Saturday, November 12, 2011

The Pajama Saga Continues...

In case you missed it, we've been having some pajama drama in this house.
Catch up here: Pajama Drama
And here: More Pajama Drama

Tonight when I put Lucy to bed she came to me with two pairs of footie pajamas in her hands. THE "jammies" from previous posts (fished out of the washing machine where I hid them), and another nearly identical pair. I started to undress her. I took her shoes off. Then I took a sock off.

Cue tantrum.

"NO JAMMIES!! NO JAMMIESS!!! I NEED MY SOCKS!!"

Obviously the pajama fad is over.


Thursday, November 10, 2011

More Pajama Drama

That's right. The Saga continues.

So I got Lucy dressed successfully (in something besides her "jammies") this morning. Score 1 for me.
Then she brought her "jammies" everywhere with her today - including to school with her. Score 1 for Lucy.

She carried them into her classroom wadded up under her arm like a football. When she got to class she announced, "These are MY jammies."
Then she put them away in her bag and left them there all day. As soon as we got home, the pajamas came out of the bag.
She showed them to me and again instructed me. "These are MY jammies."
They got their own place of honor at dinner tonight. Score 2 for Lucy.

On the way up the stairs, I asked her if I could carry the pajamas upstairs (I didn't want her to trip) and miraculously she agreed. Score 2 for Mommy.

So then I had to poke a little. I can't just leave well enough alone. I put the pajamas on her dresser, opened her pajama drawer, and asked "What pajamas do you want to wear tonight?" She barely even looked in the drawer. Instantaneous reply - "MY jammies!" She started hunting around the room for them as I pulled out pair after pair of pajamas from her drawer.
"Do you want THESE Lucy? They're green?"
"No, no green."
"Do you want THESE Lucy? They're soft!"
"No! NO SOFT! MY JAMMIES!!!"
Score 3 for Lucy.

Needless to say, she won that fight.
She's wearing The Jammies to bed for the second night in a row. As a consolation prize though, she did agree to take my choice of pajamas to bed with her. Maybe by tomorrow they'll be the pair of choice.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Pajama Drama

Last night I made a parenting mistake.

At bedtime, I asked Lucy to lay down so I could put her "pants" on. Her silk, pink, pajama pants with puppies on them. They're soft. She likes them. Except for last night. As soon as the pants touched her leg, the screaming started. "NO PANTS!! NO PANTS!!!"

Lately we've had some bedtime battles. I thought this was another form of bedtime resistance and I disciplined her for refusing to follow directions/refusing to go to bed. After we sorted out that bedtime was not optional, her behavior improved immensely. She submitted to her pink silk pajamas. She was very sweet and gave me and Tommy hugs. And then she walked over to her drawer, pulled out a pair of too-small worn-out footie pajamas, and said, "Mommy, it's BEDTIME. I need jammies!"

The soft, silk, pink pajama pants are no longer in the category of "jammies" because I labeled them as "pants" when I took them out of the drawer. And apparently we don't wear pants to bed. Only "jammies." I tried to reason with her. I tried to explain that she was WEARING pajamas. No luck. A compromise was reached though. Lucy wore the pajamas (the "pants") I picked out for her to bed without any further argument. But, she also brought her footie pajamas to bed with her. She informed me, "I NEED my jammies," and slept cuddled up with them like a blankie.

This morning when I went to wake her up she was sitting cross legged in bed with her footie pajamas in her lap. When I opened the door, Lucy said, "Hi," in that flat voice that means I'm in trouble. I said, "Hi Lucy! How are you today," and she responded by holding up the pajamas and explaining, "THESE are jammies." In case I missed the point last night. Then, to further drive home her message, she carried the jammies all over the house today. When I picked her up from daycare, the first thing she did was grab her pajamas and announce, "These are jammies. I need my jammies." I asked her if she wanted to put them on right at that moment, and she replied (in a "duh" tone of voice), "NO. It's not bedtime!"

Deep breath.

Bedtime came around. I was excited to put Lucy in her pajamas so the argument could be resolved. Lucy was excited for her pajamas. Then bath time happened. I ran the bath. I undressed Lucy. I reached over to pick her up to put her in the tub, and she was clutching the pajamas to her chest. "MY jammies."

"Yep. YOUR pajamas. Now put them down and get in the tub." 

"MY JAMMIES!!!"

