Rose-ism

I thought my parents, who I'm sure were endlessly annoyed with my picky eating, would enjoy this gem from a couple minutes ago:

Rose: Mommy, when I'm a grown-up, I will be just like you!
Me: (heart melting)  Aw, thanks sweetheart! What is it that you like about me that you want to be like when you grow up?
Rose: I will eat my dinner and I won't be afraid to try it!

Rose-isms: outsmarting the grandparents

Last week Rose went to my parents' house while Mike was at a training for work. Of course we all had a fun time (I got a start on sorting through our vacation photos, Mike got to go fishing a few days after work, and Rose apparently LOVED Bay Beach), but Mike and I also missed her like crazy! The house was so quiet without her energy, and it was great to get our little family back together again on Friday.


Once we got back together, it was a lot of fun to hear Rose talk about all the cool things she did with Ninja and PopPop -- between the concerts, the amusement park rides, the dinners with extended family, and "inside out canoeing," I'm surprised she slept at all! 


But my favorite part of her recounting the week's adventures was when she gleefully told me "the rules are different at Ninja and PopPop's!!!" She proceeded to tell me about how she drank milk at every meal (usually we limit it to once per day) and she ate mac&cheese every day (we usually limit it to every other day). She just looked SO proud of herself as she talked about the rules being different.


This totally cracks me up because (a) she clearly noticed the discrepancy right away, and (b) she chose not to say anything until after the fact!!  (She's no dummy!)  


I think I like this combo of just a little bit of mischief with a good dollop of honesty. :)

Before she left, we saw "Finding Dory" in the theatre together.

She was happy to dress up as a "princess ballerina" and dance last night

Rose-isms

Rose has always had the habit of twirling her hair as a self-soothing strategy, ever since she was a baby. We never discouraged it because we thought it was cute and, to be perfectly frank, we were just relieved that she wasn't sucking her thumb. But now it's turned into a problem because she is starting to get snarls in her hair from twirling it and then she is pulling out the snarls...resulting in a couple bald spots on her head!  So we're trying to gently remind her not to twirl her hair, to encourage an alternative behavior (clasping her hands "to give them a hug" instead), and to style her hair differently to discourage the twirling.


Last night I put "ponies" in her hair again for the first time in over a year. She looked in the mirror and said "I look like a new woman!"   :)

peas in a pod

Last night we (me, Rose, Mike, Lucy and Mac) all watched the Packers get trounced by the Cardinals.


I, of course, was cheering for "the green team." Rose decided she was going to cheer for "the red team."


I told her, "You and Daddy are just two peas in a pod!"


She responded, "And you are one pea in a pod, Mommy!"

Rose-isms and Halloween

The other day Rose and I were eating breakfast together as Mike was carrying things outside to pack up his car in order to go fishing after work. As he carried his HUGE tackle box outside, Rose yelled out "Be careful, Mikey!" (Where did she come up with that knickname?!)


Another day I gave Rose the option to go to school right away so I could get gas after dropping her off, or to go with me to get gas before I dropped her off. She thought about it for a long time, then responded "maybe Daddy should get gas for you and we play."   (I like the way she thinks!)




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In other news, I LOVE when Halloween falls on a Saturday! Extra time to dress up and have fun, and no worries about having to get to school/work the next day. Rose was also THRILLED to be able to wear her costume all day. She had asked to be a princess, in blue, with a dress that reached "all the way to the ground!" and with a cape. I think we succeeded! She's my favorite Cinderella ever.

Putting on Cinderella's magic slippers.

The Shops at West End hosted a little Halloween event for kids.

 At one of the first stores they asked her "who are you for Halloween?"  She paused, then responded "I'm Rose."  :)

So hard to pick just one treat!

"Trick or treat!"

We even ran into her best friend from school!

 

We had yummy Indian food for lunch!

After lunch and a few errands, we returned home for nap time. And after nap we finally carved our pumpkin!  (Bought way back when we went to Mankato for the day!) We haven't even tried carving pumpkins for the past few years, so this was Rose's first experience pulling out the "guts."

"You want me to do what?!"

One seed at a time...

Then shake that one seed to the ground...

30 minutes later!

I love this photo!

"Hurry up, Mommy! It's getting dark out!"

I love her reflection in the door!

It got dark fast!

Look at that stash!!!

THAT'S what we call a "sugar buzz!!"

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween!

