Kids

The W Sisters and The Story of A’s Paddington Bear Origin

by
Paddington Bear No Arms

I previously wrote about T and her Dee Dee monkey http://scottodyssey.com/2014/11/29/the-story-of-dee-dee-and-that-other-monkey-we-will-never-speak-of/. Today I wanted to write a bit about A’s favorite stuffed toy. For one thing I believe it’s a good story however my driving force for writing it down is so I will remember it.The first thing I want to get out there is I thought I wrote about this a while ago however searching my own blog I noticed I never actually wrote any stories directly mentioning how A came about to have her Paddington bear.

The story begins with a trip I took late April into early May 2014. I went to London for some training with my group right after a reorganization. Since I was going to be in London that week I was missing in other culture training that was being held in the US at the same time. As I was canceling that culture training it was mentioned that the same training was being held the following week in London. I wasn’t sure it would’ve been possible to stay for the training since I would already be in London however I figured I would ask. It turned out that my boss thought very highly of the training and said it was worth it for me to stick around if I could for the second week in London. What I didn’t realize at the time of booking the trip was it was a national holiday in the UK the weekend I was staying over. Apparently I found out later that means if you’re “in country” you get a holiday. This is all relevant because usually when I’m traveling you do not have a lot of time to do anything other than work. For this trip I ended up having a three-day weekend to myself. It was an odd change of pace since home I had a five month old and a year and a half-year-old.

One of the things I want to do while I was there was some shopping. As I was wandering around the city I stumbled across Hamlets. I really didn’t realize where I was or that it was a famous store. I was walking by and I saw there was a toy store and figured I should really get something for the girls. It was a pretty cool place however walking in I had visions of FAO Schwartz in New York City. Both are cool places, even though FAO felt more over the top I have bad memories of being stuck there listening to the welcome to our world songs over and over again so children’s toy stores aren’t exactly on the top of my fun list. Since I took the time to get a local Sim card for my iPhone I was able to have high-speed data coverage my entire stay. Since we live in the age of wireless data I decided to Face time with M at the store to see if she liked what I was thinking about getting.

For T I saw a cute bear book bag. For A I saw a my first little stuffed bear. When I showed M she was like oh yeah it’s Paddington Bear let’s get it or something to that effect. I had not really known what Paddington Bear was. It made sense that he was famous since the store had tons of them. With those gifts picked out I paid for them and went about my sightseeing for the weekend. I was just glad I remembered to get something. Side story it took me until being at Heathrow on the way home to find what M had been asking for.

When I got home we introduced both gifts to the girls. Writing this years later it’s hard to remember if A immediately took to Paddington Bear or not. That of course is the reason why I am journaling in the first place so I can remember the details over time. What I do know is definitely within a few months A had herself a Dee Dee. That was the name of T’s lovie animal. We were not wondering where A got back from. Once it became apparent that Paddington bear was the one and only stuffed animal for A I scrambled to order additional clones of him. I’ve written about how we did something like that with T. I was lucky to find a store on the Amazon marketplace that was selling the British version of the my first Paddington Bear. I bought two of them so we had enough of them in case something happened to one or even two of them.

Thankfully with T her three monkeys have been plenty. A on the other hand has grown fond of biting her Paddington bear. She will bite his hat. She will bite his arms. She will bite his arms until he frays and then she will pull all the stuffing out of his arms. That is what she did to two of the three original Paddington Bears. M

sewed one of them up but he had stumpy looking hands. We could really use him since he wouldn’t look like the others. Then A ate the second one and we had to with defects. For some reason we couldn’t find the third one and we were getting very concerned. That is when I bought two more of them online.

We warned A that she has to be careful since we might not be able to “fix” Paddington if she keeps biting him. We said that as we gave her a new one. A proceeded to destroy the arms of that one. My memory is a bit fuzzy on if we did give her yet another one and she destroyed those arms as well. I could go check in my stash of Paddington bears however is lazy so let’s call it that she definitely eat one if not two more of them. It was then that I ordered yet another one or two from the same shop. At that point I said I’m done and no matter what she does these things I was not going to buy another one.

