Practicing!

The little guy used to practice talking in his crib in the mornings. I'd hear him say "MOMMY, mommy, mommy, mommy" or "DADDY, daddy, daddy, daddy" and other cute little things like that.

Well, the baby is now practicing talking in the morning. She's absurd, and what I hear is "STOP IT!!" "NO" "NO... No No No No No" "SIT DOWN!" "LAY DOWN!" and "STOP IT!!!" It cracks me up! The first time she did it I went rushing in to their room to tell the little dude to leave her alone only to find him sound asleep, blissfully minding his own business. Poor guy.

Mimic

The baby has started wandering around with the phone to her ear saying "Hello?" just like her brother used to do. Here she is having a very serious conversation about something.

I love her little dimpled knuckles!

Pet Sounds?

The baby is talking up a storm! It's SO MUCH FUN!! Listen to her do a bunch of animal sounds:
She can also say apple, more milk, please, thank you, bye-bye daddy, NO, no, NoNoNoNoNo, and Beau (among others). She's a complete mimic. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed watching the original booger learn to talk.

Speaking of, here's a video of the two of them playing Ring Around the Rosie in the kitchen. She just learned it at school-- and I can add "Down" to the list of words she can say.

No.

The baby is starting to talk. When the little guy was learning how to talk, he went through a (thankfully) brief phase where all food was "cracker." He would ask for a cracker and then just sob when you gave him a cracker.

We're entering a similar phase with the baby, but instead she just asks for more and then says "No" to everything we suggest until we happen upon what she wants. Her little no's are so quiet and polite that it just breaks my heart.

Here she is eating applesauce all by herself. "Do you want help?" "No, no."

Quack!

The baby got to take a bath alone tonight, and she quacked while playing with her rubber ducky! Her voice cracks me up.

Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba

The baby is talking a bit-- she says Mama and Dada and up. She also points and grunts like a champ. The other thing she does is say ba-ba-ba-ba by moving her tongue from side to side outside her mouth. See?

That child.

Come On...

The baby and I had a ladies' weekend because the boys were out of town playing golf (welcome to 1951). I haven't been alone with her very much, since she's kid number two, so it always feels like a treat when we get to hang out by ourselves.

It turns out, though, that who she really wants is her daddy.
What a stinker! The little guy chewed on his tubes of butt-paste, too. I blame Eric's genes for that trait.

I'm not ready!

The baby can now crawl, stop crawling, and get off her knees and back to sitting all by herself. She's also starting finger foods. She LOVES to pick up puffs and cheerios and drop them down the front of her clothing. I think she even eats a few! Poor Beau can't decide which seat to camp out under at mealtime anymore.

The little guy had chocolate ice cream for dessert tonight. After his bath, I clipped all of his nails. Eric said "Let me take a look at those bad boys" and the little guy replied "Daddy, they're GOOD boys!"

Sitting!

The baby has been working on sitting this week-- apparently she threw a fit when her teachers tried to lay her down on Thursday. (She's a pretty chill baby in general, but when she's not happy, she's really not happy.) Anyway, here's a video of her sitting this morning. The little guy is basically narrating stream-of-conciousness style... this is what it's like at our house. All the time.

We have a similar video of the little guy learning how to sit (she's almost a month older now than he was then).

Mama's Boy

Even though it may seem like the little guy doesn't listen, he's listening. On the way home tonight we got stuck in traffic and he piped up from the backseat: "Moooove! Come on! Let's GOOOOO!!! What's the PROBLEM?!??!" Um, I think the problem might be too many mornings stuck in traffic with me. Yikes! I was literally weeping I was laughing so hard. I fail so hard at being a role model.

Here's our smiley little girl to distract you from the terrible things I'm teaching my son.

Mama's Boy

When the little dude sleeps, he sleeps (just like me!). We went to a minor league baseball game the other night (for Eric's birthday) and the little guy crashed in the car on the way over. He slept until we got to our seats, but then woke up and enjoyed the game.

He really liked the fireworks after the game, too. It's funny, though, because he's still learning how to make conversation. If you asked a normal adult about the noise fireworks make, they'd say "Boom." At breakfast on Monday, the little dude was telling me about the fireworks that we all saw.

"The fireworks went Boom! Boom! Boom!  boomboomboomboom BOOM! *pause* Boom! Boom! Boom!"

... and he just kept going (Boom! Boom! BOOM!). He basically reenacted the entire display. I was dying trying not to laugh.

Prayers

We say grace at dinnertime, and the little guy is now praying off the cuff. Eric and I are usually weeping with laughter by the time he's done. He prays like Brick from Anchorman.

Tonight he said "Dear God, Thank you for pepperoni and cheese and green peppers and cranberry juice and I had fun with my friends today at work. Amen." If you watch him, he bows his head and then opens one eye to look around the table for stuff to say. He also sneaks food when it's his turn, so he's talking with his mouth full. Luckily for us it's the thought that counts.

