Odds and ends

Little Miss Ruby has officially started jabbering away.  Now, with four ladies in the house talking, I'm not sure when I'll be able to get a word in.  With that in mind, I thought I'd share some of the more interesting things heard around my house this week.

After telling Brynne to lay down, stop talking, and go to sleep, she replied - "Yes sir.  Papa, why are boys called Sir and girls are called Ma'am?"  That was a heck of a question, especially at 9 PM after a long day.  The best I could do was to tell her I'd find out and let her know in the morning...which I forgot to do, so I'm sure she'll follow up shortly.

When I got home from work, Hadley informed me "I'm so glad your home from work.  And I'm glad to have a best friend named you."

One day a few weeks ago, Hadley had to go to the doctor for a follow up appointment.  I took her and Brynne, then went to the office with them in tow.   Before bed that night, Hadley told me "it was a grand day" while Brynne said "today was an extra special day.  Thank you for taking me to work with you.  Can we go again tomorrow?"

Two worker bees, hard at work.

Every night before bed they ask me to tell them a secret, and every morning when I get them up, they repeat the secret back to me.

Mama set Ruby down in the dining room the other night as she had to go run an errand.  The girls and I were playing in the same room when Hadley suddenly yelled "RUBY IS DOING BIG ADVENTURES!"  Sure enough, Ruby was coming to us to play, by army crawling under the table.  You can read all about BIG ADVENTURES here and here.  The most common one is still to crawl under the chairs in the dining room. 

Following a long day with a short nap, Hadley was beside herself and not wanting to go to bed.  Tears were flowing.  Screaming and crying could be heard miles away.  When I asked her what was wrong she told me "I didn't get to hold you enough today."  That might have gotten her five minutes of snuggle time.

Ruby, with a large bite of pumpkin, applesauce, and cinnamon in her mouth, told me "BUH", and then I was wearing pumpkin, applesauce, and cinnamon.

When I get smile like this, I don't mind wearing dinner.

Random quotes:
Papa, you're a sweaty mess.
Papa, when you come in the house, you have to put your shirt on.
Papa, we don't wear shoes in the house.
I think she formissed us.  (Combination of forgot and missed).
Can we help you pick up walmuts? (walnuts).
Papa, here's a stick.  We HAVE to take it to the burn pile.

"Papa, we were being silly"

All Star Hide and Seekers?

I'm not sure where the girls heard about hide and seek, but they asked me to play the other day, so I obliged. 

They don't yet fully grasp the concept of the game.  This became abundantly clear very early on.

The first time they hid, I found them under the miniature trampoline, giggling raucously.  The second time they hid under the trampoline, again, and I found them giggling raucously, again.  The third time they hid...wait for it...under the trampoline and I found them giggling raucously, yet again.  At this point, I decided to count right next to the trampoline. 

"Hiding" under the trampoline.

As they started to crawl under the trampoline, I told them I could see them and they'd need to find a new spot.  Off they ran, giggling raucously.

I gave them additional time to find a new spot.  No sooner than I yelled "ready or not, here I come", I heard them yelling back, and giggling raucously.  They were yelling "we're behind the couch Papa!".

I found them, as you might suspect, behind the couch. 

They then hid behind the couch, under the trampoline, and behind the couch again.  Yelling at me each time to let me know where they were.

Even when Mama helped them find a new spot, they gave away their positions instantly.  Every time they hid, they hid together, which was pretty cute.

We worked on this a few times, with me helping them hide and Mama doing the seeking.  The last time they hid, I made them go to their own spots.  As Mama started to seek, they each yelled out their positions, and she found them. 

So they've yet to perfect hiding, but I'm glad to say the last time they hid they did take two or three seconds before giving themselves away, so we're making progress!

Potty mouth

So I had a very interesting discussion with one of my little ladies last night.  She was walking around, in obvious need of some potty time, but not willing to do it.  Her words are in black, mine are in blue. 

Do you need to poop?

No, I pooped today.

Really?

No, I pooped last night.

Really?

No.

Do you want to try and poop?

No.

What if I tickled you until you pooped, would that be okay?

No.  It would get all over my pants, and we don't poop in our pants.

That is true.

And the carpet.  We don't want to get poop on the carpet.

Also true.

AND THERE ARE BOOKS ON THE CARPET!  THE POOP WOULD GET ALL OVER THE BOOKS!

Point taken, I won't tickle you.

AND RUBY'S TOYS ARE ON THE FLOOR!! WE DON'T WA  Who wants to play Hungry Hungry Hippos?

ME!


Hippos, the ultimate distraction.

LEAVE ME ALONE!

I get flooded with magazines at the office.  In a given month I get probably 20 magazines, all of which are related to my industry, but only a few of them are close to what I actually do. 

At first, I thought they'd eventually stop sending them to me, so I just recycled them...but they don't.  One particular magazine has had a warning on the front cover telling me "this is the last one I will receive unless I renew now", and it's been there for six months!

I don't get FitPregnancy, but it's the only picture I could find like this.

I get about a call or two a week from their "renewal specialists" informing me all I need to do to renew is to verify some piece of data, so if I just tell them ________ (insert private and possibly confidential information), they'll keep the magazine's coming.  When I'd tell them to cancel my subscription it never got done.

This guy got promoted from door-to-door sales to an office job!

Strangely, I never gave them any information to begin with, so I'm not sure what they are verifying!  They just started sending me magazines and asking for it.

