Daily(?) Headlines: Snacktime for Sisters

JieJie has been enjoying helping with her little sister, trying to change diapers and t-shirts, wresting the spoon from her spirited sister to feed her, and fetching her snacks and drinks.

Yesterday's treat was prunes. Lots of prunes. I left the room for a minute and when i returned they had made baseballs of prunes and were munching away. JieJie did not understand why i said they had eaten enough prunes. After all, PawPaw Dave had told her they were good for your tummy!

So far no ill effects.

MeiMei And Me

What a singular spirit is MeiMei! She is both beauty and clown, imminently patient with bumbling grownups, yet imperious about toys and snacks. In the last few weeks she has chosen walking as her favored means of locomotion, chasing cats, balls and the odd rolling grape. At 16 months she tries to dress and undress herself with whatever is handy -- JieJie's fanciest dress or dad's underwear. She has little patience for books, so we abridge the stories and do a lot of pointing at pictures. She is embracing TV, so we are using that perhaps too much to reinforce the sounds of English. She has fallen in love with Kipper the Dog, JieJie's first favorite, and will watch anything with music. Most of all, she loves animals. I can't wait to take her to the zoo. And as her foster mother wrote in answer to our questions, MeiMei's favorite animal is indeed the chicken and when she sees one she goes wild with excitement. She is quite the independent girl. We had planned on no introducing juice until later and then diluted with a lot of water, but she unearthed her first juice box from a low shelf, and presented it to me. I popped it and gave it back to her. She drained it in 15 minutes.
MeiMei can speak only a few words, and her babbling features only a few consonants, so we are seeking an evaluation by the Early Intervention program to see if she needs some speech therapy. She is, however, a great communicator. She points and waves, shakes her head yes and no with great vehemence, and makes perfect noisy, sloppy kisses. She has a mean throwing arm, especially with inappropriate objects.

MeiMei cemented her bond with mommy when we traveled to the Midwest for the holidays. Daddy came back to work and the ladies stayed on the road. By the time we got home, MeiMei was a mommy's girl.

JieJie and the Tummy Lady

JieJie has been noticing pregnant women these days and possibly asking people with big tummies if they are pregnant. When she told me about her most recent discovery, that her music teacher is expecting, she made it clear that she found it hard to believe that she was ever a tiny baby in someone's tummy.

She has known for a while that I am not her tummy mommy, but rather her "take care of you forever" mommy, but it all seemed to come together for her last night after several very emotional days of playing "new baby" while she was home sick with a fever.

Last night she decided to write a letter. She dictated it to me.:

Dear Tummy Lady,

What is your name?

Then she took the paper and wrote on her own: I (heart) you, Clare, 4, then had me add "almost 5."

She decorated it with hearts and added a drawing of herself as a baby in a crib in the "baby house." I told her we would put it away in her box of China things and someday perhaps we could take it to China.

JieJie and MeiMei Resolve

...that in 2008 mommy will post more often
get camera, charger, batteries and cable all in one place
and buy a new, mod video camera that holds a charge, so we can be a multi-media blog.

And All Through the House

Our new little doll now walks and talks!
She sings the "pop" in "Pop Goes the Weasel. She calls the tabby, our kid-friendliest cat, by some approximation of her name, Raptor. She is calling JieJie something consistent, and responding when JieJie calls her Yingamalaska or Uncle Jerry. (don't ask, but I hope Uncle Jerry ends before kindergarten.)

She has taken as many as five consecutive lurching steps, to thunderous applause.

The Week in Headlines

MeiMei's Vocabulary Doubles; Adds 'Yeah' and 'Uh-Oh' to Repertoire

Daddy Makes Morning Coffee Sans Basket

TV Audio Dies; Mom Reads Caillou Captions Aloud

First Sister Portrait Ends in Failure: Dueling Sibs Elude Pro

MeiMei Puts Seltzer in Mom's File Cabinet

More Overnight Guests Expected

Cats Pee in Guest Room

Dad Gets Second Warning on Pending Grand Jury Duty

Moral Crisis: JieJie Wears Bracelet Home From Sitter's, Calls Action 'Mistake'

MeiMei Tries Yogurt Painting on Clothing, Cats

What's Better Than Turkey?

Well, lots of things, actually.

But we have something extra to be thankful for this year. Joyce the cat is back a week after she disappeared. JieJie is thrilled, even though Joyce loved to wait around for her to drop scrambled eggs at breakfast. Mei Mei is thrilled, just because five cats are better than four and she is thrilled most of the time when animals are anywhere in the vicinity.

I went out to the garden pick some mint for minted peas, then strolled over to the remains of the tomato plants, wishing I had come out before the frost to get those last few tomatoes.

I heard a tiny meow coming form the storage shed. I opened it. No cat. I called Joyce. The tiny meow became very insistent. I kicked over weeders and cultivators and a trash can and some tomato cages. Still no Joyce.
JieJie came out. I told her to get Daddy. She ran to the door but couldn't open it. She started screaming into the open kitchen window.

Daddy came out into the dusk. JieJie said she was scared. We finally deduced Joyce was in a crawl space that had a hinge but did not seem to have an actual way in.

Daddy said, "I need a screw driver."
Mommy said, with her usual excellent grammar and a few expletives, ' There's a shovel, bust the thing open!"
And there was Joyce. Thinner, quieter, but appparently safe from the elements and the rottweilers and the speeding cars and the rabid raccoons.

Joyce drank lots of water, ate lots of baby food, and tried to hijack the turkey. She's sitting at the side of the keyboard right now, getting in the way.

A Visit to the Poopy Doctor...

...previously known as the lady who helps little girls who worry too much about using the potty, but who prefers to be known as the poopy doctor.

JieJie deftly evaded most of the doctor's questions, and avoided the tiny dollhouse toilet, as she and the doctor played with dolls on the floor. MeiMei made lots of noise enjoying the poopy doctor's kiddie cash register and will not be joining us on future visits. JieJie managed to convey that doing anything in the toilet was abhorrent. Mostly, when the doctor asked questions to get to know her, JieJie's answers began: "My sister..."

JieJie designated one of the little plastic men with the pop-on hats as the evil guy and installed him on the roof of the dollhouse. She never revealed what evil he had done. I hope the poopy doctor doesn't think there is an evil man on our roof. She and JieJie did conspire to put a wall behind the evil guy so he would not fall off the roof. Ahem.

When the sesson was nearly over, MeiMei began to make poopy faces, then poopy fragrances. Always prepared, Mommy had left the diaper bag in the car.

By the time we got to the car, MeiMei, wearing the Brand X diaper Daddy had put on her, was leaking onto her onesie. I changed her in the car, no small feat in a Jetta with two car seats in the back. The onesie had to go, but just a 2-minute drive away, our turkey was waiting for us. Super slacker mom, of course had no change of clothes for MeiMei in either of the fashionable diaper bags, so we zipped up her mini parka over her bare chest. Then JieJie announced she would not sit in her car seat because she had to poop. The meter had run out about 5 minutes before we came out of the poopy suite. Nevertheless, we made it to get the turkey, (with MeiMei gnawing on French bread as we waited in line) then a baking pan (with JieJie sampling mulled cider), then some wine (2 lollipops) and got home by dark. People at all the stores went gaga over the girls. No one knew MeiMei was shirtless. MeiMei did kick JieJie and pull her hair, but it would be fair to say she put herself in harm's way despite repeated instructions to the contrary.

And by the way, the feast at school was a success. JieJie reported that not only did she eat vegetables, but she also peeled some. And she shared this bit of wisdom from the feast: when you bake a chicken it turns into a turkey.