All In a Day's Work

Exhibit A:  The following is a shape sorter. Your run-of-the-mill shape sorter full of grapes. The shape sorter was what first greeted me when I ventured downstairs to Will's playroom after a fairly lengthy period of silence.

He had taken the bag of grapes from the counter where I had left them (a momentary lapse of good judgement on my part) and painstakingly removed every single grape from the stem. No small feat, considering the two-pound bag was nearly full.

I'd love to be able to get into his head when he makes these kind of decisions. I imagine his thoughts would go something like this:

"Mmmm...grapes."

"I think I'll just take them downstairs with me. If I'm really quiet and really quick, Mommy will never know."

"Now, what to do with all these delicious grapes? Maybe I'll have a few. And now I'll take all eight million of them off the stem."

"Done. What next?"

"Someplace to put them. If only I had someplace to keep them."

"Oh! I know! The shape sorter. Obviously."

"Perfect."

Exhibit B:  Here is what awaited me in the rest of the room. For starters, the stereo (that word seems hopelessly outdated, doesn't it?) that Will had disassembled the day prior because he said it "needed work". Now it really "needs work."



Exhibit C: Directly behind the disassembled radio, I found this. The digger was digging around in some coffee grounds that Will unearthed from our storage area behind the counter. At least it smelled good. And I guess it would be good for digging around in if I were three.



While I was documenting the above, Will decided to take his clothes off and do some sort of interpretative dance/rolling around/writhing about, all the while saying, "Do you want to see my crack?" Very nice.



For your visual pleasure, I present to you the other end of the playroom. You're welcome.





Both Will and Laura (and Mommy and Daddy, too) have been a little under the weather. I took a picture because this never happens. I think this may be the stillest he's been (while awake, that is) since he was born.

An impromptu photo shoot after breakfast Friday morning yielded a whopping two or three good pictures of both of them. This is the first time since Laura's been here that this has happened. Laura loves Will and Will is beginning to kind of sort of accept being the object of her adoration and affection.



I'll try to write something in the next day or so before we head off to WV for the weekend to spend it at a (different) cabin on a (different) river. Hopefully Will won't want to come back to our white house this time around.

A to Z: A Study in Miscellany

A) Will is not to eat prunes. Yikes. It's too bad that he loves them. (I know. Weird.)

B) Will doesn't hang his coat back on his hook after recess at school. Instead, he throws it on the floor. It's good to know he's equally un-mannerly at home and at school.

C) He has also started taking his shoes off while at school. Why? Who knows. It just seems like the thing to do, I guess. It's always something with him.

D) Apparently our kitchen is even dirtier than I had previously thought because Will just informed me that we needed to get a new kitchen (I can't argue there) because ours "is dirtier and dirtier". Than what, I do not know. I should be cleaning it instead of writing this, apparently.

E) Laura needs to eat more prunes. Like her brother, she seems to have developed some tummy troubles. It's so sad to see a helpless little one in pain.

F) A different kind of pain:  I can't imagine what it would be like years (and years and years) down the road to see her in labor, in the particularly laborish kind of pain that it brings about. It makes me almost weak in the knees to think about her doing that. Myself? For me to go through it again, no problem (well, besides the unrelenting gut-wrenching [literally] pain). Not her, though. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here.

G) I have heard no less than two Christmas songs on the radio in the past day or so. It's only November. Not to mention that I loathe Christmas music in general. I loathe it even more when it's played before the Thanksgiving turkey has even been thought about, much less cooked, gravied (proving that gravy is versatile in so many ways, even grammatically so) and devoured.

H) I need to have a parentheses intervention. I love them. ((((((()))))))

I) Will's new favorite word is "stupid". He knows that he's not supposed to say it which makes it all the more appealing. I alternate thinking I should ignore it and it will lose its appeal with thinking that I should duct tape his mouth shut. Kidding. Kind of.

J) I hate lettered lists but I'm too lazy to go back and use numbers instead.

K) Will picked out John Deere tractor fabric for his rice bag that I'm making him.

L) If you don't have a rice bag, get yourself one immediately. Or make one. It will change your life.

M) A rice bag is filled with rice that you heat in the microwave and use like a heating pad. It's good for various aches and pains (I made mine when I was pregnant last winter) and for heating up a cold bed. Will likes a rice bag to warm him up after getting out of the tub.

O) I'm totally convinced that the inventor of the drive-through Starbucks (of which there are far too few) was a mom with two or more children. This may make me seem lazy. This may be correct.

