The Little/Big Sister

We know that our little Sadie is a gift from God. Of course, we believe that all children are gifts but Sadie's our special gift. God knew Caleb and God knew that he needed Sadie.

Sadie has done more for Caleb than all of his therapies. I often wonder what our boy would look like if he had been an only child in our house of quiet introverts. Would he have retreated more and more into his books? Would he still struggle with games of pretend?

Our Sadie, from the start, refused to play by Caleb's rules and drew him out of his world and into her's with her imaginary Mexican family, talking dogs, ballerina cowgirls and, of course, the princesses.

Now as they're growing, I'm seeing Sadie beginning to take on a new role.

We spent the weekend at camp. Just me, the kids and Pappy (Andy was home working and participating in movie magic, being an extra for Batman). Weekends at camp are challenging- the nearest grocery store is a little one in a town about 30 min away over the mountain, there's no cell service, and then there's the constant reminder of my stepmother- but we do these weekends with my dad and hopefully make some new memories at their camp in the woods.

As the kids are getting older, they get more and more excited about going to camp. I'm thinking it's less about being out in the woods and more about Pappy's tendency to be very generous with cookies and Bugs Bunny cartoons. But the kids were very excited to go up. This trip was for cousin C's birthday and to pick blueberries.

As excited as the kids are to go to camp, these weekends can be a little more challenging for the Boy. It's really hard to keep a schedule and a routine at camp. Caleb needs to be very "go with the flow" and after a few days of that, he's often done. My dad has gotten much better in understanding Caleb but I know the tantrums make him uncomfortable so I'm on supermom duty trying to manage it all.

This weekend, Supermom, had a sidekick and I got to see my little girl understanding and trying so hard to calm her big brother.

Caleb did very good most of the weekend but we did have a couple of bobbles. One in particular was during video game time. This is often in the evenings when the Boy is tired, spent (coping-wise) and it makes for a sometimes volatile combination. In these situations, he has a really difficult time losing gracefully. This evening was no different and I'm not exactly sure how it happened but the boy lost a game, got very upset and when I came into the living room, Sadie was with him, trying very hard to calm him down. I could hear her soothing voice and see her gesturing with her hands, explaining that things were okay and that he needed to just settle down and we would sort it all out.

It was a sweet moment and made this mama very proud of her girl. Her little girl, growing up and recognizing her big brother's challenges. Her little girl caring more about him, than about playing her game with Pappy. And Caleb responded to her, calming down and then coming to me so that we could sort it all out.

It's happened a few more times since then. He hasn't gone into a full-blown tantrum but she's recognized instances where he might have difficulties and calmly tried to talk him through them.

I know she doesn't know Aspergers or even Autism but she loves her big brother and wants to help him. And this mama is happy to have all the help she can get, especially if it helps her boy.

Pirate game 2011

Our first Pirate game for the year and it was so much fun. We ended the outing with running the bases. Caleb, Sadie and their friend Simon, stood in line and patiently waited to walk out on the field and run the bases.

here's video of us walking out onto the field




and running the bases...



there will be more pics to come but i'm too tired to retouch right now. Sadly, the Buccos lost but we still had lots of fun

allergies

So they're saying that this year has been absolutely terrible for allergies and I can certainly believe it. Andy's been living on zyrtec since March and even though I've never really suffered from allergies, I've found myself more congested and uncomfortable then ever.

Sadie, however, has developed a new and unusual allergy. She's decided that she's allergic to turtles. Now we're not sure if this means that she can't be around turtles or if it's more that she can't eat them but she's pretty insistent on it. Even at the doctor's recently, the doc asked me if she had any allergies (wanting to be sure that she would be okay on antibiotics) but before I could respond, Sadie informed the doc of her turtle allergy. The doc looked at me wide-eyed and I really didn't know what to say, except that "yep, that's Sadie." In defense of the doc, she doesn't usually see Sadie. Somehow, I think that Dr. R, her usual pediatrician would have just laughed it off. He's definitely used to Sadie's stories.

So, while most households need to be nut-free, we will be going turtle free but I have to admit, I'm curious as to what her reaction is to turtles.

silly monkeys

we went to the zoo the other day and mistakenly brought home 2 monkeys instead of the children...

