Princess Dibble

The fanciest stroller in the whole land (it was a gift). Needless to say, they both approve. And so do their parents.

Oh where to begin.

It seems that we have a creative three year old. If you remember your Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? There is a part that goes: He can go like the rain dibble dibble dibble dopp. Dibble dibble dibble dibble dopp dopp dopp. This is just one of many books that he has memorized. It is very cute to hear him recite his books, but I digress.

I think the first mention of a Princess Dibble was in reference to one of Elena's toys. He's always enjoyed princesses because of Phantom of the Opera. And who can blame him? They dress a lot fancier than we do on a day to day basis. So yea, the bunny taggie became Princess Dibble. You can kind of see her in the picture below, on the trampoline. Then things took a turn for the humorous.

They get along so well. I hope it lasts.

Oskar is loud. Powerfully loud. The other day he screeched and I sternly (yes, sternly) said "Oskar, please don't screech like that!" and the response was, "It was Princess Dibble!" Dan thought it was an imaginary friend, but luckily he was playing with a Barbie at the time so I thought we were in the clear. I asked if Princess Dibble was real or imaginary and he said she was imaginary. I asked if he knew she was pretend and he said yes. Let it be noted that the next time I had to tell him to be quiet it was a rocket. He has a lot going on in his brain.

Obligatory Easter picture.

During my toddler bath time siesta the other night I heard: "Dibble! That's not safe! (pause) Dibble! (pause) Wake up!" Good Lord, I thought, she's dead. My toddler just killed off his imaginary friend.

Dan asked him about it the next day and it turns out that Princess Dibble went down the drain and back to her castle. She was going to stop by later on to play. Kid's got plans.

"I'm wearing leg warmers!"

In other news, I am done nursing and Ellie is happily gaining weight on a healthy diet of formula. I am so glad to be done with nursing. Before you go and tell me how lucky I am to have nursed a child and how lovely it is and what wonderful bonding it is I will have to kindly remind you the nursing is not automatically a good experience for every woman. Besides exhaustion, pain and crabbiness it also caused me to dread my daughter waking up. Dread is not the feeling I want to associate with my baby. She's too precious for that. As a parent of a baby, you already dread your child NOT waking up. This was just too much. My patience with Oskar was even worse than usual and while he is generally exasperating. this wasn't very fair to him. So now feeding Ellie, which used to take about 6 hours out of my day now takes about an hour and everyone is better for it. It is absolutely glorious.

Despite all odds, the blue eyes are still present!

Not only that but we went back to the doctor and I'm happy to announce that she climbed her way back on the chart and is currently rocking out at the 14th percentile. They were very happy and extremely surprised. I've been lucky that all my medical staff have always been of the "nurse if you can, but if you can't, that's okay too" camp. Especially since nursing was clearly not providing her enough nutrients, even when supplemented with formula. Suffering AND failing is not a great place to be. When I was hating nursing Oskar, at least he was fat and happy at the 105th percentile.

She's a toe chomper.

Weaning went well for Ellie. I recommend introducing a bottle to your baby early and often (once a day) whether it has formula or breast milk in it. This is what I did for both my kids and weaning was not a problem at all. Ellie needed a little extra cuddling one night, and that's it. They were both used to formula by the time they switched to formula only, so I think that helped too.

Whenever we take Elena's monthly pictures, Oskar has to get in there too.
This is fun. Clearly in this one they are both looking at Dan.

Oskar is back on Phantom of the Opera after a considerable break from watching the film. The other day I told him we had to turn it off to go brush his teeth and go to bed. He ran to the bathroom and stood on his stool by the sink angrily sobbing while shouting Angel of Music at me. That's right, he picked the most gentle song from the whole musical and made it sound like a metal song being sung by a heart broken teenager. Good work, son. I asked him if he thought he could play the Phantom's part some day and he said, "Ya-huh, but I don't want to scare people." So if he never plays the role of Phantom, know that it's not that he can't, he's just doesn't want to scare people.;)

He finally gets that the end of Phantom is sad.

Oskar got a bike! It is a tiny bit big, but the one that fit a bit better was $199, so that wasn't happening. He is doing well with it, but will definitely have the training wheels on for a while.