39 degrees and all's well!

He just spent about 45 minutes out in the backyard, periodically coming to the door to order a "hot dog on a stick" (sausage and pancake on a stick, really). He ate three of them while he was out there. He finally came in a few minutes ago, with a nose that had run all OVER his face, mud covered boots and frozen little hands - his mittens had gone AWOL within the first 10 or 15 minutes. He immediately climbed up onto the couch and wrapped himself up in the blanket. I think he's about to conk out now...

Lollipop on the windowsill.

There's a lollipop on the windowsill of Nate's window. It's on the outside of the windowsill. Nobody saw him do it, no one remembers finding the screen open. I HAVE however seen him stand on the corner of his changing table closest to the window, lean, stretch and bridge the gap with his body. He ends up at a 45 degree angle, almost fully extended, with his hands propped on the window sill, feet planted on the changing table. I can only assume that he did this one day when his window was left unlocked - pushed the window open, then the screen, chucked the lollipop out the window, and closed at least the screen.

Either that, or my dead grandmother is screwing with me. Again.

I've ordered enough Window Wedges to cover all of the windows in the house...we'll see how well they work.

Baby Out the Window!

So yeah, Wednesday was "one of THOSE days" for Matt. I'm basically okay now (I had an outpatient surgery done on Tuesday morning), throat is still sore (abraded, really, from the tube), I have headaches, and was running a slight fever yesterday. Oh, yeah - and I can't bend over, since all of the blood rushes to my head, my face turns bright red and the headache gets worse. I spent most of the morning hiding upstairs in bed and listening to Matt totally lose his sh*t with the kids and work. Somebody at work had tried to fix a problem - a problem that really wasn't a problem, blah, blah, blah. He was so angry he was sitting at his computer shaking. Throw in the fact that CW couldn't find clothing to wear, and SG was being a crabby butt, and WOW.

I came out of my room around 10, when Matt brought SG up to change him. I helped out with that, with the suggestion to dress him and send him out in the backyard. At some point during the conversation and fighting with SG, I jokingly said something about just dropping him out the window into the back yard. The noise that came out of Matt was made up of a giggle, a sob, and a growl. 8) He's wound a little too tightly right now...

SG spent some time out back in his house, yelling at me anytime I stepped away from the back door. He eventually came in with muddy shoes and proceeded to leave mud chunks everywhere. He was irritated with life, but luckily the recycling truck came by right then, and Matt called him to look at it.

A little bit later, (I'm out in the living room at this point) I hear Matt scrambling around, grumbling, muttering, grunting, and then I hear, "Baby out the window!"

I, of course, think he means that Screaming Genius did something to tick him off enough that he wants to toss him out the window. Apparently not. He had actually climbed out the open window (which had been opened so he could yell at the recycling guys), after sliding the screen out of the way. Matt was in the kitchen when he heard the noise and looked at the window to see a muddy sneaker exiting. Matt tried to grab him and pull him back in while SG was still in the rosebushes, but that didn't work. I think that's when he yelled, "baby out the window!" and ran out the front door to chase him down the street. I got out to the kitchen at about this point, and ended up hanging out the window laughing my ass off.

SG immediately tried to do it again when Matt brought him back in, it was such fun! :) I had to strip his sneakers and pants off because he was so muddy, and I didn't put another pair of pants on him. He eventually ended up in the backyard in a diaper and t-shirt, sliding down his slide.

Oh yeah, at some point when I was napping, CW came home, SG took his diaper off, She yelled, "Dad! He's got his penis out again!" and the diaper ended up being chucked out the kitchen window (by SG) and into the bushes in the front yard.

Matt told me that if I wanted him to stay home Thursday I needed to not hide in our room... :)

If the circus music fits...

Oh wow. Total flashback to the first time Matt met my sister's family. My nephew was 5 and lying on the floor of the living room, and my niece, 11 months, was bouncing up and down on his head with a dirty diaper. He was screaming, she was cackling - it was hilarious.

It just happened here, only with CW and SG. :)

...and really, I wonder what exactly our neighborhood thinks of us. ALL weekend long the sounds coming out of the house have been, well, interesting to say the least. Insane laughter, screaming, crashes, more screaming, all against a background soundtrack of circus music. I can't find anything in particular to write down here, mostly because it's all a blur. SG really got to Matt this weekend - mostly by being his usual nutty self (but amped up like he was on crack). Matt even took a headbutt to the mouth today, resulting in a fat, cut lip - which apparently made dinner a problem, "Tabasco BURNS!"

