25 Things About Ellie

1. I am almost two and a half, and I'm lovin' life. I bring my parents a ton of joy, with my giggles and my new big words, and I also bring them a lot of mischief! I am stubborn and strong-willed for sure, but I have a huge heart and I love people.
2. I am all about ME these days. I am not big on sharing, especially with new friends that come over. If sharing is a game, like I share with you, then you share with me, and so on, then I like it and I am very sweet. But if you mean I have to share my toy with you for any length of time, I don’t like that at all.

3. I love the word, “MINE.” I use it often. Along with a hundred other words…apparently I speak good or somethin’.
4. I am quite the sassy pants. I love to be sassy with my mom just to see what happens.
5. When my mommy instructs me to look at her, in her eyes, I like to look at the top of her forehead and smirk. This has not worked out too well for me, and has landed me a few spankings. I still do it though…we’ll see who holds out longer on this one.

6. My mommy keeps using this word “respect” and I am not sure that I understand. Mommy’s not sure that I understand either but she keeps using it so it must be important. At this point though…I could care less.

7. I love to do everything that Jack does. If he doesn’t like his dinner, then I won’t eat mine, either. If he has to go potty, then I like to go potty too. Forget Baby Einstein…I love to watch Little Einsteins with Jack and I even sing along to all the words! And we also like Wonder Pets. No, I LOVE the Wonder Pets; Jack and I are often found singing that theme song at the top of our lungs. Speaking of…

8. I love to sing! I sing a lot during the day. One of my current favorites is “Real Gone” by Sheryl Crow, especially the part when she says “UH” in the middle (and I do it perfectly in rhythm). Before you judge my parents for letting me listen to hard rock at my age…it’s the first song on the Disney movie “Cars,” and mommy has it on her iTunes mix. As soon as we get into the car I start begging, “TARS! TARS!” And then Jack says, “Turn it up! Loud, Mommy!” and we all jam. My mom and dad think it’s especially funny when we sing things like, “Baby you were screaming it’s a blast, blast, blast.”

9. I also love to play the piano. I am actually quite good for my age, and my hands seem to perfectly fit on the keys and my mommy and daddy are so impressed. My mommy taught me a few little things and I am SO PROUD of myself when I do it! If you ever come over, ask me to play “1-2, 1-2, 1-2” and I will show you!
10. I love my pink blankie. I can’t sleep without it. When I was really little I called it “Daddy.” It took my mom and dad so long to figure out that I was talking about my blankie. Then I started to call it “Ducky.” Then, awhile later I called it “Monkey.” They were so confused! Now, I affectionately call it “Ah-llie’s BUNKIE.” For some reason this warms my mom’s heart to pieces.

11. I am SO not into Disney princesses! Forget Cinderella or Jasmine or Belle…Lightning, Woody, and Sully are my favs! I also love Thomas.
12. Despite my ignorance of all things princess, I do love my baby dolls. I love to pretend feed them, and my mommy thinks it so funny that I pretend to breastfeed through my tummy. I love to dress them up, and I get SO VERY FRUSTRATED when I can’t get their clothes on just right.

13. I love my baby sister Samantha. We play together a lot and she loves to laugh at me. I am very kind and sweet to her, and love to brush her hair, help Mommy with her diaper changes, and put her socks on and off. We sometimes even hold hands in the car. I think that someday we’ll be good friends.

14. I am a snuggler. I like to snuggle with Mommy in her bed in the morning and on the couch after my afternoon nap. We snuggle before bedtime, and of course my Bunkie has to be there, too.
15. I wake up a lot at night still. More than Samantha even. My mommy and daddy can’t figure out why, and I’m not sure either. Sometimes I get hot and sweaty, sometimes I have bad dreams, sometimes maybe I have what mommy and daddy call night terrors. I also seem to have a supernatural sense of the exact moment that mommy and daddy get into bed and get comfortable…and I wait right until that moment to startle them with my screaming. I think they are a little creeped out by how often it works, haha!

