In like a lion and out like a...well, not exactly a lamb. The rain is starting up again, the middle of the month had some warm sun, and the beginning of the month was cold and dry except for the day it snowed. The daffodils are blooming and tulips are close behind now. My mower needs a tune up and moss needs to be killed. The girls helped me pull weeds, and we're getting our ducts vacuumed. The snow is still pretty good on the mountain, and the ski season was officially lengthened one more month. It must be spring.
Phoebe's lead item has to be her potty training. This month she's been a whole other little girl compared to before. She hasn't had any accidents, she has done nap time in just panties several times, and she even requested to not wear pull-ups to bed over night. We told her if she can make it an entire week without wetting her pull-up, we'd give it try. She's made it 3 days so far at the end of the month. The beginning of the month was, of course, Phoebe's 3rd birthday. Papa and Grandma came over for dinner. She finished her chocolate cupcake after she had Papa help blow out her candle. She got some more great gifts that she has been enjoying playing with in turn.
Ellen continues to read quite well. She has times when she doesn't want to try, but she does a really good job otherwise. She is writing too. She wrote a pretty long letter in one of her activity books. I don't remember why it came up, but Ellen was telling me about what she wants to do when she grows up. Ellen's future job is a ballet, swim, soccer, and music teacher. Basically, she wants to work for the parks district. In her roll as a music teacher, she'll have drums, tambourines, a guitar, piano, and "maybe a bass".
Phoebe and Ellen both had their check ups this month. They're both healthy. Phoebe almost peed in a cup, but as soon as she got started she froze when I tried to get the cup down there. Ellen, meanwhile, had no trouble peeing in the cup other than when she peed on my hand. (I didn't even freak out. That's one of the many tests of fatherhood, I guess. With many more to come). Here are their stats:
Ellen
weight: 39 lbs, 6oz
height: 42.5"Phoebe
weight: 31 lbs, 11oz
height: 37 1/8"
Phoebe went first with the shots. She only had to get one this time around. It was quick, and she was over it pretty quickly. Ellen had to have 4 shots this time around when we thought that she didn't have any pending. But it was time for all the regular vaccinations before heading into kindergarten. She didn't want to get the shots, but she was brave about it. She climbed up and laid down on the table. I just held her arms to keep her from grabbing at the needles. She cried and screamed that she didn't want them, but she didn't try to run away. They got stickers and popsicles for their trouble, and we took them out to their favorite restaurant for dinner.
They both had dentist appointments this month. They're both doing great in the dental realm as well. No cavities. Phoebe still doesn't like to get flossed or use toothpaste. Ellen's mouth is too small for the X-Rays.
Parties continue this month with a group party with our friends with 2 kids that have birthdays around the same time. We all met up at Red Robin. They brought the girls some hand-me-down Groovy Girls. They all had sundae's and balloons around their ears. It was a good time. Then one of Phoebe's friends from school had a basketball themed party. She was the only girl at the party, so the little birthday boy picked out a pink ball especially for her. There was a yellow ball for Ellen too, but Ellen couldn't go due to lack of sleep induced crabbiness. The night before the party, Ellen had her first sleep over. She and her friend slept on Ellen's floor in sleeping bags. They didn't sleep at all. They were giggling constantly and scaring each other about the Leprechauns in the house (which there weren't, obviously, since they all went back to Ireland after St. Patrick's day...Duh!). Luckily we kept Phoebe in her own room so that she could sleep. Anyway, Ellen was pretty uncontrollable all the next morning, so we didn't let her go to the birthday party. That night she had the worst melt down on record. I think it could be heard from space. By next morning, she was better so that was good. At any rate, it'll be while before we try a sleep over again.
Jada had an overnight away this month too for her People for Improvement of Education conference so I had a night home with the kids all on my lonesome. I took them to see a puppet show at the library from the book "Anansi and the moss covered rock". The girls really enjoyed it. The kids were very good for me. I'm pretty sure that Jada didn't sleep all that much that night either, but she'll probably get to stay over night again another time.
Both girls got to go to a zoo class this month also. They went to see the African animals this time. It was rainy, so the giraffe was inside, and the zebras weren't doing much. But the hippos were fun. We got to watch them go in and out of the water which is pretty impressive. Then we all went back to the class room (the people, not the hippos) and we did a bunch of projects and stories. The teacher pretty much emptied out the cupboard as the kids emptied the contents onto the huge giraffe mural on the floor. It was a huge mess, but all the kids had a really good time making it as you can well imagine.
With the winter weather hanging on in the mountains, we decided to get a couple more weekends out of it. We all went snowshoeing again. The weather was perfect. It had snowed over night, so we had first tracks on the first half of the trail. Ellen did a good job again. Phoebe lasted longer in the back pack this time, but then at the end she didn't want to play in the snow. She was likely hungry since before we started she was having fun walking around dumping snow on my head while I was getting everyone's snowshoes buckled. Then we all went over the Huckleberry Inn for some pancakes. The following weekend, just Jada and I went up skiing. We ended up having a great day with light snow all day. After a couple runs down the bunny slope, we headed up to the top of the slopes on the new high speed quad lift. We got a lot of runs in so we were pretty tired by noon. Jada and I also got in a couple nice bike rides this month. (64 miles so far.) Thanks to Grandma for watching the kids for those excursions.
Finally, spring break came. I ended up taking 2 days off, and we headed to the beach. Jada managed to get the last room available in Cannon Beach. It was a little "cottage" at the SurfSand Resort. The girls got their own beds and room, and for the first time they both fell asleep very quickly. Well, Phoebe took a little longer, but still. They were in the same room, and they fell asleep. We took lots of trips to the beach. We managed to just miss the rain too. The girls made sand castles, we walked down the beach, the girls crawled in the sand on hands and knees as if they'd been wandering through the desert for weeks, and dug in the sand trying to get to China. The morning that we left, we went down to Haystack Rock to look into the tide pools. We got to see anemone's, barnacles, and star fish. There were volunteers down there pointing things out and answering questions. We happened to find some volunteers collecting sand crabs that didn't make it back to the water and had died. So they took them down to feed to the anemones. It was pretty cool. They enclose the crab with their tentacles and absorb them. They describe them as upside-down jelly fish.
All in all, it was a pretty busy month. Only one thing left...Happy Birthday, Nana!
Journal entry: March 31, 2006