Riley and Avery

An old post I forgot to publish...

So here's a great picture of Avery for those who may be doubting the status of her quickly-developing attitude.

Since Rudi has a penchant for throwing away cloth prefolds when Avery poops outside of the house, I bought some disposables for use outside of the home. Well, Avery prefers them and will not go back to cloth. The diapers have little suns and clouds on them and Avery joyfully exclaims "Care Bears belly badge! Sunshine Bear belly badge!" Although she is quite baffled about why the disposables go in the trash. She says, "Diaper trash, why?" Hopefully it'll pass...

Whereas Riley had the "why"s by the age of two (heck, she still does) Avery has "What is this?" "What is THIS" "What is this?" Soemtimes it borders on the ridiculous. "What is this pants?" "They're pants, dear" "Oh."

So I've never been a fan of anti-bacterial stuff; gels, wipes, soaps, etc. In fact I hate the whole anti-bacterial movement. I intentionally DON'T buy hand soap, dish soap, etc. if it is anti-bacterial. Until Riley picked up a dog turd at the park on Thursday. She held it up "Mommy, what's this?" I run over hoping on all that is holy that it's just a damp pine cone, a clump of dirt, anything other than what it most likely is. I arrive at the scene, and say "Aaaah, it's a dog log! Drop it! No, don't touch your face!" To which Riley replies, "I just wanted to smell my fingers!" Then I go around begging for Purell, all the while wondering why my four-year-old doesn't know dog poop when she sees it. Or wonders what her fingers smell like after she touches it.

I don't usually post links to other sites, but here's a funny one. Stuff White People Like. Disclaimer: If you're a white person who cannot take a joke or find humor in your life, don't bother reading it. I found that I am a whole lot more white than I thought I was!

These hugging picutres are courtesy of Avery's special request. She said "Take pictures Riley Avery hugging each other on couch!"

I've totally forgotten about blogging. Not even just couldn't find the time, but like I totally forgot that blogging is something that I do sometimes. Oh, well...

School is going really well. I have A's in all of my classes so far. And I aim to keep it that way. I'm still working on by breastfeeding paper for my anthropology class. I got another amazing book, Mother's Milk. Absolutely love it! The paper's not due for another three weeks, so I have plenty of time. I think I need to focus my topic a little more. Perhaps instead of talking about breastfeeding taboos since the beginning of time, I might just focus on breastfeeding culture as it is today and the factors that lead to formula-feeding. Or I could just examine 1950-1970 as the era I think contributed most to the decline of breastfeeding, the move towards a disembodied motherhood through increased hospital funding, increase in hospital births and high-intervention labor practices, blah blah blah...

I'm still struggling with whether to send Riley to preschool next year. I'm starting to lean towards sending her and homeschooling Avery. If Avery went to preschool next year, she'd be in the same boat that Riley is in, with three years of preschool. Three years is a lot of preschool. So Avery shouldn't really be going to preschool until the year after next. If we pay the monthly tuition for Riley over the summer to go towards next years tuition, we could have lower payments during the year and free up some money for activities. She really really really wants to take a dance class. And Rudi wants her to take an art class, which I think she would enjoy too. I'm not sure about buying a curriculum for Riley. I wouldn't know which one to get. She's been in preschool for two years already, so the preschool curriculum may not challenge her enough. The kindergarten curriculum is most definitely over her head. I'd probably have to buy both and that's not cool. I've found some great websites on Montessori curriculum and will try a little with her now and over the summer to see if teaching her myself is even something that I can stomach. We have a knack for rubbing each other the wrong way, and homeschooling might be the death of us. We'll see...Either way, I definitely need to focus more on Avery. She's getting gypped for sure.

So, yeah, I got a tattoo. Finally. It took two full hours. I'm really really happy with it. It's in the nasty peeling stage right now. I can't wait to see what it'll look like when it's finally all healed. Avery freaked out when I came home with it. She pulled up her pants leg and screamed "Own tattoo! Avery own tattoo!!" Poor thing wanted her own. Temporary tattoos are the only things that she will tolerate on her body. No stamps or band-aids or stickers, please. She keeps looking at my tattoo out of the corner of her eye, and if she sits next to me, she looks at it and scoots over. She doesn't want to hurt me.

Avery still is having her love affair with baths. She takes at least one bath a day. Of course, with the sensitive skin my girls have, I can't possibly wash her that often. She gets pretty dried out with just the water.

Avery's language skills are really blossoming. Now there is officially never a moment of silence in our house. Never. She asks "What is this?" a lot. She's using adjectives and complete sentences, although she still talks like Yoda sometimes. "Avery like band-aids NO!" or "Where big black rolling pin where?" I was talking to another mother here who is concerned that her daughter doesn't draw yet (at 3 1/2) and I told her about how Riley's art started practically over-night. That got me thinking about Avery, who is still in the scribbling phase. I can't wait to see what Avery's art work will look like when she starts drawing recognizable objects. Exciting!

I had a few pictures of the girls that I wanted to upload but now realize that the camera batteries are in Avery's train set and don't have enough charge left to upload pictures. So that'll have to wait.

Nothing new has really happened to us lately. We have our unemployment hearing tomorrow morning. Should be a blast.

We went to the Fine Arts Center on Sunday. It was the strangest thing ever. We had been talking for a year and a half about how we absolutely needed to go there. They were under re-construction for a while, so we finally decided to go. When we got there, we were both kind of baffled and we look at each other and we say "What?! We've been here before!" Turns out we had gone when we lived in Ft. Collins and passed through Colorado Springs on our way to the Sand Dunes with Amy and Emily, like six years ago! Weird. Riley had said that she had no interest in going somewhere where the pictures are already painted (to her "museum" means "children's museum") but started to really like it. Total bonus that they had a small children's room with easels for the kids to draw. Riley got right to work and created three rather intricate drawings.

Anyway, I've been buried neck deep in my research for my anthropology paper. I'm finding this subject so fascinating that I am researching even topics that I don't need for my paper. Right now I'm almost done reading Milk, Money, and Madness: the Culture and Politics of Breastfeeding. Talk about fascinating. One picture that I find telling is this one:

This depicts a pair of boy-girl TWINS. The mother was told incorrectly by her doctor and her mother-in-law that she could not produce enough breastmilk to nurse both, and they advised her to nurse the boy (because of the importance of sons in Pakistani culture). The girl was bottle-fed and died of malnutrition and diarrhea the day after the picture was taken. The mother gave the rights to the photo and her story to UNICEF to promote breastfeeding efforts. So sad...

I'm trying to get my hands on a copy of Mother's Milk: Breastfeeding Controversies in American Culture but I'm having issues with using my Barnes and Noble member account online. I just received Breastfeeding: Biocultural Perspectives from Amazon. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet since Riley's been reading it (even though it contains no pictures) for about half an hour now, going through page by page. I look forward to going over it since it's written by an anthropologist. It could be really cool or really boring. Who knows?

I have recently been focusing on the Puritans, trying to support my claim that they WEREN'T the source of our breastfeeding taboos. I came across this rockin' article (here) that tells how breastmilk was commonly used to sustain the elderly and ill. How the relationship between a breastfeeding mother and suckling child was as close to divine as humans could become. The Puritans revered breastmilk for its healing and life-sustaining properties. Quite interesting. So, I was right. The Puritans did not have a skewed view of breastfeeding.

Sorry to bore everyone, but as I said before, I'm rather obsessed right now...

So we made a last minute decision last Sunday to go to My Little Pony Live. Oh my goodness, the girls were so excited. Avery was just totally dazzled. Riley kept giving me excited little hugs during the performance. Avery sang along and totally participated in the performance, and clapped after each song. It was so cute. Of course, they walked away with a bunch of goodies. Yeah, they're spoiled. It's these kind of things that make a parent realize that they'll probably end up at Disney World at least once in their life. Whether they really want to or not.

I realized something about myself lately. I talk to myself. A lot. Out loud. That's all I'll say about it here. I'll talk to myself more about it later...

I also realized that cannibalism doesn't really bother me all that much. I mean , if the person is already dead. I guess I'm crazy. In anthropology class my professor said that sometimes an anthropologist has to do certain things in order to be accepted into the culture he's studying, and said that one of her professors admitted to cannibalism of an enemy after warfare. Didn't bother me that much. I'd rather eat human than antelope entrails. So if we're ever stuck in the deserts of Africa and all there is to eat is antelope entrails, watch your back.

I bought Riley and Avery their new Easter bikes yesterday. That was fun. I thought that I'd better do it now with the tax refund money rather than waiting until next month. Since Walmart is challenging the unemployment decision, who knows if we'll have money next month. I got those old-fashioned baskets for the front of their bikes and that will be their easter basket. I'm going to put some bike accessories in it, like a bell or horn, handle bar streamers, stickers, etc. Riley needs a new bike really badly and Avery needed one with a push handle. I got Riley the only bike you can find in stores that is not a Dora or Disney or Barbie bike. Avery is getting a tricycle with a push and steer handle for parents. It's red, blue, and yellow, I think. So I'll have to girl it up a little. I wanted to try to get her a 10" bike, but I didn't think she'd go for it. I have found that tricycles with the pedals right on the front wheel (as opposed to a chain) are really hard to pedal. Hence the push bar. If Avery just weren't so tiny. I'm pretty sure that Riley will take me to task about not having a helmet and knee pads, but I'm going to try to get away with not buying them. It's not like they're biking on the road.

So I drop Riley off at school this morning, and realize that their Valentine's Day party is today. I had no idea. We had no cards or anything. I usually stay for her parties and bring something baked. I ran out of that school before Riley realized my error. Who knew the party would be the week before Valentine's Day? Well, parents who read the newsletter and mark their calendars would know, but that's just not me. So I sit here feeling guilty and horrible. I'll probably take her out today to buy valentines cards and chocolates and we'll spend the weekend making them and put them in the kids' cubbies on Monday.

Riley loves writing her name now, and actually writes in a line instead of a jumble of letters like she used to. She can tie her shoes now too. That was all on her. She just so wanted to learn to tie her shoes really really badly, so she tried and tried until she got it. Which means that she has to tie everyone's shoes. Nothing wrong with that except that I can tie my shoe in 2 1/2 seconds flat and Riley takes a bit longer.

Riley got two goldfish last week. We have one left. I found Avery dumping food and dechlorinator in the tank, so it's been cleaned more than any other fish tank in history. One morning we woke up and Riley says "Why isn't that fish swimming?" "Well, hon, that fish is dead." "Why did it die?" "I don't know, RyRy." "Maybe it just reached the end of its life, right?" Yes dear, goldfish have a five day life span. She was okay with it. So the tank got another cleaning. And it's cloudy again already. Whose idea was it to get fish? Oh yeah, that was me...In order to dispose of the dead fish, I had to clean out the dishwasher so that I could clean out the sink (one of Rudi's lovely habits is piling things in the sink, even non-dish things, like napkins, ice cream boxes, whatever) so that I could give the tank a proper scrub. So needless to say, it took a little while. Riley kept asking me if I got rid of the dead fish yet, and I would say not quite yet, dear, but I'm working on it. She said "Mom, it's probably best if you don't tell me when you do it." Then it's probably best if you stop asking me.

I know I've told most people this, but just for posterity, Riley has started saying "I command you." As in, "Get me some water. I COMMAND YOU!" Funny at first, now quite offensive.

I'm gonna post this baby now so I don't forget!