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.

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.

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)

Incognito

Today we went to the mall.

As we were walking around the bookstore I was thinking about how cute our kids can be. Lucy with her crazy red hair, friendly personality and downright pushiness of saying HI until you acknowledge her attracts a lot of attention.

Tommy is seven weeks old and something about that attracts women from two counties away so that they can coo over him and tell us how adooooorrrrable he is. Throw in the infant smiles that he's mastering and EVERYBODY becomes a total sucker for him.

However, as I was thinking about this I was not disturbed by the fact that K and I think our kids are the cutest around (we're the parents, that's our job) or my relatives constantly steal my kids photos and repost them on Facebook. It doesn't even bother me when complete strangers stop our circus style trek across the mall to tell us how cute/sweet/adorable/precious they are.

No.

What disturbed me today was the fact that my kids KNOW they're cute.

And, they're not taking it anymore.

Walking around the mall Lucy is slumped down in the front seat of the stroller with her sunglasses conspicuously on her nose, looking around like the paparazzi are hiding around every corner. Meanwhile, Tommy is in his seat with the sun shade completely covering him so that he can't be seen.









Oh, and he also pulled his hood over his face just to be sure.










So, there it was. Walking through the mall today and the beginning of the end was there.

My kids are now self aware.

Safety First

Lucy is starting to be interested in playing dress-up.

She puts bowls, blocks, and cardboard boxes on her head and calls them hats.

She puts Tommy's pants on her arms like gloves, and gets frustrated when they don't fit.

She drapes her sweatshirts around her neck like feather boas.

She has a tiara.

And three purses.

She wears my shoes.

But most importantly, she enforces safety in our house by wearing Daddy's safety glasses:

She also makes sure Tommy wears safety glasses.

And she makes Bear wear safety glasses. ROAR!

Timeout!

We had a very busy day today. Lucy went to Gymboree in the morning and we spent the afternoon shopping for home improvement supplies.

Which means Lucy spent the afternoon running in circles around Lowes.

That made for a VERY tired, VERY cranky toddler this evening.

When Lucy gets tired, Lucy forgets to follow the rules.

"Don't color on the furniture Lucy!!" Time. Out.

We do timeouts by the books. First I told her what she did wrong. Then I told her to go to timeout. She went and stood in the corner while I stood behind her and slowly counted to thirty. Then I let her turn around and face me, and I again explained what she did wrong. "It is not okay to color on the chair, Lucy."  I made her apologize. "Sorry" is a new word this week. So she flung herself on me, gave me a huge hug, and exclaimed "Sawwy!" over and over again. Then she ran through the house yelling "SAWWY! SAWWY! SAWWY!" to find Peter, Tommy, Rambo, Tori, and Bear and let them all know how sorry she was. After reassurances that we all loved her and forgave her, I gave her a sponge and made her clean up her mess.

I thought making her clean up the mess was a good way to learn that her actions have consequences.

Lucy thought cleaning up the mess was a great game.

She had a bigger tantrum over the end of the clean up process than she did over the timeout.

Picnic in the Park

Yesterday was a gorgeous spring day. Bright and sunny, with temperatures reaching a high of 83. We planned a dinner picnic at the botanical gardens to enjoy the weather.

The act of packing for the picnic took almost as long as the picnic.

We packed the kids.

We packed the double stroller.

We packed the diaper bag.

We packed the camera. And then had to return to the house to grab batteries for the camera.

We packed a ball for Lucy to play with. And a purse.

And finally, we packed food.

By the time we were ready to leave, our car looked like it was packed for a weekend camping trip, not a picnic. 

We got to the garden. 

We had our picnic.

 

 

 Lucy ran around a lot. 

Her ball nearly blew away.

 We took lots of pictures.

 

 We looked at flowers. And sticks, and rocks, which are obviously more exciting than flowers. 

We found a bumble bee, and Lucy tried to pet it. As I grabbed Lucy's hand away from the bee, I told her "No Lucy! That's a bee! We don't pet bees! They can sting you and that will hurt!" Lucy responded with "Bee?" and pointed to the bee.

"Yes Lucy, that's a bee. It can hurt you."

Lucy replied, "Bee. Ow! Ow!" and pointed again. I'm glad she got the message.
 

Then Lucy started getting tired. So she did the obvious thing, and went to bed. Right in the middle of the path. Ni-Ni Lucy!

Of course all of this was very exciting. But the most exciting part of the day for Lucy was the fact that the airport is right next to the garden. Every time a plane took off, Lucy said "Pain!!" and pointed to it.

Next time maybe we'll skip the garden and go to the airport instead!