CW continues to destroy Matt's reputation on Facebook today by posting a quiz. It was a bunch of math problems - addition mostly, but with really big (6 digit) numbers! 8) She found some other game, in which she exterminated an entire galaxy before moving onto another galaxy and winning a medal for taking out two aliens with one shot. Yeah. She was keeping Matt updated on what she was doing, and at one point I asked him what she was doing and he giggled something about genocide...

There was one point today when Matt turned up the music in the kitchen, and grinned, "Isn't it great I can't hear th--,"
CRASH! "Mo-om! He's throwing stuff at me!"
So I turned the music up louder, and the two of us stood there giggling like loons. A couple of minutes later, CW came running in, brandishing a diving stick and panting, and slammed the gate behind her. Matt started cackling, "You're in here hiding from him too!"

Bedtime came around 7pm tonight...

Thankfully we didn't break the space shuttle.

So, Sunday morning we went to visit the Udvar-Hazy Annex of the Air and Space Museum. We figured it wouldn't be a complete disaster with 4 adults to keep an eye on CW and SG (mostly for him). We had SG wearing the monkey, because neither one of us wanted to have to explain why he was IN the Space Shuttle, or a helicopter, or climbing on top of the SR-71. He was basically fine for a while, we ran rather quickly through the floor displays on the right side of the building, and then he charged into the space wing, dragging me, and leaving everyone else behind. He kept trying to get past the "ropes" around each exhibit, frequently getting to the other side before we could retrieve him.

CW had been DYING to go on the flight simulators, so Jim went with her to see how much they were going to cost. Somehow, Peggy and I ended up on a balcony/walkway above the simulators - conveniently out of reach, so Jim ended up taking CW on the blue simulator. Matt had SG and was wandering around over on the left side of the museum. They eventually came back while CW and Jim were still on the simulator, and we were all watching the footage of what they were seeing on the ride, since our positioning above and behind afforded us a clear view of the computer terminal's screen. We went downstairs to join them when they finished and Matt ended up taking CW on another simulator. Jim stayed with them and Peggy and I tried to keep SG away from the golf carts parked under the stairs.

That didn't work at all. He kept circling back to them and climbing past the barriers. Finally he pitched a fit in the middle of the floor, so Peggy and I stood there next to/over him and just gabbed, since he was being pretty quiet about the whole thing and only occasionally attempting to kick me. He laid there for a while, long enough to afford the small group of Asian tourists who went by a good giggle. Good enough in fact, that one of them came back and asked (with gestures) if he could take a picture of SG on the floor. Then he took a picture of all three of us standing there. Excellent - international notoriety for his tantrums, just what I'd hoped for!

Finally we tried to take him upstairs. Which sort of worked. I took him up, and he laid down again in protest, so I tucked him up against the bottom of the railing and stood over him so that we were out of the public's way. Jim and Peggy had stopped on the landing to look at an exhibit, so we just chilled out for a minute. I heard his shoe velcro being opened so I checked to see if I was in danger of him lobbing or dropping it over/through/under the railing. Nope it looked fine, so I relaxed and didn't bother to fight him to keep his shoes on.

*thunk, flump*

I looked over the railing in puzzlement at the Cessna below and what did I see but my son's sneaker on the floor next to the plane, still inside the restricted area. In horror I looked at the railing again - there was enough room between the floor and the bottom of the railing for him to get his shoe through, I hadn't seen it at first. At this point he's in a good mood and grinning, and I'm in shock, seriously - WTF do I do now (I'm still out of breath from carrying the struggling boy up two flights of stairs in the first place)? I called Matt's phone (which I found out later was locked in a locker in prep for the simulator they were about to board) and didn't get an answer. I called Peggy's phone and asked her to have Jim go retrieve the sneaker. I looked down and noticed a bare foot waving around. Where the hell is his sock!? I mentioned to Peggy that the sock might be down there too, and then I saw it about 8 feet away from us, right next to another lady standing at the railing. I told Peggy to never mind about the sock and hung up. I went over and grabbed to sock, excusing and apologizing the whole way. The woman cracked up and told me that hers had been just as bad. I grinned and said, "Really? They threw shoes over the railing and onto planes too?" Her eyes got wide and she looked over the railing, started laughing and said that no, they hadn't been quite that bad.

At this point I'm standing there alternating between looking over the railing, and looking at Peggy, who was over on the stairs. One of the times I looked over at her a gentleman on his way over to me caught my eye and asked if I needed any help. I stared at him for a few seconds, and said, "James Rosen?" He nodded, grinning and asked again if I needed any help. Being COMPLETELY flustered at this point, I told him no thank you, my father in law is getting the shoe, and waved him off.

By the time we got back into the car to leave, we'd only been there for 2 hours. oy.

End of an era...

The crib that converted to a toddler bed that BOTH kids used is now gone. Friday morning I went in to get SG, and noticed a wingnut on the floor. Not good. I flipped up the mattress to see where it was from and maybe put it back. No dice, several pieces were missing, and he'd started dismantling the springy-net-thing that the mattress actually lays on. This is apparently what he's been doing when we find him lying under the bed like a mechanic under a car. We've been expecting him to take something apart like this, so it's really not a surprise. We used to find Maddie unscrewing nuts and bolts from the coffee table at about this age too...

So, since that morning happened to be bulk trash pick up day, we took it apart (saved the really good hardware) and chucked it. It's been through two kids, one of whom was not delicate, and had been put together and broken down at least 4 times that we can remember. It was time.

We left his mattress on the floor, not that he sleeps on it. He's been sleeping in my mom's upholstered rocking chair for at least a couple of weeks now...

Plus we took out the other mirrored closet door and chucked that, rather than waiting for him to break it...so he has no closet doors now...

Five Little Pumpkins - A recitation.

Posted on Photobucket

Free the Pee!

Matt mentioned that Nate sat on the toilet at the playroom last night, mostly (we assume) because he saw other kids doing it. We were kind of delighted, but didn't really make a big deal of it, didn't think it would amount to much, although it had potential.

This morning he had managed to take off his diaper while still wearing his footie pajamas, and THEN stripped out of the pjs. I had him sit down on the potty, and wandered off myself to the bathroom. I came out a couple of minutes later and he's dancing in front of the potty, pointing, "Pees in the potty!! Wook at da potty!"

I immediately started cheering and dancing, congratulating him...then I slipped in a puddle. He only got a small part of the pee into the potty - suddenly I'm thankful for this floor that I'm going to get rid of. We called Daddy and Grandma and Grandpa on the phone to tell them all that he'd peed (sort of) in the potty...

Re-post from my LJ in July...

July 7, 2009

Up at 6.
In the shower with Nate.
Get Maddie up and through the shower.
Everyone dressed and ready to leave by 7:45.

"Nate, it's time to go! Want to go outside? Come on..."
"Mom, he's outside already."
"WHAT!?"
"See, there he goes...!" He was running back and forth between our house and Sylvia's.

Drop Maddie at Tennis and Gymnastics at 8am.
Go to SAM's. Where we spent 15 minutes or so trying out ALL of the furniture, then got sucked into WALL*E in HD on a 52" screen. Grand. Only the promise of looking for cookies got us away from the tv. He tried to get into the freezers several times, tried to hide in a dresser at one point. I had a panic attack when I couldn't find the generic diapers (they'd changed the packaging entirely). Checked out, Nate threw his cookie. I picked it up, threw it out and got a napkin. Meanwhile he's climbing out of the cart (he'd been standing IN the cart since we got the cookies), and panicking the employees. He's good at it, and got himself down without mishap, so I handed him the receipt to show the guy at the door. He ran up to the guy waving the receipt, which cracked the guy up.

Went to WalMart, where he fought me about being in the cart, and somehow managed to smack his face on the cart, so he's got a nice shiner under the right eye now (a WONDERFUL addition to the scrape under his nose from a face plant on the tennis courts the other day, and the random scratch on his nose from yesterday). He had a bit (HA!) of a tantrum when I put him in the seat and buckled him, and spent the rest of the time alternately smacking my hands (or the cart handle if I got my hands out of the way in time) and screaming.

Got home at 10:30. Chilled out for a while, he played out back.

