As you might know birthdays are pretty low key around here. No parties or anything big, just enough to know you're special & loved. Meals on great-great-grandma's china, some sort of yummy treat for everyone & a little treat for the birthday person. Oatmeal is more fun in the china.
I could not get a flattering smile out of her once during this meal.
Charlotte & Miranda fight all of the time, play all of the time & work together all of the time. I remember doing this w/ my sister until about 12 or 14 when the fighting just kind of quit & we went to being full time friends. We never really worked much. Spencer the horse is a hot point of contention, here is a rare truce.
I know you're not supposed to compare siblings but I think that's part of the fun. Miranda is the best speaker of the 3. She spoke the earliest w/ the fullest sentences & some of her mixed up words are so cute we don't try to correct her. She hates topatoes in any form but french fries & lives pretty much off of protein, imbibing several handfuls of peanuts a day, & as many eggs & cottage cheese as she can get out of me whereas Charlotte tries to live solely off of bread & Victor is finally on to adult fare & tastes.
Miranda: "Mamma, we can't see brudders pribates cuz he's a boy & has peanuts."
Me: " No boys don't have peanuts, they have a penis."
Miranda looking taken aback: "Peanuts".
Me w/ apprehension about the direction of the conversation: "No baby a penis. Boys have a penis."
Miranda w/ a look of concentration furrowing her brow: "Pe-a-noose."
Me wondering what on earth I am doing: "Victor!"- Sounding serious.
He comes running in his shorts & bathrobe. "Miranda wants to know if you have a penis or peanuts, she's getting confused."
Victor began rolling on the floor in laughter. "No silly girl, it's a penis", giggling the whole time. This is just not a topic that comes up in our house.
Miranda really making a concerted effort. I can see her mind relaying signals to her lips: "peean-iss."
Me: "Good enough."
Later while brushing his teeth she comes running in the bathroom doorway, "You've not got peanuts but a peean-iss! Ha ha!" I did try to halt that game as soon as it began.
She is very much aware of my ever growing belly & has been playing w/ her babydolls, making a million little beds out of cardboard boxes, figuring out how to swaddle. She pretends to nurse them & is anxious to help me change diapers. I'm not sure if she remembers nursing or not. She has 4 dolls, 2 identical sets of twins & all 4 are named Baby Moses. The basket bed is the most coveted but she'll turn any kind of box into a baby bed.
As she's only 3 she is below the age for toy gifts. All 3 have received a balloon from us every year until they hit 5 & all 3 are ecstatic over it. Victor started to cry when he realized he didn't get a balloon this year which really took me back. Generally the balloons have a life of about a month before they are popped & put into the baby book. She also asked for chicken nuggets...but at the Chinese Buffet so Mike took us out to eat for lunch. She mostly ate the fruit & hardboiled egg off of the salad bar & so had the healthiest lunch of us all until she ate a cup of icecream.
I try to make birthdays a rite of passage. She's 3 & now a big girl so I explained I would not be going to the bathroom w/ her anymore since she can climb herself onto the toilet, handle her pants & tear off the appropriate amount of toilet paper. I cannot tell you how many meals were late, boiled over & burned because she always has to go at a critical time & wants me (only me!) to come w/ her to help, though Charlotte is welcome to come in to play a game & just keep her company in general.
Our chickens are on strike again after a glut of laying. They've all tried to go broody at once & I'm just too big to fit in the hen house to break up the broody mood. So I had to make her cake w/ only 2 eggs as opposed to the 8 the recipe called for. We were also pretty low on butter so I had to use sour cream instead. Nuts are also out of our budget, but I think it looks nice. I hate candied cherries (a gift) but they surely are pretty.
Birthday dress at 2.
2 comments:
Vanessa, you're girls are beautiful and, yes, I think you are most definately Miranda's mama. My grandson Oran is my "out of the mouths of babes" child. Everything he encounters that needs a name is "Johnny" or "Lilly". The cake is lovely. Granddaughter Lianna and I made a red velvet cake yesterday and I was out of powdered sugar so I substituted a cooked sour cream icing. It was too thin and ran all over the floor and I almost cried (which is pretty unusual).
Thanks Judy. The cake didn't end up bad; it was certainly more brownie like than cake like & didn't rise in the middle. I used an apple sauce/ yogurt mixture to substitute the missing eggs. My icing was also runny as I had condensed milk rather evaporated. It was already sweetened so I didn't want to add too much more sugar. I added cocoa powder to brown it up a little & dumped in the coconut. I did add some powdered sugar to firm it up a little as mine was also runny. It was a frazzling cake day over here too, though the end result was good.
Post a Comment