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| They put all the balls as "bubbles in the bath". It does look like Ethan's baby bath |
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| Whitney sitting on dump on ex wood chip pile spot |
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| Close up of Whitney on Dump with Tucker in the background |
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| Tucker insisted that I didn't take a photo of him on his dump, like Whitney. His cheesy smile |
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| A button parking spot for Bertie the bus |
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| Filling "snort" up with buttons. Snort, as in Snort in Are You My Mother. Whitney in the background making a parking spot for Bus with big buttons, since Bus is big |
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| This is at a power plant of all places. The flowers there were incredible and the playground was really fun, too. Papa snatched these pics while they were running barefoot in the grass. This was back in August. This picture makes Jeremy and I laugh because of the crazy look of Whitney's arms. I have no idea why she runs like that. |
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| Tucker saying hi to Baby Brother on the picnic blanket. Ethan was 2.5 months old. |
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| Ethan three months old showing off the fat |
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| Watching Jesus movies on the ipad in a different position to get full use of the box |
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| I love the sweetness of this moment of them just being together. At the power plant |
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| Jeremy trying to take a picture of the bees on our lavender in our yard. This one turned out pretty cool. |
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| Watching Curious George together. Tucker and his silly faces |
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| Huh? Future facial expression of a teenager. And a cute one of Whit |
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| Mommy with her boys at the power plant. Check out these flowers! |
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| Whitney and her pink bread. She also had pink milk to go with it. |
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| Whitney and Tucker trying to get the snap dragon flowers to talk. I showed them how to make them talk and they were so fascinated by it. More flowers at the power plant place |
This week I finally finished moving that mountain of wood chips. I never thought that mountain would move. I pretty much moved it myself. Jeremy moved a few wheel barrel loads and my mom did a chunk out of it, but for the most part I did it with Tucker and Whitney either looking on or helping me by loading up their dumps or wagons. Now. On to the next project of painting the trim in my room. That ought to take another 2 months or so.
Whitney wasn't so excited about the moved dirt pile. She asked why I was taking down their dirt pile. But it worked out because she liked helping me tape the room in preparation for my next project that will only take forever to get done. She was actually really good at it. I didn't need to re do what she did. I was pretty impressed with my perfectionist and observant daughter.
We are back to rainy day activities indoors. AAAGGGHHH. It has been pouring buckets and buckets of water for the past three days. In case anyone is wondering where their relief from summer is. It is here. Come and get it. Lots of puddles. Thank heavens, though, it hasn't been too cold and we've been getting outside between downpours for the puddles.
Whitney asked for her Meow meow umbrella and splashed around a bunch. Tucker didn't want to get wet, so he drove his bike around in the dry part under the house. He can do it if he pulls a tight circle. But it seemed to help just to get out.
We now officially have resident deer. They sleep in our backyard in the woodchip piles Jeremy put back there. I guess they like that plus my hydrangea flowers and roses I have back there. Or used to have back there. Grrrrr. Sammy and Rocky did help around the house. They kept the food (and ants) off the kitchen floor and the bunnies and deer out of the backyard. But no longer.
I invited a friend over the other night and the deer were chilling in our yard. She loved it. She exclaimed "you have a zoo in your yard!" I was talking about how it is probably because of the apple trees nearby and my roses. She was surprised. She thought deer ate nuts. I wish. It was kind of fun to explain all the things that deer eat. She had no idea. I refrained from complaining about how I really hate how they eat my tulips and would like to get a bb gun out during the spring to scare them off, but we live in city limits. This same friend was also surprised about how big my backyard is. She commented that it was big enough to build another house for my parents. I commented that is true, but the city wouldn't allow it. She was confused. She asked if it was our property. I told her "don't ask". I didn't feel like explaining to someone whose primary language is Japanese the nuances of city zoning restrictions. Not to mention when you start explaining things like that and you get looks like, why are things like that, you realize how crazy it really is.
Back to Tucker and Whitney. Whitney started not helping with clean up and Tucker only helps with clean up with bribes of books or under strict attention. I realized it was because of the huge messes they were making. So I decided to put away almost all of their toys. I thought it would be really annoying because they would play less independently. It's not true. They play independently the same amount of time. Crazy. And it helps with the huge mess because I always have a bribe. If they want to get out any other of their toys, they have to clean up the current toys. They either go back to playing with the ones out (most of the time) or clean up. We are all much happier and less grumpy, to my surprise.
The other benefit was that I had to go through the toy closet to fit everything in there and found stuff we haven't played with in a long time, so we've been having fun playing with some stuff together that I don't let them play with on their own. That has let us have more interactive time. It makes me stop and slow down to be with them more.