I used to get two or three emails a week asking me to confirm, or giving me their online version of the magazine.  Early on, I started using their unsubscribe feature, which resulted in me getting five to ten emails a week.  I can't remember who I've unsubscribed and which ones are new.

Recently, I've started doing something different.  Here is the transcript of a recent phone call, with their words in red, mine in blue, and funny side notes from me in black:

Hello Mr. Janakis, this is Blah, calling for Blah Blah magazine.  Your free subscription is just about to expire.  In order to continue receiving Blah Blah magazine, we just need you to verify the month you were born.

California. 

It might be childish, but at the same time it's rewarding to hear the long pause, followed by them asking the question again. 

Mr. Jankin, could I have the month you were born?

Oh, sorry, I thought you asked something else.  Broccoli.

Another long pause, followed by

Mr. Jankis, that is not an option.

Oh, sorry, I guess I don't understand the question.  What are my options?

Another long pause.  I can't tell if the guy is frustrated or doesn't get it, but he persists.

We need to verify the month you were born so your magazine service is not interrupted.

Hmmm.  That's a tough one, and I'm not too good with history.  Let me see if I can find the answer to your question and I'll call you back.  Sound like a plan?

Mr. Junkees, all we need to continue your magazine subscription is to verify your month of birth.

I know.  Don't you see what's going on here?  I'm not going to give it to you.  According to the statement you've made at least three times, if I don't give it to you, you can't verify it, and you'll stop sending me a magazine I don't read.  Correct?

Yeah, I guess. 

I know you don't work for the magazine, and are just trying to do a job for a company they've hired, but I've tried to get this magazine stopped at least half a dozen times, so I'm a bit frustrated with the whole process.  Can you stop the subscription or tell me what hoops I have to jump through to do it?

Certainly.  I'll take your name off the list.  Based on the magazine subscriptions you currently have there are several other magazines you may be interested in receiving.  Would you like to hear about them?

Seriously?

Yes.

No.  Can't you just tell me to have a nice day and hang up?

No.

Well that's rude.  I hope you have a nice day and better luck with your next call.

No, er, I mean, uh, have a nice day.  I can't hang up on you.

Seriously?

Yeah, we're not allowed.

What do you think is worse, hanging up on me or telling me your company forbids you from hanging up on me?

I don't know.

Well, let's see if we can get a rule changed.

What?  Hello?  Hello?  Hello?

I was prepared to fight this corporate bureaucracy (that's a lot of vowels for one word) for as long as it took to change a rule.  Exactly five minutes is all I had to fight.

So now I don't know if he lied about not being able to hang up on me, is a rebel and did it anyway, found a clause in the employee handbook which allowed him to hang up, or if his boss made one of those tough decisions only good leaders can make.

Guess I'll find out next month when he calls back.

Fury and Fun, Part 2

If you didn't read the first part of this, you'll need to go back and do that.  Now, the rest of the story.

Part of my frustration that evening had come from little things I noticed.  A basket of laundry needing to be folded and put away.  A load of wash needing to go to the dryer.  Another load waiting to be cleaned.  Yet another load in the dryer, waiting to be removed.  The dish washing machine's red light on, which meant dishes were clean and needed to be put away.  Dishes stacked on the counter, waiting to be loaded into the washer.  Toys scattered everywhere in the toy room.  Trash can overflowing.

This is not our house, but gives you an idea of what I was seeing.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not throwing Mama under the bus for slacking on housework.  This just happens when you have five members of a family and only one of them can keep the peace at home during the week.  She had her hands full, and I could tell with just one look she'd done everything she could not to explode that day.

I really wanted to spend some time with Ruby and Mama that night, just hanging out and relaxing.  That couldn't happen if one of us spent the entire evening doing chores.  And then it hit me.

Let's make a game out of this!

I knelt down next to the girls and asked if they were ready for a BIG adventure, to which they instantly replied YES!

So we did.

"Our first big adventure, is to crawl under the chairs in the dining room.  GO!"

We raced to the dining room and all of us crawled through the chairs and under the table.  They made it through easier than I did, but I still made it through.

"Our next big adventure is to tickle Mama's feet.  GO!"

The girls raced to the plant room (we call it a plant room instead of the TV room due to the ginormous plant Mama has there.  Plantzilla has been known to eat small animals, which is why we never leave Ruby alone near it) and informed Mama we were there to tickle her feet.

As I started thinking of another adventure, I realized the girls didn't care what it was, they were just happy to be doing something different.  So I took a chance. 

"Our next big adventure is to empty the dishwasher.  GO!"

We dashed to the kitchen and unloaded the dishwasher.  As we were wrapping up, Hadley started reloading it, so we crossed those two items off my list.

Dishes are done, dude!

The rest of the adventures, if memory serves, occurred in this order:

Going behind the couch and jumping up, yelling boo!
Putting the clothes from the dryer into the laundry basket, the washer into the dryer, then reloading the washer.
Covering ourselves with pillows from the couch.
Picking up the toy room.
Going to stand in the downstairs shower.
Tickling Mama's feet.
Taking the clean clothes upstairs and putting them away, room by room.
Getting under the covers on Mama and Papa's bed.
Getting ready for bed.
Hiding in a closet.
Getting in the upstairs shower.
Going back downstairs to give Mama a hug and a kiss, as well as to tickle her feet.
Crawling through the dining room chairs.
Going to bed.

