Things that have happened since last week: My Little Pony, thumb-sucking, crawling, Christmas

1. We are now in possession of three My Little Ponies. I liked My Little Pony a lot as a kid and at Thanksgiving Claire's Grandma arrived with a little set of them. These have long manes and tails and brushes and clippies and even a little mirror (for the ponies...to admire themselves?). It's always surprising to me to see toys I enjoyed as a child still a hit for my kids. I mean, I know I'm being marketed to with the high and mighty emotion of Nostalgia but I don't actually care. My Little Pony is kind of awesome.

2. The Christmas tree is up and decorated. We did this on Tuesday, before we left for the Thanksgiving holiday. I wanted the tree up when we got home. I had such a lovely evening planned where we would listen to Christmas music, open a nice bottle of champagne and then order pizza for dinner. It kind of worked out that way. I forgot to chill the champagne, so we made do with vodka-cranberry cocktails and Claire wasn't feeling well so it was not quite as dreamy and lovely and perfect as I had in my head. Chris and I tried to hang ornaments in a neat and orderly fashion and Claire pretty much kept taking them off into other rooms and waving them around or taking a pine cone and saying, "Hey! Look! This my purse!" 

3. I planted some amaryllis and paperwhites. One of them is almost blooming, which makes it quite the intellectually-advanced amaryllis as the box promised me it would be at least eight to ten weeks.

4. Claire is sick. Claire coughed in her sister's face a whole bunch and now Charlotte is sick. And then, through the magical process of germ osmosis, Chris is sick. I remain unscathed.

5. Claire has started sucking her thumb. Yeah. At three-years-old  she all of a sudden just started sucking her thumb, ALL THE DAMN TIME. I have traced the source of the problem to a child called Lynlee at her preschool. Lynlee is always sucking her thumb at drop off and pick up and I'm certain she does it all day at preschool too. A little internet sleuthing has told me that a kid starting to suck her thumb at this age isn't all that unusual and it's not really actually physically harmful until her permanent teeth start to come in but GOD is it an annoying, gross habit. I freaking hate it. First of all, she knows it's wrong. SHE KNOWS.  

She has taken to putting herself in time out under the dining room table so she can lay there and SUCK HER THUMB. (Can I pause here to say that it is actually a little funny when your kid tries to outsmart you? She will be all, "I"m not doing anything in here! I'm just laying!" and I am all, "Kid, I am a little bit smarter than you.") It is also probably what gave her this terrible cold, which gave Charlotte the cold, which gave Chris the cold. Putting your fingers in your mouth that often, as a person that visits Walmart, the playground, preschool and Chick-fil-A? EGHHHHHHH DISGUSTING. If you had a thumb-sucker and you successfully quashed the habit please speak up and tell me how to copy you.

6. I bought thirty-five pounds of laundry detergent. Look, it cut the price per load by 45% (from 34-cents to 19-cents) and it's not like it will expire or spoil or there will be a day where I just don't do laundry any more. (This is how I know I'm not cool and I'm a really dorky mom-type-person.)

7. Thanksgiving happened.

8. I am almost embarrassed to tell you this but I just started using Instagram. 

9. I made some chocolate chip cookies and I was out of vanilla extract so I used a half teaspoon of orange extract and....well....you should do that the next time you make chocolate chip cookies. YUM. I was also very responsible and I froze half the dough so I can eat cookie dough straight from the freezer make cookies later.

10. Charlotte is doing a crawling/scooting thing. She's not too fast (yet) but she can get across a room to get something if she wants it. She started doing this at the exact same time Claire did (to the week). Charlotte also has her first tooth and I can feel the next three starting to poke through.

11. I ordered my Christmas cards and a few copies of a 2011 photobook from Blurb, all in the same evening because I had some promo codes. When I was finished I had spent about $200 (GAH GAH GAH) but I did feel like I'd won at the internet for the evening.