Rose-isms

I love some of Rose's incorrect pronunciations! I still laugh when I think of the "do-si-do" (grocery store) and "muff-mahns" (muffins). She says both of those correctly now, so I'm savoring these while they last:

"e-cuzzies"
examples:  They love e-cuzzies so they got married and had a baby.
(each other)

"boo-full-is"
examples: She's a boo-full-is princess.
(beautiful)

Rose-ism: cheese (and ALLOWANCE!)

Sometimes when I get home from work, I am absolutely starving and just need a quick snack so I don't bite someone's head off before dinner. Rose is always up for a quick snack, so we now share in the habit of occasionally having "a slice of cheese to tide us over." (I am from Wisconsin, after all, so what else would tide me over until dinner?!)






Yesterday Mike picked up Rose at daycare and HE was starving. Rose, being the thoughtful girl that she is, suggested that they each have a slice of cheese "to tie us up."   




Ha!




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In other news, I think I've mentioned how infatuated Rose is with her magiclip dolls. She has been incessantly asking for more princesses, more dresses, more princes, more houses for them, etc. A couple months ago we started her Christmas list so we could deflect some of the never-ending begging for more, more, MORE. She is now up to 30+ entries and still counting.




So yesterday we decided to try a new approach: we instituted a weekly allowance to start teaching her the value of money. We're starting with $1 per week (seems reasonable for her age, no?), so she got her first dollar yesterday. She is SO excited about her dollar and has been taking very good care not to lose it. (Pretty impressively so, for a three-year-old!) She has been begging to go to Target to get a new doll for the last couple weeks, so I told that we would go yesterday afternoon and check to see how much the dolls cost.  I was bracing myself for the inevitable disappointment that I was sure would ensue she she realized that the dolls cost $5-7 each. What I was not prepared for was stubborn little miss insisting that we just weren't looking hard enough and surely there was a doll available for only $1. We must have spent 30-45 minutes in the toy section at Target, with her stubbornly insisting that we look harder (and ask for help!) and me stubbornly insisting that she would just have to start saving her money because EVERYTHING in the entire STORE costs more than a dollar. ARGH!




I finally got her out of there, but I still don't think she's convinced.

another Rose-ism

The other day I was cutting up some peaches for breakfast, and Rose touched the outside of the peach and said "it has a blanket on it?"   :)


In other news, Mike and Rose took an impromptu trip up to the cabin at the beginning of this week. I had to work, so while I was supremely jealous of the relaxation time they got together, I comforted myself by savoring my "alone time" in the house each evening: I watched a ridiculous amount of The Good Wife, made some more progress on the quilt I've been working on for over a year, and read a terrible book. Oh, and drank some wine and ate popcorn for dinner on two nights in a row. :) 

Emily sent me a couple photos of Rose enjoying her time with her cousins:

Apparently they watched and then enacted The Sound of Music

Rose looks so grown up here!!!

I'm looking forward to seeing Mike and Little Miss this evening! :)

Rose-isms

The other night, as she was supposed to be falling asleep in bed, we heard Rose yelling out from her bedroom...
R:  Mommy! Daddy!! Moooooommyyy!!!
S: Rose, it's bedtime! You need to go to sleep now!
R: But the toots are knocking at my butt!!
(a pretty unique description of needing to go potty!)



Yesterday I was trying to explain to Rose some of the different options she could have for work when she grows up...
S: Ms. Angie is a stylist, which means that she cuts people's hair for her job.  What do you think you want to be when you grow up?
R: Ummmm.....
S: You could be a teacher like daddy, or a psychologist like me, or a hair stylist like Ms. Angie, or a doctor like Dr. Lind-Ayres, or...
R: My want to be a psychologist!
S:  Great! Do you know what a psychologist does all day?
R: Yep.
S: What do they do all day?
R: My don't know.
S: A psychologist talks to people and helps them feel better if they are sad.
R: And you give them kisses?
S: Uh, no, I don't give people kisses at work.
R: Then you give them hugs?
S: No, I don't give them hugs either. I just talk to them.
R: Oh.  (clearly disillusioned with the job of a psychologist and now considering alternative career paths...)




Last night I was reading her stories before bedtime...
R: You wake me up in the morning?
S: I usually come in and give you a kiss every morning before I leave for work.
R: (long pause)
S: Is that okay if I give you a kiss in the morning?
R: My want the door closed and the lights off.
S: You don't want me to give you a kiss in the morning?
R:  No kisses. Door closed and lights off and curtains closed.
S: You just want to sleep and not see me in the morning? Then I won't see you until after work tomorrow.
R: Curtains closed and lights off and door closed.
S: Okay....
(At least she's learning to love sleep, I suppose, even if it does break my heart that she doesn't want me to say goodbye to her in the morning!)

