Walking Backwards

Paxten was walking back and forth in our living room the other day, and then all of the sudden she started walking backwards for the first time, and she cackled and then started walking back and forth in our living room backwards.  I remember when Presley first learned to walk backwards and it made her laugh too.  My neighbor said the other day something to the effect of how every day babies see or do something that they have never done or seen before, and mentioned how amazing life must be to them, and I had never thought of it in that perspective before.   The pictures below are of Paxten walking backwards.  I love my always-learning something-new girls!

Memorial Day

Thank you to our country’s entire active military and veterans who fight/fought for us to live in a country where we have the freedom to do almost anything.... including putting green shoes on our kids.

The Cave

When I was a kid, I remember making caves or tents.  Presley likes to make a cave and be bear cub.  Paxten likes to try to play with her too, but Paxten does not like to go in the cave... not yet anyway.  I love how well they play together.

5.....4.....3.....2.....1.....BLASTOFF!

When I was a kid my father used to always play this game with us where we would count down from 5, and then his hand would become a rocket and come tickle us.  We played it all the time.  So I tried to play it with Presley the other day at breakfast:

Me:  Presley if you say 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blastoff, my hand will turn into a rocket and come tickle you.

P1:  (smiling) If your hand becomes a rocket, my hand will turn into a dog, and I'll come lick you.

So Presley would not countdown because she did not want to be tickled, but she grinned nonstop at breakfast while I encouraged her to do it with reverse psychology. She did, however, ask me to countdown, and after I did, she got up from the table, walked over to me and licked my hand!  Ha ha!  The picture above doesn't go with this story, but it is a funny face that P1 likes to make sometime when she is being silly.  I love my silly girl.

Laughing Paxten

We were eating at a restaurant for breakfast last Sunday morning.  While we were there a lady at another table laughed really loud, and then Paxten started laughing, which in turn made Lora and I laugh, which then caused Paxten to laugh even more, which then caused us to laugh even more.  It was quite a scene.  Her laughing reminds me of how people laugh at jokes sometimes even when they don't get them just to go along with all the other laughers, and I wonder if that was what she was doing.  Maybe she has already learned that social skill.  Maybe she thought the lady's laugh was funny.  Regardless, I think it is a sign of intelligence and it made Lora and I laugh a lot.  Lora snapped this picture right after it happened.  I love my laughing Paxten and her social skills.

Shelter From The Storm Part II

Apparently Paxten enjoyed sitting in her green chair and being fed an unlimited supply of veggie chips when we were taking shelter from the tornado two nights ago.  I blogged about it yesterday.  How do I know that she enjoyed it?  Well, she went into the pantry by herself after dinner tonight and sat down and started screaming and pointing up to the veggie chips, and then she was not happy when daddy took her out of the chair and started carrying her upstairs for her bath.  I obviously accomplished my second goal of project Shelter From The Storm which was to make sure she was not scared.  This morning she was screaming and pointing to the pantry too, and I was wondering why.  Now I know.  The picture below is not a re-enactment.  Be sure you look at yesterday's post too, and you'll notice it is almost the exact same picture as far as Paxten is concerned.  You can find it here.  Her personality is really starting to show up, and I love it and her! Makes me smile.

Tug Of War

This is from last night's bath.
I really don't have anything to add that the picture doesn't already take care of. 
I love that my girls love each other and play so well together.

Shelter From The Storm

Last night DFW had several bad storms pass through.  After both girls were in bed, I had to get them out of bed and bring them down to our pantry.  I was watching the weather, and we were right in the path of what they thought was a tornado that had touched down in Saginaw, and the tornado sirens were going off nonstop.  I decided to make it like a game, but Presley knew what we were doing because they had practiced at her school.  My goals were, first and foremost, to protect them, but second to not let them be scared.  I think my fear of tornados comes from an episode I had when I was a kid in a small cabin with almost all of my mom's side of the family.  So there they were.  I put them in seats that they could not get out of and gave them veggie chips and water nonstop.  After it was over, it was not easy to get them both back into bed.  Presley even told me that she wasn't tired anymore and that she wanted to watch TV, but we survived the storm, and I eventually got them back in bed.  It would have been a lot easier if my wife had been here to help, but she was on the way back from Florida, and she got stuck in the air circling DFW Airport for an hour and ended up in San Antonio last night.  She should be home late this afternoon.

Like I previously said, I am scared of tornados, but when my main concern was my girls' safety, the fear went away real fast.  I love my snack eating after bed time girls!

Cady & Cady

The other day, Paxten Cady Parker and Cady Lou Parker were playing with each other.  Pax and Cady kept giving each other kisses, then Paxten would scream happily about it.  Cady's tail was going 90 miles an hour, which is apparent by this picture, and THAT is why I love this picture.

