The McClelland Family

For two girls who don’t like vegetables…

…they sure love pumpkins!

::as I type this, I realize it’s entirely possible that pumpkins are a fruit, not a vegetable…they are used in pie, after all.  I’m just too lazy to type it into the google search bar that’s ALL the way up in the corner of my screen…::

We’ve spread out our pumpkin activities to maximize the fun.  Last weekend we cleaned the pumpkins with a hose (fun #1!) and then decorated the smaller ones with stickers (fun #2!).  This weekend we scooped out pumpkin seeds (fun #3!) and carved pumpkins (fun#4!).  Who knew you could get so much entertainment out of a few gourds?

Tonight, on Halloween Eve (I’ve been assured by my 3rd grade students that this is an official holiday and therefore no homework should have been assigned over the weekend), Mary and Lila are soundly asleep with visions of costumes and candy dancing in their heads.  I’m excited to take them trick or treating tomorrow because they really enoyed it last year even though they didn’t totally understand what was going on.  This year they’ve been much more aware of all things Halloween (pumpkins, witches, ghosts, costumes, candy) and are looking forward to trick or treating tomorrow. I figured I’d better throw this pumpkin post with it’s 10,000 pictures up tonight so I’d be caught up on October (never mind that I still have posts from June, July, and August waiting to be finished).  This way I might actually get a Halloween post done ON Halloween this year!  No promises though.

(I don’t know why I used 18,000 parenthesis in this post.  Maybe I should just try making separate sentences next time.)

Mary and Lila liked those pumpkin cut-outs so much that I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of them…so I got creative!

Pumpkin Patch

Today we made our annual trip to the pumpkin patch.  We went to Bob’s Corn, a farm in Snohomish (btw, spell check wants me to change Snohomish to Gnomish…love it!) that we’ve been taking the girls to for the past 3 years.  M&L loved the hayride out to the pumpkin patch, where they got wheelbarrow rides as well.  We brought home more pumpkins that we had people because the little ones always seem to find “one more good one!”  While Kevin took our loot to the car, us girls played hide-and-go-seek in the pumpkin patch.  Next weekend we’ll hose off the muddy pumpkins and do some decorating.  Lila has told me that she wants to paint her pumpkin, “Red, and yellow, and blue, and red.  2 reds.”  So a lot of red, I guess.  Mary wants to “Stick it with lots and lots of stickers.”

Also, Lila has a big scrape above her left eyebrow.  You actually can’t see it in most of the pumpkin patch pictures because she never, ever, EVER looks directly at the camera for me.  And if by some fluke she actually does turn her face to the camera, her eyes are usually closed or there’s a big pile of hair blowing across her face.  Here’s a look at her boo boo (notice the averted eyes and ponytail in the mouth?)…I’m hoping it’s healed before our family pictures which are coming up in a few weeks!

And no, Mary didn’t do it .  Lila was trying to open some kind of toy and managed to wound herself in the process.

Here are M&L at the pumpkin patch!  Hard to believe that this was our 3rd year bringing them.

Dry days

This is Seattle.  It’s October.  Dry days will be few and far between before I know it.  But for now we’re enjoying a rather pleasant fall…a few rainy days here and there, mixed in with some dry days and frequent afternoon sunshine!  I make sure to get outside and enjoy these dry days with Mary and Lila every day after work because I know this weather won’t last forever.

Lila Grace

Lila, you have enough energy to fuel 10 children.  More than once a day you just run laps around the couch for fun.  You love to snuggle, which I can’t say no to.  You’ve been know the whine if things don’t go your way…that I can say no to.  Lila, you are such a smart, funny, and loving girl and I count my blessings every day that you are mine.

This list of things that I love about you is limited only by time and space, because I truly could go on forever.

1.  When you are in need of a sympathetic hug or kiss or pat on the shoulder, you say, “I’m coooold!” in a sad voice while hugging yourself and shivering.  I think it’s your way of asking, “Remind me that you love me.”

2.  While you are more than capable of eating with a spoon and not spilling, you always seem to end up with your hands, face, and clothes covered with yogurt.  Because just like when you were 2, you treat yogurt as a beauty product and rub it all over yourself.  Some things never change!

3.  When you’re going potty, you like company.  Sometimes you say, “Don’t leave mommy.  Just talk to me in here.”

4.  You have a funny “accent” that comes out when you sing or when you pronounce words with the leter “r” in them.  Some of your pronounciations:  “Twinkle twinkle little sta-owwwwr…”, “Oym bringing home a baby bumble bee…”, “Look over thurrrrrr!”  Your dad and I love listening to you talk!

5.  Lately you’ve been referring to me, daddy, Mary, and yourself as an animal family and you frequently change our species.  Tonight, you said, “Mommy Turkey, let’s go read with Daddy Turkey and Stister Turkey!”  Other animals that you use include penguins, bears, cats, dogs, giraffes, monkeys, and birds.