11:45 left to pick up Maddie (@12) from Tennis and Gymnastics (two week course). Thankfully there were no issues picking her up (which involves going into the recenter to get her) or getting him back into the car. Went to get lunch at BK, stopped in the municipal parking lot to eat. Let Nate loose in the car. He broke one of the vents on my dashboard and made the electric locks sound VERY troubled. Changed his diaper, and the fireworks began when I had to put him back in the seat.

1pm dropped Maddie at art class (we are SO not doing another round of art class next week), went home - mostly because I was exhausted.

Got home and tried to water my plants. Little boy ran out to the background, made a hard left and ran toward the road. I caught him about 3 houses from the road - only because he fell over. Maddie's new buddy H showed up at the door to play.

Watched some 101 Dalmations for a little bit, Maddie's buddy J showed up at the door to play, left at 1:45 to pick up Maddie.

Picked up Maddie at 2. Slipped and fell on my knee (thank you painted cement floor) when lunging to grab the door before Nate slammed it.

Came home, put him down for a nap, and ended up crashing for my own nap sometime around 3. Woke up after Matt got home, to H knocking on the door, and Nate poking at me.

Maddie put the laundry away (quickly for once) while H drew in sidewalk chalk on the front porch waiting for her (I keep it out there for that purpose). At some point we let Nate out in the back yard, and Matt was watching him from one of the side chairs in the living room. Maddie went out to get her bike, and apparently left the gate open - H poked his head in and said, "Maddie your little brother is out front!"

*sigh* "Thank you H!"

So she went out, and was riding bikes with H up and down the street, and Matt and I are sitting here when I asked what Nate was doing - assuming he was still out in the back yard. The back door was locked. *frown* Where is he?

The front door was open, again, Maddie had left it open (she is supposed to carry her keys when she goes out and lock the door behind her) Matt ran out, didn't see him, and ran upstairs to check. I went out to the background to look. Nope. Yelled to Maddie asking if he was out with them. Nope. Neighbor S heard me and stopped getting in her car. Matt ran out (no shoes, no phone) to look, I did a more in depth house check, since he likes to hide), stepped into shoes and ran out. I went out to the road, nope. Saw Matt running across the other end of the background by the playground. Walked back in the other direction toward the pool and stuff. Saw S several times during this - she was looking too, saw Matt do a little skip and run toward the pool house. A guy had found him at the basketball courts and had taken him over to the pool house looking for us.

He now has a Safety Tat on his arm with both of our cell phone numbers on it, and we're looking at Brickhouse child locators.

Is it bedtime yet?

Stairs 3, Lewises 0

Wow. It's been a while, hasn't it? Things got reeeally unfunny for a while there. Maddie threw herself down the stairs about 3 weeks ago, with little damage other than shock and an adrenaline rush - oh and bloodcurdling screaming.

Then Labor Day weekend, I burned my leg on the air compressor one day, then threw myself down the stairs the next. Big bruises. REALLY BIG bruises - but nothing broken.

Tuesday or Wednesday, he got out the back door into the yard and played on the deck with the hose (that he turned on) for a few minutes, just long enough to get soaked and freezing.

Last Thursday Nate stuck his hand on the burner not even a minute after I turned it off and removed the pan (so he wouldn't burn himself on the pan). He screamed for an hour, until the ER nurses wrapped his hand up. The ER doctor (the same one that we'd gotten when he tried to eat a christmas light) pronounced it second degree burns (all 5 finger tips) and that it could have been way worse. Wound check the next day (Friday) revealed that he didn't need bandages since the blisters were intact.

The blisters burst over the weekend, so he's bandaged up again.

He's talking a lot more lately - and every once in a while we can actually understand him! :)

The evening edition...

I just got my nightly phone call from CW.

"Why are you callin' me?"
*giggles* "Because I miss you!"
"Uh-huh. You only miss me because I'm not there telling you take a shower, wipe your bum and don't pee on the toilet seat."
*Outright laughter* "Mom! I don't pee on the toilet seat here -"
"Well good, but do you think you could refrain from peeing on the seat here?"

The conversation went downhill from there. :) She'd been watching the Spiderwick Chronicles and Mulgarath freaked her out. Commonsense Media says that it's fine for 8 years old, but after reading the books (before handing them off to her) I was wondering about the final fight scenes...especially since they freaked her out a bit in the books.

