Felicity the Fairy

She is something else, right?  This picture was from the other night, we went out, just us girls, to follow Maria around as she knocked on doors to collect money for her Walkathon.  We walked up and down the street and I had a HECK of a time getting them back in the house, but then I told Felicity she could take a bath and have a cupcake and off she went, I snapped this as she was tearing by.

She is really getting fun!  And awful!  She talks a lot, definitely in more sentences and she does this cute thing that Maria used to do.  I say something like, Felicity, do you want to eat some lunch? and she says OKAY!, like it's the best idea she ever heard.  She just now said "I washa hands?".  I said "you want to wash your hands?" and she said "OKAY!".  Ha!

Today is the last day it will be just us until the fall, as it's Veronica's last day of preschool.  We will probably go for a walk, we are going over to a friend of mine's house so I can babysit for a while, maybe I'll mow the lawn.  She is a good little companion.  And that's good, because she hasn't taken a nap in over a year, ha!

Five Things for Friday

I am trying to be better about updating these blogs.  Felicity is two and a half and I still don't have her Weekly Picture thing done for her first year but I'll get there.  In the fall, she will be in preschool three days a week and the other kids will be in school full time, so maybe I'll start it then, ha!

1. The first thing is the picture above.  She looks so cute, doesn't she?  Her dress is adorable and her hair is starting to get longer and curl nicely.  She was sad because she couldn't go into Veronica's ballet recital, but also maybe sad because she had a double ear infection, which we found out the next day.  She actually did really well in the recital for a while.  Veronica's teacher let her participate and she did really well, but then she couldn't take her turn so out she went, ha!  She has spend her entire life outside of that ballet room, she'll be able to start taking ballet this fall, hard to believe, right?  She'll be three in October, I just bought her a (n adorable) bathing suit and I went ahead and got the 3T because I figured the 2 would be too small.  
2. Her talking is out of control.  Yesterday was our day where it's just the two of us, I started the day taking her to the Minute Clinic and getting antibiotics for her ear infection. She spit that flavored, gross antibiotic all over me and I was mad and yelled.  Then I went in the kitchen to get a paper towel and came back and said I'm sorry Felicity, I shouldn't have yelled at you and she said "that's okay, Mama, that's okay!".  It was kind of patronizing but so cute.  Later I was watching Nashville on the DVR and she came wandering in and said "what are you watching, Mama?".  Full sentences, blah blah blah, talking and talking, it's great.  Mike was saying he thinks Maria talked this much at this age but she just tended to say the same word over and over, like juice, juice, juice, juice, JUICE WANT JUICE! and I feel like these are more grown up type sentences.  
3. She loves preschool so much.  She goes right in the room and gets right to it, washing her hands and then going right to the craft or dress up or whatever.  Her teachers really like her too, I imagine because she is no trouble and she never cries.  She'll go Monday Tuesday and Wednesday in the fall and then after that, Lord knows.  I can't believe she's only going to be three this year, we still have TWO full years after this one before Kindergarten.  
4. I'm worried about her ears, worried that it seems like almost every time she has a cold she gets an ear infection.  Her tubes fell out so maybe she needs new ones?  I hope not, I hope she dries up this summer and gets better.  I hate for her to have three occasions to have surgery before she's three.  
5. She's so tall, by far bigger than the other girls at this age and she is probably twice Veronica's size at the same age.  She insists on kissing everyone good night now, before she goes to bed, it's adorable and messy.  Veronica squints in fear when she comes in with those wet kisses, but we all love her so much we are willing to wipe our mouth when she is done with us, ha!  

Come here

When Felicity wants me to pick her up, she says "C'mere, mama", and kind of wiggles her shoulders, it's so cute.  I was thinking of that and other cute things she says this morning and I want to remember them so I thought I'd write them down on her blog.  The problem is, I'm so old and dotty I can't remember any!  She shouts Hello?  HELLLLLOOOOOO? in the morning when she wants to get up. She adds a "t" to the end of a lot of words.  Like I'll say, I love you! and she says I love yout toot.  Ha!

Her hair is getting - well if I say it's getting long, I am being very very gracious about it, but it does have one nice curl.  She is climbing on everything.  Yesterday my sister came over after we went to see a play together.  I got home and Felicity asked to watch some Mickey Mouse Club so I put it on using On Demand and she was watching it, she was so excited about it!  I went and did something and came back and she had flipped over a box, and used the bathroom stepstool (at first I said stool but I figured bathroom and stool weren't good together in a sentence) to get on the box and then she was trying to ... jump into the television?  She was really mad about it, about her inability to get in there, ha!

