Riley and Avery

So, day three of potty training went a lot better than day one. Day one included constant puddles and not one pee on the potty. Avery is having fun changing undies, whether she needs to or not. On day one, she asked to change undies because she wanted ones with a different design. I asked her to please sit on the potty first. She said "I will after I pee in these!" Uh, no, that's not how it works! Last night I reluctantly put her in a diaper before bed, since day two involved on pee in the morning (on a pile of my clean laundry) and then nothing all day. However, she did not pee in her diaper overnight, so I woke up this morning and put her on the potty and she peed! Then she continued peeing on the potty all day today. Well, she did have one miss. She finally started asking to go potty. She usually doesn't realize that she has to go until she had leaked a little, so we still have to change her undies every time. So, we're on our way!

I smashed my finger pretty darn good yesterday. It hurt like the dickens. I was putting Riley's training wheels back on her bike and the wrench slipped and the handle totally squashed my left index finger. I don't recall pain like that since childbirth. Seriously. The nail is actually cracked down by the cuticle and one of the fragments is pushed in. Ouch. Now, more that 24 hours later, I finally have feeling back in my finger tip. The nail bed, however, is still numb. I hope the nail doesn't fall off. I think I'd barf. I don't think it will, though. The bruise on my nail is pretty small. I felt bad, though, because of the pain I had to sit with my hand in a bowl of ice water and of course Avery wanted to nurse and I just couldn't take it. I said no. She sat about five feet from me and sniffled and pouted. In retrospect I feel really bad about that, but at the time I was just so in pain and furious (I get grumpy when I'm in pain, ask Rudi). Finally, Avery went over to the couch and fell asleep on her own without nursing.

Speaking of pain, I have a toothache. Of course. I've had pain in this tooth before. I think the filling is wearing down. Perhaps I just need a new filling. If something else is wrong, I'll just have it pulled. It's my very back molar. I have so use for it. I'm sick of dental work. Just pull the darn thing. I'll just deal with it, or get an implant later. From now on, I'm going straight for implant. Root canals are sooooo last year. Seriously, though, I'm getting to the point where my reservations about dentists are boring upon the irrational. I don't think I can stand one more shot in my mouth. I really think that I may need oral sedation every time I go now. My fondest memory of getting my implants is that I have no memory of it at all. Nice.

So Riley had her play therapy appointment yesterday. She had been going every week, now she will be going every other week. Anyway, I don't remember if I explained the sand-box thing that the therapist does, but...she has a flat, wide, and long plastic bin with sand in it. She has the child arrange animals, people, whatever they want (she has like 1000 different things that the kids can use from dinosaurs, predators, pirates, "bad guys," ocean things, etc.). The box represents the sub-conscious, or something like that. Whatever they put in the box has symbolic value and is open to interpretation. She'll look to see if they put food and water in the box, or bad guys, if the "children" are protected, where the parents are, etc. Anyway, Riley loves this activity. She's done it twice. Yesterday she put lions and tigers in there and they ate some of the other animals, but she explained that "it's sad that predators have to kill other animals, but they need to eat too. They have babies to feed. It's sad, but it has to happen." The therapist said that Riley is right where she should be in her emotional intelligence, but her cognitive abilities are way, way, way, way, advanced for her age (her words) and her reasoning skills and understanding of cause and effect are far far far far beyond her age (her words). She said that she will have problems with that and she needs to be challenged all the time. All. The. Time.

So Riley and Matthew were playing with Riley's toy double stroller yesterday. It was so cute. They had it worked out that Riley would push it on the street and flat surfaces and Matthew would push it in the grass or uphill. They were going on a hike, they said. They stopped in the shade to "rest" and brought an umbrella in case it "rained" and made sure the hood of the stroller was up if they were in the sun and down if they were in the shade. I sneaked a couple of pictures:


