Our family spent this past weekend at my parents’ house, and when we arrived, their grammy had a very special surprise for our kids…a monarch caterpillar in an aquarium! Eva (my daughter) spent the weekend carefully feeding the caterpillar fresh milkweed leaves, and checking regularly to see whether it was eating or not. She gave it a name (Crocodile Flower), and we got to take the baby caterpillar home with us to observe.

Right now, Crocodile Flower is only a teeny tiny caterpillar, but as long as we take good care of her, and offer plenty of fresh milkweed, we’ll be able to watch as she grows and grows and then creates her chrysalis. In about three weeks or so, Eva and I will be able release our beautiful monarch butterfly into the wild.

The other day, she and I were discussing a veterinarian office we’d seen, and she asked me whether the animal doctor took care of caterpillars too. I told her I didn’t know, but that I thought most vets cared for pets like dogs and cats and bunnies and things. Eva thought for a minute, and then she announced “I am going to be a caterpillar doctor when I grow up.”

A noble profession, indeed.

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

We braced ourselves for some major “new baby’ fallout when our second child was born. For three years we’d been a threesome—just myself, my husband, and our daughter. She was, most certainly, the center of our worlds, and we were convinced we’d have a long hard adjustment period ahead of us as soon as she realized that our new cute little baby boy was actually going to live with us. Forever.

But then we brought him home, and things were…pleasant! Sure she had some moments of regression, and there were definitely days when she needed a little extra reassurance that we still loved her just as much as we always had. But for the most part, our girl seemed to accept her new brother—in fact, oftentimes she even seemed happy he was around.

And then he learned to walk. A lot. Very quickly.

Suddenly, our daughter’s world was turned upside down (often literally!) as her brother discovered entire new spaces he’d never been aware of before. I spent so much of my day chasing him around—many times having to leave my daughter mid-story, mid-game, or even mid-sentence to save my son from certain death (or at least from certain injury.)

One day, about a month ago, she hit her limit. Our daughter had taken all she was going to take, and she let us know it by screaming, at the top of her lungs, for a very long time. This was extremely out of character for her, and we were caught completely off-guard. For weeks, we dealt with long, drawn-out, dramatic tantrums—sometimes many times per day—while I frantically scoured parenting websites and brought home armloads of books from the library: searching, searching for the answer. Trying desperately to help her feel better.

We explored dietary causes and environmental triggers. I read about developmental changes in almost-four-year-olds. We wracked our brains for anything that had changed in her life that could have possibly brought on such dramatic tantrums practically overnight.

And then finally, FINALLY I realized that her tantrums coincided perfectly with her brother’s learning to walk. As he grew more mobile, she grew more anxious. As he watched his world grow, she was watching her own spin out of control. He was into everything—messing with her stuff, knocking things over—and, worst of all, taking up so much more of our time. No wonder she was screaming. I would have been too. Here, finally, was the fallout we’d been bracing for way-back-when…the adjustment period we’d long-since written off as Not Happening. It had arrived—ten months later, but it had arrived.

And so, we’ve launched into a campaign to help our daughter reclaim her security in our family. We’ve spent lots of extra time with her—our big girl—and focused on the  very special place she’ll always hold in our hearts and our lives. And slowly, slowly we’re seeing her security return. Little by little, we’ve begun to have more calm days than stormy ones.

Just the other night, she leaned over and told me her brother is her best friend…I think we’re going to be ok.

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

It’s pretty safe to assume that at some point “potty talk” will worm its way into all kids’ vocabularies. And we parents act stern, while maybe holding back giggles ourselves, because “we don’t use words like that.” And “potty talk does not belong at the table.” Because, regardless of what we did as kids, it’s a parent’s job to reign in the potty talk. It’s just what we do.

So the other night, my husband and I enjoyed a nice dinner out with friends. As usual, the men and women both congregated into our respective groups, and launched deep into conversation. As the men joked around and debated which Star Wars film is the very best, we women talked and talked and talked…mainly about our kids.