They had a friend over the other day that is 2 and 1/2. I forgot my house isn't 2 1/2 year old proof. I have a sewing desk with stuff like scissors and needles and such in it. Tucker and Whitney don't play in it because it isn't new to them. But it is new to their friend. The three of them were playing very nicely in Tucker and Whitney's room and my friend and I got to talking. Until Tucker came in saying that his friend was "cutting up meow meow". Oh yeah. I hadn't taken the scissors out of my sewing drawers. Sure enough. I ran in there and she had the scissor in hand cutting up Whitney's Hello Kitty sheets. Whitney was standing there kind of in shock and dismay. I was just glad the friend didn't do any bodily injury to herself. Or find any of the needles or other stuff. Those things are all locked away now. And I'm glad that they come to me to let me know if something is not going right.
We had lots of fun on that rainy day playing buttons, making parking spots with buttons and house shapes out of buttons on a blanket. We also have gotten back into playing the piano and painting. Tucker remembered where a C is on the piano from a previous discussion, so I'm going to keep introducing concepts and see if he stays interested. He always likes to pick songs out of the song books. I also let them have the balls out. What a huge fun mess all over the house. They decided to put away the balls one by one by putting each ball in their mouth, crawl over to the bag and spit it out in the bag. That was a huge trial of my patience. But they completed the entire clean up that way.
I'm not sure I blogged about the power plant we went to back in August. It was a beautiful place with lots of flowers. We also stopped at this small Mexican store for dinner. It was actually a really good dinner. Jeremy bought us quesidillas that were really yummy. Whitney helped him shop a bit. I had sent them in to get dinner while I fed Ethan in the car. When I went in they had gotten pink strawberry quick milk and a big pink Mexican sweet bread. Jeremy said he put that huge thing back twice, but Whitney kept putting it in the cart, so on the third try he obliged. Tucker got a brown one to match his brown milk, but took one bite and didn't eat the rest of it. Whitney downed the thing. We also had to get diapers for Ethan because I forgot again to add diapers to the bag. These were special diapers though. When we got home, they had the Mexican store smells infused into the diapers. I smelled the store for the month that the diaper package lasted.
Before the rains came, they were having lots of fun in their tree. I heard them saying things like "I hear the thunder coming!" and then they would run into their house. I shocked them a bit by sitting in the tree with them a few times. That was fun for them and me to play the same games. They also asked me to clean up their bird house by raking all the leaves out that they pulled off. There were some sticks in the clean up that were the "worms" I needed to feed them. Then, when I gave them paint brushes and water, they painted their nest "bright and shiny" just like their dumps.
Whitney melted my heart by staying by me and mimicking my behaviors in a good way. She has liked "staying by you, Mom." this past week, which I have loved. She helped me fold laundry for a bit while she was near me and helped me move a few loads of wood chips, too.
I made bean dip for dinner one night. Tucker got really excited about it and exclaimed "Mom! That's delicious food. I'll eat it all!!"
Some fun family time that I don't want to forget is when Jeremy came home to show them blowing toothpicks in a pan of water. They loved it. Jeremy said it was a joke where you splash the water in their face while they were blowing the sticks. He decided to leave that part out. Then we watched the Mahnamahna video from Sesame Street and the aliens that discover the "bad baby". They stared at the mahnamahna video like it was weird. But then Whitney has been singing it off and on this week. Tucker picks that song out for me to play on the piano "because Whitney likes it". But they loved the alien videos. They thought the aliens were being silly and laughed a bunch. I had fun showing it to them since I'm a huge Muppets fan anyway.
It took me a really long time to learn how to park my van and I still have a hard time parking when I have to turn to the right to park. I keep having to check if I'm in the lines. So now they check for me and congratulate me on getting the car in between the lines all the time. I thought they might like to park their bikes and I was right. I had to draw a parking spot for Fiery, Henry, Whitney Dump, Tucker Dump, and Mop. If someone parked in the wrong spot, it was the start of a fight. They drew their own parking spot for Scoop.
They've had so much with Meow Meow this week. They went to Milli's to play and she has several kinds of Hello Kitty stuffed animals. Tucker picked a Christmas Hello Kitty because it had a scarf. Whitney picked a bee one. I think it was because it was smaller. Milli gave them each a "vacuum". She has two of those push noise maker toys, so she gave one each to Tucker and Whitney. Tucker told me to pick up Ethan's burp cloth so he wouldn't vacuum it up and told Whitney to clean up the toys so they wouldn't get vacuumed. Hmmmmm. Where'd they learn that? Meow Meow also helped get the vacuuming done. tucker was holding her so that she could push it.