Speaking of the baby stroller, later in the day Riley was playing with it behind our house. This stroller was given to her by the girls across the street who out-grew it. Anyway, it's one of her prized possessions. She's willing to play cooperatively with it (as long as her rules are followed) but unless someone is involved in her scenario, she does not want it touched. So we have two boys next door. They are very well-behaved and rather passive. One of them is, I don't know, slow? He doesn't read social cues very well and doesn't understand boundaries. If Rudi is sitting out front reading, he will sometimes stand there and stare at him. Or if I'm taking the girls somewhere he will get all up in our business and ask us all sorts of questions about where we are going until his father or mother intervenes. Anyway, Riley told him not to touch her stroller. He would come over and lay a hand on it. She would ask him again, saying it's her special toy and she didn't want him to touch it. He kept doing it. So Riley hauled off and hit and kicked and pushed him. He ran away laughing and then came back and touched her stroller. She beat him up again. He didn't understand that it wasn't a game and that Riley was really getting mad. I was watching from the back window and came out. The boy comes over and says "She's mean, she pushed me in the head." What am I supposed to do? She asked nicely and she has a right to defend herself and her stuff. I told him "I'll talk to her about that, but she did ask you to not touch her stroller, what else is she supposed to do?" I'm sorry, I'm not one of those people who think that violence is always wrong. She tried verbal reasoning first, and it didn't work. You know, later on if someone is picking on one of her friends, or her little sister, and she doesn't step in by any means necessary to defend them, she'll have hell to pay if I hear about it. Sorry...no, I'm not sorry. So there. Sticking my tongue out.

Avery is quite the artist nowadays. She loves loves loves painting and "doing artwork" as she says. And she always has to tape it to the wall for it do dry and for Daddy to see it. Daddy must always see it.

Here's Little Sweetheart sleeping in the guinea pig cage. I don't know what I have to do to get a good picture of a black cat. I have to delete so many because she looks like a black blob and her head and her butt are indistinguishable. She loves Riley's old Easter basket. Loves it. She was in the basket chasing her tail around yesterday and I took many pictures, but none turned out. Poo. She's really cute, though. You'll have to trust me.

Oh, and a cute picture of Avery with the water balloons. I'm also the neighborhood water balloon lady. Yes, her face is clean. That's a scrape on her nose. She fell on her face in the street.

So, we headed out to the Colorado Renaissance Festival today and the girls had such a blast, as did Rudi and I. By the time we headed out, the girls were in a frenzy to get there, thanks to Caitlyn telling them all about it and how fun it was. They were both in their car seats ready to go by the time Rudi woke up and began getting ready. It was funny.

Rudi had never been to a Renaissance Festival before and he was pleasantly surprised. We spent a good deal of time on the way there making fun of all the Ren-freaks that go to these things all dressed up. Well, about halfway through our visit, Rudi starts talking about how it must be fun to come dressed up. Then a little later he mentions that he wants me to make him a pirate outfit to wear next year. Hmmm, a convert, perhaps? Avery wants to be a fairy and Riley wants to be a princess. Anyway, have tot get the sewing machine fixed. Rudi says that he wants me to get started on the costumes so they'll be ready for next year. And he urged me to get the sewing machine fixed regardless of cost. All I think it needs is a tune-up.



Riley rode on a llama and wanted to ride on the elephant but was not old enough (she had to be 5) so she's looking forward to that for next year. Avery is really proud of herself for riding the butterfly ride. It was a man-powered ride, meaning that two dudes spun it around. And it was free. I helped Avery onto the ride and one of the guys helped Riley in. At the end of the ride, Avery stops on the other side of me, and the men start lifting the children out. Pretty soon I see them spinning the ride around until Avery was right in front of me and the guy says "She absolutely will not let me touch her. I guess you don't have to worry about her running away with a stranger!" It was kind of funny.


This is Avery watching the parade/procession that passed right as we came in. There was a freakin' elephant! It was quite crazy. And people walking around on stilts. Avery was nervous/really interested.

Oh, and they had belly dancers who were phenomenal! We stopped by just to look and stood in the back. Pretty soon Riley had sat down on the back benches. Then she scooted up a row. Then she asked me to come with her closer. I went a little closer and she wasn't satisfied until we were in the front row. And Avery joined us. They were both enthralled.

This is Avery in the middle of saying "Duke." She talked about Duke the whole time we were at the festival. In particular, she kept saying "I want to go to my grandma's house because I miss Duke! He's the best Dukie I ever seen!" I mean, over and over and over again, talking about Duke.


