Dinner Conversation

Last night, as we were eating dinner, we started discussing cow's milk. (We suspect Melinda may be lactose intolerant to some degree, which is why we made the distinction.)

"Cow's milk?!"  Jacob exclaimed.

"Yeah.  You remember," I replied, "cows make milk the same way people do."  The conversation continued, explaining how as long as someone takes the milk every day, the cows keep making more.  Adding in that as long as I nurse a baby or keep pumping milk, I would keep making more, too. 

Jacob puts on a slightly too innocent expression, and then asks, "Mom, are you a cow?"

Feeling a bit chagrined, dazed, and not at all very pleased, I simply say, "Thanks, Jacob.  Thanks a lot."

Jesse was laughing his head off, which ended up making the kids and myself giggle, too.  Finally I ask Jacob, "Do I look like a cow to you?"

"No," he admits.  Then, after pausing just long enough to make me think I'm safe, he adds "They don't have hands."


Well.  Doesn't that make me feel better???  ;)

And for the record, Alex is officially weaned.  It was a nice gentle end to our nursing relationship... I was feeling very ready for it, and he has been very accepting of the change.  And now I have my body all to myself for the first time since I became pregnant with Melinda, 7 years and 2 months previous.  We stopped nursing altogether very shortly after his birthday.

Unsupervised

We haven't been great about getting out of bed very early this week, with Jesse home on a forced vacation from work. That means that the kids are up and playing while we're pretty oblivious to what's going on, catching some extra zzz's while we can. This morning, they surprised us with a couple actually good things.

First, a box of gallon-sized ziploc bags somehow got knocked down from the top of the fridge. Might have happened before we went to bed without us noticing it, but the kids sure noticed it this morning. They took them and proceeded to "clean up" the playroom by stuffing those gallon-sized bags with as many toys as they could. And then they stacked them all on the chair in the living room. See the picture? So proud of themselves. Even Jacob, in all his underwear-and-swim-goggle glory. You can even see a bit of the very clean playroom floor in the doorway behind them. .... .... Maybe I should implement gallon-sized bags into our cleanup routine??

And then, as I was setting out a breakfast "snack" (snack only, because we were heading off to IKEA to grab breakfast and do window shopping, but since Jesse and I had gotten up at 9am, they were already "starving"), I saw some papers on the table, and I was floored by the drawings I saw on them. Melinda had found her "how-to-draw animals" book that I bought a few months ago. She had deemed it too difficult and frustrating back then, but she did awesome this time, all on her own:

An Angel Fish:

A Butterfly:

A Cobra, complete with wiggles:

Top: a fly;

Middle Left: a worm (with wiggles);

Middle Right: a starfish (with a million dots!!)

Bottom: a sperm whale

She said the worm was the trickiest one for her. But she put a lot of detail into all of them, and I could tell what they all were right off the bat. What a fun thing to discover first thing in the morning!

The Escapades of Jacob

A couple events that happened within the last day and a half made me realize that I still have a lot of things to work on with Jacob!

Story #1
We went to IKEA last night. One, we wanted a new dresser for the kids (they've managed to step inside their drawers so many times that it's becoming impossible to open them, because the railings are bent and the ball bearings completely gone, and there are no replacement parts that I'm aware of). Two, since we had to stay home sick so much over the last week and a half, we really were taking any excuse available to get out of the house. And IKEA does have a nice play place called Smaland, that Melinda and Jacob have just been aching to play in, ever since Jacob became fully potty trained. (Did I mention that he is essentially past accidents now? HOORAY!)

So, off to IKEA we went. Jacob and Melinda ran into the play place without really listening to the young lady attending, as she gave them instructions about no running, and where the bathroom is. After a few minutes into our shopping, Jesse said, "We really should have made Jacob use the bathroom before letting him play." I agreed with him, despite the fact that we made him use the bathroom right before we left the house. He tends to have to go a lot more in the evenings. Still, I wasn't worried that he'd have an accident. Mostly not worried, at least.

