Heidi-cat taking a picture of me taking a picture of her. Say "Cheese!"

Heidi has been potty training the last couple of weeks and it’s coming along.  She really likes to wear panties, but doesn’t mind so much if they get wet because then she gets to try on another pair!  She’s getting there on her own once in a while, though, which is great progress from running to the bathroom after the fact.  Boy, it’ll be nice having all three out of diapers.

Happy even after having her hair done

Maggie normally hates having her hair done and refuses to let anyone touch it, except the almost-daily brushing Sonja or I give her while she protests loudly.  Today I convinced her to look at some hair styles online with me and I let her choose one.  She chose this one, but with ponytails instead of messy buns.  Maggie’s aesthetic sense is really distinct.  Given how much she normally hates having her hair done, I was surprised how pleased and emphatic she was about her hairdo choice and her alteration to the plan.  She LOVED the idea of having three ponytails–not two, not four.  And she wanted her bangs a certain way, pushed to each side symmetrically.  In the end, she let me tie all three ponytails together into one at the bottom, adding up to five rubber bands in her hair at once.   When she looked in the mirror, she pronounced it “kind of pretty.”  I’ll take that over screaming and kicking any day!

Five ponytails at once

Now Maggie has taken on her favorite motherly/teacherly role with Heidi and is carefully writing (with much better handwriting than she does her Kindergarten homework) labels for everything in the house on pink Post-Its because she’s “teaching Heidi to read!”  This process involves a lot of questions for me.  ”How do you spell ‘microwave’?”  ”How do you spell ‘Jesus’?”  That last one was the baby Jesus in a manger in our nativity scene.  Heidi just asked Maggie to spell a gibberish phrase.  ”Can you spell ‘magnet adkhadkjwei’?”  Maggie said “no, I don’t know how.”  Being a teacher of smart people is tough, I tell you.  They ask questions you don’t know the answer to!

Maggie has a strange combination of hating getting dressed, being extremely opinionated about what she wears, and loving to accessorize.  Every morning and every evening we have an all-out brawl where I wrestle her out of her current clothes and force a new shirt or nightgown over her head.  She hates all of her clothes until they’ve been on for 45 seconds, then she doesn’t mind at all.  I guess it’s just the transition.  When I figure it out, and figure out how to make it a more peaceful process, it’ll be a great day.  In the mean time, Maggie loves to wear scarves and jewelry, and the last couple of days she’s been playing around with her socks.  On Sunday she wore three full pairs, only partially matched, and got upset when I didn’t want her to wear a pair of Heidi’s tights as a finishing touch.  She said she wanted her feet to be warm (it’s really not that cold here in California, but it was cool out).  And she wanted everyone to notice how beautiful they were together.  When we got to church, all the socks came off at once, tossed carelessly to the floor, and I had to carry six socks in my purse for the rest of the day.

This morning when I got up Maggie had dressed herself.  Wow.  This is a big deal.  I told her how great I thought that was.  Then she showed me her socks.  Two socks on one foot, none on the other.  That’s the plan for the day at Kindergarten.  I asked her to go get matching socks for the other foot.  She eventually agreed, but I haven’t checked on her progress yet.

Heidi just brought me “a present,” as she calls it.  ”Four presents!” she corrects herself.  A diaper, a container of Costco-brand wipes, a Heidi sized-shirt, and a pair of 2T pants.  Then she walked away.  I gotta go help her get dressed.  :-)

We’re reading a bit of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol together each night this month. Degen and Maggie both love it and almost invariably ask for more when I close the book for the evening (might also have something to do with lights-out after reading time). Heidi, on the other hand, isn’t interested at all and loves to sing and talk loudly to herself while I read. Tonight I was at the part where the Ghost of Christmas present sprinkles his “peculiar incense” on people and houses and food to bless them. Heidi proved that she actually was listening a bit by chiming in with “What’s peculiar mean, Mommy?” I answered “It means ‘special.’” “What’s special mean, Mommy?” she returned. “It means different from everything else.” “Okay, Mommy.” Vocabulary building for nearly-three-year-olds by Charles Dickens.

