Kangaroo

When I taught Kindermusik they talked about toddlers being like little kangaroos; sometimes they get out and explore on their own but then they want to return to their nice safe pouch. Bubba is definitely in this phase and it is pretty nice. I especially love it when he gets in trouble or I tell him no about something. He runs away crying, but then comes back a minute or so later because he needs someone (me) to make him feel better because someone (also me) broke his little heart. Even when he's mad at me he still loves me.

Yesterday I left to do the last minute shopping. Bubba and Silly were busy playing upstairs and didn't even notice when I left. Bubba noticed a few minutes later and started walking around the house calling for me. When he found Scott instead he said, "Daddy not Mommy." Scott called me while I was out just to tell me that (and to ask about lunch). He asks "where" a lot now too. He used to only ask where his sister is, now he asks about me and Scott too; "where mommy go?" or "where daddy."

He's also learning to be sneaky. He figured out that if he gets out of bed and comes into the family room then we put him right back in bed. But if he leaves his room very quietly, goes into our room and shuts the door, we won't notice for a while. We've found him like this quite a few times.

There happened to be no blankets on our bed, usually he's under the blankets, and on my pillow.

He also loves to snuggle in bed with Cakes and Silly and will sneak in there too, but they rat him out. A few nights ago Silly finally locked the door to keep Bubba out. He tags along when I'm putting Cakes and Silly to bed and snuggles under the blankets with one of them while we sing songs. It's pretty darn cute. Sometimes they fight over him.

And the cutest thing he does? Fist bumps. I don't think he's ever turned one down and sometimes even asks for one out of nowhere. Last week we were driving somewhere and from his carseat he said, "I wan' bump," holding his little bitty fist out.

So even though yesterday he woke up from his nap on the wrong side of the toddler bed and was a super-mega-grouch-basketcase and was super rotten when Scott took him to the store and later had an extremely prolonged, threatening to gag/choke/throw-up super-fit over being told no candy and had to be put back in bed many times until I finally just locked him in his room and ignored him when he woke up in the middle of the night, I love this little guy.

Big Flippin' Deal

Last weekend we were out and about letting the kids do their Christmas shopping for each other. At the mall we saw this trampoline-bungee thing which Cakes decided she wanted to try. She was pretty awesome and had a nice sized crowd watching her. And thanks to my tiny camera that I now carry everywhere, I have a video of it. And thanks to my handy husband, it has been successfully uploaded. My favorite thing about the whole thing was her face - she did quite a few back flips but the whole time she just had this cool, laid-back, this-is-no-big-deal look on her face. She's awesome.

Weather

As anyone who has ever lived in VA (and many other places, I'm sure) can tell you, the weather around here is pretty inconsistent. I've lived here a long time, and I'm used to it. The weathermen around here probably get paid more than the news anchors. Regular TV is repeatedly interrupted just to update you on "the storm's" latest progress; could be rain, snow, nor'easter or hurricane. They all get tons of news time. While on the one hand I'm grateful to these weathermen for helping me figure out what the kids should be wearing, because it might literally be sweaters, hats, coats and gloves today, but t-shirts tomorrow; on the other hand, I wish I heard a lot less about the weather. That being said, here's some of what we've been experiencing around here.



My children actually asked, repeatedly, to be allowed to rake leaves.



Cakes wanted a picture of her leaf throwing.



 Cakes and Silly devised this "zip your jacket over your head" method so they could bury themselves in the leaves without getting dirt in their eyes.

Bubba discovered the joys of throwing leave at our neighbor.



Can you see the other kid?

  




Bubbs mostly liked sitting in the pile.

 Scott spent a whole morning bagging up leaves, but even then we still had quite a pile under this one tree. It's still there, only now it's covered with snow.

Scott took Cakes and Silly to the city parade last Saturday. I stayed home with Bubbs who wasn't feeling too great. He called me at about 8 to tell me it was snowing at the parade. The kids thought it was fake at first, blowing off one of the floats or something, but in the morning we had a little bit of snow to play in.




