ellie dreams

Speaking of growing up: Our biggest little girl officially dreams.  And I can't tell you how badly I wish I could say that she dreams of amazing, wonderful things like Never Ending Picnics and hanging out with Millie Measure.  Instead, she just seems to be having nightmares.

The first one was terrifying as it happened, but really adorable and so much fun the next morning and in the days that followed.  We woke up to her shrieking.  Ellie screams and cries a lot in the middle of the night and she always has, but this was a scream that David and I both immediately responded to, knowing it was different than her usual cry and very far from her regular attempts to get out of sleep for the night ("my need Os," "mommy, are you?" "I pooped!")  When David went in her room she told him that she saw a Really Scary Monster.  HUH?  How does she know about monsters? and since when does she know what it means to be scared?  With a little prodding from David as he tried to figure out if she got scared by one of her stuffed animals (Foofa is sweet, I'm sure, but those eyes might be a little intimidating in a dark room), Ellie continued to explain that The Really Scary Monster was laying under Foofa and it bit her toe.  She eventually calmed down and slept the rest of the night.  It wasn't until the morning when she brought it up again, adding that The Really Scary Monster was purple and looked like a squirrel.  What did The Really Scary Monster do?  He said "Hi!"  She talked about it for a few days and we tried to enjoy her imagination without encouraging her to dwell on it too much and eventually she stopped talking about it.  We told her that if The Really Scary Monster came back, she could just sing the Goodbye Song, and he'd go away.  That's the cure for monsters, you know? 

We tried talking to her for awhile about some awesome dreams that she could have--driving racecars! going swimming! eating ice cream! but until last night she hadn't let us know of any other dreams.  When I was laying with her as she fell asleep last night (don't ask--it's the never-ending-never-getting-better nighttime routine), she suddenly shot straight up next to me, "Ellie fall fall fall upside-down. Really really scary."  She repeated it over and over while I told her Mommy was there and she was okay.  She's been trying to fall asleep tonight since 8:30 (it's almost 11).  She seems almost out then sits up crying out of nowhere.  I went in to lay with her at some point and she says, through tears, "Hi. Ellie fall really really high.  Ellie fall in the sky."  She asks me to lay with her and after a few minutes when I get up to leave, she asks me to stay. 

My poor girl.  How are we even supposed to deal with scary dreams?  I know how real my dreams feel sometimes (yes, maybe I've held David accountable the next morning for what "David" did in my dream the night before), so how can we even begin to expect her to separate what's real and what's a fantasy???

can we talk about mimi?

It's been more than 2 months since I last blogged.  That wouldn't bother me so much if I could otherwise report that we were still taking pictures, that I was updating scrapbooks and monthly notes--but I'm not.  Not really doing any of it.  If we don't already know it yet, it's becoming more apparent with every new milestone in the girls' lives that time keeps flying by us whether we stop to soak it in or not.  I don't want to get caught up in documenting everything so much that I can't just be present in the moments, but SO much is happening every day that it's too easy to forget the little things that make our days and fill our hearts.

Our 'normal' changes everyday, and I'm always bummed when something happens that reminds me that our daughters are growing up right in the middle of our busy, distracted, stressed out lives.  Remember when Ellie used to ask us to open everything by saying "boppy!"?  Getting only more animated if we didn't initially respond?  Remember when she first started calling Yo Gabba Gabba "yagwabbubbwa"?  She says full sentences now, and makes jokes, and cracks us up with her observations and attempts to explain things ("my not sleep now, my awake.").  She introduces herself and her family to kids she meets at the park.  She remembers things, tells me about her day, pretends to go to work or check me out at the doctor, and asks to buy things.  Every day is filled with fun, and learning, and definitely testing boundaries ("my bad, ellie run away.")