Visiting family

Tonight we headed up to Durham to visit the boogers' great-great uncle who lives in a retirement home there. His daughter and her family were in to visit so it was nice getting to spend some time with them. They have a young daughter, maybe 11, and Goose just would not stop talking to her. I mean, he talks a lot as it is, and he gets it honest, but he was really talking this poor girl's ear off tonight. We had dinner with them at Uncle Jack's apartment (sans Uncle Jack) and when the kids were finished they went and sat on the couch and watched some basketball. I don't think the big Booger knows about personal space just yet because he sat as close as possible to his new friend. He just loves older kids.

Uncle Jack has been sick recently so we had to visit him in another part of the facility. It is great getting to see him and he and Goose played a little, which was pretty awesome to see. After a little bit The Boy said he was thirsty and wanted to find a water fountain. We decided it was time to go anyway so we said our goodbyes and headed out. On the way we found the water fountain and after getting a drink my sweet angel marched off in the opposite direction.

"Hey Stinker! Where are you going?"
"We need to go back and see Uncle Jack some more!"

Melt my heart.

No pictures for today so here is one from our fun weekend walk downtown of a pretty lady and a sweet girl.

Little Pitchers

Little pitchers have big ears... and sometimes I need to do a better job remembering that. Tonight I called Eric a little jerk about something (in a completely loving way, of course), and the little guy chirped "little turd? turt? turtle? Little turtle." Phew! Lesson learned!

A Little Late

Our poor little girl keeps growing into slightly out-of-season hand-me-downs. She just grew into her reindeer snowsuit! Merry February!

When the little guy saw us taking her picture, he wanted a piece of the action.

In other news, the little guy is breaking our hearts. He only has one big mispronunciation left! He used to say "goosicks" instead of "music" and "free" instead of "three." The only one left is that he says "lellow" instead of "yellow"-- but yesterday he said something was y-lellow. Sob.

He's also having a hard time with "two" versus "too." He usually gets three books before bed, but if it's too late, he only gets two books. The other night, he said it was one late so he could only read one book. Whoops! English is hard.

Today, he was asking about what different letters spell. He had an O and an N, and asked what O-N spelled. Eric said "on" and then used the word "on" in a bunch of different phrases. Then the little guy asked Eric what N-O spelled, and Eric answered "No, like, no, don't do that. No, put that down. Do you want some pie? No." I am still laughing. Who doesn't want pie?

Watery?

It was warm outside again today, so we went for a three mile walk before dinner. The little guy walked almost the entire way! He probably ran a whole mile... which is good. It wears him out.

At one point, he stopped near a creek and said "Water? You are looking water-y!" A little bit later, he stopped and said to some grass "What do you think you're doing in the family?" He's a nutcase.

Anyway, here is a photo of the kids in a pillow-fort. It was the boy's idea to invite his little sister in to play with him. She wasn't really a fan.

And here's a picture of her cuddling with me during tummy-time.

What?!?

The little guy was up late last night, up early this morning, and refused to nap today. Then he was fairly melodramatic at dinner. After he ate, he said "Now I want to go to bed!" So he went straight to bed... at 6:30pm! We had a ridiculously long evening, which meant we got to watch the season 2 finale of Sherlock. (It was AMAZING!!)

Naptime a few days ago...

Big Brother

We went to a local children's museum today. It was really fun! One of the other parents asked the older one if he liked his little sister. He said "Well, all my baby sister does is poop in her diapers. She just poops in her cloth diapers." What a smug little realist! 

What?

And here's a cute photo from this weekend of everyone-but-me asleep on the couch:

Splurge

I splurged on a new diaper bag this weekend... it's really snazzy. When we got it home, the little stinkpot thanked us for his new purse and filled it with toys.

After he went to bed, I emptied it out and put it somewhere safe.

In photo-less news, the little booger just started his fall semester of Kindermusik. They have an "I love vegetables" chant on the new cd that his teacher said was not too successful. We tried it tonight at home, and here's what happened:

Me: "I LOVE VEGETABLES!"
The Boog: "I LOVE CARROTS!"
Me: "I LOVE PEAS!"
The Boog: "I DON'T LIKE PEPPERS!"
Me: giggling
The Boog: "I DON'T LIKE TOMATOES! I DON'T LIKE VEGETABLES!"
Me: helpless laughter

His poor teacher!

Answers

I had an illuminating chat with the little stinkpot's daycare teachers today. Apparently there is a fungus in one corner of the playground that the kids were trying to eat-- and it kind of looks like poop. So THAT's why the little guy told us that we shouldn't eat poop.

Anyway, this handsome little dude rocked at swimming lessons tonight and put his face underwater like a champ. I didn't even get my ankles wet because I'm still traumatized from how cold it was last night. Lessons end tomorrow... It'll be nice to have our evenings back, but I think we'll all miss it, too.