So this happened:

I am totally getting a laser pointer at the very next convenient moment.


This morning I told Payne "You know, I used to go to a school a lot like yours when I was a little girl."

Payne: "You DID?"

Me: "Yep"

Payne: "And then you became a Mommy."

Me: "That's right."

Payne: "So you can give me the wules that I have to eat my bwekfast."

I suppose that sums it up fairly well, actually.

Odds and ends.

"Who needs bath toys?"

 

 

"Not us!"

 

 

"The absence of real tub play gear (due to the regular befouling and eventual tossing of the original toys...thanks Baby G) just drives our creative play based development. Yes, that is exactly what Mom intended."

 

"In other important kid-life news, Mom has started feeding us breakfast at the kiddie table, because highchairs are like way too hard at 6:30 a.m., and we kept shoving raisins in every crevice of the furniture and letting our milk drips filter through the subterranean geology of the couches, as ground water filters through limestone, leaving similar crusty deposits behind."

 

Payne: "Where's my paper? I can't finish my milk without knowing who won the game last night. After all the years we've been living together, I'd think you would remember, hon."

G: "Oh I don't know. You can't get good help these days. My breakfast pastry is cold, and I still haven't gotten my damn latte."

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

Personality. She has it.

 

 

I never thought I'd see the day when my dear son would be the angelic looking child in a photo.

 

Our sweet Baby G is turning into a bit of a spitfire.

 

Examples:

 

- (points up)

 

- The dog barked at her, so she spun around to face it and went "ROARRRRGH!".

 

- Payne put on his PJs and yelled "Ta Da!". Exactly one second later Genevieve tore around the corner clapping and searching wildy for, you know, the reason she was clapping.

 

- She farted on my leg, then looked at me and said "Whoa".

 

- Yesterday morning she got up early, and I handed her a smoothie in a sippy cup I had MacGyvered to hold a normal straw. We headed for the couch with my precious cup of coffee.  As soon as she saw we were headed out of the kitchen she started screaming.  I plopped her down on the couch and she threw a grade A fit.  She arched her back, pushed out the alligator tears, sobbed openly, and batted the obviously unacceptable smoothie away.

 

I knew what she wanted, my friends.

 

After 15 minutes of hysterics, my desire for peaceful coffee consumption outweighed my better parenting instincts, and I went back into the kitchen.  Still wailing, Genevieve followed.

 

As soon as I opened the pantry she calmed, and started industriously searching for one of her preferred plastic bowls within the Tupperware cabinet.

 

I pulled out a cardboard box. She looked up and saw a box, hysterics resumed.

 

I pulled a crinkly bag out of the box, hysterics ceased.

 

I won a suspicious look of approval.

 

I pulled a carbohydrate out of the bag, cut it up, and dumped it into her bowl.

 

She victoriously marched back to the couch and made her wishes known with a pointed glance and "Uh!". 

 

We resettled on the couch, she happily disposed of her breakfast that was first housed in a crinkly bag (and it must be a crinkly bag, folks, the contents of the bag then transferred to a bowl of her choosing. Every. Morning.) THEN, oh, then she picked up that damned smoothie and happily slurped away.

 

After every swig she would stop and go "Ahhh!".

 

Translation: "Mmmm. Tastes like victory."

Why I love my kids today:

- At lunch Payne informed me: "I WUV cheeseboogers, because they're wike the boogers from inside my NOSE."

- If Genevieve is crying and you pick her up and pat her on the back, you will feel a teeny little hand patting the back of your shoulder.

- Tonight I stripped G down and let her loose while I ran a bath. Payne saw her, laughed, and said "Oh come on booty baby! Wet's go to the baffroom."

The stinker face in action.

No words are necessary. Ha.

I should not reproduce again.

They appear to increase in diabolical-ness with the increase in birth order number.

First off, she has decided to be a tub pooper. Four times in the last week.

Since I have an interest in avoiding gagging while scrubbing the tub nightly, I started a "toss the baby in the tub and scrub her down with a level of speed and urgency that would be implemented while bathing a live grenade" policy, instead of letting her play in the water.