I had to pry them out of her hands to bathe her. There was lots of screaming. I dried her off and put the pajamas on her. As soon as the fabric touched her skin, she was a happy kid. When I put her to bed she was hugging herself saying, "My jammies."

Now the challenge will be getting them back off of her again tomorrow!

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Trend Setter

Thanks to Auntie K for pointing this out:

Remember Lucy's stylish safety glasses?


Well apparently the fashion world was impressed with my daughter's fashion sense!

Even Tommy is one cool dude:

Good to know Lucy has a future in the fashion industry if she doesn't do anything else!

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Everything is hot.

Lucy can correctly use the words "hot" and "cold." With the recent temperatures (115 degree heat index anyone?) everything has started to fall in the "hot" category.

Even ice cream.



Lucy frequently asks if things are hot. I'm not sure why she asks because she never believes our response. Last week my mother-in-law was sitting on the front steps watching Lucy play on the front porch. Lucy decided she wanted to sit on the front steps too. Before sitting down she asked my mother-in-law if they were hot. After being assured that they weren't hot, Lucy tentatively sat on the very furthest corner of the step, with only about an inch of step supporting her. She only sat down comfortably after she ascertained that she wasn't going to burn her heiny off.

She also likes to blow on things to cool them off. Last night as Daddy was preparing dinner in the kitchen Lucy stood on the far side of the baby gate and declared that dinner was hot. Then, in an effort to cool off dinner faster she tried to single-handedly air condition the kitchen by blowing through the baby gate. She also tries this technique in the car. When she gets in the car she blows air on the carseat in an effort to cool it off. She even blows on ice cream. You never know, that ice cream might burn you.



Saturday, August 6, 2011

Birthday Party!

Miss Lucy turned two on July 20th. We threw a birthday party for her last Sunday. She and two boyfriends played in the pool in the backyard for about two hours. Then they ate hotdogs. Lucy got lots of gifts. Her boyfriends were a bit bent out of shape that they didn't get lots of gifts too. Tommy chewed on his hands. Here is a sampling of some of her presents:
Dressups:

It's fun to dress Daddy up too:


A bed. It was too small:


Oh wait, not a bed for Lucy. A bed for Tommy?



A bed for Tori?


Oh I get it now, a bed for dolls!

Disclaimer: Despite the position of that doll, smothering babies to sleep is not a regular practice in this house.




The bed was a big hit. Even Lucy's friends tried out the bed:



And this kitchen, which I built myself:

I'm quite proud of it.

Then there was the cake situation. I made cupcakes. There were cats, dogs, bears, birds, fish, and bunnies. I was quite proud of them too.


Lucy took one bite and burst into tears. *Sigh*

Friday, July 29, 2011

The Proper Use of Potties

The proper use of potties has been a topic of discussion around here lately.

It started several months ago, when Lucy started following me into the bathroom and learned how to flush a toilet.

Lesson #1: Do not flush "things" (toys, cats, your brother, rolls of toilet paper) down the potty.

Lesson #2: Do not flush the potty while Mommy is still sitting on it.


Lesson #3: Do not help Mommy wipe. Lucy noticed a pattern. Mommy sits, Mommy wipes, Lucy gets to flush. In an effort to expedite the flushing process, Lucy started "helping" me wipe almost as soon as I sat on the toilet.

Lesson #4: Pee goes in the potty. Lucy had this major breakthrough about a week ago when she accompanied Daddy into the bathroom. Daddy did not appreciate her efforts to "help" him pee.

Lesson #5: Doll potties do not work. I tried to put a diaper on Lucy the night after her breakthrough that pee goes in the potty. She ran away from me (not unusual) and, of all odd behaviors, crammed her naked butt into her dollhouse. When I asked her to get up so I could put the diaper on her, she replied. "NO! I go potty!" She sat with a look of concentration on her face for another few seconds, then stated "All done," stood up, and flushed the dollhouse toilet, which makes a surprisingly realistic flushing noise. Luckily for me she did not actually pee in the potty. That moment made me glad that she is not potty trained yet.

All of this had me wondering if perhaps it is time to potty train Lucy. So a couple days ago I tried putting big girl panties on her. She had them on for all of five minutes before she peed in them, through them, and onto the floor. Luckily, she peed on the kitchen floor. Unluckily, she thought that the "water" on the floor was fun to play with but was not at all bothered by her wet pants.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Your Brother is Not A...

Lucy, your brother is not a pet...