16. I love my friends at church. I have little friends that I play with in the nursery, like Carter, Gabbee, Hayley, and Allison. It is so fun to have friends my age. But I also have big friends, like Miss Amy and Mr. Brandon, and Miss Emily and Mr. Michael. And Miss Terra. I love to see them at church each week!
17. Speaking of church…my favorite thing about being in the service with mommy and daddy is singing. I sing very loudly. I love to hold the hymnal and pretend to follow along. I do NOT like it if mommy holds it for me. For some reason a lot of people turn and look at me and smile when I sing. I guess it’s a nice thing to do. But I especially like it when everyone else stops singing so I can sing loudly by myself. (But my mom and dad don’t like this very much.)

18. My hair is naturally curly. In the winter it has been much straighter, but recently we had our first fifty-degree day and it suddenly got curly again. Sometimes I watch my mommy do her hair; I love it when she stops to help me do mine. Sometimes she even straightens my hair with her flat iron and boy do I think I’m something else!
19. I LOVE LOVE LOVE to pick out my own clothes. I have a fabulous sense of fashion that my mom just doesn’t understand. I also love to change my underwear throughout the day—just to mix things up a bit. I don’t think my mom gets how fun this is. She’s always mumbling about how much she does NOT enjoy sniffing my underwear to figure out if it’s headed for the laundry room or back to my drawer. What a killjoy.

20. I want to go to school so badly. Every time we drop Jack off I ask my mom if it’s my turn, and I’m getting so tired of waiting. His teacher always says hi to me and then I tell mommy, “Brinley say hi!” and mommy laughs. (My mom says I have to wait a whole other year before I can go to school…I have no idea how long that is.)

21. I love my Papa and Grandma. After we take Jack to school we go to pick up my Grandma, and I LOVE to see her.
22. Apparently I have a real “zest” for life. My mom and dad often say that I remind them of my Nana (Daddy’s mom). I am spunky, a bit of a rebel, and have seemingly no inhibitions (are you impressed by my big word?). I have been known to run around in the rain in only a diaper, run through the snow in bare feet, and even to paint on the wall. I think life is going to be so fun!

23. My favorite snack is probably either fishy crackers or popsicles. My mommy is so sad that I have learned to say “pishy tatters” rather than what I used to call them (“teekee boppers”).
24. I am very resourceful. If the light is out in my room I will run to the bathroom and get my step stool so I can turn it on. Or I ask Jack to do it for me, and I always say, “Thank you, Jack!!” I also am very good at finding ways to get onto the kitchen counter to get things mommy has told me I’m not allowed to have!

25. I love to dance. Especially to Sheryl Crow.

Ummm....

I can't recall if I've mentioned this on our blog before or not, but Ellie has been really fighting us on wanting to stand up to pee (wanting to be just like Jack). Apparently so much so that Eric finally sat her down the other night and tried to explain the phenomenon of girls and boys having different "parts," and that because her "part" is different she has to SIT on the potty to go pee-pee. Not knowing this, it took me FOREVER to figure out what she was saying the other night while she was going potty, but I finally realized she was saying the V word. (I am not uncomfortable with these words but my friend Kim will pass out for all eternity if she reads those words so I will refrain. For Kim's sake. If she still reads my blog. Does anyone still read my blog? I digress.)

The thing is, the V word came out of Ellie's mouth sounding like "Jonah," which just so happens to be Jack's favorite Veggie Tales movie. So he overheard us talking about what SOUNDED like "Jonah" and came running into the bathroom to see what we were talking about. So then I'm standing there wondering how far to go with this discussion, when Jack starts to point to himself, down there, and saying what sounded like, "Jonah." I just couldn't help myself.

Me: "No honey, you don't have a V. You have a P."

Ellie: "Jack no Jonah. Jack have PEE-nisp."

Jack: "No, no! I have Jonah, too! Mommy, mommy, look, I have Jonah, too!"

Me: "No sweetie...girls like Mommy and Samantha and Ellie are different from boys like you and Daddy. God made us different, isn't that cool?"

Ellie: "Yeah."

Jack: "NOOOO!"

Awkward silence.

