I read a short story with Emily about giraffes. It said giraffes only need one hour of sleep each day. I quizzically asked Emily how many of hours she sleeps each day. She laughed as if I were kidding and said, "None! I don't sleep in the day."

I just wanted to show off my new toilet seat. Isn't it beautiful?

Scene of the day: naked Sarah balancing a six slice plastic pizza topped with a wooden egg atop her head. Or.....Emily tumbling down the stairs because she couldn't get her shirt over her head and decided to keep it there, clouding her vision while she walked down to request help from Mommy. Or.....baby Jason crying after he kicked the latched tray off his swing causing him to plop on the floor. Or.....Sarah's 5 inch long locks of hair sitting beside the sink due to her substitution of barbering for tooth brushing. Or.....the jinx moment when Daddy commented to Emily that she must be able to see inside his head and her reply was, "Yeah, and there's a lot of cobwebs!" Or.....Bradley eating his angel hair pasta dinner the entire time with a noodle on his forehead.

" It's a dinglehopper!"

"Last one to bed is a rotten egg!"
And off runs Sarah with a five pound dumbell.

I was working on blend sounds with Emily and Bradley today. For each blend we discussed, they would choose a word to spell containing that blend. We were working on the "sh" sound and Emily announced she was going to spell "shh" as in the "be quiet shh." Bradley followed suit, but he not being confident in his spelling, went to the bookshelf and pulled out the board book titled, The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone. He immediately turned to page three and counted the number of H's in the very prominent bubble letter text. He was quite satisfied when acclaimed Mr. Stone established that shhh has four H's.

O Christmas Tree

(solemnly)

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
How lovely were thy branches
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
How lovely were thy branches

'Tis now the time to take thee down
Before thee turns an ugly brown
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
How lovely were thy branches

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Without your lights you look so bare
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Without your lights you look so bare

I loved you so, you were mighty fine
I'll miss your shine and smell of pine
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Without your lights you look so bare

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Much pleasure didst thou bring me
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Much pleasure didst thou bring me

I fight the tears, just one last touch
Perhaps in Spring, you'll be my mulch
O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree
Much pleasure didst thou bring me

Goodbye, Christmas tree.

Parenthood brings occasions that you would never guess to expect. Tonight Bradley called me into the bathroom to tell me that his poop was stuck in his butt. As I approached the bathroom, my attention was attracted to a dark spot on the wallpaper next to the toilet. Upon closer examination I realized it was a chickpea sized lump of poop and a six inch downward smear of it. As the smear guided my eyes downward, I also caught a glimpse of a chunk on the baseboard behind the trash can. Obviously Bradley had used his finger to try to emancipate the fastened feces, and simply trying to shake it off his finger did not prove effective. After I explained that poop on the walls was unacceptable, I introduced the word "dingleberry" into his vocabulary and exited the room to retrieve a wipe for the wall and baseboard. As I walked away I heard Bradley penitently say, "Sorr-rry. Sorry for getting poop on the wall."

The fake farting contagion has advanced itself into the innocence of our poor 18 month old Wendy. Tonight I witnessed her assume the partial squat position with her rear appearing to be aimed at something or someone, possibly a brother or sister, and remove the pacifier from her mouth. She then attempted to use her mouth to imitate the classic whooppee cusion reverberation. I gave her a score of about a 6. With some teeth and practice she will be up to par with her siblings. Oh, she so ignorantly looks up to them!

I wonder how many once-soggy, crusted Cheerios I have dislodged from my tiled kitchen floor with my big toe?

Watching a movie.

Loose Teeth (Emily)

New Teeth (Wendy)

I don't think my kids have quite caught on to the the Lincoln Log concept yet. Today they piled an assortment of Lincoln Logs in the middle of the room and played "campfire."

Our kids are experiencing a hopefully brief obsession with bodily functions. Everything is fart this, fart that, burp this, burp that, stinky butt, pull my finger, and the new expletive is "poopy diaper." Understandingly so, they are extremely offended when called a "poopy diaper." Today Bradley was playing pooping matchbox cars and and I firmly stated, "Stop talking that way. It isn't funny!" He looked up at me, seemingly unaffected by my disapproval, and confidently replied, "It's funny to us." and resumed his playing.

Operation "Oven Escape"

Evidence of an unsupervised 18 month old older sister. But Jason takes it all in stride.