Sinterklaas

Given the fact that the girls are 50% Dutch (with a smattering of many other European ethnicities thanks to my genes) we were encouraged to practice the Dutch tradition of Sinterklaas.  Marcus vaguely recalls Sinterklaas visiting when he was a child but I'm not entirely sure this is an actual Tepaske tradition because, also according to Marcus, he was a saint as a child.

Anyway, I started talking to the girls about who Sinterklaas was (though did not include information about Zwarte Piet which apparently wasn't such a bad idea since he is apparently a figure of consternation for everyone else except the Dutch people).  This proved to be a challenge mostly because Alexandra is in her question everything stage.  I was forced to hit such hard-hitting questions such as:

Alexandra: "Where does Sinterklaas live?"
Me: "He lives with Santa Claus in the North Pole."

Followed by my personal favorite:
Alexandra: "Is he Santa Claus's husband?"
Me: "No, he's his cousin."

Alexandra: "Does he have a car?"
Me: "No, he has a horse, which is way cooler."
Alexandra: "Yeah."

Alexandra: "Is he coming to our house?"
Me: "He's going to visit us tomorrow night and leave little gifts in your wooden shoes."

Josephine then interjected with: "I don't like him, Sinterklaas, no." (We're working on sentence structure)

Alexandra: "What color is his hair?" "White." "What color are his gloves?" "Purple." "What color is his cape?" "Red." "What color is his horse?" "White." (This is while we color a picture of Sinterklaas on his horse, Amerigo.  Also, to note, the only reason I even knew the answer to any of these questions is I had to Google it...hence the reason I know the horse's name)

The conversation dwindled from there as we finished working on our Sinterklaas coloring pages.

This morning the girls woke up though didn't immediately think of Sinterklaas.  We finally pointed out that he had visited us after they had breakfast and they opened the little gifts that were left in their wooden clogs.  In the end, I think Alexandra is less enamored with Sinterklaas though is thoroughly excited about Santa Claus's visit as she's just beginning to realize exactly what Christmas entails (read:  PRESENTS!), and Josephine is harboring major anxiety over the thought of a strange man lurking through the house despite the fact he's leaving PRESENTS!

Sinterklaas visits the Tepaske's

Josephine is Two!

Poor, Jo.  She turned two over ten days ago and I'm just now getting around to writing a little something about her crazy butt.  In my defense we've been on the go, traveling to Boston and back, and time has just simply gotten away from me.

So, where to start.  Josephine.  She is something.  She is strong-willed, loving, silly, weirdly aggressive, and growing up way too fast.  Her sentences consist of at least four words and she can clearly verbalize what she wants in either a normal tone of voice or by screaming as she is more likely to do.  She loves dogs but is scared to death when they get too close.  She is also still in the throes of "stranger danger" and has been for a very long time.  While she exudes confidence the minute she thinks we're abandoning her she becomes a mess.  We have noticed a small change in that it takes about five minutes for her to get over it rather than 50 so that's promising.

Josephine will only do what Josephine wants to do though, with a little bargaining, she generally comes around.  Time-outs are a daily threat for her and she's beginning to realize that there are times when mommy means business.  Naturally, I understand this is also a stage of toddlerhood but she has a little more emphasis behind her stubbornness than Alex ever did.

She loves her big sister.  Anything Alex does Jo does.  She wants to be next to her at all times and often, after she wakes from her nap, the first thing she wants to know is where her sissy is.  They do get along very well, though have their fair share of fights as any couple would.  This afternoon, for example, Jo was particularly upset about something only she knows and I asked Alex to fetch Jo from where I had left her on the side of the house.  Less than a minute later they come around the corner, hand in hand, Jo with slight tears in her eyes but overall happy again.  That is all I can ask for as they grow; I wish this helping and caring relationship continues through the rest of their lives.