Apparently SG is so worn out on a daily basis out there that he's sleeping solidly - even taking naps during the day. Today Grandpa took him out on the golf cart, since he'd climbed up on it and put on Grandpa's hat. I asked Matt if there was a key or something that could be separated from the cart. Apparently everything he needs to run the cart is all right there. And he watched how to do it all, so I suggested the possibility of golf-cart abetted escape.

Matt's take on it was, "Well, he can't reach the pedals, so he can't go anywhere..."
"Honey, have you met your son? He seems to be lulling you into a false sense of security."

Entertaining the masses wherever we go...

So, the day we left, me for Detroit, Matt and Nate for CA, we all went to the airport together. My flight was scheduled for 12:16, and theirs was supposed to push back at 9:53am. We got there at about 7:45. We ended up having to wait for a bit to check my bag since it was more than 4 hours to departure of my flight, but the curb check guys took pity on us, and told us to go on in - they'd hold it off to the side for a bit then send it off into the system. Yay! I figured that we were SO early that even if they lost it like they did last year, they still had several hours to find it and send it on it's merry way, so I wasn't overly worried.

We went through security with very little problem - they'd directed us to the idiot - er, the family and handicapped security lane, so everyone was pretty relaxed - annoyingly so. Matt had checked the car seat with the other bags, so it was just the three of us, and 4 carry-ons...*frown*

We stripped down to get through security, and had to take Nate's monkey off of his back to send him through the metal detector. He stopped and put his hands up over his eyes (we refer to this as "putting on his goggles") and I had to give him a little push to start him through the metal detector. Once I got him started I was prepared to run after him, but he ran straight into the plexi-glass booth behind the TSA lady, you know, the one that they scan wheelchairs and stuff in? I started to get him out but she laughed and told me I could leave him there until I was done. YES!! He was totally corralled - three sides of plexi-glass, and the open end filled by a big (sweet) black lady! Happy dance! He stood there at the far end with his "goggles" on watching the TSA lady the whole time. We got our shoes back on, Matt put his belt back on, both laptops back into cases and the CPAP hand swabbed and repacked before getting Nate out.

About 20 or 30 steps past security, Matt's phone rang. We frowned at each other, and as he was pulling his phone out and mumbling, "That can't be good..." MY phone started ringing - confirming that it was United calling to tell us somebody's (likely Matt and Nate's) flight was delayed.

It got delayed 3 or 4 more times across the morning, and eventually *I* ended up having to leave *them* at their gate to get to the other end of the terminal to catch my flight in time. We killed time by having breakfast at Wendy's and watching the ground crews work, walked all over the place, shopped and broke stuff.

Yes, we broke stuff in the Airport. Some security person probably peed in his pants watching us on a surveillance camera. Do you know those lighted ad signs that are in the airports (and sometimes malls) that are basically a roll of ad posters that switch out every few seconds? Yeah. Nate opened one. He'd been really good up to that point, really he had. :) Neither one of us noticed that he was fiddling with something under the bottom of the glass until the glass popped open at the bottom and the ad posters started spilling out onto the floor. I became useless almost instantaneously because I was trying NOT to laugh out loud and blow whatever cover we still had. Matt frantically tried to push the paper back in (while trying to keep Nate from opening it again and getting into it) and close the glass but it wouldn't catch. At one point, the glass opened up to a 45 degree angle, and we thought we were going to have to just leave it. I managed to shove in the right place to get it to close finally, but the ads were screwed up - it was displaying the bottom half of one and the top half of the next one. 8) oops. We walked away quickly.

THEN we went into one of the convenience stores to get some battles of water. They were going to stay out of the store, but Nate followed me in, and since he was tied to Matt, obviously Matt came in too. I'd gotten the bottles and Matt and I were standing in one of the more open spot of the store, looking around to see what else we wanted. We decided we were done, and I realized that Nate had wrapped his tether around me so that I couldn't get out, and Matt wasn't paying attention. The lady behind the counter asked if I was done, and needed to check out, I grinned, indicated the problem and said, "I'll be there in a minute!" Conservatively, I'd say about half of the people in the store started giggling. Matt finally woke up and unwrapped us, then took Nate out. Adding to the fun I ended up with a defective bag that ripped, dumping the water bottles onto the floor as soon as picked it up. I just looked at the bottles and said, "Well THAT didn't work." The ladies behind the counter just lost it. Who knew I was funny?

