Poor Wesley!

Imagine a girl named Kyla standing on Daddy’s leather chair, holding a standing Wesley against her, both of them facing the ottoman.  I remind her that Wesley moves around by himself so she didn’t need to do that.  She replies, “Oh, but we’re just jumping.”  Then before I could say anything, she takes a flying leap onto the ottoman with Wesley still in her arms.  She makes the distance, but because of Wesley’s weight, they land on their tummies, not their feet.  If you are picturing the scene, you know that 40 lb Kyla landed on 20 lb Wesley. 

That boy looked at me and grinned.  How did he not get royally trounced?

 

Go forward 2 hours.  Same grinning boy is toddling around upstairs and falls, smacking his head right on the edge of a stool.  It’s going to be a black eye.  It hurts and he cries for quite a while.  (It’s kind of hard to see with all the smoothie juice on his face.)

 

Go forward 12 hours.  Dwayne gets up and takes snotty-nosed Wesley into the shower with him.  While Dwayne has his eyes closed, Wesley somehow hits his head on the wall, right above yesterday’s injury. You can barely see his blackeye for his new cut.  Oh boy, my boy, I am sorry!

I swear my kids have to start off brilliant because the best we can hope for is that by the time they are school age, they will be down to normal intelligence.

Craft Time

Auntie Cheryl got Piper a kit of paper bag animal puppets.  It’s been a huge hit already!

Each animal has a bag, punch outs, and stickers to decorate.  It kept the three of us busy for a long time and made minimal mess, even with the glue stick.

Piper chose to make the frog.

 

 

And Kyla loved the cow!

 

Thanks, Cheryl!  These were a hit!

This Day SUCKS!!!

Sure, it’s Valentine’s Day.  And Piper’s actual birthday.  But it’s also a day that by the bedtime, I have attempted to put Wesley down 9 times, all unsuccessfully.  So he, for the only time in his life thus far, has had no nap today. 

This is also a day that after a week of asking and asking and demanding that the girls clean up their room after quiet time, I had run out of all my tricks but one.  (For the last few months, the girls both have cleaned up their rooms great, putting toys back in the right boxes, books on the shelf, etc. But then they stopped cold turkey, like “clean up” was a drug they needed to purge.)

Two hours after quiet time was over and Kyla was still in her room (because she wouldn’t clean it) I put two storage containers in her room and let her know she needed to put her toys where they belonged or I would clean up toys for her.  Whoever cleaned up the room got to keep the toys. 

I barely got the lids on both of those containers before dragging them into the garage.

This was also the day after a nonstop weekend that had no regrouping time in it for a devout introvert (that’s me).  

So it was about 3 o’clock or so, after giving up on Wesley’s fifth naptime attempt that I screamed—within 10 feet of all three children, not behind closed doors—“This day SUCKS!!!”  This is not a word I want to input into their vocabularies, but occasionally I like to share feelings with my children.  It helps them remember I am not just a robot slave programmed for their convenience.

St. Dwayne eventually came home with Valentine’s gifts for us all and the day finally ended, as all days are wont to do if you give them enough time.  24 hours, to be exact.

The End.

Epilogue.  As proof that all the kids survived the day, here is Dwayne reading them bedtime stories. He had already gotten Wesley down to sleep. 

 

The Final Score:

Wesley 9

Mama 0

Daddy 1

She’s Fwee

Piper is all but three (again, the slightly early celebration).  After the zoo, the family came over for bacon burgers and blue-frosted cake. 

 

That’s MY kid!

 

Yep, MINE.

 

Wesley played the part of Godzilla.

 

Kyla played with bags.

 

My dad made these two puzzles for Pipes.  The second is a picture he took at the Pt. Defiance Zoo on a trip with the girls.  Pretty cool, huh?

 

I have a lot to say about a 3-year-old Piper, but should sleep for at least a week before I tell tales on her.

For Your Viewing Enjoyment, I Present to You...

the Tree Shrew, my favorite animal at the zoo.  (S/he's right next to the meerkats.)  I call him/her Scrat, because she is the living model of the acorn-minded prehistoric chimpmunk in the Ice Age movies.

Piper’s Birthday Adventure

One of the (ahem, few) advantages of young children is that they don’t follow the calendar.  Sunday is a far more convenient day to celebrate a birthday than Monday, so Sunday it was. 

 

After church (an inconvenience on a birthday-of-convenience day), we went to the zoo and met some family there.  All my kids love the zoo and even though we go often, it is still a special treat, especially if  “Gamma” will be there.

 

Our biped.

 

Our tree-dwellers.

Outdoor Play

It’s not as warm as it looks, but sunny days in February are a soul-refreshing.  Piper and Wesley found a new game they both love.

 

Contemplative chewing on dirty toys. By Piper.

 

Kyla did not want her picture taken. Can you tell?

 

The sunsets have been more spectacular than my camera can capture.  I love this new front deck, though!