Josephine is silly.  Much sillier than Alex.  I tend to think of Alex as my "old soul."  She's more serious than most three-year-olds and her silly behavior sometimes comes across as forced.  Jo, on the other hand, she commands an audience for her antics and makes sure all are paying attention.  She eats doughnuts with her feet (something I allowed because we were at the beginning of a ten hour car ride), does interpretive dancing to any song, likes to make silly faces, sings along to songs, and overall loves to be the center of attention.

She is also strangely aggressive and often gets a wild eyed look as she's strangling me or wiping my face or "braiding" my hair.  Seriously.  I think she's out to get me and the look that crosses her face, as it changes from a loving little girl to possessed toddler, tells me as much.

Josephine is also a lot more girly than Alex.  She likes baby dolls, dressing-up, stuffed animals, and clothes and shoes.  She actually likes for me to do her hair, often asking that I braid it which is impossible yet I pretend as if I've done so...not sure how long I'll be able to pull that off.  She also recognizes Gap packages and quickly starts undressing in order to try on the new clothes.

In all it would be a lonely life without Josephine.  It would also be a quieter life but that's not such a big deal.  She's the perfect match for her big sissy and the perfect ending to our family.

Our little goofball

 

Thank Heaven For Little Girls

I've come to realize that one of the hardest parts about raising two little girls is less the fact that they are little girls and more the fact they have a daddy who is clueless about little girls.  Certain aspects of girldom simply mystify the lone male in our midst and he remains steadfast in his belief that certain things are not necessary.  For example, Alex has hair down the length of her back.  It's also baby fine but she has a lot of it.  As a result, it gets tangled and needs to be brushed at least twice a day, once in the morning and once after bath time.  One of the beauties of living in the modern age is that their are now products made specifically for helping get tangles out of hair.  However, getting Marcus to both agree that brushing hair is important and that using detangler makes it easier is like trying to understand why he should brush and detangle his own hair.  He just doesn't get the point.

Equally exasperating is his question for clothing and shoes.  I think if he had his way the girls would run around in their diaper and underwear forever.  The other day I allowed Alex to pick out a pair of shoes for the fall/winter.  She was really into a pair of fuchsia cowgirl boots but I subtly directed her towards a pair of brown cowgirl boots with pink trim (something that might actually match her clothes).  I thought her choice was cute and proudly showed them to Marcus who then questioned why she needed shoes at all.  So, along with running around in her skivvies I guess she could just attach some palm fronds to her feet with twine and we'd be good to go.

The other day we were talking about getting Jo's big girl bed together.  My mom gave us an old metal bed frame that needs to be cleaned and painted and I was starting to feel pressure to get it done.  However, Marcus reminded me that we could just put Jo's mattress on the floor in the meantime since she is still adjusting to not being in a crib.  He then proceeded to state that he didn't understand why the girl's needed bed frames at all and they could just sleep on mattresses on the floor.  I'm beginning to suspect he's a caveman in disguise.  

We Need A New Car

For starters I had been planning on writing a post about a vehicle.  It's just that I had planned on writing an ode to my vehicle, not this particular vehicle.

Remember that time three years ago when we had a newborn baby girl and I was stressing to Marcus that we needed a bigger and more reliable family car?  In response, Marcus brings home a ten-year-old, 100,000+ miles, saturated with cigarette smoke Jeep Grand Cherokee that he hassled the guy down so low on the price he practically gave it to us?  Then, a few short months later the front axle broke and we had to fork over $1,500 to fix it?  Then, less than a year ago we forked over another $1,000 to fix the AC thus totaling more money to fix it then how much we actually paid?  Doesn't ring a bell?

Well, regardless of whether you remember or not we now find ourselves needing a new car.  I'd like to say if Marcus hadn't been such as he is (read: cheap) then we would still have a family vehicle and I wouldn't find myself stuck at home with two little kids and no way to leave.  Leave with them, that is.  I should probably specify that.  I'd also like to say that if he had looked at the amazing spreadsheet I had made three years ago in an attempt to appeal to his nerdy engineer side we would still have a family vehicle.  Alas, none of the above is true and now Marcus must face the facts and purchase a somewhat nice, reliable, slightly-more-expensive-than-a-couple-grand vehicle.