It wasn’t until we’d already spent a good twenty minutes comparing potty training notes and tips and horror stories that we realized we’d been speaking very loudly. About poop. And various other potty-related topics…all while surrounded by many other people trying to enjoy their dinners. Oops.

“No potty talk at the table” we tell our kids? Apparently, “Do as I say not as I do” is more appropriate!

Sorry, fellow diners!

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

One month ago, my husband and I started our Lamaze class. I was 33 weeks pregnant and loving it. Mine has been an admittedly easy pregnancy with minimal morning sickness, no complications, and weight gain centered where it should be—my middle. At 33 weeks, I sometimes struggled to catch my breath or maintain my balance, but I was wearing any pair of shoes I wanted, delighted in watching and feeling my baby move inside me, and eagerly decorating a nursery. I remember that first day of class hearing some of the women further along say, “I just want it to end” and thinking to myself that I could never possibly feel the same way.

Well, I was wrong. The class is now over, the nursery is finished, and all the gifts from our baby shower have been put away. It’s a little like those days between Christmas and New Year’s: a state of suspension waiting on the “Next Big Thing.” And yet, it’s so much worse than that! Not only am I suspended between events, but I’m uncomfortable to boot. My feet and hands and face have swelled with excess fluid and, far from wearing “any shoe I want,” I’m stuck with the same pair of Croc flip-flops day after day. I sleep on a mound of six pillows every night to keep the fluid from pooling in my face, and I spend my evenings with a hot pad wrapped around my back and three throw pillows beneath my feet. I pout regularly.

And yet, I know this is a time to treasure. A time to revel in my husband’s closeness and my little girl’s still-developing life inside of me. I know that all too soon, my “couple time” with my husband will be much rarer and my little girl will one day grow up to tell me all the things I did wrong in raising her. But for now—despite the swollen feet and sore back—I have my husband all to myself and my little girl is still safely and lovingly stowed away inside me.  These things alone are worth putting off the Big Event a little while longer.

Posted by Stacy, a Dot-arilla Blogger

When I was small, I always felt very badly for the kids in school who had summer birthdays. They never got to bring in treats to share with the class. They never got to sit there(slightly mortified) while their peers sang a birthday song just for them. Birthday party invitations couldn’t just be brought to school and handed out. “I will never,” I proclaimed, “Have a kid with a summer birthday. Those kids have got it rough.”

Fast forward (quite) a few years, and…I’ve got TWO kids with summer birthdays. Less than a month apart. How did I let this happen??

I carried those pitying feelings for poor summer-born kids right up until it came time to plan my daughter’s first birthday party. And that’s when I realized the power of the summer birthday: you can hold it outdoors! Picnics! Swimming pools! Bonfires! …I wouldn’t have to clean my house!

To say my husband and I have embraced the summer birthday would be an understatement. We’ve taken the old bit of truth about first and second (and third?) birthday parties being more for the parents than the kids, and run with it.

That first party was a doozy. “We never did have a housewarming party,” we reasoned. “This can take its place!” “It’s outside, we don’t have to worry about how many people we invite,” we said. “She’s only going to turn one once,” we rationalized. And then we proceeded to hold a (wonderfully) massive backyard barbecue birthday party for our sweet girl ourselves. It was crazy and festive and a whole bunch of fun.

And we really, really want to do it again this summer when our son turns one. Three weeks after his sister’s birthday.

Which is why we’d decided that this year, her fourth, would be the year we begin hosting a small, simple “kid” party for our daughter. We figured we’d let her invite a couple friends, play some games, eat some cake—you know, keep things simple.

And then, last week over lunch, our girl announced that she wanted to have a garden party for her birthday. “We’ll need ribbons and bows and flowers EVERYWHERE!” she said. “And I’ll invite everyone I like and they’ll all dress up!” She went on to outline her ideal menu (dessert-heavy) and flesh out her guest list (well over 30 when all was said and done) while I dutifully took notes (humoring her.)