I do not know if we just got lazy or we wanted A to understand the consequences of the biting so we have not replaced her bare with no stuffing in his arms. I had the idea to take the hands with no stuffing and stick them inside the coat that the bear wears. She’s been generally good with that so we haven’t replaced the ripped bear with a new one. We still have at least one if not two new ones in a box. After I got the last batch of bears I just left them in the shipping box that they came in and through them in my closet somewhere.

T is probably too smart for her own good since she is almost ratted us out on the whole Bear conspiracy a few times. At one point she told A that daddy was going to buy her a new bear. T also hinted at the bear replacement a few other times however specific details are eluding me as I write this. I’m not really sure if she understands what we’ve done or if she’s just saying stuff. I don’t recall ever actually talking about buying a new Paddington Bear in front of T so either she’s guessing or we’ve slipped up. On the other hand on some level I feel like A knows and doesn’t care that Paddington is more than one bear. To be safe nobody reading this should say anything about it to her. By the time she finds this post and can read our own am pretty sure it’ll be safe for her to know what went down.

T and the Story of Daddy In Disbelief That He Has a 4 Years Old Today

by

It really does feel not so long ago when I was holding a little 8 pound girl telling myself holy cow how am I a dad? I still say that myself sometimes. I’m not sure if that’s a cliché or not. There are many times when I stop think it is hard for me to grasp that I’m a dad. On that same thought however I guess I could go further and say I don’t know how I ended up with a wonderful wife and family. Maybe it’s being in denial that you’re supposed to be a role model for a little person that makes me go I don’t feel like a dad. Then of course there’s the times like the other day where I’m just sitting and watching T eat toast when she sick and having a conversation. Even while I was doing it I couldn’t help but smile and money that little girl up because she was so adorable.

That’s what makes this whole post so weird for me. It was only four years ago where I hope this little baby that I knew nothing about what to do with other than I wanted to holder and kiss her since she was mine. Now I have this smart and sassy little person who asks the funniest questions and remembers details from a year ago that I had to stop and think about before realizing she was right.

Four years ago this morning after a long night of not sleeping a little T came into the world. When she did she made my world that much brighter. Happy birthday T.

The W Sisters and The Bedtime Stories Circa 15-August

by

What I have realized even before I had little kids was that parents of little kids find the most normal or minor actions from children to be pretty funny. Even when I was not apparent I could totally get the point. I am not sure of everyone else does however I keep saying my kids are my entertainment budget. They really are. And I love it. Instead of writing little blurbs on Facebook like I know some people do I’ve been trying to turn comments are funny things I remember in two small stories.

I’ve been in a good place when it comes to writing recently so I have a backlog of things to publish and write about. This scratch that these minor anecdotes are from August 15.

Prior to getting ready for our bedtime routine T was complaining to me about something Amelia was doing wrong. I think Teagan takes it upon herself as big sister to do that. Or she just wants to annoy us, I’m not really sure. Now that T is understanding things more I try to explain to her stuff. That is probably not the best use of my time in a lot of instances however I try. In this case I tried to explain to T that she should worry about herself and not worry about what Amelia was doing if it’s not directly impacting her. I will give myself credit since I thought but didn’t say to her and nobody likes a rat. Teagan’s response to my commenting to her was that I shouldn’t worry about her and I should worry about myself. Touché Teagan, touché.

Later that evening I was reading stories to the girls. In recent months A likes to snuggle and have my hand around her waist. She says that she’s buckled in when I do that. T is hit or miss on the smuggling. For a few weeks she will needed to do it and then she stopped for a little while. As I was reading A blurts out “no, no, no, hold on”. She then proceeded to take the book and flip back a page. She had unanswered questions about the picture that she wanted me to address.

