Almost Anything

I would do anything for my kids. Well…almost.

For her last birthday, one of Arden’s friends gave her a Polly Pockets doll, complete with accessories. Polly had a couple of shirts, some pants, a pink purse and even a little blue suitcase. For reasons I will never understand, Daxton started carrying around this little blue suitcase yesterday morning, and calling it “his bag.” This bag is TINY. Teeny-tiny. It is about the size of my thumbnail, but with a handle. He carried it around all afternoon, which wasn’t too big of a deal because we didn’t really go anywhere, and I thought it kind of cute that for some bizarre, 2-year-old-boy reason he wanted to play with this minuscule bag when Arden has at LEAST three or four other normal size bags that he could have used.

After Preston was done working, we went to Target to pick up a few things, and Daxton brought the bag along. Unfortunately for Preston, he had now started calling it “my purse.” I thought this only made the whole thing funnier, but of course Preston disagreed. Dax excitedly showed his new favorite toy to some other kids at Target, yelling, “SEE MY PURSE! IT BWOO!” (It’s blue). Preston cringed. I laughed.

Our next stop is dinner at Wingers, or “the popcorn place,” as the kids call it. Dax of course proudly brings his bag with him into the restaurant. Once the waitress brings the popcorn to our table, it was (as usual) a little bit of a feeding frenzy with the kids all trying to get their hands in the bowl at the same time and popcorn spilling everywhere on the table, the benches of the booth, the floor, etc. Somehow during the popcorn frenzy, Daxton put his bag down on the bench, and with all of the bouncing of the kids, it worked its way into the crack at the back of the bench and became wedged. Dax discovered the problem and began wailing, “MY PUUURRRSE! MY PUUUURSE!” for the entire crowded restaurant to hear, much to Preston’s dismay (and my amusement). Preston tried desperately to retrieve it for him, but only succeeded in pushing the bag down further down and past the cushion. Unfortunately, the bottom of the bench was enclosed, so we couldn’t just pick it up off of the floor underneath the bench. While Dax continued to lament the fate of his purse (loudly), Preston tried to push his arm behind the cushion and reach down inside the bench to retrieve the teensy bag. Preston’s hand/arm was too big, so he looked and me and said that I would need to do it since my arms are skinnier. Daxton looked up at me with hopeful eyes.

I started to visualize what exactly my fingers might touch if I was able to fit my arm through the crack in the bench. I pictured pieces of fossilized popcorn, old soggy French fries, other old bits of food and who-knows-what-else that could have been down there for who-knows-how-long. I quickly decided that the odds of me finding that miniature little bag without touching something truly disgusting were just not good enough.

Am I am mean mom, or what?

Sorry, Dax. I love you more than tongue can tell buddy, but you lived your whole life before yesterday without that teeny bag, and tomorrow you will hopefully have forgotten all about it.

If not, I know where Polly Pocket’s pink purse is.

Showoffs

Cora is growing up so fast (she turned 17 months old this week) and she is getting so smart! The problem is, she is a little too shy to show off her smartness to anyone except me. The other day I was reading a counting book to Daxton, and Cora surprised me with a new trick. I was going to help Dax count some puppies. I pointed to the first one and said "One," and Cora jumped in and yelled "TWO! TEE! FO-WUH! FIE!"

What?!?!?!?

I always seem to underestimate that little girl and how much she knows. Why is that? Anyway, it took a little coaxing to get Corbie to count for Preston when he got home, and she was even more reluctant to share her new trick with my mom and dad when we visited them yesterday. So, here are some of the "show-off" tricks that Cora can do, but that she will probably never EVER show you in real life (Dax wanted to play too). Oh, and I hope you don't get too seasick:

It is funny how differently Cora and Arden act at home compared to how they act around other adults. Arden gets really quiet around other adults, even her aunts and uncles. Her primary teachers have told me how quiet she is too. But as soon as she gets home she must flip a switch or something, because she is loud and talks INCESSANTLY. Cora is really similar. She is usually pretty quiet around other adults, but she talks non-stop at home. I know that if I can't hear Cora talking, she must be doing something naughty. Dax, on the other hand, is pretty loud at home AND wherever else he might be. Is it a boy vs. girl thing?