This is how she wanted to dress when we had a heat advisory last Sunday.

 

Rose-isms

Now that she is 3 (and very clearly trying to make sense of the world, as in what is "right" and what is "wrong," and also pressing the limits even more), she is coming up with some pretty cute Rose-isms! Here are two of my favorites from the past couple weeks.

1. en route from Appleton to Minneapolis, we stopped at a gas station to get some snacks and to go potty...
Rose:  Mommy, you hold me on the potty?
Me: Are you afraid you might fall in? Of course I'll hold you.
Rose: Hold me tight!
a few minutes later, when it was then my turn to go potty...
Rose: Mommy, you have a big bottom.
Me: Uh...
Rose: My bottom is little. Your bottom is big. You won't fall in.
(Yep, I definitely don't have to worry about falling in!)

2. recounted from Mike about a conversation they had the other day...
Mike: What do you want to do today Rose? We could go to the park, or to the library, or on a nature walk, or for a bike ride.
Rose: Give me another option, Daddy.
Mike: Uh...
Rose: I want another option. Like watching [Finding] Nemo.
(Yep, any way she can find to try to watch a movie!)


In other news, we are taking Rose backpacking in a couple weeks, so we decided to set up two trial nights of camping to get ready.  Tonight, she and Mike are attempting to sleep in the backyard - and I can't decide if this was a brilliant idea (to prepare her) or a disaster waiting to happen!  Here she was getting ready for the big night in the tent:

Because what else would you wear to camp in other than an apron, a princess dress, a headband, and a crown? Oh, and she is "talking on the phone" too.

On Saturday we head to a state park for more camping. Hopefully Rose, who is used to sleeping with black-out curtains on her windows, won't be too affected by the looooooong solstice day! 

Wish us luck.

Rose-isms: morals

Rose is starting to developing a pretty strong sense of right and wrong. Once she knows what our household "rule" is, she doesn't hesitate to enforce it for me and Mike also. Two recent examples  happened at the dinner table earlier this week.  We were eating chicken caesar salad (i.e., Rose gets mostly croutons and we have been teaching her that you have to "try" everything, such as the lettuce and the chicken) and Rose noticed that I didn't have any croutons (because I hate them, although I've never said that in front of her) and she promptly informed me "you have to TRY them, Mommy!!"     Shortly thereafter, Mike's phone rang and he got up to answer it. She yelled out, "NO, Daddy! You have to stay at the table until everyone is done eating!!"

She is very emphatic when she knows/thinks she is right!

On a similar vein, she is also starting to try her hand at lying and at evading detection by her sly parents. She sometimes tries to tell me that has already washed her hands, when I've been standing right next to her for the 30 seconds since I asked her to do so and clearly she hasn't done it! Yet she is totally straight-faced and I would fall for it if I hadn't seen with my own eyes that she is not telling the truth.

She also likes to tell us to "go away - go someplace else" when we ask her to stop doing something - as if it will be okay for her to continue to do it once she is no longer in our sight.  Like the other day when we were coloring together and I reminded her that we don't put markers in our mouths. Her response was "go away, Mommy! Go someplace else."

And mine was "nice try, schnookums."   :)

Rose-isms (pre-birthday edition)

Now that Rose's third birthday is only a few weeks ago, we've started talking more about it. Last night we had this conversation:

Me: What would you like for your birthday this year, Rose?
Rose: Um....presents!!
Mike: What kind of presents would you like?
Rose: Um...green and white and blue!!
Me: That sounds like lovely wrapping paper! And what would you like IN your presents?
Rose: Um...oven mitts.
Mike: Oven mitts?!?
Rose: And a stove. And things to put in it.

In other words, she wants a play kitchen (wrapped in blue/white/green), just like she has at Ninja and PopPop's house, and just like she got to play with at Megan's house with Norah last weekend. :)


This morning our conversation went something like this:

Me: What kind of food should we have at your birthday party?
Rose: Cake and ice cream!!
Me: Would you rather have cupcakes or a big cake?
Rose: Both!
Me: What other food should we have at your birthday party"
Rose: Lots of cake and ice cream!
Me: But what about lunch food?
Rose: Um...mac and cheese!
Me: Any maybe cucumbers?
Rose: Lots of mac and cheese, and lots of cucumbers!
Mike: Sounds delicious, Rose!
Rose: And fishy sticks! Lots of ice cream and lots of cake and lots of cupcakes and lots of mac and cheese and lots of cucumbers and lots of fishy sticks!!

I bet you're all excited for her party now! :)

another week, another illness

It just wouldn't be a complete week in the Burcusa household without another illness, right? Luckily this one was just a scare - on Wednesday daycare thought she might have a UTI, but thankfully she did not!  Rose was quite a trooper during the exam, especially when she had to be cath'ed since she couldn't pee in a cup. :(

When we got home, she got rewarded with M&Ms and more Frozen.

It was also a chance for us to relax because the MD appointment had interrupted her nap. I love cuddling with my little munchkin!

In other news, Rose and I are leaving this afternoon for our first mommy-daughter road trip. Iowa, here we come! Rose was SO excited to pack her suitcase last night, and to bring it out to the car this morning. :)

Finally, another "Rose-ism" is that she has decided that she only ever wants to wear "all blue." (And apparently navy doesn't count - she prefers teal and light blue. So those blue pants above are not really blue in her mind, and that polka dot shirt was a disappointment because it's not ALL blue.) So every morning we have to search through all her undies to find her "all blue" undies, then through all her shirts to find her "all blue" shirts, etc. It's quite an ordeal! And since she only has about two "all blue" items in each category, they are frequently in the laundry, which is a downfall almost every single day. In order to avoid the extreme (yet frequent) disappointment of having to wear pink or purple or anything else that's not "all blue," she has now started to proclaim "let's call this blue." So today when she had to wear that white shirt under her polka-dot shirt, she decided "let's call these all blue." And then her outfit was satisfactory.

Rose-isms - remind me of these when she's a teenager

Rose has starting saying the sweetest things to me and Mike. The first two are definitely variations of things she has heard us say to her:

"Mommy, I love you."

"I love you SOOOO much, Mommy."


But this third one is one that she created all on her own. It's my absolute favorite thing to hear her say, and one that I wish I had on tape to remind of her of when she becomes a teenager:

"Mommy, I want to stay with you forever and ever."

:)

Rose-isms --- stream of consciousness edition

Today Rose found the little beauty mark / mole thing that I have behind my right arm, up by my armpit. (It's been awhile since I last wore a tank top!) She asked me what it was, since it protrudes a little bit. I explained, and also told her it's kind of like a skin tag. She just laughed and said, "people don't have tags!"  So then I laughed too and said, "Okay, it's a beauty mark." She replied, "maybe you put too much food in your belly and it's coming out there!"   Uhhhh...maybe...

Yesterday we went to her cousins' birthday party at the Minnesota Historical Center, a really cool museum in St. Paul. Seeing her cousin Annie reminded me that Rose still pronounces all "a" sounds as "ah."  So cousin "Annie" always comes out as "Ahhhhhnie," which always makes me think of Ani DeFranco and I start singing "32 Flavors" in my head because that's basically the only Ani song that I know.

Speaking of birthday parties..... yesterday, for the very first time we tried to be flexible with Rose's nap time. As you all know, we are pretty militant about enforcing nap time (or, at least, rest time) between 1pm and 3pm every. single. day.  Well, yesterday we were at the museum until after 1 and we still hadn't eaten lunch, so we all went to Cossetta's together. We figured it was time to test out whether she could occasionally skip a nap or not. The answer was very, very clearly "or not." We experienced a full-scale, exhaustive "threenager" melt-down. Oy vey.  Well, now we know.

10-signs-you-are-living-with-a-threenager

But how can you be mad at a kid who also says things like, "Mommy, I want to stay with you forever. I love you SOOO much."  cue: heart melting...

Today we had some beautiful weather - 70 in MN in March! - so Mike and I spent some time cleaning up the garden in the front yard. Rose was kind of bored, so we let her play in the backyard while we were in the front yard - the first time we've allowed her out of our sight while playing outside. She was SO thrilled to be such a big girl today!! Wish us luck as we embrace the "free-range parenting" movement. So far Rose seems to enjoy it, while I struggle to temper my innate neuroticism.

Speaking of neuroticism, we also had a pancake breakfast at Rose's school yesterday morning, and we sat with a family whose daughter is one of Rose's best friends. I really like this family because they are similar to use in age, SES, values, etc. But, to be perfect honest, what I really like about this family is that the mom makes me feel cool as a cucumber. It's not often that I have a reference point of a parent who is more anxious than I am, so I lap up the opportunity for such comparisons! I left feeling so relaxed since I wasn't worrying about Rose spilling on herself (no bibs for my kid! and no more sippy cups either!), about her choking on her sausage, or about the risk of her plastic fork breaking in her mouth and stabbing her. (Yep, for real.) See, that's me - cool as a cucumber with this whole parenting thing.