Jack: (pulls down pants and looks between his legs) "LOOK!!! My JONAH!!!!"

I laughed so hard that I think he got upset and I felt like the worst mother ever. Then I found myself uttering words I never dreamed of to my three-year-old son,

Me: "Okay, honey. You have a V too."

Jack: (through tears) "Thank you really much, Mommy."

I have no idea if I did the right thing or the wrong thing, but man...I had to get this one down on paper! (I mean, on a server somewhere?)

So far I don't have the best track record with these discussions...it will be interesting (terrifying?) to see how I do when the "How can I be part of you and part of daddy" questions come 'round. Yikes.

Durbin Family Check-In

SAMANTHA: practically perfect in every way; now has two roommates under the age of four that she's learning to sleep with.
ELLIE: pink eye, pink eye, and more pink eye; top molars coming in.
JACK: pink eye and sinus infection, missed school all week.
ANNIKA: emergency root canal on Tuesday; Unwilling Administrator of pink eye medicine; exhausted mother.
ERIC: missed two mornings of work for poor wife with toothache; Body Holder for pink eye medicine distribution; has somehow avoided getting neither a cold NOR an infected tooth (despite his lack of flossing, which really annoys wife).

Happy Wednesday from the Durbins!

I wonder if God ever feels like crying

Today was a really frustrating day. I found myself short with the kids and easily exasperated. Granted, I am still low on sleep these days, and the kids (and Eric) are sick and so once again we are up multiple times during the night. So I know that being tired and exhausted is a set-up for being short-tempered and impatient.

But what really got to me today was the exhaustion of teaching my kids...and their seeming unwillingness...inability...to learn. How many times will it take before my kids learn that it's not okay to hit each other? Or push their sister down? Or to come when I call them? Or to ask politely for something rather than just demanding it? How many spankings later will it dawn on them...Oh, so THIS is what Mom meant about not hitting...

Grrrr. As the annoyed attitude set in and the thought, "I'm so tired of saying this only to have them do it again" crossed my mind, I just wanted to scream with frustration. I feel like the mom in all the Dobson books who can be seen escalating in her volume and irritation and who finally blows her top and, yelling not-thought-out things at her kids, sends the snickering, unfazed kids to their rooms... It's so easy to see the fault in the situation when reading it in the parenting book. I can spot her errors and see where she went wrong. But when it's me? Not so easy...I find myself having to step back or walk away, collect myself, reexamine the situation and cool down...and often I have to look at my child's behavior and attempt to trace it back to an earlier incident (no nap, not enough attention from me, poor lunch, disappointment over being told no, etc.) and take that into account for their current behavior.

But sometimes...I just can't figure them out. For example, Jack has been really pushy with Samantha lately. He will NOT share his toys with her at all, in fact he is really bothered if she has ANY toy besides her baby toys. So when it's just the two of them awake, he drives me crazy by taking everything away from her that she tries to play with. In addition to that, he likes to push her down when she pulls up on the couch. I don't know if it's some kind of jealousy issue, or if he's just learning to play with a baby again, but I feel like all I've said to him the past few days is, "Do not push your sister down. Please don't take toys away from Samantha." We talk about how it might hurt her, or how it's not very kind to take toys away from someone else while they're playing, etc. But then he's back to his antics shortly after.

These parenting frustrations remind me that I am so very human, when I get exhausted with this repetitive misbehavior and I just want to quit. Or apply for a mental health day. I'm so thankful that God doesn't quit on me or lose his cool or get so exasperated that he yells at me unkindly when I repeatedly disobey, and don't learn my lessons as quick as I wish I did. How I need his gracious patience these days!

We're also going a bit stir-crazy in our house these winter days. I can't always let Jack play with the toys or puzzles that he wants to because of the small pieces that are a hazard to Samantha. And I can't always let him and Ellie do the same craft project because Ellie will paint herself, the walls, the piano, and her baby sister before she'll paint on paper. In fact, I tried to let them paint the other day and Ellie twice took the bowl of rinsing water and poured it onto her painting pad.

