Addison's 2014 Christmas Wish List

Lets be honest, 4 year olds, they want EVERYTHING that they see.  Every commercial, every toy, everything.

This year we really didn't know what to get her because, again, let's be honest here, she has EVERYTHING she could want and then some.  Two parents who buy them everything because we can.  The kids want for nothing.

But when we told her she had to come up with something to tell Santa when she saw him, these are a few of the things she mentioned along with a few other things she's told me she wants.

Ninja Turtle "STUFF"

Anna & Elsa Dolls

Puppy Surprise, The purple one.  Anyone remember these from what the 90's??

Addison You're FOUR!

Addison,

Everyone says it, it sounds so unbelievably dumb, but how in the world has time gone by so fast?  Not only that you JUST turned three, but you were just born I swear it!  But here we are another year has passed. It's true what they say, time passes so quickly when you have kids!  (Mostly I'm sure because life gets crazy and I barely have time to think at the end of the day!)

As far as personality is concerned, I wouldn't say you've done a whole lot of changing in the last year, if anything, you've reinforced who you are.  You have a very, very strong willed personality (get the stubborn out now, before you really do turn into a teenager!).  You test every boundary that is set for you.  If someone tells you you can't do something its the first thing you are going to try and do.  If I tell you your not big enough to do something cause you'll get hurt, chances are you'll get hurt trying to do it anyway.  If nothing else, you keep us constantly on our toes.  And my are you mouthy now...I swear you may as well be turning 14, that't the kind of attitude you've been dealing out around here!

What you hand out in defiance you make up for with sweetness.  You are quick to apologize, easily embarrassed, and always ready with a hug and an "I love you".  You are often incredibly emotional when your feelings are hurt often crying just because someone yelled at you rather than the fact that you got into trouble.

When we tuck you in at night you still request a song (usually Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star) every now and then, though not nearly as frequently as before.  (ok when I tuck you in, Daddy tries to keep bedtime to a quick as he can possibly get in and get out.)  Most nights you still tell us when we leave your bedroom that you "love you more than chocolate ice cream".  (Chocolate potatoes, Chocolate hot dogs or various other chocolate item...You sure love you some chocolate.)

You became a big sister this year and stepped into the role like you were made for it.  You LOVE your little brother SO, SO, SO much.  I think part of it is jealousy (okay, I know part of it is) but you truly LOVE him.  You see him getting attention from someone and you immediately have to rush up to him and make sure that you are the one giving him the attention.  As much as you want to squeeze, hug, kiss, squish him, he lights up when you talk to him.  A huge smile and now a squawk of happiness, no matter how much it looks like you are tormenting him.  I just love to watch you two interact even if I have to tell you 40 times in 15 minutes to "keep your hands off his face", "stop squeezing him", "your going to hurt brother" or "we don't put our feet on people's faces, Addison".

Speaking of repeating myself....OMG, do you make me repeat myself.  So many times that I'm ready to rip my hair out.  I love you kid but seriously, we have to work on these listening and comprehending skills.  Someday's I feel like I need a serious brain vacation after an outing with you.  I refer to an afternoon with Addison currently as being brain raped....my god the chatter never stops.  :) We're in a huge curious question asking phase too so on top of the not listening you question everything.  Sometimes you ask silly questions that you already know the answers to.  Sometimes it's just why?, Why this and why that?  Other times you question something you saw or heard like the other day "Is the moon really made out of cheese?"  Bummer, its not.  You remember the smallest details about the most random things that happened weeks/months ago.  Sometimes you'll ask about something that even I've forgotten about but you can recall every detail.   (It must be a fresh kid brain thing, my old used up brain is running out of room.)

You are funny, you are fun, and you are fearless.  You love to be the center of everyone's attention and I love that you remain very outgoing.  There is not much of a fearful bone in your body, you want to do everything taller, faster, louder.  You are really starting to understand what it means to "pick on" someone (which thank God, cause your in the wrong family to not be able to handle being picked on!) and you like to make up jokes to tell or silly names to call people now.  Which really isn't nice but it's funny to hear you call someone a potato fart face.  And your Knock, Knock jokes are just plain silly.

You love to make up songs and can frequently be heard singing some song that you just made up about whatever it is you are doing.  You also are getting really good at playing make believe house with your baby dolls.  You continue to occasionally have an invisible friend though the name frequently changes.  Currently you have a boyfriend named Igloo but he kind of sounds like a jerk when you talk about him, so I'd find a new one if I were you.  You keep talking about getting married, and recently decided you like dresses and girly things a little bit too.  You actually for the first time ever last week insisted on leaving the house in your princess dress up garb.  So you got to parade around Dollar General in your click clack shoes, princess dress and tiara.  Everyone told you you were beautiful and you ate it up, I'm actually surprised that you even removed the princess outfit after that!