We got back to pick them up around 40 minutes after we left them. As soon as we walked up, the young lady said, sort of mumbling in her not-especially-helpful mannerism, "Jacob took off his pants." I know I looked completely shocked. "WHAT?!" I exclaimed. "I have no idea why he'd do that! He's never just taken off his pants before!!" Melinda saw us waiting there, and we waved her over to get ready to go. Meanwhile the young lady went to the bathroom to get Jacobs pants. .... AND his underwear. When she said he took off his pants, I thought she meant he just stopped in the middle of playing, took off his pants, and continued on. But no. He had gone to the bathroom.

And when Jacob goes to the bathroom, he strips himself completely down, sits on the toilet to pee, and then gets back down. And when we're at home, he'll often streak through the house and take a good long time before he puts his underwear and pants back on. I usually either have to chase him down myself, or nag him a good 10-15 times before he finally stops listens to me. That's when we're at home. I haven't left him alone since he potty trained, and I completely forgot about this when we dropped him off at IKEA. Of course he wasn't about to be ready to put his pants right back on, all by himself, before going back to playing at such a nice shiny new play place. It's even more entertaining than home! Why do there what he's not willing to do at boring ol' home?!

So anyway, Jacob had gone potty, left his pants and underwear in the bathroom, and run back to playing. All right before we came back to pick the kids up. And where was he when we got there? Rolling all around in the ball pit, with his completely naked bum. And when he climbed out, there he was, streaking for anyone who cared to watch through the windows into IKEA's main lobby.

Apparently all those other kids in the play place were just absolutely screaming before we got there, too. I have no idea if they were screaming in amusement or terror or what. All I know is that Jacob put on quite a little show for everyone, and had absolutely no inkling about his little social faux pas. He simply used the bathroom like a good boy, and went right back to playing.

Jesse was absolutely mortified. I was slightly amused, but also embarrassed that I had forgotten about this aspect of potty training for public readiness. And, I suppose, Jesse was definitely right about making him use the potty. Would have avoided that whole mess!

But... yeah. We definitely still need to work on his getting-dressed-after-using-the-potty skills. Nice way to get that reminder, huh??


Story #2
While Melinda was at her little preschool with our church friends this morning, I took the boys to the mall to play, and then over to Trader Joe's to do a little shopping. Jacob loved pushing around his little kid-sized cart and helping with the shopping. We enjoyed some free samples. We picked out our favorite foods. And then we went and bought all our food. Just as we were finishing up putting the food into bags, our cashier started giving Jacob balloons. We got two - one for him, one for Melinda. As soon as he had both in his hands, I went and swiped my card to pay for the groceries, and helped finish up bagging the last few things. As I went back to sign, I looked up and Jacob was gone. GONE. Every direction I turned my head, he was nowhere to be found. I almost had a heart attack, I swear!! I finally spied him through the fully-windowed storefront, at the very end of the sidewalk that runs along the storefronts and parkinglot. Just sauntering away, holding his two balloons, completely oblivious to anything else.

A panicked "Oh crap!!" slipped out of my mouth, and I told the cashier I'd be right back. I ran to the automatic doors, stepped right outside them, and yelled Jacob's name. No response. I yelled again, louder. Still no response. Knowing I just ditched my baby in a grocery cart with complete strangers, I took off running after Jacob anyway. Finally got his attention, and brought him back to the store as quickly as I could. There was Alex waiting for me, happily poking tomatoes. Heart still racing, I signed for the credit card and started - with both boys- back out the doors.

I can only guess that once Jacob had the balloons in his hands, his brain thought "Hey! Shopping's done! Time to go!" and just started walking back out. I'm just relieved a million times over that he didn't wander out into the parking lot. He isn't good at looking for cars, yet, especially not when armed with fun toys like balloons in his hand. And it's a very busy parking lot, too! And nobody took him... that's a good thing. Though I don't know why he was able to walk by three different ladies just standing around without a single one of them trying to help him find his mommy, or at least stop him from walking any further.

When we got to our car, I finally had a good chance to tell him how scared I was when I couldn't find him, and ask him why on earth he left without me and walked all alone out into the parking lot? Where was he going? "I don't know." Why didn't he wait for mommy? "I don't know." Didn't he think that was scary, to be all by himself like that? "No."