...or a purse...


...or a doll...


...or a seat...

...or a hat...


....or a toy...


...or a stool...


...or a pillow...


...or a bear...




...or food...


...or a pack mule.


Okay, good. I'm glad we cleared that up.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

How to Wear a Shirt

Lucy is starting to take an interest in dressing herself. It's quite the process. Here's how to put on a shirt, according to Lucy

    1. Find an arm hole.
    2. Put your leg in it.
    3. Pull the shirt up as far as you can.
    4. Get stuck.
    5. Run (hobble) in circles.
    6. Trip.














    7. Find the arm hole again.
    8. Put it over your head.



    9. Pull down until your nose pokes through.
    10. Run blindly into a wall.
    11. Remove the shirt.




    12. Find a bigger hole.
    13. Put the shirt over your head.



    14. Backwards.


    15. Pull down until you have a skirt.


    16. Run.
    17. Trip yourself.


    18. Take the shirt off.


    19. Take your shorts off too.
    20. Take your diaper off too.
    21. Do a naked dance.
    22. Declare yourself "Cute!"
    23. Find pajamas and wear them as a hat.





















    24. Roll on the floor and say "NO! NO! NO!"
    25. Admit that you might need help.

    Who knew getting dressed could be such an event?! 

    Saturday, July 9, 2011

    Why Fondant Makes Good Handcuffs

    Last year I made Lucy's birthday cake myself. And I iced it myself. And you could tell. She turned one, and SHE could tell. In case you haven't noticed, I am not a domestic diva. Cooking really isn't my thing. It was the mother of all pathetic homemade cakes. If you don't believe me, here's a picture:

    In my defense, at least it tasted good.

    This year I thought I would learn something about cake decorating, so that her two year old cake is slightly less embarrassing. Maybe she'll at least smile for her picture this year. Maybe if I improve a little bit each year, we'll have a cake she's willing to eat by the time she turns sweet 16.

    I started googling cakes, and I thought that the fondant iced cakes looked really nice, and kind of like they were made out of sculpy. I like sculpy. I can relate to sculpy much better than I can to a sticky can of icing. And - bonus points! - when I googled fondant recipes it turns out that fondant only has TWO ingredients! Totally my style of cooking.

    So we (as in Lucy and I) made fondant. How hard can it be? Ha. Don't ever think that when cooking with a two year old.

    We dumped all the marshmallows in the bowl.

    We microwaved them so they got nice and mushy. And sticky. Very Very VERY sticky.


    Then we added powdered sugar to the mix. Lots and lots and LOTS of powdered sugar. But not enough. Lucy was in charge of adding the sugar. And she added sugar to the counter, to the floor, to her hair, to my hair, to her shirt, to her shoes, and to the dog as well as to the marshmallows. So when we dug our hands in to knead the marshmallows into a sculpy-like dough they were still Very Very VERY sticky. My hands, Lucy's hands, the bowl, and the marshmallow/sugar concoction ended up glued to the counter.

    On the plus side, poorly mixed fondant makes great handcuffs. Lucy's hands stuck together so well she couldn't get them apart.

    It took most of a bag of sugar to get the fondant to the right consistency and unstuck from the counter. While I was working on fixing that, Lucy got her hands unstuck from the counter and glued them to the bowl. This was slightly concerning as the bowl was breakable. I dumped Lucy, and the bowl, in the sink and put her in charge of "washing dishes." It took lots of hot water, but I eventually separated most of the fondant (aka glue) from Lucy and evicted her from the kitchen while I cleaned up the rest. 

    This is Lucy's sad face:

    It took us two more days to finish the project. On the second day we baked cupcakes (from a box). Aside from making them too large for the cups, they turned out well (because they came from a box). On the third day we rolled out the fondant and decorated the cupcakes. Cookie cutters were a bit beyond Lucy's comprehension, but she was very very good at greasing and sugaring the counter top so that the fondant wouldn't stick. Of course, she was also very good at greasing and sugaring the chair, my hair, the floor, her clothes...I'm not sure the fondant experience was worth the amount of laundry it created.

    Here is our finished product:




    I'm not sure I have the energy to do this again for her birthday, although I might consider using poorly mixed fondant as a toddler restraining device in the future. I can just hear my husband now: "Honey, where's Lucy?" "Oh, I glued her to the ceiling with fondant."

    Friday, July 1, 2011

    Goodnight Puppy

    Tommy is teething.