You love to be told that you are beautiful, and frequently look in the mirror (also a new obsession to carry around) and say you are gorgeous.  Of course we need to work on the "thank you" response because you are likely to respond by saying "I know" right now. :)  Which is good to be confident, and yes you are beautiful, but let's be a little modest. You still refuse to have your hair done most days past being brushed, "just leave it like this, I like it crazy" is your go to phrase.

 Like I said you haven't "changed" this year just gotten bigger.  Bigger personality, bigger vocabulary, bigger attitude, and a little bit bigger in size.  Still "My favorite girl in the whole wide" (as you say), and I couldn't begin to imagine our world without you.  Love you baby girl.

Happy 4th Birthday!

The Latest in Addisisms

At almost four this girl talks allthefuckingtime non-stop, so picking out individually mispronounced/said words is getting harder because she's constantly perfecting them.  But, she spends so much time talking that she puts together some great phrases.  Here are some of the latest in cute things from the mouth of Addison that I happened to remember to record!

"Prentzel "-pretzel


"Kermonica" - hermonica

"I don't have any more hands.  My hands are full because I not an octopus"

After choking on her juice "It went down the wrong tube, it went down my arm tube".

"Injada turtles" -ninja turtles

"One dollar, that's all you got?  But I need money"

"Whoever wins is the oldest!"

"That's boring.  That's the stuff that grown-ups usually do and that's boring" -I don't even know what "stuff" she was referring to


"When Bosco and bandit die I want to get new dogs that look just like them."

"Glubs" -gloves

"Vocation" - vacation

"Can I ride the ferris wheel?" Me: "I don't know we will have to wait and see"  A: "I probably can't cause the ferris wheel is 100 big and I'm only three.", she currently thinks that height is relative to age since she's three years old and measures just over three feet on our height chart.  She's pretty sure that when she turns 4 she's suddenly going to be 4 ft tall!  speaking of growth charts...

One day while measuring herself on the growth chart (its at least a weekly thing) and finding herself to be the same height still, "man it takes a really long time to grow, I hate being three units" -thanks UmiTeam!

"This BBQ sauce is terrible" - good to know miss food connoisseur

"Oh my goodness kid, you have a fever" every day when she touches Alex's head.

"Do some people live on their own?" Me: "yes"
"well I guess they can live on their own if they are very brave"

"Life has changed" - when a toy broke, really?!

"Cheese boogers"-cheese burgers

"All my toys are baby crap. I don't like baby crap, I like big girl crap. I need more big girl crap"

"Strimp" -shrimp

This one will keep you on your toes and push your buttons testing every single boundary that is set for her.  She is headstrong and quite like her parents, never wrong.  Her stubborn, wild side is balanced out by her sweet, emotional and thoughtful personality.  She makes me laugh & want to bash my head into the wall every single day.   It's true what they say about three being worse than two, at least for us it has.  Sure two had it's terrible moments but three, man three has been a battle of wills! I can't believe she's about to turn four!!  How can another entire year have sped by so quickly.  

The Transition to Two and the Dreaded Return to Work.

Lets make it one post cause that's what's on my mind today.

When talking about adding to your family, everyone always says that the adjustment from one kid to two kids is the hardest and after that it's not as bad.  I'm not sure who made up that silly line and I'm fairly certain that the biggest adjustment in life is going from no kids to having a kid.  Total game changer. I don't care who you are, three/four/five kids still has to be a heck of an adjustment. Yes older kids can help out but some people have three kids by the time their oldest is 3.5, and I just added one.  Sure 3.5 year old's can help some, and I take full advantage of what she will help with.  But Addison isn't changing diapers, cooking meals, running to the grocery store, or baby sitting and she still doesn't even wipe her own ass (well she does but she needs a second wiper still).  Pretty sure I'd be losing my ever-loving mind if I had three right now.  That being said, adding a number two really hasn't been that awful of an adjustment.  Granted I'm still not back to work and I'm going to have an anxiety attack any day about that change on the very, very near horizon.

Addison wakes up YELLING every morning for me to come upstairs and get her, (She is gated in her room as she's upstairs and we aren't plus the open staircase/old farm house banister, just isn't safe for a careless kiddo like her.) This is OF COURSE the same time that Alex is eating every morning.  I'm laying in bed to feed him I'm not getting up till he's done, so I get to listen to her scream and yell for 20 minutes.  Almost eight weeks into it and TODAY she finally woke up and just started playing with the blocks in her room.  Bravo, right before our routine changes.  That seems to happen a lot, Addison NEEDS ME RIGHT NOW at the exact moment that I sit down to feed him, no matter the time, no matter if I just waited on her hand and foot to make sure she couldn't possibly need anything.

The most stressful change for me and the hardest is the double kid break down.  Okay, okay, Alex is a newborn, he can't technically have a breakdown. But Addison, Oh Addison can have a breakdown.  And when you are solo on a two kid melt down when one is too young to get that he has to hang on a second and the other is too deep in her meltdown to be talked down...THAT'S when mommy needs a drink.  That's the one and only time when I think one kid really was enough stress in my life.  But then I calm down and Addison tells me that "She's weally sorry for throwin' a fit" and Alex smiles with his chubby little cheeks and I'm right back to being the happiest mom in town.