She talks so, so much.  Last night she was in the bath, with a giant cup of water.  She went to take a drink of it (ew) and stuck her nose in it, like too far, because the water went up her nose and she was spluttering away.  She said "water, nose, YUCK!".  When she is hungry, she asks for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  It might be just me but she seems to use so many more WORDS than the other kids at this age.

Two and a half - almost

Next month, she will be 2.5 years old, is that crazy?  It seems like the winter has been so long, it's hard for me to believe next month is April, but it is.  It's March 5 already.  Two weeks from today is my birthday.  I'll be 46.  FORTY SIX.  Maybe it is my old age or maybe it's because she is my fourth but I am sick of this!  I am sick of being with such a jerk all day.  I mean, I should pause and say that she is not always a jerk.  She is sometimes super funny and sweet, she is still the cuddliest person I know and she sleeps all night and late.  But she gets mad *this fast* ::snaps fingers:: and she is so loud and screamy when she doesn't get what she wants and it's awful.  She hasn't taken a nap in YEARS, it seems and twelve hours in a row is just too long to spend with someone who can be so rotten.  In her defense, her life sucks, too.  At 8:00 I load her in the car and if it's not one of the days that she has preschool, I drop off Anthony and take her home.  We get home at 9:00 and, let's say it's Wednesday, we stay at home until it's time to take Veronica to ballet.  Then we come home and have lunch or go to Marta's and have lunch and then at 2:45 we get back in the car and go get Maria for 3:15.  Then we come home for about 30 minutes and then we get BACK in the car and go get Anthony.  That's a lot of car time for a two year old, I understand.  But it's a lot of time for a 46 year old too, I tell her!  And I'm not even in a cushy car seat or watching a movie!

She is talking a blue streak, full sentences and thoughts and feelings expressed, it is charming.  Not so charming is her new thing about pulling me by the finger to whatever she wants me to do.  She MOOSHES my finger in her hand, ugh, it hurts!  And - she's just so bossy, they are always all bossing me around and I am so over it.  I know that I will feel better when the weather gets better and we can get outside some, and I also know that I shouldn't wait for warm weather to feel better, that I should just DECIDE to be happier, to not let her and them bug me, but it's impossible.

I think she might be ready to toilet train soon.  She keeps telling me before she has to go that she has gone.  I just figured this out today, but that's what she's doing.  Unfortunately, we were at the park today for Veronica's ballet class when she told me she had to poop and I just couldn't sit her on that nasty public toilet.  So we'll start training and maybe she'll be out of diapers and I'll have that to like about her, too.

I want to act like she is my first, and not to be sick of everything, and sometimes I can.  Sometimes we are here on our own and it's just us and we read books, or chit chat while I'm making lunch.  I hope these are the memories she retains, wouldn't it be nice if we could pick?  But we can't, and I'm trying to bear that in mind.  It would be nice if the SNOW would melt and it would warm up, can someone do something about that, Please?

Two Year Checkup

I took Felicity on Monday, PRESIDENTS DAY, for her two year checkup, which I suppose should have taken place in October, but whatever, it's been a long winter/fall/life for us.  She weighed 32 lbs., I think, although I am having a hard time reading her chart.  She was not very good at the doctor, they always have a medical student come in and she really gave him a hard time about letting him look in her ears.  Of course, my pediatrician has been a doctor since God was a boy, and he knows how to just DO it before she even realizes it, but she was rough on that poor student.

She is doing just great, I got her little conference report from preschool and she is just fine.  She is sleeping well and she is not a great eater but she does okay.  She has a real sweet tooth and of course she is into way more stuff than the other kids were at her age, but that is par for the course.  She chews gum like some kind of movie secretary or something, and the girls or Anthony never would have chewed gum at two!  She is v. advanced, ha!, in all the bad ways.

She still says "no way!" a lot for no, it's hilarious.  She was horrible in church today - she is so, so bad in church you'd swear she was a nonbeliever or something!  I know it will get better but when, Lord, when?, I think every week of my life.  At least if the weather ever gets warmer we can take her outside.

She hasn't taken a nap regularly in a long time, but she still naps at school.  Now it's 5:09 on Sunday night and she has been going going all weekend and she is a little nutsy, I can hear it in her tone, it's kind of tremulous.

This is just a short update to say that she is fine, our little Felicity.  I assume she'll be my last baby, since I will be FORTY SIX here in a few week, and I guess I am hyper-aware of that because I feel so sweet about her most of the time.  I tilt my head to the side a lot when I look at her.

What's New

What's new with Felicity?  She is doing just fine, even though we have been trapped in a frozen tundra for what feels like forever.  We had a bad snowstorm right when the kids were supposed to go back to school, the first week of the year, and we have had either snow or sub-zero temperatures since then and I am not exaggerating.  It's killing me.  BUT Felicity is doing okay.  