Oh, and Riley said a funny thing while we were there that gave me a revelation. We passed by a children's dress shop at the festival and Riley asked if she could get one. I said "No, I can make one of those" and Riley says "We're a making family, aren't we?" It made me realize how snarky I am when confronted with the prospect of buying something that I could make myself. I guess I do say that a lot.

We were able to make it through five hours at the festival with only buying a shaved ice to eat. Thanks to my marvelous food-packing and planning abilities. I brought diced chicken for the girls, as well as mandarin oranges, grapes, pretzel sticks, granola bars, string cheese, bottled water, and frozen bottled water to keep the food cool and for a cool drink when they melted. Oh, yeah, and I brought carrots.

Ugh, I am so tired...I'll blog more later if I forgot something.

Just a short one today. Maybe. We're going tot he Renaissance Festival today so I wanted to get all the old blogging out of my system before I have more blogging to do.

The girls had a blast playing in the rain the other day. Avery, of course, had to be "protected" and wore rain boots. Riley, of course, has no squeemishness and goes barefoot. Avery did fall down in one puddle and we had to change her. She particularly enjoyed putting her feet under the water spout to make footprints on the dry pavement of the garage.

Yesterday Riley came home crying saying that some kids hit her. I took a look at her back and sure enough, she had two welts on her back. I asked her who did it and I walked around the neighborhood to find "the kids" who did it. She finally points to boys out to me, about 9 or 10 years old. I ask them who hit my child and left welts. Man, they were scared. They probably peed their pants a little bit. Of course, they blamed it on a mysterious "other kid" who I'm fairly positive doesn't exist. They said that they were tossing crab apples in the basket of Riley's bike and that Riley was liking it. I asked how a crab apple is thrown hard enough to leave marks on a child back. I told them that I believed them for now but it better not happen again. I told them that they have to be careful of the younger kids. I know that these boys are not "bad" kids, I've seen them around the neighborhood and they've always been well-behaved. I think it was a case of summer-boredom and a game that went too far.

Speaking of bodily injuries, Riley has the legs of a girls that is outside all day long. Little bruises everywhere. The mark of a good summer, no?

Riley is also slimming out a bit. Well, slimming out as much as a muscular little girl can. When she walks you can see her calf muscles. She's definitely built for strength.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the huge fight I had with Walmart over Riley's bike! So, the left pedal was always falling off of her bike. Always. She could go perhaps a half-block before it feel off. We even tool-tighten it and it still falls off. So I went to Walmart #1 to find a replacement pedal or some sort of gunk we can put in to hold the bolt on. They told me to bring the bike in and get a new one since it's defective. Well, Walmart #1 is not the closest to our house at all, so I go on their advice and take the bike to Walmart #2. Bad idea. What a bunch of jerks. I tell them the problem and they call the assistant manager over. I tell him that my daughter has fallen off of it too much and that if they can fix it it'll be fine. But he had the attitude that they'll "try" to fix it. I didn't want them to "try" I wanted them to fix it. So I said that if he could guarantee me that the bike would be fixed (I could imagine them simply tightening it really good, like we've already done at home) that I would be fine with that. I wanted it documented that I brought a defective bike in and if my child falls of of it again, there will be hell to pay. Oh man, the guy was such a jerk. Such. A. Jerk. The assembly guys looked at the bike and yes, defective in manufacure. But the have to order parts and that'll take at least a week. Hello?! A kid without her bike for more than a week in the summer when it's not our fault. Not gonna fly. So I went back over to Walmart #1 and waited in a 1/4 line at customer service and I'm getting ready to fight. I put the bike up on the counter and they simply ask me to go get a new one. No problem at all. Sweet. Brand new bike.



Oh, and Riley now gets up in the morning, gets dressed, opens the garage door, and gets out her bike. Usually before I'm even out of bed. Sneaky. Anyway, she left the door to the garage open as well as the garage door itself. Well, I'm all in a huff about it since teaching the kids to close doors now that we have a cat has been an uphill battle. I close the door. Then I hear the most pitiful meowing I've ever heard. It's Little Sweetheart. She was stuck (not really stuck since the garage door to the outside was open) and I opened the door and Little Sweetheart is so scared and runs behind the love seat we have stored in there. Poor kitty. She only wanted to cuddle for a while.

