Bradley accidentally dropped a container of colored pencils today. I asked him nicely to pick them up and as he looked at the mess he stated that he needed help. Looking at the colorful pile of pencils reminded me of the classic childhood game of Pick Up Sticks. I guess as a child the game seemed fun. But, come on, really? Let's give a group of kids a bunch of sharply pointed sticks, tell them to scatter them on the floor and have a grand time picking them up. I'm not sure my kids will go for that game. They much rather stick plastic body parts into a plastic potato. Now that's fun!

This afternoon I took a couch nap with Sarah and Emily while David worked on the computer in the kitchen. As a parent you can never fully nap while children are still awake. I thought I heard Bradley say, "Daddy, Wendy sucked my hiney!" I opened my eyes to verify I wasn't dreaming and sure enough there was a bare-bottomed Bradley rubbing Wendy's baby saliva off of his rear onto the carpet. Kids!

Today I took my kids to the neighborhood park. They played in the sand. Bradley kept rubbing his dirty hands in his hair. When I told him to stop doing that, he innocently looked at me, showed me his sandy hands and said, "But my hands are so dirty!" When I showed him how to rub his sandy hands on his pants he said, "Ohhh. OK, Mommy!", realizing my way was a much better solution. I should probably take my kids to the park more often.

Wendy is learning at an early age the dangers of shopping.

Bouncing

Vacuum Cleaner Hickey.

Bradley has a thing about using the vacuum cleaner hose to suck up body parts. He's tried them all, hair, nose, cheek, tongue, toe, ... and yeah, that one too.

This morning Emily declared that she hated rainy days. David corrected her by explaining that "hate" is a strong word and should be used carefully when speaking. He then admitted to wrongfully using the word "hate" in his own speech. Emily was quick to politely add, "And when you drive in the car you say, 'Get out of the way, Jerk!'"

I love my children.

...especially when they are sleeping.

A child's lyrical interpretation :

I am a Child of God
I am a child of God,
And so my knees are grey.
(And so my needs are great.)

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Twinkle twinkle yittle (little) star,
How I wonder what you are.
Ba ba ba ba world so high.
(Up above the world so high.)

9:31 PM








...4 hours later.

I applaud my children on consistency with good manners. Tonight I asked a tired Sarah if she was ready for bed. She replied, "No, dank (thank) you."

This evening Bradley was quick to remind me of his much deserved piece of candy for pooping in the toilet earlier. Having not witnessed the event, I was skeptical. But Emily emphatically stood up for her little brother and verified, "He did poop on the potty! He did! I saw it! But we can't show you because he flushed it. It was a man-sized poop!"

Bradley's "favorite grey" pants and favorite orange elephant shirt.

Bradley is our most independent child. He selects his outfit and dresses himself everyday. This picture shows his absolute favorite outfit of "favorite grey" pants and elephant shirt. If he could, he would wear it everyday. The other day he put on a red American flag T-shirt and red pants. Five minutes later he came out of his room wearing the same shirt with jeans.

I asked him, "Bradley, what happened to your red pants?"

He metrosexually replied, "I can't wear two reds."

I think most good mothers try to monitor the amount of television their children view. I have yet to determine how much is too much. I typically justify that if I am sitting on the couch with them, then that time spent is not allocated towards "too much." Today as I was trying to clean up lunch and the plucked purple grapes scattered on the kitchen floor, the kids were mesmerized by the current episode of Dora. To pull them away from the TV, I decided to engage them in an active learning activity of sorting the Halloween candy. My next goal is deciding how much is too much sugar.

Happy 2nd Birthday Sarah!