By the time we got to bed it was after their bedtime, but that was fine.  We read their bible, prayed, and they fell instantly to sleep.  I got to spend the night relaxing with Mama and Ruby, and even got my brandy.

Since then, we've done the BIG adventures a few times, but not too often to make it lose the appeal.  The girls have started coming up with their own ideas.  Brynne's eyes get wide as can be, while she tells me

"The nexxxxxt biiiiiiiiig abenture isssssssssssssss....to tickle Mama's feet!"

She's usually off and running before completing the sentence.  The other night, she even came up with her own original adventure...to go outside and look at the moon and stars.

Fury and Fun, Part 1

Mama had battled the girls all day since they didn't sleep well the night before and failed to take a nap.

After a long, sleepless night, I had battled through a long, sleepless day at work and a commute that took twice as long as it should have.

When I walked in the door, all I wanted was to change clothes, grab a glass of brandy, and relax for a few minutes.  By the time I got halfway to the door, I realized that was not going to happen.  I could hear the cries of the little ones and knew it had probably been going on all day.  I did my best to put on a happy face, but it quickly faded.

When screaming blows out a window, you know you're in for a rough night.

The girls could only fuss, whine, and cry from the moment I walked in the door at 5:05.  They wanted me to pick them up.  There was nothing I could do to appease them.  Dinner was more frustrating than I can ever remember it being in the past as they continued their exhausted antics.  I'd made their favorite foods and they were rejecting them. 

Almost nothing was eaten.  We had several discipline issues.  An entire cup of milk was "accidentally" spilled on me and the floor.  They finally left the table, only to start fighting with each other as I tried to do some clean up.  Screaming, pulling (and tearing) clothes, and more tears were all I saw and heard as I walked into the room.  Fortunately, I was just in time to prevent one of them from biting the other.  This hadn't been an issue for quite some time, but here it was.

I snapped.  I raised my voice louder than I needed to, but I wanted to stun them as I made my way over to the open mouthed one.  I grabbed them and pulled them apart.  They both got disciplined for their part in the battle.  The spilt milk was still on the floor, so they were given the ultimatum:  sit here quietly and read, or suffer the consequences.

It was only 6:30.  I didn't know how I was going to make it until 7:30 without losing my cool.  As I was on my hands and knees, trying to get all the milk off the floor and sop it up from the gaps between the wood planks of the floor, Hadley patted me on the back.  She and Brynne were standing there, with big smiles. 

They were disobeying again, and seemed so pleased to be doing it.  Walking into the kitchen, and right through the milk, was not what I told them to do.  I began to stand up and begin the discipline process, when Hadley spoke up

"Papa, can we help you clean the milk?"

My heart melted.  Until this point, I hadn't seen the wad of Kleenex in each of their hands.  I'll never know which one of them came up with the idea, but I don't care.  The anger/fury/whatever you want to call it which had been building inside of me since the moment I walked through the door was gone instantly.  We finished cleaning the milk and I decided we needed to make the best of the remaining 45 minutes we had together tonight.

The usual actions of reading books, doing puzzles, or playing with toys weren't appealing to me, so what did we do?

Come back next time to hear all about it.  It might just be the best thing ever.

Car troubles

It's a beautiful, crisp Saturday morning.  I let Mama know I'm headed into town to run some errands by myself.  I love saying "I'm heading into town", it makes me feel so country.  The car starts fine and as I head out, the radio is playing a song I like, but I have the volume low as I'm just enjoying the morning.

As I turn from one country road onto the next I must have hit a pothole, as I now hear an unfamiliar  sound. 

click, click, click

This is in my future, I'm sure of it.

When I change speeds, the sound neither picks up the pace or slows down. 

click, click, click

I listen intently, trying to find the source of the sound, but it sounds as though it's coming from everywhere.

click, click, click

Since I'm starting to become concerned, I pull to the side of the road and listen.  Switching the car to neutral and then to park doesn't change the sound.  Reverse does nothing either.

click, click, click

I put the car back into drive and decide to head to my mechanic, just in case. 

click, click, click

Perhaps I could hear better if I roll down the window.

click, click, click

It may not be "the most annoying sound in the world", but it was close.

No difference.  The radio was already playing softly in the background, but I decide to turn it off, in case that helps me hear better.

silence

The click is gone.  While I do enjoy the silence for a second, I turn the radio back on, thinking maybe there's a short in the radio or something.

click, click, click

There it is again.  It takes me a few seconds to realize what an idiot I am. 

Do you know why I'm an idiot?  Please don't post comments about why I'm an idiot in general, just why I am in this instance.  I think blogger would shut down if everyone posted comments about my idiocy.  The right answer is:

click, click, click was part of the drum beat in the song on the radio.

At least I got to start the day with a good laugh, even if it was laughing at myself.

Happy ending at the new house

You may be disappointed with this post after reading the title, but oh well.  I needed an attention getter and thought that might work.  Even if you were looking for some other kind of story, feel free to read on.

Probably none of you (except possibly Mandy) reading this will recall the post I did about our old house making parts of toys disappear.  You can go here to read it, if you want.  Actually, you should probably read it first if you don't remember it as the rest of this might not make as much sense.

I wanted to give you two updates on the post. 

Update 1: 

When we were moving, we found the missing pig magnet piece under some puzzles.  I think the house was trying to bribe us into staying around a little longer by giving us this back.

It didn't work, obviously.

Update 2:

Brynne and I were playing in the living room a few weeks ago when she suddenly exclaimed

"LOOK PAPA!  THE RING!"

My first thought was to grab her and run from the house screaming.

I never saw the movie, but the trailer still spooks me.

 My second thought was "Crap, now we have to head for Mordor".

My precious!

Before I could get to my third thought, she was jumping up and down, yelling

"I found the purple ring!  Look Papa, I found it!  Hooray Brynne!"

At this point Hadley joined in the celebrations, congratulating her sister for her huge find.  We immediately took it to join its friends on the stand where it belonged.  There was a big party, lots of wooden pieces crying and hugging each other...so glad to all be back together again.  It was really a touching moment.

The ring could only provide minor insight into where it had been and the wonderful adventures it partook in.  I speak a little German, a little more Spanish, and no Wooden Ring, so the broken bits I was able to translate using the "Wooden Ring to English" app on my phone led me to this conclusion:  as far as I could tell, it had been tucked into the cushions of a baby swing (by two or four tiny hands) we had packed the swing away over two years ago. 

Either that, or the house magically teleported the ring back from the depths of the old house's Bermuda Triangle as a house warming (or self warming if you're thinking from the house's perspective) present for us.  As I said, my language skills combined with the ring's lack of skill at Charades makes this part a bit fuzzy.

At least one thing is for certain:  the new house doesn't have any biases against toys where the number of parts is evenly divisible by 13.

Hooray! 

Christmas Confession

Here's another holiday repeat from last year.  Hope you enjoy it!

I would think it's safe to say that everyone who celebrates Christmas has Christmas memories.  Some are good, some are bad, but all are memories.  Thanks to This Daddy's Blog post for getting me thinking about the past and remembering what I am about to confess.

The jury is out on this one.

When I was young, I was sneaky.  If you've read any of my vacation posts, you've probably realized this is not the confession.  I need to build a little anticipation here, so I'll drag it out as long as I can. 

Back in the day I was one of those kids that went hunting through the house to find my presents.  I thought I knew all the hiding places my parents used.  Actually, I did know most of them at one point. 

I'm not sure if they got wise to my hunting skills, just started mixing it up on their own, or if they forgot where their hiding spots were, but at some point I stopped finding all of my presents early.  This is probably because they started wrapping the gifts as soon as they got them, which leads me to believe they were onto me. 

The only exception to this was the big gifts.  Those I almost always found, until they started hiding them at other people's houses.  Even at a young age I wasn't willing to risk a breaking and entering charge to find my presents, so they were off limits to me.

What is a mischievous kid supposed to do in that instance when all the fun of hunting is taken out of the holiday season? 

Here's what I did - I found ways to be alone with the presents. 

Sometimes I:

1 - faked an illness so I could stay home from school. 

2 - played upstairs by the tree while the rest of the family was downstairs. 

3 - came home early from a friend's house when I thought our house would be empty.

4 - grabbed a present and took it to the bathroom.

5 - grabbed a present, hid it in my room, and got up in the middle of the night to check it out.

Sounds like someone had to try to figure out what he was getting before Christmas morning, doesn't it?

I never tried to figure them out. 

I simply unwrapped them, saw what I was getting, rewrapped them ever so carefully (being sure the paper that pulled off with the tape went back exactly where it came from), and put them back under the tree.

My work was much better than this.  Amateur.

There's the confession.  I'm sure my mom and dad are going to love finding this little nugget out like this!

Why would I open presents early?  I have no idea. 

Maybe I wanted to string out Christmas over the course of a few weeks instead of just one morning.  Maybe I just had to know what I was getting so I could plan out my morning in advance.  Maybe, just maybe, I did it because I wasn't supposed to.

I'd put all my money on that last choice if I were you.

Holiday Tips

This is a repeat from a post done last year.  I thought I'd put it out there in advance of the holidays to give people time to prepare themselves.

Ahhh! The holiday season is upon us once again.  In case you've forgotten from last year (and the year before, and the year before, etc.), it's the time of year we all go crazy.  Everything we do is done to excess.  Here are a few things you might want to pay a little more attention to this year - some of them may even save or make you money.

Food - meals

If you need a helmet to eat it's probably too much food.

In my experience, most every family has some sort of large meal on or around Thanksgiving and Christmas (or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or Festivus).  For most people, these two meals are the largest meals they will consume all year. 

As everyone knows, the best way to get your body to metabolize this gluttonous meal is to sit on the couch and nap.  Having the TV on will only make the process work that much better.  Carbs and starches magically disappear while sleeping, so if at all possible, do not attempt any form of physical exertion.

Since everyone else that comes to eat will be bringing food, don't bother making or buying anything.  Just show up and eat.  Nobody will know you didn't contribute as long as you don't mention it.  If someone asks, tell them you brought cookies and just dumped them on someone else's tray.

Before you leave, don't forget to take leftovers home with you.  Nobody gets tired of eating the same thing day after day after day.  You'll get to it at some point so don't worry about discovering it in the back of the fridge growing mold in a month.  By all means, load up and save on groceries for January.

Food - snacking

Not only do we gorge ourselves at mealtime, but we are constantly eating between meals.  Here are a few tips to keep in mind. 

1 - Chocolate aids in the digestive process of all other foods, especially those high in fat and cholesterol.  Be health conscious and load up on these. 

