Teagan

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

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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 Assorted Stories From 19-August

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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

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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

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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

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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.

Continuing to Instill a Coffee Ritual in Toddlers But Not Really Because That Would Be Bad

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As far back as Teagan being able to hold her head up and able to be held by me upright we have been making coffee together. At first it was just me holding her and her watching me. Then it was Teagan pressing the button on the Nespresso machine for me. Next evolved into her helping me put the cartridge in the machine and press the button to make the espresso.

Nowadays Teagan and Amelia both can put the cartridge in by themselves. The only help the need is closing the container. It’s pretty cute to see both of them bring over their chairs to stand up tall enough by the counter help make my coffee.

I’ve blogged about it before since it is something so simple yet something that makes me smile every time I think about the coffee ritual we do together.

I don’t use the espresso maker very often anymore. Maybe once or twice a week I’ll have a shot or two of decaf after work. I rarely make it on the weekends. Instead I have moved on to a French press cup of coffee. I will use the Nespresso machine when I want to make an Americano. The price of the pods are significantly more than the price of coffee for the French press.

After I have lost my weight a few years ago I do not make cappuccino’s as often as I used to. Because of that the lore of the espresso machine is diminished. I still like Americano probably more than the French press however the cost just makes it prohibitive in the French press is not that bad.

I do however have used for the milk frother. That is because Teagan always asks me to make her coffee. What she really means is that I froth her up some milk. Since I used to take spoonfuls of my cappuccino milk that wasn’t touched by coffee and feed it to her as a baby I find it cute she likes to do that. She’s been asking me rather consistently in recent weeks to make it for her. Usually she asks when I get home from work and it’s late. I tell her to remind me on the weekends when I’m up to make her and Amelia breakfast. Then when she asks the three of us will make a batch of milk together and the girls will share.

I find it adorable that they sit on their chairs with the mug of frothed milk and eat it like yogurt or ice cream.

Another Mystery Solved

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It’s been on my mind that it is coming for some time.  Today I realized it is already upon us.  Teagan as I am holding up a can of soda while trying to talk to her goes to me “drink your soda”.  The way she said it confirms she is MC & my child.  I have been wondering at what age she would get sarcastic and show some level of snark.  The answer the the question is almost 3 1/2.  One less mystery to solve.

Trains Vs Dress Up

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I love the fact that the girls want to play with their wooden train set.  MC just picked up a ton of more track so Teagan was excited to play with it.  So was I.  We played for about 15 minutes until Teagan declared that it was time to clean up and play dress up.  I will give her credit she did try to clean up, however Amelia and I (mostly me) wanted to keep playing with the trains.  We were about to simulate a train collision.  In the end we played dress up for a few minutes before bedtime.

Now with the kids asleep and MC out I am tempted to build something really cool with the tracks.

The Animal Themed Weekend

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Saturday we took the bus to the Queens Zoo.  We typically goto the petting zoo because the girls always seemed not interested in the regular zoo.  Saturday we went to the regular zoo.  Both girls were very interested and it was a fun outing.  They loved the ducks.  Amelia was interested in the Sea Lion’s however Teagan wasn’t so much.

We ate lunch outside at the zoo.  it was a nice day overall.

Sunday we went to the Queens County Farm for a birthday party of one of Teagan’s friends.  It was fun.  The girls got to see and pet a few more animals and we went on a hay ride.

Cheers

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Favorite quote today.  The setup.  Amelia needed a teething ring and Teagan wanted one also.  They both got them and Teagan tapped her ring to Amelia’s and says “cheers”.