Scropped

So Gemma and Nate were roughousing in the pool this weekend, and after Gemma showed me her arm and said, "This is where Nate scropped me." And I just said, Hmm, yah, where Nate scratched you. And she insisted, 'No mommy, where he SCROPPED me.' And I said, 'Oh, that's where he scraped you.' And she still persisted; "No mommy. SCROPPED."

What is to scrop? I don't know.

Other funny words;

"Mom, give me a hunt. (meaning a hint)

Handcuffing Chris' wrist with her hand, she pronounces, "Ha ha! Now we're engagement!!"

Tired of tantrums

Someone please tell me that just because my daughter is prone to tantrums now she will still grow up to be a wonderful person.

'I can speak...'

I know you wish I was going to finish this sentence with 'Chinese' but, sadly it is not so. I will try and repeat the conversation Gemma and I had on the way to the park tonight:

(biking past a small dog)

Me: "Gemma, look at the puppy!"

G: "Oh, its so cute! It's following us! It has no one to take care of it."

M: "No, I think it has someone to take care of it."

G "WE could take care of it. It could come on my bed and snuggle me."

M "Uh humm..."

G I could speak to it on dog language. I can speak dog language, mommy, do you want to hear me? ruff ruff (sort of higher pitched small dog sounds.) This is how I speak to little dogs. And this is how I speak to big dogs. Woof woof. WOOF."

(Gemma barks loudly at the dog now back in the distance. Then she barks at the next lady who walks by. A moment of silence and then Guinness is the front seat starts up; woof woof!)

Product review; Crayola Color Bath Dropz

So cool! Gemma got these from Annabelle, and these tablets (that look like Easter egg tablets but slightly bigger) fizz and make the water a funky bright color! One tablet was enough for a bath. Guinness thought it was so amazing, and Gemma loved looking at what her body parts looked like through the colored water.

5 stars.

Where is Grandpa?

Poor girl waited very patiently through 4 airports and 30 hours of flying. When we were in Saskatoon, that last customs line was when she finally started asking intensely; Where is Grandpa? Where is Baba? There were a few tantrums on the plane, but she slept ok on the last two flights and behaved well in the airports and lines. She;s waking up early but still getting about 8 hours at night so that's good, and she has a pretty heavy afternoon nap that we can hardly wake her up from but more sleep is better than not enough.

When tantrums and angry glares are so common now, this morning so blessed my heart. She presented herself to me at 6:20am beside my bed, all dressed. She said, Mommy I dressed myself!! It was very cute. And I was thrilled it was after 6. And I was thrilled because she slept all night upstairs by herself in her own room, and instead of laying in bed crying for me to come and get her when she woke up, she woke up and took care of herself and came downstairs to get me. We played very nicely all morning till Kaitlyn and Ian came over and then they all played nicely.

She's finding it quiet, too, and not sure where all her friends are. But we'll have a great summer, I'm sure!!!

Librarian

We got a lovely stack of books from a student of mine, and Gemma loves to unpack them and pack them and unpack them and pack them. She is playing librarian. She gets this from her favorite episode of Backyardigans; the Masked Retriever, who is really the librarian in disguise to get back that overdue book at all costs.

She loves packing things. She will pick up a plastic grocery bag and walk around her room filling it up with a little of this and a little of that. Then she'll switch it to her suitcase. Then she'll put some things in her treasure boxes. And take them out. And put new things in. Today we went on vacation to Mexico, and we both needed to pack a bag.

Tantrum

Gemma is sleeping right now...

sleeping on the floor outside her bedroom.

sleeping on the floor outside her bedroom because she locked it to prevent me from going in there during a HUGE tantrum right before bed about not being able to watch two episodes of Backyardigans. Well, that's what started it but I'm not sure really what she was so in a tizzy about. It got very escalated and crazy, and although one spanking was issued it didn't do much and I sort of just watched the storm unleash its fury.

I got to say I love you to her before she fell asleep. Not sure what set her off. Not sure what to do. Hmm...

