The One Where I Teach My Son the Art of the Gnaw (aka, don't read this if you're a particularly squeamish variety of vegetarian)

I'm not much of a meat eater anymore.  Never was.  Not a vegetarian though, as sometimes I feel a little... carnivorous. 

When I was a little girl, my dad would take me to the Renaissance Festival.  Food, face painting, knights, princesses, fairies, jousting, crafts, swords, and more.  What more could a kid love? 

But the highlight was always the turkey leg.  It's exactly what it sounds like.  A leg of a turkey, brined and roasted to perfection.  (Is it fried? Not sure, don't care.  It tastes awesome).  I rarely eat chicken on a bone, but I'll tear one of these up.  This year?  I taught the kids.  The only one who really took to it was Sayer.  At almost 15 months, I think he has the art of the gnaw down pat.  See for yourself:

He's giving it a once over.  Think you're going to mess with me, Turkey Leg?  THINK AGAIN!  He said that.  Really.  Ok, he didn't.  Because he doesn't quite speak with complex sentence structure.  But he THOUGHT it.  Totally. 

He looks fierce, (channeling his red-haired Viking roots?  Perhaps).  And rightfully so.  That's the only way to attack a turkey leg.  I think he did quite well for his first year.  Right Dad?

Recipe for a Break

Ingredients needed:
    2 bored, whiny kids
    1 large bed sheet
    Countless bowls, spoons, cups and pans
    A large container of rice
    A loose grip on your OCD tendencies





Instructions:
     1.  Spread the sheet out over as much of the floor as possible.  The more area covered, the easier clean-up will be later.  Dark sheets are a bonus.
     2.  Spread the utensils and dishes around.  This will stir up the kids' curiosity and they will momentarily stop whining.
     3.  Allow them to explore the dishes for a minute before unveiling the secret ingredient.  Place the tub of rice in the middle of the sheet and tell them to have fun.

     4.  Step back and watch your one year old taste uncooked rice.  Watch her spit it out and commence dumping and digging rice instead. 
     5.  When you're satisfied they won't eat much of the rice and they're otherwise entertained, sneak away to do those chores you've been trying to do all morning but weren't able to due to the kids around your ankles.

      6.  Check on them periodically only to discover them still gainfully occupied.
     7.  Repeat steps 5-6 for an HOUR AND A HALF. 
     8.  Consider the day a success for all parties involved.

 (For the record, Bean would NOT look at the camera, hence the pics of my C and none of Miss Bean)

Also, cleanup was a breeze... use the sheet to dump the rice back in the container, store away / wash the dirty utensils and vacuum up the stray grains.  Piece of cake.  And WELL worth it for an hour and a half of play time with no fighting, whining, begging, hitting, etc.  Well worth it. 

My Oldest's Most Favorite Animal Ever

Check this out:

That, my friends, is a pink dolphin.  The result of albinism, the dolphin has a lovely rose hue through its whole body.

Check out the story here. 

(Picture originally posted within the story on The Telegraph)

Christmas Morning Spontaneity

Christmas was so much FUN this year!  Bean glowed all throughout the weeks going up to Christmas day.  "Mommy, is today Christmas time?"  was pretty much a daily question.  Christmas is never really one day in our family with all of the branches that we have, so Bean got a ton of different days of fun.

But for Christmas morning, we decided to do something unusual to mark the day.

Shaun picked up a pack of pink balloons at Target a week or two before and on Christmas Eve, we blew them up, (ok, Shaun and his parents did... I was too busy playing DDR... hehe).  And then we took all 20 of them and piled them into her room on the floor.

The next morning, over the monitor, I heard Bean exclaim, "Mom!  Mom?  MOMMY!  What ARE these things?"

The two of us walked in there and she said "HEY!  How...  how... how did these GET here?!"

Shaun asked her how she thought they got there and she said,

"I went to sleep... and... and then?  Then morning came and my eyes woke up and the balloons were EVERYWHERE!" 

We spent the next 40 minutes bouncing balloons in and out of her bed, off each other's head's, onto the floor, up in the air.  We had a total blast.  It was actually hard to convince her to leave the room for the presents in the living room.

I have to say, I married the most awesome guy in the world.  He often goes out of his way to make every day special for the girls in some small way.  It totally makes me smile.  He's great :)

If Only

Loved this:


Welcome Back from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.

(via Swissmiss)

How I Became a Monkey

Each anniversary, Shaun and I trade the responsibility of planning what we'll do to celebrate.  By far, Shaun is more creative and more inventive as to what we tend to do. 

This year?  This year I win.  Because this year, we did this:

Yup, that's Shaun up there.  No, not in the pink pants. 

We went to trapeze school.  We learned to fly like circus monkeys.  And we loved it.  Here's my graceful flight to fame:

I think we might have a future as a circus troupe.  Wouldn't you say?

 

That's my family in the rest of the pictures.  They came along and flew with us.  It was amazing...  if given the opportunity?  Take it.  As they say, "Forget Fear, Worry About the Addiction"  Word.

The Toddler Diet Plan

As I've mentioned in the past, Bean is currently sleeping in a regular bed.

Surprisingly, this has generally presented no problems.  She likes her bed and definitely likes the fact that she can put an entire menagerie of stuffed animals in there and still manage to find a 4 inch space to sleep in.

But I recently discovered another reason she likes the bed.

It was about 6:00am on a random weekday morning.  C was only a month or two old and having been up through the evening feeding the little monkey, I was understandably passed out.  I think I even had an arm or leg dangling over the edge with little regard for the monsters under the bed.

Suddenly, I jerked awake, my body tingling with that "someone is watching me" feeling.  I peeled the pillow off of my head and opened my eyes to see two big hazel eyes staring at me.

From two inches away.

"AHHHH!"  I had to shove the pillow in front of my face to muffle my scream.  (Ok, and I thought it would be an effective barrier against the intruder.  Goes to show you who's going to get knocked off first when a psycho killer comes calling.  "You have a gun?  HA!  I have a pillow!  Take that!")

It was a full 10 seconds before my brain woke up enough to realize that those eyeballs belonged to the resident toddler.

I peeked out from behind the pillow.  She was still staring.

"Hi Mommy."  She stage whispered as she inched closer.  "What are you doing?"

Trying to claw my fingernails out of my pillow case, thankyouverymuch.

No, I didn't say that.

We didn't set any hard and fast rules about leaving her room in the morning.  She hasn't done it often, and she doesn't do it too early.  (The 6am thing was a fluke, thankfully).   

Anyway, I figured that I'd start to hear her coming in the mornings now that I knew she could open the door.  Because toddlers are never quiet.

Right?  Riiiight.

A few weeks ago, I ran downstairs to throw a load of laundry in after I had put the girls to sleep.  I was blissfully going about my task, feeling evermore like a domestic diva.

After loading the clothes in the washer, I turned around to get the basket.

And standing there, completely quiet and calm, was Bean.

This time I really did shriek.

You know that scene in The Shining when the twin girls appear out of nowhere and freak the guy right out?

Yeah.  You'd have shrieked too.

I calmed down and got the kid back in bed.  Still no idea why she came hunting for me, but she sure found the shrieking funny.

Anyway, I really think she's doing this to keep me from eating a bunch of junk food.  After all, how can you really indulge in ice cream when you're never 100% certain that a little stealth toddler isn't going to silently pad down the hallway to catch you?

You can't.

But maybe in a few months, I can thank her for the few pounds I've lost.

After I stop hyperventilating.