So, we've been looking at cars and debating which is the best option for us.  The best part, and I mean it, is that Marcus has decided we should get the Tesla Model X, an SUV that is currently in production and with a starting price of around $75,000.  Who is this guy?  Naturally, I don't take him very seriously in this and I expect that we'll be cruising around in a 1971 Ford Pinto because it was a "good deal."

Birdie Head

I've been meaning to write a post about this but hadn't been able to come up with something witty to go along with it.  In the end, the picture speaks for itself and nothing I say can diminish it's awesomeness though that doesn't mean I won't try.

So, without further ado I present to you, Alexandra's "Birdie Head," dated June 2nd, 2014, in Play-Doh.

Of course, a piece of art such as this requires a proper critique:

The artist was clearly in an unencumbered state of mind, not concerned about the limits of her creativity.  As this was some of her earlier work, Alexandra was clearly still finding her own style, however, the attention to detail is impressive.  In fact, the texture given to the sculpture is realistic, and evokes Michelangelo or Rodin.  The brightness of the red makes one think that she may have been particularly happy to be creating and in a positive frame of mind.  The thing I find the most interesting of the sculpture is it's naivety and juvenile name "Birdie Head," as if the artist knew not what she was doing.


Tepaske's Birdie Head

Leaf Eating T. Rex

We may have inadvertently perpetuated a lie.  In our desire for our children to eat there is a chance we insinuated that the Tyrannosaurus Rex was a leaf-eater, though it's not completely our fault.  Alex was the one who stated the T. Rex, her most favorite of all the dinosaurs, ate leaves and she was now going to "eat leaves like a T. Rex."  Leaves, in this case, are anything resembling such, e.g. baby spinach, arugula, lettuce, broccoli, asparagus, etc.  Now, during meal time she asks Marcus to hold the "leaf" above her head so she can eat it like a T. Rex.  Of course, she's most certainly confusing the T. Rex and the Brontosaurus (or whatever they're called now) but who am I to correct a three-year-old?  Of course, this will all come back to bite us in the a$$ when she realizes that T. Rex's most certainly did not eat leaves and this will probably be a topic with her future therapist.  In the meantime she'll have excellent fiber, iron, and overall roughage in her diet.

How To Take A Picture Tepaske Style

I don't know who the folks are that have children who willingly smile for the camera.  Mine are not such children.  They're the worst when it comes to taking pictures and it generally involves taking about 200 in order to get just one worthy of viewing and sharing.  As a testament to this I present to you the chain of events leading-up to a relatively nice picture in this household:

Step 1:  Add unwilling children.

Step 2:  Attempt to exert some control by demanding children sit down.

Step 3:  Wait while cameraman takes an unflattering picture of you as the children do everything in their power not to look at the camera.



Step 4:  Allow children to assess the situation going-on at the back of your head during a hot and humid day and...

Step 5 (continued from Step 4):  ...add a delightful hairpiece.

Step 6:  Once children have been seated with an object to encourage them to behave (in this case a lighter and silly string...work with what you've got), have one of the subjects point to the camera just in case the children missed the point of the entire exercise.

 Step 7:  Warning:  The alpha female's role may be usurped by a lesser female of the pack. Refrain from making eye contact or smiling in an effort to discourage this type of behavior.  This is not an example of such.



Step 8:  Ensure all three subjects are looking at the camera by having the cameraman repeatedly call names and make an a$$ of himself from behind the camera.

 

Step 9:  Finally admit defeat and accept a picture with a toddler holding a lighter, a little girl giving her best "smile" while fully engrossed in silly string, and a mom looking pretty darn good as the best you're going to get and move-on with life.