Birdie's New Friends

Clara added some new friends to the bedtime gang after opening her birthday presents.  The crew now includes Minnie, Daisy Duck, Dora, two small dolls about six inches tall named "Amazing Ashley" and "Preppy Paige," (both of whom came with wee inch-high accessories--brushes for their luxurious locks, and dogs--both of which were immediately "lost") and a Care Bear.  (The Chloes have been relegated to the steerage in the basket.  Fickle are the affections of the three-year-old.)  The Care Bear is pink with a rainbow on its tummy which makes it Cheer Bear.  But Cheer Bear doesn't have the currency as say your Minnie, or your Dora.  So of course Joe asked what Cheer Bear's name was, and of course--of course--Clara christened "her" Bubba.  Cheer Bear does look like a Bubba.

Reading With Interrupting Him and Her

We have been reading a lot of Berenstain Bears books of late.  (The B. Bears, as Julie likes to call them.)  We own a few of them, but recently checked out a treasury of five or so from the library.  Julie thinks they are in a treasury because they aren't classics of the series.  In any case, they feel like they are on their way to becoming Raleigh House classics.  In any case, this B. Bears frenzy has coincided with with Joe insisting on every last word on the page being read. Is there a picture of someone laughing punctuated with a "Heh heh heh!"?  (The B. Bears and the New Baby.)  Is there a chart with chores meted out for acts of rudeness?  (The B. Bears Forget Their Manners.)  What we need is a volume entitled The Berenstain Bears and the Trouble With Interrupting, though incidentally interrupting is an infraction highlighted in The B. Bears Forget Their Manners, though despite reading it 57 times in the past two weeks, this reporter cannot recall the punishment.  (But name calling--the ultimate in misbehavior down a sunny dirt road in Bear Country--is cleaning out the cellar.  And if you think it's easy keeping a cellar clean in a tree house, well, you've never tried it.  So says The B. Bears and the Messy Room.)

The B. Bears craze has also coincided with Clara beginning to tack down gendered pronouns.  There was rather a lot of stopping for a while to denote him and her and you can see, can't you, how it would be rather a lot in a book with a Papa Bear ("That's a him."), Mama Bear ("That's a her."), Brother Bear ("That's a him."), and Sister Bear ("That's a her.").  Mercifully, she seems to have got at least the Family Bear sorted.

Clara also liked to read herself sometimes.  Oh, never mind you mind, Dear Readers, you, that she's also still tacking down the alphabet.  Our Birdie has never let anything like her actual abilities stand in the way of her ambitions.  Tonight, Julie--and Clara--read a Cars pre-reader called Old, New, Red, Blue.  It is a scintillating exploration of opposites using characters and scenes from Cars: "Old truck.  New car.  Red truck.  Blue car.  Shiny and bright.  Dull and brown."  Eventually, one reaches "Dirty car."

You know what comes next, Brigade.  Birdie did, too, and she used context to fill it right in: "Get.  A.  Car.  Wash."  Naturally The Professor was quick to interrupt with "No!  CLEAN CAR!"

Juice Box Revelation

Juice boxes: the scourge of parents everywhere until their child is old enough to understand his or her own strength.  Does it matter how many times one hands a toddler or preschooler a juice box with the admonition to hold it gently, not to clutch it in a death grip that results in juice spurting out on the front of his or her shirt as it is lifted up to his or her mouth?  It doesn't.  We've not yet reached the glory of design that is represented by the Capri Sun, but here we pause to ask: who designed its ridiculous packaging?  A foil pouch that has to be punctured just so with that flimsy straw?  Really?

For our Fans out there who are not yet past all of the joys of juice boxes, we offer this life-changing tip, which comes to us from Daphne's mom who shared it at Birdie's birthday bash: flip up and hold it by the wings.  You know how the tops of juice boxes are folded down on either side of it's top?  Like if wrapping paper was being folded into a point on the side of a present?  If you flip those puppies up and then hand it to your wee one with the directive to hold it by the wings, your success rate for spurting-free sipping increases by 100% because the death grip is being exercised on the wings, rather than the center of the boxes.

Ah-mazing.  (But you're on your own with Capri Suns.)

Birdie Turns Three

Well Birdie Brigade, our Clara Jane is three.  She's knows she three, and can hold up three fingers, so we figure she's pretty much set for the year.  It's been one long celebration since Friday morning that began with her waking to her family's enthusiastic chorus of Happy Birthday.  (Well, to be fair, Joe was not very enthusiastic.  It took him a bit to get on the it's Clara's birthday train.  But it had not really pulled out of the station before he'd hopped on and by Saturday afternoon's party, he made himself busy ferrying the gifts Clara's guests brought inside to the dining room table without anyone asking him.)  The festivities culminated in a birthday bash yesterday outside on the front lawn.  Clara celebrated with Grandma Connie and Grandpa Charles, all her great-great-great aunts, her third cousin (or a cousin some number removed--cousins get confusing, right?), and about 20 other of her nearest and dearest including about 12 under the age of 10 who consumed their collective weight in juice boxes.  And, it was in low seventies, Brigade!  We could not have dialed up a better day which we think seemed only fitting.

Birdie, at three.

First cake.

Second cake.

Heh.  I got two cakes.  Do you think I'll get three cakes when I'm four?  Is that how this works?

It's my birthday.  This is my cake.  I can stick my fingers in the frosting. 

Fros-TING!

"I want some letters."

C-L-A-R-A

Finding the leftovers after the party.

Party Girl

Shangri-La

Despite the morning mayhem that kerfuffle might suggest, Ted has just informed Julie that the bambini have, of late, been donning their coats, hats, gloves or mittens, and shoes without excessive reminders that culminate in someone--a parent--fulminating about how departing the house in the morning is like mounting a military campaign with one sock and shoelace.  (That's the sort of nonsense that comes out of your mouth when you are trying to maintain forward momentum toward an on-time departure in the morning with an almost-five-year-old and almost (even more!)-three-year-old.)  Ted reports that sometimes, the bambini announce that they're ready to go, and he isn't ready!  Apparently, we should be renaming Raleigh House Shangri-La because it is all la-di-da around here in the morning's final departure push.

It only took all winter.  They're set for the season the only they they need to put on to leave besides underwear and clothes are Crocs.  Perfect.

(Really, we strongly suspect that the impetus for the newfound ability to move swiftly and deliberately through the final make-ready-to-leave tasks is Joe's desire to race out the door first; reach the front gate, open it, and go through it first; and reach the car first--hopefully with enough time to climb up on the back gate and peer over it at the slow pokes who follow.  The Raleigh House name change may be short lived once the shine wears off of all that.)