Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Ivy, the Two-Year-Old

Hello there.  It's been a while.  Between the fact that there never seems to be enough time for all the things that need to be done around here and the fact that I have been writing long weekly letters to my missionary little sister documenting our life, I haven't managed to make blogging a high priority.  And it turns out that with three little people around who think that your purpose for existing is to serve only them, if something isn't a high priority, it doesn't happen.  Ever.  But in a few months my sister will be coming home, and I figure I should return to my attempt to capture a few of life's moments here for the sake of looking back after the whirlwind of children has moved out and having some kind of idea of what on earth I spent the last few decades doing.

This weekend, we celebrated Ivy's birthday.  I made whole-wheat, reduced-sugar pumpkin muffins.  Because if the birthday child is too young to know that birthday cake is supposed to involve frosting, there's no reason to give it to them.  And while you're at it, you might as well get in some whole grain and a vegetable.  It took Ivy several "fffff"s to get her two candles blown out.  And once she finally managed it, she did NOT want them removed from her muffin, so she just ate around them.


Ivy received a baby doll stroller and some Nemo bath toys from us and a puffy pink skirt and some spiky building blocks from my mom.  She wanted to use all of her presents immediately, so I figure that means they were good ones.  She is most attached to the pink skirt.  I don't know how she knows that she is supposed to like pink or skirts.  Asher and Simon are not modeling that behavior and that's who she hangs out with all day, but she figured it out somehow.  She wanted to put her new skirt on right away, and when I tried to put it away at bedtime she got very upset.  So she wore it to bed.  She's still wearing it now.  She may never wear anything else again.  She did allow me to remove it briefly while she took a bath, which she wanted to do so that she could play with her new bath toys.




After the bath, and the reapplication of the skirt, she used her new blocks to alternately build towers and comb her hair.

Ivy is generally sweet and happy, but she is extremely opinionated.  She suffers from hanger- a genetic condition that causes the afflicted person to become extremely grumpy and unreasonable anytime hunger strikes- but will magically turn back into her sweet self at the sight of either of her two favorite food groups:  cheese and goldfish crackers.  She wants to walk everywhere rather than be carried or ride in a cart or stroller, and will take every possible opportunity to "do it a-self!"  She likes to snuggle, read books, play with legos, cars, and baby dolls, and tell her brothers what to do.  (Asher!  Simon!  Come on!)  She is a copy cat, a comforter of the sad, a toy hoarder, and a joiner of all games.  I'm sure that in this next year of her life she will continue to keep us on our toes.  We can probably use the exercise.

3 comments:

Ben said...

Yay for updates!

NPR has validated the existence of hanger, and even run some tests.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/04/15/301780516/voodoo-dolls-prove-it-hunger-makes-couples-turn-on-each-other

Erin said...

Ah, I am unfortunately too familiar with hanger. Is Ivy still wearing the skirt a few days later? Sounds like just the right kind celebration.

pneal said...

Hanger affects all spackmans. What a cute girl you have there.