Junie and Cosette had a fun Christmas. Cosette got up at her normal time but Junie slept in. Finally, we sent Cosette into Junie's room. She tip-toed over to Junie's bed and said, "Wake up, Junie! It's Christmas morning! Santa was here! Wake up, Junie!" Junie sat right up and was ready to go. When they got downstairs, Junie looked at the gifts and squealed. Cosette didn't notice the gifts at all but made a beeline for the plate where we'd left cookies for Santa. She said, "He eated them!! And he left me a foot!" She then gobbled up the remaining gingerbread man foot. I said, "Sissy, look at the tree. Santa came!" She looked up, finally noticing the gifts, and gasped "Oooh! Wow!"
They took more time opening their presents this year, and they especially loved giving each other the gifts they'd selected. Junie got Cosette a talking My Little Pony Pinkie-Pie doll, which was one of Cosette's biggest wishes this year. The doll started talking before she got the paper off the package, and when Cosette heard it talking she stopped unwrapping it and gave a cute little grin. Then she said, "It's Pinkie Pie! I hear my Pinkie Pie!" She gave Junie a huge hug and kiss. Cosette got Junie a tub of Legos. Junie was excited, as she's very into Legos. She wanted to open them immediately, until we reminded her there were more presents to open.
Cosette's main wish this year was for a rumbling dump truck...a SPECIFIC rumbling dump truck that Santa had seen at Target all summer. Unfortunately, when Santa went to buy the truck, Target was sold out. Everywhere online was sold out or charging more than quadruple the actual price. Finally, Santa found the only one left in Michigan, after a nice Toys 'R Us employee helped scour the store for the one truck that the computer showed was in stock. Santa finally found it hiding behind a toy in a random part of the store. Joy!! Now, Cosette enjoys pushing Pinkie Pie around in the dump truck.
Junie's big wish was for a Strawberry Shortcake house, which she was thrilled to receive. The house smells so good that I like playing with it, too!! Junie also really wanted a train table, and both girls were thrilled to get one! It keeps them occupied for long stretches of time. Junie told me a few days before Christmas, "I really, really, really want Polly Pockets. I forgot to tell Santa that when I saw him. Now I won't get them!" She was thrilled to get lots of Polly Pockets, and the girls enjoy playing them together. They pretty much share all of their gifts, which is nice. They both got excited when the other opened a gift. We love having kids close together in age...they're pretty much into similar things.
Cosette has been cracking us up with how she interacts with Junie. Lately, when she wants Junie to join her in doing something or she doesn't know where in the house Junie is, she'll yell, "Juniper! Juniper! Come here!" If Junie is being cranky, Cosette will tell her: "I don't like your tat-i-tude. Go to your room until you calm down." When we drop Junie off at preschool, the girls give each other a huge hug and kiss, and at pick-up they run to each other and hug like they haven't seen each other in ages. They'll both say, "I missed you so much!!"
The big news in our house is that Cosette is potty-trained as of January 15th! I was running out of diapers and I didn't want to buy more, so one Friday morning I just put her in "big girl pants." She spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning having half accidents, and half in the potty. At about noon on Sunday, it all clicked, and she was running to the potty whenever she had to go. She has really only had one accident since then. She still wears a diaper at night, but during her daytime nap she wears underwear and stays dry. I suspect she'll night train fairly quickly because she now loathes diapers and hates waking up with a wet one on. Junie helped me out a lot by reading to Cosette while she sat on the potty and by jumping around and cheering each time she went in the potty. I've been changing diapers for 4.5 years, so it's very strange to not do that anymore. I love it. But going out in public is an adventure now...double the potty trips now that both kids are potty-trained!
The same weekend I potty-trained Cosette, I crazily decided to also help Junie learning to write all of her letters. She had been asking me to for a while. Anyway, she can now write all of them and is very into writing words. She asks me how to spell things and then she writes them on paper. She gets so proud. "Daddy! I wrote 'fish' and 'baby bear' all by myself!!" She has been working on Valentine cards for her classmates, and she's writing them messages in them. It's so cute to see her so proud of what she's written. She's also reading a bit on her own now. She can recognize many of the sight words and I get so much joy from sitting with her and seeing her figure out what a sentence says. As she sounds out words and figures out what a sentence says, her voice gets higher and higher with excitement. It sounds corny, but it's beautiful and astounding to watch her developing these skills. My life would be nothing without books and reading, and I know she loves these things in the same way I do...both girls do. They spend most of their library time in the non-fiction aisles now. Junie is obsessed with getting books about the planets, gravity, dinosaurs, the human body, and insects. She is preoccupied with the extinction of the dinosaurs. Cosette is into books about porcupines, owls, and whatever "learnin' books" she can grab. Seriously, she chooses really random non-fiction books. The books are too advanced for her, and she doesn't want me to read them. She just likes to look at the pictures and ask me about what's happening in the photos.
Funny things the girls have said:
Cosette was outside yesterday playing in the snow. She was making snow angels, but she was flopping down onto her belly to do them and kept getting snow in her face. I called to her, "No, Cosette. Do them on your back!" She said, "No! I like to watch!" Heee!!!
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Junie: Mom, how do you see what we're doing when you're not there? Like, how do you know we're doing something naughty when we're upstairs and you're in the kitchen?
Me: Because I have something called mother's intuition. I just know.
Junie: Like, special Mommy Eyes that can always see us?
Me: Kind of, yeah.
Junie: Like Santa!
Me: Yes, I suppose so.
Junie: Oh. [long pause] That's creepy, Mom.
***
At dinner one night last week, Junie was telling John what she'd learned in the planet books we'd read that day. She was talking about how some planets are made of gas, so we can't walk on them. She asked us if people could walk on the moon, and we explained that people HAVE walked on the moon. She said, "Wow. When I grow maybe I can be an astronaut and go to the moon or Mars." Cosette said, "Can I come, too?" Junie said, "Yeah, maybe when you're like 30." Then I told Junie that she could be an astronaut if she works hard in school and pays special attention to math and science. She thought about that and said, "Or maybe I can just go to space in my dreams."
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One morning we were all talking and we asked Junie what she wants to be when she grows up. She said, "A mommy. And an astronaut." Then we asked Cosette the same question. She said, "I want to be fire!!!" I said, "You mean a firefighter?" She said, "Okay. And Junie can be the sister fire and Daddy will be the Daddy fire and you will be the Mommy fire and I'll be the teeny tiny BABY FIRE!!!"