I wonder what question she’s really asking, then answer “Well, God knows everything.”

Maggie: But how did he learn how to write?

Me: He probably had to practice. (trying to encourage her to practice, too)

Maggie: But who taught him?

Me: I don’t know, Maggie.

Maggie: Yeah, you don’t know that much.  But Daddy knows everything. At least he says he does.

Me: Should we call him and ask?

Maggie: Okay

I call Colin on the phone and repeat the conversation.  He says “Tell her His mommy probably taught him.”

I repeat it to Maggie.

Maggie: Well who taught her?

Colin: Her mommy.

Maggie: What about her mommy and her mommy and her mommy?

Colin: Their mommies.

Maggie: That’s silly.

Colin: It’s not silly!

Maggie: It is silly. Her mommy and her mommy and her mommy.  (in a sing-song voice as she walks away)

Whoah.  What’s next?

We invited five girls and three are coming, plus Colin’s sister Kim.  Maggie’s counting her among her invitees (unlike the moms of the other girls), and I’m not sure how Kim’s going to react to Maggie’s plans to have her sit at the table with them.  Hopefully she’ll love it!  All the girls have been invited to wear their “princess dresses,” whatever that means to them, and Maggie doesn’t yet know that Kim will be coming as Snow White!  It’ll be interesting to see whether Kim comes “in character” (she used to be various princesses on Disney cruise lines so she really knows how it’s done) and whether Maggie will be excited to see Snow White or disturbed if Kim insists that her name is Snow White.  Four is such an unpredictable age….sometimes.

We’re serving “Pink Pink Lemonade,” as Maggie calls it.  I bought a can of pink lemonade concentrate and another of raspberry lemonade concentrate and asked her which she wanted, and she said she wanted the pink one.  Later I explained that raspberry lemonade is pink, too.  Then she got all excited and said we could mix them and then we’d have “pink pink lemonade!”  We’ll have peanut butter and jam sandwiches, cut into heart shapes, and cucumber sandwiches, cut into triangles.  And I made chocolate covered strawberries this afternoon, so I think they’ll like that (moms too!).  And we have a honeydew melon and grapes in the fridge, so if there’s time I may make melon balls and skewer them and the grapes with toothpicks for fun.

Yesterday I baked the cake, which I have yet to decorate.  My mom made me doll cakes when I was growing up and I adored them!  She gave me her cake pan this summer when we were visiting and now Maggie wants one.  I’m excited and nervous–I’m not half the cake decorator my mother is, and that’s not false modesty.  But I would love to make Maggie feel as good as I did when I got those beautiful cakes and it’ll be a fun challenge.  I want it to look something like this one from my fourth birthday, only in pink.

The one thing Maggie asked for specifically is a pinata.  I know, it doesn’t seem very princess-y to hit a candy-filled container with a bat while blindfolded, but Degen had one and Dora the Explorer had one, and she wants one.  And guess where I found a PRINCESS PINATA… At the dollar store!   How could I say no when I could give her her dream for $1?  So, we’re going to play musical statues and hit the pinata as activities (Maggie wanted to do “pin the tiara on the princess” earlier, but I’m hoping she’s forgotten about that).

I’ve got pink and white streamers for decorating the deck in the morning and I talked to the florist at the grocery store this morning and she said that they arrive at 6am, so we might do some helium balloons with those streamers if I’m feeling particularly relaxed.  If not, no one will know they were a possibility.

The favors will be the candy and toys (dollar store necklaces, ring pops, fun size twix and reeses, and some dollar store princess watches) from the pinata, plus a couple of princess-y accessories set next to their places at the table.  We’ve got dollar store tiaras (4/$1) and plastic jewel earrings (also 4 pairs/$1) and scepter wands (8/$1).  And I’ve still got to have Maggie decorate those white paper bags for the girls to take their things home in.  I hope I don’t forget!

I still haven’t talked to Maggie about what she’s going to wear for her princess outfit, though I’m counting on her going for her fairy princess costume from last Halloween or for a church dress.  And Degen protests that he’s definitely NOT a prince, though he does want to participate in the birthday festivities…so we’ll see how that goes.  I think Heidi will happily put on a pretty dress.  Oooohh…maybe I should do light pink icing on that cake since we’re having princesses in fancy dresses over.  I wonder if that’s why Mom chose yellow for my cake–I’ll bet it washes out easier.

I also need to make a Happy Birthday banner for the kitchen for Saturday (a Bushman tradition, those banners), plus maybe a sign for the front door for Friday.   And I suppose this evening I could cut some flowers in the garden for the tables. And I should set out chairs for the adults on the deck as well as the kids.  And I should have Colin help Maggie pick out a playlist on his iPod of music for the musical statues game.  Oh!  And I just read this idea to pre-scoop ice cream into paper cupcake liners that I may do.  I hate scooping ice cream under pressure.

Hopefully I’ll remember everything.  I’m planning on taking a photo of all the girls together in their princess finery and then printing the photo out and having Maggie help me write thank you notes on the back.  But if I’m going to do that, I have to remember to TAKE the photo!

Here’s my party schedule:

Kids arrive, play musical statues

Sit down at tables: tiaras, earrings,

Snow White arrives: lemonade & sandwiches

Pinata

Cake and ice cream

Open presents

Hopefully that will take up our hour and a half and the girls will go home happy and content.

For those of you researching for princess party ideas online like I was, here are some other good and inexpensive ideas I came across, but that I’m not going to do…

Favors: glitter, feather boas, lip balm, light colored nail polish, princess stickers

Activities: Make crowns, decorate cupcakes, play princess dress-up with goodwill prom dresses and mom’s accessories (or make it a relay!), string candy necklaces, practice walking with books on your head like a princess, build cookie castles (like gingerbread houses)

Food: cheese cubes on toothpicks, cream cheese and jam sandwiches, tuna sandwiches, anything cut into a heart or crown shape with cookie cutters, frosted sugar cookies with sugar glitter, olives (4 year old princesses look lovely with hands bedecked in olives), cupcakes, castle cake

Decorations: red carpet (made of tulle or felt or tissue paper or plastic tablecloth), “welcome to the castle” or “Last Name Kingdom” sign at entrance, tulle canopy

Two trips to AT&T Park in a week!  That is seriously unusual for us.  But the week after our free giants game was free opera day at the ballpark. This is one of the amazing perks of living here–free world class arts events.   And we got to see Verdi’s Aida.

We almost took the kids, but I think it’s good that we waited till they’re a little older.  Not because of the content of the show, which was fine, but because of the lateness of the hour.  We didn’t get home until after midnight and they simply wouldn’t have been able to stay awake and be happy that late.  Aunt Kim volunteered, unasked, to babysit at her apartment that evening and made it memorable for them with macaroni and cheese, strawberries, chocolate, and a golden sunset viewed from the roof of her building.  Then they all sacked out on her floor until we came to pick them up.  Aren’t we lucky?

Speaking of lucky, isn’t it amazing that I got to marry a man who likes opera?  Colin loves just about all styles of music, but I’ve been particularly impressed at how much he appreciates opera.  Even more than I, most of the time.  As we sat in the stadium, Colin wearing his new Giants t-shirt from the week before, the man in front of us laughingly commented that I must have tricked him into coming by making him think he was going to a baseball game.  It took me a minute to figure out what he was talking about, the concepts of tricking him and him not liking opera were so foreign to me.   When I finally caught on, his benign comment made me love Colin even better.

We attended with Colin’s parents and a friend from church, which made it all the more fun.  Sonja brought Subway sandwiches and cookies and we brought water and cookies, so there were plenty of cookies for everyone!  The official attendance headcount was over 32,000 people in the park and it was really neat to look around at everyone in their casual clothes eating baseball food watching a transcendent opera.

