Talking with the kids about birth

Iliana has asked a number of times about whether or not the baby has toys in my womb. I've explained to her that the baby doesn't yet know how to play with toys, and right now she just plays by kicking and moving her body. Of course, Iliana thinks this is sad and wants to get some toys in my womb for the baby to play with.

Both girls have been very curious about the idea of birth. I've been giving them all the information I can as they ask for it, and that seems to be working pretty well. I'm rather surprised by how they seem to handle the most explicit and even gory details just fine. Iliana was surprised to learn that there was a hole there for a baby to come out of. Lenora wanted to know about their birth as well, which was a C-section, and handled the cheerful, frank, and explicit three-sentence summary I gave her just fine - even the bit about the doctors cutting into my womb. She just listened and said, "Oh!" and then went back to playing. Who knows how much she actually retained?

Now I'm just waiting until we're waiting in line at the supermarket and they start explaining what they've learned to some hapless person who just happens to be standing next to us.

Kids say the cutest things

I got a few good quotes from the girls recently.

A few weeks back, Lenora offered me some of her food. I thanked her, and she told me that she was feeding the baby!

Lenora is so ready to help nurture and care for her baby sister. Iliana seems to be more ready for a playmate, so I suspect she won't show more than curiousity until the baby gets more active and can interact a bit more. Lenora wanted a baby sister, and Iliana wanted a baby brother. I suspect Iliana has noticed that younger boys tend to be more active than younger girls, and therefore more interesting (to her mindset). Lenora wants something to cuddle and love, so "more active" isn't a good thing to her. Judging by the kicking, this child might be more like Iliana than Lenora. Then again, it might just be that this little girl has more room to move around.

Other cutisms:
When I got home from work on Monday, Iliana ran up to me saying, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!" Then she got to me and asked, "Did you buy anything?" I think she wasn't asking for presents, so much as she was realizing that when I come home before their bedtime, I've usually bought groceries. But it was still funny!

At bedtime, Lenora was talking to herself a lot - then suddenly out of nowhere she looks a little concerned and says, "But Mommy, if you keep getting bigger, then maybe you might not be able to fit in the house." I reassured her that the baby would be born and would finish growing outside of me, just like them, and I would go back to my normal size. She didn't seem convinced - I think she then said, "But you might not . . ."

Girl anecdote

DH and I communicate via IM throughout the day, with me mainly asking him about things weighing on my mind from the "family life" sphere, and him sharing information about how the day is going so I don't feel too disconnected. I get some great stories from him, and here is one of them:

"Iliana and I were having a conversation about not drawing on me
and she was asking very nicely if she could draw an O on various parts of my arm, to which I was saying no.

"And she finally stopped asking if she could draw on me and said instead, "I can draw on you after you say yes. Say yes daddy!""

Since this is my diary, effectively, as much as anything is, it is a good place to record this. Someday I need to collect all the various bits and pieces I've written down and put them together in a book for the girls when they get older. I know that for me, that was even cooler than a scrapbook or photo album (although Flickr gives us that, as well) - my grandmother had a plastic-bound book of all the cute things her kids had said over the years, including my sister and I.

One of those milestones

Well! Another day, another new skill for the girls. This one, however, is not a new word in the vocabulary or a new trick on the playground toys. No, this is one of those milestones parents dread.

Lenora has learned to turn doorknobs. That's right: She now possesses the ability to let herself out of her bedroom. We can only hope she will use this power for good. Snd be too tired to get out of her room at night, given the recent middle-of-the-night "Mommy" screamfests - have I mentioned here yet how, two nights before Halloween, she spent three and a half hours straight (no exaggeration) screaming for her mommy? And even DH going in five or so times to calm her down and get her to sleep again didn't help a bit? Oh yes . . . here in the Ellison household, we live in interesting times.

