No Me and the Visible Friends

As our resident two year old and third child, Cedar has lately become much better about letting us know her every desire.  This consists mostly of loud declarations of no me.  No me!  Meaning, I would like to put on my shoes, even though it takes a painstaking 10 minutes and we are already late.  I would like to buckle my own car seat, even though I actually can't, but noooooo meeeeee (insert stiff as a board pose).  No me!  I can pour that full two gallon bottle of juice into a tiny cup.  Sigh.  This is such a cute age, except for the completely incompetent independence thing. 

My favorite thing about no me though, is its lesser used other meaning.  This is when Molly or Porter gets in trouble, and Cedar sidles up quietly.  She puts on her cute face and sing songs no meeeee.

Also, Molly has lately invented a troupe of imaginary friends.  This morning they were lined up 14 deep outside the front door waiting to play with her.  Or so I hear.  She calls them her visible friends.  Which amusingly drives Porter totally insane.  He keeps telling her, don't you get it?  That means you can see them!  To which Molly gives him a blank stare and carries on.  I'm all for friends.  Visible or not.

More Updates

Another series of updates in which I quit feeling guilty about not blogging.

We had a wonderful visit from Grandma Allison.  We ate too much pizza, but also hiked up a mountain.  And she took some pictures of us as a family, which never happens.

Also, Cedar was cute.

I ran in the Klondike Road Relay race.  It was exhausting and amazingly fun, and I took a two night trip out of town with only grown ups.  Woot.

Bryce and Porter are commercial salmon fishing with a friend right now, which is a male bonding experience that I'm so glad Porter gets to have.  Bryce was a commercial fisherman of a different sort back in the day, and even though this is a smaller (and safer!) kind of trip, it's a good one for them to be on.

With the boys out of town, Molly had a sleep-over with her best friend Kate.  They are four.  They didn't sleep.  I got kind of cranky about it.  But they were cute.

We just went through the post sleep-over day of hell and crying and hour long tantrums over I want to zip up the pajamas.  No you do it.  Nooooooooo.  And the house is quiet and I'm all alone.  And I'm out.  Peace.

Updates

We decided to keep Porter at our neighborhood school.  It was agonizing, but in the end, not really a difficult choice.  He was assigned to a second grade class with the first male teacher of his life, which I could tell was both exciting and a little scary.  School supplies were bought, everything was ready.

And then all three kids and I came down with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease.  Which if you don't have children, you likely haven't heard of.  A very much not serious illness, but one of the more completely annoying ones on my list.  And I'll leave it at that.  But it caused Porter to miss the first two days of school, which ended up making the whole thing a bit of a let-down.  After his first official day yesterday though, things seem to be going well, and I have high hopes for this year.

Cedar is continuing with more infrequent speech therapy, and is really improving.  I still can't understand a lot of what she says, but it is coming in leaps and bounds.  She seems more willing to try, which is a big deal.

The bears are still around, eating chickens in the neighborhood.  Fish and Game had to put one down in the touristy area yesterday for chasing people.  We still have on turkey left though, and we are protecting it fiercely.  And also looking forward to hibernation season.

Molly is still herself, my feisty one.  She has become really, really interested in weddings and being married, which seems normal enough for a little girl.  She likes to look at my wedding pictures, and she asked me if she could wear my dress someday.  She wonders if she has to get married in Oregon (like I did), will she be able to change clothes afterwards, will Grandma cook the food, and who will take care of Cedar after she doesn't live with us anymore.  She is also enraptured by love scenes in movies, the kind where the princess kisses Prince Charming at the end.  While Porter groans and hides his eyes, Molly swoons.  She seems too young to really care about that kind of thing, and in a lot of ways she doesn't, of course, really understand it, I think it's more about pretty clothes and princesses and fairy tales.  But then the other day she asked me if, after she married Thalen (a friend up the street who is her current fancy), could she put her mouth all over him?  Ahem.  The answer was no.