But this post is about my MimiGirl, who too easily gets bowled over by the swirling tornado of Ellie.  She's growing up, too.  After struggling through an intense, freakish, and equally awesome and annoying bout of attachment to me, she's becoming more independent everyday.  She'll show you her mad face, what a fish says, and how big she is.  If you tell her 'no,' she knows what it means but she probably won't listen.  The girl can crawl, and the girl can cruise.  Our nice little box of a house has proved to be the perfect domain for her as she makes her way in and out of every single room by walking while supporting herself on the walls.  Mimi has moments when she is perfectly content to just cruise back and forth, push buttons on the cable box, pull books and trinkets off the shelves, and bang her head repeatedly into the couch play by herself.  Somehow, she's not nearly as dependent on us as I feel like she should be.  It's been almost a year, after all, but I still feel like she's my baby.

We don't have much time left.  She's on the brink of walking for real, and seems excited by the prospect.

It won't be long before we're trying to convince her to be a better listener, or eat/sleep/behave better because she's a big girl.  Growing up is a double-edged sword, but she doesn't know it yet.
 

non-wedding cake #1

I really love baking.  I also really hate it.  It takes up so much time, makes a huge mess, we never seem to have the right ingredients, and I'm entirely too impatient to do anything right (measuring cups? we have a few, but I always default to using the same 1/2 cup and lose count of how many scoops I've added 50% of the time).  Why do I love it?  There is nothing better than making something pretty, delicious, and share-able.  I love baking when things work out.

I'm super interested in making a wedding cake and thought that before I really committed myself to partaking in such a huge endeavor, I should at least try to see if I could make a stacked cake.  One amazing (and uninformed) trip to the cake supply store later, I couldn't help but dive in.  I usually only bake now on the rare occasion that both girls are sleeping at the same time.  That, coupled with the never ending to-do-list that I happily put on hold, force me to bake with a terrible sense of urgency.  Knowing that one or both of the girls will probably wake up and derail me any minute, means I just better get everything done that minute.  And, if you're thinking that probably doesn't help my impatient, messy, not-exact baking style? you're right.  I try to do things all at once, skip steps, or realize I don't have enough of something in the middle of the recipe during most undertakings.  Luckily, I'm building a sense of what works and keep the iPad close to Google away and speed bumps.

This cake didn't take long at all and it wasn't hard.  I learned from some of my mistakes with buttercream, and think that it'll spread smoother next time.  I baked the cakes during naptime, and made frostings and frosted intermittently while we bathed the girls, put them to bed, then brought them back out to play because they weren't sleeping. A total of 4-5 hours of work.  Ellie told me the cake was pretty.  The only way we could convince her not to stick her fingers in it that night was by telling her that we had to wait for Fifi to come over to eat it the next day. 

As promised, Finn came over, and after we added to our set of pictures they'll hate us for later, we all ate some cake.  A rich, dense chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream icing.  Delish.  I brought 1/2 of it to work and we finished the rest within the week :)

And of course, the pictures that Jess took make the cake so much prettier than it really was.  How does she do it???

bubbles

Today marked David's first day back at the bike shop and my return to pretending to be a stay-at-home mom for one day a week.  We had the most beautiful day ever, we all wore "pretty dresses" at Ellie's request, replenished our bubble supply, and then ran around chasing them all evening.  She was so excited it was finally bubble season.

why i love my husband... fourteen?

Another oops, eh?  While I have to give myself a pat on the back for somehow making the time to post something on this blog for almost 14 days straight, I still couldn't pull through in the end.  Bummer.  What would reason 14 have been?... Crikey, I don't even know.  On my original brainstorming list ideas that were left included he makes my coffee & he's creative.  Maybe I intentionally didn't post because that would have been super anti-climactic.  Lucky you :)

Our Valentine's Day was actually more exciting than any recent ones I can remember.  I get super excited about making holidays special for the girls.  We had (have) love-filled hearts hanging in our front window, the girls woke up to share the love with the world's cutest couple, Mickey & Minnie Mouse, we all wore pink or red, and the girls got heart balloons at the end of the day.  Grandma even joined in the fun by bringing up some love-themed plates and other surprises.  Goals for next year: heart-shaped and/or pink or red food at every meal and mailing out Valentine's to our extended family (this is the first year we've dropped the ball on that one in a while). 

David and I exchanged cards.  He got me one about bikes and I got him one about fountain pop.  No joke. 

why i love my husband: thirteen

why i love my husband: twelve