Okay, so I seriously need to go finish getting ready for the Renaissance Festival. It's an early birthday present. Rudi's never been so I don't even think he knows how fun it's going to be!

Pictures of Riley and Avery looking at seashells with a magnifying glass.




Riley was looking through the cat food that I got Little Sweetheart yesterday, and she picked up a can and said "Is this organic?" Um, most certainly not. Both of the girls have attempted to clean out the liter box because I made an off-hand comment to Michael (Isaiah's dad, who gave us the cat) that the girls get all the fun responsibilities and I get to clean out the litter box. Not we have litter all over the floor. Oh well, they're trying to help.

As Little Sweetheart gets just a bit older, it's obvious that she's a black tabby, not plain old black. It'll be interesting to see how her coloring develops, but her stripes are becoming more apparent every day. I was nursing Avery to sleep last night with my arm hooked around her head as I always do and Little Sweetheart squeezed in between Avery and my arm and fell asleep on my forearm. Quite cute.

Oh, and today we were looking for Little Sweetheart and couldn't find her. As it turns out she was in the guinea pig cage curled up sleeping in one of the pig houses while the pigs went about their daily business. So now I wonder if I could let them become acclimated with each other so that when Little Sweetheart is older she won't see them as forbidden fruit. But can you ever let your guard down when a cat is around a pair of tasty guinea pigs? The guinea pigs are as interested in Little Sweetheart as she is in them.

Riley made another friend yesterday. Carlos. Carlos is seven, but about the size of a five year old. I spoke to his parents at length yesterday, mostly about schooling and so forth, and how my daughter and her daughter (older) always get along better with boys. Carlos' mom said about Riley "Oh, yeah, she upstairs with all the boys."

Oh, and Michael is great with Riley too. She has always been more comfortable with adults and she can talk his ear off. She was talking to him about spiders and fire ants as Riley finds a spider and picks it up. Michaels was like "She picked a spider up with her hands! She's so much braver than I am, I am so scared of spiders!" It was a daddy-long-legs, people!

Oh, I swear, if random neighborhood kids don't stop knocking on my door asking for a flavor-ice and water I think I'll go insane! How did I become the flavor-ice lady? Oh my God, TWO MORE KIDS just knocked on our door asking for flavor-ice!! What's up with that?? It would be one thing if Riley were outside with a group of friends and she wanted a flavor-ice, and then we'd offer them to the other kids since it's just plain rude to do otherwise, but to just knock on our door asking for it sans Riley? I sincerely hope that Riley isn't randomly [Oh, for the love of Pete, a kid just knocked asking for water!!] begging strangers for food. Argh!! I'm so busy handing out flavor-ice that my pot of tomato soup boiled over and now I'm going to have to clean the burner and drip-pan thingy. I'm going insane! I'll just mention that three of the knockers knocked while I was trying to nurse Avery to sleep. I guess she's skipping a nap today.

And for the love of all that is sacred in the world, I just now go outside to check on Riley and there is flavor-ice trash all over the neighborhood! That's it, no more flavor-ice!!! I say, no more flavor-ice!! Oh, Rudi soooooo warned me that this would happen and I just thought he was being a grumpy old sourpuss. So I have to give him props this time.

Riley and Little Sweetheart!


Little Sweetheart after her bath. She didn't mind it at all. We have allergy-reducing shampoo and Little Sweetheart has not started grooming herself yet. Totally washed her in a sink of water and she didn't care one bit.


And, I spoke too soon. Little Sweetheart started grooming herself today. This is the look she gave me when she realized I was taking pictures of her licking her butt.

Little Sweetheart is in the playful kitten stage. She's also managed to get into the guinea pig cage on a couple of occasions. Usually we catch her early in the game, but today I was watching a recorded episode of Reno 911 and I see her jump out of the cage. I don't know how long she'd been in there, but no one seemed to mind. The guinea pigs are curious about her, but that's about it. The aforementioned lack of fear of water also translates to a lack of fear of the spray bottle. I sprayed her for climbing the guinea pig cage and she hardly noticed. There goes that.