Ellie is a whole other issue, probably worth another entire post. Boy, does this child have a strong will! Lately we are working on speaking respectfully to Mommy and Daddy...she is really pushing the limits. When I tell her that it's time for her nap (after usually giving her some warning a few minutes before) she says in her most sassy voice, "NO, Mommy: TWO MINUTES." Ooooooh. And when I remind her that she needs to obey, she still has that drag-my-feet-like-molasses syndrome going. I feel strongly that it is important to teach respect at this point...not to let her disrespectful treatment of me and Eric go or to laugh it off (although there are days it's hard not to laugh...other days like today, I want to cry!). But we didn't deal with this type of disrespect with Jack; he would disobey, yes, and had a stubbornness in him, yes, but not this level that we're seeing come out in Ellie! Holy cow.

Do you ever just feel like you second-guess yourself all day long? Some days I feel outnumbered by my kids and their developmental needs...and knowing the right thing for each one. I know that I'm not perfect--and no one is, duh--but I want to do an excellent job at this motherhood thing and, well, today was really hard.

One fantastic thing about my day: surprise visit from SK and family on their way home from Mexico! I have cute pictures of the kids with Sophia that I'll have to post later...nap time is over!

Happy Weekend!

I AM SO PROUD

Jack wrote his name for the very first time last night! He's been able to write a "J" for awhile now, and then last night he suddenly wrote an "A" and then a "C" without any help. But he kept writing "J-A-C-A," so we worked on the "K" for awhile and he finally got it! I was so excited, and he was THRILLED. We then proceeded to write out the entire alphabet; I was sure he would get bored and want to stop but he just kept going. When we got to "W" he said to Eric, "Almost done, Daddy!" After we wrote our "Z" a few times, which took some time, he said, "Letters so fun, Mommy!"

I am not one of those moms that has been banging this over his head, but he has become more and more fascinated with it recently. And I admit...the teacher side of me was even more excited than the mom side. I started to day dream about getting him one of those little drawing books with the letters at the top of the page, and then I suddenly stopped. He's only three and half, for crying out loud.

From the summer

We'll be back soon...

Oh, my. Am I ever having technical difficulties! As evidenced by the post below, I'm trying to get my pictures to post through Flickr, which I've been assured (by many a well-meaning friend) is an easy process. But so far I am not doing so well! Hang tight with us as we get things sorted out...one of these days I'll get Christmas pictures up, as well as bunch of blog-worthy pictures I've been collecting for awhile.

Hello again

Well, Merry Christmas, Happy New Years, Happy Valentines Day...what month are we in?

Life has swept us into a whirlwind of family visits and holiday busyness and alas, the blog has once again been neglected. Not forgotten, just put low on our (my) priority list.

But we're back! And we have a large backlog of pictures waiting to be posted, so hopefully I can get to that in a few days. I have been kept very occupied with photography work this past month or two, which as been good for us financially but really hard on our schedules. I have been working almost every night, and the nights I don't work on photography I teach piano lessons. Eric has been working extra shifts on Saturdays, and we feel like the old cliche about ships passing in the night...

Eric's Dad and Connie visited in early December; we had a great weekend with them, including a wonderful dinner out at Houlihans (without kids!), Christmas tree shopping and decorating, photography help from Marc, lots of good conversation...it was so good to see them again, and the kids often point out Papa Marc and Grandma Connie in their picture on the fridge. Their Christmas present to us was a membership to the children's museum here and we are so excited to put our passes to good use! It is a fantastic museum full of hands-on activities, and Jack and Ellie are finally at ages where they will be totally enthralled by it. We were planning to go last week until the girls got sick...hopefully soon!

A day after they left my sister and Jonathan arrived with Mikaila and Soli; they were here for two weeks, in which we packed all kinds of interesting and fun activities, including deep-dish pizza downtown Chicago, cookie baking and decorating, looking at the story windows at Macy's in the freezing cold, riding the kids' train at the mall (even Soli, although he fell off the seat at the very end and bonked his head pretty hard), Christmas Eve together at church, wrapping presents for the kids, late-night talks, movie night, a wonderful Christmas day together, delicious ham dinner, sledding, and general merriment. The kids had such a good time together, once we worked out a few sharing and "being gentle" issues... They had great fun and it was so moving to me to see all the grandkids enjoying each other's company.