Let's just not talk about how anxious I was when Rose started going down the slide head-first today.



Have a great week, everyone! :)

bull headed Rose

First off, let me assure you that, to my great relief, Rose was in a MUCH better mood as of Friday evening. She must have just gotten up on the wrong side of the bed on Friday. Uff-dah! Here she was on Saturday morning, about to help me bake muff-mahns (our weekend tradition):

But the real reason I wanted to write this post was to record two more Rose-isms:

1. She doesn't understand that "anything" is not the same as "nothing" (and "anybody" is not the same as "nobody").  And since "nothing" and "nobody" are completely absent from her vocabulary, this creates some odd conversations like:

me: Rose, what did you do at school today?
Rose: anything!

me: Rose, which pajamas do you want to wear tonight?
Rose: anything!

me: Rose, who else was at your swimming lesson today with miss Lauren?
Rose: anybody!!

She thinks she's messing with us, but she just can't quite pull it off yet.


2. She is completely, absolutely, 100% bull-headed when she thinks she is right. (I don't know where she gets that from!)  Remember a few months ago when I blogged about her insistence that a photo of Trula is "not Trula!!!"? Well, now things like this happen on a regular basis. For example, she INSISTS that Anna is Elsa (and Elsa is Anna) in the movie Frozen, and there is absolutely no convincing her otherwise. Similarly, on our "family walk" this afternoon, we saw some birds in the sky. She asked what they were, and I said I thought they might be geese (I didn't get a good look). Mike chimed in that they were actually ducks, and then she yelled at him, "No, daddy, those GEESES!" They then argued (goodnaturedly on his part, vociferously on her part) the rest of the way home about the species of bird we had seen. Sigh.


Have a great week, everyone!

winter is back

After several days in the 30's, temps have been back in the single digits again.

This morning on the way to "school" I said to Rose, "I sure am ready for spring!"

She replied, "My ready for SUMMER!"

Touche, little one. Touche.

More Rose-isms

Rose is talking more and more, and we're starting to have real conversations! As in, real give and take, and forward progress on a subject (not just me repeating what she said to make sure I understood, and then trying to elaborate a bit). AND, she's starting to recognize emotions and to understand how her actions affect others. It's pretty awesome!


So, this morning for some reason Rose wanted to see what I packed in my lunch bag. I showed her the chicken leftovers, the baby carrots with dressing, and the two muff-mahns. (Good thing she picked today to look in my lunch bag, when I actually had a balanced meal!)  When she saw that I had two muffins, she said "don't forget to share with Daddy!" Then she paused a second and said "that will make him happy. Daddy likes muff-mahns."  Awwwww....


This other one isn't really a Rose-ism, but I wanted to note that cute way she she pronounces some words. Anything that starts with a vowel, she preceeds with a "w" sound. I don't know, must be easier that way. (Do all kids do this?)  For example, "put it in there" is "put wit win there." I know this won't last forever, so I just wanted to make note of how cute it is right now.


I haven't been able to take a lot of pictures recently due to someone refusing, but I did manage to get this one when Rose and I went out to DQ for dinner last Friday night. She LOVED my mud pie blizzard and ended up throwing out her ice cream sandwich (free with her kiddie meal) and eating most of my beloved dessert. Sigh.

Hope you're having a good week!

Another roseism

As Rose and I were walking home from school today. . .

R: mommy,  guess what!

S: what?

R: I love you,  mommy!

S: aw,  I love you too, Rose! In fact, I love you bunches and bunches!

R: my not bunches and bunches,  my rosentosen!!

And here's a photo of Rose and Mac helping me make pizza for dinner.  :)

Have a great week!

videos and Rose-isms

I'm still trying to figure out how to upload videos (blogger changed something a few months ago), so please let me know if these two work. The first is Rose enjoying her new guitar from Trula, and the second is her enjoying her new "princess dress" from the Rohdes (she spent about 30 minutes just wandering around the house and singing to herself this evening!)

In other "Rose-isms," I also have these gems:

Rose: "I love spending time with you, Mommy."
Me: "Aw, thank you, Rose! I love spending time with you."
Rose: "Go away, Mommy."
Me: (Um, what?!)

Rose has been fighting a cold, so I've been trying to load her up on various fruits and vegetables. Tonight our "appetizer" was grapefruit.
Me: "Not only does it taste good, but grapefruit is good for your runny rose and your upset tummy."
Rose: "And for my burps and poops!"



Have a great week!