The Animals' Christmas Eve

You can't go wrong with a classic Little Golden Book.

Purple Butterfly received this book as Christmas present from a friend her first Christmas, and I immediately fell in love with it. The Animals' Christmas Eve by Gale Wiersum and illustrated by Alexandra Steele-Morgan is a sweet retelling of the Nativity story told from the point of view of the animals in a barn on Christmas Eve. It's also a counting book from 1-12, which I just find clever. Each number represents an animal telling part of the Nativity story, with the number 12 being the bells of Christmas Day. The illustrations are darling with farm animals that are drawn to be warm and fuzzy looking, without being overly cute.

I do have a slight issue that number 3 mentions the Three Wise Men (obviously) before Mary, Joseph, or the Baby Jesus are mentioned, but it is a counting book, and where else would the Three Wise Men be? It can be easily overlooked by the rest of the sweetness contained in the telling.

It's Christmas Time

Not only is it after Thanksgiving, it's December 1st, which is sufficiently late enough to start thinking about Christmas, no matter who you are. If I had an Advent calendar for the girls, we'd be breaking it out. But I slipped up on that this year. Next year I will not be so forgetful.

I think about Christmas when I was a kid, and it really sparkled. It was magical. And it wasn't just the presents. It was time with family, baking, the decorations, the music, just everything about this time of year was magical. And my mom had lots to do with that. When my mom died, Christmas lost so much of that sparkle. It was still a special time of year, but I now realize how much of the magic was my mom's doing.

Now I'm a mom, and it's hitting me that making Christmas sparkle for my kids in now my job. Wow. That seems like such a tall order. I don't know why Christmas memories would take any more precidence than any other childhood memories, but there's a lot pressure to make sure that Christmas is special. How am I going to do that?

Honestly, I don't think my mom put a Herculean effort into Christmas. She did what she could, and everything else fell into place. There's enough environmental hoopla about Christmas that it probably won't take too much effort on my part, either, to make it sparkle. We need to establish a few traditions and just have fun.

It's the traditions that are tripping me up. The Christmas traditions I grew up with are still in place - Christmas Eve with my immediate and extended family, Christmas morning and day at my dad's house. That was Purple Butterfly's first Christmas. Being late in pregnancy last Christmas kept the Butterflies in their own house, and it was nice. I want my kids to wake up in their own house Christmas morning, just like I did for 33 years. But I also want them to spend Christmas Eve with their grandfather, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Not an easy task when the two are 2.5 hours away.

So we'll make our own Christmas Eve tradition and wake up in our own house with our own tree that we cut down and hung with our own ornaments. And then at some point we'll make the 2.5 hour trip to visit the extended family, and have Christmas there. Of course, when to make that trip is also a decision...

Regardless, as long as we're together as a family, I think there's enough magic in Christmas that there will be enough sparkle for my daughters.

Cleo the Cat

We first borrowed Cleo the Cat from the library when Purple Butterfly was about 10 months old. Cleo is a playful stray who finds a home by befriending a little boy. Purple Butterfly really liked the book, had us read it to her often, and she even tried to imitate the "meow, meow, meow" written in the book. She liked the book so much that we decided to add it to our own collection. Even though Cleo may be a little young for Purple Butterfly these days, she still likes to read it. Stella Blackstone's text is simple rhyming text and Caroline Mockford's big, bold illustrations continue to interest her.

Cleo's Color Book was next to join our library. The rhymes are fun, and Cleo and her little boy use different objects to illustrate color than the run of the mill items used most color books, such as plums, ice cream, a submarine, etc. Both Purple Butterfly and Pink Butterfly like this book. Purple Butterfly loves the illustrations and Pink Butterfly likes the rhymes.

We borrowed Come Here, Cleo from the library last week. I picked it as a book that both of my butterfiles would like. In this book, Cleo has a playful kitty outdoor adventure. The text mirrors that in Cleo the Cat, and so it has a familiarity that my kids appreciate. The illustrations are the same bold illustrations, but have incorporated a a slightly different color pallete for the outside adventure. And of course, Purple Butterfly loves that it has a purple butterfly in it.

There are 3 more books in the Cleo the Cat series - Cleo's Number Book, Cleo's Alphabet Book, and Cleo and Caspar. I haven't borrowed any of these titles from the library - we have plenty of letter and number books here - but I'm interested in exploring Cleo and Caspar. It's about Cleo learning to get along with Caspar the dog who joins their household.

Baby Giggles

Apparently, it's a fact that babies love to look at faces, especially faces of other babies. And I've noticed that when I go out with Purple Butterfly and Pink Butterfly, Pink Butterfly loves to watch all the kids, but she's especially drawn to other babies, and they are drawn to her.