Sigh. Obviously, I still need to have some really good safety talks with him, too. Who knew a 3-year-old boy would be so much more work than a 3-year-old girl??

The Hunt for Manners

I wonder if I could attribute it to her age: Melinda often refuses to use manners. No "sorry", "please", or "thank you"... instead, we get a full-blown fit of refusal, usually followed by dramatic crying. As if using manners is going to literally kill her. And that alone would be frustrating... but when you add to it that she used to use her "magic words" constantly, even when she was so young that she still couldn't say half of what she needed because she lacked the vocabulary.... Well, it goes beyond frustrating, and enters the zone of outright maddening.

In fact, I've been having such an issue with her doing something rude (or dangerously harmful), and then refusing to even try to make it better. For instance, the other day she knocked Alex down a la the now-popular Jacob Belly Bump, and Alex was walking around with a sippy cup in both hands. She knocked him down from behind, and he fell face-forward without any hands free to catch himself. His face connected with the cup, and he got a lovely cut on his lip. She wouldn't say sorry, give him a hug, or otherwise acknowledge the wrongdoing in any way other than cowering on the floor and shaking her head in refusal. I finally sat her down for a long talk, and made her a "contract" of what she would do if she pushed again. She and I came up with two options for consequences: My contribution was to say sorry and/or give a hug to make the person feel better. Her contribution was to clean the room.

That's right. My daughter would rather clean an entire room than utter a single two-syllable word or extend a hug if she's done something wrong. And she did push again the next day, and she did opt to clean the room instead of saying sorry or giving a hug. Call me incredulous.

Fast forward to today: We rearranged the dinner table in such a way that Melinda lost her preferred spot - one that has only been available for a few weeks. She started having a meltdown over the seating arrangments, despite being given a million and a half choices. It continued for quite some time, and morphed into a meltdown about the dinner itself, and then into wanting someone to stir her soup for her.

Well, we parental units got stubborn by this point. If she was going to sit there and have a fit over every single little thing, we weren't going to stir her soup (something she's perfectly capable of, anyway) until she said please. And oh, boy, how she continued to refuse!

Jesse, bless his clever heart, really saved the day. He began trying to "find" Melinda's "lost manners". Jesse really has a knack for being silly. It's one of the things that made me fall in love with him, after all! But he really out-did himself tonight.

"Hm, mom, I think Melinda's lost her manners! I wonder where they could be?"
(Melinda continues to sob, but her eyes peek up in interest.)

Jesse started asking a long series of questions, trying to discover where those lost manners might be. On top of her head? Under the bag of chips? Inside the vase? Eventually, when Melinda continued to cry and stubbornly refuse to participate in the quest, he got up from his seat, and started wandering around the room. He picked up a couple tissue-paper-decorated vases from the kids' Art Play class last fall, and held them on his head like antlers. "Are these manners??" He tried getting her attention with no luck, and was soon dancing a silly little jig with those "antlers" on top of his head. I couldn't help myself, when I looked at what he was doing- I burst out laughing. Jacob followed suit, too, giggling his head off. Alex looked at him with obvious delight. Melinda still huddled in her chair, oblivious to the new tactic. I convinced her to look, finally, and she hid a bit of giggles in between her sobs. Jesse moved along, now picking up a thick book from my desk. "Hmm, I wonder if this might be manners? Where would it go? Inside my head? Can I fit this inside my head??" And he suddenly starts making a show of shoving the book into his head (by putting it behind his head). Jacob was now beside himself with giggling, and Melinda was even starting to let obvious laughter escape unhidden. But she quickly reverted back to crying.

After a few more tries, Jesse came back to the dinner table. We sort of hemmed and hawed about what to try next, when Jacob joined in: "I have an idea, Daddy!" And when we asked him to show us his idea, he ran off in search of manners, too. First he mimicked the vase-antlers. While giggling. Nope, that didn't work - not manners! Then he ran to the front room, and came back with a pillow on his head. "Is this manners?? NOoooo!" Giggled and ran off. He kept coming back, with lots of variations of things on his head. It was quite entertaining. Finally Jesse called him back to the table, declaring that he tried hard enough, but needed to finish eating now.