I believe this was also the same night that the girls insisted on having me have Alexa (aka our Amazon Echo) play the song “Fight Song” about three or four times. They danced around during the whole song. They even got crazier in their dancing is the temple of the song picked up for the chorus. I was lucky enough or smart enough to remember to take a video of one full song so I could send it to M and share it with our parents. I think Teagan started liking that song from Morgan’s bat mitzvah otherwise I have no idea where she heard it from. I would like to give a shout out to my brother-in-law Michael for the “Dance Party” idea. I can sometimes get them to dance around to other songs however this is their favorite one. Based on the lack of response from our downstairs neighbor pretty sure he works late during week.

The W Sisters and The Story of A’s 2nd Birthday Cake We Don’t Really Talk About

by

As of me writing this post in late August M and I were talking about planning out T’s birthday. Inevitably the conversation we talked birthdays leads to birthday cake. As we were talking about the cake M is planning we were reminiscing on Amelia’s second birthday cake.

M’s Facebook friends might recall that she made a fantastic fandant Paddington Bear themed cake. It was pretty damn awesome. People were commenting that they could not tell one was food and one was a stuffed animal. Needless to say she was very proud of her awesome cake design. That cake was the cake we had for her birthday party with the family around New Year’s. One of M’s brother and family were in town so we had her birthday party when they were around. It was the weekend after A’s birthday. I mentioned that because since all the ladies in my house my wife included love cake M decided to make a smaller cake specifically for Amelia on her actual birthday.

I am not 100% clear on the specifics around the cake making. If I recall I think M ran out of convection or sugar and gave it a go making frosting with regular sugar. It was either that or using regular sugar was an accident. In any event towards the end of the preparations it was clear that using regular sugar was a problem. M warned me about it however we both agreed we have a three and a two-year-old and its cake. They weren’t going to really care. As it turned out they didn’t. They ate that cake up or at least the one slice they got each.

We gave A the cake and had a little ceremony after dinner. Our babysitter was still around since it was early. I believe we want her not to have it. Both of us on the other hand tried it anyway. M had a small slice and I don’t recall if she finished it. I had a smallish, probably regular size slice and I finished it. It was crunchy and it shouldn’t of been. It was also superset.

Overall the cake was pretty bad. That’s why it’s sad for me to say I went to go get a second slice and M had to throw the cake out to prevent me from doing something we both knew I was probably going to regret. Yet another reason why I love my wife. She’s trying to look out for me.

The W Sisters and The Story of Their Love of Cake, Cupcakes Work Too

by

I am not really sure where or when it started. On Teagan’s first birthday M made her own smash cake. It took a little bit of prodding to get T to dig into it. We had to cut it before she would grab a big piece of it. A week after her first birthday we did a photo shoot with a cake smash. Half the photos she’s having a blast kicking and grabbing the frosting. There are others that she’s a little disturbed by the cake.

A on the other hand had an epic meltdown when she did her first cake much on camera. M even put rice crackers in the cake that she loved hoping that she would grab at them. We think it only made her sad that the crackers were surrounded by this sticky stuff. My favorite photo of A’s cake smash is her off to the side of a photo studio where you can see the edge of the backdrop. Amelia is lying on her side looking sad and exhausted the little bit of frosting on her nose.

From those humble beginnings of cake eating to today is somewhat fuzzy. This is one of those instances where I should’ve written about this a long time ago and of all the story as it happened. That way I would remember more details.

For T at least ever since she could speak she would be interested in cake. Whether it was someone’s party where she would ask “Cake?”. Or as she grew older “We have cake?”. She always seem to be interested in parties and the inevitable cake or cupcake that go along with it. My unscientific theory is that we limit the sweets the kids can have. Parties with cake or cupcakes are generally where have them most regularly. I can see where they would grow fondness for the cake and cupcakes because we limited their exposure overall. It’s not like we don’t let them have anything ever. M and I love cupcakes. And since M is a fantastic cake maker we love cake too. Maybe that’s why the girls love it. They see how much we enjoyed it as well.

A has also come along way. For her second birthday and more recent cake eating experiences she will clutch the cake and frosting in her hands you cannot get rid of it until she’s done without an argument. A still doesn’t like frosting on her hands. She’ll ask for or motion to you to get wipes to clean your hands shall forget about that while grabbing hold of a piece of cake were eating frosting right off of it.

