Conversations with Mabes

Mabes and I were talking about her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins the other day. She was saying how much she missed them and would like to go visit them. We were talking about who lives where:

Mabes: Gramma Jackie lives closer. We can ride in our car to Gramma Jackie's.
Me: Oh really? What about Ainsleigh and Donovan? [cousins]
Mabes: Ainswee and Dono live far away. We have to ride on da plane to see dem.
Me: That's right. And what about Grandma and Grandpa Ostler?
Mabes: Oh, dey live REALLY far, far away. We have to ride on da plane to see dem. Act-shu-ee, we need to right on TWO planes to see dem. First, dare is a little plane, den a big plane. And den we drive in da car, and den we're at Gramma Oswer's house.
Me (surprised that she remembered not only 2 planes, but the sizes of the planes): Wow! You're so smart!
Mabes: Mom, are you a genius?

At this point, I just started laughing, then quickly remembered why you don't laugh really hard at a 3-year-old. She realizes she has an audience and will do anything to keep you laughing. Unfortunately, since her idea of funny is running around the room yelling "Gah gah gah" while waving her arms and kicking her legs, the laughter is immediately replaced with "stop being silly!" Also, I don't think the genius comment was so much a compliment towards me as it was a question of my credentials. She was simply trying to ascertain my own intelligence before deciding if my judgment held any weight.

I'm having a really hard time not telling her, but she'll get to see her cousins in April. My birthday present from my mom is a trip to Colorado for a week with Sarah and family, and my mom will fly in at the same time. I'm very excited and really want to tell Mabes, but I know that she'll ask about it every.single.day until the trip. So I'll wait until about 2 weeks before.

And here's Mabes singing her favorite Primary song, "I am a child of God." I didn't edit out the mess up because I think it's cute. Oh, and Rocket is singing back-up; she wouldn't do it without him.

Field trip to the Backcountry

As part of our New Year's Resolution to "be more fabulous," we decided that we needed to be better about getting out and seeing stuff. There's a lot more history here than where I grew up (don't get me wrong, Mission San Jose is cool, but that's about the extent of pre-WWII history in the area), and I love it. Well, the idea of it, at least--I'm embarrassed to admit we haven't ventured out much. Inspired by my friend Alisa, we were talking about doing something fun this morning and Dave came across a website for "Historic Brattonsville." Since it's only about 45 minutes away, we packed a lunch and left around 11:30. Brattonsville is an American Revolution living history site in South Carolina. This area of Carolina Backcountry was settled by the Scotch-Irish Brattons in the 1760s. When they first settled, they would have built something like this "Backwoods Cabin":

Mabes was intrigued to see a real log cabin, just like she builds with her logs, and she liked that it was just her size. I don't think she'd want to spend the night, though.
McConnell House (above) is a historic house that was moved to Brattonsville to give a good idea of what Bratton House would have looked like when it was initially built. It was a common style of home built during the late 18th century, and would have cost about $100. There is a single room downstairs and one upstairs. Here a woman demonstrates how they might have cooked:

Mabes was excited to see a spinning wheel, but had to be convinced that this wasn't Maleficent's. Behind me is the bed, so the entire downstairs is the kitchen, spinning wheel, and bed. Most families had between 5 and 7 children.

Though Bratton House originally looked like McConnell house, William Bratton added on to make a tavern after the Revolutionary War, and his son added a room to make a school for girls (he had 7 daughters, and apparently there was already a school for his 7 sons).

The Homestead (above) was built between 1823 and 1826, and reflected the family's wealth and status. They had a large plantation with 139 slaves, and the home has a separate "Assembly," or dining hall:
The kitchen was a small brick building that was separate from the main house and the dining hall. In talking to these women, though, we learned that you would never actually see a white woman working in this kitchen. The kitchen was staffed by slaves who spent the entire day cooking. The head chef was one of the highest ranking slaves, and was very skilled at cooking and coordinating food for large groups of people. She had to make sure that meals were served warm--even though it had to be carried 100 feet to another building.

Mabes and I pose in the kitchen

According to one of the docents, 25% of The Patriot was filmed in Brattonsville, and the Homestead was used in several scenes. Here, Dave and Mabes try to recreate the famous Heath Ledger/Mel Gibson "I'm not a child!"/"You're MY child!" scene. Looks just like the movie, huh?