But when it comes to books for babies, in my experience, it's hard to find books with pictures of babies that aren't picture dictionaries or simple description of emotion or color. But in Baby Giggles by photographer Rachael Hale, there are wonderful pictures of babies with a great rhyming text that explores a range of emotions - from happy to grumpy to hungry to sleepy and in between. The photographs are adorable and well representative of the emotion being discussed. The accompanying text is actual verse and well matched in intonation to the emotion of the photograph. And it provides a great lead in to start your own discussion of the picture and emotion.

Pink Butterfly is not yet the huge bookworm her sister was at this age. She doesn't sit for story after story, and sometimes she'd rather chew the book than look at it. But this book engages her. When we pick it up, she's smiling at the cover. She pats at the pictures of the babies. She giggles along. I talk to her about why the baby might be grumpy or how it looks like the babies are having so much fun in the bath, just like she does. I really think this book is a first step along the path of Pink Butterfly possibly becoming a bookworm.

Saturday Top 5 Laughs.

Linking up with Melissa at The Mommyhood Chronicles to do a Saturday Top Five Laughs. It seems like a fun idea, and I'm sure I'll be happy in the future to have these little gems.

5. My husband was singing Careless Whisper and Purple Butterfly was very concerned that he was "never gonna dance again" and kept asking him why!

4. I took the girls grocery shopping. It was a long day for Pink Butterfly, because by the end of the trip she was cranky and hungry. How did I know she was hungry? She turned herself around (while buckled!) and stood on the shopping cart seat and started rifling through the food in the cart until she found a package of baby food. I sat her down and gave her the baby food package, which she played with/sucked on until I had to pry it from her hands to put in on the conveyor belt so I could pay for it!

3. We were having a snack and Purple Butterfly reached over and took two of her daddy's three crackers to make herself a cracker sandwich. She then took his remaining cracker, broke it in half, put it back on his plate and told him he now had two pieces and could make a cracker sandwich for himself!

2. Purple Butterfly keeps asking her daddy if she can play Angry Birds with him. I just find it funny that my not even 3 year old knows what Angry Birds is, and how to play it!

1. Purple Butterfly and I had each had a Hershey's Kiss. I told Purple Butterfly that if she wanted another one, she'd have to give me a real kiss. Pink Butterfly heard this and started blowing kisses from her highchair, as if I'd trade her a kiss for a Kiss!

Wordless Wednesday

Oh My Gosh, Mrs. McNosh

Oh My Gosh, Mrs. McNosh is the book Purple Butterfly fell asleep reading that I wrote about a few days ago. It is one of her favorite books right now, and I really enjoy it, too.

Nelly McNosh and her dog George go for a walk in the park, where George chases after a squirrel, and Mrs. McNosh chases after Geroge. They crash through streams and fountains, weddings and baseball games. Will Mrs. McNosh ever catch her beloved George?

This is a great book to read out loud. The rhyme and cadence are wonderful. The adventure George leads Mrs. McNosh on is just silly and fun. The pictures support and enhance the story and are equally as silly. There are other Mrs. McNosh books by the same author, and I plan on seeing if they are available in our local library the next time we visit. To me, that is the mark of a good children's book - wanting to read more by the same author and/or illustrator.

Some not so pleasant things

Along with the joys that come with being a mother, there are the not so pleasant things you must deal with. Like your kids' bodily fluids. Dirty diapers, spit up, tears, snot, puke, and even blood once they get old enough to hurt themselves all need to be cleaned up by mommy. And the more kids you have, the more opportunities you have for dealing with them.

Both girls have colds, so there is snot galore in this house. And Pink Butterfly is teething, which means she's also drooling. (Didn't add drool to the list, did I?) This afternoon, she was rubbing her snotty, drooley face against my bare shoulder, then blowing raspberries into it. It was gross and funny at the same time, and she found it quite hysterical. Then she spit up on me. Ever since she's started eating more table food, even though her spit up frequency has reduced, it's funkiness has increased proportionally. Thankfully, she didn't get any on her clothes, but she got my arm and the floor. That was an easy clean up, but it was still not a highlight of my day.

Purple Butterfly is also suffering a cold. Even though she's in pretty good spirits, I can tell she's sick because she's actually napping in the afternoons. Today's nap was interrupted by her waking up crying and coughing. This happens often to poor Purple Butterfly when she's sick. And more often than not, it makes the poor girl puke as she's attempting to clear the mucus. Thanks to past experience and the fair warning given by her horribly deep coughs, I can usually tell when it's coming. And I was able to tell today that it was going to happen, I just didn't get us outside in time. Right as we were stepping through the screen door, she puked. Right down the front of my tank top. Lovely. And toddler puke is 1000 times worse than funky baby spit up. Once Purple Butterfly was done getting sick and I got her cleaned up and calmed down, she went about her business as if nothing had happened. Thank goodness little kids are so resilient.