• She is, not to brag, a star pupil at preschool.  I added in an extra day so she goes on Tuesday and Friday and she loves it.  They ended up being on a LONG break after the holidays and when we went back her poor buddy Charlie had a hard time, he was crying and crying as his dad handed him off.  F's teacher Miss Judy said, show him how it's done Felicity, and she said BYE MAMA BYE! and ran into the room.  She loves it.  
• Her hair is getting a little longer.  She is as cute as a button.  Lately she has been into wearing dresses, which is a pain because Maria and Veronica would only wear dresses too and it's been fun to put someone in pants, which are more weather appropriate here lately anyway.  Notice how I can't stop talking about the weather or its effect on our life?  
• She is talking a mile a minute but she's sort of hard to understand.  She says oh-nag for orange, which always takes me a while.  Sometimes she says gobba goo! and I say gobba goo? and she says OKAY! and I have struck some sort of deal and I don't know what and she gets really mad when I don't follow through on whatever the hell gobba goo means.  But of course I appreciate the talking.  
• She is still in her crib in her own room.  I tried to get her to sleep on the bottom bunk of the girls' bunk beds but she's not having it.  I don't know when that will change, maybe when she outgrows the crib?  And speaking of things I don't know about 
• I don't know when she will be potty trained.  She seems to have no interest.  She won't even be 2.5 until April so it can wait. 
• What else.  It is very hard to think in this barnyard of a house but I know I haven't posted about her in a while, and I wanted to. But I guess we're up to date!

Honest Truth

The honest truth is that Felicity is kind of a jerk!  I'm sure it is part of her natural two-year-old-ness and maybe also part of being the fourth in a family of little kids who still need lots of help, but MY LORD.  Here's how it's gone today, so far (it's 10:12 a.m.).  I went in to wake her up at 7:45, I hate, hate, HATE to wake a sleeping child but I had to wake her because we have to all take Anthony to school.  I just went in her room and she popped right up, so I didn't really have to wake her but still, I don't like to do it.  I got her dressed and took her downstairs, promised her a pancake, and put her down.

I fed her pancake and pears and she ate about half of both.  In the meantime, I was getting Anthony dressed, waking him up, wrestling him to the ground to give him his medicine (I wish I was exaggerating but I'm not).  I carried Anthony on my back to the downstairs and then out to the car, asking Veronica to get in the car while I did it.  I put Anthony in and then went and got Felicity, who was standing in the house yelling, waaaaaahhhhh!  Backpack!  Baaaaackpaaaaack!  So she took Veronica's backpack and purse with her, which I wrestled out of her hands briefly so I could clip her in her seat.

She yells the entire way to drop off Anthony, and then entire way back.  I had to stop by the body shop to drop off the keyfob so they could open the van if they are ever given the go-ahead by the stupid insurance company.  Both girls were getting a little antsy so I stopped by Einstein Brothers to get a bagel.  Felicity ate almost nothing, but she drank a lot of juice and yelled at the coffee display a lot.  Hooooot!  HOTTTTTT!, she yells.  Finally, we came home and she asked me to put on some Kai Lan and by that I mean she went and got the clicker and smacked me in the hand with it, while yelling KAI LAN!, so I put some on.  Now she is watching it and I am typing this and soon we will go to Costco to pick up our Christmas cards at Costco, then we are picking up McDonald's for lunch and then take it to ballet, which Veronica has at noon.

She is awful at ballet, she has discovered the button that opens the door, so she goes out to the water fountain to take a bath in it, or she opens the door to the outside so she can go run out into the parking lot.  Usually she falls asleep on the way home and naps in the car for about 15 minutes and then that's it for the day.

I signed her up for another day at preschool, I think she likes it there and Lord knows I could use the time alone.  She is very, very clingy.  Her preschool teacher told me yesterday that she kept faking falling down and then putting her arms up to be held.  I don't know, I hope it's all a phase.  I hope she likes going to preschool two days a week, I hope we can learn to get along.

I hope it's not me, that they are so awful around two.  Maria and Veronica were total grumps too, but is it because I'm so grumpy?  I don't know.  I hope it all gets better.

There are good things too - she is incredibly cute.  She loves to walk up the sidewalk to preschool by herself.  She races in to the building and points out the animals on this big mural that's there.  TIGER!, she yells, BUTTAFLY!  Then she leaves and goes to run to her classroom.  BYE MAMA, BYE!, she yells and I go.  She is talking more and more which is of course a great relief.  She can do more by herself.  She is going through the typical Beck Girl Nakedness Phase, eschewing all clothes, which is cute.  She is a wonderful sleeper and goes to bed just fine, bye Mia!, she says, bye Ca Ca!  She's really almost perfect in every way, it's just the ways that aren't perfect that are driving me to drink.