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Little Help

The Bad Frog?  Yeah, the bad frog.  It comes out from time to time.  It shows itself when the moon is full and on all the nights in between.  You see, we have this little girl with an extremely active imagination; we have this little girl who knows right from wrong but prefers the latter.  Or if the mood is just right and she wants to be insubordinate to our requests.  She likes to play make-believe.  But she most often pretends to be a frog.

Hug Me

If I am trying to get her to do something that she does not want to do I will often have to ask if “Froggie” will do it.  ”Froggie” appears in the morning, usually when it is time to get dressed.  ”Froggie” also comes out when she gets in trouble or if she gets scolded for something.  She will put her lip out, drop her chin down and say, “ribbit” in her sad, sad voice.  It seems that when she is doing something she isn’t supposed to do it isn’t really her, but rather it is “Froggie” that did it or “Froggie” that didn’t do it.  We have decided that is when the Bad Frog comes out.

ummm....Norah

Aaron tells me that I am encouraging it, but sometimes asking “Froggie” to do something works because she doesn’t always respond when I ask her to do something.  Her sibling often plays along with the whole “Froggie” persona.  ”Froggie” also has been showing up at daycare quite frequently.  Some mornings I have dropped them off and she walks to the door, stops, gets down,  then crawls through the door way and starts hopping around on the floor.  This is our child.  This is her alter ego.  It isn’t Batman or Clark Kent.  It isn’t The Hulk or even Spiderman.   No this alter ego is the Princess of Darkness; it comes out faster than a speeding bullet.  Like Bruce Banner turning green when made angry, our little girl turns froggie when bad;  while her “froggie” senses create a protective web of deceit to blame the alter ego for all the misdoings.  This is our child.  This is our daughter.  This is our Norah.

The Twin Hangout

The girls have recently been discovering imaginary play, not just that but play that incorporates the other.  In the past the girls have played and it usually involved playing with blocks and tangible items or some sort of physical play.  The play kitchen we got them for their 2nd birthday for example.  With it they mostly enjoyed “making” food or coffee for Aaron and I, but they didn’t directly interact a lot with each other.  It was there, tangible with the ability to manipulate the objects while serving food and drink that came with the kitchen.

Blue Baby going shopping

More recently, especially in these past few weeks, Bella has decided that she wants to go “shopping.”  She loads her little shopping cart with her babies, grabs her phone and slings her purse over her shoulder and she pushes the cart around.  She will announce that she is going shopping–and then she shops.  When you ask her where she will reply, “Target” and like it is the only place to shop.  Sometimes she tells us she is “going to work” and of course it’s at Target too.  Though to be fair she sometimes tells me she wants to go work with her Daddy, but that is usually in the car on the way to daycare when she asks me if I am going to work, if Daddy is at work or why we go to work.

All Smiles Norah

All Smiles Bella

Sometimes she will try to get Norah to go shopping at Target with her.  If Norah is feeling like being Norah, versus her alter ego, she will push the stroller.  If Norah is being Froggie then she still shops though (I mean which girl doesn’t like to shop!?) She will hop along on her hands and knees while Bella will push her cart along saying, “Come on Froggie, let’s go to Target.”  Usually Target is located either in the kitchen, but sometimes it is over by the front door.  Target has been known to expand though at alternate locations.  They have also started playing kitchen in the morning more when I am getting ready for work.  Bella will make dinner for Norah, me and even Sadie.  She will try to bring everyone a plate and they will make play food for each other.  It is really pretty cute.  So if you are hungry for some organic, healthy, zero calorie food, you should stop by the Hufnagel House Monday through Friday.

Block by Block

Bella has also been asking and to be honest it sooooo cute, to play on the iPad.  She usually will go up to Aaron with a shy smile and super cute face and say, “Daddy, I play on iPad?”  The girls will then get down on the floor with Daddy and the iPad games begin.  The really like a Mickey Mouse App that reads them a story and allows the girls to interact by putting puzzles together.  We have apps for counting and the alphabet.  Apps for drawing and naming animals.  They really love the iPad.  Bella also likes to get up in Aaron’s lap on the desktop and move the mouse around.  Aaron will ask her to move it places on the desktop and she does a pretty good job.  She will click when he tells her to click too!  I tell you we have girls that can do that and also Skype–some pretty tech savvy 2 1/2 year olds!

Norah's Blue Phase

The girls had the chance to play with a hamster for the first time this week.  Aaron was in Illinois for a conference and was gone overnight.  I have a Zumba class I usually go to, so I asked our neighbor Sam, the girls’ regular babysitter, if she could watch them for a bit.  Well, shortly before Sam was scheduled to arrive she called and asked if she could bring a surprise by for the girls.  Turns out it was her new (relatively) pet hamster in a little blue plastic ball.  Norah kept calling it a mouse at first.  Then she kept calling it a pumpkin…not sure if she was talking about the hamster or the ball though.  Sam got down on the floor and had the girls spread out their legs to let the hamster run around.  They both got a big kick out of it and by the end I think Norah was finally calling it a hamster….or was it a froggie?

Usual mumbo jumbo here.  Picture of the Week always a good one to check out.  And of course Flickr where we thousands of pictures.  Pictures are there by chronologically and you can easily search for through the tags.  So if you want to see Smiling photos, click on the Smiling Tag.  Crying Photos, click on Crying Tag.  Or perhaps that Perfect Moment photo.  Yep there is a tag for that too!  Of course, you can just as easily click the links I made for you anyway.  Why click three times, when you can click once?