2 - Make sure you grab a handful (or two) of whatever salty snack is sitting out all month long every time you walk by the bowl.  Salt is good for you!  It can raise your blood pressure, which makes your heart have to work that much harder, which means your heart is getting stronger.  This additional labor can only continue as long as you feed calories into your body, so keep on cramming food into your gullet.  The only time you should stop is when you lose consciousness fall asleep.

If you find a bowl of something sitting out with no salt, don't immediately blame your host.  Nobody in their right mind buys unsalted foods at this time of year.  The simple explanation is this:  some child got hold of the snack and sucked off all the salt.  They are learning good nutritional habits at a young age, so don't chastise them.  Just grab a salt shaker and reapply.  If you've discovered the problem in time, the treat may still be moist enough to allow the new salt to stick.  Bonus!

3 - Doctors recommend drinking a lot of water, but water has no nutritional value.  Soda (aka pop, coke, soft drinks, colas, soda pops) is made from water - and has other added nutrients.  Don't waste precious cargo space on just water alone, make sure you have some additional artificially-occurring substance blended in with it.  And don't do the diet drinks; everyone knows the sweeteners used to make them cause cancer.

It still counts as one glass in my book

4 - In the spirit of combining things, make sure your soda has plenty of booze in it.  If you're not a booze person, do what you like.  Red wine is actually good for you.  If one glass is good, two has to be better.  The theory holds true - as long as you can hold your wine down.

Americans make or buy more treats during December than the other 11 months combined!  (I made that up, but it sounds good). 

Financials

Feel free to run up your credit card debt to buy as much stuff as possible.  Since housing prices always go up and mortgage rates always go down, you can always roll your credit card debt into a new mortgage and get a lower rate.  A win-win scenario! 

Once you discover all the crap you bought is no longer being used, typically within two weeks, you can start preparing for a garage sale.  No self-respecting garage sale shopper will try to haggle you down on pricing and most will pay more than face value for a semi-used toy with missing parts.  In effect, you have turned a profit on the holiday and can use those funds to buy more decorations as they should now be on sale! 

Win-win-win for team Griswold!

To quote my wife, "Looks like Christmas threw up on their house".

While we're on shopping, don't buy on-line.  Make sure you go stand in lines for hours on end to save the extra $1.47 you would have spent at an e-tailer.  Everything related to the Internet is a scam.  All those sites are doing is getting your credit card information and planning on stealing your money.  While you're at it, better cancel all credit cards, just to be safe.  Take your money out of the bank and only use cash.

Better safe than sorry.

If you're not much of a shopper, just get gift cards.  Everyone appreciates a $20 card to somewhere they'd never eat or to a regional store that doesn't exist where they live.  Nothing says "I cherish our relationship so much that I spent 12 seconds thinking about what to get you this year" quite like a prepaid Visa card.  And don't bother with wrapping it.  Any old envelope will do.  The best are reply envelopes which are typically enclosed in credit card offers.  Even though you won't be getting a credit card, you can still use the envelope and save some more cash.
 
Scheduling

You can make anything work if you try.  Visiting three different locations in one day is easy.  Not only do you get to buy gifts for three sets of people (and therefore get three sets in return to resell), you get to eat three times the amount of food and take home three times the amount of leftovers! 

Aside from family gatherings you can also plan on attending office parties, fundraisers, children's performances, get togethers with friends, and any other number of events you can either get invited to or invite yourself to.  Make sure you go to everything!  You simply cannot miss anything. 

You have the rest of the year to just hang out with your own family and enjoy them, so go ahead and sacrifice now.  You'll be thanking me for it later.

I hope this helps!  I look forward to hearing your success stories in the weeks and months to come!

I wasn't expectng that

Potty training has been going surprisingly well.  We've had very few accidents the past few days.  Actually, almost every time the girls need to go they tell us and head in to do their business.

There are some exceptions. 

This is the portable potty, which we discovered we need to take with us wherever we go as one of our darlings refuses to sit on the big girl potty.

Our innocent little ones seem to now have a strong grasp of what it means to stall.  At night, as they go to bed, they suddenly have the urge to potty. 

I lay them in their beds and as soon as I leave the room, I hear them calling

Papa!  I want to potty!

If I don't go in and let them try, they'll wet the bed, just to spite me.  If I do let them try, they'll sit on the potty for as long as I let them, smirking at me the whole time.  As soon as they say they are done, even though they haven't done anything, I'll put them back in bed, only to hear them once again say

Papa!  I want to potty!

Even if they just went potty, they'll exclaim their desire to go.

Last night was no exception. 

Twenty minutes into the process of trying to get them to go to sleep I had already taken them to the potty four times.  Neither of them had done anything, but why would they, they'd just peed minutes before bed.

Hadley was on the big girl potty while Brynne was on the portable one.  Neither of them doing anything other than sitting there, staying awake.

Then it happened.

We'd been having thunder and lightning for a few hours, and they don't get scared by it.  The brightest flash of lightning I have seen since I saw lightning hit a tree hundreds of yards in front of me a few years ago, lit up the entire world, or so it seemed.  Seconds later, thunder shook my insides. 

Almost immediately, two little girls were off their potties, scooting toward me as fast as they could with their underwear around their ankles.  I was equidistant from them as they started and they crashed into me at the exact same time. 

I was expecting shaking and crying, perhaps a desire to be held while the storm passed, but I was greeted instead by them both saying the exact same thing as I pulled up their drawers and scooped them up:

Papa, I need to go to bed now.

I took them into bed, laid them down, kissed them goodnight, walked out of the room, and they slept the rest of the night.