Easter Morning 2011

It took the kids quite awhile to find them, even with Daddy telling them hot or cold.



and yes, at one point Daddy tells the little girl that she's getting really cold but she assures us that she likes to be cold and then puts on a pretend jacket.

But she finally finds it after much persistance

Disney's Animal Kingdom, in pictures!

Dancing Sadie

Sadie Dancing at Disney! enjoy!

Romeo and Juliet at McDonalds

The other day was conference day. The kids' preschool does parent/teacher conferences twice a year and they're pretty helpful (especially with trying to judge where Caleb is with things). The disappointing thing about conferences is that they are on a school day so no school and normally that's not a bad thing but when you've missed most of January due to snow and ice it's kind of frustrating to have another day off for the kids.

Well, to reward them for making it through their first, mostly full week of school since December, I decided to take them to McDonald's. There's one near our house that has a nice indoor playground and the kids have been bugging me to go there since we moved out here.

We got there, ordered and went to sit and eat in the play area. I have to say, it was nicer than I had expected. It was clean and most importantly, it didn't smell funny. The kids were really good and ate their lunches. Caleb even ate the chicken nuggets (he's been objecting to them on past trips) When they finished eating, I let them play. There were quite a few kids there and I would say, in less than 10 minutes, Sadie had a little boy just a bit older than her, following her around.

The kids all played for awhile. I was excited to see Caleb involved in the games too. They were pretty much just chasing each other through the tubes and while it makes me nervous, I was happy that things were going so well. Caleb is doing better with other kids but when he gets excited, he can seem aggressive. He yells and growls a lot which other kids can interpret as threatening and, well, we've had things escalate to where he's hitting. Previously this wasn't such a big problem but as he's getting bigger and older it's a more difficult situation. Most parents don't expect a 5 yr old to be hitting and without understanding his circumstances, it makes for a very uncomfortable situation.

I sat back and let the kids enjoy playing for a while and it was nice. They came over for some sips of milk and to check on their Happy Meal prizes. Then I noticed that Sadie was spending more time with her little friend and Caleb was off on his own. Again, this happens some time so I wasn't too concerned. Then I noticed Sadie and her friend running away from Caleb and I started paying a bit more attention. Sure enough, Sadie's little friend was getting a little possessive of the Sadie-girl and didn't seem to want to share her attention, even with her big brother.

Caleb came by and I told him they could each do one more thing and then we would get ready to go. Of course the one thing Caleb wanted to do was to sit in a car with Sadie and Sadie didn't want to leave her friend. I tried to persuade Caleb to let her have some space and then I tried to persuade Sadie to indulge her brother and none of it was working. Caleb started getting upset and I was done and so announced that we were going home. This was when Sadie's little friend decided to come over and taunt Caleb for having to go home. Big mistake!!

Mama bear kicked in and I gave the little guy a very serious mommy-glare and said "Do Not Do That. We Don't Act Like That." Not yelling, but talking very sternly to this young man who quickly backed off and got quiet.

I calmed Caleb down and then had an upset Sadie who wasn't ready to go (of course- did I mention, this started out like a great way to spend the afternoon?) I tried to explain to Sadie that if she and her friend couldn't be nice and play with Caleb, then we couldn't stay. Sadie was heart-broken and so I had to help her with her shoes. I was done. While doing this, I noticed her little friend inching back over towards us. I told Sadie she should say good bye to her friend as he came over. He got very close and very sweetly said "Good-bye Sadie, I love you." Sadie rattled off a "Good-bye, I love you" too and that was the end.

I was sooooo done with McDonald's and soooooo not ready for my 4 yr old to have little boys telling her they love her.

We are in soooooo much trouble with this one

questions....

Here's my question... how do you explain heaven and being part of God's family to a 5 yr old who doesn't like change?

We have a great church. We have a great church with a great children's ministry and Miss Sherry is absolutely wonderful with the kids. Yesterday was Sadie's first time as a 4 yr old in the 4 yr old class for children's church. This class is in the big room and i think the ages are 4-7 yrs old. It was a big change but she seemed to do well, especially since she could sit next to her brother.

We didn't hear much about the morning until dinner time last night. Then Caleb started telling us about Nicodemus. Then Sadie gave her very good explanation for being born again in her most serious voice "Jesus had to come and save us from our sins." And Caleb added that Granny was born again but she didn't become a baby again. I was very excited to see our kids working through this and eager to see where it went.

