Decoration & Creativity

This is what I greeted me when I got home from work last night. Apparently Muffin decided to make a bed using the sofa cushions! Quite a pretty bed, I may add. I discovered my favorite part as we were taking it apart before bed… she'd put toys under the mattress, just like in the "Princess and the Pea" story (I guess because she didn't have peas?). She was soooo proud of the 'bed' she'd made. Notice that she even covered up some stuffed animals in a blanket?

She invited me to join her on it, which I attemped to decline (since, ahem, I *am* adult sized) but she'd have none of it. No, sorry, no pictures of us in bed ;)

Child Labor

We had a wonderful almost spring-like weather this past weekend! Muffin and I took advantage of it, and visited a local park on Saturday where she had a blast with the swings and play areas. Then on Sunday, I wanted to work on preparing the garden for spring, but what to do about Muffin? Hmmmm, how about asking her to fill up her wagon with sticks, and offering her money for doing this? Hooo boy did she like the idea! It worked out so well, she had fun (for the most part) picking up sticks while chatting with me (play-acting chat, sigh). And I was able to do the hard labor for our garden bed. YOU try to pretend to be characters while shoveling and hand-rototilling the soil. It was hard! Hey, I deserved another dollar for my work too ;) But she was SOOO happy to get her "green square rectangle with a face on it" (her words). And I was happy to discover Child Labor. Bwahahaha!

There is hope

Muffin is not a very adventurous eater, as apparently is typical with most kids her age. Long ago, like 2-3 yrs ago, she used to love kiddie foods like chicken nuggets, meatballs, soup, and mashed potatoes. Somehow along the way she started disliking foods, one by one. Her typical daily menu nowadays is:

Breakfast: dry cereal (pancake, french toast or muffin whenever I make them)
Lunch: peanut butter & jelley sandwich
Dinner: plain pasta (not even butter on it), rice and black beans, or fruit salad. Pizza if she can get it.

This has been driving me batty for months. We've tried introducing other foods but so far she's rebuffed all efforts.

Until yesterday.

On Sunday, Muffin and I went to the mall shopping for some summer clothes for her. I asked her if she'd like to try chicken nuggets for lunch as a treat at the mall… and she said … YES! After picking myself up from the floor and making an emergency PBJ sandwich (in case she hated nuggets), off we went to the mall. Would you believe she LOVED the nuggets? We got the 'Tyson' dinosaur shaped nuggets from The Great Steak & Potato Company. Given her acid reflux, she only got to eat a handful of fries with her nuggets.

Then she asked for nuggets for dinner.

I asked her, now that she likes chicken nuggets, would she be open to trying meatballs? To which she answered "NEVER!" with her usual dramatic flair. So I'll have to try again in a few months… but there is hope that she'll grow to eat more foods!!

Valentine's day

Muffin had a wonderful day on Valentine's! We'd made some crafty presents for Muffindad the night before, and she was so excited about it that we woke up Muffindad just to give him his presents. (Sorry, no extra sleep for Muffindad!) We had heart shaped French Toast (cut into shape by Muffinmom) for breakfast, then went to a fun birthday party that afternoon. After nap, we opened the rest of the presents for everyone and had a fantastic dinner at our favorite Tex Mex restaurant, Tinga Taqueria

So of course on Sunday, Muffin asked me if it was Valentine's day again. LOL! I told her no, and she wanted to know why? YOU try to explain it to a 4 year old who wants more holidays!

Kissing a boo-boo

Last night Muffin was playing with Muffindad, and unintentionally punched him in a 'sensitive spot'… ouch!

Muffindad grabbed Muffin and told her to please never hit him there again because now he had a big boo-boo that hurt a lot.

To which she replied - do you want me to kiss your boo-boo and make it better?

Eeeck!!

Of course we explained that she couldn't kiss the boo-boo but she could hug and kiss Muffindad to make him feel better. And she did.

Children's innocence… gotta love it!

Jokes & Riddles

Muffin has understood the concept of 'jokes' for quite some time. Her first 'jokes' consisted of listing a bunch of items that didn't seem to go together, for example:

"Cow, Bird, Lion, Giraffe"

followed by laughing. I guess she thought the combination funny? Then she'd ask me & Muffindad to say our own jokes, so we'd proceed with our own list of animals, and she'd crack up.

We've now discovered Knock Knock jokes and riddles. She probably picked this up from watching Lambchop (on Youtube ). Daddymuffin did come up with a couple of good ones:

"How do you catch a squirrel?
Climb up a tree and act like a nut!"

"Knock Knock"
"Who's there?"
"Orange"
"Orange who"
"Orange you glad to see me?"

and of course there's always the old standby about the chicken crossing the road...

So now during dinner she wants to do jokes… help? Anyone know where we can learn some simple jokes & riddles?

Who knew it could fly?

WARNING - May be TMI!

We always check when Muffin goes potty to make sure she's truly clean (especially after the time she smeared poop all over the tub... )

SO today I was sitting in front as she's wiping. She likes to look at the TP after wiping to check its all clean... well, after her first 'check' I suddenly noticed that something went flying and landed on my pants. Yep. A nice chunk o'poo. Oh they joys of parenting ....

This ranks right up there when she was a 2 month old and pooped on my hands as I was putting diaper rash cream on her tushy.

Anyone have funny poop stories?