After their visit, Ellie and Samantha got sick (double ear infection and bacterial infection) so we've been a bit out of it for the past few weeks. As the rest of society gets back into the swing of things this week...we are trying!

(I had some pictures to upload with this post but blogger is "not responding" to my "request" so I guess we'll have to try later.)

Hope you are having a good Wednesday wherever this finds you, and that your caffeine-withdrawl headache is not as bad as mine.

Pure three-year-old genius

A few nights ago Jack threw a massive tantrum at the arrival of a cheese quesadilla on his dinner plate instead of the cheese sandwich he had been hoping for. He knew that a special ice cream treat followed dinner, and seeing as how he was not about to eat this dinner, well...you could see the wheels rolling in his head. Thrashing and screaming and kicking and stiffening...he brought out the works. He had a few time outs in his room to calm down, but each were followed by fairly quick retreats back into tantrum posture upon seeing that the quesadilla was still sitting on his plate. We were, as usual, busy with the other kids and so we let him roll around on the floor for awhile. Suddenly I realized he had stopped crying and was walking toward me carrying pieces of his quesadilla. He handed me a piece with a sweet, "Here Mommy" and then handed one to Eric. Then he announced, "Okay, people? Eat the dinner." Eric and I tried to stiffle our explosive laughter at his manipulative skills & creative out-sourcing plan for his dinner...but then reminded him that HE had to eat his own dinner...and he then took his tantrumming to new levels of screaming. We ended up putting him to bed without dinner, and as we were walking out we heard him say, "Okay (the way he prefaces so many comments these days): next time? Eat the cheese sandwich."

My other favorite comments from this week:

MOM: "Jack, it's time for bed."

JACK: "Um, no thank you bedtime!"

AND

JACK: "Ellie, it's time for nap!" (which he looks forward to so he can do special things with mommy like bake cookies and play outside in the snow)

MOM: "Jackson, I am the mommy. You don't tell Ellie what to do."

JACK: "Okay, Mommy. You say, "Ellie, take a nap!""

And while we're at it...my current favorite Ellie phrases:

"tink-oo" (thank you)
"dee-beckum" (you're welcome)
"DaDa bake up!" (Samantha wake up)
"Deddie Tay-ohs" (veggie tales)
"brock-ery" (broccoli)
"tucker" (sucker)
"teekee boppers" (fishy crackers)
"Ah-llie" (Ellie) (she pronounces her name better at 2 than Jack does at 3 1/2; he still calls her "Eh-yee"!

I love these stages of language development!

So I'll just tag on here, since I never know when I'll have more time to blog...Samantha is army-crawling, almost sitting up by herself, laughing, eating solid foods, and got her first tooth on Thanksgiving day! What a big girl. We also have somehow skipped right over the 3-6 months clothing size...she was 0-3 for almost 6 months and now is almost entirely in 6-9 or 6-12! Strange. We are loving this stage with her except that she is DYING to get out of our arms, even though she can't really go anywhere, but she lunges all over the place. She's a hard one to hold still these days.

We have been crazy-busy this past week (I had four photo shoots) so we took a family day yesterday; spent the morning at the Arboretum hiking in the snowfall--so beautiful. Enjoyed a model train display, and then had lunch together as a family. What a relaxing day and a wonderful way to end the Thanksgiving Break--so thankful. We hope you all had a wonderful celebration, too.

Oh--I CANNOT sign off without letting you all (whoever even keeps up with us anymore!) know that we got a settlement for our luggage loss! We are VERY thankful for that, and I now have some new shoes and a few new shirts and fleeces, and Eric got TWO new suits at a buy one/get one sale! We are so thankful to have that all resolved and to be able to replace a few of the things we lost and get a few things we've been needing.

And now...I'm off to bed! Happy Tuesday.