    Tommy is cranky because Tommy is teething.

    At about 6:30 tonight, Tommy was DONE. I was DONE. So even though it was an hour before his bedtime, I decided to go ahead and bathe him. He likes water, so I envisioned a calm, relaxing break from crying, and then I could put both kids to bed at the same time. Well a mom can dream.

    I decided to bathe him in the kitchen sink so that Lucy could continue to play in the living room (she was prancing around in front of the TV with a Wii controller, pretending to Zumba. I hope that's not what I look like when I Zumba). As soon as I turned the water on, Lucy started having a crisis.

    Lucy is nearly two, and she does not do well with change.

    THIS WAS NOT THE ROUTINE.

    On top of that, she was upset because she was in the living room and I was in the kitchen. She was upset because I was playing with water and Tommy and not including her. She was upset because she wanted to "help" and I wasn't letting her.

    Or so I thought.

    I'm sure you can imagine the drama at this point. Hysterical teething infant. Hysterical crisising toddler. Fun.

    I tossed Tommy in the water and started to try to calm Lucy down, and that's when I realized the REAL problem.

    Puppy was dirty. This Puppy:



    And Mom and Tommy were hogging the bath tub. I was on track for Worst Mother of the Year tonight for not allowing Puppy to share the tub with Tommy. So I pulled out another washcloth, held Puppy over the sink, and proceeded to "wash" him. Then I gave him to (a slightly calmer) Lucy and let her finish "wiping his paws."

    All was well until I pulled Tommy out of the tub, and there was only one towel. So I had to find another towel (accompanied by hysterical crying from Lucy) and ensure Puppy was dried off. Then I had to diaper him, and clothe him in pajamas along with Tommy. Lucy very closely supervised this process. While I was swaddling Tommy, Lucy wrapped Puppy up in the washcloth. Then Lucy and Puppy and Tommy and I all went upstairs.

    I tucked Tommy into his bed.

    Lucy tucked Puppy into HER bed.

    Then Lucy very nonchalantly started back downstairs again. Isn't that what Mommies do after their babies are in bed? She wasn't very pleased with me when I reminded her that she was still a baby and needed to go to bed too. Goodnight Tommy. Goodnight Lucy. And Goodnight Puppy.

    Wednesday, June 29, 2011

    Why Girls are Smarter than Boys

    When Lucy was Tommy's age, she hated tummy time. So she promptly learned how to roll from stomach to back, thus ending tummy time.

    Tommy also hates tummy time. But the only way he knows how to roll is from back to front, so he is perpetually rolling over and getting stuck on his stomach. It infuriates him. If you don't want to be on your stomach Buddy, don't roll over!!

    Saturday, June 25, 2011

    YUM.

    Lucy and I have been having mealtime battles lately.

    About a week ago, Lucy decided that she was a big girl and would no longer use sippy cups. Since she was in danger of dehydration, I risked my poor carpet's life and allowed her to use a big girl cup. No lid. No straw. Straight up drinking out of a cup. She did surprisingly well with it. We had to lay down a few rules:

    "No, your peas do NOT go in your cup."
    "Drink your milk with your mouth, not with your fingers."
    "Do not dump milk on your tray...not even if you use your napkin to clean it up again."

    Since the cup has been going well, and Lucy has (mostly) won that battle, she decided today to broaden her horizons and dispense with utensils. The fork and spoon hit the floor (not that they were being used appropriately anyway), and up came Lucy's feet!

    That's right, I looked over and (through significant contortion on her part) her left foot was up on the tray next to her plate. She used her hands to very meticulously put a bite of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich between her toes, and then brought her foot to her mouth to eat it. YUM. Peanut butter toejam.

    Lucy Eats With Style

    Cheerios Are Taking Over My Life

    I deep cleaned the playroom this week. Those of you who know me understand that I'm more likely to get struck by lightning than do this type of cleaning.

    The Playroom (On a Normal Day)
    It was inspired by cheerios. Cheerios are taking over my life. I find them in the sofa. I find them in the toy bins. I find them in the depths under the table. I even found one behind the books on the bookshelf. In my shoes. On the window sill. You name it, there are cheerios there. It's amazing we don't have gigantic New York City sewer rats thriving on the cheerios Lucy has hidden all over the house.

    The kids' reactions to this kind of cleaning was quite amusing.

