It's Great To Be Eight!

Today is Taylor's momentous eighth birthday! Happy Birthday Taylor!

The two words that completely sum up Taylor are DRAMA QUEEN! While I am sure that most parents with daughters can relate to this description I must say that in a house full of dramatic and dynamic little girls Taylor steals the crown, hands down, for the title of Drama Queen. I often wonder if her expressiveness is a result of "middle-child-syndrome." She is a good student, a good helper, and an all around good girl surrounded by sisters that by their nature and needs require much more of my attention thus I sometimes think her dramatic tendencies are a plea for my attention (perhaps a little like another second child I know). It isn't all just a plea for a attention (except when it is the over dramatized injuries and hurt feelings) it is just Taylor. Whether it is reacting as if she won the lottery when I show her a new shirt I bought for her that I got on sale for a dollar, or her singing a song for me as if I were Simon Cowell and her very success as an American Idol depends on my opinion of her performance, or her ooo-ing and awww-ing over my appearance when I am going out on a date with Chris, I just eat up her excitement and enthusiasm.

Taylor is a really great artist, something I am in awe of since my idea of sketching a portrait is drawing a stick figure. She doodles constantly - which was the one negative remark on her report card, apparently her teacher would like less doodling on the surrounding edges of the work Taylor turns in; reading that made me smile. She loves fashion and colors and all types of creative expression. And she is great at them - but of course I am her mom.

A few random things:
When ever Taylor gets in trouble for something she always feels so bad about whatever it is. She is always writing me the cutest little apology notes. I usually keep them. She will love them one day when she is a mom.

Instead of having me make cupcakes for her class to celebrate her birthday she asked me to bring in pepperoni bread. I thought that was interesting.

She loves having red hair and I hope that never changes.

She hates eating most vegetables.

Loves to laugh, giggle, and wrestle with her sisters.

Loves to put on "shows" for us. She entertains us and drags her sisters into the shows too. They take turns introducing each other then they dance or sing or model or act.

Taylor is getting baptized on April 5th at 10 am at our church building for anyone interested in coming, we'd love to have you there.

I Wanna Be a Cowgirl

Christine is the classic stereotypical little girl: sweet, kind, tender-hearted, quiet (relatively speaking for our house), thoughtful, cuddly, giggly, and fun. For the longest time her favorite color was orange, until she discovered horses and now her favorite color is brown - because the horse she has ridden is brown. For years she has wanted to be a super hero and a cookie maker but horses again have changed everything. Now she wants to be a horse when she grows up. NO that is not a typo. She actually wants to be a horse. I gently explained that it wasn't possible so after a discussion about why that wasn't really fair she finally decided she would settle for becoming a cowgirl instead. Her great aunt gave her a dress and a couple of shirts with horses on them. Now I struggle to get her to wear anything besides these three things. She will begin horseback riding lessons next month and talks about it constantly. We have been to see the horse she will be riding only a couple of times and yet somehow where ever we are she always knows exactly which direction "Rebbie's" house is in. She lives and breathes horses. She even gallops around the house pretending to be one (thanks to a certain cousin that taught her how). My only problem with this is that her "nay" is a little too soprano for my ears.

For those of you that know Christine I am happy to report that she has made HUGE developmental progress this school year. When she was evaluated for kindergarten a year ago they said she knew no numbers and only 6 letters (upper and lower case X, O, and C). I was shocked. I didn't know she knew X and O! After ALOT of evaluations and prayers we decided to start her in school so that she could receive some of the special services they could offer her. Now she can count to 100 by ones, twos, and fives (slowly and with a little assistance) and recognizes most of the numbers by sight too. Not only does she know her alphabet, upper and lower case letters, and all the sounds but she also knows ALL of her sight words. We are still working on some fine motor skills but overall she has come a long way. And by the way no longer needs speech therapy.

Christine has a love for all living things. She waters plants in our front yard (that don't need to be watered) along with watering some strawberry seeds that she planted several months ago which unfortunately will never grow in spite of her diligent care for them. She made a bird feeder at Girl Scouts and she checks it everyday to see if the birds are getting enough food. She was worried that the wind would make the seeds fall off the styrofoam ball feeder hanging in the tree and then the birds would be hungry. She is my spider catcher too. Yes, I have a childlike squeamishness about spiders so Christine takes care of them for me. She has no fear. I started having her kill bugs and spiders for me a while ago then one day she picked one up for me and asked me why I wanted her to kill it when it didn't do anything to us. "Wouldn't this bug be happier if it just got to play outside?" I felt so bad that I had been having her kill them and she didn't want them to die. Now she picks them up and looks at them then sets them free out in the yard (except for these nasty big stink bugs, those get flushed). In the summer time she spends hours catching and playing with fireflies. She asks me all the time if she can have a pet, any kind of pet. Pretty soon here I will need to stop borrowing other people's pets and just get her one of her own. She just adores all animals. I think one day when she realizes what we are eating at dinner time she will be heart broken and turn vegetarian.

One of my favorite things about Christine is how much she loves me! She is such a mamma's girl. She likes to hang out with me in the kitchen when I cook, help me with my chores, and brush my hair. She watches me put on my make up and always tells me so sincerely how beautiful I am (ok so why wouldn't I like that). And she always tells me she loves me more than bubble gum (which she loves as much as horses). I guess that means she loves me alot. She likes to sit next to me or on my lap or hold my hand when we go for walks. She is my little sweetheart!

