Mornings around here

Mornings. I am not the biggest fan. The reason mostly likely is that I am a night owl. I can be sooooo tired in the afternoon, even into the evening. I can make pledges that "since I am so tired, I am going to bed early tonight!" Yes, that has actually happened once or twice in my life. More likely though, 9 or 10 hits and something happens to me. Suddenly, all thoughts of sleep are gone and I am abuzz with all the things I could do. My mind activates and my family sleeps without me. Rob is not a night owl. Rob would be very happy to fall asleep every day of the week at 9 o'clock. So, because of my busy nights, waking babies at 6 are pretty cruel. Luckily, I have good sleepers and even better little girls. On a typical morning, Elle will wake up at 6 or 6:30 for the day. This wakes Scout up in the next room (but believe me, she'd wake up soon anyway). Sometimes Elle will accept a bottle and possibly go back to sleep, but not likely. I will usually just make the bottle and pick her up and take her into bed with us. I always have a hope that she'll just fall asleep, but she doesn't. So, after the bottle, I turn on an Elmo's world video and sit her up next to me and I check back out. On lucky mornings, Rob gets up at that time too, and makes Scout her cereal. On unlucky mornings, I get up and make her a bowl and go back to bed.
Between the hours of 6 and 8 are Scout's best playtime. For whatever reason, that is the time that her imagination soars, she doesn't need tv, and she plays really well by herself. Other times of the day, she wants the TV on, or she begs me to play with her or a friend to come play, or she just follows me around talking my ear off. But perhaps as a survival instinct, in the wee hours of the morning, she is blissfully self contained and plays so cute. When I get up, usually 8ish, I make them and myself a real breakfast such as eggs and toast, and the day begins. Part of my morning routine is to go into Scout's room and get her clothes and I always take a look around and peek at what had occupied her time that morning. Sometimes I marvel at how early she must have gotten up that day to do all the things she had done (sometimes Scout is up at an indeterminate hour, proceeding her sister).
This morning's play, struck me as particularly cute and I had to take pictures. She got me up at 8 to come see her "ecosystem" she made.

(I am sure that every mother in the world can relate to this: I am greeted at least 100 times a day with, "mom, come and see something" there is never an explanation on what will greet me, it ALWAYS has to be a surprise. My surprises range very widely in interest. Sometimes I am dragged downstairs to see a piece of thread on the carpet. Many times I am shown a horse in a book or on the tv or computer and asked, "can I be this horse?" (most likely scenario). Sometimes it's to see that baby sister is seconds away from falling off the couch onto her head. And SOMETIMES it's for something really cute and I am so glad she came and got me to see (I am always glad she comes to get me when her sister is in peril too, make no mistake). Anyway, this morning, it was for something really cute.)

This was the path to the ecosystem I was to take into Elinor's room which was where her "world" that she made was housed.


Here is the overall view. Basically, she took all of Elle's stuffed animals and many of hers and separated them into their different habitats (yes she threw around words like "ecosystem" and "habitat". Good to know PBS is doing it's job.)

I will now take you on a tour of the different habitats that went up in Elle's room while she was watching Elmo with mommy (ok, mommy drifted off a bit).

The farm pastures
(her favorite horse family, a sheep and a pig (that's housey for all of you who remember).


This is the barn.
It housed a kitty family, some dogs and a duck.

In the crib, we had the South Pole.
(Two huskies, a penguin and a snowman (for good measure). I must say, I was pleased to see the penguin in the South Pole, not the North Pole. I choose to believe that she knew that's where they live and did it on purpose. You will visit the North Pole in a minute.)


First we will go to the ocean.
(dolphin, manta ray, shark and Nemo.
Oh, and don't forget Kermit, he lives on a lily pad in the ocean - I was informed).


Can't forget the giant sea turtle.

Here we have the North Pole housing who else but Santa and three reindeer.


This is the beach.
Just one lonely crab.
(Guess it was the only beach creature she could find.)

This one's my favorite. It's the forest.
(Hedgehog, rabbits and two moose. Are you wondering what cookie is doing there? Well, the forest is creepy to Scout, so she felt it needed a monster.)

At last we have the jungle.
(featuring lions and tigers and bears amidst a gorilla, elephants, one hippo toy, Pumbaa, and some
vine climbing monkeys).



I don't know about you guys, but I thought it lacked a savannah, desert and frozen tundra. But she did alright for herself.