Good Night Moon

Last Christmas, BedtimeBetty's dad gave her the moon.  A Moon In My Room, anyway.  Even after a year, she's still excited about her moon and spends time every night clicking it to whichever phase makes her most happy.  Last night her moon -- and her heart -- broke.

BedtimeBetty: I want my moooooooon! 
Awesomeness: Aw, don't cry baby, you can see your moon tomorrow.
Mr. Awesomeness: Your moon is broken honey.  We need to fix it.
BedtimeBetty: You fix my moon please? 
Mr. Awesomeness: We can't fix it right now, we need to go to the store to fix your moon.
Awesomeness: The store is closed right now, baby girl.
Mr. Awesomeness: And it's on fire.
Awesomeness: And it's been abducted by aliens.
Mr. Awesomeness: Don't worry honey.  Tomorrow the aliens will return the store and put out the fire.  Ni' night.

We checked this morning and sure enough, the store is exactly where it should be.  It's also not on fire.

Parroting The Parody

The Cat What?

TashaTattleTale: Mama! Mama!  The kitty has a rock.
Awesomeness: Uh.  The kitty has a rock?  Is that what you said?
TashaTattleTale: Yeah! The kitty has a rock.
Awesomeness: Okaaaaay.  Thanks for letting me know.

I look at the cat, who does not appear to have anything that even remotely looks like a rock.  I have no idea what this kid is talking about.

TashaTattleTale: The kitty sit on himself.
Awesomeness: What the wha?  The kitty sat on herself?
TashaTattleTale: Yeah, he was on the stairs and he sat on himself.

Duly noted.....

A few minutes later:

TashaTattleTale: We need go wash my foot.  It's stinky.
Awesomeness: How did your foot get stinky?
TashaTattleTale: Kitty peed the floor and I step in it.
Awesomeness: .......

I had her show me where the alleged cat pee was and there was nothing.  Odd.

About a half an hour later the kids' speech therapist came over and the cat decided she was going to be friendly today.  This is when I noticed a piece of crap stuck to the cat's butt.

"The kitty sit on himself."  Yes, she did indeed shit on herself.  I'm also thinking we solved the mystery of the "rock" the kitty had.  The cat pee?  I haven't found it yet and I'm not looking for it.

The Lardass

Last night when we got home:

MollyWordMangler: Mama!  Mama!  Can I watch the lardass?
Awesomeness: Um......can you watch what, honey?
MollyWordMangler: The lardass!
Awesomeness: You want to watch the lardass?
MollyWordMangler: Yeah! Yeah!  Let's watch the lardass!!
Awesomeness: I'm not sure I know that one.  Can you tell me which one it is?
MollyWordMangler: It's the lardass.  He speak for the trees!
Awesomeness: You want to watch The Lorax?
MollyWordMangler: Yeah! The lardass!  He speak for the trees.

The Rules

We've been working with the kids a lot lately with their speech (why I haven't found time for, say, updating blogs).  They're both pretty far behind where they should be for their age groups, so we've picked up a speech therapist who gives us homework for the kids every week.

This week RachelRuleLearner is learning how to pay attention to two-part rules and instructions; this lesson includes repeating them back to us.  This is not one of Rachel's strengths.  Usually, these conversations go like this:

Awesomeness: Please pick up your shoes and put them on the stairs.  Tell mama what you're going to do.
RachelRuleLearner: I run in my shoes.  
Awesomeness: What are you doing with your shoes right now?
RachelRuleLearner: I wear my shoes to school.
Awesomeness: That's what you did today with your shoes.  Right now, you need to take your shoes off and put them on the stairs.  What do you need to do with your shoes?
RachelRuleLearner: I need to clean my shoes.  They're dirty, bleeeech!
Awesomeness: That's not what we're doing right now with your shoes.  Right now, we're taking your shoes off and putting them on the stairs.  Tell mama what you need to do with your shoes.
RachelRuleLearner: I kick a ball with my shoes!

By this time, I'm seriously frustrated.  I want to kill the shoes with fire.  I pretty much want to kill all shoes with fire at this point.

