Pat, Pat, Pat

I just hit my 3rd grade BFF in the face with a ball.  I don't know what he said to me, but I'm sure he deserved it.  Right before he sent his army of robot kittens after me, I managed to leap headlong out of a 4 story window.  I don't remember landing, but I must have managed it somehow, because now I'm hiding in the trunk of my car.

For whatever reason, the kittens have decided that their cuteness isn't powerful enough to damn me to Hell, so they've transformed into The Terminator.  Lots and lots of...The Terminator.  Well, now I'm screwed.  Oh forget this, I'm going home.

The home I lived in when I was 12.  Here, I get to hang out with Cal Worthington and his dog Spot.  For whatever reason, the dog (who is really an elephant) keeps butting into my legs.  What does he want?!

Oh.  It's MidnightMarvin.  He's reaching over his crib rails to pat me on the leg. 

Wakey, wakey Mama Lazybones!  It's 2:15 in the morning and you're still asleep?

All new post:  'Kid For Sale!' coming soon.

Confessions

• My son loves to dance to the theme song to South Park.

• When my daughter asks for candy, we give her ice cream sprinkles.

• We bought our daughter boy clothes.  My son now wears her hand-me-downs.

• When my son scrubbed his nuts with his toothbrush last night, we laughed as he stuck it back in his mouth.

• I sometimes refer to my son as 'Cuddles'.  I hope I outgrow that before he's a teenager.

The Color Of Water

AbbyBlabby started out with a bit of a language delay.  At close to 3 1/2, she will now speak to us in full sentences, but her pronunciation still needs a lot of work.  We try to help her out as best we can by continually challenging her to talk and interact with us. 

One constant exercise is to ask her to tell us the shapes and colors of things and to count them, if applicable.  On the way home from preschool, for instance, she was able to tell me that she had colored 3 triangle-shaped mice in orange, green and purple.

Today, Mr. Awesomeness was in the kitchen with her when she was begging like an orphan for food.  She has a bad habit of tugging on the refrigerator door.  So Mr. A, in keeping with tradition, asks her what color the fridge is.  "Black!" she says. 

Then she tells her Dada, "I want water."  This time, Mr. A asks her, "What color is water?"  He asked in a way that told me he was feeling a little smug about his trick question.

Her immediate response: "Brown."

Time to change the R.O. filter.

Some Girl

I don't know when, but at some point Some Girl ended up being my "I'm up at 2:40 a.m. and life is sucking" movie.  I'm just fascinated by Marissa Rabisi's character and her steady decline throughout the movie.  I'm pretty sure that I was jealous that she got to take pyrmaniacal actions against the source of her problems.  I just spoiled the end for anyone who hasn't seen it, but it's really a non-end anyway.

ChrissyCoughs-A-Lot was up at 2:30 hacking the last of her lungs out.  The 3 months solid that she's had her preschool crud has been hard on her.  I can't get mad at her; she hasn't had a decent night's sleep in all that time either.

I listened out for a while, to make sure that she wasn't also throwing up or crying, then snuggled back down into my nice, warm bed.

WWWWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

That would be SidneySleepKiller.  I don't know if his sister's coughing woke him up or the sound of my comfort.  I pat him on the back and fix his blankets and pray to benevolent sleep spirits.  Those sleep spirits are scumbag twats.  No dice.  I think one of them peed on me.

I take him downstairs to change him and give him a bottle and pray to the benevolent catnap-on-the-couch spirits that this will be everything he needs.  Nope.  By this time Marissa's character is on her way to that special place in my heart.  I wonder if he'll ever sleep.  Well, actually, first I wonder if I've ever seen this movie from the beginning.  Then I wonder how I can come to an arrangement with the evil revenge spirits to sic my fire angel on those bastard catnap-on-the-couch spirits.  Then I wonder if he'll ever sleep.

The movie ends and I'm still holding my baby, trying to get him to calm down without my having to be upright and bouncing.  I think I'm going to trade in this kid's crib for a vibrating lounge chair.  Sure, it'll be expensive, but I'm sure it'll be worth its weight in gold.

He's finally down just in time for the alarm to go off.  Now I'm saying a little prayer to the benevolent coffee spirits.  I think I have an in with these guys. I put their coffee blessings in funny mugs and slip them some Chocolate Caramel cream.  Offerings -- it's all about the offerings.

Can A Mama Get A Table Dance?

I'm not sure what the deal is with ClimbyCody, but lately I can't keep him off of the tops of the furniture.  It started a couple of months ago with the couches.  He has this odd fascination with needing to climb over the backs.  Well, I assume the climbing is his fascination and not the skull-cracking that may result from it.  Who knows what happens in a baby's head.