We started using exaggerated manners while Melinda continued to sulk.
Jacob: "Can I have more milk, Daddy?"
Jesse: "What do you say?"
Jacob: "Please!!" (with a grin, even!)
Jesse: "Yes, Jacob, here you go!"
Jacob: "Thank you!"
Jesse: "You're welcome!"

And so on.
Melinda still sulked. Jesse proclaimed that Melinda's manners must be lost for good.
"But what if they're lost somewhere inside her, dad?" I asked. (Yes, I'm one of the ones who always addresses her husband by "dad" when children are present. And sometimes when they're not.) "How are we going to find them if they're inside her??"

FINALLY, Melinda starts playing the game. It's been long enough for me to finish two bowls of soup by this point, even with all the discussion in between bites. "Mommy, I want you to look for my manners," she says timidly. "Oh!! Where should I look?" I pry open her mouth and and exclaim, "Oh, look! There's something hanging down at the back of your throat! Is that your manners?" She yanks her head away from me, now giggling, but nope, that wasn't it. I check her pinky toe, maybe it's hiding them. Nope, not there either. A few more tries, and I'm out of ideas, and go back to feeding Alex a few beans from the soup.

Melinda then gives her spoon to Jesse, without a word. He says thank you for the spoon, and sets it down. Then she gives him her bowl, again without a word. He says thank you again, and sets it down near his own bowl, and goes back to eating. After a few moments, she peeps out a quick "Stir!" followed by something that might have been "please". But it was hard to tell, so we wondered if she might mean that she wanted daddy to stir the cheese. So he picked up the spoon and "stirred" the block of cheese. Oh, the giggles! She's coming out of the ridiculous fit, now! But no, she didn't want the cheese stirred, she wanted her soup (now cold) stirred. So she peeps out another "Stir!" followed by a chirped "please!!"

"Melinda found her manners!!!!" we exclaim with joy. A large round of applause! Oh, Alex likes this game! He joins in with his own exuberant clapping, grinning like there's nothing better in the world than dinner time with clapping involved. And you know what? Melinda's smiling, too! Jesse picks up the spoon and stirs the soup, and hands it back to Melinda happily. She looks so proud of herself!

And then she wants some water - with ice. "Can I have more water, please?" "Yes, you can!! Here you go." "Thank you!" "You're welcome!" And every time she used a manners word from then until we were down from the table, we erupted with "Hoorays!!!" and another round of clapping. What fun! Even Melinda was enjoying the magic words by this point.

It makes everyone happy to use manners, doesn't it??

Midnight Giggles

Last night, Jesse and I were feeling wide awake when we went to bed. Alex wasn't being cooperative in the sleepy department, either, so we amused ourselves by chatting. Melinda had woken up before we went to bed, got a drink, and never fell back asleep. So she ended up joining us in our room, on the twin bed that sits right up against our queen. She was laying there, under her cover, so quietly.

Jesse and I just kept talking and talking, and the conversation eventually wandered from volcanic basins into descriptions of different roads we've each driven on: The roads between Rexburg and Idaho Falls, with their evenly-spaced bumps that can make you carsick at just the right speed; the span somewhere around around southern Idaho and northern Utah that used to be carved right out of the hillsides, exposing all the layers of volcanic rock (and has been removed, since); and as Jesse described them, the "bumpies", as his family used to call them, a series of evenly spaced small hills that would leave his stomach floating out of his chest, as if they were in an elevator or on an amusement park ride. We started laughing and giggling about it, and all of the sudden, Melinda pops her head up the tiniest bit, and scowls at us. "I am sleepy. Be quiet!"

Jesse and I just burst into fits of laughter. Here it was, just past midnight, and our five year old (who just happens to always beg to stay up so late) is now scolding her parents for talking and giggling and keeping her from being able to fall asleep. And she had such a tone to her voice, as if to say, "REALLY! You two are so backwards!"

