Pumpkins

Yes, in a fit of literary genius, I mean both the squash-type of pumpkin and the loving ephemism for round-headed children with little hair.  October, you see, means pumpkins.

Well, and apparently for us, it also means salt clay sculpting.  Miss Boo was more into this than Buddy.

"Oh, little sticks, Mama!  I can draw with them."  (We "can draw" with absolutely anything that will make a line on any surface: rocks on concrete, vaseline on glass, spagetti sauce on a plate... I just keep buying art materials in hopes of meeting her capacity for creating art, but so far am unsucessful.)

"Wama.  EEEEeee.  Uh-oh."  (Translation:  "So, let me get this straight.  I don't get to eat the salt clay.  I don't get to eat the toothpick.  The spoon is supposed to be for sculpting.  So this is fun how, again?")

Pumpkin drawing was more popular with both of them.  Miss Boo wasn't entirely sure what a pumpkin was, so, when we went grocery shopping, I bought three tiny ones.  One for Miss Boo, one for Buddy, and one for Littleman-yet-to-be-born that theoretically Mama was going to color, but that Miss Boo graciously colored instead.  Oh, and she also helped Buddy with his.

He didn't care.  All he wanted was to figure out how to uncap the markers so he could color on his lips.  (We bathed afterwards.)

Our pumpkins turned out very...colorful.  Theoretically they were going to have faces on them.  In actuality, they are just colorful.  Miss Boo has decided she thinks "Punkins are very adorable, Mama."  She also said something else about pumpkins that was hilarious but that I think she'd kill me over if I put it on the internet and then she grew up and had to worry about people finding it...so I'll tell you aunties and grandparents about it on the phone, or (more likely) Baba has already spread the word.

She was a princess yesterday, by the way.  To the grocery store and everything.  Thank goodness it's acceptable for princesses to wear coats these days.

We were trying a new schedule yesterday in hopes of having bedtime go better: get up at the same time as Daddy, nap early, play hard outside and keep busy all afternoon (thus the pumpkins), bath at about 3pm because it revs the kids up but also puts them in a great frame of mind, and then wind-down activities after supper.  Here we are reading in our jammies.

Yes, we needed all three books.  Miss Boo is even "reading" in German, there, and Buddy was actually watching both his book and mine.

Oh yeah.  The woman who used to read medical texts for work and philosophy and giant novels for fun is now spending a lot of time memorizing "Go Dog Go".  If you'll look at Buddy's face here, you'll see it works.

Largely our plan was successful yesterday.  They went to bed within 20 minutes of goal time and fell asleep--in their OWN beds, a major victory--and stayed there all night.  Even Buddy, who has only been sleeping in the big-boy-bed for two nights now.  (Between weaning from nursing and having colds, I haven't wanted to move him out of our room until now.  It was just easier...)

Miss Boo had a string of wakeups in the night that we finally realized were due to needing to go potty.  She hadn't been entirely clear on knowing that she *could* ask to go potty at night because...well, it's nighttime, and aren't the rules different?  A potty trip and then she hugged me, said, "you make me happy, GOODBYE MAMA!" and rolled over to go back to sleep.

Thank goodness Buddy is a heavy sleeper, because that farewell was pretty loud.

I am out of training for this sort of thing; getting up ten times between 1 and 3am is tricky when your hips don't quite fit together the way they're supposed to anymore, what with the baby rearranging them from the inside.  You might pray for my patience; I caught myself last night telling Miss Boo "Look, Mama gets grumpy when she doesn't sleep.  I need to go back to the big bed now and sleep so I won't be grumpy anymore and I need you to stay on your bed and be quiet so you don't wake up Buddy.  It's been three hours."

To which she looked at me pityingly, patted my face, and said, "Here Mama, I give you a night-night hug."  Then she said goodbye, as I mentioned above.

But I don't want to be a grumpy Mama, even if I have meanly been making everyone sleep in their own perfectly good beds.  Sigh.

It's 6:24 as I type this; it's just about time to go wake them up.  Getting up with the Husband has this advantage for me: I can read my Bible all at once, like a civilized person, and actually have time to pray in a chunk (instead of in my usual mental Mom-prayers, which go something like oh yeah, please help Grammy's bronchitis--and don't let Bud get sick from eating that, and "Honey, don't get in that drawer, it's got owies inside" make me more patient).  Hopefull the schedule works again today.

We have a well-child appointment for them both today, to see how they're growing; here's hoping the shots will be minimal and that the doctor will understand when I tell him that the scrape on Buddy's forehead is from Buddy testing out his hypothesis that gravity has less pull if you stand on concrete.

Cheers,

Breanna