I’d never seen Aida–never even heard the story till I read the synopsis online a few days before.  The story is fine, the music was great, but the visual parts of it were my favorite.  The costumes and sets and lighting were really, really cool.  Bright, intense blues and golds and elaborate, memorable wigs were the order of the day.  The sets featured an ever-growing Egyptian hieroglyph that looked like an eye.  All on a humongous screen with a background of the bay and a gorgeous full moon.

I think I’ll resist temptation and settle for approving his self-chosen outfit (no stains, please) and sending him out with his dad for a haircut before school.  After all, this is for posterity and we want a school photo that looks something like him at school, right?

Opening Song: Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam (Heidi can enthusiastically say “BEAM!” now, so we sing it a lot–”We Thank Thee O God for a Prophet” would be equally appropriate)

Opening Prayer

Lesson:

I had one of the kids hold up a picture of the First Presidency (Pres. Monson, Pres. Eyring, and Pres. Uchtdorf) and asked them to identify the Prophet and President of the Church.  They pointed him out and I asked one of them to tell us his name (“President Monson!”). One of the other kids was wiggling, so I gave her an old Conference issue of  the Ensign to hold and show everyone–President Monson was on the cover, smiling, and we talked about how he loves children and wants us to be happy.

I explained that the Prophet is the one who Jesus Christ has called to lead the Church, and that when he wants the whole Church to know or do something, he tells the prophet.  I asked Colin if he knew any scriptures about prophets, and he opened to Amos 3:7 and helped one of the kids read “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.”  Colin explained the verse to everyone.

Then we read a scripture about prophets from  D&C 21:5 that says “For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.”  Colin and I chatted a bit with each other about what “patience” means in that verse and the kids got bored.

I planned to have our family look at a talk from President Monson from the most recent General Conference and decide together what we could work on this month to do better at following the prophet, but the attention span had been exhausted and it was time to move on.  Maybe we’ll do that part this week instead.

Activity: Follow the leader around the house

Closing Song: Follow the Prophet (Children’s Songbook)

Closing Prayer

Treat: Oatmeal cookies Grandma baked earlier in the day

I’ll try to come back later and add links and pictures, but the Church web page is apparently having technical difficulties at the moment.  I can’t get to anything but the scriptures right now!  I guess if you can only get one thing, the scriptures are the thing to get.

I just heard Colin upstairs announcing to the kids “Glue is not food!” Degen did use a glue stick for his homework yesterday–one of the girls is probably tasting it. Good thing it’s non-toxic!

Maggie is very independent, and lately has been challenging my requests with “I don’t want to.” Today during family scripture study she said she didn’t want to read when it was her turn. After some negotiation, she settled triumphantly for reading two verses instead of her previously assigned one.

Speaking of schedules, I think my earlier post should have been called “ideal” rather than “typical.”  I rarely get dinner on the table that early, and I think that night I got it together closer to bedtime, which is also fairly late quite often.  But it’s good to have a schedule to shoot for even if you don’t hit it exactly very often.

Last night Sonja helped me cut out the pieces for the pajamas I’m making for Heidi for Christmas.  My mom always used to give all us kids pjs for Christmas every year, often making them herself, and I’ve continued the tradition in our family.  Sonja and I went down to the fabric store on Monday when the patterns were on sale for $2 and picked out a pattern that would work for all the kids, plus possibly Maggie’s Halloween costume (she wants to be a doctor this year).  And flannel happened to be on sale, so I bought the fabric for all the pjs while we were there.  Last night I figured it’d be a good idea to get going on the project while I was still excited about it and Sonja helped me lay everything out and cut it out, which is almost invariably the toughest part for me.  It was fun because, like my mom, she’s very skilled in getting things straight and accurate and saving fabric.  I think she saved about 1/2 yard over what the pattern required!  Pretty amazing. I LOVE the fabric we found–Heidi’s is a brown polka dot, Degen’s a robot print, and Maggie’s has frogs and butterflies.  The colors all coordinate, and they’ll be in the same pattern, and it’s going to be so cute!  I just hope I can get it all done.  Four months seems like a long time till you have to work only during nap time and after bed…  I have no idea how my mother did it.