It was really tough to stay quiet long enough to let her get some rest, after that. ;)

Quoth Melinda

Melinda seems to have very selective hearing, as is often the case with children.  Or even adults.  But it's something we often struggle with.  If we say, for instance, "Melinda, can you throw this away in the kitchen garbage, please?"  She'll yell, "WHAT?"  ... "Melinda.  Please throw this away in the kitchen garbage."  ... "WHAT??"  Making direct eye contact, and now speaking as clearly as possible: "Could you, please, go. throw. this. in the. garbage??"  .... "What do you want me to do, Mommy??"

Sigh. 

Many conversations go like that.  Sometimes you have to yell her name loudly just to get her attention, if she's really caught up in what she's doing.

So imagine today, Melinda wanted to have a sandwich, with pickles on it, for lunch.  She said so on the car drive home.  Repeatedly.  She made sure I didn't miss her request.

We got home, got our church clothes off, took care of Alex's needs, and put dinner in the crock pot.  Melinda and Jacob are playing animatedly in the playroom about 20 feet away, not paying any attention to myself or Jesse.  I say, "Oh, I know, I'll have some leftover soup for lunch.  It needs to be eaten, after all."  I pause, then say, "I don't really want to make sandwiches, either."

At this very moment, Melinda yells from the playroom,
"What did you say, Mommy???"

Oh, right.  My daughter who can't understand a word I say when I'm talking to her clearly and directly can suddenly hear me, clearly, from a mile away when I mention out loud that I might not like to make the lunch of her choice. 

How her ears picked up that single word of sandwich, I'm sure I'll never know.

You Know You Need a Laugh

It's the last day of September. We are officially in autumn time. And turkeys are right around the corner.

You know you need a good laugh! Why don't you go get it at Is It Just Me?, where Randi shares one of the most hilarious turkey stories I've ever come across.

And while you're there, I highly recommend that you subscribe to her blog. I found it not too long ago, and she's always got something great to talk about!

I Should Have Bought a Lotto Ticket

Since I still haven't made it to the grocery store to re-stock my fridge and pantry after our move, we ended up having waffles and eggs for dinner tonight.

I cracked open 3 eggs, went to crack the fourth, and noticed it was significantly bigger than the others. I buy large eggs (and this particular batch was brown/organic/cage free/etc.), but this one was more of a jumbo. I shrugged my shoulders, cracked it open, straight into the pan, and HOLY MOLY!! It had TWO YOLKS!!

I squealed with delight. I had never even heard of such a thing. I looked it up later, and it is indeed a rare abnormality (although one person out there on the internets said she and her husband once got a full dozen that all had double yolks!). And they say that if you find an egg with two yolks, it's a sign of good luck.

If only it had been a lotto ticket, I tell ya!

(As an aside, I read that two yolks will only turn into a successful hatching with human intervention - because otherwise, the chicks will fight each other and both die. Yikes!)

Little Boys Are Funny

I should give a little background, first. Jacob had potty trained pretty much completely. We were still working on getting him to run to the toilet instead of a closet when it was time for a bowel movement, but otherwise everything was golden. Except when he got sick last week, I stuck him in training pants so we wouldn't have to worry about what might happen while he was deep in sleep on the couch from a fever. Well, that really backfired. We were back to square one, after that mistake, and suddenly Jacob couldn't remember how to keep himself dry. It was really frustrating. Much of the problem was solved when Jesse broke out a couple extra potty chairs we had, and encouraged Jacob to try using them.... standing up. Well, Jacob just loved that idea, of course! I should say that I am actually pleasantly surprised at how good his (ahem) aim is.

Anyway, the other day, he needed to go potty, and I went with him. The two extra potty chairs were sitting side by side in the bathroom, and he picked the smaller red potty. He stood over it, went pee, and then stopped.... and took two steps to the left, positioned himself over the larger white potty, and started going again. And then stopped, took two steps to the right, and went in the red potty again. And yup, you guessed it, he stopped and finished off in the white potty. I just watched and chuckled. Leave it to a young, newly-potty-trained boy to get the crazy idea of using every available potty in one trip. When he was finished, he turned around and grinned at me as widely as he could, and exclaimed, "Look, mommy! I went pee-pee in the red one and in the white one! Yeah!!" (I am glad that he didn't make a mess!!)