Lately, his obsession has been with climbing on the dining set I got for the kids.  It's a 2 ft. high table with wooden kid chairs.  The one seen here:

He uses the chair to climb up onto the table.  Then he gets all scared because he's not sure how to get back down.  It's funnier when he gets stuck on the chair.  He shrieks like a housewife desperately escaping a mouse. Now, we're having to store the chair in our playpen when not in use.

It's not limited to the kids' table though.  See the corner of that coffee table.  He'll dance on that for me too.

Boiling Lake Of Lava

That's what Mr.FloorSleeper's crib has turned into.  Well, to listen to his cries for help when I lay him down, one would have to draw that conclusion anyway.  The last week or so, I've been spending night after neck-creaking night on my couch while he sleeps peacefully on the living room floor.

Here are our options:

1. Move my bed downstairs into the living room.  I miss it and I'm not opposed to the labor involved so much as the style and function of having a bed where your couch used to be.
2. Take his crib out of my room and just toss the living room rug up there.  Well, then where to put the crib....?  Next.
3. Stand my ground and force him to cry it out in his crib.  This is more of a non-option.  There are 3 other people in the house that don't deserve to also have sleepless nights.  I also don't have the patience to endure the cry-it-out method.  I view it as avoidance and I'm more of an active fixer.
4. Change his mattress.  We've had these issues before and I thought about doing that, but never got around to it.  His sister's mattress looks awfully comfy and she would sleep on the kitchen table if we let her.  Definitely an option.
   
5. Tell Mr. A. that his shift on the couch has started.  He doesn't like our bed anyway because the mattress is too firm.  Well, buddy, how would you like to spend your nights on a soft, squishy couch instead?  Sounds good to me anyway.
   

The Burger Kingdom

We were having a particularly rough day and Mr. A decided that dinner at Burger King would lift our spirits.  We announce to FrannyFrenchFryFiend that we were going to take her to Burger King.  She got unusually excited and we couldn't figure out why.  So we asked her:

Mr. A.: Baby girl, do you know where we're going?

FFFF:  Going to the BURGER KINGDOM!!!!!

Mr. A.: ............

AwesomeMom:  We're going to Burger King, sweetie.  Do you know what we get at Burger King?

FFFF:  Yeah, yeah, yeah!  Going to the BURGER KINGDOM!!!!!

Awe. Mom:  ..............

Okay, so we watch a lot of Blue's Clues here and, on a couple of the videos, they go to the Numbers Kingdom and whatnot.  She seems to understand the connection that kings live in a kingdom.  Both Mr. A and I were reasonably concerned that she was going to be disappointed thinking that she's going to some magical fantasy place.  I mean, we weren't even going in, just through the drive-thru.  So we wanted to know what she expected to happen when we left the house.

Awe. Mom:  Honey, do you know what we get at the Burger Kingdom?

FFFF:  The KING!  The KING!

Awe. Mom:  ...............

Mr. A.:  ...............

Awe. Mom: They have french fries at the Burger Kingdom.  Do you want fries?

FFFF:  No!!  The KING!  The KING!

I mean, what do you say to that?  My little princess was going to the Burger Kingdom to get the king.  Not something that I thought I'd be dealing with.

On the way in, we were playfully chatting about what sort of stuff a little girl would find at a Burger Kingdom.  The conversation then turned to what would happen if we got pulled over on our way to the Burger Kingdom, because we didn't bother to get dressed.  We weren't naked or anything, but we didn't want anyone shining a flashlight on our respective wardrobes of choice.

So we were doing what we do best and making up the dialogue we would have with the cops.  Mr. A. apparently thinks that the officers where we live are assholes, because he kept punctuating everything "the cop" said with a loud, snotty "PAL!!"

It didn't take long for FrannyFFF to catch on and run with it.  On the way to the Burger Kingdom, after every sentence we said, she would pipe in with "PAL!"  It was cute, however she was carrying on little too much with it, as little kids normally do.  So we asked her to hush it a little.

We get to the drive through and I could tell that FFFF was confused.  There was no castle.  No king or even a princess.  No dragons.  Just french fries.  What a let-down.  We order our food, but the employee kept cutting us off after every food item we mentioned and we were getting frustrated.  The last item we were getting was a large french fry to share.

Burger King employee:  Would you like anything else?

Mr. A.:  Yeah, just a large fries.

FFFF:  PAL!!

So Far, We're Still Pals

HairyScary was starting to look like a mop, so I gave him a haircut today.  I was extremely nervous doing this because 1) I can't cut a straight line to save my life and 2) boys' hair is so much different to cut than girls' hair. With SissyNoBangs (remember that she cut her own hair a few posts back?) it's been pretty easy.  Cut a few hairs in the front.  Only cut the back when her hair starts looking like a yak's.  Got it.

With his hair, I had to try to keep him from squirming (unsuccessfully I might add) while I was cutting around his ears (YIKES!!) and trying not to slip with the scissors too much.

I don't think I did too bad, all things considering.  This is before:

That's birthday cake, I promise.

This is now: