Ice Skating

We took both boys ice skating today: Nolan went for the first time, and Matthew for his third.

As always, we learned a lot by taking the boys on this exciting venture:

• Two year olds with flailing legs become a lot more worrisome when sharp blades are attached to their feet.
• After assuming a mummy-like position while pushing a two year old around the ice, you will probably require the services of a chiropractor.
• An almost-four year old and a two year old can disassemble the ice arena's Christmas tree in 4.5 seconds.
• Feet grow after bearing children. This will cause your formerly wonderful ice skates to become instruments of torture.
• Elderly women walking on the indoor track don't particularly appreciate the charm of two-year old boys pretending to be dinosaurs. Especially when said dinosaur roars and begins chasing them. Some people have no sense of humor.

Matt did quite well for a not-quite four year old, and really started to get a sense of balance. Nolan couldn't stand up in his ice skates at all (even on the padded floor area), but he enjoyed the experience nonetheless.

Thanksgiving 2009

Thanksgiving artwork

We had a very sedate and low-key Thanksgiving this year, and everything went off without a hitch. The turkey was perfectly cooked, the stuffing was delicious, and the cranberry sauce brilliantly scarlet. There was only one emergency run to the grocery store (for dish washing detergent), and both boys took naps. I call this Thanksgiving a success!

Our Thanksgiving dinner

Can I have pie now?

Carving the turkey

Finally- PIE!

Finally- WHIPPED CREAM!

How to Clean

Here is Matthew and Nolan's "how to" guide for cleaning:

1. Gather all toys.
2. Place in a giant pile.
3. Notify a grown-up that vacuuming may now proceed.
4. Redistribute the toys around the room.

Nolan is a great cleaning helper

Matt surveys the pile and considers his work done

Big Boy Beds

We finally found a bunk bed that was not a bazillion dollars, but sturdy enough for two rambunctious boys. Matt and Nolan were both thrilled to get the new beds, though Matt was a little disappointed that we kept them separated as twin beds for the time being. Considering that he fell out of his bed that very night, we're pretty sure that was a wise decision!


We did have to ensure that Nolan's bed would pass the "bear test," in that it would hold a ridiculously large number of stuffed animals. Nolan was more than happy to settle into his bed once the "bear test" was completed!

Kitty Love

While we own two cats, we almost never get pictures of them. This is because they are often in hiding, escaping from the exuberant love of two preschoolers. Our boys love the cats and often chase them down, trying to hug and pet the reluctant felines.

Nolan "cuddles" Teddy.

Fortunately for Teddy, we opened the sliding glass door and let him escape to an area free of three foot tall hyper beings.

The skittishness of the cats frustrated Matthew last night, and he finally said, "Mom, cats are no good. We need a dog!"

One of THOSE Weeks

When you have kids, you know it isn't going to be all tea parties and glittery bliss.

Our fun little week was going along brilliantly, with the exception of a frustrating doctor appointment and lingering colds. Then, on Thursday night, Matthew was taking a bath when he uttered, "Oopsie."

I won't go into the details, but let's just say there was an accident which required the use of a slotted spoon and lots of Clorox. And some Drano. And a screwdriver and plumber's snake. Yes, it was a long night.

The following morning dawned brightly, and I figured the previous night's incident was a fluke and we were back onto our normal track. I sent Matt to preschool, mopped all the floors, and then picked Matt up from preschool. We were on a tight schedule- lunch and then a visit from our speech therapist.

Matt went downstairs, then came back upstairs. "Oopsie."

Another accident, this time in his pants. Except this time, he tried to clean it up himself. With exactly 10 minutes before the speech therapist was to arrive, I managed to clean the child up, re-mop the bathroom floor, start a new load of laundry, and say a prayer of thanks for the people who invented Clorox.

Our speech therapist arrived, helped both of my children learn to speak, and then departed. Never in the history of motherhood was naptime more anticipated than on this day.

Luckily, Matthew fell asleep on the recliner. I didn't bother to move him, lest I wake him up. I covered him with a blanket and took Nolan upstairs for his nap. I came back downstairs and re-positioned Matt, who was curiously damp. Actually, the whole recliner was damp. After moving the leaking child and going through an entire bottle of "Super Pet Strength Upholstery Cleaner," I sat down.