12. This is turning into a Charlotte Update post, but seriously, she has had a big week or two! We stopped swaddling her and after a few rough nights she's okay with it. She's sleeping better and longer unswaddled, which we suspected she might. She is turning some major developmental corners these days with the sitting, crawling, teeth and sleeping and her personality is also starting to come through. She legit laughs at us and has favorite toys and preferences and quirks. I was rocking her this morning and I found myself thinking that this little-baby age of 6-months, where they aren't as helpless as newborns (she can now locate and put her own binky back in her mouth at night), but are still wee babies is one of my favorite ages. (Other favorite ages: 18 months, 24 months.)

13. Since I started running at the Y a few days a week I have lost a three pants sizes but only four total pounds. The four pounds part kind of bugs me (really? FOUR?? I can't even get up to an even FIVE?), but my jenas are literally falling off my body so I am calling this a win.

Comments

[HereWeGoAJen]

Gah, the ruffle butt sleeping picture is so cute that I can barely stand it.

My Little Pony was awesome.

My sister sucked her thumb and I cannot remember how my parents got her to stop. I do remember how my sister's best friend was gotten to stop sucking her thumb, but that involved like $500 in cash and prizes (not even kidding a little bit) so I don't know that that one is practical either.

[Erin]

I have a big old tub of my My Little Ponies in the garage just WAITING for Lorelai to be old enough to care about them. Seriously, there must be 50 in there. Including one or two first- or second-edition ones (that are so well-loved there's no point in hanging onto them as collectibles so she gets to play with them too -- I don't think anyone would pay money for a 29-year-old Medley with her butt-glitter rubbed off and rust stains in her tail from me taking her in the bathtub ... oh, and her head pops off because we had to take it off to bleach the mold out of the inside of her because of the baths).

Dude, I would be WAY more stoked about the pants sizes than the pounds. I wouldn't care if I weigh 500 pounds as long as I could cram into a size 6 again. (I am never going to cram into a size 6 again. I've accepted it.)

[elz]

We had a thumb sucker-her sonogram picture was of her sucking her thumb, that's how bad it was! We did everything possible to get her to stop, the biggest thing was just constantly reminding her and pulling her thumb out. It sounds harsh, but it was a subconscious action, so we had to remind her not to do it. I was also a thumb sucker and my parents put spicy stuff on my thumb. Good luck!

Congratulations on losing weight, 4 pounds is till 4 pounds!

[BigP's Heather]

I love My Little Ponies too!
We bought that giant laundry soap after someone (I'm pretty sure it was you) told me how awesome it is. We love it. So cheap and such a great product. I talked my sister into it too. She is a single mom with two boys - she loves it!

[Lauren]

We have been working on the same five-gallon bucket of Charlie's Soap for at least a year and a half, and I don't even think we're halfway through the bucket. Cheap laundry FTW!

[Elsha]

We have a couple of My Little Ponies around here and they are definitely a favorite toy. For Will. Kalena likes them too, but Will is pretty attached.

Will is a finger sucker but I have so far made no effort to get him to give it up because in my head he is still a BAYBEE. In reality he's 2 next month and I should probably be formulating some sort of plan.

Pants sizes definitely wins out over pounds! Like how after you have a baby you can get back to your pre-pregnancy weight but nothing fits right? Only the opposite!

[craftyashley]

We rock My Little Ponies at our house too. Somehow the tiny brushes always get lost, though.

[K]

I got nothing as it relates to thumb-sucking as Ezra is still very (!!) attached to his paci. My reasons being that it's only for in-bed use and his teeth aren't coming through his nose, so I've stopped caring.

Completely.

[natalie]

Way to go on the pants sizes! That's awesome. Baby Charlotte's turkey outfit is so cute! Want to hear a mean way to cure the thumb sucking? Vinegar....dunk her thumb in vinegar. She won't like that at all. ;)

[Erica]

I've substituted almond extract for vanilla before, but orange is pretty genius.

[Sheila]

The old My Little Ponies are awesome! The new ones... look like hookers.

Also a good substitute for vanilla extract-- rum!