I refused the apologetically choked out offer of a new plastic bag, and took my purchase and the remains of the bag out to a set of seats right there. I put my carry-on down, and put the bottles on the chair - where they promptly rolled off onto the floor behind the seats. By this point I was giggling and muttering to myself - it was all just a bit too much...

Taking the show on the road...

So, CW and SG are out in SoCal visiting my husband's side of the family. Usually I go on the annual pilgrimage, but this year Matt offered me the chance NOT to go. Did I jump on it? Hell yes!! Do I feel guilty about it, of course - I'm a mom. Did I even foresee that my eight year old would develop emotionally induced GI tract issues because she misses me? Nope.

Let me back up. My eight year old (CW) is frequently irritated with me, mostly I think because I make her do things, and I call Daddy on the carpet for spacing out and letting her slide on her chores. I frequently find that he's let her out to go play when there is OBVIOUS stuff for her to deal with in the living room, and I call BOTH of them on it. (I occasionally let her slide on her chores too, usually because I'm too tired to deal with the situation of trying to explain (for the 4000th time) why she has to do this, whatever it may be.) When she has ANY choice between Matt and I, she chooses Matt, even for something so simple as going with him to the other end of the grocery store. So, to be honest I never saw any of this coming - I was more worried about the two year old (SG) who seems to be completely off balance emotionally if he doesn't get his daily mommy laptime.

Why was I worried? Because somehow while we were booking the flights for them to CA, the week that Matt and SG were going to spend out there turned into two whole weeks. Stupid me didn't say anything about it because I felt guilty about not going out in the first place, and I didn't want anyone else's vacations crimped because *I* am unable to unwind when my children are about. Stupid. Stupid, Stupid, STUPID.

CW went out there by herself a week prior to Matt and SG. We'd shortened it to one week, because she'd had some homesickness, attitude and boredom issues during the two weeks she was there last year. As far as we can tell, she had a great time that first week. She didn't initiate any calls herself, but Grandma would grab her and have her talk to daddy on the phone if she was talking to Matt anyway. I don't think she ever asked for me, and I wasn't surprised (or upset for that matter - I just want her to enjoy being out there).

Matt and SG got out there LATE on Wednesday night after a hellishly long day of traveling, and Thursday was a do-nothing day. Everything seemed to be going fine until Saturday night (EDIT: I totally forgot about the calls AFTER midnight on Friday night). I started getting phone calls around 11:30, after E and I had gone to bed - which meant that I was in the basement, not getting good signal. Two calls from his cell phone, 1 from his sister's sell phone and one from his parent's house line later I figured out that I needed to drag my bum out of bed and go upstairs. Up to this point, Matt had been basically chatty, which vaguely annoyed my tired self, and made me NOT want to answer the string of increasingly irritating phone calls. Finally it turns out that Maddie was upset and wanted to talk to me, which was prefaced by Matt telling Maddie that Mommy was hanging up the phone before. This of course prompted, "I was NOT hanging up the phone you idiot! I had no signal!!" I was convinced by this time that he was drunk, or at the very least had heat stroke, because his brain seemed not to be connected to anything else. 8) So Maddie was upset, missing me and wanted me to come out there. We talked for a bit, and she was a little better, everyone went to bed. I did text him to say that if Maddie needed to talk to me to use MADDIE's phone, so I'd know SHE needed me.

Sunday I talked to Matt and he claims not to have been drunk, but simply forgetful. He thought that Detroit was in the Central time zone, and that it was ONLY 10:30pm when they called. Not that the timing made a difference since Maddie was the needy one, but still. Grr.

Sunday night, 11:08pm Maddie calls.
Monday night, 11:31pm Maddie calls.
Tuesday I was flying back from Detroit (and E's house) and I called them while I was waiting at baggage claim to see how everyone was doing at this point, since the morning had been...eventful. Matt had figured out Sunday that Maddie was, um, retaining, and we talked about what to do about it. I suggested bananas, since they've always moved right on through with her, and to hold the applejuice (our version of an ICBM) in reserve. So Monday morning she apparently still been sick to her stomach, completely not hungry and nothing had moved. So, my husband decided to give her apple juice.

Have I mentioned that they were going to the aquarium that day? No? Hmm.

I got a call Tuesday (late morning or early afternoon - I'm not sure which). Matt was waiting outside of a Target bathroom for Maddie, since they'd decided to stop and let her try. He thought that maybe an Icee would make her feel better and I agreed, thinking that if nothing else it might make her happier, and alleviate some of the symptoms. THIS is when I found out that he'd given her applejuice that morning and that there had been "some" diarrhea before they left for the aquarium. Truly, I married a genius.

Not long after that we talked (I don't know who called whom on this one) and she'd thrown up in the car. I just busted up laughing. They were stopping at another Target to get her some new clothes, at which point I suggested that he get her some new panties too, for insurance if nothing else.

I called from the Baggage Claim at the airport, and she was feeling crappy again, moaning and crying to me that her stomach hurt. I asked her to show daddy EXACTLY where it hurt and to have him tell me where she pointed, because at this point I was starting to suspect that maybe it was cramps. Nope. BUT talking to me for those 5 or 6 seconds made her feel better. I told Matt that I was pretty sure it was stress and being unhappy that I wasn't there. I asked what she'd been eating and it's nothing out of the ordinary. I asked if it had started before or after getting Mommy-sick, and it seems to have manifested the morning after the first time she got upset. Bingo. I suggested that whatever was planned for Wednesday needed to be canceled or extremely low key and close to home. I haven't heard from them yet today. :)

All Ahead Full!

I put him down for his nap today, and amazingly enough, he went down with no problem. About 15 minutes later he decided that he wasn't going to sleep right then, and I started hearing the normal complement of bangs, thumps and crashes, and the occasional (short lived or I'd have checked him) crying because he'd dropped something on himself. After a while I heard a weird crash over near the window, and I'm sitting here in the living room looking out the doors and wondering if I'm going to see him fall out of his window, and should I go check on him? A couple of seconds later I hear him talking through the A/C vents. He'd pulled out his floor register again, and was pretty obviously leaning in and talking into the ducts. :) I'll have to check and see what he's stuffed into the duct later...

When you have an explorer...

It's amazing, the number of POSITIVE reactions we get from people (particularly little old ladies - go figure) when we're out and about and Nate has the Monkey (Goldbug Harness) on his back. It's not simply a leash, and it's cute, so it *must* be okay, right?

Originally it was simply to keep him from running away, and he really would just pull on it constantly, and refused to hold our hands . NOW, we're working on using it as insurance, because he's way more willing to hold hands while we're out. We made it from one end of the mall to the other and back with no real problems - there were a few detours to go ride escalators, but no big blowups. Woo Hoo!

There were dust bunnies and broken pieces of plastic everywhere...

So, he quite literally threw a wrench into the Lasko untility fan at the bottom of the stairs this morning and killed it. He'd gotten hold of one of the numerous throwaway open ended wrenches that dome with different furniture products. He'd been playing with it nicely for a few days, so we weren't really paying attention anymore whenever he had it. Matt and I were in the living room when we heard the horrific crash and subsequent crunching noises. The poor fan was dancing all over the place and spewing entire flocks of dust birds up the stairs when I got there to try to turn it off. I dithered for a second, perhaps two, trying to be careful about NOT getting in front of the fan, in case something else shot out at me - like the wrench or a sharp piece of plastic (I'd spaced on the fact that I'd run past the wall outlet that it was plugged into). Nate had backed up into the kitchen to watch his creation with apprehension, and was standing there wide eyed, with his hands gripped together, when Matt came around through the kitchen and admonished him about putting things in the fans.

"Don't put things in the fan!! You broke it."

"Oh No! I Broka the fan!!"

Watch out for that first step!!

We took a section of the deck railing out today, and Nate immediately (almost, anyway) drove his cozy coupe off the deck and into the newly repositioned baby pool.


*rumblerumblerumblewoomp*
"Ow. Owwww!!"

His car was facedown, in the little green (empty) plastic pool, with him in it, and all we could see were his feet sticking out of the bottom of the car waving around in frustration. :)

Things I never thought I'd say to my kids...