Knowing that my husband became Christian as a child, I prompted "Hey guys, you know, Daddy is born again?" And he explained to the kids how he prayed with his mommy and daddy when he was little to be able to go to heaven.

So there it was, we had talked about being born again, about being in God's family, about going to heaven. Were the kids ready to pray? I asked "Do you think you want to go to heaven?" Sadie very quickly nodded and said "yes, sure do." I looked at Caleb "I don't think so."

Then we realized, this boy will resist going to Disney World just because it's different and unfamiliar. It doesn't matter how great heaven is, he's not going to want to go. So how do we explain this to him? I found it to be a funny turn of events. I'm confident that God knows his heart and therefore knows his struggles so I'm not too worried that we didn't pray last night. I think it will be interesting to watch how God moves in his heart to help him understand these things.

The Case of the Missing Zuzu Pet

It was a quiet afternoon in the Walsh house. Mom and the kids had finally finished un-decorating the Christmas tree. Suddenly, Sadie appeared with her Zuzu pet that she had gotten for Christmas. In order to travel, Daddy had wisely removed the batteries (on/off switches should be required for all toys) but Mommy wasn't sure where he had put them.

"Wait 'til Daddy comes home" Mommy told Sadie and she happily bounded away to find new fun and wait for Daddy. The Zuzu pets were forgotten... or so we thought.

After dinner, Sadie found her pet once again and asked to get it working. Daddy took over and soon we had a Zuzu pet rolling and squeaking around the floor. Daddy also mentioned to Caleb that if he brought his Zuzu pet over, Daddy would fix it too.

"But I don't know where it is" Caleb answered.

We sent him upstairs to look for it and sent Sadie with him- since she was the one who had found them first. The kids searched upstairs for a bit and came down empty-handed and disappointed so Daddy and Mommy began searching too. We searched book bags and other possible places downstairs but couldn't find anything. So we went upstairs. After a bit more searching, success! Caleb's Zuzu pet was right in the middle of his bedroom floor!

"Guys, how did you not see Caleb's Zuzu pet on the floor? What were you looking for?" Daddy asked.

"We were looking for footprints and found some and followed them downstairs" Caleb explained.

Not sure what Zuzu pet footprints look like and really not sure what footprints they were following.

New Pictures!

So last spring I picked up a backdrop stand to use with my photography and it's been the best thing! I didn't manage to get the kids out doors for their photos this year so I set up the back drop and used our extra room as a studio to snap some birthday/Christmas pictures of the kids.

It wasn't as extensive of a photo session as my clients get but then my kids are so used to having the camera in their faces that they object quite a bit when I try to convince them to model for me. Sadie, though, if promised make-up, will be quite the model.

I don't have a ton to share- still finishing up client work for the holidays- but I had to post these so my mom could see them :-)

finding balance when illness happens

i love my kids. i really, really, deep down in my soul, do-anything-for-them, love my kids. that said, there are moments where i don't know how to do that best or show it equally and that's something that i'm finding so hard.

i think it's more difficult when you have a kid with special needs and i'm still trying to get used to thinking about Caleb in that way. i always find myself trying to minimize and downplay his struggles, not that they are huge struggles but that almost if i accept them it makes his diagnosis more real. i still have difficulty accepting that he's on the spectrum and that he's going to struggle with things and i still forget that struggles aren't always bad for us.

anyways...

Caleb and Sadie each demand a lot of attention and for very different reasons. Caleb struggles with social situations and managing his tantrums and outbursts. Each week he spends 8 hours with his TSS and a couple of hours with his BSC and now we're adding occupational therapy to the mix. all of these things help him a great deal but it's a lot of attention that i think he would prefer not to have. on the other hand, Sadie will not be ignored. she almost seems to crave attention, at least most of the time and when big brother seems to be getting a lot of attention, it can be very difficult for a little girl.