This field was the site of the Battle of Huck's Defeat, a significant battle during the Revolutionary War. Note the fine monuments:


We took tons of pictures and Dave and I learned a lot. Mabes was content to chase chickens and "baa" at sheep:






We're planning to go back in the summer--when everything is green--and catch a Revolutionary War re-enactment. Mabes was delighted that we finished off our Southern history day with a trip to the Q Shack for barbeque and hush puppies; it was a great day.

Not sure what I was expecting

Dave often leaves little notes for Mabes, encouraging her to be a good girl while he's traveling, telling her he loves her, etc. Mabes is always very excited to get a letter and reads it over and over to herself, often embellishing and making the two sentence note into a lengthy rambling letter.

Given her writing abilities, I'm not sure what I was expecting when she said she was going to write a letter for her horsey daddy. A heartfelt thank you for all he does? A detailed description of her day? She said it would make him happy like his letters make her happy. So for some reason, I was caught off guard when she proudly showed me her letter for daddy:

Apparently that letter was able to express both her love for her daddy as well as tell him about her day--at least that's what she says.

And she drew her first family portrait last week. I'm pretty sure it's the first, because usually the heads are so big she can't fit all three of us on one piece of paper. I'm quite proud of it, though, and if her art skills continue to improve, her artistic abilities will surpass mine in about a week or so. Dave is on the left, Mabes is in the middle, and I'm on the right.


Perhaps inspired by Mabes' art, I decided to finally make a hairbow holder for her. I figured it should be pretty easy, so I looked online and found that hairbow holders like this are selling for $60. My painting isn't the greatest (don't zoom in!), but for less than $10 in supplies, I'm happy. And Mabes was thrilled, even though it's not pink and has no ballet slippers on it.

I told Dave I might have to make one for his hats. It will be pink, of course.

Between Stake Conference, a baby shower, and Dave's dislike of a holiday where Hallmark forces him to profess his love, we didn't do much for Valentine's day. He did, however, let me sleep in (and really, what's better than that?) and he and Mabes made monkey bread. It's been a long time since he's made it, and it was Mabes' first time enjoying it. When we were eating, we realized it was 10 (!) years ago that day that he made monkey bread for me and my roommates. It was really good monkey bread though...I think I may have to go finish off the leftovers now.

At what point...

...do kids have to wear pants? I mean, when is it kind of weird if they're running around in just a shirt and unders?

Let me backtrack: I rarely wear "real" pants at home. I admit that this makes me sound like the sloppy stay-at-home-mom I swore I'd never be. I shower every morning. I blow dry my hair. I put on make-up. I put on whatever shirt I'm going to wear, set out the jeans, and then put on comfy pants. Jeans are ready and waiting when it's time to go out. This isn't a new thing with becoming a mom--I've done this since high school. If anything, the comfy pants have gotten more subtle. It's black, grey, or navy yoga pants now. In high school and college, it was full on pajama pants. Even if I'm only going to be home for 45 minutes, I put on the comfy pants. It's a big enough thing to Ostler girls that we'll actually call each other when Costco has their 2-pack yoga pants back in stock. It's even become a verb--as soon as I get home, I walk in the door, take off my shoes, and comfy pantasize.

Since she was a baby, Mabes has preferred to go pants-less. If she was cranky, the first thing we'd do was to take off her pants. This usually turned the crabbiness into this:


And who could blame her? No pants is always more enjoyable than pants, and I just loved seeing those meaty thighs.

Mabes with pants, about to head out.

So on Saturday, Dave and Mabes returned from a morning at Home Depot, Mabes used the bathroom, and then decided she didn't want to put her jeans back on. I was taking pictures of them and the new tool set Dave brought her from his work trip* and then I started to realize: is it weird that she's just sitting there in her underwear? Granted, they're the bigger, more boyshort-like style training pants that she really only wears on laundry day. But still, they're unders. And she's a kid.

Mabes with a tool belt, but without pants.

So my question is this: When do I need to have a pair of Mabes-sized yoga pants sitting next to mine, waiting for us to come home? Or have we passed that point?

Also, I found myself wondering where the line between cute and annoying was while we were shopping at Trader Joe's yesterday. Mabes insisted that she would be a big girl and stay right next to me while we shopped. Considering the relatively small size of their carts, it's probably best that she walk. She decided that dancing would be much more fun than walking, and when I would stop to get something, she'd curtsy or plié. She was staying close to me, so I was happy.