My Little Rascal

I thought I would take the next few posts and write an update on each family member. I'm starting at the end and working on up. Today's post is all about Talia...

While taking a bath today Talia's Dora doll was apparently not cooperating with whatever Talia wanted it to do. I heard her mutter very softly under her breath to it, "stupid toy." I was shocked by her response, she doesn't generally use words our family has dubbed "naughty". Immediately I reprimanded her. "Tal, we don't talk like that. You need to use nice words." Grumbling, because I had heard her, she altered her statement, replacing her not-so-nice adjective. She turned back to her Dora doll and said, in a very nice voice, "please don't do that you bad word toy."

Talia has asked us to call her Darla because she plans to marry Alfalfa (she calls him Falfa or Falfie). She thinks he is handsome and likes how his hair sticks up on top of his head. Sometimes she even asks me to fix her hair like that, but I kindly refuse. She likes to act out the scenes from The Little Rascals with Christine playing the part of Alfalfa and casting herself as Darla. They open up the umbrella and sit under it on a blanket having a 'romantical' picnic together. Maybe she is just drawn to Alfalfa because he wears a bow tie.

Today, in honor of St. Patty's Day, I made a cute shamrock out of red hair and ribbon on top of Talia's head. When we got to the grocery store a lady stopped us to tell us how cute Talia looked. Once the lady was out of sight Talia took off her sweater and wrapped it around her head. I asked her what she was doing. She said "I don't want anyone to see my pretty hair." I told her that was fine but she had to uncover her eyes. She uncovered her eyes and followed me through the store with her hair covered.

Our most recent mishaps with Talia (since my last posting which mentioned lotion and shortening) have involved play dough, lip gloss, markers, Hershey's syrup (the old standby), toothpaste, hairspray, and - my personal favorite - adding twenty loads worth of laundry detergent to a single load of wash. Don't ask!!!!

To dispel the conception of 'Talia the Maniac' that I have unintentionally created, I should add that she is also a sweetheart. She loves to help me with whatever I am doing. She loves to play with her big sisters and she runs out to the driveway to greet Chris whenever he comes home from work. She is thoughtful, kind, super smart, and really funny, in addition to curious and naughty (though I try to spin this as creative and adventurous - perhaps for my own sake). She is very joyful, often dancing about the house singing songs from her Silly Songs CD or she'll grab the guitar to show off her "rock moves" while singing the song by Pink. She loves to dress up (life is a stage) and exhibit her own flare by wearing dance recital costumes with yellow galoshes - yes I let her dress this way even in public, because sometimes it is just too cute and one day it will no longer be ok to dress that way so why force her to grow up now? I enjoy her enthusiasm for life and her excitement for everything new. She is a reminder to me not to take everything so seriously and not to let life just pass me by but to stop and savor the joyful moments and to look for adventure because you never know where you might find it.

Bad Hair Day

Yesterday I was teaching a "how to make a hair bow class" at my house with a few women from church and their children. At first Talia was struggling with sharing her toys with the other kids but at some point she finally went upstairs and played quietly with one of the other girls. I knew I should go up and check on her but I was trying to get through the instructions. Finally I followed that nagging feeling inside upstairs and as I reached the landing the smell of vanilla lotion filled the air. Not a good sign. I rounded the corner and saw my bedroom door open. Another bad sign. And I heard nothing. I opened Talia's bedroom door and gasped. Talia had emptied half the bottle of my favorite Warm Vanilla Sugar lotion onto her friends head and had "washed" her hair with it, along with "washing" her own. I ended up having to interrupt my little class downstairs to give these two a bath. I asked Talia about it later and she said "well we were trying to put you pretty wotion on but we got too much so we wash our hair with it. Then we put wadder in our hair too." It wasn't easy to get out but it was easier than the shortening she put in her hair on Valentine's Day.

Premonition

I recently had a conversation with someone about Chris and his job. I confided in her that one of my fears is what we would do if something were to happen to Chris's arms. I didn't think he would be able to do physical therapy without the use of both of his arms. Eerily, exactly one week later Chris broke his right arm, playing basketball of course! The things he can't do with his arm include button his shirt, tie his bow tie, put on his shoes and socks, fix his hair, drive while talking on the phone, dry off his back after a shower, sign his name or write anything at all. What he can do, apparently, is physical therapy (minus some manual therapy) and still bring home a pay check. I am not complaining, and hopefully neither are his patients.

The photos are out of order. The top photo is DAY 4 and the bottom photo is DAY 1. He fractured his Radial Head and damaged the surrounding soft tissue. In addition to ibprofen his arm needed splinting and rest for about a week followed by, you guessed it, physical therapy. He is hoping to have recovered enough to play in the final tournament for his basketball league in about three weeks. In the meantime he had to sit on the sidelines and watch his team lose this week!!! I think that was more painful than the injury. The bruising is so bad, these pictures don't really capture it. Did I mention that he also sprained his ankle at the same time? It bruised almost as badly but I forgot to take photos. He did all this damage to himself in the first half of the game and still played the second half. Why am I not surprised?