Babysitting Adventures

We babysat Ryann on Saturday while Mike and Lindsay went on a date. After playing with toys Jim got the girls watching YouTube while I fed Chris.

They marched to "The Ants go Marching" and rolled on the floor to "Roll Over"


By special request they got grooving to "Ice Ice Baby":

After the cousins settled down with some pre-bedtime fruit snacks.

Nicole wanted to sleep with Ryann and, though it has never worked out before, I gave in. They fell asleep right away - apparently too tired to keep each other up.

This is the picture I took of them when Lindsay and Mike came to pick Ry up.

Weekend of 11/20/09

Jenny graciously let me tag along with her and her friends to go see New Moon (the next in the Twilight series) yesterday. I just re-watched Twilight in preparation for this and disliked it even more for the first time. As a result of being re-disappointed it made me even more happy that New Moon was so good. The screenplay was true to the book, the director made good theatrical decisions and the acting was up to par. I was especially impressed with Taylor Lautner’s acting for his age/experience. There were some laugh-out-loud funny parts, only one really cheesey seen and just one part section that I felt for those who hadn't read the book(s) because it went too fast and didn't probably have enough detail for those not in the know the way you are when you read a book. Overall rating: A-

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Two other New Moon points- I'm only slightly embarrassed that I'm falling in love with Taylor Lautner’s body like every other woman in America. But holy crap, how can you not?! The embarrassed part stems from his age (which, when you’re only 17 it’s “more than just a number”) and that I normally don’t get all ga-ga over any celebrity. I have no physical draw to Robert Pattinson at all. Especially when he’s all pasty white like he is in these movies.

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I teased Mandy (Jen’s friend who saw the movie with us and was quite descriptive of her intentions for both actors if they were ever in her company much to my amusement) that there’s certain to be a porn version of New Moon that will eventually release. I can count the number of porn shows I’ve ever seen on two fingers but this one I would not only seek out, I’d have a girls night in party to watch it.

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Jenny is letting me borrow her Anita Blake vampire series which I'm currently in book 13 (?) of. This morning Nicole climbed in bed while I was feeding Chris and reading it.

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"Mommy, this your book?” she asked picking it up.

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“Yes, Nicole, that’s my book.”

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“What’s it about?”

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At this point I was SHOCKED that she asked me that question- whenever she shows that she grasps concepts (not just nouns and verbs) I get amazed. I was even more overwhelmed by the fact that there was pretty much nothing about the book’s plot that I could describe to a 2-year old. This series is classified as “horror” and is some of the most sexual and violent work I’ve ever read in my life. My answer ended up being “Friends going on an adventure.”

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After she flipped through it, closed it and announced “The end,” I asked how she liked it.

“Very good. Ocean book is better.”

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We babysat Ryann on Saturday – I’ll post some video up when I get home. : )

Parenting Lessons

Several of my friends had kids before we did. As such I was around them and their children subconsciously taking in parenting tips that now I find myself pulling out with Nicole. Some of my favorites:

"Use your words"- Anjali to Alex when he'd get so upset he resorted to whining and crying. This one is my absolute favorite and most commonly used. I use it so much that Nicole says it to other children in her class that get upset and aren't coherent and now the teachers say it.

"Good choices good results, bad choices bad results"- I don't remember where this one came from but the concept is too early for Nicole. I said it a lot at her other daycare to kids who were bad or to remind the sitter to hold firm on her punishment decisions for naughty children.

"I'm going to count to three and then...."- this one got used on me as a child but the ... was always to get spanked. Normally for Nicole it's a time-out. The Cetti's really reinforced this upon me when we were talking about parenting one time so I started using it more since. I work very hard to count one, pause, count two, remind her of the consequence and then say three. I ALWAYS follow through at "3" with what I threatened to do. She sort of recognizes this and frequently stops at 1 or 2 but sometimes she likes to push the limits a bit and finds herself on the step or getting her bottom spanked.

Lindsay works with Ryann to try to find something positive about everyone, even if it's small things - "doesn't that lady have nice hair", "look at her pretty polished fingernails" or whatever. I don't remember the context of why she does that but I like that she does.