Bang. Bang. Bang. BANG BANG BANG.

Oh, good heavens. Nolan was making a racket upstairs. What in the world could that noise possibly be? I almost didn't want to know. Perhaps it would just stop and Nolan would go back to sleep. With the way the day had been going, I figured it was entirely possible that Nolan had disassembled the second floor of our house. I summoned some courage, went upstairs, and found this:





A toilet-water drenched two-year old, pretending to "fix the toilet." With the tools we had accidentally left upstairs from the whole slotted-spoon/bathtub incident. And an entire roll of toilet paper placed into the toilet. At least he didn't try to flush it.

Sometimes, things go so drastically wrong, that the only reaction you can have (to keep from losing your mind), is to calmly remove said child, decontaminate him, put him back in his bed, and then go downstairs. And laugh. Hysterically.

One day, this will actually be funny. For now, I'm just glad that week is behind us!

Marbles

I love marbles. They're simple, they're fun, and they're just so darned pretty. November has been immeasurably kind to us and has granted us many gorgeous days. Today was a sunny day that begged for a game of marbles on the driveway.

Bear Count, Redux

In Nolan's opinion, one can never have enough bears. I counted six bears on this night, but it is entirely possible there are more hiding under the blankets.

Dance Night

Almost every night, our boys like to dance to music. Sadly, they do not like "Mommy music," but prefer Daddy's punk CD's. I think they like the beat in Dennis's favorite songs!

Tonight's Bear Count

Nolan is a boy who loves his bears. He has one "special" bear, which is nearly always with him at bedtime. We always check on him before we go to bed, to tuck him in, give him a tiny kiss, and to do the nightly bear count. We've had as many as six bears in his bed, but last night there were only three.

I'm going to miss these days of feetie pajamas and bear slumber parties when they're gone!

More Leaf Piles

Random Rule of Childhood #1: Jumping in leaf piles is always fun.


Random Rule of Childhood #2: If you are going to jump into a giant leaf pile, you should probably make sure that it isn't the giant leaf pile that Daddy is going to haul to the compost pile.

November Crafts

Matthew has finally decided that he loves to do "projects." This means that I'm breaking out every piece of construction paper in the house, and we're getting to work on Thanksgiving art!



We've made mosaic cornucopias- ripping up construction paper and pasting the pieces onto a print-out. Mine is on the top and Matthew's is on the bottom. I did it alongside Matt so he could see where the different colors went. I think he did an good job for a three year old!

We also made bird feeders out of cardboard rolls, peanut butter, and birdseed. The boys love looking out the window to count the number of blue jays at our feeder! We get a lot of blue jays and chickadees, and an occasional cardinal. It won't be long before the boys will be able to identify all of the various bird species in our neck of the woods!

In Which We Lose a Shoe

Trick or Treat!

Why does Dennis's pumpkin always turn out better than mine? Sigh...

Dennis's jack-o-lantern

A picture of mine, for comparison.

The boys, just before trick-or-treating

To infinity, and beyond!

We live on a street with very few children. The majority are now in middle school or high school, so there are only about 4 children who actively trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. This turns out to be quite an advantage for the candy:child ratio, since most of our neighbors buy a full bag of chocolate, and have to give it to someone.







As we ventured down the block, we found that some of our neighbors had grandchildren visiting. As there are rather few houses on our street, this meant that we stopped inside for a mini-playdate at a few of the houses. Matthew began inquiring at every house, "Where are you toys? I want to play!" He was disappointed if we came to a house with no children present! We came home with quite the stash of candy.

Halloween is over, and now I have to get to the business of consuming all that chocolate removing our Halloween decorations and getting the turkey-related things out!

Time For Your Lobotomy, Jack!

Every year, I have the hope that the children will find great joy in scooping out the slimy pumpkin guts. Every year, the kids reach in, say "EWWWW!" and hand us the spoon. Luckily Daddy was a good sport and did the pumpkin-gut removal for us. The boys had fun playing with the pumpkin lids, anyway!