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.