a few weeks ago (Saturday), Sadie came down with a fever. not super high but significant enough to slow her down. we didn't see anything else wrong with her and so we administered ibuprofen and figured it would clear up in a day or two. Monday came and the fever was still there and still making her uncomfortable. we'd give her medicine in the morning, about lunch she would perk up for a bit and then by the afternoon she would be miserable. Tuesday morning was originally supposed to be her 4 yr checkup but instead became a sick visit when they saw the fever. the doctor looked her over and i still thought we were going to be sent home, convinced that she had the flu and kicking myself for not getting her the vaccine weeks ago at her brother's appointment. our doctor instead had a very serious tone and said that he wanted tests done. he mentioned mono, TB and the need for a chest x-ray and then the possibility of this Kawasaki syndrome, a very serious concern that would require a stay in the hospital. he pointed out Sadie's swollen lymph node on her neck- "her hurt neck" that i thought was code for a sore throat. then it was off to Children's for her tests.

for the rest of the week, Sadie became my focus. trying to take care of her fever, keep an eye out for other symptoms and generally be there for her. at the same time, trying to keep things as normal as possible for Caleb. Wednesday afternoon was the most difficult and the most conflicting moment for me. i noticed a red rash on the back of Sadie's shoulder and after reading up on the symptoms of Kawasaki (thank you webMD), knew that i needed to call the doctor. i filled him in on the change in her condition and he promised to call back with directions for us. Caleb was working with his TSS, a usual Wednesday afternoon but at the same time a lighter schedule then usual. at 3:15 the doctor's office called asking us to be there for 3:45. from the new house it takes us a good 20-30 min to get into Shadyside but i said we'd be there. i went upstairs and told Caleb we needed to go to the doctor's office for Sadie. he immediately said no and then the struggle began.

my little guy had no understanding of Sadie's need to get to the doctor's not because he didn't care but simply because he was focused on this unexpected change in his day. when he gets hit with these changes, sometimes he just says no and that's when i don't always know what to do. thankfully, i had his TSS there. she worked with him, talking to him, explaining to him, and coaxing him when i just didn't have the time or the patience to. i went back downstairs and gathered up Sadie. i took her down to the garage. Caleb still was refusing to come. i put her in the car and felt so bad leaving her sick and miserable even for the few moments it would take to go back upstairs to get her brother. again, thankfully, Caleb continued to refuse to go but he didn't tantrum. he's had trouble lately with tantrums and has had a few recently that lasted a good 20 minutes- time i didn't have in this instant. he let me carry him to the car, no shoes and no jacket. he also let me put him in and buckle him up. this would not have happened if he had been mid-tantrum. have you ever tried to buckle a 5 yr old in a seatbelt? it doesn't work well. i was so thankful that it went as smoothly as it did.

however, it still frustrated me that at this moment when i really needed to focus just on Sadie, i couldn't. i don't know, maybe i'm naive to think that parenting can be balanced that easily, maybe it's always going to be a give and take with my two. it did make me worry that Sadie might feel that she never gets the spotlight completely- that maybe she will continue to "demand" our attention to balance out all that we need to give her brother. it's a very frustrating situation to be in.

we made it to the doctor's relatively on time. her doctor was pretty confident that it was Kawasaki and got in contact with Children's. then he sent us home to wait one more day. Thursday morning we got the go ahead to take her to the hospital and get her admitted. fortunately, Caleb's preschool is fairly close to the hospital so he got to go to preschool, and we got to get Sadie set up in the hospital.

she was very brave getting an IV and numerous temp and blood pressure checks. they did an echo-cardiogram and finally started her treatment, an immuno-globulin drip. she bounced back pretty quick and enjoyed getting to watch a bunch of movies and cartoons, not to mention all the get well presents that appeared.

Friday afternoon, Caleb came to visit and he was able to see that Sadie was okay and that the hospital wasn't as scary as he thought it would be. they even spent a couple hours playing in the playroom together.

after a day of observation, Sadie was released to go home and we were all thankful to have her back.

she's expected to make a complete recovery. she has a follow-up echo-cardiogram in January and until then, she's enjoying a baby aspirin a day to prevent clotting and keep her heart in good shape in case there was any damage to it. we're so thankful that everything went so well.

and now things are back to normal... or as normal as they get here :-)

Halloween 2010

Just needed to post that the boy was Superman for the third year in a row and yes, the costume still fit and may still fit next year. I'm just happy that he's willing to dress-up and go trick or treating.

So here's a little time line :-)







And you can't ignore Miss Cinderella!

