Silly Games

Any time Eric plays a game on the iPad, the little dude asks if he's playing his silly game. Well, look who has a silly game of his own!

I had just wiped off the table from breakfast. That's why it looks so yucky, I promise!

Variation on a Theme

How would you like this guy to pour water all over you while you try to relax in the tub?

Yeah, she didn't really like it either.

We do manage to go whole days without horrifying this poor child, I promise!

She did it again!

I put the baby girl down on her stomach tonight while I went to wash my hands. As soon as I turned my back, I thought "I bet she rolled over." Sure enough, she was on her back and I missed it! So, I flipped her back on her belly and watched her like a hawk. She finally rolled over three more times-- so now I've seen it, too.

Here's a video of me being mean to her after she was so sweet to me.

In other news, we bought the little guy a real street hockey stick tonight. Now he won't have to run around with mittens and a baseball bat.

Girls in the house

It's fun being a dad. But I don't really know anything about little girls. As most of you know, I grew up in a house with all boys and Silly Goose came along as yet another male in my sphere so having baby girl stuff around is a little weird. Emily laughs at me all the time because I am mostly in charge of getting her dressed and I guess I don't do as fantastic a job as she expects. The poor little fuzzball ends up with a top from one outfit and a bottom from another.  If she's luck she gets socks. Every now and then I'll remember to put a bow in her hair.  At her age she is still fairly androgynous so a bow helps.

Well here is where a couple ended up tonight.

We haven't found a salon yet, so my hair is getting a little unruly.  I have discovered that the bows can be quite utilitarian while being a nice accessory. At least Fire Chief still wants to hang out.

Fuzzy got a bath tonight too so here is a cute picture of her in a newly handed down bath towel.

Groceries

I took the little dude to the grocery store by myself today, leaving the other two at home doing laundry. We had a really nice time. The little guy picked out which broccoli, pineapple, and cereal box we got, and he likes to throw the groceries on the belt at the checkout counter (literally throw them-- you have to have fast hands to beat him to the breakable stuff).

Anyway, the Kroger we go to has these adorable little carts that are just his size. It takes a lot of energy to keep him from crashing into the end-caps or the other shoppers, but he loves it. Sometimes he'll get going fast, get distracted, and stop to look at something while the cart goes careening away from him. Since I was alone with him and we just had a short list (ha!), I thought we'd just use the little cart. Well, we fit $75 worth of groceries into that little cart, including three half-gallons of milk, two cartons of OJ, cereal, crackers, deli meat, ice cream, bananas, and more. It was like a game of tetris trying to fit everything in that teeny tiny little cart. Next time I think we'll err on the side of caution and take a big one.

In conclusion, here's a completely unrelated picture:

Weekend!

This weekend, I hope you get to put your feet up and take a nap somewhere comfortable...

Wahoo!

He did it! The little guy skated for real today! See?
Not only that, he did it again! There's an open skate after the lessons, so we stayed an extra 20 minutes or so today to get in some more practice.

The little guy was thrilled with himself.

That's not food in his mouth, it was something on the glass.

His sister was not impressed.

BORING.

Chill Baby

The littler one is so chill (I've probably ruined it now by writing that down). She really likes staring at the saltwater fish tank we're caring for.

Do you see the starfish? He's my favorite... he's like the sloth of the ocean.

She also just snuggles right up for our couch-time after her older brother goes to bed. It's pretty nuts, but usually she's content just to hang out and watch what's going on.

Puzzling

Today the kiddo stumbled upon a couple puzzles that our homeowner's children have and he set out to work them. I don't think he'd ever really worked a real puzzle before so I was anxious to test out his genius. The first one is a map of the US and he was terrible at it. I was only decent at it because I know where the states go. After we worked it I looked on the box and saw it was for ages 6+ so I didn't feel as bad about him not being able to do it. Plus, the puzzle artists destroyed West Virginia so I didn't want to work it anymore anyway.

The other puzzle was for ages 4+ so I thought we'd give it a try. I decided to help a little less, but do more coaching. Who knew you're not born knowing the best way to work a puzzle?

We finally got it finished and I was proud of the little guy. It took a while, but he worked it all himself, finding the pieces and putting them in the puzzle. Here is the almost finished project.

Those last five pieces went the fastest.  Maybe 10 minutes or so.

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!

I love you!

The little guy has been singing "Skin-a-ma-rinky-dinky-dink, Skin-a-ma-rinky-doo" a lot this week (so have we all... it's an ear worm!). He sang it to his baby sister today and she just grinned at him the whole time. It was so incredibly cute and sweet that I made the mistake of trying to get it on video for posterity. Here's how that went:
He came out from under the blanket eventually.

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?

Happy Valentine's Day!

The little guy filled our hearts with joy by participating in his skating lesson this week. Here's a pretty long video of him on the ice:
Hopefully ice-crawling is just the step before ice-walking... Anyway, a side benefit of the ice skating is the little guy's post-ice-skating nap.