*****

Tonight we had some Chinese food for dinner (and not just because of the Olympics, either!). I ordered Bourbon Chicken, and it has a fairly bright red color to it. As we were sitting at the table to eat it, Jacob asked me if he could have a bite of my strawberries. LOL.

Realization

I just got home from walking around a grocery store for a full hour. I also went to the post office.

I just realized that my shirt is completely inside out. And has been since I got dressed this morning.

S-t-r-e-t-c-h!

You should always stretch your muscles before and after exercising. Anyone with even a middle school physical education knows that, right? You definitely should. Always.

Not that I learned the hard way, or anything. Oh no, I wasn't the one who agreed go on a 4-mile walk with steep inclines with a 16-pound infant strapped to my back, who went straight to the shower after getting home, didn't stretch for more than 2 seconds, and then woke up this morning with calves as stiff as a board, practically causing herself to fall out of bed, and who was hardly able to walk all day long.

Nope, wasn't me! And you can't prove that it was.

Unless, maybe, you're my husband, who has heard me complaining all day long.

Dumped in

This morning I was throwing things into the crock pot for dinner tonight. Cafe Rio burritos, and the meat mix is made with pork tenderloin, and a bunch of different stuff for the sauce. I was almost done when Jacob ran to grab a stool so he could watch what I was doing. He watched me put in some brown sugar, some apple cider vinegar, and then I started the last ingredient, garlic. I thought I had plenty of garlic, but it turns out one bunch of them was pretty old and basically rotten looking. So I grabbed the garlic powder to use as a substitute for the rest of the cloves, put a few scoops in, and then started cleaning up after myself. I turned around to face the sink and clean the garlic press. Jacob continued to stand at the stool by the crock pot.

That was my first mistake.

I wasn't listening very closely to his ramblings. That was my second mistake. I suddenly processed the fact that he said, "Put the lid back on?", so I turned around to see what he was doing. I had left the garlic powder on the counter next to him. That was my third mistake.

As I turned around and saw him putting the lid back onto the garlic powder (which I'm fairly sure he removed by himself, first), I saw that the garlic powder jar was empty. Completely and totally empty. I think that was the first time in my life I did one of those shocked, audible gasps of horror at my realization of what had happened. Jacob had dumped about 5 or 6 extra *tablespoons* worth of garlic powder into the crockpot. And the label says 1/8 of a teaspoon is equal to one clove of garlic.

So I quickly grabbed a tablespoon and started scooping out powder as best I could, for my dear life. A lot of it had already absorbed into the liquids in the pot, so I'm not sure I even managed to get out half of what Jacob added. But I did my best.

I guess we'll hope that dinner isn't ruined. We've always tended to add more garlic to recipes anyway, since we like garlic so much, but I'm nervous this time. Very, very nervous.

Lesson? Don't ever turn your back to your 2.5 year old child who likes to "help" make dinner, especially when he is within easy reach of an open pot and handy ingredients.

Curious George and the clogged toilet

Melinda just told me about one of three dreams she had last night. I'll try to use her words and way of talking as much as possible, because it just makes the dream that much more cute! Still, it's not a direct quote, because my memory isn't that good!

Last night, I had three dreams. One dream, there was the monkey George and the Man in the Yellow Hat. The toilet got ... clogged, filled up ... the water kept coming up and up. And they were at church. They ran to the place where you get to sing and read, but the water could come under through the crack under the door.

I asked her, Curious George and the Man in the Yellow Hat were at church?
Yes, she said.
And the toilet was clogged?
Yes, the Man in the Yellow Hat kept flushing it again and again. Why do you have to flush it a lot to see how high the water goes?
I don't know why, Melinda. Where is the place where you sing and read? Is that at the front of the Sacrament Meeting room?
Yes.
The place where you go up front to sing with all the Primary kids?
Yes.
Did they go there because it had stairs to get up high?
Yes. That was a scary dream, wasn't it, Mom?

