Pink Hair

We were waiting for my hair appointment to dye my hair purple, when you walked up alone to the receptionist and said, “I would like pink hair.” You took her and us by surprised, she looked at us, laughing and said, “Is she serious?” Your dad and I looked at each other. We both knew you were, but this was something we had not talked about. Earrings we voted no on until you understood a little better how much it hurt, but hair was just hair right?

We told her that we would like an estimate and if they could squeeze you in that it was okay with us. You are only 3 ½ but you sat for the full four hour appointment, waiting patiently for your pink hair. You sat quietly as she put the toner and very seriously picked out the shade of pink toner you wanted. You entertained us and them with stories that we took turns telling - Goldilocks, the “5” little pigs, the princess dragon, until my hair finally finished.

When we left you could not stop talking about your hair, and when we told you the rules of taking care of pink hair, you listened and remembered. “Don’t put shampoo in my hair Mommy. The pink will come out then.” But even with you following the directions, the pink quickly faded, and you informed me that you needed more pink.

So we did, and we even made it pinker.

This time a few people said a few disapproving comments. “I don’t think it’s right that you are letting her dye her hair pink.”

I thought about it. And here’s what I decided.

As a mom, it’s not my job to control what you are allowed to do with your body. It’s true. I made your body. I marvel at how strong you are and how big you are getting. I love watching you grow up, and it’s weird thinking that you were once my helpless little baby. I was a little sad watching your hair turn its lovely shade a blonde to pink.

But the thing is, my goal is to help you love your body and see it for the amazing tool that it is. It can do incredible things. I want you to not look at it’s imperfections but instead look at how amazing it is. I want you to feel like it fits your unique spirit just right, even if that means pink hair and black dresses every day.  I want you to treat it with love and help it be healthy. Eventually when you get a bit older, I want you to be able to deflect the insecurities that the world and the media throws at you about how you should look. The messages are not kind, and I do not want you to absorb them. If I tell you how you should look and dress, I think it will be easier to listen to those messages when I stop or am not around.  

Your body is yours - pink hair and all. I hope that’s one thing you always remember.

Sick babies

Because everyone needs to sit around in diapers and their dolls...including Doll.

We have the strangest sickness going around. It's a very mild cold that makes you very, very sleepy. Madeleine caught it from Baby X, who a week later is still trying to shake it off. They both cough maybe once an hour and then need their noses blown a few times day. Other than that, they just sleep and sleep. 

Madeleine has been saying some very cute things though.

She woke up and pointed to cupboard.

"Cupcake and Daddy chips Mommy."

(Daddy chips are what she calls chips since Matt eats them. She loves them almost as much as him.)

"Mooommy, water in my nose!!! Water in my nose!"

(She was trying to tell me about snot. She doesn't know that word.)

"Madeleine do you want dinner?"

"No"

"Do you want chicken?"

"No"

"Do you want carrots?" (Her favorite food recently)

"No"

"Do you want a cookie?"
"Okay, cookie."

"How about a milkshake?"

"No"
"A cupcake?"

"No, cupcake. Cookie Mommy, okay?"

I hope she gets better soon. We have some things she was excited about coming up and I don't want her to miss them! But in the meanwhile, I'm getting my fill of toddler cuddles.

Little update

Madeleine is sweet and smart and recently decided that she loves routines. On Saturday I went to the MET by myself (which was so awesome!! I need to blog about that), and she actually led Matt through her routine. She knows when she eats, sleeps, and gets dressed. It's handy and most of the days are so much fun.

As for Baby X, he is growing up too! He has his own little opinions and is suddenly letting everyone know. It's pretty funny when he isn't yelling at me for doing something wrong. He'll give people big cheesy smiles when he is happy and claps. It's adorable.

5/7 days of the week are good, but the other two are really difficult. They usually are the days that we actually go somewhere, because Madeleine has been testing boundaries. One meltdown after another just to get her in the car. When we get somewhere, it doesn't get any better. She crawls around on the floor of stores because she has realized when I have Baby X in my arms that I can't actually reach her.

So we've been staying home more. Playing outside and baking a bit. They both love to play with flashcards and trains. Baby X loves chasing after balls and Madeleine. They started to play together too. The easy days really are easy.

The hard days I get through with ice cream and Janet Lansbury's book No Bad Kids. I know this is just a phase and Madeleine really is a fast little learner. If I can stay consistent for a little more than a week she'll stick to it. Like quiet time in the morning. Baby X goes down for his nap at 9:30 and Madeleine goes in her room and reads.

It's my favorite part of the day. This is her reading "Mrs. Muddle's Holidays" by her grandma Laura Nielsen. It's moments like this that I don't mind too much that she's being 2.

Polar Express

This year as part of our minimalizing our stuff project, Matt and I decided to buy a few experiences instead of a lot of gifts. I stumbled across a Polar Express train ride just 30 minutes from our home. Madeleine is obsessed with trains, and I thought that would be a great birthday gift for our December baby. On top of that, the Polar Express is one of my favorite children's Christmas books.

