself!

January 7, 2008

The Adventures of Kate and Joshua

Friday Joshua, Sophie, and I had the privilege of having Emily’s daughter Kate with us all day. All three kids really enjoyed each other, and I spent the day cracking up at the interactions between Kate and Joshua. Here are some of the highlights!

Joshua: Kate, the letter P makes the sound “puh, puh”!
Kate: I know that already, I have a GAME that TELLS me that. (Em, I am guessing she is referring to Leapster?)

I took the kids to see Emily’s and my Grandma, who adores them. They love her right back. When I told them we were going, I said, “We’re going to see Great-Grandma, cause she loves to see you guys.” Kate said, “I love to see her too! She makes all the food I like!” My sentiments exactly Kate!! My Grandma is an awesome cook, and she always makes something special for the kids, and I always leave her house feelng very fat & happy as well.

The best part of the whole day occurred when we were on our way to my Grandma’s. I switched cars with my hubby, he has a sweet station wagon that enabled me to get all the kids and carseats in the car. Joshua and Kate got to ride in the “very back” of the station wagon and were facing backwards, which they thought was a riot! Their dialogue of what things they were seeing was hilarious. (“Whoa look at that truck! It’s getting closer! It’s gonna get us!) Once we got on the highway, Kate decided to give us a concert. First it was a raucous rendition of the Hannah Montana theme song, sung with MUCH fervor. Joshua really enjoyed that and asked for an encore, WHICH Kate happily obliged him with. Then he asked for “another silly song” so she burst into a silly version of “Old McDonald” which was very imaginiative. My favorite verse was “Old McDonald had a taco”. After that, they sang a duet of the ABC song a few times, which was really sweet, and then we arrived at Grandma’s where they enjoyed a rousing game of “hide & seek”. My favorite part of that was when Kate told Joshua where to hide, then went and counted, then came and looked for him….but didn’t look in the place where she’d told him to hide!

After we got back, the kids were playing and I heard Sophie start to cry, so I walked into the room to see what was the matter. “Joshua,” I said suspiciously, “Why is Sophie crying?” Joshua didn’t have an answer so Kate piped up and said, “Um, because somebody did something.” (Turns out Joshua had take a toy from Sophie that he didn’t want her to have. I swear it was the FIRST TIME that has ever happened. I was SO SURPRISED that he would do that! Are you picking up my sarcasm?” Anyways, Kate’s ability to absolve herself of wrongdoing without naming names and ratting out her homeboy really cracked me up!

All in all it was a very fun day. I am so glad to see the cousinly friendship continuing to the next generation!

December 27, 2007

The stuff memories are made of.

In the last few weeks, we’ve posted a lot about all the craziness of Christmas, and I know many of you have felt just as frazzled and harried as Jenny and I have. As parents, it seems like we drive ourselves thisclose to the looney bin, trying to make sure Christmas goes as smoothly as possible. We shop, we bake (or some of you do, so I hear), we wrap, we do all kinds of stuff to make sure our kids create memories of The Best Christmas Ever.

Despite all my planning and preparation, though, things didn’t go exactly as I had pictured them in my mind. For starters, after a long day of singing along to her new Hannah Montana cd into her new microphone (which is all she needed, thanks Grandma), Kate zonked out on the way to the Christmas Eve service at church. So instead of hearing her sing along to “Silent Night,” as I had pictured in my mind, I watched her sleep peacefully on the pew next to me. And she was out for the night. So much for the ritual of setting out cookies and milk for Santa and spreading the reindeer food on the lawn. I was so intent on doing these things that I tried to talk her into getting out of bed (I know, I’m insane) when she woke up briefly around 11:00. She was having none of it, though, and said “Mommy, I can’t. Santa will look down and see me!” None the less, she was thrilled to see the cookie crumbs, empty milk glass and reindeer food remnants left on Christmas morning. It wasn’t what I had envisioned, yet it was wonderful.

Tonight I spent some time thinking about why things like Santa’s cookies are important to me, and I realized that I just want her to have good memories of Christmas. And, more than anything, I want her to remember how very loved she is.

She won’t look back on Christmas and think to herself “That would have been a nice holiday if only I had gotten to put oatmeal and colored sugar on the lawn.” And she won’t think of it as a hectic day (as her dad and I have a tendency to do), being shuffled around to multiple places, but rather she’ll fondly remember visiting four houses (that’s right, four – two belonging to grandparents and two to great-grandparents. In one day.) filled with people who love her.

And that’s what Christmas memories are made of.