    When I was dusting, Lucy kept running off with my dust rag. Which means that next time I clean I'm going to find a large collection of holey, dusty socks somewhere. Tommy cried.

    When I cleaned the windows, Lucy was right there beside me scrubbing....and running off with my paper towels. Tommy cried.

    When I scrubbed the fingerprints off the walls, Lucy scrubbed too...and stole sponges. Tommy cried.

    Sponge Thief

    When I scrubbed the tables, Lucy helped...and ran off with my Lysol wipes. Tommy cried.

    When I vacuumed, Lucy wanted a ride. Tommy cried.

    So now Lucy has a nice stockpile of cleaning supplies, and will be taking over the household chores. Tommy, clearly, is a slob.


    Slave Labor

    Thursday, June 23, 2011

    Apples To Go, Please

    Recently Peter and I were walking around Toys 'R' Us making Lucy's birthday list. I was appalled by the amount of McDonald's play food in the kitchen set aisle. There's a fake McDonald's Drive-Thru window, a fake red and yellow cash register, fake supersized soft drinks and fries and triple stacked plastic bacon and cheese covered heart attacks waiting to happen. It's no wonder Americans are fat. We start 'em young.

    Peter didn't see why this was upsetting to me. "That stuff was around when we were kids and we're not fat. It's not like we eat fast food often."

    Apparently Lucy doesn't see much wrong with it either. At home she picked up her purse, waved "bye-bye" to me, and got on her rocking horse (it's actually a giant blue rocking dog, but that sounds odd typed out). She rocked for a minute, then got to an imaginary drive-thru window. She paused, turned to the side and said, "Um...apples please. Yeah. Apples. Thank you." She used a very decisive "telephone voice" to place her order. She rocked a couple more times, paused again, reached into her purse, and held out MY credit card to the imaginary cashier.

    MY CREDIT CARD!!

    Last time I saw it, it was in MY wallet in MY purse!! It's identity theft in my own house!

    I guess I should be happy that she was buying fruit with it, and not a plastic McDonald's drive-thru window.

    I need an apples combo meal, supersized please.

    Poopsplosions Revisited

    Exersaucers are the solution to infant constipation. If you're ever concerned about the length of time between your baby's bowel movements, plop him in the exersaucer for about five minutes.

    Problem solved.


    Tonight I got revenge for last week's poopsplosion when Peter was conveniently "on duty."

    Five minutes after putting Tommy in the exersaucer we heard the ominous squirting noise. I think Tommy deflated. By the time Peter crossed the room to pick him up, there was poop up to Tommy's armpits. Peter had to hose him off.

    This is the first time since Lucy was about a month old that Peter has been around for a poopsplosion. I think I'm almost as satisfied as Tommy right now.

    Wednesday, June 22, 2011

    How Many Ways Can My Toddler Get Hurt?

    I'm having a week where I'm afraid to take Lucy out in public, because someone might report me to CPS for child abuse. The kid has so many bruises it's not even funny.

    Lucy is getting more agile and causes me to have heart failure on a daily basis. She can climb ladders now. And in Lucy's mind, everything is a ladder, including furniture. BUT, she can't climb down again nearly as effectively as she climbs up. She has a big girl bed that she can fall out of. She insists on walking up and down stairs like an adult, but she can barely reach the railing. She has no respect for animal teeth and claws, and will frequently tackle strange dogs the same way she tackles our own pets. Of course, none of these things caused any of her injuries.

    They were all sustained while WALKING. You'd think that since she's been walking for a year now, that she'd know where her feet (and the walls and doors and floor) are by now. Not so much.

    She has a scrape on her nose, from tripping over her own feet on some cobblestones in Williamsburg. She got her first bloody nose from that too. The lovely colonial lady who was helping me mop Lucy up called security on us, in case she needed to go into the ER. Luckily she didn't.

    She has a scrape on her right knee from tripping over the door frame on her way outside. Tricky door must have jumped up and grabbed her feet.

    She has a bruise on her cheek from unsuccessfully trying to climb up the single step between our entryway and living room. 

    She has a bruise on her left knee from running full tilt into a wall. In our house. That wall has been there the whole time we've lived here. It wasn't a new wall, or a tricky wall, or an unexpected pile of junk.

    She has bruises on both arms that were sustained from flailing her arms around (aka "dancing") and forgetting where the furniture was.

    The house was already childproofed, but this week I'm thinking that we need to invest in helmets and padded walls!