Another mom I had dinner with at a party always used the word "naughty" instead of bad when referring to her kids actions. Her logic was that her kids aren't bad (as in bad people) and she doesn't want them to think that they are. They might be, however, naughty at times but that's distinctly different in her mind. While I can buy into the concept I haven't gotten into the habit yet....

5 Year Anniversary

On Friday Jim and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary. Wahoo! Go us! For our "wood" anniversary Jim booked us in the Aztec room at the WildWOOD Inn in Florence, KY.

The Bed

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The mirror over the bed

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The TV and Sitting Area

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The Spa

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After checking in we got dressed and went to dinner at the Revolving restaurant in NKY for some filet mignon and reminiscing.

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Jim and I at dinner at the Riverview 360 restaurant

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The city view from our table

After dinner we walked around the Florence Mall for some Christmas ideas. Very relaxing, hand-holding stroll.

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When we got back to the hotel we snuggled in to watch New In Town which I give a C- to (BUMMER). I looked forward to the end of the movie for more than one reason.... ; )

Neither of us slept well but we both liked breakfast at Frisch's and seeing the kids at my parents around 11am.

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All in all a WONDERFUL anniversary - perhaps our best yet!

Chris's Nursery

It dawned on me the other day that I never posted pictures of Chris's nursery - rude after so much outside help from my blog readers! Here you go!

His dresser is on the wall next to the hamper. The lighting/flash was such that I didn't get a real great shot of it...

I hand-painted the dinosaur on the wall (matches his comforter) as well as all the letters. You might remember the curtains from when this was Nicole's room - the flowers came down and dinosaurs went up!

If I ever get around to it I'll paint the other two dinosaurs from the quilt pictured above on the wall to the left. The dinosaur at the bottom left corner of the quilt is the one featured in the picture above on the wall.

Nicole's Education

Before Chris was born Jim and I decided we wanted to move Nicole from the home-based babysitter she was going to to a more pre-school-like daycare. Like every other parent on the planet we think our daughter is really bright and [obviously] want to nurture this as much as possible.

I have to say that I am thrilled with where she's going (TLC Academy) and what she's learning. It used to be that Nicole would learn what we taught her - ABC's, counting, songs, etc. Now she knows things that I know I didn't teach her- she asks to sing songs I've never heard of, she knows 3 planets by name, etc.

Yesterday's report said she's studying the following:

Language Arts - Dd

Science - Dinosaurs

Art/Dramatic Play - Fall Leaves

Geography - Spain

Math - 5

Yeah, it's almost 2X as much as what we were paying but it's worth it.

All this aside, we still really push Nicole at home to learn new things. I realized last week that she has all the fundamental tools to play a basic version of Uno - she knows her colors and her numbers. My first attempt at teaching her had her too distracted with how cool shuffleing was- we didn't get any further than her trying to shuffle all the cards. Last night we pulled them out and had her sort all the cards into piles - black, red, yellow, green, and blue. She was very happy to sort. Afterwards Jim used the cards like flash cards to test her on her letters/numbers/colors.

Jim thinks that after doing this for another week we'll be able to actually try playing the game again less the word cards.

Halloween 2009

Halloween was a success - Nicole got the phrase "trick or treat" down and she definitely got the hang of "when the bowl comes out I get candy". She got a bit shy and normally always whispered her "thank you"'s but she often did it without me prompting so I'll take it.

Here's us prepping the pumpkin:

This was my first time scraping (versus just straight carving) and while I appreciate the potential, it was MESSY. Fortunately Jim was eager to get it cleaned up.

And the pumpkin glowing:

Chris didn't go out this year - it was a bit too cold. He'll head out next year. I'm already thinking of what they can be that compliments each other - you know like Dorothy and a scarecrow or a cheerleader and a football player. Something like that.

Nicole used a borrowed costume this year and went as a ladybug.

We way over-bought candy and had about 30 trick-or-treaters. As the neighborhood grows we'll obviously get more but as it stands we have 4 completey unopened bags of candy + the leftovers from the first three bags. Geesh!