The Evolution of Words

It's fascinating to me how toddlers learn to talk. I love listening to Sophie's interpretations of sounds and words and how words change over time. (Secretly hoping that she'll never say some things correctly. . . we've started calling blueberries "boo-bahs" just so she'd continue to call them that. I know I'm not the only one who does this.)

One of my favorites was the word "orange". It started off as "oooorrrrnng" (like saying it without vowels), then turned into "o-wan-dah". Not sure where that came from, but adding syllables rocks. Now she says it fine.

"Octopus" is coming along nicely, too. I think the last time I mentioned it she was saying "op-i-tiss". Well, like poor orange, it's take a turn in a different direction . . .

Every time I hear her say it it makes me wince a little, then giggle.

Fimming

Ever since our little pool party at the neighbors, Sophie has wanted to put her "fim-suit" back on and "fim". She talks about it everyday. The weather has been delightful these past couple of weeks, but I didn't think 70 degrees was warm enough to "fim". Saturday warmed up, so we (I) blew up the pools. (Manually... er... facially? I felt like I was going to pass out, but not as bad as when I did it 6-months pregnant last summer. We need to get our bike pump back.)

I had planned on blowing them up in the morning, then letting them sit for a few hours to warm up the water. Plans don't really happen most of the time. Sophie was in her suit before 11AM, playing in ice cold water, fresh from the hose. And loving it.

Thanks for the pool, Perins!

Ivy woke up from her nap, we ate lunch, then Sophie wanted to go back out and "fim". I slipped Ivy into her suit, lowered into the water and waited for her reaction. The water was by no means warm. It wasn't ice-cold, but it was. . . cool. I certainly would have gasped had I sat in that pool (and my mom would have sang some opera like she used to when we'd go waterskiing), but Ivy didn't. Unlike Sophie's first experience with kiddie pools, Ivy loved it. I can add that to my "why my girls are polar opposites" list.

Ivy's famous tongue-smile. She sat in that pool until her feet were shrivled and she started to shiver a bit, but she didn't complain once.

I love that Ivy's sitting up so well now. She loves it, too. She's graduated to sitting up in the tub by herself and riding up front in the cart. That last one isn't a problem because Sophie insists on walking everywhere we go now. I never thought I would dread going grocery shopping. It makes me sad.

One bowl on the head is just not enough.

Sophie does great impressions. She can do just about every little noise Ivy makes.

Babysitting Co-op

A few of you asked about the babysitting co-op we have going here, so I thought I'd post the rules and such. Kathryn, our brilliant timekeeper, has compiled a set of rules that we follow, and so far it's been a great system. We use Google documents so everyone can see the master timesheet that Kathryn keeps for us.

How it works:

1. Each member starts with 10 hours.

2. You may call anyone on the co-op members list and anyone may call you to arrange babysitting. You are ALWAYS free to say "no" to watching someone's children—no explanation is required.

2. The co-op may be used for daytime or evening hours. It is up to you to arrange when/where babysitting will take place. It can be at the sitter’s house or your house.

3. Hours are recorded in 15 minute increments and the moderator (Kathryn) keeps track of everyone's hours. Each member should keep a record of her own hours on a timesheet as well.

4. Hours are credited/debited at the rate of real minutes for the first child and half minutes for each additional child.

Example: If Cathi babysits Asher and Silas for 2 hours, Sarah will give 3 hours to Cathi. The full 2 hours for Asher, and ½ of the two hours for Silas, which is 1 hour.

Some Rules:

1. Every time you arrange for someone in our group to babysit your children, report your hours to the moderator. Email works best.

Example email: “please credit Sarah with 3 hours of time”

The moderator will then subtract 3 hours from your total, and add 3 hours to Sarah’s.

It is courteous to copy the person who babysat for you on the email so that they know they've been credited. Every month or so the moderator will send out an update of how many hours each person has, and you can always ask for your personal total if you need to know.

2. You cannot go below 0 hours or accumulate more than 24 hours. Accumulated hours in excess of the original 10 hours that are not used for 6 months will be redistributed to the group.

3. If you choose to leave the group and you have less than 10 hours, please babysit until you have 10 hours accumulated. You owe it to the group. Conversely, if you decide to leave the group and you have more than 10 hours accumulated, you are welcome to use the extra hours. If you choose not to, they will be re-distributed to the group.

Other Stuff:

A. We will compile a contact list consisting of name, address, home and mobile phone numbers, and emergency contacts.

B. It is always okay to say no. Just because you are in the group and free for a particular time does not mean you need to feel obligated to say yes to someone or to give an excuse.

D. If someone is babysitting for you and you are running late please call and ask the person if they have anywhere they need to be, or if it's okay for them to watch your kids longer than you first talked about. The babysitter has the right to say no and ask you to send someone else to pick up your kids. This does not happen very often but needs to be said.

Mobility

After Ivy scooted her way across the floor yesterday to suck on some crayons and kept getting into the shoe basket, Steve and I decided that she's finally mobile. Still slow and easily manageable, but definitely mobile. Gone are the days of leaving her on the couch to play, which was nice because Sophie scatters all of her "chokeables" on the floor.

She's working on getting her legs coordinated, but army crawls pretty well -- more than what she does in these clips. Of course, kids never do their best tricks when mom and dad try to show them off.

Everybody Wins

Last week I volunteered to watched a friend's kids for a couple of hours, and immediately after I realized that I would have four kids all to myself. I got a little nervous. People with four kids at home might scoff at me, but I'm still a two-kid mom. It's all relative. Plus their ages are 8 mo, 12 mo, 2 and 2 1/2.

I thought it would be easier to watch all the kids at a fenced-in toddler playground close by where they could run around til their heart's content. I earned a few hours from our babysitting co-op (Does anyone else have one? It's a great system.), my house didn't get destroyed (more than it usually is) and my friend Sarah got a couple of kid-free hours of shopping. I think we all won.

I love that they all have the exact same facial expression.


Sophie's into turning her head away from the camera when I tell her to smile and look at me. Stinker.

The boys played really well together that day. Nobody sat on anyone and no bark was ingested.

Ivy slept half the time, which made my job even easier.

See the mark on her nose? Remnants of her encounter with a puzzle board.