Time to reflect

Gemma often wakes up in the morning with her reflections or commentary on the events the day before. Must just take her some time to process. On Wednesday I was home with the kids, so she unloaded on me her thoughts about Tuesday's music class:

"Mommy, that girl ______ was so mean, she kept trying to hit me with her jingle bell!!" (You'll have to imagine the indignation in her tone and on her face). "And so and so hit me on my brain with his Easter egg!!!" (meaning the egg shaker). But he hit her 'brain'; maybe to much time spent with Auntie Adrienne the science teacher's human body models.

Other funny quotes:

After be chastised for squeezing Guinness around the neck for the upteenth time today, she stomped off but turned back to retort; "Hmmph! But I just love him." stomp stomp stomp...

G: Can I rent a movie today?
M: No, Gemma
G: But mommy, don't say no. You think about it!!


(last night at my birthday dinner, singing...) There's a banana on my head, on my head! There's a banana on my head on my head! Hey, look at me guys!! Everyone, look at me!! There's a banana on my head, on my head..."

Play play play

Not so much blogging because it is so hard to keep up with Gem and all her fun ideas.

We've been watching Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses. (Yes, they look a bit weird, but they are very nice to eachother and sing beautifully, and I like the dancing. And that they use some real music; Mendelssohn. Still trying to figure out how old Genevieve is since she gets married at the end but whatever) I made 12 flower pictures and taped them in a circle in her room to be the 12 stones, and so we've been playing princesses a lot, trying out there different names and characters, saving poppa and going off to the magic land.

Silly sense of humor, too. Does a unicorn go on my nose? Does a unicorn go on a butterfly? Ha ha ha, laugh giggle giggle. All kinds of silly things like that.

The funniest was when she came out of her room, and climbed into my arms and said, "Now you carry me like this till the morning." I wish :)

"When I grow up..

.. I will be a big tall DADDY!"

So says Gemma today as we are brushing teeth. Teacher was her second option.

Juicy

Maybe she's watching too many princess movies, but when we got married today I got a VERY long and juicy kiss. Sorry, Gemma, no romantic kisses until you are much much older.

She knows some numbers. 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10. She doesn't know 6, 9, 8, and 2. I didn't realize she knew them. we have a preschool readiness workbook so we've been doing school a bit. She doesn't want to work in order, which of course kills me but I want her to have fun and learn so I go with it. She loves cutting out the little matching cards and when we play games with them.

OH, and she has started to earn her own money. I give her about 5 minutes to pick up as many toys as she can from around the living room and put them on a spread out blanket. Then we count them, and for every two she gets 1 NT (1NT = 3cents). She is earning roughly 10NT a day; about 30 cents, which I think is high but I want her to be excited about it and I wasn't sure how many toys she's be able to pick up and how much she'd be earning in a day. I think after the summer we will change the ratio from 2:1 to 3:1; 3 toys for 1NT.

What do you pay your children and how?

When Guinness grows up...

Gem and Guin were bathing together, and Gemma was admiring his 7 teeth. "Wow, he has teeth now! He's getting so big!" She then went on to talk about how big Guinness was going to be. She pointed to herself and said "He will be this big one day." And I started listing things he will be able to do then that she can do: get dressed, go to the potty, eat by himself, and she interjected, "Wear makeup!!!" Uh, hopefully not. Although with Gemma as a sister it is likely. The boy is already in love with Dora :)

We then pretended Guinness had a baby in his tummy. Hmmm..

Trickery

Gemma is refusing to take her medicine. *(Is this my punishment for staying up late to read the My Sister's Keeper???)

I told her to take it quickly and get it over with.

I told her she would be sick forever.

I told her we would never play with her friends because you can't play with friends when you are sick and she will be sick until she takes her medicine.

I told her fine, you don't have to drink your medicine but you have to have this glass of cherry juice. (with medicine in it; ha ha!!)

So how far should the trickery go? What is the most outlandish trick/lie you've ever told to your children?