6.  You get so sweaty during nap!  Even if it’s a cool day and you go down for a nap in just a t-shirt and diaper, you wake up with damp hair and a wet shirt.  You announce, “I sweated my shirt!  I’m all wet!”

7.  You love chocolate milk.  And chocolate ice cream.  We have similar tastes.

8.  You frequently snuggle yourself on the couch under a blanket with a stack of books and stay that way for nearly half an hour, turning pages and studying pictures.  It really looks like you’re reading.  Even though I know you can’t actually read, you love looking at books and seeing you snuggled on the couch like that reminds me of myself.  I like to think that you got that from me, and I hope that someday when you’re older and you really do know how to read we can spend a rainy afternoon doing just that.  We can share books with each other, just like I do with my mom.

9.  You can write the letters “L” and “I” when asked.  I’m so excited for how much you’re going to learn in preschool!  I wonder if you’ll learn how to write your whole name this year?

10.  You are very athletic.  When we go to Little Gym, the instructor barely has time to introduce a skill before you try it, and you usually get it right away.  You can run endlessly, and you’re fast!  You jump so high, and in your first swimming lesson you were doing a scissor kick that splashed water into the class next to you!  Even 2 older girls who had been in the same swimming class in previous sessions couldn’t kick like you.  You must get this from your dad…

11.  You still suck your pointer and middle finger on your left hand.  When I’m in your bedroom at nap time, waiting for Mary to fall asleep, I can hear you sucking your fingers in your sleep.  It reminds me of the way you used to sound sucking on a bottle.  And then it makes me want to cry a little bit because I can’t believe you’re not a baby anymore.

12.  You have beautiful hair.  People often comment on your “perfect” curls…your hair is kind of straight, but curls at the bottom.  It’s shiny and smooth with plenty of natural volume and natural highlights.  It’s the hair I dream of having.  You’ve never had a hair cut, and I’m not planning on doing it for quite some time!  Maybe a trim when you turn 4.  Or 5.  Or not.

13.  I hate it when you cry.  It breaks off little pieces of my heart.  You bury your head in your hands and you have the biggest alligator tears.  Afterwards, you talk about “when I was sad” and you refer to yourself in the 3rd person, as an animal.  For example, “Mommy, your Baby Penguin was crying.  She was sad.”

14.  You are very in tune with people’s emotions.  Whenever Daddy or I seem slightly upset (for example, when we’re driving and get frustrated by another driver, or if I stub my toe on the baby gate), you immediately say, “Mommy, it’s okay.  You’re happy.  You love your baby penguins.”

Lila Love, your energy is endless.  Your laughs, shouts, songs, and cries are loud.  Your tantrums are rare, but also loud.  You would like me to read books for hours, hold you until my arms fall off, and play the Elephant Game or color pictures 100 times in a row.  You make a lot of messes and aren’t very good about cleaning up after yourself.  But even with all the noise, mess, work, and exhaustion, I don’t ever want to be apart from you.  I miss you the moment I leave for work, the moment you go to bed, the moment you leave to run an errand with your dad…and I’m not complete until you return.  I love you, Lila Grace.

Mary Elizabeth

Mary, you are a complex little person.  One half a pink-rainbow-butterfly-unicorn princess, the other half a tough and scrappy little fighter.  One half uses a sing-song sweet voice, the other half is an animalistic-screamer.  One half a silly jokester, the other half a serious soul-searcher.  But no matter which colors you happen to be showing at any given moment, you are 100 percent you.  And I love every little percent of you more than anyone will ever understand.

Words cannot adequately describe the love I have for you.  Nothing I could ever write would do it justice.  But here are some of the things that make you the Mary that I know and love…

1.  Your fair coloring, dainty features, small frame, itsy-bitsy feet, sweet high-pitched voice, and graceful dance moves are reminiscent of a cross between Tinkerbell and a Keebler elf.

2.  When asked, “What do you want to wear today?”  you answer the same way every day.  “A princess dress.”  You define a princess dress as “Not just a shirt and pants!”  It needs to be something with an added feminine touch.  A skirt, a ribbon, a flounce, some glitter or sparkle… something.  And on days when those items of clothing that have been deemed by you to qualify as “princess dress” are not available, getting you dressed takes 10 times as long and usually involves some of the animalistic screaming mentioned above.

3.  You love to kiss me, and I love it too!  You hold my face close to yours, place one of your tiny elf hands on each of my cheeks, and stare straight into my eyes while you plant a kiss on my lips.  And as tiny as your little arms are, when they wrap around my neck for a hug it is one of the strongest hugs I know.

4.  Today you said, “Mommy, you are the best girl in the whole world.”  I don’t think I will ever forget those words.

5.  Your favorite song is “Rollin’ in the Deep” by Adele.  Whenever it comes on the radio you hum along to the tune and wiggle in your carseat.  When it ends, you announce, “That song is so beautiful mommy.  It’s my favorite.”  And when asked the title of the song, your answer is, “Rollin’ in the Bees.”

