Levels of brightness

I actually had this conversation this weekend with a close friend who is going through a divorce:

Her: "We're dividing up weekends so they stay with him one night and all the next day and me the other night and day."
Me: "Ah. So, when they stay with him on Sunday nights do they then just stay with your in-laws all day on Monday while you work?"
Her: "Alina...they come to your house on Mondays."
Me: "Oh yeah!"

I laughed about it on the way home and said, "boy I am not very bright, huh?"
Pat said, "You're bright... just bright more like a strobe light."
I laughed and agreed.
But I'd say I'm bright more like a motion detector.

Blogger doesn't know "pulmonology" is a word

I know I can't stop talking about the things my boys like to eat, and this post will be no different. Fair warning.

Today was a rough one. No lie. We spent the morning at the Pediatric Pulmonology office to have them checked out regarding their long-term "smokers" coughs. There were two things that made this visit difficult--not even counting the bitterly cold weather we had today. 1. The appointment was 2 1/2 hours long. and 2. NO SNACKS IN THE EXAM ROOMS (this was for the safety of food allergic patients--something I totally respect.)! Now the second difficulty wouldn't have been so bad had I known beforehand, but I didn't so I'd loaded a small tote up to the gills with snacks--and in that tiny room I had no way to hide them. No way at all. And I learned, in no uncertain terms, that the most effective way to torture a 17 month old, is simply to refuse him access to snacks he can see...and see again...and then see SOME MORE!

At one point I was holding a bag of snacks out of toddler-reach, holding the door closed with one foot so Coen couldn't escape the exam room, and signing consent forms while explaining to my tearful 3 year old why we were actually going to get the H1N1 booster shot I'd promised him that morning we weren't going to get.

After the appointment I took the boys down to the cafeteria for a well deserved lunch. Coen's little onsie flaps were unsnapped and outside of his pants, his face was streaked with tears and he was doing that sad little huff that babies do when they've been denied snacks that they can see. People felt sorry for us and were kind. Thank goodness for kind people.

I got the boy's the lunch special: beef stroganoff with mushrooms and then loaded a to-go container from the salad bar. Fintan kept saying things like "Yummy, tomatoes!" and "Oooh, fruit! Can we get more olives than that?" Our helpful helpers got a big kick out of his excitement over the salad bar selection. Then I let Fintan pick out his "special treat" for being such a good boy for the doctor. He picked out a gigantic tub of chocolate pudding with cookie crumbles and whipped cream on top. The boys ate a great lunch. They demolished the beef stroganoff and made short work of the salad bar selection (Mommy unfortunately didn't get enough hard-boiled eggs to suit their taste). Finally it was time for dessert. Fintan got the chocolate pudding and Coen got the coveted 100 calorie pack of cookies he'd so desperately wanted in the exam room. Fintan loved his pudding, but he made me laugh out loud when he paused between spoonfuls of chocolaty goodness to pick up, and eat, the three remaining slices of cucumber from his salad dish.

A kale chip off the ol' block.

"What is this?" Fintan asked me this morning, his mouth full.
"They're called 'kale chips'," I answered.
"Mmmm, I like kale chips."
Through the monitor I heard Coen crying again, adamantly refusing his nap, and I gave up. I brought him down and asked them, "Would you guys like to go to the indoor playground today?"
"Yes!" Fintan said. "But first I want some more kale chips." He held out his empty bowl.
"That's all we had, Sweetie, they're all gone."
"But I want more!"
Well, would you rather go out to the greenhouse and harvest more kale for chips or go to the indoor playground?"
His pause was long and thoughtful as rain sheeted against the windows.
"Go to the indoor playground."

This evening I put on a hat, a puffy coat, wellies and a headlamp and went out into the freezing rain to harvest kale so Fintan could have kale chips in his preschool lunch tomorrow. He and his daddy watched me from the window while I worked and Fintan said, "I wish I was big so I could put on a headlamp and a big coat and go out all by myself when it's dark and harvest greens."

Gosh, I love that little boy.

He loves dagoons

Coen is learning a lot of new words. He is even putting a few words together like "see you". He has a hard time with his "B" sound, though. This has led to some adorable variations on words. For example, instead of saying "balloon" he says "dagoon". And that boy loves dagoons. Also, instead of saying "bye!" he says "DIE!" very very loudly--and then there is a delayed wave. It's fun to see the looks on people's faces at the grocery store when we're leaving.

Coen also loves songs. He can keep a tune pretty well, too! He makes sounds to go with the songs, but you can definitely pick out what he's singing when he does it. One of his favorites is "Old MacDonald had a Farm".

Today we were working on body parts a little bit and plurals. I pointed to my left eye and said "Eye", then pointed to my right eye and said, "Eye" then pointed to both of my eyes and said "Eyessss". Coen followed my lead. He pointed to my left eye and said "Eye" then pointed to my right eye and said "Eye" then pressed his sharp little fingers into both of my eyes and sang "Ohhhh!"

Halloween cuteness

We had a great Halloween, this year!

Fintan was an anteater, an idea he came up with all by himself, and he was so excited about it.  Here he is getting ready to march in his school's Halloween parade. 

And here he is waving to his adoring fans while parading.

Little Coen, was an ant.

 

A really cute one!

Most people didn't get to oogle his adorableness, though, because he spent most of the evening like this:

 

having the time of his life.

He loved kickin' back in his wagon.  And behind him, so did his little pirate cousin, Logan.

Fintan had a great time walking and trick-or-treating with his cousins.  And they didn't mind being held up by his carefree pace--too much.

Here's a group photo that includes most of the cousins.  (To get Coen in it we had to strategically place him at the top of the hill and let the magnetic pull of the road draw him into the frame.)

My boys adore their cousins. Fintan's best (and most repeated) joke of the evening involved licking his cousin Shaun with his long anteater tongue and telling everyone "I'm eating a three amigo!"

All in all it was a wonderful night with loved ones, and I'm grateful.

Don't fall in any lakes, okay?

This morning Fintan has already made me laugh out loud three times with things he's said.

The first, when his daddy was leaving: "Drive careful, Daddy. Don't fall in any lakes."

The second while we were eating breakfast. He folded his hands together and said: "We're eating breftast now--but one of us is missing." I laughed and asked, "Who's missing?" and he told me, "My daddy".

The third was when "breftast" was finished and I was cleaning the grits off of his face and hands. I said, "You're a mess!" He pointed to the only grit-free spot on his shirt and said "I did a good job of keeping myself clean right here."

Trouble with a capital tea

Fintan asked yesterday. "So, does a green stop sign mean go?"
"Hmmm, you'd think so, but no."

Tonight in the middle of playing Fintan went tearing off down the hallway and through the kitchen. I yelled after him to come back and he ignored me. He raced out onto the porch, with me following not-too-happily behind, and picked up a little metal kitchen pot he'd left out there earlier. He'd played with it in the water table this afternoon but I hadn't looked closely at it when he'd set it down after we finished. Now he brought the pan carefully to his lips, took a couple sips and said "Aaaah, I needed a little tea!" He set it back down and raced back into the house. I looked in the pot and saw that he had a lemon balm leaf floating in the water.