This Week

This week has been ... difficult, that's the word I'm looking for. See also: Long, tiring, insane. 

Genevieve, although she is an angel during the day (minus the won't-take-a-nap nonsense), has decided she cannot sleep at night unless I am holding her, and even if I do that, she wakes up screaming about every half hour. I am hoping it is a good old fashioned sleep disturbance combined with being overtired from not sleeping well during the day and not that she is in pain from the gut stuff (things are about the same with all that). Plus, since Josephine has been waking her up at 7 in the morning (Genevieve would prefer to sleep in until 9), she is a tired mess all morning. I just made my FOURTH attempt at putting her down for a nap, and a certain older sister has woken her up within minutes every time. And I just discovered that my cloth diapers are repelling (MAYDAY!), so don't mind me, I'll just be putting Josephine in her insanely expensive overnight disposables while I get these all stripped and working again, all while nobody sleeps. La dee da da!

Anyway, this week wasn't all bad, and it wasn't even terrible. One of the things that gets me through the tough weeks are the hilarious things Josephine has been doing and saying lately. I feel like my life is just a series of vignettes with her. She's all funny little episodes and one-liners that I have dutifully been trying to record.

Commence vignettes.

***

The other day Josephine was very upset and also, apparently, thought she was being ignored, and she ... well, she bit yours truly. When I did the "NO! Never again" and all that jazz, she immediately dropped to all fours, made her dinosaur face -- have you seen it? It's this:

and said, "But my a dinosaur, mama! Dinosaurs HAVE to bite! They have to!"

***

Every morning when reaching into the plastic bin full of the nutrigrain bars to which she is hopelessly addicted, she rummages around all of the bars that are the exact same flavor, s-l-o-w-l-y and carefully considering each (identical) one, then finally (blessedly) chooses one, and bursts into a huge smile, telling me "Oh, dat's a BEAUTIFUL one!"

***

Sitting and happily painting, she looked up, very pleased, and shouted, "Cowboy monkey!" All I could say was "...what?" She repeated, with the same enthusiasm  "Cowboy monkey!" When I asked her "What does that ... mean?" she shrugged and said, "Cowboy monkey."

Well, that settles that.

***

The other day, Genevieve crawled into Jeremy's lap, and she shouted, "Oh no, baby! Dat's MY daddy!"

All I can say about that is ... oh dear.

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When I take a picture of her, she often does this funny little old man laugh ("Huh huh huh!") and tells me "Dat's a GOOD ONE!" (before she's even seen it)

***

She's really into birthdays, and every week when they ask at storyhour if it is anyone's birthday that week, she raises her hand and shouts "MY BIRTHDAY!" So lately she has been shouting "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!" at me at random times during the day, while handing me a "gift" (either a random object or an imaginary gift), and she just looks so dang pleased when I accept. 

***

She has this crazy ball popper that shoots balls in a "unpredictable manner" (as described by the box), and they often roll under the TV stand and couch. This morning we were looking for some missing balls and I spied one under the TV stand. I pointed it out to Josie and told her to grab it, and she said, "Uhhh, maybe MAMA do it." When I encouraged her to try herself, she said, "But it so FAR FAR AWAY, mama!" When she finally deigned to get down on the floor and try to reach it, she barely extended her arm and did the whole "Ughhh! I just cannot manage!" thing even though she had barely reached an inch under the TV stand. "Mama better at it!" she told me. Flattery gets you everywhere. (Except, no, the ball is still there, because I know she can reach it herself) :)

***

She has started answering her own requests in the affirmative: "Please my have a snack, please?" "Ummm, SURE!" and if that doesn't work right away, she smiles and tells me "That's a nice way to ask!" (what I tell her when she asks nicely and means I'm about to give her whatever she asked for. And yes, she does the double-please thing when she really wants to lay it on thick. She knows what she's doing)

***

Jeremy and Josie sit and eat breakfast together on the weekends and Jeremy reads the paper while she eats her cereal. This Sunday, when they got back from sledding and she was sitting and drinking the requisite hot cocoa ("hot gogo"), Jeremy went to toss the paper in the recycling and she stopped him because she needed to see Garfield.

***

Lately she has been telling us a lot about her feelings, and it charms me to no end to hear her say things like "That makes me happy!" and "That makes me excited!" This morning, I was making two stuffed puppies lick her face at the same time, and she kept asking me to "try again" ("do it again" in Josie-speak), then she stopped and told me "That makes me ... WILD!" We stopped that game.

***

As I was typing this, she kept shouting a word at me, after asking her to repeat it about twenty times, I finally heard "Vra-ka." I asked her, are you calling me "Veronica?" to which she sighed, and replied, "Yes, Vra-ka. YES."

***

And hey, why don't I just dump all my favorite photos from this week here, too? YOU'RE WELCOME.

Making snowballs with daddy:

I wasn't sure the first picture turned out, since she was running at me, so I kept asking her to hold up her snowball so I could get another picture. This is what I got:

Making squeeze-and-mash cookies with Grandma. Best cookie recipe ever for little kids!:

She told me her rocket was too tired from blasting off and needed a break to watch Super Why:

God, she's cute:

She wanted to feel all the fabric. She deemed it "fuzzy" (not "soft," like Grandma suggested):

 OH, the SHOCK at the idea of Genevieve touching her dollhouse!:

She eventually got over it. Well, she still held her doll in her mouth to keep it safe from her sister, but better:

I posted this on facebook and Instagram before I even realized I wasn't wearing make-up. Huh.

Another avocado lover in the family (it's Josie's favorite):

She just likes food in general (like her mom):

Baby model:

The girls were being all snuggly and cute this morning, so I got the camera. And got ... this:

Love these girls. It seems as if Genevieve is up from her 15-minute nap, so I must be on my way. Share a favorite moment from your week in the comments for me?