Well, tonight I got her squared away after bath, turned around to clean up her room while Payne enjoyed some splash time, and heard:

"Mooooom! Gee-vive got all weeeeeet!"

 

Stinker. She is 100% stinker.

 

Did I mention I'd already lotioned her up?

 

Hmph.

The Stink Face.

Genevieve, following the illustrious model lain down by her brother, has developed her own "eff yeah!" face.

The difference is that hers shows up at a precise moment; the moment when she's caught doing something she isn't supposed to do. 

Theoretically, when your kid climbs up on the table and leans precariously over the edge, they look sort of alarmed when you start screaming and frantically waving yours arms in their general direction.

Not this one:

 

(Ooh, a double whammy. On the table AND a stolen remote.)

The nakedness was not her fault. It was sheperd's pie night. The polar bear romper may never recover. (hums Taps)

She's a stinker. Thus, The Stink Face.

And also, she's incredibly dramatic.  Like, "I'm ashamed at the fulfillment of gender stereotypes" dramatic.

Yesterday evening, Dan and I were sitting on the couch discussing his day.  A wild and desperate shrieking began emanating from Genevieve's bedroom.

I continued talking. Actually, I didn't even really hear it.  Scream deafness is epidemic amongst mothers of young children.  That's why normal civilians can have their entire meal ruined by a toddler in a restaurant, while the child's parents merrily carry on with their meal. It's not that the parents don't care about the people around them. They genuinely have lost a cerebral knowledge that sounds in a certain decibel range are being produced. It's go deaf, or kennel the offspring. Evolution at work, my friends.

Where was I? Oh right.

Dan interrupted me with "Are you going to go see if she's ok? She's screaming like she's hurt or something".

Um yeah, she does that all day long. Actually, going to check on her each time might be a pretty good substitute for a cardio program. Hmm...food for thought.

So I haul my booty off of the couch to see why my baby is making sounds that would indicated she has a limb or two hanging by a thread.

The answer?

Payne wouldn't let her open her own sock drawer. Yep.

Her "I want bunny grahams" scream and her "I've just concussed myself" scream are identical. 

I foresee this causing a few gravely incorrect assumptions throughout her childhood.  Maybe we should just go ahead and make a bi-yearly standing pediatrician appointment to check for overlooked broken limbs...

Funny kid sayings of the week:

-The other night Payne popped bright eyed into the office, long after he had been in bed.

It went something like this:

Payne: "Mommy! Daddy! Supping woke me up!"

Me: "What, Payne?"

Payne: "Supping runned up inside my eyyyyeeees."

Dan: (picks Payne up) "What is in your eyes?"

Payne: "Buuut it was full of pepper, and full of strings, but it wasn't full of poop."

Dan: (suppressing a laugh) "You have a lot of energy don't you son."

Payne: (blink, blink)

Dan: "Lots of energy"

Payne: (Heavy sigh)

(I'm laughing silently in the corner)

Dan: "It's time to go back to bed."

Payne: "I need supping to make my eyes OPEN (un-pinches his thumb and index finger) and CWOSE (closes thumb and index finger in dramatic fashion).

(I escort Payne to bed)

Payne: "Seeee? My wady bug helps me to see, and..."

(I shut the door on him mid-sentence)



- This morning Genevieve ran up to Dan and fiercely hugged his knees while chanting "Miiiine. Miiiiine. Miiiiine."

- Also, there's this commercial on right now that shows some antelope. Payne asked us once what they were called, and now when he sees the commercial he shouts "HEY! There's the cantaloupes!"

You can't see me.

So my Mother and Father in Law got me a fabulous new purple stroller for Christmas.

We took it out on its maiden voyage, and I promptly noticed that I had accidentally put Genevieve in an equally fabulous purple romper:

"Mooooom! Why are you trying to hiiiide meeeee!" (sob)

 

So I snorted and took a photo, of course, and then I remembered a similar incident from about four years ago:

 

Heh heh.

 

My babies; they are very sneaky.