Stop letting your brother out of the house, this is part of why we can't have a dog.
Put the coffee table down.
Don't throw the computer.
Don't pull on my ponytails.
Don't climb out the car window.
Don't climb trees when you're wearing a skirt.
Please don't electrocute your grandfather.
Please don't throw your boots over the fence.
Put your p***s away.
Get out of the freezer please.
Don't step on the Dirt Dog.
Stop pulling on the fireplace doors, we really don't need you to rip them out again.
Don't eat the lightbulbs.
Don't throw the vacuum.
Stop chewing on rocks.
My earwax is not, "Good!" Please stop eating it.

Spiderman or the Incredible Hulk?

People ask me, has he really defeated ALL of the childproofing measures in your home? Well, let's see, he climbs over gates whenever he wants to, opens the doors unless they are locked, works on door knob covers until the door opens, opens our back gate. Really, the only thing that's defeated him is the Tot-Lok cabinet locks. Yesterday he pushed something (it wasn't there when I discovered him, and I'm hoping he hasn't developed the ability to scale bare walls) over near the door, so that he could unhook a key chain that was close to 5 feet off the floor. Then he proceeded to try to unlock the deadbolt on the front door - I'm assuming from past performances that it was with the goal of getting out of the house. I did not hear ANY of this, and I was about 15 feet away, without a clear line of sight. What I finally heard was, "Ididit! Ididit! Ohohoh!!!" and him dancing and stomping in glee...

What I found was that he'd inserted the key for the storm door into the front door's deadbolt, and in trying to turn the key, had bent it about 30 degrees. Great. My dad suggested keeping a sturdy paper clip and superglue handy to remove the inevitable broken key from the lock, in addition to raising the key hooks some more. They're going to be on the ceiling pretty soon. 8)

Robocut, how I love thee!

We've established the fact that I can, on occasion, cut hair nicely. I've done all of Maddie's (with 4 or 5 exceptions) and all of Nate's cuts - with varying levels of success. I've even done a few of Matt's cuts - when he actually kept his hair long enough to have a style other than "Skinhead." The success of the cut does, of course, depend on my poor subject being willing to sit still long enough for me to accomplish this - I'm not fast with the scissors or the clippers. We used to stick Nate in the bathroom sink for his entertainment while I cut his hair, but the last several times, he freaked out horribly - screaming and fighting - causing me to essentially stop cutting his hair.

I finally got a Robocut. THAT is what I used to cut Maddie's hair into the Stephanie-from-Lazytown Style she's loving right now. Wow. We've even managed to cut Nate's hair with this thing in front of the TV, and he barely notices what I'm doing. Fabulous!

Although...I may well end up cutting all of Nate's hair off, because this is a lot of fun! I've already trimmed Maddie's style up, and she's only had it for about 3 weeks. :) Who wants a hair cut?

IbrokatheBEE!!

So. After the dirt bath and subsequent shower late this morning, we went to pick up Maddie at gymnastics. We wandered around Target for a little bit then came home. I went out (and locked the storm door) to water the front yard. Nate did his irate-kicking-of-the-door thing for several minutes, because I dared to go outside without him. A minute or two later, I hear a screech out of Maddie, and some frantic scrabbling with the storm door.

"Mom!!"
"What?!"
"Mom! There's a waspinthehouse!!! At least Ithinkit'sawasp! It'salittlesmallerthanawasp, butIthinkit'sawasp!" Concurrently:"'Sa Bee!! Oh No!" *Does his little dance*
"How did a wasp get in the house?! Where is it?"
"Idon'tknowbutIthinkit'sawasp! AnditREALLYfreakedmeout!"
"Really. Where is it?"
"It'soverbythedoor! Itmightnotbeawasp, maybeit'sahornet?"

They got over to the sliding glass door, and she's obviously freaked out, he's dancing and squealing, and I'm not seeing any wasp at all.

"Thereitis! Rightthere!"

"Maddie! That's a FLY!" Simultaneously, Nate is dancing and bending over to better see the (very normal sized) fly as it tries desperately to get outside through the glass. I looked around to find something to shoo it out the door with, and when I looked back, Nate had picked up a softball sized wiffleball. He smashed the fly with the ball, jumped back and started dancing and pointing again.

"Oh No! IbrokatheBEE!!"

...and he's just peed on the floor. Right after Matt took him in to the toilet too. grr.