Tonight, however, is a welcome break from the norm. The girls went to bed without any trouble, probably because DH and I have gotten back "in tune" with each other over the last few days. And I am rather gleeful to have DH out of the house, visiting his friends for a birthday party. I mean, come on, it's probably been years since the last time we had an evening apart from each other. I certainly don't want this to happen all of the time, but there are also tons of things I've been wanting to do that have been getting put off so that we could spend quality time together. Also, the cause is noble: One of his good friends that he's known for years but hasn't seen much lately is celebrating a birthday, and I would love to see DH maintain his relationships with that circle of friends.

Of course, there is the potential for chaos to ensue while he is out; Iliana is sick (Lenora was sick last Wednesday, rather spectacularly, while we had friends over, and these girls are great about sharing), so there is the off-chance of a huge mess being made in the middle of the night. But, hey! I managed nights alone back when DH worked late, when both girls were infants and were spitting up or vomitting on a nightly basis. At worse, it'll be just like the good ol' days.

So unless that happens, I am going to indulge in a treat I rarely have the time or energy to enjoy anymore: Housework!

(Oh, how my views have changed since becoming a WOHM! But now I dream of clean laundry and counters . . . and tonight, dreams will come true!)

My team (at work) rocks

http://gizmodo.com/5017416/microsoft-mistakes-browser-war-for-browser-party-sends-firefox-a-lovely-cake

Hee! For those who don't know, I'm on the Internet Explorer Test team. No, I didn't know about this cake - but it's uber awesome and fun.

More humor - potty horrors

Our girls are ready to potty train. Which is what Bjorn is doing today. However, the pre-training fascination with all things potty-related (especially pee and poo) has given us a couple of fun anecdotes. I'm too tired to write this well, but you should get the gist of how things have been going.

WARNING: Parents will think this is hilarious. Everyone else is at risk of thinking it is disgusting. Do not read while eating.




You've been warned.




There are actually two potty anecdotes, which I will record here for posterity, and also so I can drag these stories out when my kids are teenagers, after they graduate from college, and when one of my daughters is running for President. Or taking vows to become a nun, that would be just as funny.

The first: My daughters have started enjoying using the potty. They also have been starting to play make-believe games, like pretending to be a kitty, or pretending rounded blocks with a square block on top are a car.

Make-believe games, like pretending the vent in their bedroom becomes a potty when they remove the cover.

That's right. Our daughters have been peeing in their bedroom vent. Who knows how manny times. Ugh. I guess that explains the strange smell in our house (it seems to be mostly better now).



Which leads to the second story: To try and curtail the vent-peeing, we left a baby potty in their room one night (since it seems to happen after bedtime usually).

Two hours later, they still hadn't fallen asleep. We went in, and found that one of our daughters had a very large bowel movement in her diaper (and was obviously a little sick, to boot), removed the diaper, and placed the non-gushy parts of the diaper into the potty.

The amazing thing is, she apparently remained standing the entire time since she removed her diaper - which had obviously happened a while ago - since her bum was filthy, but the bedroom was mostly clean. We had to wash a few blankets, but the carpets and walls were perfectly clean, and there were enough clean blankets that we didn't have to go hunt for more.

We are really lucky that the daughter who did this is the one with a strong sense of "clean" and "yucky". Really lucky. Really, really lucky.

I am a geek.

I'm sitting at work, writing a bit of code that looks something like this:

if(File.Exist(Server.MapPath(@"~\Directory\" + filename)
{
NiftyClass.DoSomethingCool(baby);
}
else
{

//I get to this point and then stop and realize . . .
//"Do or do not, there is no else!"

Then I noticed that I was writing code for a living while laughing at geeky coding-and-Star Wars jokes, and realized that my dreams of being a True Geek were fullfilled.

I just love that line. I'm putting it in the comments of my application for posterity.

Incidentally, this is why I should not write blog posts after 5:00 pm on a Rosary night. Or code.

Fun, tangential, barely related but humerous story: The first time I ever drank illegally underage (Mom, Dad, don't read this) was when my older college roommate gave me a bottle of a cheap kool-aid like alcoholic beverage. I tried to think of something cool to do while tipsy, and came up with the bright idea of trying to do my introductory programming homework.

Buggiest code I've ever written, debugging it the next day was hilarious!

Friends don't let friends code drunk.