Assortment

This week:

~Evan threw out his first spontaneous "I yuv you" with accompanying attack-hug.

~Ethan said he thinks Tessa is his fairy godmother.

~Evan sat on the floor with the Hi-Ho Cherry-os and a flashlight for 17 minutes this morning. He held each cherry up to the light, pronounced it "sye-ney" (shiny) and put it into his tackle box.

~Ethan can write the number four, without any outside training apparently. (I also just recently discovered that he can count to 29. He skips 7 pretty consistently but I am impressed because I rarely count past 'three cups of flour' with him. Oops.)

~Evan sings everything, from sweet renditions of "Twinkle Twinkle" to information like "nose is WUUHNNning".

~Ethan is still the sweetest, most patient older sibling I have ever seen in my life.

~And yesterday I stepped on one of Matt's tools and managed to knock myself in the face with the iron handle, providing further evidence than I am too stupid to live.

Random Rant (me, not the children) (for once)

Arrgh. A couple weeks ago I said I could help out a Lincoln caseworker by doing Family Support Visits in Grand Island and Kearney on January 22 & 23. On Monday I realized that it was this week, so I better get my act in gear. Priorities -ok, playdates- were arranged for Tuesday and Wednesday because I had it in my head that the visits were Thursday and Friday. Well, as you smart people realized right away, the 22nd & 23rd are Friday and Saturday. I did not.
This morning, Thursday (the 21st apparently), I got up bright and early, got dressed, got my snacks ready, got the boys psyched up about going to the sitters, put the carseats back in the Tahoe, got my lists organized to run errands, and generally ran around like a chicken with my head cut off til I sat down to double check one more time that today the visit was in Kearney. This time I happened to notice a slight discrepancy between the schedule and my wall calendar. I was so sure that the calendar was wrong instead of my own trusty brain that I called a friend to check the date on her calendar. Must be some kind of calendar conspiracy because apparently tomorrow is the 22nd, ergo the visit in Kearney. I can't believe how close I was to screwing up my whole day! And I had done such a great job at #4 on the ol' list up there that the kids were seriously pissed about not going to see their 'fyehnds' today.

So! How is your Thursday going? Mine's awesome.

Woof

I spent a significant chunk of the morning playing "petch," or fetch, with the boys. Not the boys and the dogs. The boys. They are deep in puppy-mania right now: crawling everywhere, picking up stuff with their mouths, eating out of bowls on the floor.

"I'm a big horn dog" Ethan announced last night. "What?" I asked, wiping up the Diet Pepsi that had shot out of my nose. Later I heard him tell Matt he was a longhorn dog, and then I made the connection to the longhorn steers we had read about recently. That makes sense, right? Right?

Funny Business

Evan thinks of himself as quite the jokester. "Eee-he mah-hee!" he announced randomly yesterday, then laughed hysterically. "Ethan is a monkey?" I asked. "Yes! Eee-he mah-hee!" ha hahahaha "Mommy mah-hee! Daddy mah-hee!" more hysterics
His favorite trick is to grab your nose, pretend to eat it with a gulp sound effect, then smirk at his victim. This is sort of an improvement over his first version, in which he would put the nose in his "kocket," or pocket, because if he wasn't wearing any pants he'd just jam his hands down his diaper before grabbing your face again.

I vaguely remember Ethan's first attempt at a joke- we were driving somewhere and he announced he had a fly in his tummy, then laughed and laughed. He then said he ate a fly, had a fly in his mouth, and a fly in his nose. He cracked himself up. Too bad it was before Evan's time, he probably would have appreciated the humor.

Bedtime

"Mom. When do people die?

"Uhh... when they get very very old and their bodies get worn out. Then they go live in Heaven with God."

"And Jesus."

"Yep, and all the other people who have died."

"Gwamma said she and grampa are old."

"Well, they're just a little bit old... not very very old."

"Beauty was very very old. Now she lives with all those other people."

"Yep."

"Are Zach and Jenna going to die?"

"Everybody will die someday, but they won't for a long long time."

"Ebil has no power. That's what they said at my program."

"That's right- since God is taking care of us, evil has no power on us."

"But I watched Bineas and Ferb, and Doofenschmirtz has power."

"That's on TV; it's just pretend."

"Like boxing is just on TV, not in real life!"

"Exactly."

"Does God live in Heaven?"

"Yes, and He lives in our hearts. He is always with us."

"Do I have a heart?"

"Yep, everyone has a heart. Our hearts pump blood through our whole body. It keeps us alive."

"And breathing."

"Yes, breathing keeps us alive."

"When we are sick, we hold our arm like this." puts his face in crook of elbow

"That's right, we don't want to spread germs."

"Dat's why we wash our hands! I know a lot about germs."

Sunrise

It's ironic that New Year's Day always dawns with such promise and optimism, and I stumble around bleary-eyed and hungover. This year I'm going to manage our budget, and this year I'm going to blog 4 times a week, and this year...uggh could everyone keep it down a little? I once read about a family that wakes up early on New Year's Day and hikes up a mountain to watch the sunrise together, then talk about their hopes and dreams for the upcoming year. I want to be that family. Maybe next year...

The great thing about parenting is that you have a million chances for self-improvement, or whatever the catch phrase is this year. It doesn't matter if it's sunrise on New Year's Day or 4:15 pm on any given Wednesday, you can always resolve to stick to a bedtime routine or stop yelling or cut TV time down to a reasonable 6-8 hours per day. You can always start to do better, then fall on your face, then try your best the next day.

The same is true of God's grace, times infinity.
Amazing.

Happy New Year, everyone.