Ballet Class

So I had to get these pics up for my family who aren't on facebook. This week Sadie's ballet class invited parents to sit in and watch the class. Of course, I was so excited to be able to be in the room instead of sneaking peeks through the tiny little window in the door and I made sure to bring my camera. I dream of one day being able to photograph Sadie dancing on toe maybe it's all those years of studying Degas and his ballerinas, maybe it's my envy for how graceful ballerinas are... I don't know but I'm holding on to that dream.

In the meantime, I thoroughly enjoyed snapping a few pics of my little 'rina

Happy 4th Birthday Sadie-girl!

Little girl growing up... Sadie is now 4 going on at least 14 or 15. It's frightening. Somehow this child has managed to have all the confidence, boldness and outgoing-ness that her daddy, brother and I have never had. What she lacks in knowledge, she makes up for with enthusiasm. That's our Sadie.

Over the past year, we've had some pretty big milestones. Sadie mastered the potty in just under a week (a huge relief after the battle of potty-training her brother). She got to go to her first birthday party (non-relative). She went ice skating for the first time and attended her first ballet class.

She also invented her first imaginary friend- the first of many... but more about that later.

Sadie is my little ball of energy and joy. Yep, I can't think to describe it any other way. First thing in the morning, she wakes up with a big smile on her face and asks "What are we going to do today, Mom?" Something as simple as getting clean clothes from the dryer, she gushes over "Oh, thank you Mommy for my clean pjs" and she takes them and dances into her bedroom to put them away. Every gift for birthdays or Christmas's or for no reason at all is accepted with such enthusiasm that you might be tempted to think that she's acting for someone but the feeling is real, even if it is given with a dramatic flare. She never fails to remind me that anything can be good or exciting if you just look at it from the right perspective.

Now, don't get me wrong, the princess is certainly capable of showing the world her less desirable moods. She can be one whiny-cranky mess when the world aligns against her. Even while trick or treating the other night... it was our first time in the new neighborhood. Everyone was out. It was cold and the princess didn't want her jacket to cover her beautiful Cinderella costume. (Yes, we're a bit of a diva at times) We made it out and over to the next door neighbor's. Then we hit the house after that. After the third house, we had to walk around the corner and down the next street a little ways. Little Cinderella starts dragging her feet, "but I waannna trick or treat" "well, Sadie, that's what we're doing" We could only figure that 1. she was cold and 2. the house here are much farther apart than in Oakland, requiring her little feet to do a lot more walking. She perked up after getting her jacket on but in the end, they only made it down one street before they were done for the night.

She also can hold her own with a tantrum but fortunately those don't happen very often and when they do, it's usually because she is just too exhausted.

Sadie is our social butterfly. She loves being the center of attention. Often we believe that the world is her stage and we're just the audience. This is a lot of fun (most of the time). You never know when she's going to start a song or a dance or talk with a weird accent and poses or take a dive. She continues to be our physical comedienne. In fact, as I'm typing this, she struts down the hall with a blanket on her head and in her most elegant voice asks "how do i look?"

Preschool started a couple months ago and she's in the class Caleb had last year. She goes 3 mornings a week and on Wednesdays, she gets to stay for lunch. And apparently, Sadie already is developing quite the entourage. She has a best friend, Samantha, and judging by pictures in the classroom, they are inseparable, well, until the teachers have to separate them for talking too much during circle time. Recently, there's also been a boy in the picture. Now, Sadie has always managed to get the boys to follow her around but in the past few weeks, we've been hearing about Nathan and how he likes to hold her hand. I was not expecting this and I'm still not sure what I think of this. I think Daddy is even more unsure. But at any rate, she is a friendly, out going girl and I'm thrilled to see her making friends.

In addition to preschool, Sadie started taking ballet lessons. She's been obsessed with it since we were first introduced to Angelina Ballerina and if you ask what she wants to be when she grows up, she'll tell you "a real ballerina one day" (a line from Angelina Ballerina). When Caleb started working with his TSS, we thought it might be good to give Sadie a special activity and so over the summer we tried out a 5 week class through The Pittsburgh Ballet Theater School. Needless to say, she loved it and surprising to us, she really learned things. She would "teach" us how to do curtsies and use phrases that we know she learned from class. After that success, we decided to sign her up for the year. So every Thursday morning, we scramble to get Caleb to preschool and get her to ballet and she's loving it. To top it all off, we're attending The Nutcracker Ballet for the first time this year and she absolutely can't wait to go.

Sadie is very smart but doesn't always use it for good, like her brother. She's learned manipulation and tries very hard to "cute" her way out of trouble, i.e. shrugging her shoulders and grinning when she's caught doing something wrong. I swear sometimes I think I'm living on a sitcom with the antics she comes up with.

Sadie has added more people to our family over this past year... Margot, Sal and Ziggy. Just look back at past posts and you can read all about them. In short, they're her friends from Mexico and they make frequent visits. She also has a Mexico Mom, a Mexico Grandma and a Mexico Grandpa. So far they've been harmless and quite entertaining. For example, her Mexico mom likes to eat ketchup on pancakes.

Sadie loves to play pretend and for a while, we never knew what name to call her. Some days she was Cinderella, some days, Clara, and my favorite, Spider-man Sadie. She's been really great with getting her brother to play along with her and that's one of the special things that we thank God for about her.

She also very much loves her books- almost as much as her big brother. She loves to sing and dance and dress-up and play soccer and ride bikes. She's my active child. We've noticed that she's the kind of kid that gets more spastic the more tired she gets. It's funny to watch but not always funny to put up with.

And surprisingly she manages to have this grace about her despite being a complete clutz. I really have trouble understanding it.

Sadie's our special girl and we've had so much fun with her this year and we look forward to watching her grow over the coming year.

the cast of characters keeps growing...

So Mexico is quite a crowded place, at least in Sadie's Mexico... we'll set aside the fact that my daughter's imaginary world happens to be in the news constantly for drug violence. i swear, we rarely have the TV on in this house

Anyways, so recent additions to Mexico-

Sadie's Mexico Grandma. This one has been talked about off and on over the past few months. Apparently her Mexico Grandma and Grandpa teach her things- best i can tell is that they are Mexican dancing instructors because she's usually doing some kind of little dance after which she says "my Mexico Grandma taught me that" and adds a little hand on her hip, flip of the hair for effect.

Well, just a couple weeks ago, we learned Mexico Grandma's name. Sadie informed me that her name was Terri and that her friends call her Aunt Terri. i can't help but wonder if she's basing her Mexico grandma off of my Aunt Terri. it's given all the Mattocks a giggle.

The other addition is Dotty-

i learned about Dotty last night while driving out to Derry to visit family. Sadie informed me of her Mexico cat named Dotty. Dotty is pink and apparently has taught herself to talk. when i asked Sadie if she spoke Spanish or English, Sadie replied that she "talks like me" which meant English. then we got distracted trying to figure out how to say hug and cuddle in Spanish so i didn't get to hear any more about Dotty.

And expect a call Aunt Betsy and be prepared to know how to say cuddle and hug in Spanish. :-)

Sadie's New Friend

No, it's not herself :-)


Our first friend in our new neighborhood is a real live girl, as opposed to another one of Margot's entourage. "A" lives in the house down at the corner and turned 3 in June (they'll be in the same class when they start school in a few years, of course).

Now besides location, what makes this match perfect is that "A" has quite an entourage of imaginary friends as well. While Sadie seems to collect Mexicans, this girl has dinosaurs- apparently she's recently watched The Land Before Time and it's had quite an affect on her.

We met at the playground yesterday and the two quickly began racing around the playground trying to escape from the "hot water." Not sure what the story was there but they seemed to be in a jungle.

Sadie was not shy at all (I think we're all hoping that she'll be our ticket to meeting others in this neighborhood). She also was not bashful about forgetting the little girl's name. "Hey kid" she would yell to her and "A" would ignore her not expecting to be called "kid". I tried to remind her what her friend's name was only to get an "Oh, Mom" accompanied by the eye-roll (I thought that wasn't supposed to start until she's at least 10).

The girls played and I was able to chat a little with her mom and then potty-time signaled the end. I just have to say, I'm so glad our house is close to the playground, especially when someone suddenly has to go potty.

Drive-way, Dump-truck Luge

This is our new entertainment at the house. I should probably discourage them from doing this but they're having such a good time and I actually get a kick out of Caleb doing something reasonably dangerous. This might all change when they end up needing a trip to the ER.