I got to experience all but blood today. Writing that last sentence just made me rethink my day, and realize it wasn't as bad as it could have been. And here are some pictures of my little butterflies to show you just how cute they are, even if they are sick.

Here is Purple Butterfly eating breakfast. Or enjoying her breakfast, as she would say.


Here is Pink Butterfly hanging out in her favorite spot under the jumperoo.


Their smiling faces make cleaning up all the ickiness bearable.

Entropy

Before I was a stay at home mom, I was an engineer. And when I was in college, I studied much thermodynamics and the concept of entropy. Simply speaking, entropy is the tendancy of system to move towards disorder and randomness unless energy is added to the system to make it more orderly. At least, that is my rendering of the definition.

My house is a prime example of entropy in action. Or rather, inaction. I should have a sign that says "It's not really a mess, it's just entropy."

I will admit, I don't always expend the amount of energy I should on keeping up with the mess. Sometimes the feeling of futility wins. Yes, I should put those blocks back in the basket, but I know they'll just be dumped out again tomorrow, and the next day and the next. My energy supplies are finite, and two little kids do a pretty good job of depleting them daily.

Much like Homer Simpson said to Lisa when she invented a perpetual motion machine, in this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics. It's obvious.

How a bookworm sleeps

My butterfly bookworm wants books with her everywhere. We have books in her bedroom, books in the living room, dining room, kitchen, even the car. I let her have a book or two in bed with her while she's falling alseep. It's not an ideal situation, but if you're trying to get a 2.5 year old who is determined to stay awake her much needed sleep, you're willing to make a few consessions. This is how I found my Purple Butterfly tonight when I checked on her after she went to bed.



The books she is reading is Oh My Gosh, Mrs. McNosh by Sarah Weeks, illustrated by Nadine Bernard Wescott. It's one of her recent favorites. I moved the book after I took the picture, and she didn't ever stir. The poor thing must be worn out from her cold and the trip we took today to pumpkin patch.

Barnyard Dance

We have more books by Sandra Boynton in our kids' library than by any other author, and I always think of Barnyard Dance as the book that started it all. Purple Butterfly recived it as a present from a friend, and we all immediately fell in love with the rhythm and rhyme, and the silly animal illustrations. We were hooked, and we had to have more Boynton.

In this book, the barnyard animals are having a dance. It's called like a square dance by the fiddle playing cow, and all the animals get a chance to do their thing to the music. What music; it's a book, you say? Oh, you'll provide the music as you read. That is one of the things that is so great about this book.

If you don't have any Boynton, try this one out. I think you'll be hooked, too.

Pigs to the Rescue

Our process for picking books to check out the library is random. We randomly pick books off the shelf and check them out. The title or author may pique my curiosity. For Purple Butterfly, it's usually the color. She likes to pick out purple books.

Pigs to the Rescue is one of my randoms, and it was such a good choice. It's one of very few books we've renewed because we liked it, not just to avoid a fine.

The Greenstalk family owns a farm that is home to some overly helpful pigs. Their good intentions never turn out the way the Greenstalk family would like.

This book is fun and funny. It's not a long book, and what it may lack in words, it more than makes up for in its vivid illustrations. There is so much movement and joy in the artwork that it will keep big kids and little occupied for long time as they take in all the details. And they'll just love the silliness. We do.

Bookworms like to make music, too

I always thought musicals were far-fetched. People randomly signing, or singing all the time? Then I had children.


With two small children, there is so much music in my house. It's amazing, actually, because I hardly grew up with any music at all. A little radio in the morning while getting ready for school, some in the car when going here or there, but there were no instruments, hardly any singing.


Now we sing all the time. It's a wonderful distraction. Purple Butterfly asks me to sing to her multiple times a day. Pink Butterfly is soothed so much more quickly by signing than anything else. The toy piano, tambourine, and marracas get much playtime through the day. They squabble over who gets which singing toy.

We're even taking a Music Together class. I love this class. I love seeing my children engage with other kids and adults in the class setting, and I don't know if any other conduit other than music would allow this to happen at their ages. Now, I don't expect this class to make them musical geniuses or give them ahead start when it comes to playing an instrument or singing, but it is letting them expand and explore the love music that they, and really, all little kids, have. And I love to watch the other little kids in the class, too. Their eyes light up at their favorite songs. They bounce along on their mothers' laps. They have their favorite instrument to play. Some kids you can tell it's just about bringing them out of their shell. And it seems that music is a great way to do it.

As the girls get older, I hope that they will persue some sort of musical education. I won't necessarily push it any more than making them follow through if they make a commitment of a certain duration, but I hope the desire will be there for them continue with this hobby that they can have and enjoy all thier lives. In the meantime, we'll keep singing and plinking along on our toy piano and tambourine.