Cakes and Silly attempted some snow angels in this little dusting of snow last Sunday.

Bubba checked it out on our way out the door to church.



Then we got a little more snow Monday, enough to make snowballs, so now there are a few in the freezer.




Bubbs wouldn't wear his gloves, but he did like taking the snowballs I made and smashing them on the sidewalk.





Even Scott went out for a little while, without a coat, in short sleeves, as usual.

 And tonight, assuming it doesn't rain, we'll be heading to the Triple R Ranch for some more freezing fun. All of the coats, hats and gloves are in the dryer right now; they were pretty filthy from all their outside fun so far, and I'm sure they'll be dirty again after tonight, but I don't mind dirt that comes from having fun.

Tuckered Out

We did our usual drive home for Thanksgiving. We all eat way too much junk, stay up past bedtime, ignore naptime and play really hard the whole time we're there. Which means our drive back always looks like this...

And even after that nice 2 hour snooze in the car, this happens too...

Disclaimer - yes I took these pictures while I was driving! No one was injured. :-)

Big Talker

Bubba has bee jabbering away lately. I was feeling quite proud of this, and then I realized that the vast majority of his sentences start with "I want..."

I wan' some
I wan' one
I wan' canny (candy)
I wan' cackoo (cracker)
I wan' chocit (chocolate)
I wan' jacket
I wan' wa'er (water)

I could go on for a good long time. He really likes washing his hands too. Any time he gets messy he says "han's" and heads for the bathroom stepstool. He even asks for soap. The only bad part is, he would just stand there with his hands under the running water all day if I let him - not an experiment I'm willing to try.

He definitely thinks he's a big boy. Last week he suddenly started refusing to sit in his high chair, which is typically at the end of the table. I tried moving him to the side, next to me, and that has put an end to his fits so far. I guess he wanted to feel more included. He and Silly try to help me cook whenever they catch me starting something, which is my main reason for wanting a certain something. Currently they both just move barstools all around the kitchen to help them get into whatever they want. Maybe if I get that certain something the barstools will magically disappear...they will definitely disappear if we ever move.

He says cute things like "I do" when he wants to help with something, but he also says not so nice things like "'top it!" and "go 'way." I think he's trying to say "help me" but its hard to distinguish from "happy."

Last week he kept saying "happy to" in this little sing-song voice and I thought maybe he was trying to sing the happy birthday song. He said  it several times over a few days. Then Scott and I were talking and one of us said birthday and Bubbs immediately started singing "happy to." I don't know where he even heard the happy birthday song, because nobody sang it to me, but several times now someone has said birthday and he starts singing "happy to." I'm trying to get him to sing Jingle Bells. I think it's working, but at this stage I think I'm the only person that would translate his sounds into "jingle bell, jingle all the way."

And lastly, this is what happens when a) I leave him unattended with a bowl of yogurt and b) pull his yogurt covered shirt up over his head.

Zombies

So, Silly is now obsessed with zombies, thanks to his dad. He can tell you all about them, and in fact he told my in-laws everything he knows while we were out celebrating my birthday. A few weeks ago he wanted to know how you make a zombie, so Scott found some YouTube videos showing the makeup process of turning a regular person into a zombie. He says, "The only good zombie is a dead zombie" and "the only way to kill a zombie is to shoot it in the head" and "zombies only eat brains." Yesterday he started singing "Who let the zombies out?" to the tune of Who Let the Dogs Out. I called Scott to tell him what his son was singing. His response - "That's awesome!" Tuesday before Thanksgiving Joy School was at our house and the kids were making paper plate turkeys. He and the other little boy gave their turkeys yellow and orange eyes so they'd look like zombies! And now he keeps asking for a Nerf gun, and quotes the Nerf slogan, "It's Nerf or nothing." I'm pretty sure he thinks that's their name, not their slogan. I don't intend to have any guns in the house any time soon though. Or zombies for that matter.