Rats, Foiled Again!

Lucy has offered up a slew of defenses against our attempts to limit her thumb sucking to "sleepy time" only. She started small - "I have a tickle in my mouth." Then she started faking sleep so she could do it. Yesterday, her grandma reminded her that big girls only suck their thumbs when they are sleeping. Lucy replied, "I know that. I am tricking my mommy. She doesn't know that I am doing it."

Today, I think I was officially outsmarted by a 3 year old.

Mommy: If you want to be a big girl, you can only suck your thumb when you are sleeping.

Lucy: I am pretending to be a baby.

Mommy: You can't be a baby anymore, you're too big.

Lucy: Mommy, I can pretend to be anything I want. Today Lauren was pretending that she was a cat.

Mommy: (silence)

Lucy: We are not talking about this anymore.

Well played, my dear. Well played.

Happy Half-Birthday, Brother

Happy half-birthday to our special little guys. Every now and then, it hits me what a miracle it is that they are both here with us, happy and healthy. A few seconds after that another thought hits me...I have three children. There are more children than adults in my house. And, there are enough of us to make a basketball team.

This picture was taken at the doctor's office during their six-month check up, and it is the most I have ever seen them interact with each other. It was so strange and amazing to watch them - at the risk of sounding like a crazy person, I really think they were communicating with each other.

My Fashion Consultant

I am not ashamed to admit that there is at least one component to my outfit every day that was chosen by my three-year-old daughter. I suspect that she may have better fashion sense than I do. It started out of sheer exhaustion - I was getting ready for work one day and simply didn't have enough energy to choose a shirt. So I let Lucy choose.

The next day, we were getting ready to leave, and she said, "Mommy, why aren't you wearing earrings. You need to go put earrings on. I will pick them for you." And she did. Another day, she told me that my shoes did not match my outfit and I needed to go put on black shoes. So I did. This afternoon when I got home from work, she insisted that I wear a dress instead of sweats and a t-shirt. I tried to resist, but it was no use...she would. not. give. up.

I will eventually have to set some boundaries in this aspect of our relationship, particularly given that this is her idea of an appropriate outfit for a football party:

When we moved to Texas years ago, we were shocked by the size and amount of jewelry and accessories women wore everywhere - even to the grocery store. We were told that when women here get dressed, they put on all of their accessories and then take off one thing at a time until they can stand to look at themselves in the mirror. Guess which half of that theory we follow at our house?

These Things will not bite you. They want to have fun.

Actually, they might bite you...

Henry and Gus make their first official appearance on the blog today with pictures of them three months ago and today.

Hopefully their appearances will become more frequent. They have nasty colic, making it difficult to take pictures of them. The doctor assures me that colic will magically disappear sometime in the next month. Until then, I am thinking about taking one picture of each of them in the middle of their nastiest episode - it may come in handy down the road when I need a visual aid to explain why Mommy has that nervous twitch.

Undecided

Lucy hasn't decided exactly how she feels about the arrival of her baby brothers. This morning she said, "I love babies." When I mentioned her brothers, she thought for a minute and then said, "I meant OTHER babies." Hmmmmm.....

GADZOOKS!

After they had breakfast with Santa, Andy and Lucy went to the Bird Sanctuary next to the church to hunt for Gadzooks. Gadzooks is the abominable snowman in the Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer cartoon. In the cartoon, Yukon Cornelius (who is looking for the abominable snowman) frequently says, "Gadzooks!" And so it is now the snowman's name.

They didn't find him, or the trolls that live under any of these bridges. Better luck next time.

SANTA!

The list has evolved slightly, but currently includes the following: princess dolls ("all of them"), a fish tank, and a helmet. Just a helmet. Nothing fun to go with it, no scooter, no bike. Just a helmet.

Bethlehem

Our church does a re-creation of what life was like when Jesus was born in Bethlehem - including animals, shops, food and Baby Jesus himself. Baby Jesus was crying when Lucy and Andy were there, and Lucy is still very concerned about him.

"Wait, you mean I can eat these cookies?" And then she went back again, and again, and again...

Making tents.

More snacks.

Know your audience

If you ever happen to be hired to dress as Spiderman for a 4 year-old's birthday party, consider this piece of friendly advice: do not lurk silently in the background, crawling around on all fours like a burglar, while friendly Batman waves and smiles at the guests. It freaks kids out.

Halloween Revisited

These were two of our favorite Halloween pictures:

Waiting.....

I'm not so sure that any of these kids were willing participants in this picture.