CAUTION: May cause flames!

So, a funny (scary?) story.

Jesse comes home from work for lunch most days. Today was not an exception. We had a couple italian sausages in casings leftover from a dinner I made a couple nights ago, and Jesse decided to cook them on the broil setting in our toaster oven for his lunch today. He's cooked sausages in the toaster oven before. Most recently, he didn't use the drip pan, and grease from the sausages dripped down onto the heating element and caused little tiny flames. So he learned his lesson, right? And today he used the drip pan, and also used the broil setting so only the top heating element would be on.

Good thing I was standing in the kitchen working on the kids' lunches. About 10-15 minutes into broiling, suddenly there were loud sounds of dripping grease, and flames coming OUT of the toaster oven. We opened it quickly and saw the source of the flame: A tiny hole had opened in the sausage casing, and the pressure build-up from heating the sausage was causing grease to actually spray vertically into the top heating element. Even after we removed the sausage, it continued to spray grease for at least another 30 seconds. We're talking about a spray that went from the surface of the sausage to about 3-4 inches high before it started curving back down with gravity.

CRAZY!!

So, lesson #2 learned: If you're cooking sausage in its casing in a toaster oven, you should always make a few holes in the casing to allow grease and pressure to escape during cooking. Mmmkay?

Laugh till you cry

Last night, Jesse and I were directing Melinda and Jacob in their nightly living room pick-up. Jacob was cleaning up the markers they had left on the floor, and found one that was missing a lid. He was extremely concerned about this poor little marker with no lid. Jacob likes everything to be just right - especially things with lids. Hoping to get his mind off the marker and back to picking up, I told him, "It's okay, Jacob, just give the marker to Daddy and he'll keep it safe".

I wish I could give you a video of this instead of a written account, it would be so much better, timing wise.

JUST as I said "he'll keep it safe," Jesse ever-so-casually and thoughtlessly tossed the marker into the trash right next to him. The timing was just.... incredibly ironic, I guess. The look on my face must have been very incredulous, and Jesse just started giggling, and suddenly I just burst up laughing. And then Jesse started laughing harder. Soon enough, I was laughing so hard that I was crying, and very lucky that I wasn't peeing my pants!!

I just couldn't stop. Jesse eventually took Alex from me so I could go use the bathroom, and even as I was back there all alone, I was still laughing out loud. And even though I had calmed myself down by the time I came back out to the living room, as soon as I had sat down and exchanged glances with Jesse again, the hilarity just started right back up, and I was back to laughing so hard I was crying.

And as I was laughing so hard, I was saying, "It's not even that funny!" through my tears and wheezing. It really wasn't that funny. I'm fairly positive reading this probably won't even make you giggle. But the timing of me saying the word "safe" and Jesse just tossing the marker into the trash just had us both laughing for a good 10 minutes.

Maybe we're just sleep deprived. ;)

To make this more interesting, if you're reading this blog post, and happen to remember the last time you laughed so hard that you cried, please post about it on your own blog, and share it with me!

When pigs fly

I have many, many, many mornings where I am unable to convince myself to get out of bed, no matter how much I know I need to. I'm just not a morning person. And hey- I'm 8 months pregnant and crazy tired, okay?!? At any rate, on Friday morning, Jesse had to run out the door to get to work on time, and couldn't grab the kids some breakfast like he often does. Which meant that I really did need to get up and feed those poor children. And honestly, I needed to get up anyway, in order to give myself enough time to get ready to go to playgroup. But mommy's sleepy, and warm under the covers, and just doesn't want to get up.

Melinda comes in after Jesse leaves, and asks, "Mommy, is it time for you to get up now and get us some food?" I groan. And pause. Sigh. "Give me a few more minutes, okay Melinda?"

About 5 minutes later, she comes back, dutiful little girl that she is. "Mommy, are you read to get up now?" I groan again. I'm really not ready. It doesn't feel like I will EVER be ready. "Can't you wait a couple minutes longer, Melinda?" She sighs, but leaves the room without complaint.

