Scott's Urgent Message

Here we go again! Scott starts crying. I look at him and he's got his little index finger hyper-extended and jabbing the air. He's got his bottom lip jutting out a mile. And he's making sounds that are a combination of forced crying and incoherent babble (lots of "yah" and "nah" noises). If it's really bad, he proceeds to run up to me and try to hide/slam his head into my legs. He's trying to tell me something, but what? This is Scott's version of a tattletale. His finger is pointed in Claire's direction.

Scott still doesn't really speak at all. Somehow I always thought that I'd only have to deal with the bane of tattling with children who speak, but I was wrong. Scott has mastered the art of tattling without speech. I keep trying to tell him that his tattletales will be much more effective if he learns to talk, but he's too busy tracking Claire with that accusatory finger...

Bite Marks on the Blinds

I'll never forget the shock and horror. It was about 6 months ago. I went into Claire's room to get her after she was done with nap time (READ: after we spent a half hour or so with her wreaking havoc in her room and poking her head out the door every 23.4 seconds to ask if nap time was over). I looked at how much she had bent the slats of the aluminum blinds (don't you just love cheap apartment blinds?). I got a little annoyed and started to try to bend them back straight. Then I saw them. Bite marks on the blinds. "CLAIRE!!! WHY did you BITE the blinds?" What was wrong with my child? What would posses her to bite long thin strips of aluminum? I can straighten plain old creases fairly well, but bite marks linger...

Fast forward to the present. When we moved into our house, I noticed that the blinds in Claire's room are a little mangled in one corner. As look more closely, I realize they appear to have been bitten. The effect is different (they're vinyl) but just as unsightly. HOORAY! The previous owners had a 4 year old. Maybe my child is not the only freak who will bite blinds. Sure the blinds I have taken ownership of are ugly, but I take such comfort in the idea that someone else's kid appears to have a similar window covering mutilation fetish. But then I remember: The previous owners also had a dog. Ah, well, that just brings us back to my previous post...

Simultaneous Pottying

Well, we're finally in the house now. I don't know that I'd go so far as to say that we're "moved in," but all our furniture is here and we sleep here now. I only brought the computer over from the apartment today - FINALLY. We're loving living in a house though. When we first started spending time at the house, Claire discovered that there was a bathroom downstairs and one in Mom and Dad's room. Two bathrooms! I had to show her that in fact there are THREE!!! I walked her around and showed them all to her. She counted them with me and was ecstatic. So then one time when M was using the master bathroom and I was using the downstairs bathroom, Claire announced that she needed to go too. She ran off to the hall bathroom upstairs exclaiming, "We can all go potty AT THE SAME TIME!!!" So there you have it, we have achieved the American dream: the ability for 3 members of our household to pee at the same time!

Too Serious

G: Claire, let's wear your new dress today.
Claire: No, I don't want to.
G: But it's green, that's your favorite color!
Claire: I don't want to wear it.
G: But it's your new dress we got at Target.
Claire: NO!
G: Why don't you want to wear it? What's wrong with it?
Claire: The buttons.
G: What about the buttons?
Claire: It's too serious...

HUH?!?!?

Frazzled...

I see Scott with a crayon.

I begin calling out to M in a panicked voice: "Take that...Cl...Sc...hu-yah.... GET THAT OUT OF HIS HAND!"

I think I'm frazzled because I've begun speaking with inarticulate exclamations. Why didn't I just get up and take the crayon from Scott instead of just grunting away like some paranoid neanderthal? We're moving to the house in less than 60 hours (but who's counting?). I'm really starting to worry that we won't be ready. This nagging worry is a big blow to my deep set belief that with enough preparation and planning, any event can go smoothly. I mean, why should I be stressed about being "ready"? We have our apartment for a little over 2 weeks after we move our furniture over to the house. That should be ample time to take trips in our van to get anything that isn't ready on moving day.

Clearly there is a rule that supersedes my planning theory: Moving always sucks.