    Poor kid!!

    Tuesday, June 14, 2011

    Oh No!

    No is Lucy's new favorite word.

    I've read that shit is the most versatile word in the English language, but I think Lucy would beg to differ. She finds a multitude of uses for the word "No."

    First, it obviously can mean "No." As in "NONONONONONONONONO!" when asked to do anything she doesn't want to do. We experience this version of No about 127 times an hour.

    But then it can also mean Yes. "Lucy, would you like some juice?" "NO!" But cue a temper tantrum when I put the juice away.

    She also uses No to inform us of impending disaster. Whether it's a diaper blowout or a plate of spaghetti about to hit the wall, I know that I need to jump quickly when I hear "Oh! No!"

    She uses No to express her disappointment in us. If I try to put a shirt on her that doesn't "match" her pants (take "match" with a grain of salt - she's a toddler after all), I get "Oh no. No, no, no," as she sighs and sadly shakes her head.

    When she doesn't know the correct response, No is always a safe fallback. "Lucy, what does the duck say?" "NOOOOoooooo."

    And of course, whenever she is hungry, tired, or just plain cranky, I hear lots of short sharp "No!"s. They're frequently accompanied by lots of hand flapping, hitting, kicking, screaming, and a general inability to focus on anything besides the word No.

    But I have learned that in the midst of all these No's the best way to get Lucy to comply with my wishes is to make her say Yes, ONCE. "Lucy, I need to change your diaper." "NONONONONONONONO!" "Lucy can you say yes?" "NO!" "Say Yes, Lucy." "Yes." (Said in a very sulky voice). "Great! Yay! Let's change your diaper!" "YEAH!!" Ah, brainwashing. 

    Sunday, June 12, 2011

    A Category 5 Poopsplosion

    Tommy got his first shower last night.

    He pooped so explosively that it flew out the legs of his diaper and hit the sides of his seat. And then he kicked it.

    While I was trying to determine the best approach to cleaning him up, Lucy dumped her pasta over her head.

    Lucy got a shower too.

    And after carrying two slimy kids upstairs by myself (guess who was working last night), I got a shower too.

    Who knew showering was such a family event?!

     It's all good though - I got my revenge:


    Tuesday, May 10, 2011

    A Case of the Mondays

    Yesterday was one of THOSE days.

    The first thing I saw when I left the bedroom was THIS CAT peeing on the floor.


    I should have taken the hint and gone back to bed.

    Instead I got up and tried to feed, diaper, and dress a two month old and twenty two month old simultaneously. There was a lot of crying. And a lot of exclamations of "Lucy don't touch that!"

    Lucy was having a destructive morning. Hurricane Lucy was a category 5. She dumped out all her toys. She cleaned out all my cabinets. She reorganized bookshelves. She found every wire, pen, crayon, sharp object, choke hazard, and rotten sippy cup in the house.


    I said "Lucy don't touch that!" a lot. She got put in timeout a lot. There was a lot of crying. The pile of things forbidden objects on the dining room table reached over my head. So finally I decided to take the kids for a drive. Maybe they would sleep. At the very least they would both be confined in carseats and I wouldn't have to chase them or listen to crying. Then I went to get in the car and realized that Peter took Lucy's carseat with him to work. Oops. 

    NAPTIME for everyone!!

    After the nap, we all were in a better mood.

    For about five minutes, and then I fed Lucy her snack. She dumped it all over the floor. Especially her milk. There were no rags to clean it up with because they're all in the laundry. So I grabbed the nearest thing - a washcloth. I cleaned up the mess, then changed Lucy's diaper. A very full, nearly blowout diaper. Unfortunately, Lucy was feeling helpful. So she grabbed the washcloth and used it to wipe. I took it away and put it in the laundry. Then I threw away the dirty diaper. THEN I came back in the room to find Lucy with the poopy washcloth, using it like a washcloth and rubbing it up and down her arms. BATH TIME!!


    Yeah you think she's cute. She's not. And where was Tommy during all this? Whining, fussing, and then screaming bloody murder because he wasn't getting the attention he felt he deserved.

     I thought I'd work on the laundry situation. So I went to move the wet laundry into the dryer. The first thing I pulled out was a bra with pink spots all over it. I didn't even want to know what I washed with the load. I just put it all back in the laundry to worry about later. Anyone know how to get pink spots out of bras? If not, I'll call it leopard print.