 Now obviously, we’re not going to indulge EVERY party whim our daughter has, and we’ll be cutting her guest list down to a third or so, but she was so sweet as she relayed all her very special plans that we’ve agreed to a slightly larger party than we originally had in mind.

Which is making it a little tough to rationalize the raging blow-out we want to throw for ourselves our son just three short weeks later. Hmmm…we never did have that housewarming party…

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

I’ve mentioned here before that my daughter often wears kitty ears and a tail for most of the day. Her ears are a simple construction paper project she and I did together. We actually made the ears a couple years ago, and though she is incredibly careful with them, they are made from construction paper…so they’ve certainly seen better days.

It became time to make new ears…but how to convince her to give up her beloved pink and black paper pair?

The tail she wears is basically a strip of knit pink yarn (think tiny scarf) that she tucks into the back of her pants and skirts. I decided that some knit ears would be a perfect match for her tail…and much more durable than construction paper! So, as phase one of Project Kitty Ear Replacement, I innocently took her along on a trip to the yarn store. As we walked through the store, feeling the soft yarns and exclaiming over the beautiful colors, I started a conversation about which yarn she thought would make the best kitty fur. She immediately latched onto a soft, fuzzy burnt orange yarn, gushing “Oh! A ginger kitty! That’s the best kind!”

Luckily for me, she’s (practically) four, and completely ok with the idea of buying a skein of yarn just because it reminds you of a cuddly ginger kitty. (Oh, who am I kidding? I’m in my thirties, and I’m completely ok with the idea as well.) Anyway, I got the yarn home, and began experimenting on the sly with some ear shapes and styles that would allow her to slip them on a headband just like her trusty paper ears. 

Once I had perfected the design, it didn’t take long to whip up a pair of fuzzy ginger kitty ears one night while she was sleeping. I decided the best way to (hopefully) replace her paper ears would be to just leave the new ears for her to discover on her own when she got up in the morning. I left them at her place on our kitchen table, where she would see them at breakfast, and I crossed my fingers she wouldn’t toss them straight into the bottom of her dress up trunk.

Really, I had no reason to worry.

When she got up the next day, she walked directly to them like she had kitty radar…and froze. Her eyes got huge, and she wordlessly looked up to see whether they were really for her or not. Her daddy gave her the go-ahead, and she pretty much wore them for the next four days straight (taking them carefully off to sleep, of course.)

A few days later, she and I were chatting over lunch, and she said “You know what’s funny, Mama? …I wear my new ginger ears, and I still wear my old tail. Even though it’s pink.”

(pause, pause)

“…would you like me to make you a ginger tail, Baby?”

“YES! YES! YES!”

And back to the knitting needles I go!

When my daughter walked for the first time, it was a beautiful summer day. My husband and I sat across from each other in soft green grass and took turns alternately holding her up and encouraging her to walk the three small steps over to us. Eventually, magically, she took those steps, and we all beamed at each other and gushed over how brilliant she was.

Such is life with your first child.

My son took his first steps the other day. I think. I mean, when I looked in to check on him in the family room, he was standing there grinning at me from near the coffee table, at a completely different angle than he would have been if he’d simply been leaning on the table. And he was a foot and half or so away from the table too—so I’m pretty sure he walked there. Or maybe he just stood up without holding onto anything? That would be a first too. Well, either way, he almost definitely had some sort of first that day. And it only took me until the next night to remember to tell my husband about it, at which point we beamed at each other and gushed over how brilliant he is.

 Such is life with subsequent children.

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

With a little over three weeks to go until D-Day, I’ve spent increasing amounts of time in my baby’s new nursery. A large bay window lets in lots of sunlight, brown satin drapes shimmer against pale pink walls, and a light aroma of baby powder  drafts from the diaper cake I received at my baby shower. A white metal bird cage with toy canaries hangs from the wall in the corner, the Moses basket holds fluffy blankets and a set of three cloth ducks, and the new shag rug invites toe curling. But by far the highlights of the room are a dark wooden toy box and matching rocker. These were my husband’s contributions to our little one’s nursery and I’ve never seen him so proud of anything in his life.