More From Mexico

In an earlier post I discussed Sadie's new imaginary friend, Margot. She's from Mexico and apparently this is where Sadie has a second home (with lots more toys). Margot still visits frequently and is sometimes joined by her brother, Sal. They often have opinions on what Sadie will or won't do. For example...

me- "Sadie, would you like to go to the library?"
Sadie- "hmm, let me ask Margot and Sal"
she whispers to Margot and Sal, then
Sadie- "yes, we would like to go to the library"

It's cute but can also drive you crazy sometimes.

At dinner the other night, we were informed that in addition to Margot and Sal, she also has a mom and dad in Mexico (of course). We were having pancakes for supper and the little girl was trying very hard to get ketchup for her pancakes. Our children don't seem to understand ketchup as a condiment but is instead a side dish and happily eat it up with using their fingers. We said she could have ketchup if she would eat some sausage but she refused. She then explained "My Mexico mom likes to eat ketchup on her pancakes." We still didn't cave on the ketchup.

A little while later, the girl was angling for a choc. chip cookie for dessert. The rule in our house is that pancakes are so good, they're like dessert (all that maple syruppy, yumminess). So on pancake night, we don't do dessert. After reminding Sadie of this rule, she replied "well, my Mexico dad eats syrup on his choc. chip cookies."

Looks like I might have to offer some parenting advice to Sadie's Mexico mom and dad. Hmm, I wonder if they're willing to contribute to her college fund?

Tea Party at Winnie Palmer Nature Reserve

 

 

 

 

My good friend, Kelly, invited Sadie and I to a mother/daughter tea party at the Winnie Palmer Nature Reserve. (Don't worry, there were no politics involved. This was the old fashioned, fancy-hat and dress kind of tea party)

The nature reserve is located on a strip of what used to be farmland between St. Vincent College and Rt 981(?) I'm really bad with street names but it's across from the Dairy Queen in Latrobe and I think it's a beautiful spot. There's an old barn and lots of trails and growing things to look at. And on a side note, Winnie Palmer was the wife of golfing great, Arnie Palmer and it was her idea to preserve this land from being commercially developed. She also passed away some years ago from uterine cancer (the same that Mona had) and sadly wasn't able to see the fulfillment of her idea. It's still a beautiful spot and it looks like it will be offering much more to the community.

The tea party started at 10AM so that meant we couldn't have our usual leisurely Saturday morning. We needed to be up and dressed and out the door by 9. Fortunately, the kids were up early and we made it out there in time. Sadie happily wore her Easter dress and tennis shoes (I know better than to try and put dress shoes on this girl). Unfortunately, the little princess had a very busy Friday, no nap, up until 10PM Friday night and up at 7ish the next morning. This made for a grump instead of a princess. We arrived before our friends and I thought we could walk on the trails and take some pictures. My dare-devil child strangely decided to be afraid of the walking trails including the little 6 ft path through the butterfly garden. She completely flipped out and cried any time I tried to take her away from the front of the barn.

Kelly and her daughter arrived and we went in for tea. The tables were really cute with little flower vases and bowls of sugar cubes and miss-matched tea cups and saucers. The girls were happy to sit down and begin pretending to sip their tea.

Tea was served shortly with finger sandwiches, cookies and strawberries. Sadie got to have some lemonade from her tea cup (she's not a fan of tea) and she tried her first PB and J sandwich. Yep, she's had more peanut butter sandwiches than I could count but never ventured to add jelly to that and you would have thought that I was asking her to try brussel sprouts with the resistance I got to the PB and J but somehow she managed to get down 2 sandwiches. I did have to rely on bribing her with a cookie though.

She made it through the tea without having too many tragedies. There was the incident with the ice in her lemonade. I couldn't get over the tears from the little girl for having to eat an ice cube... but all was well once the rest of the ice cubes were removed from her lemonade. Then she split her lip. Truly, it's not a successful tea party until you've got blood on your party dress... It wasn't bad and we've actually gotten used to this happening. Sadie's chipped tooth is very sharp and often does some damage when she bumps her mouth. She was walking back to our table and simply bumped into a chair. I never thought that it would result in blood but sure enough, her upper lip was cut and bleeding. We put some ice on it and she had a drink of water and we were pretty much done.

We took the girls out for a little walk and then it was time to say good bye. It was a really cute event and I hope we can do it again next year.