Paxten's Button

Paxten Parker knows how to turn off the volume to our television.  (See Exhibit A) Presley taught her.  Paxten thinks it is so much fun to turn the volume on and off.  Unfortunately, our uiversal remote control can't turn the volume on.  It only works at turning it off, so if Paxten turn's off the volume, we can't just turn it back on with a remote.  I remember when Presley first figured this out, and she was a lot closer to the age of two, so we could tell her not to do it, and she would listen.  We tell Paxten "no," but she just smiles at us and does it again.  (See Exhibit B)  I love that Paxten already knows this and that Presley taught it to her.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

Presley Stays At Poppy And SuSu's

On Saturday my parents kept Presley for the day and night, and they all had a really good time.  That morning, before I took Presley to Poppy and SuSu's house, P1 and I had the following conversation:

Me:  Presley, you get to go to Poppy and SuSu's house today and spend the night.
P1:  I don't want to go to Poppy and SuSu's house and spend the night.
Me:  Don't be silly.  Yes you do.  They are going to the Zoo!  !
P1:  I don't want to go to the Zoo.

She wasn't acting like she didn't want to go.  So I think she just wanted to feel like she had some control.  I didn't tell my mom about that conversation, which made the following email from my mom the next morning even funnier:  (Please Note: Me = SuSu)

Me:  Presley, are you going to take your zebra home with you?
Presley:  I'm not going home.
Me:  (Laughing) Well, I'm really glad you like staying here, but your mommy & daddy want you to come home.
Presley: But I don't want to go home.

She either has a blast where ever she is OR she is good at playing to her audience. =)

On a related note, Presley is not a handful by any means, but when you get accustom to having two kids around, and all of the sudden you just have one child for the day, life just seems so much easier.  I can remember the fear I had about taking care of a child/baby when Lora was pregnant with Presley, and now if I ever have only one of them to take care of, it is a piece of cake.  Perspective can really change things.  That said, I love it when both my girls are under my roof.  It was fun to talk to Presley on the phone yesterday, but it also made me miss her even more.

Cars

Today on the way to school, a red Coca-Cola 18 wheeler drove by us, which is rare because we don't usually see 18 wheelers near our house.  When it went by, Presley got excited about it, and said:

"That looks like Lightning McQueen's truck! ! "

Lightning McQueen is the main CARacter in Cars, the Disney animation movie.  The significance is that we don't own that movie, but Poppy and SuSu do.  She hasn't watched it with them in over a year.  She has an amazing memory.

Cats

 

Thursday morning on the way to school.

Me:  Presley, look at that cat just sitting on the sidewalk.
P1:  I love cats.
Me:  You do?
P1:  Yea.  Some cats are nice.
Me:  Presley, most cats are nice.
P1:  All cats are nice.
Me:  Wait, I thought you just said only some cats were nice.
P1:  They are all nice.
Me:  Well, big cats aren't nice.  Like lions and tigers.  They will try to eat you.
P1:  But flying lions are nice.
Me:  Flying lions?  When have you seen a nice flying lion?
P1:  In Rudolph.
Me:  Presley, you're right.  The flying lion in Rudolph is nice.

I've loved one cat in my life.  His name was Tigger, but if Presley loves cats, then I'll love cats too...especially flying lions!

Negotiation

I gave Presley a ring from the top of a cupcake.  It still had a little icing on the ring.  She put it on her finger.  She is very tired and on Benadryl.

P1:  My hands are so sticky.
P1:  (begins to cry) My hands are so sticky.
Me:  Presley, stop crying.
P1:  (still crying) .. but daddy my hands are so sticky.
Me:  Give me your ring.
(She hands it to me.)
Me:  You can have your ring back when you stop crying.
P1:  (crying more now)  I want my ring back.
Me:  Presley you can have it back when you stop crying.
P1:  I'll stop crying when you give me my ring back.

Made me laugh.

Are You Smarter Than Pre-Pre Schooler?

Presley learns a lot at her Montessori school.  I am no longer surprised when she tells me something because it seems like they teach her stuff well above her 3 year old mind level.  There is a game show on TV. called "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?" and the questions are hard.  The concept is that some of the stuff you learn in 5th grade doesn't stick with you, such as "On what continent is the chimpanzee's natural habitat?"  This is a true question.  The answer is Africa.  So when I had the following conversation with Presley about a month ago, I didn't think anything of it:

P1:  Daddy, what kind of clouds are those?

Me:  Um, cumulus?

P1:  Yea, cumulus.  Cumulus clouds don't make rain.

Me:  They don't?

P1:  No.

