Toddlers Change Their Minds As Fast As the Weather Changes

Remember that big Elmo/Sesame Street 2 year old birthday party I threw back in March?  I was never a big fan of any sort of character glamorization, but Elmo and his friends started to change my mind as we neared the big 2nd birthday.  Elmo was the first character my two little loves adored.  We used to have to stock pile the Elmo diapers and only put on a different character when they weren't noticing.  I got a Grover DVD from the library hoping it might temper the adoration a little... but instead Sam just became Grover's #1 fan instead.  Anna had a thing for Abby Cadabby for a little bit, but she's never been as... well, obsessed as Sam about characters.  Because the two things I loved most in the world love those Sesame Street characters, I kind of grew to love them too.  Watching their faces light up when we saw them and talked about them made me sort of start to understand why there's such a market for Lightning McQueen, Dora, SpongeBob, Yo Gabba Gabba, etc. clothing and toys; why some mamas buy that crap stuff. (We do have Sesame Street plush figures and Sam did have a few Elmo shirts.  In my defense, none of that crap stuff was bought by me, except a second Elmo figure when we had the most epic todder throwdown to match all throwdowns (multiple times daily) when Sam and Anna were told they had to share the one we had gotten as a gift.)

Then I let Sam and Anna watch Curious George one day on my ipad this spring, probably when I was attempting to clip all 40 toddler nails.  It isn't the easy task and so I do whatever works to get it done.  Sam liked monkeys before that show, but after that, Curious George was the be all to end all in his little toddler world.    We checked out Curious George books at the library and I brought some home from school to read.  Telling Sam to eat bananas like a monkey now had to be punctuated with a "... like Curious George."  for it to work.  Anna liked Curious George, but never as much as Sam.

These days we've entered into the Thomas the Train era.  Sam and Anna have had a small Thomas train set since Christmas, but it hasn't been a huge favorite until this summer... until we watched a video at Grandma's, and the "blue train" all of a sudden became "Thomas" when we played.  Sam demanded to know all of their names, and lately Thomas and Percy are his other best friends besides Anna.  For a while playing with our trains made me want to pull my hair out.  No matter what, it was always an instant fight over who got which trains... as in, Sam wanted them all and Anna couldn't have any according to Sam.  Now they have seemed to work out between themselves that Anna's trains are Thomas's brown coach cars: Annie and Clarabel, and Sam gets all the other ones we have.  Not really fair and balanced, but to them it is an acceptable agreement, and so we go with it.

My favorite moments are when Sam and Anna are having a grand time playing without me and I can sit back and listen to their conversations.  Through their train play, I hear them interact in such advanced ways for two year olds; I love it.  Yesterday they figured out how to fix the bridge that had fallen together without my help.  Anna said to Sam, "Look! We're working together!"  How cute is that?  Anna also likes to call out, "Help Thomas!"  to which Sam replies, "I coming!" as he speeds around the track to where she is.  (Hilarious side note:  When Anna shouts Thomas, she doesn't say it as clearly and it really sounds like she is saying Help Dumb-ass!  It makes me chuckle every time to hear her say that in her little sweet two-year old girly voice.)  When they carry their train bin out to the living room together (the largest space we have for a track layout), Anna likes to say, "Teamwork! Yay!" and it makes me smile.

We play with our modest train set first thing upon waking, before breakfast, and multiple times throughout the day.  Sam went through a little bit of a withdrawal while we were traveling this past week, but my savior was a hardcover set of Thomas stories we got from the library before we left.  That book was like candy during our long ride- it kept him happy, and he paged through that sucker over and over again for hours.

Typing this all out, I'm coming to the realization that the catalyst for every character obsession was watching a video of it.  So really, when I'm ready to move on from the Thomas obsession, all I have to do is get Sam to watch an acceptable new obsession.  Hopefully I can find something that isn't so commercialized next.  All those trains and track pieces are so darn expensive!

Birthday Planning

I've started to ponder Sam and Anna's second (!) birthday celebration.  Last year was such a bust after this and my parents getting the flu, that our "party" had a total of 3 guests.  So far, we have decided that we're going to try something different this year and take the party to our relatives, instead of at our house and having them come to us (which involves juggling several sets of house guests).    Less stress of getting our house clean and hosting different sets of families overnight, but trading that for a 7 hour round trip drive and less than stellar sleep for Sam and Anna in a less than familiar setting. 
We'll see how that goes.

What I haven't decided is the theme for Sam and Anna's second birthday party.  I've had in the back of my mind basing it off of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle for a long time. I have so many cute ideas stored on pinterest:



However Sam and Anna have really turned into Elmo nuts lately.  I don't entirely get where it comes from, since they don't watch Sesame Street and they just listen to Elmo's song at daycare from a CD (besides the characters being on their diapers).  Our daycare provider gave them plush Cookie Monsters, Elmo, Big Bird and Ernie for Christmas, and they have been some of the most popular toys in the last few weeks.  Regardless of where it comes from, they love Elmo. 

I've never been much of a characters-for-kids kind of person.  No judging for anyone that is- for me it's like the color pink.  Some people like it, some people hate the color pink.  If you don't like the color pink, it's not like you look down on people that do- it just isn't something you aren't fond of personally.  Sam and Anna don't have anything Elmo based except for the gifts they got from daycare.  I would kind of like to keep it that way.

BUT, I can kind of see why people buy into character stuff now.  The way their faces (Sam especially) light up when I play Elmo's song for them on you tube is priceless.  Their joy becomes my joy.  I'm growing to love that furry red monster too, because my kids do.  As far as characters go, too- he's not that bad.  He doesn't whine like I've read Calliou does, or act bossy like Ruby from Ruby and Max does, or promote the helpless woman rescued by a man theme from Disney.

And so, I'm now contemplating an Elmo theme for the 2nd birthday party.  After all, it is their day, and to see their faces light up with that much joy from the Elmo junk stuff all over would make me happy too, no?

Plus, I've pinned all this good stuff from pinterest so far.




This is gonna be a tough decision to make!