Tucker got an earache this past week in conjunction with his increase in snot. One night he woke up moaning and crying in pain and pulling at his ear. He was also saying that "the bees are making honey in my ear". I told him I was going to get medicine for the pain. I gave him the children's Tylenol in the cup and he was about to pour the stuff straight into his ear. I had to show him several times to drink it. He wasn't processing my instructions too quickly and was very confused as to why he needed to drink it if the pain was in his ear. Finally he got it. I got him a rice heat pack in the meantime and got a Mommy sweet moment with that. He said thank you so very sweetly and full of sincere emotion. It made it worth it to be his mommy nurse.
He takes care of me, too, and helps me remember the rules. He fed me some bread the other day saying "I'll feed you your bread since you didn't wash your hands" He was right.
Tucker and Whitney have caught on to the idea of gentleman and lady lately. Not sure why they are into this, but I love it. Right now Tucker will say he is opening the door for Whitney because he is the gentleman. The other two times that have melted my heart is when he stopped mid wash of his hands, got off the stool and said "Oh! Ladies first" even though he was the one done first going potty and already washing his hands when Whitney was ready for her turn. He also hauled her church back pack into the house trudging through the downpour and puddles for her. It was so, so cute.
They are getting better at counting and can mostly count to 50. There are few skips in there and a few reversals of numbers, but for the most part they get the idea. They count lots of things. They also like to memorize recognizing favorite words. Like panda. If we read some words I write out on the driveway, they take the time to read the first letter and then they pretend to read the rest of the word that they have memorized. They are getting the idea and have some letter sounds down. One time Whitney "read" a sign for me. She pointed to a paper she was playing with and said "It says dead glow sticks: $1"
I was in a neighborhood of a friend the other day. It happened to be in the same neighborhood of another friend of theirs that has a trampoline. When we drove out of the neighborhood without stopping to visit the trampoline, Tucker was seriously upset. It took me a good 1/2 hour to calm him down about the whole thing. I guess he really likes the trampoline. I'm pretty sure he doesn't care about the friend, but definitely loves the trampoline.
They have been using the couch cushions to make Tucker, Whitney, or Mommy chocolate bread sandwiches. Or fish sandwiches for Tacky the Penguin to eat. The fish and the chocolate are us.
Something that got us all giggling was sticking the suction cup toothbrushes horizontally in the sink instead of vertically. It does look silly. They also figured out that soaking wet foam paint brushes stick on the side of the wall on the shower tile.
I tried painting with them this year. Yeah. Not going to happen with me alone. I got them all set up to paint in the shower, swimsuits and all, but that lasted 10 minutes. They really just wanted their swimsuits on, not to stay in one supervised location.
We went to the kids museum for an hour. They have this play dough stuff that looks like little tiny Styrofoam balls brightly colored. It kind of works like play dough in that you can shape it and pull it apart and such. Don't ever buy the stuff though, unless you want little tiny Styrofoam balls that are sticky everywhere. The cool thing though, is that Whitney sculpted a tree with it and it looked pretty much like a tree. Tucker did a tree, too. Or so he said. It was more of those modern art looking trees where you have to trust the cliff notes on the interpretation of it. Whitney definitely has a perfectionist streak in her and good observation skills at this age where she can mimic already created things.
Tucker really likes people and talking. Mina always comments how Whitney usually doesn't even give her the time of day, but Tucker usually says hi to her and will have conversations with her. He is like that with most people.
We went to a neighbor's house to visit. I thought the kid that is their age was home, but apparently she wasn't. No problem. Tucker was going on and on about Twilight sparkle this and Apple Jack that while working on the coloring book. My neighbor was commenting on "how verbal he is". Yes. He has a talent for being comfortable with people and social right away.
Tucker's expression that made me laugh this week goes like this "Whitney. You get enough and I get a lot" He was referring to how many of the plastic balls she got, but he also uses those phrases in reference to brushing his teeth. Mommy gives him "enough" toothpaste while Papa gives him "a lot"
My child that is her father's child said to me the other night "Mom. Don't lay on my pillow because I like it cold." That really made me laugh. The other day I was trying to get Jeremy to tell me why he always steals my pillow in the morning when I get up to feed Ethan. He finally told me it's because he likes cold pillows. They seem fresh to him. I can understand that. It's how I feel about cold toilet seats. Not fond of warmed seats, especially in public bathrooms. But I had to laugh that they like the same thing for the same reason, even though they both told me this without the other one hearing.