My children are if anything but persistent. Whenever we say we’re going to a party to matter what kind of party it may be T asks will there be cake. For my niece Morgan’s Bat mitzvah I was describing all the awesome food that would likely be there. All T wanted to know was would there be any cake. To get to the bottom of that question I called my sister and put her on speaker phone with T. T was sad to hear that there likely wouldn’t be cake even though there would be tons of other sweet desserts. In the end there was cake and T had a blast of a time. A was interested in the cake question also was not is generally focused has Teagan was on it.

As I write this T’s birthday is coming up. She’s been talking for months about what kind of cake she wants M to make. Now M did originally bring up the topic however T has been consistent on her answer for some time. She wants and Elsa cake. For her third birthday she wanted elephant and piggy. For her second birthday she got a monkey like her favorite monkey stuffed animal. For her first birthday she got duckies. A on the other hand got Paddington Bear for her second birthday. She got a winter snowman and snowflake theme for her first birthday. Even though we’ve been talking to T for months on what she wants for her cake I do not recall A having an opinion one way or the other at this point. I am going to have to remember to ask her about that.

So please if you’re going to invite the T & A to a party let there be cake or cupcakes work too…

The W Sisters and The Story of T and My Laundry

by

When I get home from work I usually change out of my work clothes. I got into a habit of doing that when T was a baby. It was out of necessity since I didn’t want shall we say “fluids” on my relatively nice work clothing. Nowadays I am less worried about fluid stains that I am about being in something more comfortable.

The girls eat with the babysitter prior to me getting home or are finishing up right around when I get home.  That means I don’t get a chance to eat until I put them to bed. That means dinner does not start to be prepared until at least 7:30 PM. Historically that’s late for me and I’m really hungry by then. What I’ve been doing his having an energy bar when I get home to hold me over until it’s time to eat. This schedule may change in a few weeks however this is been my routine for over a year.

Both girls know the routine and quickly finished dinner if they’re still eating it when I get home. They want to come with me into my bedroom when I change. I think it’s partly because they want to spend time with me. It’s probably mainly around them being able to play M & my walk-in closet however I’ll delude myself and think they want spend time with me. Amelia and Teagan both go into my closet and say I am home and proceed to close the door. They do not seem to care that the light automatically shuts off when the door is closed. Both girls but Amelia especially now a days also like to take any pair of my Converse and put them on her feet and try to tie the laces.

On many days T also asks me “Daddy you have a bar?” that inevitably is followed up with “can I have a bite?” She’s asking about if I an eating and energy bar. I have gotten into the habit of having one when I get home. I don’t make it home most days to eat dinner with them so hold myself over till after they’re in bed I have an energy bar. I usually eat it while I’m changing. Sometimes if they’re eating dinner I may go and change and have the bar without them. If I do that then T will get sad that she didn’t have a chance to ask for some. What is funny is I almost never give them a bite since they would’ve just finished dinner or are eating dinner yet T still gets sad if I don’t give her any.

Since I’m trying to write more about stories the girls inspire me to remember retrospectively writing this story about something T did on 15 August when I came home to change after work.

A must have been busy playing somewhere or still eating dinner since it was just Teagan and I. Teagan came in to my bedroom like normal and we talked as I put away my stuff from the day. T then proceeded to take my laundry basket out of my closet  like it was a normal everyday occurrence and dump it on my bed. She then looks at me and says “I’m putting the laundry in the washing machine”. After that she makes hand gestures to show me that she’s putting a laundry card into a pretend slot and then makes a sound effect as if machine is starting. She then looks at me and tells me “I’m doing the laundry” and proceeds to walk out of my bedroom.

I’m not really sure where she gets some of the ideas to pretend play however she continues to amuse me often.

The W Sisters and the Assorted Stories From 19-August

by

Having a 2 1/2 & almost 4 year old makes for great entertainment.  I like to say they are our entertainment budget.  I have been making a more active effort to journal the funny things they do and say.  Up till last week I didn’t take the time to clean up the writing to make it more “presentable” for public posting.  I am going to keep trying to do that because it is funny stuff (at least for me so I want to share) and it contrasts the geeky technical stuff I typically post.

This post is a collection of a few brief stories from 19-August 2016.  Some of this stuff wouldn’t be as amusing if it wasn’t for the fact they were from a 2 12 and almost 4 year old.  It amused me anyway.

While I was changing Amelia into pajamas Teagan was by my computer.  Both girls like to watch the photo slide show that plays as a scream saver. Teagan must’ve seen something that she wanted to show Amelia so Teagan called out to Amelia to come see. From across the apartment  on the changing table. Amelia replied “I’m busy right now”

A few minutes after finishing changing her when I put Amelia down on the floor she slapped my arm a couple of times. It was playful and didn’t hurt however I cautioned her that hands are not for hitting since we do not want her hitting even if playing around. Her response was crying out “I don’t want to hit the couch”. I assumed that was something she was told to try when she wants to hit someone.  I later confirmed with MC that was correct. I asked her then what she wanted to hit if not the couch. Instead and she told me her Dee Dee (Paddington Bear).  I gave her Paddington bear and she proceeded to lightly slap it two times and walked out of the room.

Later that day playing with he really big Legos that are bigger than the duplo Legos the girls were arguing. Teagan wanted to walk out of the room. As she was walking out Teagan asked me to keep an eye on Amelia. I said okay and glanced at Amelia for a second and continue cleaning in the kitchen.  I was trying to complete cleaning all the 30+ year old lego so the girls could play with them. Teagan then looked at me again as she was walking to her room and scolded me and said I need to look at  Amelia.  She continued to insist that i keep eyes on her the whole time.  For an almost 4 year old it was pretty persistent.2016-08_kids_selfie

The Real Reason I had Kids Was to Play Legos as an Adult

by

I knew that my parents had a bunch of old toys of mine. In general I was vague on the details of what I had. There were matchbox cars and G.I. Joe’s. There were also possibly some Star Wars figures and other action figures. Beyond that I really wasn’t clear on what exactly survived childhood to get put in storage. Out of all those toys however I knew that my parents had kept a large cache of Legos. The reason I knew they still existed was at some point (I think when Zachary was old enough to play with them) my dad unsealed the box that I sealed up when I must’ve been 14 or 15 years old. I remember that because I sealed the box with a completely built Lego SDF-1 from Robotech. My dad mentioned that when he opened the box there was something built inside. He also mentioned they immediately took it apart before starting to play with the Legos. I was sad that he didn’t at least take a picture of it since I was curious how the model survived over the years. If it was intact I would’ve been really cool to have kept it since how often do you get to keep something you built when you were a kid and have it show up decades later?

The story about my SDF-1 being dismantled reminded me I had Lego and as of around 2010 it still existed. Ever since I knew we were going to have kids I was excited to have the opportunity to play with Legos again. We have these mega blocks that the girls played with ever since Teagan was small. We held off on the Duplo’s. I am now glad we made that decision since we can jump right into Legos. Teagan is the right age for it. We are also trying to train Amelia not to put anything in her mouth. Other than her finger I think she’s been pretty good about that.

When the topic came up a few weeks ago I asked my mom if she could get out the box of Lego and bring it over to our apartment when she got the chance. I was pleasantly surprised about a week ago when after my mom came back from the beach with Amelia that I had a box waiting for me on my desk.

We could not start playing with them right away however since they’ve been in storage for quite some time. It was visibly apparent they needed cleaning. I hand cleaned a few of the large pieces and went through the rest of them to see what we could give the girls and what we would need to clean further. Last week as I was cleaning them the girls were both fascinated in them. I ended up having to move my sorting session from the kitchen to the playroom floor so the girls could immediately start playing with what little amounts of Lego I declared clean and ready for use. At first session the girls were engaged for about a complete our before we had to stop and clean up for bedtime. Finding torsos and legs for all the Lego people was a priority for both girls. I was surprised how many we were able to find.

Over the first weekend we had the Legos MC brought out a bag we bought when Teagan was a baby. This bag was special because you could spread the bag out on the floor and play with stuff on it. When you were done and you wanted to clean up all you do is pull on the cord of the bag and everything stores away very easily. The bag is very big so both girls could easily play on the work surface that it creates when opened up. It was a genius idea to use for our Legos. I have a feeling may have been in MC’s mind the whole time when she bought that thing in 2012.

MC bought a few boxes of 300 piece Lego kits to give as gifts for birthday parties. It is a starter kit with lots of basic size blocks. We were having so much fun we decided to use one kits of blocks for us to add to our collection. MC gave them to the girls Sunday. Before we did I had the realization that as much is we have a lot of Lego we have a lot of oddly shaped pieces. That is because what’s left is an amalgamation of several playsets that I had when I was a child. There’s left over pieces of the moon lander playset. There were also pieces of a gas station, fire station, and police station. Is also a boat from something but I can’t remember that very well other than the boat itself.

I think both mornings this weekend the girls played for almost an hour with the Legos and again for a little while in the afternoon. Yesterday I came home and our babysitters son was there for the day and he built stuff with all the Legos a little bit of Amelia’s help. Before bedtime the girls and I continue to play with what he had built and I built them rocket with two boosters on them. We must’ve played for about 45 minutes before we had to go brush teeth.

So far I’ve seen both girls play with the lego men and the accessories that come with them. They’ve made cars, and a boat. They’ve also just been generally fascinated. Hoping that this turns into a long-term hobby they enjoy. For now I’m just enjoying that they’re happy with something that I enjoyed so much as a child. I’m also pretty pleased to be a will to play with some of it myself not have a really good excuse.

The W Sisters and the Story of Watching Star Wars For The First Time

by

Saturday I got a box of old toys from my mom that she had been storing for me.  Now that she gave me my lego’s earlier in the week she wanted to clean house and give me the rest of the toys she had of mine.  I was happy to take them.  Last night I started introducing some of them to the girls. There were some new matchbox cars as well as some small matchbox car sized fighter jets. Among the stuff was also my old metal star destroyer and the millennium falcon. I explained that the millennium falcon is the ship that Chewbacca flies in.  The girls are both into Chewbacca so that got some interest.

Yesterday morning the girls were talking about either the millennium falcon or Chewbacca when MC suggested I watch Star Wars with them.  We needed a distraction while she cleaned a bit around the house. I had wanted to introduce them to star wars the actual movies for a few weeks now. I had previously showed them the trailers of most of the movies and we read the little golden books a bunch of times.  That is how they started liking Chewbacca so much.

As a purest we started off watching A New Hope. We watched about half of the movie. We stopped when they found out the princess was in the Death Star with Han & Luke. That was over an hour for them and it was plenty. I was glad that neither of them got too scared.  There were some scenes that Teagan got a little bit scared but handled it a lot better than she did with finding Nemo last year.  The asked a bunch of questions like they do with any video or book however I think they liked it.  Teagan did continue to mention Star Destroyers periodically throughout the day so that is a good sign.

Next up is to finish the movie and then hopefully move on through the first trilogy.  After that I need to figure out how to introduce them to Doctor Who without scaring them.

The W Sisters and the Story of The Bedtime Sing a Long

by

Last night after putting the girls down for bed I could hear on the baby monitor Amelia leading Teagan in singing “if you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”. Teagan sang along for a while until she started singing some other song on her own. Amelia wanted none of that and went back to singing if you happy and you know it. After a while Teagan responded back to Amelia with something like “stop singing that song”.

Sometimes bedtime routine Canby extremely frustrating if they’re jumping on the bed or running around.  Other times it’s very hard to keep a straight face if I have to walk in there to have them stop doing something. Tonight at least I didn’t have to go in there and talk to them about their singing.I did have to go in half a dozen times for other stuff though. The challenge of them sharing a room is on supervise bedtime.