So, to catch you up on the last 4 months or so, a quick summary: early morning wakings, coffee - a lot of coffee, cleaning up dog pee from the carpet, walking the dog, house cleaning, errands, procrastinating on house cleaning and errands to sew, visiting Idaho several times, having family and friends visit... and that's about it. You know, the usual stuff, peppered with those small funny, memorable moments.
Meanwhile the kids have continued to grow like weeds. Noah especially has changed so exponentially! His little personality is blooming, and I have to say, he's a little devil. A very sweet boy, with a very wide mischievous streak. He walks around looking adorable, but with a little gleam in his eye that lets you know he's scheming about something. Recently, he has discovered how to open the refrigerator door, much to his delight and my aggravation. He waits until I walk out of the room for 2 seconds and then, he pounces! I've walked into my kitchen to find a whole carton of eighteen (18!!) eggs cracked open on the floor, and most recently, I found him with 4 sticks of margarine at his feet, all unwrapped and all nibbled on. I really have to get a door latch for that fridge!
Another of Noah's kitchen discoveries is the faucet sprayer. You see, my kitchen has a wide pass-through window into my living room. Which, would be fine except for the fact that on the living room side, there's a love seat right below said pass through. (It's the only place it fits.) Naturally, this provides a perfect climbing apparatus for Noah to climb onto, lean over the sill, turn on the faucet, squeeze the sprayer, and gleefully spray down my whole kitchen. I kid you not, the other day I had to use 5 bath towels 4, (count 'em, 4 times!) to wipe up the water pooling on my floor and counter tops, not to mention running down my cabinet fronts and fridge. After several time outs, I finally had to smack the kid's butt to get him to stop! (He was quite incensed.)
Now that he's older, Noah's also becoming more avid about personal hygiene. He loves to brush his teeth. However, he's not very picky about keeping his toothbrush clean. I have found him dipping it into my coffee cup to brush his teeth with coffee (yes, his love affair with java continues) and one time had to stop him as he was trying to chase down one of the cats and brush it's teeth! And while cleanliness is next to godliness, I don't think that's the case when you dip your wash cloth in toilet water, a new favorite cleaning method for the little guy. He didn't understand why I wasn't thrilled with his effort to be helpful one day, when I found him scrubbing down the bathroom floor with a toilet water soaked hand towel. (Yes, I need to get on top of installing a toilet lid latch as well.)
This new awareness of cleanliness has also meant that Noah can't stand to be wearing a soiled diaper. If he realizes he's got on a dirty diaper he does one of two things. 1- He marches up to me, points to his rear and goes, "Ew!" or 2 - He rips off his own diaper, flings it off to the side, and runs around with his rear hanging out laughing maniacally. (Naturally, I've been encouraging the first response.) Alas, even when not soiled, the diaper ripping off thing is starting to become more frequent. Yes, the little man has entered the toddler nudist phase, which, in my opinion, is a stronger impulse for little guys than gals. He's realized he is indeed a boy and he's proud of it, wanting to air out the area and laugh about it.
Actually, much to my embarrassment, one time he even decided to show off his boyness to a family friend. I hadn't seen her in awhile and she came over with her young baby. So, there we all were, sitting on the floor cooing at the baby when out runs nude Noah. He had ripped off his pants and diaper down the hall, and came running back into the room to stand next to my friend and thrust his pelvis out, which, as it happened, was right at face level for her. To her credit, she handled it quite gracefully and just smiled and said, "Oh, that's nice," while I turned red and quickly ushered my streaker back down the hallway. This male pride has also led to some interest in peeing standing up, usually on my carpet or in the bath tub...
Noah's vocabulary is also growing by leaps and bounds as well. Some of his newest words are "Necko" (Niko, the dog), "Na" (BrianNA), "duck" (all birds are ducks at this point since he's at that overgeneralization phase), "beach" (from our recent vacation), and "juice". Actually, that last one is his favorite word, and his favorite thing on earth right now. He loves juice! So much so, that it is the subject of his very first joke. You see, we've traveled a lot lately and that means we've been on a lot of long drives. So, to pass the time one trip we started telling knock knock jokes. Noah was quick to pick up on this. Now he often randomly yells out "Knock knock!" Which you have to answer "Who's there?" (If you don't he just keeps yelling knock knock louder and louder until you respond.) Inevitably, his answer is, "Juice!" And when you say, "Juice who?" He says, "Juice!" and laughs like a nut. Which, makes us laugh because it's so silly and cute... so I'm sure he thinks he's made up the funniest joke ever, juice gets him a laugh every time.
The one thing you must never laugh at though, is his dancing. He takes his dancing quite seriously and the kid has moves! He can move his hips like nobody's business! I'm always kind of shocked when he starts gyrating away and I just stare and smirk at him. But I don't laugh...if you do, he feels offended and stops dancing! :)
As for Bree, she's growing up too fast. She's all registered for school and starts Kindergarten this fall! Which mostly, I'm excited about but have had my tearful moments. One of my concerns is that in our school district (as in many now) Kindergarten is all day, 5 days a week. It was a bit of a mental adjustment for me. Whatever happened to half day Kindergarten??!! But, I know she'll love it and flourish there.
Meanwhile her vocabulary continues to expand and amuse. Everywhere we go we seem to get at least one comment about her vocabulary. She says words that sound strange coming from such a small person. Lately her favorite phrase is, "then I realized..." which she throws into conversation as often as she can. Although, really, the vocabulary thing is nothing new... what is new is her having an opinion about how her hair should be styled from day to day and her height. She seems so tall, even though she's always been short for her age. And while I can't believe she's turning 5 in a few days, she's anxious to be grown up. She's always talking about when she'll get to do grown up things or when she'll be old enough to buy certain things. "When will I get my own wedding ring?" "I'm too little for that now, but maybe I'll buy it for my one hundredeth birthday right? Then I'll be old enough!"
One thing she's finally old enough for that she's been wanting forever is bunk beds. Yep, we recently put bunk beds in the kids' room. We found one that has a full size bed on the bottom, and a twin up top, both with side safety rails. So we made the big move, taking down the baby crib for good, putting Noah in a big boy bed, and letting Bree sleep on the top bunk. It's working great so far!
Part of Brianna's new grown up outlook is "mothering" her little brother. She enjoys getting to boss him around, (or rather trying to), and/or telling on him when he's up to something naughty. But, she's not above occasionally joining her brother in some mischief, even though she knows darn well when he's doing something he shouldn't. She finds him infinitely amusing and thinks he makes a good sidekick, or scapegoat as the case may be.
Whew! Well, that's about it. I think you're pretty much up to speed on the kiddos and their antics over the last few months. See? I've repented for my lengthy absence by writing a lengthy post. Which is soon to be followed by a few more fairly lengthy posts about some of the more notable events lately, including our recent vacation to the Oregon coast, and Bree's upcoming birthday.... but for now, I think I'm getting cramps in my fingers and I need to get going on my day. (I'm writing this first thing in the morning, and put off showering and getting dressed for you. Don't you feel special?!)
Until then....
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