Buttons in Vermont

Our girl is a character. On the way home from our recent trip to Vermont, Hubby and I decided to write down bullet points of the trip so I could blog about them later. Buttons gets her own post. Are you surprised?

The trip there. Marsha had a great idea to get kids books on cd's for the girls. Cool! I can't read in the car and maybe this would save us from the last resort...our portable DVD player. We started off pretty early, Buttons had only a small breakfast and proceeded to wolf down a gi-normous amount of "hearty grain" Goldfish (who are they kidding). We began listening to "Strega Nona" by Tomie De Paola while Buttons looked at the pictures. About halfway through the book, she hands it to me and says she doesn't want it and she wants to get out. Uh-oh. She barfs. She's much better natured than I am about it and we stop at a gas station to wash her, the seat and change her clothes. We also give the passersby a scene they didn't expect called "girl on yellow potty in the green grass at the Mobil Station chatting with her mother."

Buttons and our vacation mates. This was a first for us as we vacationed with 3 other families, including sharing a cabin with Beth, her hubby and her 2 girls. Buttons was in hog heaven to have friends staying in the same house. They ate together, played together and around 8 am every morning had a break down together. Marsha and her family heard the wailing in the next cabin, which was not so close. Part of the issue was the fact that Buttons is still learning to share and is ok with being assertive. In fact, the pond proved too mucky for Buttons' feet and she would ask anyone who was willing to fill her buckets with water and bring them to her. This game was played for a while and then my daughter had to learn to forget about the "gooky stuff in (her) toes" so she could make her delicious mud pies.

Ben & Jerry's. The girl knew she wanted Chunky Monkey before we even left. She fell asleep in the car for just a few minutes and when we arrived, Hubby and I wondered if we should wait in the car for her to take a little nap. Nah, there's ice cream. So, in a soft voice towards the backseat I barely spoke "Buttons, would you like to get some ice cream?" Suddenly, her eyes opened wide, her head popped up and from her mouth came the word "yes" followed by "I slept for a little while and then when I woke up, there was ice cream. I have energy now." We took the tour and went into a dark room where they show a little movie and she told me "this isn't spooky at all mom." After the movie she told everyone she saw that she wasn't scared.

Pictures I can't show here. The three girls in our cabin were all in stages of potty training and each one of them had their own potty. At one point two of the girls were sitting on identical potties next to each other and laughing and having a great time. It made for a fun picture, but not for the world. All 4 girls on the trip were able to go skinny dipping and let me tell you that was so fun I wanted to do it myself. If only we could all stay that shame free of our bodies forever.

Out of the mouths of babes. Beth is one of those people who finds great questions to ask. She had a conversation with Buttons that went a little something like this:

Beth: Buttons, who does the dishes in your house?
Buttons: My parents.
Beth: Who cooks in your house?
Buttons: My parents.
Beth: Who vacuums in your house?
Buttons My parents.
Beth: Who's really the boss in your house?
Buttons: My mom.

Of course, in retelling this to Marsha, I asked Buttons who was the boss in our house and she told her "our cat".

The way home. The girl listens to me when I talk about knitting. Here's proof...

Buttons: I'm gonna knit a piano out of yarn.
Me: Really? How will you do that?
Buttons: First I'll pick up stitches.
Me: Er...uh...what?
Buttons: I'll pick up stitches and use some yarn. Wanna see the yarn?
Me: Yes, of course.
Buttons: (Pretending) Here's the yarn I'll use for the blue and white sweatshirt I'm gonna make.
Me: Oh, it's lovely.
Buttons: And I'm going to make a matching hat too.
Me: Wow.