6.  You love to watch me get dressed for work in the morning.  You sit on my bed and watch me go through the closet.  As I pull items out, you give commentary.  You prefer me to wear dresses and skirts, and when I choose those you compliment me.  ”Oh, it’s so beautiful mommy!  I like it.”  ”Mommy, you’re a princess.”  When I choose pants, you aren’t as complimentary.  I find that I have been buying a lot more skirts and dresses lately.  Maybe your style influence is rubbing off on me?

7.  You don’t like PB&J sandwiches.  One of your favorite lunches is yogurt topped with granola.

8.  While we’re on the topic of food…I like to refer to you as a fruitarian.  We have never offered you a fruit that you didn’t gobble up.  You eat multiple adult-size portions of fruit on a daily basis.  You also love dairy…milk, yogurt, and cheese.  Other than that, you’re a pretty tough customer when it comes to food.  Recent surprising new tastes that you’ve developed include salad (we’re talking a full on pile of lettuce with veggies and dressing) and scrambled eggs.

9.  One of your newest phrases is “I need it.”  When there’s something you want really bad, instead of saying, “I want it,” you say, “I need it.”  Recent “needs”:  ”Mommy, I need some ice cream.  Now.”  ”Mommy, I need a dress.”  ”Mommy, I need to wear your shoes.”  ”Mommy, I need to put your makeup on me.”  ”Mommy, I need to go to Starbucks.”

10.  You love brushing your teeth.  You’d be happy to brush your teeth several times a day rather than the meager 2 times a day we allow you to.  You like to take a long time and “refresh” your toothpaste mid-brush.  We were at a friend’s house the other day and I was helping you use their bathroom.  When you washed your hands you saw their toothbrushes at the sink and said, “Those are beautiful toothbrushes.  Mommy, I need to brush my teeth with them.  Right now,”  in your serious-elfin-pixie voice that is so cute I can hardly stand it.

11.  You do not like time-out.  Most of your time-outs happen because Daddy and I will ask you multiple times to stop doing something and you completely ignore us and continue to do it.  Or, we”ll ask  you to do something, and you completely ignore us and do the exact opposite.  It seems as if you purposefully go against our requests, but I’ve decided that I’m going to assume that you have good intentions.  I think that you continue to do things because you don’t understand why you should stop.  So now I just need to figure out how I can make you understand why it’s not okay to run the bathroom faucet for minutes at a time, feed the dogs food off your plate, hang off the edges of the dining table like it’s a monkey bar, and repeatedly dip your fingers into your milk cup and lick them rather than actually drinking from the cup.  Wish me luck!

12.  I love listening to you talk to the dogs.  The other night I was cleaning up after dinner and Morris nosed at some of Lila’s leftovers on the kitchen counter.  You saw this and wagged your finger in his face, saying, “No no Morris!  Bad dog.  You no eat Lila’s pizza.  You only eat your dog food.  You’ll get a tummy ache and get sick and go to the dog doctor.  Like Otis.”  (Otis is grandma and grandpa’s pug)

13.  You love having your back and feet tickled.  You lay on my lap and say, “I need my back and my feet tickled.  Slow.”  You are such an energetic kiddo who’s always moving around, but when I tickle your back and feet you’re as still as a statue.

14.  You are so independent and you want to do everything yourself.  We’re always hearing you say, “I do it!”  “My do it!”  “My turn!”  about things that seem trivial to us, like who turns on the water faucet for you to wash your hands.  Or who reaches into the box to grab a granola bar, when there’s only one bar left so it’s not like you’d choose a different one than the one that was just handed to you.  If we’ve done something that you wanted to do, we have to “undo” it and then let you have a turn.  It’s easy to let this wear away at my patience, so I constantly remind myself, “It only adds on a few seconds to let her do it again by herself.”  And the things you’ve shown us that you can do?  Pretty amazing.  You can open/fasten/turn on/put together pretty much everything that you use in your daily life.

Tonight was a hard night for you, Mary.  You screamed the entire time that Daddy was getting you ready for bed because you wanted me to be doing it, but I was reading books to Lila on the couch.  I’ve been giving extra stories as a “reward” for getting ready for bed the 1st time Mommy and Daddy ask (which Lila did tonight).  It hurt my heart to sit on the couch with Lila and hear your screams from the other side of the house.  When you were finally ready for bed and you came out to the couch I reread the stories to you so you wouldn’t miss out on anything.  Daddy took Lila to bed and you and I had an extra moment to snuggle.  I asked you why you were so sad and finally got it out of you that it was because Mommy and Daddy were mad at you (about refusing to get ready for bed).  This made my heart hurt even more.  The last thing I want to do is make you sad.  I love you so much, Baby Bear.  When I tucked you into bed a few minutes later you gave me lots of extra-serious looks while you gave me my kisses, and a few extra strong hugs as well.  I told you, as I will a hundred times a day for the rest of my life, that I love you so, so, much and that you are my favorite Mary in the whole wide world.