Adia's ingenious that's for sure!

We are in another spurt of sleep terrorism in this house. Adia is the culprit. She's been coming up with every reason why she cannot go to bed or why she isn't tired. Her newest thing is she's trying to convince us that there are ghosts in her room....and monsters behind the curtains. We no longer close the curtains and now even with the nightlight in there we have to keep the hallway light on because otherwise "it's just too scary for me!". Part of it is that she's imaginative and I think it is in fact possible she believes these things to be true but the other part of me knows she's using it to hop the gate and crawl into our bed....which we spend a lot of time convincing her she's safe, there's no monsters or ghosts that live here (only beautiful people) and place her back in hers.....ten feet away from ours across the hall! We're teetering on believing her to be afraid and also knowing she loves to stay up all night with her antics!

The other night Royce and I were in our room and we kept hearing a beeping sound. Adia likes to play in my tool box and she had lifted my stud finder and stashed it in her bed! She was pushing the sides of it because it has a small red light that lights up when pushed and she was using it to light up a pile of books she was reading in bed! When Royce asked her what she was doing she replied in her munchkin voice matter-of-factly , "I'm just using my flashlight to read books quietly".

My Eeya

Lately Adia hasn't allowed me to take any photos of her. She runs away or gets mad when I pull my camera out (which ironically isn't all that often). I was having camera issues and needed to do some test pics so while Rasa was napping Adia and I went out to play for a bit.

Adia is such a little spitfire! She is NOT at all afraid to express herself. She screams with glee while jumping with her arms in the air and she will throw herself on the ground kicking and screaming when she's mad. Yesterday when we were outside it was beautiful, sunny and 70 degrees so I set up the water table. As I was pouring water in it I spilt one tiny little drop that landed on her foot. Her arms went up in the air and with a disgusted look she stares right into my eyes and yells "UGH COME ON!!!!". When Adia was a day or two old one of the nurses in the NICU said, "She knows what she wants and she's not afraid to say it". Adia was the only baby in there on her tummy in the isolate (normally they tell you to keep newborns on their backs but the babies in NICU have heart and breath monitors on so if something went wrong the alarms would go off). She wanted to be on her tummy and if you touched her or moved her when she didn't want you to she would belt out a mad scream as a warning! If you continued to mess with her she would scream and get red in the face while flailing her arms and legs. Even at a day or two old she was doing this!

She is wild but she is quiet and sweet too. She has no fear, NONE at all, I mean zero fear. It scares me to death as she runs full force into everything but at the same time I appreciate that courage and fearlessness because growing up I was a very cautious kid and was afraid to try new things. That changed eventually but those roots are still there with me and it limits me in certain aspects. Adia will learn how to use her personality to her advantage, I am very sure because she already is. I can only hope to be on the sidelines with a net trying to keep her from getting hurt while at the same time allowing her to see where her limits are.

The truth is with Adia the crystal ball says we're in for it so try to relax and hold on!

She allowed me to snap a few pictures before getting so caught up in play that she didn't notice any longer. My favorite pictures of the girls are always the ones I do without them noticing I'm shooting them.

While I've never been a fan of the cheesy smiling kid pics this one is soooooo Adia and soooooo her personality that I love it to pieces.



Planning her next move forgetting I'm even there....



This next one is one of my favorites. I'm not sure exactly way but I love serious and dramatic photographs of children. Its like they capture their intelligence and their innate wisdom instead of the playful silliness we always see. Children are so simple but so brilliant at the same time.



We call Adia "Eeya" sometimes for short because when Rasa first learned to say her name it would come out "Eeya" and it just sort of stuck.

Oh and my camera is busted up again and since Nikon repair takes ages and the busy season has begun my very supportive Hubby persuaded me to buy a new one. I'm so glad I did but I upgraded to a new model and am back on the learning curve again. Hopefully you'll see some new pictures in the future that show off some of my new cameras abilities!

A girl with a curl

There once was a girl, who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her head
When she was good, she was very very good
When she was bad, she was horrid

Adia, No!

Me: "Adia, No"
Adia: (dangling a half eaten apple through the loft railing) "No!" shaking her head.
Me: "Adia, No no, don't drop your apple"
Adia shaking her head "No!" drops apple.
Me: "Adia!"
Adia: "NO!"

Little Monkey

After we got home from "school" today I fed the girls yogurt and had a banana waiting for them. The longer it took them to eat the yogurt the more tired and cranky they became. After it was finished I picked up Rasa first and brought her to their room to lay her down for a nap. Adia stayed behind me on the loft. About two minutes later I walked back down the hall to the loft and I see Adia standing quietly (huge red flag) at the couch with her back to me. When she turned around she dropped the banana I had left sitting there. I picked it up off the floor and my hand was slathered in banana mush. Upon further inspection I realized she chewed through the peel and ate half of the banana!

Rock-a-bye and good night, go to sleep my dear Adia

Lately Adia has been giving us a hard time when it's "nighty night" time. Despite the usual sleep routine that we've been doing for the past eight or so months. Normally after a late feeding of veggies and cereal we play, get changed and into jammies, nurse, snuggle and off to bed. Rasa is usually out after Royce gives her a bear hug in the rocking chair for five or ten minutes and then Adia is next. Lately Adia sees Royce walking to her and she smiles and lets him pick her up but the second he walks her down the hallway towards her room she starts screaming! When he turns around and she sees me she smiles and laughs! Now normally I would say too bad if she's screaming in this case because she obviously knows that it's going to get her out of having to go to bed but Rasa is peacefully sleeping in their room and it's not fair to allow Adia to disrupt her and wake her up. We know very well that allowing this to continue will likely cause her to expect that this is how she gets out of having to go to sleep when she should HOWEVER (enter Mom guilt here) I have a slight suspicion that maybe she likes the one on one time with both of us and she's not willing to give it up? I mean she is a twin after all and never gets very much time alone with BOTH of us. Or possibly she's having too much fun to want to go to bed? Last night we were reading and I was showing her the signs for the animals in a book. She was having a blast signing after me and was beside herself with excitement over the sign for fish. She kept turning the book back to the fish page, smiling and signing it with both hands at the same time. When Royce went to take her away she was crying and reaching for me while signing fish. How could I let her go?!! I'm weak. She ended up back on my lap until after 10:30 pm until finally her lids were so heavy she didn't mind me handing her back to her Dad and while she did try and protest once he got her in her room it was a tired attempt and she was out two minutes later.
**sigh** Six months of hard work to get them on the same routine only to have it all squashed by fish.