This conversation or something similar to it, took place 3 or 4 times, and I was constantly telling everyone about it and talking about how smart she was.  I never even considered checking to see if she was right because I figured she just learned it in school.  Then one day she asked me, "Daddy, what clouds make rain?"  I told her "stratus."  She said, "Yea, stratus."  At this point I was feeling pretty good about myself.  Not only was I right that cumulus clouds didn't make rain, but I also remembered that stratus clouds did make rain.  I forgot I was talking to a 3 year old apparently.  I decided to go check it out online, and it turns out, not only do cumulus clouds make rain, but all thunderstorms come from cumulus clouds called Cumulonimbus.  It turns out cumulus and stratus and cirrus clouds can all produce some type of precipitation based on their movement higher or lower in the atmosphere.

So to answer the question at hand:  I don't know if I am smarter than a pre-pre schooler because we were both wrong!  I love my constantly-learning-new-things-even-if-it-doesn’t-all stick-100%-girl!

"Something Different"

It is funny what kids remember or how they see things.  For example, about 2 months ago, I decided to give Presley and Paxten a shower in their bathtub instead of a bath.  I remember when I started the water, Presley sat down in it, and I told her, "hold on, we're going to do something different."   I attempted to give them a shower because the shower head is removable, and it makes for a quick cleaning of scrubbing with soap and rinsing with the removable shower head, but it really didn’t work out because Pax was having none of it.  She screamed and cried the entire time.

Well since that date, Presley has told me a countless number of times that she wants to “do something different,” or asks “can we do something different?”  She is referring to taking a shower, and she knows that it is called a “shower,” but that is what stuck in her head.  Whenever she does it, it cracks me up because when I was in high school, I remember ads for an alcoholic beverage called Zima, and their slogan was “Zomething Different.”

Paxten has been extremely tired this week, so Lora has bathed her early, and then I give Presley a shower after Pax is already in bed.  It is great because we are in and out so quickly and it is much easier to wash/rinse her hair with the removable shower head.  This week, Presley has been able to do “something different” several times.

My girls are zomething wonderful!

Paxten's Cup

This is happy Paxten.

She is happy mainly because she is holding a cup of goldfish.

If you ever see her holding this, don't you dare take it away from her.

This morning she saw it in my hand, and it was empty, but she didn't care.  She almost had a meltdown.  So I went and filled it up with goldfish and brought it back to her.  While I was gone, Presley, being a good sister, tried to feed Paxten some of her yogurt.  It got all over Paxten's hand.   I didn't know this until after I handed her this cup full of goldfish.  She was holding it in her left hand which was also covered in yogurt.  I had to take it away from her so I could clean her left hand.

First, she had a death grip on it.  I really don't think my mother could have pried it from her little left hand.  (Any faithful reader of this blog knows that she is left handed.)  Second, after I took it out of her left hand, she started screaming and crying so loud! !   Luckily, she quickly grabbed it with her right hand and started smiling and laughing when she realized that I wasn't taking it from her, but only cleaning her left hand.  I've said it countless times on this blog, and I'm going to say it again:  Paxten is a fireball! ! !

I love my fireball and her sweet, sharing, caring sister!

P.S.  Presley's favorite four colors are purple, pink, blue and rainbow.  Please notice Presley's rainbow socks in the picture too.

Fence

I have told you often how I love showing up to pick up Presley at her school when they are playing outside and watching her play.  Now that it is nice, they are outside more often, and she has started looking for me.  The other day I pulled up to get her, and I parked by the fence, but I couldn't see her.  So I got out of my car and was heading inside, when all of the sudden from across the big open green field came little Presley Parker running as fast as her legs would carry her.  I couldn't get my phone out quick enough to snap a picture of her running to me, but I did get one after she made it to the fence.  It makes me happy to see my girl, and it makes me happy that it makes my girl happy to see her daddy.

Teacher Quotes

"I love this kid."

"She is a really good kid."

"She always has a good day."

"She's really smart."

“She is a fireball.”

“She learns a new word every day, and if you listen you can hear her say it.”

“Sometimes she’ll just say a word one time, but she doesn’t forget it.  She’s storing it.  She’s such a smart girl.”

In case you’re wondering, the first 4 quotes were said about Presley by one of her teachers this morning and the last 3 quotes were said about Paxten by her in home day care provider this morning.

Presley’s teacher and Miss Linda didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know or feel about my girls, but I loved hearing it.  As a parent, you feel this way about your children, but you know you are biased.  Lora and I often talk about how cute/smart our girls are, and I always remind her that we are the most biased people in the world when it comes to talking about OUR girls.  So when a teacher who sees 40+ kids a day or an in home day care provider who has been taking care of kids for over 30 years says something positive like that about your girls, it really makes you feel good as a parent.  I have two amazing girls, and yes, one of them is definitely a fireball!

I love ‘em!

Blog Issues

I created a post yesterday to be posted today, but it didn't work so I posted it yesterday instead, and it was up for about half the day, but now it has disappeared.  I am not sure if it will come back or not.  So for now, I am going to wait and start posting again on Monday.  During that time one thing remains the same:  I love my girls! ! ! !