This is what the groupon photo looked like

We had been to the town that it was in before - New Hope, Pennsylvania, but it was all lit up for Christmas and was so pretty.  The train station was in the middle of all the shops. We could see a children's museum right across the tracks that we're going to have to visit soon. Just like the book, we dressed Madeleine up in pjs and a coat. It was cold, but Madeleine kept herself warm by running up and down the station. At one point she found a broken carousal horse and rode on it for a bit.

Right around 8:15, we heard a train whistle in the distance. Everyone ran to the tracks and cheered as the train came. I think my favorite part of the night was watching Madeleine's face as she saw the train. She was so excited and kept saying "Choo, choo!" over and over again.

The trains are restored 1920's steam trains. The lighting was so dark and there was only space heaters for heating, but none the less, it was really cool! Everything was decked out for Christmas.

We got on the last car on the train, but for some reason Santa and Mrs. Clause visited our train first. Madeleine isn't a fan of Santa. She'll only look at the Santa area at the mall from the second floor. She loves the lights but not the man. So when this poor Santa finally made it to our bench, Madeleine crossed her arms and glared at him. There was a free photo with Santa as part of the package, but we just told him we'd pass on that. Mrs. Clause slipped us a bell in a red bag and told us to ring it on Christmas. Believe me though, that thing has been ringing all the time since we got it.

The rest of the night went much better. A local guitar player came and sang Christmas songs with the kids, while the elves passed out cookies. The older kids in our car were really into it and kept the songs going most of the ride.

Not sure about the hot chocolate

 One of the last visitors on the train was the ticket master. It was pretty official. He punched our cards and everything.

 Shortly after he stopped by, Madeleine discovered that her window could open. She spent the last bit of the train ride with her head or hand out the window. Right before the ride was over though, she strolled down the aisle saying hi to everyone. Even though the train only went 20 miles hour, she was remarkably steady.

She fell asleep a few minutes after we put her in the car, and Matt and I both think it was pretty successful. She was so happy.

Candid

I'm guessing this is what "2" looks like.

- Dirty face

- Random accessories

- Weird faces

- Rule breaker

Just over 2 weeks to her birthday. Bring it on.

Winter is coming

It's cold and dark outside for the most part now, so we're mostly indoors. I brought out the paint today and the little people had fun. Madeleine honestly liked the bath afterwards more though.

In other news, I was asked to guest post on a blog and it was published today.

It's a bit more touchy-feely than most of my writing but you can read it here.

What do you do on cold gloomy days? I am always looking for more ideas.

Our tiny human

Being a mom of a toddler is awesome stuff. Even though "no" is her most frequent world, she is so much fun to watch. For example, tonight she started crying in the bathtub. I looked up to see what was upsetting her. She always has to put her bath toys away before I let her out of the bath.  Apparently she was ready for me to take her out, because she had put all her toys in the basket. One problem - the basket was underwater so the toys kept floating off, which is why she was crying.

She also has started copying us a lot. Matt had to fix my bike tire this weekend because I got a flat. He had all his tools out and was working on it while I sat on the porch talking. Madeleine played in the front running around with the bike pump and taking out Matt's tools. When Matt was ready to put stuff away, we found Madeleine "fixing" her bike. It took her about 10 minutes before she decided it was good to go. 

Then this afternoon I was sitting on my bed on my computer, when I noticed that Madeleine was running in and out of my room with spools of thread in both hands. (I keep all my sewing notions in our room well...in theory). After the third trip of this, I followed her out to see what the heck she was doing with it. I found her lining them all up in front of my sewing machine...each with two or three pins sticking out of them. She then tried to figure out how to turn the machine on and why the thread was important. After she picked up the scissors, I decided it was time for bed.

I think it's so cute that she's imitating us. Matt fixing the bike and I've been ignoring her a bit more so that I can sew. I just finished my quilt top and basting last night. I'm so excited to start quilting it as soon as I finish this blog post.

Cupcakes

The last week has been a frustrating one for me. My little people are getting smarter and in more trouble. It's ranged from popping in the bathtub to coloring in library books (on the color wheel of all things). And during all of this, I decided that it was a good time to make Madeleine's Halloween costume. But now her costume is done, (it was supposed to be an hour project), and I can turn back to some of the more important things in my life, like cupcakes.

So almost a week ago, we went to the re-opening of House of Cupcakes!

We got there 10 minutes early and I was a bit surprised there was no line at the door. Turns out they had just opened up and there was already a group of people inside. The previous store would have been full from the number of people that was there, but in this new place there was plenty of space! I was really happy about that, because that was one of the things I disliked about the last store...there was no room.

We ordered my favorite cupcake - fudge truffle for Madeleine and me to split.

I snapped a quick picture before cutting it in half. Baby X took advantage of that moment and swiped a bit of Madeleine's frosting. He was so proud of himself, but then frosting ended up on his forehead instead of his mouth. Ah, the advantages of having good hand eye coordination.