Weirdo

I put the little girl down on the bed for a minute tonight, and the little dude climbed up, laid down next to her, and told me to get the camera. By the time I got back,  all three of them were laying there goofing around.

I think she's as confused as we are by the little guy sometimes.

Library Cards!

The little guy checked two books out of the library today. I was lucky enough to get to read him one when I got home from work. It was a somewhat terrifying story about a friendly tractor, a mean bull, and a tornado. The little guy loved it.

Jesus and Some People

The little dude went to Sunday School today. His teacher said they learned about the feeding of the 5,000. When we asked the little guy what he learned, he said that Jesus gave people food. After some more prodding, he specified that Jesus gave a lot of people some food. I said "Maybe 5,000?" and he said "No, that's silly." Oh well.

In other news, the little one has grown into a pair of overalls. She was SO STINKING ADORABLE in these that I literally died.

She still hasn't rolled over again, despite my begging. This was posed.

Library Cards

We walked to the library today to get library cards. "Walking" with the little guy involves a lot of stopping to either pick up sticks or obey the imaginary red lights scattered along the trail. In this picture, we are waiting for the light to turn green.

Any time a runner passed us, the little guy would start jogging too. It was hilarious.

Big and Small

She might not be as big as a toy garbage truck yet, but she rolled over yesterday (front to back) when I was at work! Apparently she rolled over three times! She hates tummy time. I still haven't gotten to see her do it, despite putting her on her stomach about 500 times last night, but I'm sure I will at some point.

To be fair, it's an enormous garbage truck.

Skating lessons!

Hockey Player Baseball Player Football Player Silly Goose (which seems to be what he wants us to call him these days) had his first of four skating lessons today.  It was a sweet little class and all the instructors have the patience of saints.  There were two other boys Goose's age in the class and all the other kids were older.  Sadly, he was the worst.  He survived without any aches or pains though, but that's mostly because he was doing this the whole time.

However, because of his reluctance to stand, he monopolized the time of the college girl who was helping teach the class.  Here she is (lower right) trying to get him to stand up the way they taught them.  (Like a puppy, one foot here, now stand!)  Maybe I should add "Sly Devil" to his ever growing monicker.

He did get standing a few times (albeit with someone's help) so not all was lost.

Three more lessons to go so we'll keep you updated.

Baby Girl just slept the whole time bundled up in a fluffy blanket.  She was probably the warmest of anybody there.

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.

Traumatized

The little guy wanted me to read him stories before bed tonight. Usually Eric does it, so I was honored and excited. He let me pick one, so I chose "Are you my mother?"-- it's a great little story about a baby bird who hatches when his mother is away from the nest. He searches for his mom, asking all the other animals if they are his mom and they all say no. The little guy got really quiet about halfway through. His eyes were as big as saucers and he was REALLY UPSET about the missing mother and the poor bird who doesn't have a mom. I think he got his hopes up for each animal, and was just as disappointed as the stupid little bird when the cow wasn't his mom. Whoops! I tried reading really fast to get to the happy ending... but I think I traumatized the poor kid. No wonder he prefers Eric at bedtime.

I didn't take a trauma-photo, so here's one of our calm, quiet evening at home.

Please note the foolishness in the background.

Education

We went on a family expedition to the local natural sciences museum on Saturday. We've taken the little dude to zoos, but I'm not sure he's ever been to a museum before. He was really excited to see the animals, although he thought they were alive. "Who let that bird in here?" he said about a stuffed osprey hanging from the ceiling by a string.

"It's Bear! Just like in Franklin!"

Move South, Go North

Being a stay at home dad has been a joyful experience, though one I wouldn't want to do forever unless we could also put the kids in daycare or hire a nanny.  Emily always says that you need to get out of the house everyday so that you don't get stir crazy and I think it is good advice.  So, as I mentioned in a previous post, we've been going to the Hurricanes practices regularly.  Really our only two activities are going to hockey practice or story time at the library.

Last week we were at practice and the players started really shooting at the net.  Every now and then a puck will hit the boards or the pipes and careen up into the netting and then out of the rink.  There is usually an usher down there to make sure everyone stays on this side of the rails (party poopers).  That day the crowd was sparse and the guy down there hoped the rails and picked up a puck.  He then gave it to Goose.  Like I said before, the boy had been skating around the house in his socks skates, but now he has a puck and is alternating between a miniature Cincinnati Reds bat and a long straight piece of train tracks as his hockey stick, which he swings lefty. (Aside: one step closer to first!)

He's even made a net with "baby fence"!

Tonight we signed him up for ice skating lessons that run on every Thursday in February.  We also had to get him some waterproof mittens and pants.  It's funny; we moved down South and now the boy might as well be Canadian, though we did get some good barbecue tonight.

Here he is at our other staple, Story Time, just soaking it all in.

I hope he participates in skating lessons more than Story Time.  He just sits there, observes, and refuses to participate.  Then he sings all the songs and talks about the stories at home.  What a stinker.  Sorry to say, but we don't have an ice rink at home so he'll be out of luck.