I’ve been amused lately (kind of!)
realizing all the things that seem ingrain to me, but
apparently have to be taught to children. Germ related stuff is
frequent these days. I don’t consider myself to be overly
germaphobic, but simple things like not licking door knobs…
or the wall of a public bathroom!! I mean who does that?!?! Oh,
yeah, small children! I have caught Lex putting a freshly used
toilet seat (the removable kiddie kind) on his head as a crown!
Yuck! He also likes to carry his full potty to the toilet to
empty it, before pulling up his pants. Huge recipe for disaster
there! The potty training thing in public restroom is rough. I
think it’s kind of yucky with him, but then I also have to keep
a super close eye on her because she’ll grab the plunger, lean
on the toilet, lick the walls, etc. Blech! One time he sat down
on a public restroom floor, bare butted, to put his pants back
on. I grabbed him and pulled him up and realized that I have to
teach him that sitting on our floor at home with no pants is
ok, but public restroom floors… not so ok! The other day she
leaned over a toilet, both hands on the seat, and said “smell
it?” All I could do was grab her and say, “no! don’t smell it”
She seemed confused and I didn’t even know where to go from
there. So many things to teach. Bring on the Purell!! It’s
amazing my kids aren’t dying of all sorts of nasty diseases!
Perhaps this is where the expression “What doesn’t kill them
only makes them stronger,” comes from?

On the bright side, we bought some regular
(non-rechargable) batteries for the camera so you can expect
more pictures in the near future. I took a ton of them today!
How’s that for a tease… :)

Eve has become quite the singer lately.
She knows most of the alphabet song and parts of other songs.
She gets very happy when someone else sings and she can jump in
with the lines she knows. Today she was sitting by me and
started singing a little medley. It went something like this…
“Twinkle twinkle little star, now I know my abcs, have you any
wool, yes, yes, three bags full.” And so on. I was trying hard
not to crack up. When we first took away the plug I used to lay
down with her every nap/night and I sang the alphabet song to
calm her now. Now she jumps in and sings along, so I’ve been
trying to mix it up and sing different songs. Her singing along
is cute, but doesn’t help the sleep efforts :)

She has also taken a liking to the toy computer
(“puter!” she calls it and Lex calls it “my very little toy
computer”). Whenever I sit down at my computer she runs in and
grabs the toy computer and sits right down. The computer plays
little games and gives you the option to play in English or
Spanish, and she usually prefers Spanish. Guess I can’t argue
with that. The other day she sat down next to Alan and I ran
for the camera :)

We put up our tree on Wednesday and decorated it
this morning. The kids had fun. I felt bad though because our
tree is small and weak (poor tree!) and Lex tried so hard to
put the ornaments on and they just kept falling off (poor
Lex!). I had to give him the lightest possible ornaments
otherwise they all came cascading down. We ended up with one
broken one, but it’s just a small break and I’m hoping I can
glue it back together. But we had fun, so that’s all that
matters :) I tried to get a picture of them together, but no
luck, so here is a picture of Lex and the tree.

Both kids have sugar coursing through
their veins! Eve keeps randomly crying out and Lex is up there,
in bed, but apparently still awake… kind of. When I went in a
few minutes ago to soothe Eve, he said “Mommy, I still have my
name!” Umm…. ok…. it’s gonna be a long night!

We’ve had a busy, busy weekend around
here. Friday night was Alan’s company’s holiday party at a
local fancy place. They had a private dining room and the wine
was flowing :) We had fun. The kids had fun at home with Emily
and didn’t give her too much trouble at bedtime. Eve apparently
went to bed easily and saved her rowdiness for me. Shortly
after I went to bed, Eve woke up and decided it was time to
play. WIDE AWAKE from 12am-4am or longer. We went downstairs,
had snacks, read stories, etc. I was soooo tired and ended up
putting her back in her room at 4:00am, still wide awake. She
must have fallen asleep at some point because she was out at
6am when Lex woke up. Needless to say I was a cranky mommy on
Saturday! I’ve been kind of overwhelmed with the commitments
I’ve taken on this month and we spent a lot of last week
preparing for this weekend. A week like that is ok for me, but
rough on the kids, and therefore rough on me! Alan has been
having issues with datdec this week as well. So by Saturday,
with no sleep Friday night, we were all mess! Luckily Joyce and
Barney swooped in to save the day :) I went off to a Pampered
Chef party Saturday night (good sales and 3 new shows booked!)
and they helped Alan get the kids to bed. I think we all woke
up a little happier this morning, the day of our holiday party!
I was doing great all morning until the cancellation calls
started coming! Then I got a little bummed and nervous, but I
tried to remind myself that it will definitely be a fun holiday
party and it doesn’t matter if it’s a successful Pampered Chef
party or not. It ended up being a lot of fun and just the right
number of people for our house! We had lots of food, I did a
mini Pampered Chef demo (over the din of kids everywhere) and
then the kids decorated cookies. Eve enjoyed the sprinkles the
most and followed the “some for the cookie, some for me”
decorating philosophy. She had a very short nap today too, so
she was a very goofy girl all afternoon. Lex had a great nap
(for the 3rd day in a row!) and lasted well in to the evening,
playing hard and fast.

I’m happy now
and glad the weekend is behind us. I have one more Pampered
Chef show next weekend and then I can ready myself for the
holidays! :) Busy, busy days. We’re definitely going to sneak
in some relaxing days here and there. For the benefit of me and
the kids!

I have a bunch of pictures on
Joyce’s camera, but I haven’t been able to get them on to my
computer yet. So for now the text will have to suffice. I’ll
post pictures when I can.

This is a super busy weekend, so I’ll post
more next week, but I wanted to document a quick milestone. Lex
slept with no pull-up on last night (his choice) and woke up
dry! We are almost out of pull-ups and I’ve been thinking about
not buying more since he’s often dry in the morning. Last night
he decided he didn’t want a pull-up and woke up dry this
morning… so I guess I’m not buying more! Yay!

On an unrelated note, most mornings Lex and I
are up at 6am and Eve wakes up much later (7-7:30am). Lex gets
very excited to go upstairs and get Eve, but first he finds a
little toy to bring for her. It’s always been his idea and I’m
not sure why it started, but most every morning he brings here
a toy (“a little present for Eve”). It’s funny and
sweet.

We have been talking about “thankful” a
lot lately and last month I started encouraging everyone to say
what they are thankful for. I started off trying to do it at
dinner each night, but then it was lunchtime sometimes, and now
it’s just randomly throughout the day. In the beginning Lex
wouldn’t participate (hid under the table instead) and Eve was
thankful for whatever she had in her hands at the moment. They
have both gotten much more thoughtful about it and now come up
with interesting responses. The other day Eve was thankful for
her arms. And yesterday Lex walked in to the room and said,
“Mommy, do you know what I’m thankful for?” I, of course, said
“What are you thankful for, Lex?” and he said, “Mommy, I’m
thankful that someone is going to buy me some little wooden
trains for Christmas.” He cracks me up!! I had to tell him that
we don’t know what he’s going to get and we’ll have to wait and
see, but he should be thankful for everything he gets for
Christmas. And so begins the holiday gimmes.

I bet you all thought I forgot about this blog! Nope, just
busy and not in a blogging mood lately. I sometimes think about
fun things to add, like the day Lex said “Mom, I’m pretending
my head is a snowflake” as he slowly moved his angled head up
and down in front of the window and snowflakes fell slowly
outside. Anyway, that’s all for now. Quiet time is over and I’m
back on mommy duty.