Should I be concerned that my middle daughter has an imaginary Mom?

Yes, you read that correctly, she has an imaginary Mom. She asked this Mom a question today, which I answered. I got told right quick, 'No Mom, I'm asking Mom.' She proceeds to point to thin air. Oh, ok, so sorry. ~l~

After that I listened to her ask her new Mom all sorts of questions. Giggling in response, telling her she's wonderful. I guess an imaginary Mom who says yes to everything is better then a real Mom who won't let you jump on the furniture, have any snack you want, or make a cage for your baby sister out of a pile of pillows.

Oh and Ischa, the evil imaginary friend who gets Anna into trouble, her speech has improved and she has recently been revealed as Isa the Iguana from Dora the Explorer. I knew that sweet little lizard had a mean streak in her. :P

One more note about Anna. She has a new excuse for bad behavior. It is all my fault, Dad's fault and Katy's fault. Why? Because we won't let her go to school. Sibling rivalry/jealousy pops up once again. She's not very happy that we don't except that as a good reason to misbehave.

Thankfully, that excuse ends in just one week, at least til school starts up again next Fall.

I have a reader.....

My Katy is reading! She still needs a bit of help when she reaches new words, but she is able to sound out most words with just a little encouragement from Mike. I knew she had been improving by practicing the word books that she would bring home from school, but I got to hear her read along with Mike the other night a brand new book from the library. She read most of the words with little to no help.

Words really can not describe how proud we are of that little girl.

Going cruising.....

Tara just loves to cruise. All along the couch, the chairs, she's happier trying to play with the toys on her ultra saucer from the outside, then sitting in it. She has become quite comfy with letting go while standing so it is just a matter of time before she is walking. I figure by the time we are heading to my youngest brother's graduation Tara will be completely independent.

Mike discovered today just how fast she can be. He had left Ms Tara in the middle of what is a good sized living room, walked up three stairs to the kitchen, went to replace the trash bag, and was being called by the other girls to inform him that Tara was near the stairs. No way she is that fast he thinks, so a moment later he is being informed that Tara is upstairs. He turns to find a very happy little girl smiling and waving at him from the top of the stairs.

I warned him, but now he knows I'm not making it up. ~l~

I love You Tube!

So I am trying to teach myself to knit. There is so much really lovely looking handspun, dyed and painted yarn on Etsy that I would love to have a use for it/reason to buy. So I got a book, a pair of needles and a couple skeins of nice but cheap cotton yarn. The book is useless. The tutorial I found online was good for the casting on stitch, but the pictures from that point on looked like they were taken from space. Then I remembered You Tube. Two minutes later I had watched a very concise and visually easy to follow tutorial on the knit stitch. I may actually be able to do this! I flunked out on teaching myself how to crochet. Then again, I didn't have You Tube and video tutorials, so maybe if knitting works out I'll try using my crochet hooks for more then clay.

Its been a long week,

Mike is working a bit of overtime right now and so of course its the perfect time for kids to get sick. This time the littlest one with her first major cold. She's had the sniffles once, but this is the first one that has really knocked her down. She wants to be held all the time, doesn't want to go down at night til she passing out on me. So not much done this week, not much remembered this week either. :D

I am currently being entertained while Anna pretends she is going to bed, at the beach, while having a tea party and going to a birthday party. Yes, all those things are going on at the same time. Katy has one imaginary friend, this friend has two younger sisters and a mom and dad. Anna has a gang of friends. Every other day she adds a new one. Some are fun like Orky the penguin and Lemon. Then there is one who has had to be banished back to wherever imaginary friends come from on occasion. Ischa(its a made up name, I don't know if I'm spelling it right, :) ), is a trouble maker. Whenever Anna does something she should not, its Ischa who tells her to do it.

I'm not sure if its cute or scary. (lol)

What a nice quiet day......

I had a very lovely, but quiet weekend. Well, as quiet as it can be with three little ones at home. I received several lovely cards and a gardenia plant that is smelling better everyday as I impatiently wait for it to bloom. Mike took both Anna and Tara out on Friday so that I had the house completely to myself for two full hours!! Saturday, I enjoyed a quiet day with one of my very favorite meals for dinner.

Mother's Day itself started with homemade French Toast, followed by my gift from Katy. A pretty picture of a teapot she made in preschool. It came with a packet of lemon tea which I will gamely drink tomorrow morning before she heads off to school. You see, I really do not like lemon in my tea. I will drink it for her though, she was too proud of her gift not to. No one says I have to fill the cup to the brim. Midday had me off in search of something to wear to my youngest brother's graduation next month. A task that isn't that fun being only 8mths postpartum with a complicated cesarean making weight loss a slow, slow process. I did find something pretty so it wasn't as painful as I feared. :)

Dinner of shrimp and steak rounded off my evening before it was time to get the girls off to bed.

Now, all the girls are finally to bed, so I should do the same!

Hope everyone's Mother's Day was as lovely!

What's that you say Tara, you have a Mother's Day present for me?

The other day I was on the floor with the girls. Letting my youngest Tara crawl around me, and play with whatever she could find that was safe to pat, chew and toss, when she crawled over to me, patted me on the leg and clear as day said, 'Mum.' What? Did you say Mum, Mum? Really, Mum? I tried very hard to get her to say it again, but nothing. I was sure at this point I was making too much of it and she had accidentally stumbled on that sound since she had been experimenting with buhbye for a couple days before.

You see, Katy's first words consisted of owe(Zoe), Da(Dad), Hi and Buhbye. Anna's were the same except for the order was slightly shifted. Mom/Mum was WAY down the list. So I've been waiting for Tara's first words with hope that I would rank in the top ten this time. ~l~

Fully aware that I must have misheard in my desire to hear her say my name, I told Mike about how I had to have misheard her because she did not repeat it at all the rest of the day though she was quite happy to say Buhbye, attempt Hi when she greeted her Dad and will wave at anyone willing to indulge her.

Then Tuesday night as we are all piled up on the bed in our bedroom, reading stories and trying to get the girls ready for bed, Tara with arms wide open lunges at me with another loud Mum! Mike heard it, I'm not hearing things, she said Mum! So I may not be her first word, and if you count the breathy, elongated Hi, not her second, but I rank top three! The best Mother's Day gift I could get!

It wasn't a fluke,

she is off, she is gone, loving the freedom of self mobility. I know I've went through this twice before but I just find it amazing how fast a baby can move on all fours. One moment you are putting them down to finish something that literally takes two seconds, but requires two free hands and then look down to find they are across the room about ready to pounce on a piece of fuzz tracked in by the older kids.

Crawling is not enough though, oh no, we added sitting on our own just after we started crawling. I guess getting up once we are at our destination isn't so hard after we've mastered moving. Then once we got ourselves seated, we realized that there is stuff higher then we can see and we must see it. So we have also mastered pulling up to a standing position. We do not have balance mastered yet so most often it results in returning instantly to the seated position. Her sisters were up and walking by 8 and 9 mths so if she keeps trying I should have a fully mobile baby by June/July. Heaven help me.