I'm seriously considering making a DVD of thunder and cranking the surround sound every night they fight going to bed.

New words and phrases

So the past few weeks have been incredibly busy.  Not just for me, but for the girls as well.  Here is a short sample of the new stuff they've been heard uttering around the house.

When they want a drink, they can no longer just say "milk" or "water".  Now, it's "Papa, may I have more milk/water/whatever please?".  After they ask, I inform them "yes you may", which Hadley repeats.  After saying this the other night, she gave me a bit of encouragement by saying "good talk".

It was a good talk, even though I really didn't add to the conversation.

Brynne informed me the "air conditioner is making funny noises", and then asked me to "please fix now".

I won't mention any names, but one of the little ladies was going to the bathroom.  I asked if she needed to be changed.  She then replied, "still working on it".  When she was done, she let me know it was a "big load". 

They've both started talking to me on the phone when I'm not there.  Every conversation is similar.  They say "hello", tell me "Papa go work", and then to "come back soon!".

On the weekends, I typically fix breakfast for everyone.  The night before, it is not uncommon for one of them to put in a request.  On Friday, Hadley wanted "pancakes" and Saturday, Brynne asked for "donuts".  Hadley was not disappointed to get regular and chocolate chip waffles.  Brynne was very pleased that I went and got donuts for us.  She kept asking to eat them in the "backseat", as we did the week prior while on a little father/daughters picnic, but I already had them dressed for church, so I didn't want to risk getting them dirty.

If you've been following me or Mama for any period of time, you know the girls don't watch TV at all.  When Mama left for the night last week, Brynne was overly distraught.  She told me "no" when I asked if playing with trains, trucks, letters, bouncy balls, puzzles, games, books, going to the basement, going outside, or playing with the dogs would make her feel better.  After 10 minutes I gave up and just asked her what would make her feel better.  She stopped crying, appeared to be deep in thought, and then replied "watch Winnie Pooh".


Winnie the Pooh truly makes all things better.

So we did.

Holiday Fun

While it was weird celebrating the fourth of July without having the next day off, I kind of like it.  My reason is purely self serving:  I like having Wednesdays off from work.  It splits up the week nicely.

So what did we do to celebrate?

Thanks for asking.  We gave Mama a lot of time to herself.

I got up and got the girls out of bed as I almost always do.  I then proceeded with cooking seven eggs, half a pound of potatoes, half a pound of sausage, and eight pieces of toast.  There was a little bit of sausage left, and that's it.

Mama got her breakfast in bed, but the girls and I stayed out so she could either eat in piece or stay asleep.  She ate, then went back to sleep in case you were wondering.

The girls and I then ran errands (ewands).  Since they have a ton of new words, I'll put them in italics after the actual word just to share.  The errands took up most of the morning, until it was time for lunch, and cosisted of visiting the following locations:

local produce stand (famews maket)

bank (bant)

milk store (mik sto)

veterinarian's office (vefguthsdy ahej)

grocery store (gocery sto)

park (pak)

gas station (gees staton)

When we got home, they entertained one another while I prepared lunch, which wasn't as exciting (or as much) as breakfast (befast), just some leftovers.

They then went to take a nap (nap), but they forgot they were supposed to be sleeping (seeping), so they just chatted for a few hours.

After nap, we picked tomatoes (matoes), played for a bit by rolling dumptrucks (dumptucks) back and forth, read a few of their favorite books (being sure to include this one), and then I grilled apple flavored chicken sausages for them.  In case you're wondering, they ate a combined two and a half sausages to go along with grapes (poople gapes, and not geen gapes) and sweet potato chips.

This was chased with milk (mik), water (wawter), vitamins (pills), and a chocolate chip cookie (kookie) bar Mama made.

We then took our bath (baff), read their Bible (Bible), prayed, said goodnight (nite) to the world, and went to bed.

Mama did join us for some of these activities, so she didn't have a full day off.  She did, however, get some good down time I think.

As for me, I went right to bed and fell asleep immediately for the first time in a very long time.

Julia's always been able to fall asleep quickly, but I can understand how a busy day like this (which is typical for her) can wear you out.

PS - Spell check went nuts when I ran it on this post.  I guess it doesn't translate toddler to English.

Vocabulary quiz

What a weekend we had!  The girls are now repeating every single thing we say.  Not only that, but they are understanding what the words mean and are able to reuse them appropriately.  Fortunately, I've been able to keep Mama from swearing too much in front of them, so they haven't dropped any inappropriate words, yet.

Looking outside our window, we have fee bidfeebers.  There are constantly mummingbids, yeggo feenches, cawdinalls, and bees hanging around.  Translation of the words in italics - three birdfeeders, hummingbirds, yellow finches, cardinals, and bees.

Just past the bidfeebers, for three days only, we had a POOL!! Pool is a very exciting word for the girls.  You can see them in action at Mama's blog.

They played with grandpapa, grandma, and their dog Chloe.  We taught them grandma and grandpa, but they turned grandpa into grandpapa on their own.  It was so awesome to see them make the connection between a papa and a grandpa, and then speak accordingly.

Words have now become sentences.  Though they are in broken English, we can understand them.  More importantly, other people can too! 

One of their favorite activities is taking the hose, filling up the dog's water dish (when we have them outside), and then carrying it ever so slowly to the dogs.  If they don't drink right away, they'll tell them "Weewee, Siobah, drink wawa" (Winnie, Fiona, drink water).  Then, they'll pick up the dish and move it closer.  The dogs will take a drink, probably to get the girls to stop following them around, but maybe because they were thirsty.

When they're not watering the flowers or mowing with their "wawnmowers", all they want to do is "RUUUNNNNNNNNNN", "HANG TEE" (hang from the tree), and "JUMP"

Hadley strung a six word sentence together for the first time.  She and papa both have skinned knees - mine from baseball and hers from an unfortunate run-in with the sidewalk.  Brynne loves to touch said knees and say "boo-boo".  Mama doesn't like the word boo-boo, so she is working on changing that to sore.  After Brynne touched Hadley's boo-boo sore, Hadley exclaimed "Papa, Hadley, sore knees, NO TOUCH!".

They have also taken up our efforts to keep the pups quiet.  They get the sternest look on their faces and holler "Weewee/Siobah/Chloe NO!".  Even Chloe, who has very little experience with them, quiets down and backs away.

Unfortunately, we did have one negative blip to the weekend.  As we were sitting on the deck at 7:30 or so Friday, we saw a police car drive by very slowly with his window down.  He appeared to be listening intently for something.  Our dogs had been outside for an hour or so, and had barked only when Julia's parents arrived with their dog.  I noticed our wonderful neighbors had been outside moments earlier.  I can only hope the officer was in the area for another reason, but I doubt it.  In case you've missed it, here and here and here is the back story on this.

These terrible twos....

aren't really too bad so far.  We're having a lot of fun watching the girls grow, both mentally and physically.  Here are just a few quick pics from the last week to show you what I mean.

Here are my three lovely ladies, lounging in bed while I get ready to go to work.  Nobody looks ready to get up.

Brynne prefers to be read to while holding the next book...

while Hadley does it just fine on her own.

I let them entertain themselves for half an hour and this is all the mess they could make.  Not typical.

Sassy, just like her Mama.

A beautiful smile, again, just like her Mama.

Great organizational skills!  Though they did hide most of the pieces of a puzzle toy in that big (completely enclosed) speaker.  How they managed to get the pieces in through that little hole in the front is beyond me.  It took 15 minutes and every additional part of the vacuum cleaner, to get them back out, though.

I'm sure it'll get worse, otherwise they wouldn't call it the terrible twos.  For now, we're just enjoying as much as we can.

Happy Thursday!!

Bathtime fun

Bath night used to be the girls sitting in the tub while we washed them.  This would be followed by them trying to escape our grasp as we toweled them off and prepared them for bed.

At some point, it became more about playing than cleaning.

They HAVE to be in the tub when the water is running so they can hold toys under to flow and clean them.  If they're not in the tub, they'll be standing at the edge, leaning precariously over the deepening water. 

I protect the faucet from little ones and little ones from the faucet.

Once the toys have been rinsed, a wash cloth is used to scrub them clean and dry them.  Sometimes, they are lined up on the side of the tub and at other times they are tossed back into the water.  The two larger animals, dolphin and turtle, are guided along the edge of the tub and up the shower walls.  For some reason, they make a VROOM sound like the cars and trucks do.

In the past, if water so much as touched one of their faces, they would be reduced to tears and screams.  Now, they stick their faces in the water to blow bubbles, pour water over each other's head, or use a "water gun toy" to spray one another.  Typically, as soon as a face is wet, the wash cloth is used to dry it off. 

More often than not, the first attempt to dry a face is done by grabbing the wash cloth straight from the bottom of the tub.  It's a funny thing, wet wash cloths do a poor job of drying things off.  So after they wring it out, they try again.

Once they're all clean we need to dry off.  They MUST get a dab of lotion on their hands so they can rub it in themselves.  Actually, they need to get a little dab about a dozen times.  Once they're dried, lotioned, and dressed, they INSIST on putting everything back in the proper drawer and putting the rolling drawer thing in the closet.

Only then can we brush hair and leave the bathroom.

It's turned into one big game.  Most of the time we have fun, but not on the days they don't nap well.

The only thing I can say to share what that is like is to quote one of Brynne's favorite sayings:

"Uh-oh"

Where could it be?

If you have little ones, or maybe even if you don't, you come to realize there is a Bermuda Triangle somewhere in your house.  One day you have all 26 pieces of a toy/game, and the next you have 25.  Usually, that one day is the first day you open said toy or game.

We have, so far, only lost two items to the Triangle that I am aware of.  They are: 

If I was any good wtih editing pictures, the purple ring would be missing here.

RIP pig

The more I think about it, the more I realize both of these things have 26 pieces.  The four blank magnets don't come with the set.

It would seem the Triangle in our house doesn't like the number 26.  Perhaps it's because it's divisible by 13.  For me, 13 is my lucky number.  For the house, which is clearly possessed, it's an unacceptable number.

From now on, we're only buying toys that can't be divided by 13 exactly. 

I think that solves the problem - until we move and have to determine the new house's likes and dislikes.

Peek-a-boo

Peek-a-boo is an age old game, I imagine.  Our girls have gotten into the fun and try to play as often as they can.

I try not to let them do it at meal time, unless it's a bath night.  They do have a good time with it, but they also end up with whatever they're eating caked in their hair and all over their faces.  The worst part is if they have something with a little spice to it as it will always end up in their eyes.

This is mild compared to what they are capable of.