We were outside playing on the swing set the other day, and Arden was cracking me up with some of the things she was saying. For example, she was swinging and kept yelling: "Mom, I am swinging high as the ball!!" Huh? (After a LOT of questions, I figured out she was trying to say she was swinging "highest of all." However, she thinks that she can swing 1) high, 2) higher, or 3) high as the ball. :-) Later, she said she wanted to play "I Spy." I think she saw this on the TV show "Charlie and Lola," one of her favorites. I agreed to play, and she said, "I spy with my evil eye..." I started laughing so hard I didn't hear what she spied. I told her that she is supposed to spy with her LITTLE eye, not her EVIL eye. Where does she come up with this stuff?

Labor Day Weekend

We had a little stay-cation over Labor Day weekend. We played tourist and visited a couple of places that we hadn't been before (or at least not for years and years).

First up was a visit to the "This is the Place/Heritage Park" on Saturday. We went with some friends and their kids who were experienced veterans and they were great tour guides. The first thing we had to do was (of course) the pony rides. Here is one of my favorite pictures:

Cute little cowboy! Dax absolutely loved his first time on a horse. Arden had fun too:

Corbie took her first ride too, but unfortunately most of the time she was on the horse I was next to Dax trying to make sure he didn't fall off of his, so I missed taking her picture. But she really loved the "Petting Corral" and ran around like crazy yelling "EEP! EEP!" (Sheep!) from under her binkie.

Next we rode on a big train around the park so that we could ride on a little train:

Then the kids panned for gold in a stream (well actually Preston picked the teeny gold nuggets out of the stream with his fingers, but anyway) we took our nuggets to the bank and traded them for a piece of candy! It was getting pretty hot by then, so we stopped for some ice cream (delicious but MESSSSSSSY). We wandered around Main Street for a while, then went over to some small houses/cabins for the kids to play in. Corbie planted herself on this baby size porch rocker in front of the baby size house and thought that she had found her own little slice of heaven:

The kids all had a great time...up until the very end when Dax got ahold of the stroller ran over Cora with it. I strapped Daxton in the stroller for a time-out, and we made quite a dramatic exit from the Place with two screaming babies. But it we will definitely be back!

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Monday we went to the Living Planet aquarium in Sandy. I knew it wasn't a very big place so I wasn't expecting much. It was small, but it was actually the perfect size for us and they had a lot of really great stuff. Dax loved all the frogs they had, and when the kids saw this sculpture they had to all pile on:

Dax was transfixed:

There was "storytime" while we were there. All the kids went and sat down on the floor to hear the story. Right in the middle of the story, Dax started singing a montage of "Itsy-Bitsy Spider," "Yellow Submarine" and the "Mailtime" song from Blues Clues at the top of his lungs. Arden tried to cover up his mouth with her hand, but that only led to a wrestling match with Dax screaming like a girl at the top of his lungs. Sooooo, Dax's storytime experience was cut a little short. Ah, the joys of two-year-old boys.

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Some of the kids' favorites were the jellyfish, the pipefish, the sharks, the stingrays, the octopus (awesome), and the penguins ("PEN-GIN" was Cora's new word of the day):

It was a pretty fun weekend. We spent Monday night grilling in the backyard and having our daily nectarine feast. We have a couple of nectarine trees and this year the kids and I have really enjoyed going out in the backyard each afternoon and eating one (or two, or five) right off the tree. One day Corbie had a "Appo" (what she calls nectarines...she thinks they are apples) in each hand and was eating them both at once. I ran inside to get the camera but by the time I got back out she had finished one off and was nearly done with the other:

She is FAST. Here she is with her fellow nectarine-gluttons:

Yummmm.

Little Monkey

Arden is still loving her gymnastics class. A month or two ago she graduated to the "Advanced 4-5 year old" class, and now she gets to practice on the "big kids" equipment...full-size balance beams, etc. She is LOVING it and feeling so grown up. There is a rope at the gym for the kids to climb, and Arden has been dying to try it for months and months. A couple of weeks ago the teacher told her class to try to see if they could climb halfway up the rope. Arden flew up to the halfway mark and then obediently came down. I asked her why she didn't try to go higher and she said because her teacher told her to go halfway up, not all the way up! (if only she was so obedient for me!) Last week she asked her teacher if they could climb the rope so she could try and climb to the top, and I promised her I would take a video:

Little monkey. I was a teeny bit worried (that rope is HIGH!), but Arden said she wasn't scared at all (and looked at me like I was a little bit stupid for even asking). She was pretty proud of herself, she keeps asking me when I am going to put the video "on the 'puter" for everyone to see. I usually don't put many videos since I write this blog mostly to print it out as a kind of journal and the videos obviously don't print very well, but she is relentless. I am sure she will be watching it a dozen or so times in the morning.