She comes back in quickly this time, after maybe only 2 minutes. "Mommy, I'm hungry. When will you get up?" Boy oh boy, this morning is hard. I really don't want to get up. But she is being so nice about it. So I say, "Hmmm. Maybe when pigs fly...."

Melinda gets this quirky little look on her face. It turns into half of a grin. Suddenly the tone in her voice expresses that she's had one of those "Ah-ha!!" moments, and she says, "OH! That's good. There *are* pigs here, see??" And suddenly, she is oinking and flapping her "wings". And since Jacob has since joined her, and copies everything she does, he chimes right in with his own little "coinks" with flapping hands.

As tired and unready to wake up as I am, I absolutely have to laugh at this display of wit and cunning. And wouldn't you know, it was enough to start off my day on a cheerful note.

(Nevermind that the rest of the day was a big disaster....it's the good stories we want to remember!!)

The things kids say....

Alright, I have two funny stories for you.

First, some background.
Melinda has really been looking forward to a few things, especially the Cub Scout Pinewood Derby (that was tonight), and the baby being born. She would ask me over and over and over how many days till each. I got tired of answering, so it finally dawned on me to make her some calendars so she could cross of days and watch the time pass, with the events drawing closer. She loves it, and calls them her "charts". She was so excited all day today because she could tell it was finally the day for the Pinewood Derby, and we could go to Scouts with Daddy.

You should all remember that Jesse has half a thumb, as he lost the top of it as a 1yr old in a window seat incident. Melinda has asked him a few times when his "fingernail" will grow back. And then we explain that it won't grow back until after he is resurrected. She likes the concept of death and resurrection, and talks about it frequently. Going as far as saying that the leaves that fall off in autumn time will be resurrected, even. So tonight, she brings up the topic again:

Melinda: "Daddy, when will your fingernail grow back?"
Jesse: "Not until I die and then I'm resurrected."
Melinda: "Oh. How long until you die?"
Jesse: "Well, maybe 60 or 70 years."
Melinda: "Oh. That's a really long time. We will have to make a really really big chart!!"

....pause as parents laugh their heads off, thinking of enough calendar months hanging on the wall to represent 60+ years....

Melinda: "Mommy, will you make me a chart for when Daddy will die??"
Becky: ..... ... ... "Um, no, sweetie. Only Heavenly Father and Jesus know when someone will die, so we can't make a chart for it. And I'd rather not have a countdown to when Daddy dies, anyway...."


And of course, Jacob is not short of his own laughter-inducing sayings these days, either.
I try to teach them both the correct name of body parts, hoping to make them comfortable enough to talk about more sensitive subjects with me as they get older. So Jacob already knows penis. During one diaper change, he suddenly grabs himself. It should be noted that he very rarely does this. But this time, he did. And right after he grabs himself, he shouts, with all the excitement that a 2 year old boy can muster, and with the biggest grin on his face......

"Big, BIG Penis!!!"

Oh yes, folks, he's a funny one! ;)

Watch out, Speed Bumps!!

Melinda and Jacob love to run back and forth through the apartment, from the back of my bedroom, down the long hall, and to the couch on the far side of living room. Usually they'll be screaming at the top of their lungs while running. Who knows what they're playing most of the time. Or even if they're playing...maybe they're just getting out some energy!!

But today made me laugh - the floors are particularly messy right now, with most of the toys out of their boxes, couch cushions pulled off the couches, discarded pieces of clothing laying right where the kids took them off, and so on. So running back and forth isn't particularly safe at this point in time. Well, Melinda came bolting out down the hall, and ran right over the Fisher Price Nativity Scene stable. She tripped and fell down, and just kind of stayed there in a bit of shock, but not hurt. I said, "WOAH! What happened? Did you trip over that toy?" And she said, "Yes, it's like a speed bump!!" And so I told her, "Well, Melinda, usually speed bumps are there to tell you that you need to slow down to be safe." "But Mommy," she said, "this one likes to tell you to go fast!"

And yes, she tripped over it again about 1.5 minutes later. ;)