The top five locations, in no particular order, to play the game are as follows:

1 - Behind the curtains in the changing room.  One of them will stand behind the nearly floor-to-ceiling curtain and wait for us to ask where they are before wrestling with the curtain and eventually coming out to say "boo".  The only thing we can see are their legs, which are clearly visible.

2 - Inside(?) their easel.  Again, we can see their feet, but I guess since they can't see us they assume we can't see them.  That is, we can't see them until they lean out the side and holler "boo" again.

Surprise!

3 - Anyplace they can cover their eyes.  Same logic as above - if they can't see us they must be invisible.  Family Guy has a great bit about this.  When Peter covers his own eyes, Stewie can't see him.  It's funnier now that the girls are doing it.

4 - In their tent.  The tent itself is made of a very thin material, which allows you to see shapes, though not specific details.  They'll hide in their until you are visible, either through the door or one of the other openings, and then call out "boo!" with excitement.  It's pretty cute to hear "boo" and then look to see where they are seeing you from - usually a two inch opening through which only one little eyeball is visible.

The pirate boat is another prime location.

5 - My personal favorite.  I went to our bedroom and shut the door behind me to change.  I could hear Hadley cracking up at something, so I assumed Mama was playing with them.  As I opened the door to come out and see what was so hilarious, Brynne was standing there with her arms raised, a huge smile spreading across her face, and she yelled "BOO!".  Hadley was standing a few feet away and she erupted into more laughter.  She knew what Brynne was going to do and the anticipation had her in a tizzy.

I had scared Brynne a little bit by saying "boo" as she walked around a corner earlier in the day.  She learned from that and tried to scare me back I guess.

I love these girls.

Figure it out

When I was young I just loved the gameshow "Bumper Stumpers".  To me and my crazy little brain it was a puzzle I needed to figure out.  I still like puzzles, so everytime I get behind a car with a personalized plate I try to figure out what it says.

Man I loved this show.

I'd love to get a personalized plate with letters that combine to produce no words - just to see keep other people on their toes if they do the same thing.

Recently, with the help of two little jabbering girls, I've discovered another game.  I like to call it "What are they saying?"

Let's see how good you are at figuring these out.  The answers are at the end.

1.  Ideeda

2. Shhh oudida 

3.  Lied osh

4.  Baba shhh

5. Ablutobusta

Sometimes the game ends when I yell to Mama and ask what they are saying.  More often than not, I am calling for Mama to translate the sign they are giving me in conjunction with their speech.  I was doing well with their signs until they got to know hundreds of them.  To me, every color other than red looks the same - shake a finger or two. 

They're supposed to look like this, but with toddlers, they all look the same to me.

I've not completely given up on sign language, but I do often find myself asking them to use their words - even if they don't have words for what they're trying to say yet.

Here are the answers to the pop quiz:

1 - I see it.  Brynne couldn't find her baby so I told her it was behind the couch.  She walked over, said Ideeda, pointed to baby, and picked her up.

2 - Let's put my shoes on and go outside, or shoes outside for short.

3 - Turn the light off or on.

4 - Be quiet, the baby is sleeping.  Another form of this is Mama shhh.  Obvioulsy this is used when I get them up in the morning and Mama is not seen.  Typically, they also put their finger to their mouth to reinforce what is meant.

5 - I have no idea.  That's not what they are saying, that's my failure to translate.  I tell myself I've still won the game and this means nothing.  Guess we'll see.

How'd you do?  Any phrases your little ones use you'd like to share?

Professor Papa - Part 7

Time for another exciting episode of teaching my kiddos good and bad things.  Actually, today will be a little different.  We're going to look at two good things, and not any bad things (I'm improving--at least that's what the wife says). 
Lesson 1 - London Bridge

A few months ago, when the girls were getting good at walking, I taught them to play a modified version of London Bridge is Falling Down.  If you're not familiar with this, the "game" is typically played with more than two children. 

Two of them stand facing one another, join hands, and lift them high to create an arch.  The other children walk through the arch.  Everyone sings the song and when the last word is sung, the arch comes down and attempts to trap a child in the arch.

Our version, since we were short on bodies, just became them walking through my legs as I stood there.  No singing, no trapping, just walking.

They loved it. 

Once they were able to walk backwards, they had more options to choose from.

Option 1 - walk through forwards, turn around, and walk through forwards from the other direction.

Option 2 - walk through forwards, circle around to the front and do it again.

Option 3 - Walk through forwards, then return backwards.

Option 4,5,6 - Replace backwards with forwards and vice versa.

I love how children are easily entertained.  This could go on for a long time before they tired of it.

We did, however, discover a problem.  We can almost hear them growing taller each and every day.  I don't recall exactly when it happened, but at some point, even with me on my tip toes they didn't have enough clearance to walk through.

Lesson 2 - Ducking

We had a few options at this point.  We could remove the game from our repertoire, let them continue to run into the bridge (not an option in my mind), have "the bridge" stand on something to increase the clearance height, or teach them to duck.

We obviously, based on the name of the second lesson, taught them to duck. 

They look like the cutest little hunchbacks you've ever seen when they duck forward and walk around - usually with their arms out to their sides.  I assume they do this to help with balance, but I don't really know.

I wonder if there is a warning when coming from the other side.

Since they are so tall, items we didn't expect them to be able to reach are quickly coming into play.  The underside of a table, the...uh...well...I guess the underside of a table is the only thing they could ram into.  So we've taught them how to get under that without damaging their heads.

Cheers!!