Sick, too

Gemma is not throwing up, thankfully, but is having some interesting moments on the potty. Yesterday I was talking to Chris and she went to the bathroom and farted so long and loud that I just burst out laughing; it was so funny because it sounded like a 50 year old man or something. I guess she heard me and our sudden silence because then she called out; "Mommy? Are you laughing at my poop sounds?" Busted.

She's having a hard time because poor Guin doesn't want to be put down ever, which limits play time with her. And I want to clean when Guinness is finally down, so I am trying to resist that urge and focus energy on her.

Mommy, let's tell stories!

We tell stories a lot. They usually begin with Once upon a time, and have babies in them or witches. Or both :)

My favorite are stories that begin, "When I was a little girl" or "When I was younger..." She really acts so old and grown up and like her youth was so long ago!!!

Something funny that I am remembering this week is how super alert she is when she first wakes up. She opens her eyes wide and calls. I go to her room (stumble to her room) and say, What Gemma? And her first sentence is a completely clear and coherent thought. "Mommy, we need to get up and get dressed because today Annabelle is coming to take me out and we have to be ready on time!" Sometimes I can convince her to come lay down with me in our bed and she'll drift off again. But other times we just begin our day and ride that energy wave.

Today

Gemma announced that she doesn't like music class because she 'doesn't want mommy to teach all the other kids. Just her.' Kindermusik is going OK. Yah, I'll leave it at that.

Tonight in Gemma's world she had 'kohlorabi' to eat (she meant lasagne), and gave Dora an hour long bath in the sink, using her and Guinness' toothbrush and almost all the soap in the process. There was lots of singing during this bath time. We ripped Ariel's head off trying to play paper dolls, ooops, so then we went to Katrina's because we were out of tape.

The latest bedtime trap? Asking for a drink of water, then spilling it n herself so she can change pyjamas, buying herself more mommy time. She is sleeping in her underwear tonight because I didn't want to change her, and besides, all her other jammies are in the wash.

Moose

"I will roar. Like a cow!" I look at her with a puzzled expression. "Ah, honey? Cows don't really roar." She nods knowingly, accepting my answer. "Like a MOOSE." Um, ok. So I take this. "Maybe we'll see a moose this summer when we are in Canada," I tell her. "OK," she says. " I will ride it!" I raise my eyebrows. "Uh, well, you can't really ride on moose," I try to gently explain.

"Are they mean?"

"Well, no, but they are shy."

"Oh. Well, that's ok. I'll just go up to it and tell it my name. We'll be friends."

Pretend

By far Gemma's favorite game of late is Daughter. "You be the daughter and I'm your mommy" she says. So I comply. Variations include, "We are Dora's parents" (she has a toy Dora), or Dora is her sister. The one thing that never changes is Guinness. He is always the baby named "Yocho" Hmm, don't know how to spell it but they are both long o sounds. She loves having pretend names; Coreela, Cassandra, Katrina, etc. Or different princess names. Like the pretzel princess or the french fry princess, whatever is going on.

Today she was playing with her toy cell phone and got a few emails she had to read to me. One was from Lorranda, our cousin, and Gemma very excitedly told me that it said "Lorranda is going to have a BABY!" ha ha, did you get that Lo? We were also invited to a few weddings in some other emails. Ha ha.

My body says...

Gemma had a few accidents this week; waiting too long to go to the potty I suspect. So I was being more diligent in reminding her and I told her she should go. "You haven't gone for a long time, " I said. "Isn't your body saying, 'I have to go'" To which she replied, "Noooo.... My body is saying... squeak squeak" Ha ha!

Gemma Gemma! I love this girl tonnes. She has been dressing herself lately, which means stripping down to nothing and walking around the house, announcing that she is going to get dressed 'all by myself'. About 10 seconds later comes the 'Mommy, can you help me?' But she is trying really hard and can do a lot of it on her own.

She hasn't been eating much lately and having runny poops, too, that are the weirdest colour. Sort of wheat colour. And really stinky, and lots of stinky farts. YUCK! She seems better today and ate more, so thats good.

She was typing message on her keyboard tonight and she said 'this is how to type Gemma:' and she punched the G, and then the N two times (which is close, right? They look similar and are side by side) and the A. Not bad.