Riley and Avery

I picked up a few things today from Freecycle. It was kind of strange. I picked up the area rug first, at a uberCatholic family. Signs and statues all over and half-dozen homeschooled children in floor-length skirts. The rug is bigger than I thought, so that's cool. It's perfect for the girls. Then I picked up the bicycle at a home with pagan symbols and the car had the "Jesus/Darwin" fish on the back that said "Satan". What a strange dichotomy in the space of half hour. The bike is definitely used and abused, but it works and Riley is SO happy to have it. I'm kind of proud that my daughter doesn't need everything to be shinny and new to be happy. I have to get her a helmet, not that we'll be going on any great adventures, but I want her to get used to it. The only thing that I'm nervous about is that the bike doesn't have brakes, and never did. I don't know if toddler bikes are normally designed that way. I'll have to check it out. I definitely will only let her ride it on our dead-end street, not on the sidewalk or anything, since it doesn't have brakes. It's the absolute perfect size for her, training wheels and all. She had a hard time keeping her feet on the pedals, so that makes it difficult, but she's really motivated. It's just so strange the things that kids have to learn. I just assumed that I would have to teach her to ride without training wheels eventually, but teach her how to ride with training wheels? It seems so simple to me, that kids should be born knowing how to preform such a simple task. I know, it's ridiculous. She's doing pretty well, considering that she's never even had a tricycle before, so pedaling is totally new to her. I'll have to get pictures, but had to take the batteries out of my camera to put in the evil Elmo toy that Avery discovered in the trash, and hugged and smiled, that I gave Elmo a reprieve. For now. As soon as no one's looking, it's back in the trash.

Another warm day out today, so Avery and I cleaned out the garage a little more and played with a big ball outside while Riley was at school. Avery's a totally different person when Riley is not around. Not clingy at all, not jealous, or pushy. It's pretty nice. Riley absolutely insisted on wearing her pajama bottoms to school today, because they're pink. I can't keep up with her clothing preferences. No jeans, no khakis, sweatpants only on schooldays (and only sometimes), leggings on every other day, no white socks, no socks that match. And she HATES green. Not that she knows green, but says "I hate that color." I wonder if it's because she still has a hard time telling green from red and this makes her hate the green. Her teachers at school think it's great that she is able to dress herself, and gave me kudos for not detering her. One time when we were going to the mall, she put her bathing suit on top of her clothes, and Rudi drew the line there and made her take it off. I don't know, I think that most people realize when they see a crazily dressed child, that the child dressed themselves. It's not a judgement on the parents. Especially if it's a girl. How many of us have seen girls dressed in the Halloween princess costumes in the middle of the summer at the grocery store. Or a boy in his SpiderMan costume. I don't think it's that big of a deal. In short, I would have let her wear her swimsuit if it were up to me alone. Although I didn't look forward to the logistics of how to go potty that way. And then she'll say "Look at me, I'm all pinked out!" I think it's cute.

I'm so looking forward to the zoo tomorrow. It's supposed to be warm, but perhaps rainy. I really don't care, they have buildings at the zoo. We're going no matter what. It doesn't rain for long in Colorado and it dries up in a mater of minutes, so I think we'll be fine. I want to see what Avery's reaction will be to feeding the giraffes, if she will even try it. Riley will get a free t-shirt as part of our membership, so that'll be fun for her. I have to go to Whole Foods tomorrow after picking Riley up from school, and before the zoo, and get her some natural sunscreen. The Banana Boat stuff really irritated her eczema, to the point that she was crying over it. Of course, she gets confused over which lotion is for moisturizing, which is for medicating, and which irritates. She kept wanting more of the sunscreen because of the rash, but the sunscreen was causing the rash. Poor thing.

You know, I'm really glad that the Howard County School System made me take keyboarding. Yeah, aren't you glad...extremely long blogs courtesy of Oakland Mills and my mad typing skills. Oh, yeah...