I’ll admit I wasn’t sure how he’d take to the idea of building a toy box and staining a hand-me-down rocking chair. Though he eagerly took every other shop class available to him in high school, he avoided woodworking class like the plague, too impatient to bother with carefully sanding each piece of wood. But within an hour of me broaching the idea to him over dinner, he had me packed in the car and on my way to Home Depot to shop for lumber, circular saws, stain finishes, and other supplies.

The projects ended up being more involved than I think either of us anticipated. For nearly an entire month, my sunporch was requisitioned as a workshop and fumes from the stain and wood managed to creep in despite closed and locked windows and doors. My husband sanded and stained only to find that he needed to sand and stain all over again. But he didn’t complain. Far from it. He rather seemed to enjoy himself sweating out in the sunporch getting fume headaches. It was his way of nesting, the best thing he had to begin bonding with our soon-to-be daughter. Each minute he spent working on that toy box and rocking chair was another minute he spent thinking about her and how she would use the furniture and the kind of person she would grow up to be. And now, spending a part of each day in her room, these are the things I most enjoy touching.

Posted by Stacy, a Dot-arilla Blogger

For the past couple years, my daughter (Eva) has spent most of her days insisting we call her by whatever name she’s dreamed up for herself. Among others, we’ve had periods of “Evie Cat,” “Gina Kitty,” “Jen,” “Carol,” and “Fancy Cat.” She’s been many different kitties, duckies, puppies, meerkats, chickadees, and bats…not to mention multiple characters from her favorite story books. At her kindergarten (4K) screening last week, she introduced herself to the school secretary as “Kitty.”

And it’s not just her own monikers she’s been dictating—each morning (and then many more times throughout the day) she announces roles for the rest of us. I’ve spent so much time as Mama Cat (or Mama Kitty), it’s become somewhat of a nickname. And her little brother has been dubbed “Wayne.” (Don’t ask me where that one came from.) However, this all pales in comparison to the personas she’s been coming up with lately.

Last week, she proclaimed herself to be a “Fancy Pirate Kitty Princess.” (And if you give her a minute (or 10), she’ll share with you an entire back story to go along with that name.) Pretty much any multi-word combination of “kitty, fancy, ducky, princess, fairy, and Ariel the Mermaid” will do. And she often throws in a few “robots” and “ninjas” for good measure. I’m beginning to have trouble keeping up!

I couldn’t be happier about her active imagination. I just need to hire a consultant to create a database of names so I know what to call my daughter when it’s time for lunch.

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger

I’m usually not a boxed cake mix kind of girl—I tend to make our food from scratch, and there’s just something about a homemade cake. Yum. I’ve been known to make innocent recipes much, much more complicated than they need to be because “I can make that myself—why buy it?”

However.

These Pineapple Cupcakes are so light and tasty and perfectly simple just as they are…I don’t even mind buying a boxed cake mix to make them. (I do, however, whip the cream to put on top of them—highly recommended!)

Pineapple Cupcakes

(Makes 24-30 cupcakes)

These cupcakes are delicious as written below, or they can be enhanced by the addition of ½ cup shredded coconut to the batter. Create a beautiful display for your baby shower by adding a few fresh berries or flowers to the top of the whipped cream and presenting the cakes in these cupcake pedestals  or this tiered cupcake stand  from SimplyBabyStuff.com

1 (16 oz) package angel food cake mix

1 (20 oz) can crushed pineapple with juice

Whipped cream to top

Preheat the oven to 350º F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake papers (or, alternately, spray a 9×13” pan with cooking spray.) In a large bowl, combine the cake mix and pineapple  (with juice) and stir until it’s well blended. Fill the cupcake papers 2/3 full with cake batter, and bake 15-25 minutes until the tops are golden brown. (Refrigerate the remaining cake batter until you’re ready to bake the next batch of cupcakes.) Remove the cupcakes to a rack and cool completely. Serve topped with a dollop of (real!) whipped cream.

Yum.

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger