A Pleasant Discovery. A Funny Discovery. A Shocking Discovery.

A Pleasant Discovery
Yesterday, Tyler and Bryce (her fiance) took the girls to the pumkin patch...voluntarilty...on a Saturday. They were gone for like 5 hours and KC and I realized that it was the first time we'd been alone together in the house since Ava was born. It was completely awesome.

As soon as the door closed, I started throwing things away. When you have kids, no matter how anti-clutter you are, crap starts collecting. I have two kids, one of whom is a hoarder, so we have lots of crap and I can never get rid of it without Sophie going ballistic.

I cleaned out all of the junk drawers in the house and in the process I discovered that one of our ovens came with a meat thermometer built in. There is literally a jack in the oven, you plug in the thermometer, hit start and it cooks a perfect chicken. Yes!  A built in meat thermometer! 

What a great day.  The girls had an awesome day too...


I call this, "I didn't have to go to the pumkin patch"


A Funny Discovery
As if 5 kid-free hours in the middle of a Saturday weren't awesome enough, one of our favorite babysitters called at the last minute and asked if we wanted her to come. Hells Yeah!

We went out and saw The Other Guys at the second run theater (wonderfully stupid).  We got home at 11 and the kids were asleep. The babysitter reported that Ava had stripped off her pajamas and refused to put them back on so she put her to bed in a diaper. Who cares? I was just impressed that she got her in bed before 10 (9:50).

When I went in to check on her, I found her buck naked, sprawled across the crib, on top of her blankets, with a diaper wedged in her armpit. It was a funny discovery mostly because it happened before she'd peed.


A Shocking Discovery
Tonight I inaugurated my built in meat thermometer. It was every bit as awesome as I dreamed it would be. We don't eat a lot of "chicken on the bone" because KC isn't crazy about it. So when I started to carve it, Sophie came up and we had this conversation:

Sophie: What's that?

Me: It's the chicken.

Sophie: Is that from the animal chicken?

(As opposed to Robot Chicken?)

Me: What do you mean?  It's a chicken.

Sophie: That's a dead animal? Are those its bones?

(I live in fear of a household of vegetarians, so I hesitate and contemplate lying...)

Me: Well...it is an animal (notice I don't say "dead") and those are its bones.

Sophie: Well I don't want to eat any feathers.

Me: It doesn't have any feathers.

Sophie: Oooooh. (points at the drumstick) I want to eat that piece with my hands straight from the bone.

That's my girl.

Busted! Parts 1 & 2

Busted—Part 1

Last night I did a little bit of work after dinner. While I was downstairs, Sophie came to visit. She was in her monologue mode.

Sophie: (pacing in circles and occasionally rifling through the things on my desk) ...We're going to put on a play and I need you to sew me costumes that are Chinese or Asian and there should be one for me, one for Lucy and also one for Ava plus there will also be snacks and the twins will come but I'm going to tell them that they can't talk or the play will have to stop and one time they tried to hit me with their sword but it's only plastic so it wouldn't hurt but they're not supposed to hit people with things, right? And I want to get Squinkies to use in the play because they'll be pets, like little pets and we should sew them costumes too...

Then I let a teeny, tiny fart.

Sophie: Squinkie costumes will be Chinese too and we'll have to make them a bed where they can sleep and maybe we should get the Squinkie house too and you need to say, "excuse me," because I heard it.

BUSTED!!!


Busted—Part 2

This morning when we got to Sophie's school, Hazel (our ancient, evil dog) made a jail break. She has been coming to school all year and has never once tried to get out of the car. Today she went running around the parking lot and made a beeline for the playground. She totally ignored me—because she's both insolent and deaf—and then proceeded to take a giant poop on the school's grass. Thanks Hazel.

I left it there, raced Sophie to her classroom, and cleaned it up later with a spare diaper. Hazel then passed noxious gas all the way to Ava's school. It was so bad that we had to ride with the windows down even though it was about 50 degrees outside. By the time we got there, I was ready to hurl and I was a little bit afraid of what would await me when I got back from taking Ava to her classroom.

Me: I hope Hazel doesn't fill the car with her toots.

Ava: Hayo toot in tar. (Hazel tooted in the car.)

Me: I know.

Ava: Hayo poop Fifi tool. (Hazel pooped at Sophie's school.)

Me: She did.

Ava: DAT NAH NIE!! (THAT'S NOT NICE!!!)


Ooooooh...Hazel gets schooled.

Tuna for breakfast

This morning Sophie ate a tuna fish sandwich (on a mini bagel) for breakfast. The sandwich part was my idea. The girls slept so late, that I wanted to make them something they could eat in the car on the way to school.

Me: I'm going to make you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Ava: PEANUT BUTTER!!!!!

Sophie: I don't want peanut butter and jelly.

Me: Well what do you want?

Sophie: I want tuna fish.

Me: I don't have any made.  I'll have to make you something else.

Sophie: Dad made some for me yesterday.

Sure enough, there were the dregs of yesterday's tuna fish in a bowl in the fridge. I made her a sandwich and she ate it.

The other day she had a slice of cold pepperoni, mushroom and onion pizza for breakfast. Later in the day, in front of our new Tuesday/Friday nanny, we had this exchange...

Sophie: You never gave me breakfast this morning!!

Me: Yes I did. You had a piece of pizza.

Sophie: That wasn't breakfast!  That was just a snack.

And then I realized there was no point in trying to defend myself since what mother feeds their child a slice of cold pepperoni, mushroom and onion pizza for breakfast before kindergarten?

The same mother who feeds their child day-old tuna fish on a mini bagel for breakfast, that's who.

Poop Smearing and Disco

Sunday night, while Sophie was having her "potty sit" and I was hanging out with her in the bathroom, I heard this:

Ava: I have poo poo too.

KC: You do?  Did you poop?

Ava: I HAVE POO POO!!!!

Then I hear the unmistakable thwrip of diaper tabs being torn open followed by some yelling and scuffling about by KC and Michael (our friend who's the lucky house guest that got to witness the smearing).  Then I see Ava's 2-year-old tush pass by, covered in poop, as KC tries to wrestle her to the changing table.  Then I hear this:

KC: Don't touch it.

(Some complaining by Ava.)

KC: Don't put your hands in it!

He cleans her up and they head back into the living room.  Then I hear this:

Michael: I think she' might have smeared some on the chair.

KC: EEEEWW!!!

Then I went in and cleaned up the chair, KC put Sophie to bed and I tried to put Ava to bed in her new toddler bed.  Her initial excitement turned to panic and I had to retrieve her about 30 seconds after I left her room. She wouldn't go to sleep,  stripped off her PJs and then this happened:

Ava's Joke: V3

Ava has discovered potty humor. I don't know how it happens, but it does, and now she thinks it's funny to say, "poo poo".  Really, really funny. She started saying it at the dinner table and I said, "No potty talk at the table!" So then she proceeded to say, "No potty talk...POO POO!!!!" Then she laughed and laughed.

Tonight she took it to a new level, incorporating her new bit into her old one, thus forming the 3rd iteration of her famous knock knock joke. 

Here it is...

Ava:  Knock knock

Me: Who's there?

Ava: Poo poo!

Me: (first attempting to look angry and then totally failing and giving in) Poo poo who?

Ava: Poo poo in my pants!

It's actually kind of funny.

What's not funny is that she will no longer go to sleep at night. We're in that horrible stage where she still needs a nap, but then she's not tired at night.  We try to shorten the nap and then she's a wretch all afternoon. So we let her nap for about an hour and she's still up at 10pm.  It's not good.

For those of you who are thinking, "just let her cry it out," I promise that we have tried it to no avail.  We did it with Sophie and the first time she screamed for maybe 20 minutes and then passed out.  I think we did it 2 or 3 times, max, and never had to do it again. Ava can stand there and scream bloody murder for an hour. We've never tried it for longer than that.  Maybe she'd fall asleep after 61 minutes, but I doubt it. She is a uniquely "spirited" child.

Behold...

Last night, when she was up again and terrorizing us, I said, "Are you naughty?" and she said, "No.  I happy." 

We're doomed.

Independent Play and Canadian Pirates

It's been a busy week and a half--visitors, birthday parties, our first kindergarten play date, Tyler's first week back at school (not fun). It was also a very busy week for the Ninas (Ava's dolls).  They saw a lot of action that included the first official Nina Time Out (Nina!  No!!  You get a time out!!).

Ava has always been very good at "independent play". Sophie needs a lot of interaction and wants to chat constantly ("That's funny, right?").  Ava wants to play with her dolls and they are a very active, talkative lot. She's got a routine down that involves banging, a constant dialogue and occasionally some shouting.

Behold...

In other news, Sophie is really loving school.  She no longer soils herself (involuntarily or otherwise); she's making friends and she went on her first field trip (to a farm). She is very focused on Halloween and has been a tiny bit preoccupied with pirates.

Behold...

(Sophie, Ava and I are in the car. They're watching The Wiggles.)

Sophie: Mom, are pirates real?

Me: Not exactly. Not like Captain Feathersword (the friendly pirate). Nowadays when people talk about pirates, they mean something different.

Sophie: So they're not real.

Me: Not anymore.  But a long time ago there were pirates like Captain Feathersword.

Sophie: Yeah.  In Canada.

Argggggh, eh?