Then we got to the cheese section. People were smiling at her, but I thought she was still close, so I continued to search through the cheeses. Then I realized that while I tried to figure out how they had rearranged everything, she decided that all that extra room meant she could do Mexican Hat Dance-like twirls. So I grabbed my string cheese, cart, and spinning Mabes and rushed to the front, while wondering if those people were genuinely amused (it was pretty funny) or if they were forcing smiles while trying to get around my whirling kid. Once at checkout, she was undeterred, and continued to do what can only be described as some sort of jig while I paid. And while other customers may have been annoyed, the checker LOVED Mabes and gave her 6 stickers, bunch of daffodils, and then decided that Mabes needed her own to hold, so she pulled out a single daffodil and gave it to her. We left Trader Joe's very happy.

$1.49 for a bunch of ten buds (or free if the cashier likes you) and you just bring them home, put them in water, and they bloom overnight. It's like a glass of springtime in my kitchen!

*I actually got it at Target during their 75% off toy sale--it was $3! We figured Mabes would like that more than a lanyard, key chain, or thumb drive, which is what Dave typically brings home from these shows.

25 things about Mabes

I was finally getting around to doing that "25 random things about me" note on Facebook, and I decided it would be more fun to do a list of random things about Mabes. I apologize for some of the overlap of lists, but they apply to both of us. So here we go:

1. When I was pregnant, I was afraid my daughter would be boring and not very cute.

2. Emaline is far from boring. Her crazy personality is a nice, and sometimes frustrating, contrast to mine and Dave's.

3. We picked out her name 4 years before she was born.

4. When I was pregnant with her, we started calling her Maybe, since we weren't 100% sure on her name. We were watching a lot of Arrested Development and thought Maeby was just a funny name, so we joked that we were going to call her that. It stuck, and eventually got shortened. Mabes just seems to fit her.

5. In the last 3-4 months, she's turned into a total girly girl. Because she seemed like such a tomboy, it caught both me and Dave off guard. She still likes trains, cars, and building things, but she insists on wearing her ballet slippers, leotard, fluffy skirt, and/or crown at the same time.

6. My mom said that each of her kids' births were different and indicative of our personalities. This definitely holds true for Em--she cannot be rushed, and won't do anything until she's ready. But when she is, watch out. There's no stopping her.

7. She calls me "Princess Mommy" and Dave "Horsey Daddy." She gets mad if I refer to him as just "Daddy."

8. She loves her Horsey Daddy more than anything, and tells me this several times a day.

9. She likes to eat, and this has been apparent since day 1.

10. Also apparent since day 1: she doesn't like to sleep. I blame Dave for this--she inherited his fear of missing out on fun.

11. She had the chubbiest cheeks as a baby. I realize it would look a little odd on a 3-year-old, but I'm kind of sad they've shrunk.

12. I still check on her at least once a night to make sure she's still breathing.

13. She loves broccoli. I hate it but force myself to eat it because it's healthy. I love that she loves it and begs for it at the grocery store.

14. She had a bladder infection when she was 10 months old and had to go to Children's Hospital to make sure she didn't have kidney reflux. It was painfully hard to hold her down for the kidney ultrasound, catheter and VCUG. I wish I had taken a picture of her in her hospital gown, though.

15. Not counting spit up, she has only thrown up 3 times in her life. One of them was from laughing too hard at Becca.

16. She loves to give and receive kisses, but she always wipes them off. I don't think she realizes she does it.

17. She loves maps and globes. This makes me happy.

18. She's incredibly tough, and when she falls, she usually just jumps up and brushes it off. If she cries for more than 5 seconds, it must have been a bad fall.

19. Stray hairs freak her out.

20. I was too stunned to cry when she was born. I did, however, cry when they announced her weight.

21. Someone at church once commented that she had the personality of a redhead. This woman didn't know I had three redhead sisters and that my parents had already made that comparison.

22. When I check on her at night, I often just stare at her. She looks so sweet and angelic when she sleeps, any frustration from the day is completely erased and I think my heart may burst.

23. She's incredibly smart and perceptive. I may be biased, though.

24. I'm convinced she has the personality, intelligence, and capacity to do something great, but I'm afraid we'll screw up as parents and she won't realize her potential.

25. At least once a day, she wraps her arms around my neck and says "I'm glad you're my mommy." I'm glad she's my Mabes.