So, Riley's been running with the neighborhood pack of boys and having a lot of fun. On Thursday we went to playgroup (thank goodness Matthew's mom had a doctor's appointment and wasn't home or we never would have been able to go!) and when we came home three of the boys, including Matthew, were riding bikes and got so excited when our car pulled into the complex. They all started riding alongside shouting "Riley! Riley! Riley's home!" It was really nice. She's finally making friends (courtesy of Zoloft).

I feel kind of bad that we never "go anywhere" but Riley is outside literally all day long lately. I hardly get to read to her anymore, or spend any time whatsoever with her. Glad I made all those Montessori activities for nothing. She often comes in too tired to even eat dinner (at 7 or 8pm). The other day she was protesting dinner and crawled under the table and pouted. So I let her work it out. When I checked on her she was sound asleep. Anyway, back to never going anywhere. At least, I guess, she is able to entertain herself and doesn't have to be constantly externally stimulated (a trait of Rudi's that absolutely drives me crazy! The inability to entertain himself). Enjoyment in the simple days of summer, I suppose. That's what childhood is about, right?

But the belated development of friendships has also caused problems. First, she doesn't want to do anything without her friends, or more specifically, Matthew. Getting her to eat is a battle. And she is downright cruel to all other kids. She is so protective and jealous of Matthew. If anyone is around them she gets right in their face and shouts "I don't even like you! You are not my friend and I don't want you here! Get out of here! Go away! We want to be left alone, don't we Matthew?" "Yes." This is her first time navigating the social world and as a result she hasn't learned the social cues that other children usually have learned by now. We're working on it. Hard.

So Matthew has been over our house quite a bit and that's great. But having a new kitten means that we have a steady influx of older kids in here too. All the time. That's annoying. And I really can't afford to feed the whole neighborhood for much longer.

Avery is getting a lot of Mommy time as a result of all this, which she really needs. She also enjoys getting pushed around the neighborhood on her tricycle. A lot. Oh, she said something cute the other day. Little Sweetheart was looking at her and she says "Ours cat is lookin' at me because I'm so cute!" She also likes to put Little Sweetheart in time-out under and upturned basket when her kittenish antics get too much for her. And then I have to rescue the poor kitty.

So today Riley was running the 'hood and I had to go look for her to make sure she was okay, and she was so I went back home. A bit later she comes in the front door bawling because she couldn't find her way back home. I felt soooooo bad! So I guess I'll get the ID bracelet I've been pondering for a while. And take her for a detailed tour of the neighborhood so that she learns her way back home.

Just came across this on MDC in a tread entitled "The 'I'm Crunchier Than Thou' Thread" where people post essentially making fun of their crunchiness. I didn't "play" because I'm not all that funny nor all that crunchy. But one woman posted this:

"OK, OK, I think I can do this. I'm so crunchy...

We conceived our child at sunrise on the summer solstice in an octoganal purple yurt (constructed, of course, only from fallen birchtree branches, hemp rope and handwoven herb-died organic wool from our fifth-generation family tribe of freerange sheep)...

Then we delivered, natrually, on the spring equinox, at midnight in the open air, warmed by a bonfire of yak dung and reclaimed cedar scraps, accompanied by our friends, family, a shaman, an herbalist and a drum-playing doula...

It was a lotus birth, and I stayed with the baby in an underground cave until the cord fell off, licking water off stalactites and eating organic mushrooms.

(I don't have to mention that we don't use diapers, but I did wrap the baby in recycled handwoven unbleached organic cotton blankets.)

Now I am living off homegrown yeast and fermented soy curd while I wet nurse six neighborhood children, and my husband.



Oh... I almost forgot to mention the peace sign tatooed on my cervix."

Yes, that's our new kitten. Tiny tiny kitten. I actually bought formula today because she is so small and skinny. It felt weird even buying kitten formula. The kitten LOVES being in the doll carrier and Riley wants to carry her EVERYWHERE! I'll blog more later, but I've got a kitten to care for right now!

So Riley has made some new neighborhood friends close to her own age. Isaiah is 5 and Matthew is 5 1/2. When Riley first met Isaiah we got into a huge argument over whether he was a boy or a girl. He has rather long corn-rows and Riley took that for a girl-indicator. Also, the argument that Isaiah is a boys name doesn't really fly with a child named Riley with a sister named Avery.

Riley calls Matthew "Nephew." It's kinda cute. Anyway, we all went to Isaiah's house and his father set off a couple of smoke bombs or the kids entertainment and then pulled out a huge inflatable jumping thing, complete with a fan to blow it up! Hello! How cool is that? So Riley was in there with Matthew and Isaiah and doing all of her wrestling moves on them. I told her that if she dishes it she better make sure that she can take it. Matthew and Isaiah finally got her when the teamed up on her. It was a good time for all.

Anyway, they're really good kids. In fact, they are over our house right now playing with the train. Fun times. If it stops drizzling I may be in the mood to fill a butt-load of water balloons and sit back and watch the fun unfold.

Matthew has a younger sister who is 3 1/2 and Isaiah has a younger sister who is about to turn 2 this month. Potential friends for Avery if she ever gets over her shyness.

So we're very slowly getting back into the rhythm of being back home. The hardest has been the food situation. Upon leaving the home we made sure to get rid of anything that wouldn't keep and as a result we came home to absolutely nothing. No butter, no rice milk, no cows milk, no half-and-half, no fruit, no veggies, no bread. Nothing. I've been in the midst of trying to get our house back in order and handle all the school and VA stuff and take Riley to her therapy appointment that I haven't been able to scrape together two hours of my time to go through the ads and do grocery shopping sans children.

By they way, Riley loves apricots. I mean, loves them. She ate five in one sitting the other day. Now she wants to plant the seeds and grow apricot trees. I don't know how well they fare in Colorado, but hey, we'll give it a shot. Of course, I'm assuming that since apricots are small, an apricot tree will also be small and can be confined to a very large pot. Yes, I do see the flaws in this argument.

Oh, yeah, our vacuum cleaner is broken. Horray. Luckily, a mama in my mothering group offered up her old vacuum. Thank goodness. A new vacuum is certainly not in our budget and won't be for the foreseeable future.

So, you're probably wondering about the title. It's what I heard directly before seeing Riley, naked butt up in the air and Avery licking it. Where did she get such an idea? And yes, I'm taking $96 out of Riley's first paycheck and giving it to Avery. Plus interest. She deserves that much, at least. Seriously, you'd think I had little boys or something.

Oh, and Avery seems on her way to giving up her one and only nap. Woes me! Her naps are getting later and later and shorter and shorter. And her bedtimes are horrible. She does to bed so late and cries and cries to go back downstairs. At 10 pm. Not gonna happen! If I give in once, she will be my little nighttime side-kick every night and I really don't want that at all.

So, we did nothing for the 4th. I just didn't *feel* it, you know? I am having a really hard time decompressing from the road trip and Rudi trying to find a job because we just received his last unemployment check. I didn't feel like searching for parking, walking miles to the fireworks site, only to be inundated with the crowds. Luckily, a family in my neighborhood totally ignored Colorado state law and bought a ton of fireworks and set them off feet from our house. We sat on the curb watching them and it actually was a lot more fun than going to "the" fireworks. A lot of the little cones that you light that sends multi-colored sparks eight feet into the air. It was fun. Riley got a quilt and a pillow and we watched them until like 10pm.

Riley has been riding her bike around a lot lately and going faster and learning to use her breaks and such and now she wants to be without training wheels in the worst way! I guess I could let her try, but I'll definitely be buying her a helmet (and knee and elbow pads, Riley said) before we try any such thing. I don't know about it, though. I don't want to be taking them off and putting them on again at every whim. Not my idea of fun. But I guess I can do it once. I thought about taking the training wheels off of her old bike instead of her new bike, but she's already asked me to take the pedals off of the old bike so it can be like Abby's. I guess I could do both, but if I'm not willing to take the training wheels off and on, I'm certainly not going to be taking pedals off an on. If I can get them off, I'm sure I'm not going to even be able to put them on again. Hmmmm...need to think about that a little more.

The girls are having a tea party and leaving me alone for a minute to blog, or rather finish the blog I started yesterday. If only the pictures would upload...