Snow Day

This is our first snow day this year. We had delayed opening, but not snow day. What do you do with two smallish children on a yucky day to slippery to drive? Paint a wall, of course! I found some latex beige paint, thinned it out, put some old clothes on Sam and Josh, handed them brushes and let er rip! I was left with, yes, a beige wall, but also a beige floor, one beige head of hair, beige set of footprints up the stairs, in the kitchen, the living room and on my steps to get into my bed. You may be wondering, I know I was, but I did not see any paint on the sheets. Luckily it was latex and mopped up easily. Matt handled the bath and asked me how Josh got paint up his nose. I was there and I have no idea. Call me a coward, but I plan to do the rest of the mural on my own. Except it was pretty great to see them playing together and laughing really hard even as they flung paint through the air. Our wood floors need to get redone anyway.

Pumping Gas

Joshua turns out to be a very creative little boy with a very active imagination, and a tendency toward mimicry of adult behavior.

He has a Little Tykes plastic car that he absolutely loves to climb inside and "ride" around the living room in. And Samantha has the remnants of a "stomp rocket" toy that uses a foot-powered bellows to launch foam rockets high into the air. (The rockets have long since disappeared.)

Here's what happens when it occurs to Joshua to put these two things together:

And yes, those are girl's ballet slippers he's wearing on his feet. If you find something objectionable in that, you try to get him to take them off...

Keys!

I am writing this on the computer upstairs. It is painfully slow, but has the advantage of all the keys on the keyboard. That is what I get for taking my eyes off the little rat for two minutes instead of the accepted two seconds. He is fast. He ripped the keys off the pads and the little plastic thingies underneath. He is also very thorough.

He will not eat from anything besides the Car bowl, plate and spoon and fork. We have hit a bit of a snag because the spoon got caught in the garbage disposal. He has agreed to keep eating, but he had to think about it carefully before agreeing. He wanted that spoon! So, I need to ask my sis where she got the set and hope I can find one down here. I need to buy a couple more so I can put a bowl in the dishwasher now and then. And replace the spoon, of course.

I have been trying to get Sam to clean her room and brush her hair on her own without me losing it and yelling at her. Today she got to earn Wii time if she did those things, and she did. !!! She came down dressed beautifully with her hair neat and with a hairband to keep it out of her eyes. She said she was ready for inspection, so I went up and looked at her room. It looked as neat as when I clean it. I was impressed. She did a great job, and I told her so.

Josh will not wear a coat. it was 10 degrees F outside tonight, and he even refused Sam's silky blue princess coat. Unprecedented! He will put on the hat with the pom poms, and mittens, but no coat. I've been letting him win, because, well, he isn't going to get frostbite, and he will ask for a coat if he gets cold because he isn't stupid. I just don't understand it, though. Did I mention it is really cold? We aren't out for more than a couple of minutes, but still!

Gumball!!!!

Joshua demanded a gumball. I told him he can get a gumball if he uses the potty or brushes his teeth. So, he hands me his diaper, takes off his clothes, and uses the potty! Then he screams for the gumball, although he did wait patiently for me to wash my hands. He loves the gumball machine. he know exactly what he is doing with diapers.

Obama inauguration

Where was I? Having lunch with Joshua at 99 on Route 3, checking to see if he had messed his diaper and cleaning a booger off his face. I was in tears at the magnitude of the occasion. (the inauguration, not the booger) I felt such hope for my babies, that maybe they would have a world to live in that was more civilized than it is now. I hugged Joshua extra tight and gave Sam a hug in my heart. She watched the inauguration in the third grade classroom at Stratton. And Yo-Yo Ma's music was incredible. I am a sucker for strings.

Snowbank

For those of you living south of us, there is quite a bit of snow on the ground, maybe 20 inches in some spots. Joshua has discovered the snow, mostly from seeing Sam's glee. He decided to go exploring today as I had a brief chat with Samantha's teacher. Next thing, I hear pleas from a pile of snow. Josh wasn't buried, not quite. When I waded in to get him, I broke through the last layer and I went thigh deep. Neither one of us was wearing snow pants. Josh kept saying "cold, cold" with that little hitch in his voice he does that is so piteous. He is very good at that and pouting.

I got us both to safety and tried to gather Samantha up and leave right away for a warm hearth and home, but she was busy trying to get one of her classmates to come home with her to play Wii. She loves the Wii. Matt, bless his smart head, got it all set up last night. We played a game of bowling on it, getting ready for Sam's birthday party. We invited all of her classmates and a few others, including her friends from Germany. She wants the to come, and wants them to know she misses them, so I mailed it. I thought she was sweet to do that. I miss them too.

King of Pop

Then there's the whole "Michael Jackson" look, about which the less said the better ...

Joshua is never going to forgive me for this.

The glove was his idea, by the way, as was the pose. I swear that we didn't put him up to this.

Elton Joshua

One of these days when he's old enough to read this blog, Joshua is going to kill me for posting this.

He's in this very "interesting" (but presumably normal for 2 year olds) phase in which he wants to do everything that his big sister does. That includes wearing her clothes. For example, he's taken a liking to an old bright blue satin coat of hers with Disney princesses on the back, and although it's much too big for him he insists on wearing in in preference to his own coats. Since it's been about 5 degrees outside lately we don't argue too much.

Still, there are times when he takes the whole "wearing his sister's clothes" thing to extremes. This is what happens when it goes a bit too far.

Happy New Year 2009

Samantha is very happy it is 2009. She tried to call every member of her class to wish them a happy New Year. It is so like Samantha to call everyone, not to leave anyone out.

It got to zero last night, with a 45 mile an hour wind. There was no way we could take Joshua out, or today either. It was about 10 degrees most of the day. I hope we can go see the ice sculptures tomorrow when the temp is supposed to be a balmy 35 degrees. At least there is no chance of the sculptures melting!

Instead we went to Chuck E Cheese and the kids played there for a bit. Joshua is great. He is so little, his idea of fun is to run up to another kid and hand them his token. Or hand the other little kids their basketballs. He isn't really interested in getting those little paper tickets. Samantha is very focused on getting as much as she can so she can get something for her and Joshua. She is sleeping in Joshua's room tonight. He was screaming because he wanted her poodle pocketbook. Once I got him calmed down, Samantha handed it to him and let him sleep with it. This is her new favorite toy! She came to me after she was in bed to get some more hugs. She said she had to go back in the room because she didn't want Joshua to wake up and be scared because she wasn't in the room. He wants her to be there with him, and I am pretty sure she doesn't like sleeping without him either.