    When Peter got home from work I dumped the kids on him and went for some retail therapy. I bought chocolate to self-medicate. I tried to eat the chocolate and dumped it all on the floor. At that point I sat down on the floor and cried. What a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad MONDAY!

    Tuesday, April 26, 2011

    Oh, Tori!

    Tori is not the brightest cat in the world.

    She lets a toddler pull her tail.


    She frequently gets stuck in high places.


    Yesterday she was sitting on the kitchen table bird watching out the window. Not only did she forget that there was a window between her and the bird, she also forgot that the table had an edge. She lunged at the window, where she hit her head on the screen, and in the process of lunging she fell off the edge of the table. She ended up hanging onto the window sill by her front paws and howling at the top of her lungs.

    To complete the humiliation, the bird flew up to a branch and proceeded to mock her through the open window, I stood there and laughed, and the dog walked up and sniffed her butt while she was hanging there. And then Lucy came and pulled her tail.

    Friday, April 22, 2011

    Date Night

    This week we had the opportunity to go on a date when Peter's grandmother, aunt, and cousin came to visit and offered to babysit for us. We couldn't help but laugh at how having children has changed our definition of romance.

    Here are a few ways that babies kill romance:

    1) The smell of diapers overwhelms the smell of those roses he bought.
    2) Getting ready for the date means "changing out of the spit stained shirt." 
    3) You're driving to dinner, stop at a stoplight, and a musical toy in the backseat starts singing the alphabet.
    4) The fifteen minute wait to be seated makes you break out in a cold sweat, until you remember that the kids aren't here, and then you don't know what to do with yourself.
    5) You get seated at dinner and immediately clear the table of "dangerous" items like forks and salt shakers.
    6) Dinnertime conversation revolves around the kid's bodily functions. 
    7) You go to pay for dinner and pull crayons out of your purse.
    8) You forgo the movie in favor of a late night trip to the grocery store.
    9) You can makeout in the front seat of your car without hearing "Wheeee!" from the backseat. 
    10) You get home from the date and go to sleep.

    Kids are the best form of birth control.

    "Wowers" From Daddy.

    Thursday, April 21, 2011

    Chatterbox

    Lucy is starting to talk more.

    Sometimes I understand her perfectly. Like I did during the conversation we had about her stuffed cat that she sleeps with every night. I went to get her out of bed one morning and she proceeded to explain to me that her cat was:

    1) A "Cat!"  ("That's right! Lucy has a cat!")
    2) "Meow!" ("Very good! The cat says 'meow!'")
    3) "Soft!" ("Yes, your cat is very soft.")
    and
    4) "Cute!" ("Yep, it's a cute cat. You're cute too Lucy.")

    Granted, the entire conversation was conducted with single words, but the point is that it WAS a conversation and I understood it.

    Then there are the times when I'm completely clueless. For a couple of weeks Lucy had a mysterious problem with going down stairs. Every time we got to the top of the stairs and I started to help her down, she would start gabbling, gesturing, and dancing around. The only two words in the tirade that I could understand were "please" and "down."After lots of stamping she'd sit down on the top step and start crying, at which point I would give up and carry her down the stairs. Eventually (after lots and lots of charades on Lucy's part) I concluded that the problem was that she didn't want to go down the stairs on her bottom like a baby, but she was too afraid to walk down the stairs like an adult. So now she walks down ONE stair, with Mommy's help, and then I carry her down so her dignity can stay intact.

    Most of the time, I have to puzzle it out. The other night I was putting Lucy down with Tommy's assistance. After story time, Tommy was offended that I put him down to put Lucy in her crib. He started crying. From her crib, Lucy started shouting "Ky-ee, ky-ee, Ty-Ty ky-ee." Which translated to "Crying, crying, Tommy, crying." (In case you couldn't figure that one out on your own, because I sure couldn't!) Then she started saying "Bear!" and giving me her stuffed bear. I agreed with her that it was a bear. I kissed Bear goodnight. I hugged Bear. I tucked Bear in. I complimented Bear. I gave Bear back to Lucy. She kept thrusting him at me. Finally she said "Ty-ty ky-ee. Bear," and pointed to Tommy. She wanted Tommy to have Bear to make him stop crying! I picked Tommy up, picked the bear up, and said goodnight. Lucy went to bed happy, and Tommy went to bed with Bear that night.

    Naptime! (Without Bear's Help)