Today the kids and I made laptop computers out of cereal boxes. Emily was excited to pretend it was Saturday and work on her computer.

The children often play for awhile after we put them to bed. We accept it as long as it doesn't get too unruly. Recently they have been playing dress up and will put on clothes from the girls' closet. Bradley has taken ownership of one of Emily's pink, flowered, button-up, Old Navy, collared, puffy-sleeved shirts. He wears it over his pajamas which I promise are masculine with either trucks, cars or Buzz Lightyear. I asked them why they like dressing up and Emily said, "We're pretending it's Bradley's birthday and we are going to a party where the boys wear girl jackets." Sometimes I wonder where kids get these imaginations!

Tonight I was doing laundry upstairs for about an hour after the kids were supposedly tucked in bed. On my way downstairs, their door was closed and the light was on. I opened the door, peeked in, and found only Wendy looking a little bored in her crib. It seemed unusually quiet and I was frightened to check the bathroom where I suspected they were getting into trouble. Three small children with access to water on a second floor, especially when your house is for sale, can be a dangerous thing. So I cautiously opened the door to find the very small bathroom filled with 8 large pillows and all three children quietly and busily scrubbing away with sponges and soap at the sink and toilet. Bradley was wearing his favorite cross-dressing shirt, Emily was wearing a Cinderella hooded sweatshirt, and Sarah was wearing a much-too-small infant bathing suit hooded coverup. I was puzzled at first why they would be cleaning at their own goodwill, but apparently, according to their responses, that is what you do when you go exploring and find sponges.

Last night Emily came into our room and sweetly told me that she had wet her bed. I was unusually patient with the situation and helped her get changed. I commented that she hadn't wet the bed in a long time. She responded by saying, "Yeah, I thought I drooled, but then I realized my panties were wet."

About two weeks ago I was working with the older kids on object graphs. We were using large Lego blocks to graph the color of fruit loops. 2 year old Sarah joined us but was more interested in eating the fruit loops and having the Lego blocks talk to each other than joining us in our learning activity. However, tonight she demonstrated her subconcious listening skills when she built a single tower of randomly colored Lego blocks and proudly exclaimed, "Mommy, look at my graph!"

The other day when I was getting Emily out of the bathtub I commented on how skinny her five year old legs were. She said, "Why? Yours aren't." Kids can be brutally honest. But hey, I am 8 months pregnant! Give me a break, kid.

One day Bradley decided that baseball was his favorite game despite the fact that neither David nor I are sports fans. Apparently he likes the looks of a baseball. Today David took Bradley outside to play some baseball in the yard along with Emily. Shortly after they went outside Bradley came walking in the door and I commented, "That was quick!" Bradley replied cheerfully, "Yeah, I'm not very good at my favorite game."

Ok. Ok. Ok. I know I am a terrible blogger. My fans are threatening to boycott my website if I don't keep up with it. I have had a request for more stories about poop. That usually is not difficult, but today I was dealing with barf. Emily had a short-lived stomach virus or something. However she did poop this afternoon while I was on the phone with my dad. He asked me if I would look something up online for him while he was visiting my internet deprived 86 year old grandmother. I told him I would in a minute because I had a hiney to wipe. I failed to mention it was Emily's hiney that I was wiping and as I flushed the toilet it occurred to me that I better clarify that to him. I think he was relieved to know I was not pooping while on the phone with him. That would just be weird.

My husband is in the process of kicking his Coke habit. He went a whole day without it today. I'm so proud of him. It saves us a lot of money. Sometimes he has a little bit at work. He is trying to set a good example for the kids at home. Addictions can be so horrible. We keep a little bit on hand in the house just in case of a super urgent craving, but we try not to break into it unless he's desperate. We also buy it when we have house guests because we don't want to be boring hosts. Water can get pretty boring to drink. Oh did I mention that was Diet Coke?

Bradley is Mr. Independent. He is a 3.5 year old who is very good at doing things on his own. Today he was thirsty for milk and hungry for yogurt. So he opened the refrigerator, got out a half -full gallon of milk, a container of yogurt, and grabbed a spoon out of the drawer. He unloaded and named each item as he placed it on the kitchen table. "Spoon, yogurt, milk." Then he placed his finger to his mouth and said aloud, "Hmm. I'm missing something. I know. A cup!" Then he walked over to the cupboard and climbed on the counter and got his Spiderman cup. Bradley will make a good husband someday.

Today was the first bath Wendy has taken without crying.

Today we got home from church to find that Emily wasn't wearing panties under her dress. Unfortunately some things get overlooked when you have lots of small children.

And you thought you had a bad day!

Childhood fun!

Tonight the kids were taking a bath. Sarah had a watering can and was watering Emily. Emily slowly stood up and exclaimed, "Look, I'm growing like a flower!" Then Sarah watered Bradley as he was lying down in the tub. He exclaimed, "My penis is growing!"

Wendy's First Birthday

My 30th birthday.

Today is the day before Nana goes home. We went to the mall today and I had the opportunity to go to Motherhood. It's been labeled by my kid's as "Mommy's Store." As we walked toward the fitting rooms Bradley impulsively barged in on a woman changing. Embarrassed, I apologized and quickly hid in my own dressing room. Nana remained outside and kept her eye on the stroller while I tried a few items on. In the fitting room beside me there was another woman trying on clothes. She also had her family and 3 children there. All I could hear while I was changing was Bradley loudly announce to his siblings that the mommy had "big boobies." He continued to repeat his observation and giggled as he said it. Later I asked my mom what exactly was going on outside the fitting room. My mom verified that the woman was very voluptuous and was trying on a dress that accentuated her womanly features. The 7 year old brother in the family said, "He's nasty!" But hey, what do expect from a 3 year old that has a mommy with small boobies?

I checked on the kids before I went to bed and I found Wendy in her crib like this. She somehow managed to unscrew her bottle lid. The bottle was off her arm by morning.

Today Sarah took off her diaper while watching Pinky Dinky Doo. Emily came to tell me she had to show me something. The cushions were off the couch and and there lay Wendy reaching for a freshly outputted poop. While I was cleaning it up Emily said to me, "Mommy, when I have cheese in my mouth and I smell poop it makes me choke."

Occasionally my kids will accidentally spill their cereal and milk onto the table. The frugal and lazy mom I am, I usually put the cereal back in the bowl, grab a Bounty quicker-picker-upper, soak up the milk and squeeze it back into the bowl over the cereal. Does that make me a bad mom?