FIFTY-THREE (?)

Dress up three layers deep, sitting in the laundry basket

2015 week fifty-three (fifty-two and a half?)

I love the fresh clean feeling of packing away Christmas and having a cold bright January ahead of me. Time to eat all the oranges I can hold.

Vera sharing her own great love (giraffe) with her brother -a true sign of affection. I'm so thrilled to have his chewed up little nose rubbing on Theo's face. :)

Snuggling in matching sweaters. 

Vera lovingly tucked Big Baby Lucy in with Papa during his nap. 

Ringing in the New Year (8pm) in style. 

"I'm a giraffe princess with an elf hat!" Vera and Theo gave us a lovely new years present by sleeping in until 8am. Also, we went to bed at 10, so it was extra lovely. 

New Years Day yardwork: busting out the old concrete walkway. V helped load tiny rocks into the trunk to be hauled away.

Matthew did the real loading. 

V noticed our Christmas tree out on the curb and was so distressed.

She tried really hard to get it back into my house leaving a thick 4-inch wide trail of pine needles behind her. 

Quotes:

I love bugs when they come to get me!

I dont remember what we were talking about exactly, but it ended like this:
Me: ....your bun.
V: Yeah, it smells like candy.
Me: Your bun smells like candy?
V: No. The world smells like candy.

If we are lacking things to talk about V likes to tell me what things smell like. Periodically she will just pause and say: It smells like sausage, or pecans, or a bath, etc.

The other night Vera wrote a haiku of sorts -not the proper syllable count but close.
The sun went down
The moon came up
Lights are bright

V was fussing about her stickers that she stuck to a piece of paper and wanted them to be removed and I said,
Stickers. Once they stick they're stuck.
She thought that was funny.

This morning Vera's bear and giraffe were both wearing her jackets and spooning on my bed.
Me: Are you going to leave your animals on my bed?
V: Yes, Bear is just holding giraffe as a friend.

Honestly Vera has been talking so much (read NON STOP) lately that I can't even catch the funny things she says because she is inundating me with words. Prittle Prattling on and on. It's almost cute, but often it is attached to being quite naughty.

I dont really want to remember how naughty she is but there have been a few things that have been really getting us lately.
She has started making this horrible gulping, choking, sound when she's annoyed with us. It is so grating you'd like to fly off the handle or punch a wall.
She is CONSTANTLY arguing with me. It doesn't matter what I say she is contradicting me. I try to remind her that I'm teaching her, or it's me who decides, I do not agree, That is not a true thing, etc. But it doesn't seem to put a dent in her whine arguing. Actually I can feel my blood pressure rising just thinking about this.
The last thing is that she says, "I don't want to/I don't want it..." in a slithery whine about EVERYTHING! We're going to eat pizza. I dont want to eat pizza? Ok, then I guess it's just naptime. I DOOOOOOOO want pizza (said in the same whine). GAH! We coach her to "try again" "use a talking voice" but it seems like I say "try again" 10,000 times a day. Our new one that I hope will help is to coach her to say in response to a directive that she is not thrilled about: I don't want to do this but I will because you asked me. We certainly don't whine so I know this is not a learned behavior. How do children know how to do this to us? How can they tell that their noises are going to push us pretty close to murder? Is it a fun game to see how far they can push us and watch us struggle to maintain our composure? That gulping noise though. I need a mantra to repeat when she does it so I can ignore it.

Stories:
 Last night was not a good night. Everyone slept soundly until 1am when Vera come into my room asking me to help her put her pjs back on. So she had been awake long enough to wake up, go to the bathroom, take off her pjs, use the toilet and come into my room. I put her back to bed and no fewer than 3 minutes later I hear her sneaking down the hall. I catch her and she immediately starts bawling. I put her back in bed and quiet her down. And she starts fussing again. About her giraffe. She wants her giraffe to be wearing her jacket. And she's really upset about it. So I'm bending over her bed at 1:30 am stuffing her stupid giraffe's leg through the armhole of her purple polka dot jacket while Vera is sniffling. It was so absurd. My lip twitched and I gave a stifled sleep-deprived giggle and had to leave before I was standing in her room in the middle of the night holding her stuffed giraffe and laughing. It was perfectly funny in the way that maybe only a parent who has lived through such absurdities can understand. I wish I could say the rest of the night was better. It wasn't. In fact she had a 3am round of loud gulp choking. But at least when I woke up I was able to smile remembering the stupid giraffe and the jacket.