Buddy Realizes He Is Supposed to Be Two

Today I said:

1. Don't hit your sister with the toothpaste box.

2. Don't sit on the couch without underwear on.

3. We don't sit on the baby.

4. We DON'T sit on the baby.

5. We don't eat colored pencils.

6. Eat your ranch dressing with carrots, not your fingers.

The phenomena keep piling up and it's all pointing to one conclusion: I think the child might be two years old or something.  Just as a guess.

Miss Boo, not to be outdone, answered my query (as I held a sobbing Buddy): "Because I bit him."
Me: "WHAT?!?!? Where did you bite him?"
Her (calmly): "On the head."

This is the same girl who cried because the Ugly Duckling was sad.  We have to work on those empathy skills.  In the meantime, I share with you in the interests of full disclosure, in case someone thinks the perfect mother is writing this blog.

Also to say: Gah!  Why, after never being allowed to bite before, are we suddenly trying this?

Sigh.

Breanna

Memorial Day

I'm told that when I was little I used to say "Happy Memorial Day!"  For those of my readers who might not be American and who don't get why that's mildly hilarious, Memorial Day began as a day when those who had lost soldiers during the War Between the States would go out and put flowers on their graves.  Then they would have picnics, which is a little schizophrenic, but hey, it's generally a nice warm day and you had the time off work anyway.

So perhaps "Happy" Memorial Day isn't so inappropriate?

At any rate we are surprisingly happy, considering the night we had.  Here is Buddy, eating a tortilla chip and drinking milk, and he is being photographed from the shoulders up due to the fact of his not wearing any pants at the moment the photographer was snapping.

She doesn't LOOK like she was awake from 1:45am to 6:45am, slept for 30 minutes, and then got up and charged through the day, does she?

I mean, I don't look this good when I'm awake for five hours in the middle of the night.  I know.  I looked in the mirror this morning and checked.

But, hey ho, at least she's happy.  Mama, on the other hand, is trying desperately to figure out what to do about the nap thing.  Let her sleep? Don't let her sleep? Go take a nap myself?

Meanwhile Littleman sleeps like a rock--granite, to be precise--each and every night, and reliably during naps.  Thank You, Lord, for making the third one the easy-sleeping one.  Or for making me so tired at night that I don't know the difference.  I realized the other night that I had nursed him in my sleep--literally without waking up.  The only way I knew I had done it was the Husband happened to get up with Miss Boo, who's been wakeful all week, and told me "she's calling you".  I realized Littleman was eating, but I had just woken up.  Spooky stuff, I tells ya.

This is him looking at his big sister, who will periodically show her affection for him by doing things like shoving a stuffed cow in his face.  Because, you know, he probably wants a stuffed cow.

He's discovered his lips and is starting to babble, mostly "BLPBGLBBLBLBBPPPPBLLBBBBBB!" but, in the restaurant the other night, he yelled "GAGGGGUGGGGGGGHAGGGHGG!" at a lady at another table.

He's blurry because he's fast.

Cheers,

Breanna

Pirates and Pioneers

I can't get used to the idea that Memorial Day weekend is a time we can, reliably, be outside.  In the water, no less.

For instance this water table, where the pirate (who says "yo ho ho" every few seconds, by the way) and the pioneer girl in pink Crocs like to splash.

Yes, the hat needs to be at THAT angle.  No, he wouldn't wear a sunhat instead.  He's a pirate.  Duh.

Anxiously waiting for the swimming pool to fill.

CHEESE!

Almost totally full at last!  Too anxious to get in to wait for total fillage!

The slide is really too small, but oh well, we're probably getting a hard-sided pool here soon, and they got good and wet.

Even the best of pirates has a hard time keeping their hat on while they go down a giraffe slide.

It's tricky, being as it's inflatable and all.

It's like a bathtub, but outside!  It's fabulous!

Even the mermaid dollie got into it! (Mermaids have been the rage around here lately.  Not so much with Buddy, who's more solidly on the pirate side of things, but with Miss Boo, who has informed me solemnly that she is Blue Mermaid today.)

It's too hard to get up the slide.

A sunny day...

"Where's my hat?"

It's a tough climate for a black dog.

Place the pack n' play in the shade, and then Littleman can kick himself happily to sleep while soaking up vitamin D.

He looks awfully nice asleep, in spite of how the hair on the side of his head is rubbing off.  New hair is growing there, you just can't see it yet.

Pouring water out of the pool.

Thinking about the slide again.

Making the giraffe spit.

Just a nice portrait.

Making the giraffe spit again...

What Mama and Daddy were doing all this time: filling sippies, reapplying sunblock to kiddies, and playing Pathfinder.

And keeping hydrated, of course.  That's coconut juice in my glass, which startled me by having floaty white bits of coconut in it.  Rather sweet, very hydrating, and turns out to be an appetite suppressant of sorts for me, apparently.  (I bought some in lieu of gatorade because of the electrolyte profile.)

Inside later, we have tea parties and play with teeny toys.

And ride on Daddy.  Of course.  You can't spend a Saturday without doing that.  (I washed that lambskin in my front loader with Kookaburra Wool Wash.  Cold/cold setting.  Dried it outside on a drying rack for about 12 hours.  Came out beautiful.)

That is all for now.  How is YOUR Memorial Day weekend going?

Cheers,

Breanna

Pretty, Happy, Funny, Real

In no particular order:

This one counts as happy, I think.  He's trying to grab the camera, and figures the grin will predispose Mama toward letting him play with and disassemble a $400 piece of equipment.  Yeah, sure.

This is a tea party Miss Boo had with Daddy.  Because when Daddy is home for staycation, we HAVE to have tea parties, and Mama isn't really allowed to participate.  Also a happy.

Pretty--the flowers that the Husband made me get while grocery shopping--for no reason other than he thought I might like some flowers.  Because he's awesome like that.

Happy - a gnome who is also a hook.  He hangs on the wall and makes a handy place for Buddy's cap.  He was a present from a great-great-aunt in Germany, who continually astounds us with how thoughtful she is about our littles.  Miss Boo and Littleman each got one, too.

Happy - chocolate chip cookies, also a necessity for a proper staycation.

Pretty - he was sleeping and the room was dark and I wasn't going to wake him for a photo, but I think he looks even better than the roses, don't you?

Funny.
Me: Oh, I can crop you out of that picture.  I'll just leave Miss Boo.
The Husband: why?
Me (assuming everyone has my issues with being photographed): because your arm is in the air.
The Husband.: I don't care.
Me: Because I can crop it
The Husband: Was it a double batch of cookies or...?

So you get it un-cropped.

Real: a set of rosary beads, a necessity for Mama to stay cool when other...

....real situations occur.  Yes.  That is half a cup of bright red HiC.  And a little boy who knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he probably shouldn't be fingerpainting with it but...eh, why not?

By the way, I think "staycation" is a silly way to put it.  I can't imagine a vacation much better than this (unless I could magically teleport people here to be with us).  What advantage would it be to take these same six days we're spending relaxing and enjoying ourselves and spend them getting to An Attraction, going over the Attraction until we're footsore, and then sleeping poorly because we're crammed in a hotel room where the kids have to be quiet?

Here's to the relaxing, the homemade mead, the Pathfinder game the Husband and I are slowly working our way through, and more novel chapters.

I'm off to Staycate some more.

Cheers,

Breanna

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Humor Me

This is one of those posts that, if you are not raising toddlers, might strike you as silly and/or weird and/or inappropriate.

But bear with me, because this is stuff that nobody tells you.

First of all, buy those vinyl "allergen" protectors for your mattresses.

If you neglected to do so because you just moved to Texas and anyway the kid's been good for weeks and then suddenly you have a setback due to juice, no naps, and blueberries, read this article: How to Clean Pee From A Mattress.

Otherwise you end up winging it.

That's my PSA for the day.

Cheers,

Breanna

And Might I Add

I know some people like exercise.  I don't.

To me it's kind of like going to the dentist to have your teeth cleaned.  It's better than the alternative, but who would spend their Fridays like that voluntarily?

However, I WOULD like to have some muscle tone in my stomach and a working cardiovascular system, so I exercise.  Lately I've been exercising with Denise Austin, who at least periodically tells you to smile and that she's proud of you and that your butt will look good.  (Which is better than the exercise instructors who sternly lecture you about having Proper Form or Else.)  Bouncing Back After Baby is the DVD I'm using.  It's old--from the middle 90s, I think--but it works.  I did it after I had Buddy and quit being breathless while chasing Miss Boo.

Please note: I haven't sold out--I'm not exercising in hopes of getting skinny, I just want my muscles that got all stretched out carrying an 8.5lb baby Littleman to go back to their normal positions.  Exercise is for my heart, mainly, not my hips--although I'll take the hips if they happen to come along.

In the meantime I hate exercising, and this is me grumbling about it so I will keep doing it.

Cheers,

Breanna

I Begin to Suspect I'm *That* Mom

You know, the one who will be like "We make our OWN gummy bears."  I'm not quite to that level of nuts yet.  But I did make our own goldfish crackers yesterday, upon finding out that they are just pie crust dough with cheese and salt and pepper.

I didn't have a tiny fish cookie cutter so they were cheese blobs.  There still aren't any left.

"Hmmm.  IN-teresting."

"Huh?"

"Oh! CHEESE Mama!"

The best pictures are the ones where she forgets to pose.  I wonder when adults will learn that?

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He's blurry because he's FAST.

It's really hard to do a bead-and-wire puzzle with a Civil War cap over your eyes, but he is also very opposed to Mama rearranging that cap.  Soon he'll be playing "Battle Hymn of the Republic" on a mouth harp and saying things like "tobbacy,", I suppose.

My kids and I have never been real playgroup people--in Montana we just didn't know anyone who had kids our age who we enjoyed spending time with who lived closer than an hour away.  An hour to travel over a pass means that playgroup had to be more like "visiting Grandma's house for a weekend or a week" and less like "it's a nice day, come over and play on the Slipnslide".  So we're having our first real experience with playgroup, and it's been fun.

Today, however, it's cloudy and the kiddos have been cranky since yesterday afternoon.  I think we'll be staying in, and I'll be trying by might and main to get laundry done and novel chapters written.  It's folly to think that a SAHM gets to choose her own hours--only to a certain extent and only if her kids are old enough to understand "not now, in an hour".  Littleman is flopping around my lap asking to eat right now, so I will let you go with this thought: at least we don't have to do laundry with a big cauldron outside and a washboard.

Cheers,

Breanna