Getting out of the house is more of a challenge, not for the newborn but for the 3.5 year old who's middle name should have been Stally Stallerton....OMG this kid.  I haven't yet *knock on wood* had any moments alone in public with the two of them that make me NEVER want to leave the house again so there's that at least.  The hardest part in public is convincing Addison that she WILL ride in the cart without a fight.  Usually I have to live through a small melt down if I don't give her the "in this store you will ride in a cart" pep talk in the car ahead of time.  Let the girl walk and you will want to gouge your eyes out in frustration.  She can't walk a straight line and not get distracted by something every 10 feet.  I repeat myself A LOT in the store.

Mostly I feel like "I GOT THIS".  98% of the time.   Then maternity leave comes to an end and I have to go back to 10 hour work days.  I work Saturday then back to my normal Monday- Thursdays.  Which mean about 13 hours between when I leave the house and when I get home at night.  Which means two kids a full time job and running my own photography business.  To say I'm stressed the frick out about it would be the understatement of the year.  I've pretty much avoided talking about the topic as much as possible all through my maternity leave.  Mostly because it makes, not normally emotional me, want to cry.  Even just typing about it now make me tear up.  Plain and simple, I DON'T WANT TO GO BACK.  I don't want to leave my kids.  I don't want to send them to another persons house all day.  I don't want to not be able to send my kid to pre-school because my work schedule doesn't allow me the time to take her there and pick her up.  I don't want to miss out on all the "first" of my "last".  I want to enjoy every last second of my last baby.  I don't want to only see my kids for two-three hours max a day for four days a week.  I don't want to spend my day pumping at work and trying to find someone to cover for me so that I can go pump.  I want to be able to enjoy breastfeeding by not having to pump making it a chore, also why am I washing bottles/pump parts all the time...breastfeeding perks I do no get to take advantage of.  I don't want hour long commutes to work.  I don't want to sit around waiting for people I carpool with to get out of work wasting my time.  I'm over it.   Maybe it's different this time because I'm leaving two kids.  Maybe it's because I work longer hours.  Maybe it's because I'm leaving my little newborn with someone who isn't my dad who watched Addison when she was a newborn and I went back to work

I can try and feed myself the same lines about how it shows my kids that I provide for the family too, like I did when I went back with Addison.  That my benefits are worth it, that I get great insurance..blah..blah..blah.  I know that I can do it.  I just don't want to.  When do I get to sleep?  When do I get to enjoy my children?  Cause lets face it moms/dads, how much can you accomplish with two kids in 2-3 hours when there are dinners to be made/eaten, baths to give, clothes/lunches to pack, bottles to make for the next day.  I am absolutely dreading this.  I'll be the grouchy, bitchy, bitter mom pretending like I have my shit together.  I haven't even gone back but my eye twitching started up again on Monday...Stress.

Toddler Talk

I keep meaning to document these toddler (I guess she's technically a preschool aged child now) ramblings because misused words and mispronounced words are one of my very favorite things about growing up.  Not only that, but, my husband hates to hear mispronounced things that he's quick to coach her through them a few hundred times until she can say it correctly and then the word as she said it is no longer.  Words like Tarm (Farm) Papple (apple) Grandpa Lariat (Grandpa Larry) and Gramma Ham (Grandma Pam) are already long gone from her vocabulary.  So before I forget her current/most recently corrected slip-ups I thought I'd dedicate a quick post to some Addisims.

One day she asked me about her pig "Puffet" and I had to make her go get it for me because I didn't know what she was talking about.  She came back with a puppet

"Hooper Slide" - Tube Slide :) "I wanna go down the hooper slide 5 times!"

At Christmas time she talked about "Candy Can's" and she knows that the letter J is shaped like a "candy can".

"Notbake" - "hey mom can I have one of those cookies you made, one of those notbakes?"  That would be Nobakes, because I told  her they were called that because they are not baked.

It's not- What did you say?, its "What did you said?" 100 times a day.

She has a doll who will hold a pacifier in its mouth and she knows that this works because there is a "magmet" in there!

She knows the difference between a guitar and a "vikolin".

At the grocery store the other day she asked me in the produce section to buy some "pinecone", not the cut up kind the ones with the green stuff on top of them.  Pineapple.

She enjoys a "yogret" in the morning for breakfast.

We eat in a "Diving Room".

She knows how to draw a "hawrt" to write I love you.

She loves to steal Poppa Larry's "Vinoculars" to look outside.

She says that "adacado" are one of her favorite foods.

She loves to play under the covers or in the dark with a "flashin' light" it's one of her favorite toys.

She's discovered the fun of "Talkie Phones" and wants to use them every time we go to Grandma's house.

And the girl will never walk past a bowl of "Wawwermelon" without eating half of it!