Sarcasm or sweetness?

I really could very easily go either way with this post. I could take the sarcastic route and focus on the "blind leading the blind" angle. Or I could take the high road and just write about how sweet Laura was going to bed tonight.

For today, I'll take the high road.

When Laura gets scared in bed (which is a lot lately), one of us will go in and lay on her floor for a while. One night, I held her hand while she laid in bed and I laid on the floor, trying to sleep through the fireworks that kids were setting off outside our house. She says something to me most nights about her getting scared and crying for mommy and mommy came in and mommy held her hand. Then I ask her if that helped, and she says yes.

Thursday morning she got an itty bitty baby doll from a garage sale free box. It's only about 2 1/2 inches tall and not even an inch wide. And she loves that tiny baby. She played with it all of Thursday, most of Friday, and for a while this morning. And it sleeps with her. The first night I was concerned that she'd wake up crying because she couldn't find her little baby. But when she woke up that night (only once), it wasn't because of her baby and she grabbed the baby as soon as she laid back down. I still don't know how she found the thing so fast when it's so tiny and is the same color as the blanket she sleeps on, but anyway.

Tonight, when I put her to bed, she laid down on her back, turned to make sure her little baby was right beside her head, and then held it's teeny tiny little hand. Keep in mind that the hand of this doll is probably only 1/8" by 1/4" tops, but she was holding it so her baby could go to sleep.

Cutest thing ever (at bedtime tonight)! Or maybe it reminded me of the blind leading the blind -- the scared comforting the scared.

Now, since I said I was taking the high road, I have to make this post just a little longer and record Laura's prayer from bedtime last night.

Thank you for no thunder.
Thank you for Mommy and Daddy.
Thank you for Evan and Kendra.
Thank you for Grandpa and Grandma.
Thank you for no bears.
Thank you for cows and pigs.
Amen.

And there's no way to be sarcastic about that prayer. Sweetest and most sincere prayer I've ever heard a 2-year-old pray.

I just can't get enough

I just can't get enough of this picture.

Or of this girl. 

Shh...He doesn't know

This morning Laura wanted me to count her teeth, so I used that opportunity to see if her top 2-year molars have shown up yet. Nope.

Then I told Evan it was his turn, mostly so I could see if any of his 6-year molars have shown up yet. (Yes, I realize he's not even 6 yet, but since he got all of his early teeth so early I thought maybe the 6-year molars would be early also.) There were no new molars. However, one of his bottom teeth is a little loose. I asked him if it was loose. He said no. I asked if he was sure. He said yes, he was sure.

So, our "first" for today is a first loose tooth. But, shh...don't tell. He doesn't know it's loose yet. And I figured it would be best if I just let him discover its looseness later all on his own.

Love

I

love

you.

Reminiscing about ... the floor

As you may know we've been taking all the carpet out of the main floor of our house to have the hardwood underneath refinished. The kids are having conflicting feelings about this process. But their main feeling is that they like our carpet, nay it's their favorite carpet ever, and they don't want it to go. We've kept a few scraps of it in the house for now to keep on the kitchen floor so we don't drip on the water-soluble glue that's still there and get ourselves stuck to the floor.

The first few days, the kids would grab the pieces of carpet and return them to their original rooms saying, "I'm putting the kitchen [hallway, etc.] floor back!"

Then one day the girls simply decided to lay down on the carpet pieces and enjoy them while they could.

Laura is lying on a scrap of the kitchen carpet. (That's the gluey wood under her. You can see on the left where I worked on getting the glue off, and on the right where I quit and will let the floor guy finish it with his sander.)

And Kendra's lying on a scrap of dining room carpet, which she had put in the kitchen to be next to Laura.

I think we might have to buy a couple of rugs for the kids to lay on after we have all hardwood in our house.

Babysitter Extraordinaire

A tribute to my father-in-law, who is gone on vacation and likely won't see this for a couple of days yet.

A few weeks ago, Chad and his dad were doing this.

But Chad's dad got tired of doing this.

So he opted to watch these.

But he soon fell prey to this.

And while he did this,

Laura did this.

So Chad's dad went back to doing this.

The end.

By, Someone who appreciates having a father-in-law who can take it as well as he can dish it out.

Afterword: Lyle thinks I should have included pictures of Evan's legs from the day before when he'd colored them while under my apparently-not-very-supervisory supervision. But that's just nonsense. Why would I post a picture of that? It's way more funny to post the pictures of mishaps that happen during Lyle's watch.

Riding with Grandma

Mohawk Monday

At the end of May and beginning of June, Evan asked for a mohawk regularly. Not yet willing to give him one, I usually diverted the conversation away from mohawks. Then one night I decided to surprise him after his bath. When I combed his hair, I combed it up into a "mohawk". He didn't know what I'd done.

I told him to stand in the middle of the bathroom (so he couldn't see the mirror) until I grabbed the camera. This was his reaction when he looked in the mirror:

You could safely say he was more than a bit excited.

But as much as he liked it, he hasn't asked for a mohawk again.

Although he did ask for a haircut. That request was granted.

Confession

Tonight's supper was shepherd's pie. There were also grapes and strawberries on the table. Evan was trying valiantly to even out his grape consumption with his shepherd's pie consumption, but the bowl of grapes was right beside him and so very easy to reach.

Toward the end of supper, I had gone in the hallway for something. Evan came over to me and said very quietly, which usually means he's worried he's going to get in trouble or that my response is going to be 'no', "Mommy, I have something to tell you. I can't stop eating grapes. I tried, but I just can't stop." I laughed a little and hugged him and told him it was ok. And I told him that I'd known that since he was one.

What cookies?

Oh! Hi, Mom!

What? Why do you think I know what happened to the cookies?

I don't know anything about those chocolate chip cookies.

I was just innocently taking a nap.

Because I was ever so tired.

Wait, does this mean I don't get a cookie snack?