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!

The Importance of The Blankie

Lucy has a blanket:

When she was about 8 months old, it became apparent that this blanket was The Blankie.

So for her first birthday, she got these:

Blankie #2:


Blankie #3:


Blankie #4:



You may think that all these blankets look the same.

They're not.

Today The Blankie got washed. And I get the Worst Mom Ever award for forgetting to forward the laundry before bedtime. You would have thought that we were skinning Lucy alive if you had heard the screams that ensued when we tried to put her to bed without Blankie.

Blankie #2, which Lucy sleeps with every night was unacceptable.

Blankie #3, which Lucy will happily sleep with in the car was unacceptable.

And Blankie #4, which gets carried around the house all day was also unacceptable.

With each blanket offering the screams got louder.

So Lucy stayed up half an hour past bedtime, waiting for The Blankie to get out of the dryer. She is now happily asleep with a slightly damp blanket. But that's okay, because it is The Blankie.

Best Toy EVER.

One day we went to PetSmart to buy dog food. Lucy was being whiny so we bought a feather-on-a-stick cat toy. 

Best.Toy.Ever.

It entertains the stupid cat. (Not hard, a lot entertains her).

It entertains the mature cat.

It entertains Lucy.

And it even entertains Tommy.

Diaper Dilemma

Today Tommy went up a size in diapers.

He now wears Size 1 diapers. The Size 1 diapers we bought happen to be the same make and model as Lucy's diapers - Pampers BabyDry. This means they're the same color as Lucy's diapers.

Lucy thought they were HER diapers. And she was Very Upset at having to share them. VERY. UPSET.

First, there were tears.

She flung herself on the floor and moaned "diiii-paaa" over and over again.

When I asked her what was wrong, she grabbed the diaper off Tommy and ran away with it. I put another one on him and she tried to take that one too.

Then she took the entire bag of diapers.

She threw them around the living room:

 And the kitchen:

And the den (where she "hid" the bag):

To make matters worse, Tommy was having a pooping day today.

So we repeated the drama every hour.

In the interest of family harmony, Tommy may be switching back to Pampers Swaddlers again.