P) I had forgotten about the luxury of crock pot cooking until this past weekend. There's something strangely satisfying about being able to smell your dinner before you even have lunch.

Q) I bought the 30 Day Shred DVDV about 90 or so days ago. No shredding has occurred. The packaging has been opened only because Will tore into it a while back.

R) Maybe we should reconsider our idea of joining a gym. Maybe.

S) The most appealing aspect of this gym? Childcare included in your membership. Yes, I just said that. I am over feeling guilty about not wanting to spend every single waking second with my kids. Well, by "my kids" I actually mean Will. I've not reached that point with Laura yet.

T) Will loves to give me kisses and hugs now. He also loves using them to manipulate me. I let him. When he's feeling sad or mad or whatever now, he always says he needs a hug.

U) I'm going for the whole alphabet with this list!

V) Christmas is seven weeks from Saturday. We have seven weeks full of completely annoying Christmas music to look forward to.

W) Jamison's company Christmas party is on my birthday. When I pointed this out, his response was something like, "Great! We get to have a nice dinner on your birthday that I don't even have to pay for." He's a thoughtful one, isn't he?

X) I also suggested that we go to the gym (that we've yet to even visit, much less join), drop the kids off there under the guise of us working out, and go to the party instead since we don't really have a babysitter here.

Y) Strangest item from Will's Halloween candy: Sun Chips. Who gives out chips? He also got a few packages of pretzels. Is this the new thing?

Z) I did it! A list of 26 completely unrelated, unimportant things from the various corners of my cobwebby brain.

Tricked and Treated

"We looked!
Then we saw him
step in on the mat!
We looked!
And we saw him!
The Cat in the Hat!"
--Dr. Seuss (attribution is almost insulting, since everyone knows who wrote this, but the grammarian/rule-follower part of me can't ignore protocol; see also: weird people who enjoy such things as the AP Stylebook, dictionaries and encyclopedias)

Here is our Cat on our mat (of sorts). I have to say that this costume may be my favorite yet. According to Jamison, it was also a crowd favorite. Something about it suited Will very well. Maybe the mayhem and destruction that the Cat spreads. Just maybe.



We had to stuff the hat with paper towels to get it to stay upright. I'm just glad he actually wore it since it's kind of important to the costume's overall effect.



One of many serious shots of these two. Laura tends to not like anything we do after about 5 pm. It interferes with winding down to her 6 pm bedtime.



The plight of the second child. Hand-me-down costumes. Bumblebee, take two.

And we end in typical fashion.

Sneak Peek

Here they are, in all their Halloween glory! More coming soon. . .

Two Kids, One Boppy, A Bumbo, A Million Attempts, Approximately Three Decent Pictures

Will sometimes thinks that Laura is his pet. That is, when he chooses to acknowledge her very existence.



"Hey guys! I'm almost sitting up! Try to refrain from kissing your computer screens, although I'm sure you'll be tempted."

Sorry for the spotlight effect, but this was taken this morning after breakfast and the light over our table isn't good for pictures. Out of about 20 pictures, this is the only one they're both smiling in.

Happy weekend! It's going to be a happy weekend around here because Daddy's coming home this afternoon. . . finally.

Shhh! Can you hear that?

No? It's the particularly blissful silence that is the result of two children taking virtually unheard-of simultaneous naps. Don't get me wrong, I love the various noises and loudness of both of my babies but a break from it every once in a great while is nice.

It's been a while since I've written anything so I'm having trouble remembering where I should start. I'm also single momming it this week so if I seem more frazzled, that may be part of the reason. Another part of the reason that I could possibly come off as disjointed and/or nonsensical is that I become significantly dumber with each child that I gestate and birth. I'm afraid that if I had another, someone would find me wandering aimlessly in the street, unable to navigate my way back home since my directional and logical thinking skills have been seriously depleted in the last three-odd years. Seriously. Why does this happen?

Anyway, this may not really have a clear focus or good organization, so just bear with me here.

Mom spent the past two nights with us and thus relieved me of the minor hassle of carting poor Laura to Will's school every morning (right at her nap time, conveniently), getting her out of her carseat, taking Will to his classroom, putting her back in her carseat, going home, getting her back out, and getting her in bed for her nap. And then doing the whole series again for pickup time and swimming lessons. I feel really bad for her, since I'm always waking her up early from a nap to go get Will or trying to keep her awake for a belated nap due to some other activity. She's not nearly the sleeper Will was at her age, but I think that these constant disturbances are really taking a toll on her napping. She remains, despite all of this, the very sweetest girl on the planet. Her latest sweet maneuver involves making her little flirt face at whomever happens to be looking at her (while I'm holding her) and burying her face in my neck or shoulder. She's so incredibly different than her big brother, which I still find surprisingly surprising.

Will got a Max and Ruby (Wooby) DVDV (not to be confused with a simple DVD) from Grammie and to say that he's obsessed is putting it mildly. Perhaps our restriction of tv has backfired? Whatever the case, he loves those freaking bunnies. I'm surprised that he hasn't requested to change his Halloween costume from the Cat in the Hat to Max. (Speaking of Halloween, Will isn't quite sold on the hat part of his costume, so he may just end up being the Cat Who Was Supposed To Wear a Hat.) He was supposed to wear a costume to school today but opted out in favor of "regular clothes." I thought he might be sad about it when he saw other kids dressed up, but he wasn't at all. He's definitely a funny little creature. Once his mind is made up, there's not really any convincing him to do anything other than what he's already decided he'll do. (I'm with him on the costume aversion, though.)

Another of Will's new potential vocations: music critic. He has decided that he has a (strong) opinion on every single song we hear on the radio to and from school and swimming. Today approval was given to Rick Springfield and Annie Lennox, with an outright veto of "Paradise City". He also likes rap and country music, which is fitting since he's a dweller in extremes. I'll keep you posted on future likes and dislikes.

While I have other various odds and ends floating around in my brain, I'll stop here and pick up where I left off sometime later. There's probably not much silence left for me to revel in, so I need to enjoy it while I can.

The Pumpkin Patch Isn't Just a Store in Ceredo

This picture pretty much sums up the personality of each of my kids. Will is cheesing it up and Laura is just not happy. I realized when I was looking back at these pictures of them together that I don't have all that many pictures of both of them. I guess for a while it was more of a safety issue, since Will isn't exactly gentle, but now I don't really have an excuse. Except maybe for the fact that Laura is only happy for half-minute intervals at a time.  (I'm kidding. She's still grumpy but also still sweet as ever. I tell myself she's just a girl who knows what she wants and doesn't like it when the rest of the world hasn't been clued in. I just wonder how much of my personality she'll inherit.)

We went on Will's first-ever field trip to a farm/pumpkin patch on Monday and Will was, as usual, the most excited, exuberant child there. I'm fairly certain that he didn't cease moving the entire time we were there, save the time we were on the hayride. The animals seemed to be a big hit with him and he keeps talking about being bitten by a goose, but I never saw anything like that happen.



He liked the chickens okay, too. Here he's saying "Hi chicken!" He really is one of the friendliest souls I've ever been around.

While the animals held his interest for a while, he quickly made his way over to this beast when he spied it. He examined every angle of it, asking what each part did, where the engine was, what the ladder was to, what it was for, who drove it, on and on and on. He does this with every kind of moving vehicle or object with working parts. It's a compulsion for him, to understand what something's parts are and what they do. I foresee lots and lots of taken-apart electronics and appliances in our future, which I don't really mind. If he has Dad's mechanical aptitude and is still interested in such matters, I'll keep him supplied with an endless stream of household repairs.

Changing gears, it's Will's third week of swimming and he's now able to swim to the side from about the middle of the pool, a huge accomplishment considering he's only had ten lessons so far. He loves being in the water and I can tell a huge difference in his confidence and comfort level in the water. His teacher is pleased with his progress and says that once the hey-I-like-this-swimming-thing lightbulb clicks on, like it seemingly did overnight for Will, it's all just a matter of how quickly he'll begin to put everything together. I know some people think this kind of lesson is cruel for kids, but I have to say that these have been by far the best swimming lessons Will has taken.

Laura has decided to become a regular old poopy-pants and thus our new diaper sprayer and I have become bff. I'm still glad we made the switch to cloth, even with the added bonuses of post-eating-solids poopy diapers. While we're on the subject of solids, we've now added green beans, broccoli, sweet potatoes, and plums into our puree rotation and she seems to like most of these options. She's really becoming a pretty good eater, which I never thought would happen, based on her earliest encounters with regular food. She appears to not be anywhere close to giving up the breastfeeding and I'm happy to keep nourishing my little wiggle worm, gladly contributing to her tiny little thigh rolls.

I'm trying to edit a really long video of Will's swimming lesson yesterday, so hopefully it'll be here for you to watch soon. . .