Obviously though, something that we desperately need to work on with her.  Today, the instruction had to do with her potty training.  She gets distracted when she's having too much fun with something and sometimes she doesn't quite make it to the toilet because she waits until the last minute.  She wanted to play on the computer* and that gives her the biggest challenge when it comes to the potty problem.  So we set rules:

Mr. Awesomeness: Rachel, when you're playing your games and you feel like you need to go potty, what do you do?
RachelRuleLearner: I run to the toilet right away.
Awesomeness: That's right!  What happens if you don't go to the toilet right away?
RachelRuleLearner: I run to the toilet right away.
Awesomeness: If you go peepee or poopoo on the floor, the computer is getting turned off.  Now what happens if you go peepee or poopoo on the floor?
RachelRuleLearner: Dada spank my ass.
Awesomeness:..........
Mr. Awesomeness:...........

Just when we think she doesn't pay attention...


*For any parents of younger kids: Firefox has a browser extension called Kidzui.  It's a collection of kid-friendly websites (Nick Jr., Sesame Street, Discovery Kids, etc.) that they lock into a special safe browser, so no accidentally clicking on viruses or porn sites.

Back Seat Road Rage

I'm starting to think that Mr. A needs to hold his temper a little more in traffic.  TerraTrafficTerror sits right behind him and has nothing better to do but yell from the backseat:

Hey!  Get outta the way dude!

Honka horn Dada.

WHOA!  Whatta jerk.

Catching Up

I'm just feeling all stuck up from winning the Worst Mom In The Universe award or something.  Two things have happened over the course of the last couple of weeks that I've almost completely neglected to write about:

1. Happy 2nd Birthday to Count Crybaby

I know I mentioned it in passing in another post, but I thought it was worth it's own announcement.  The day was fun.  We went grocery shopping and almost forgot to pick up a cake.  Ugh, I suck at this.

2. First Day of Preschool for Count Crybaby

The very first chance we got, we enrolled him in preschool.  He is still really excited to get dressed and leave the house.  So far he hasn't cried when we've dropped him off and his teachers are still gushing over what a cute little boy he is, so it all seems to be going well.  We'll see how they feel when he has one of his super-whiny, clingy days.

I should be expecting a call...

Yeah...the backpack vest-thing was not our first choice, but we couldn't find any other little backpack for him.  He seems to like running around in it though, so maybe it's a keeper.

The Laws Of Ownership

Over the weekend, BillyBirthdayBoy amassed himself a good little stockpile of brand new toys.  I don't know how other families work, but the boundaries of "ownership" in our house are a little fuzzy.  Whenever we get toys, we try to keep both of our kids in mind, as they both end up equally claiming everything.

I thought maybe TashaToySnatcher was old enough to start grasping the concept of personal possessions, so we were working on the "these toys belong to Billy" lessons.  Yesterday morning, we were playing with some of the toys before her brother woke up. Apparently, she knows something I don't though, as per this conversation:

TashaToySnatcher: Oh, boy!  I love my new fire engine Mama!!
Awesomeness: BillyBirthdayBoy got those yesterday for his birthday; they belong to him.
TashaToySnatcher: *Looks down at the toy in her hand and thinks for a minute.* No, Mama.  This toy no brother's.  He's sleeping.

The lesson: Ownership begins and ends with consciousness.

The Birthday Tree

Today is Count Crybaby's second birthday.  I asked his sister what she wanted to do to celebrate.  Her answers:

We sing "Happy Birthday".  We hab presents.  And we put the presents unner the tree!

A tree?

Yeah, we put brudder's presents unner the tree!

Anyone know where I can pick up a birthday tree? 

Smells Like Kid Spirit

The kids woke up while I was getting ready for work.  I was already running late, so I brought them into my bedroom with me and just let them play around.  They love to bounce on my bed and were keeping each other company.  It was going great, until I hear:

SoniaSnifferson: Mama, you smell sumpin?
Awesomeness: ....Nooooooo....what do you smell?
SoniaSnifferson: It smell like danger.
Awesomeness: ......   ?   Did you say danger?
SoniaSnifferson: Yeah, it smell like danger.

I turned my head to ask her what she's talking about and see my son dangling off the edge of my bed.  I'm not too alarmed since his feet are only 6 inches off the ground, but little Sonia felt that she needed to sound the alarm.

Another crisis averted thanks to my danger-sniffing daughter.