Felicity Writes!

Kwamai was busy creating a game and I had just given Felicity her own used calendar and crayon to draw. Suddenly Kwamai yelled out, "Felicity just wrote her first numbers!" Lo and behold, on the calendar square for the 29th, she wrote a very neat and legible 26. She did say she was trying to write 29, but hey, a great accomplishment nonetheless!

She then embellished the remainder of the calendar with the typical scribbles and squiggles.

The scribe. You probably don't want to elarge the picture and be grossed out by how dirty her nose is.

By the way, she has been obsessed with learning alphabet in the last 24 hours and learned to spell "bus" this morning. Let's sign her up for University.

Felicity Has a New Bedroom!

Whoo-Hoo! Somehow the transition has happened to Felicity sleeping in her own bedroom. What helped, of course, was the fact that I finally sorted through all of the baby clothes, cleaned out the closet, took down (ahem) the co-sleeper, and other things I've been meaning to do but just haven't gotten to with such a ... young... baby around. Ok, so Felicity officially turned 2.75 on Sunday, but she was born just yesterday, or at least that's what my organization seems to reflect.

I would post pictures, but she's upstairs sleeping in it right now. Of course, I wake up in there more often than not, because she calls out for me and before I wake up I respond and go there so she can nuzzle up with her favorite comfort items. Some day I imagine she will stop that, but I do actually get more sleep than if she climbs on me or if I can hear her every peep right next to me all night, or if Kwamai nudges her awake. I still have hyper-reactive Mommy ears.

Each day the room looks more civilized. Today I put her toy box, her dresser and all of her clothes in the room, and tonight, at her request, I hung some pictures and a crucifix. She wanted a picture of Mary, one of Jesus, one of Mary and Baby Jesus, and one of Jesus in his manger (or he's manger, as she says). I managed to fulfill each request. She was concerned that there are sharks in her room, but I assured her that sharks sleep too, and are rather friendly anyway. So she decided she will also share her room with fishies, seahorses and whales.

And then there's Kwamai. He is more afraid of the dark and of being alone now than he ever has been. He is now the lone occupant of the extra bed wedged in the parental bedroom. Perhaps by the time it gets warm and light at night again he'll be ready to shift.

What We're Reading

I read Call of the Wild as a Freshman in high school, and I remember not liking it much. It made me feel cold whenever I read it. But Kwamai is enjoying it, I think because of all the fighting and wildness in it.

I think I might choose something a little tamer next time around, maybe Stuart Little.

Catching up

Here is it mid-January already and I've let two and a half weeks of cute kid things slide by unrecorded. For shame. Let's see if I can pull some interesting tidbits out of my memory.

Kwamai is super-duper keen on starting karate, and I plan to call the school to see when we can get him started. He spends so much time daily doing his version of martial arts, and I would like to see him learn to do it safely (especially for him to learn how not to karate chop little sisters). Truly I have never seen a 6 year old as muscular as he is. If he were my size I know he could pin me to the ground with one arm.

Felicity keeps coming up with cutisms. At the Pancake Breakfast on Sunday she pointed out "Look Mama, there's a snowdeer." You know, that's what Santa pulls his sleigh with.

Their latest comedy routine together is for Kwamai to say part of a phrase and Felicity to finish it. Their favorites are "What the....." "heck?" and "Our Lady of Guadalu..." "pe"

On cue this evening as we sat down to dinner, both of them started crying over how much they hated what was being served. (The culprit was a chicken and rice casserole.) The enticement I gave to win over Kwamai made Felicity more adamantly against it: portobello mushroom sauce! Kwamai decided he loved it and gobbled up two platefuls. Felicity has been feeling a little off anyway and made a dinner out of a few carrots instead. In truth, although it was mushroom sauce I don't think it the broth was from portobellos anyway, but at least it got some dinner into them. Sigh.