After I finished up my half and was waiting on Madeleine, a reporter came up to me and started to talk to me about the cupcakes. Madeleine finished up her half while I was talking to the reporter, and then tried to get my attention. I personally wanted to clean up Madeleine's chocolate covered hands before she wiped them all over me, (Too late, cupcake ended up all over the front of my shirt) but the lady didn't take a hint. So Madeleine being the little independent toddler that she is, grabbed her plate and pushed through the crowed to the counter. She stood on her tip toes and pushed her plate onto the counter, "More. More."

Everyone froze and looked at me. I was full out laughing. It was too cute, and I told them that half of cupcake was plenty for her.

And go figure...that's the part that made it into the article.

""With remnants of the dark chocolate cake and frosting still clinging to her face, Nielsen’s daughter brought her empty plate over to the bakery’s counter after she was finished, hoping to try some more.

“She’s 21 months old, and that’s not stopping her from asking for seconds,” Nielsen said."

Link to the article here

She did get seconds later that night. After we picked up Matt, we swung by for a second cupcake. 

And you know...we might have a lunch date there today too.

What can I say? Their chocolate cake rocks.

C is for Cooking

Baby X and Madeleine are currently on opposite nap schedules. It's been pretty nice, except our mornings are now confined to our home. Yesterday after Madeleine's nap, she and I made some cookies. Thankfully I have years of cookie-making experience, because measuring was kind of a moot point. If I was lucky, maybe 3/4s of whatever I gave her made it into the mixer, including the eggs. She tried so hard though, and every time something didn't quite work out, she'd say "uh-oh" before trying to clean it up.

I was able to pull my camera out when she put the chocolate chips in. She would only take one or two out at a time. Sometimes they went into the mix...

But just as frequently they ended up in her mouth. 

I taught her the useful skill of licking off the mixer. Usually I just let her have the spoon, so this was a first.

Then she sobbed for 8 minutes as the cookies cooked in the oven.

But all was forgiven, when I let her eat 3 after lunch.

We then dropped the rest off at Matt's lab, where they all quickly disappeared.

Truck Day

We really have one of the best libraries in the world. They plan lots of free activities for kids, and this week was truck day. Truck day is when Princeton city sends some of their large equipment to let kids climb and plan on. It sounded fun so my friend and I planned on going with our small herd of tiny humans.

So Mollie and I got Madeleine and baby X (the kid I nanny) ready. We ran for the bus where we met the rest of the herd and waited for 27 minutes for our late bus. Usually I don't complain about things like this, but it's important to the story. We jumped off the bus and power walked our strollers to the library. We missed the storytime but arrived there just as 100 knee-high toddlers rush out of the library. There were so many kids. We followed. Madeleine went straight to the trucks. She was pretty excited. 

Hey look a photo of me!

The first five minutes were great. Madeleine was excited. Baby X was happily asleep. We were taking pictures. All good. 

But then it all fell apart. Madeleine was able to climb up into one of these big trucks.

There were so many great things, like buttons that she wasn't suppose to push. 

She didn't push them. She stepped on them instead. 

In order to get the best thing ever - the steering wheel!

She wanted to stay there forever. This was wonderful! Only problem was there was a long line of impatient little people wanting to get a turn too. It didn't go well. She had already spent all of her patience up waiting for the bus. She was not going to wait in line and she was not going to share. So Mollie had to go fetch her.

The reason Mollie had to get her instead of me was Baby X had woken up. He was happily asleep with cute little dream sleep when other little children like Madeleine had discovered the steering wheel, but unlike Madeleine, they had discovered the horns - very, very loud horns that jerked poor little Baby X out of his happy milk drunk sleep. Tears were coming from Madeleine and Baby X so I feel like the photo summed up the end of the event. (The happy little guy next to her is one of our friends!)

The tears didn't stop unfortunately from either, so Mollie and I aborted the event that we spent over and hour going to. We walked through the library and then downtown Princeton. Baby X eventually was able to go back to sleep and we knew Madeleine had recovered when she started taking Sophie "window shopping." It was pretty funny. Downtown Princeton has beautiful window displays and Madeleine kept holding Sophie up to see.

Mollie and I were cracking up. Window shopping is a favorite past-time of mine, especially when I'm upset. (How can you be angry around beautiful things?) It amused us both that this was one of the habits of mine that she apparently is picking up.

We ended our outing with fig newtons. It didn't go at all according to plan, but hey...we had fun. 

An Adventure for Sophie and Madeleine

This is Madeleine trying to climb a tree.

Mmm...something isn't working quite right.

Ah ha!

This is Sophie trying to climb a tree.

Maybe she just needs a boost... 

Oh look! Squirrel

Huh...so what was I doing? Licking Sophie?

Runs off to their next adventure.

!

Spring!

It's here!!!!

And we are addicted to it.

Madeleine will cry by the front door if she can't go outside, and I'm grumpy if we have to stay inside all day. Matt even started walking up to work so that he can enjoy it too. 

Magic trick

This is Madeleine, and she's going to show you a magic trick.

It's called "watch me disappear".

Tada!!

Here's Daddy trying the magic trick. He's not a good magician.