Two things happened this week with Thing 2 that I wanted to share...

1. Ryan was helping me fix dinner and Kylie came in and said she wanted to talk to him. She took his hand and led him into the living room where they sat down on the couch.

Kylie: “You know what?”

Ryan: “What?”

Kylie: “If you weren’t married and you were in college again and I was in college…I’d pick you.”

(Ryan's heart begins to melt.)

Me: “Hey, he’s taken! Back off, sista!”

Kylie: (lots of giggling)

2. When I do Molly's hair in the morning, she is pretty feisty so I try to distract her. We usually sing "Old McDonald Had a Farm" and I pause in the song so she can pick the animal. Normally she picks animals like a cow, pig, sheep, horse, etc...the norm. Then the other day she started picking things like a turtle and a dolphin. Well, what do those animals say? I told her I didn't know what a turtle said, and Kylie chimed in and said that a turtle said, "slow, slow". So we sang the song accordingly.

Well Molly has continued this game with Kylie, coming up with random things to be on the farm and Kylie decides what those animals say. Yesterday, when the time came to pick her animal, Molly said "toilet". What? I just looked at her, completely stumped. But Kylie chimed right in, "with a flush, flush here and a flush, flush there..."

We've had a good week at our house. Here are some things that happened:

1. Ryan finished his first class in his Master's program. He now has a week off from studying at night. YIPPEE!!
2. Kylie won the story telling festival at her school for the lower grades (K-3) and is headed to the district competition. She even told her story at an assembly in front of the entire school.
3. Talmage aced his spelling test for the 8th (?) week in a row.
4. Molly sang "Eenie meenie miney moe" all week long.
5. I lost 2.5 lbs. and made it through the KILLER cardio I had to do 6 days in a row.
6. I ran errands with all 3 kids on Friday night so Ryan could finish his last paper. We were gone for 4 hours and no one died. In fact, we sort of had fun. Who know that dinner at the food court at Target was cool for them?!

Looking forward to another nice week!

Molly was having a melt down this morning about wearing her winter coat. We woke up to about 6-8 inches of new snow this morning. She's wearing her winter coat today, I'm thinking, but she is insisting on her Valentine's hoodie from Grandma Pollmann.
Me: Molly, you'll freeze your butt off if you don't wear a coat.
Molly: No, I have my pants on. It not freeze off.

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Molly brought me a diaper and the box of wipes the other day so I could change her stinkiness. They drops everything as she huffs and puffs and says, "Oh man, I'm so frong (strong)."

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One Saturday morning, the jobs lists were written and everyone was going to work. Everyone but Talmage that is. He was in a huff because he had "so much work to do" before he went out to play. He was getting more and more dramatic about the situation, but it escalated when he started demanding a lawyer so he could sue his abusive parents. Abuse? I'll show you abuse, little boy!

Here is the conversation that just happened in the other room:

Neighbor: You're not playing very nice with me.
Thing Two: Yes, I am.
Neighbor: You're not playing what I want to play.
Thing Two: You're not playing it right. You have to stop closing it or we can't play with it.
Neighbor: But you're not playing with me.
Thing Two: (Said very plainly and grown-up) You don't always get what you want.

They can be taught! :)

When summer starts it means that the quiet days of just me and Thing Three being home are gone. The kids will be home all day and get to go with me wherever I need to go. Shopping with the kids is not on my list of enjoyable things to do. Additionally, Thing One and Two have a hard time getting along lately. Here's an example from this morning:

The kids are in the kitchen eating breakfast and I'm upstairs getting ready for the day when I hear this blood-curdling scream coming from the kitchen. Thing Two is a tad dramatic and extra loud, so you never know if Thing One has just pinched her or if she's lost a limb. The scream sounds the same.

I head downstairs to see what the drama is about this time and Thing One quickly informs me that he didn't do anything. (Clue #1 that he did.) Thing Two is gasping for breath between the sobs to tell me that he pushed her off the stool and she fell. I told her to calm down and Thing One to apologize, which he did.

Then the following conversation takes place...

Thing One: But I didn't do anything though. And she owes me an apology too.
Me: Why does she owe YOU an apology?
Thing One: Because she wasn't holding onto anything when I pushed her.
Me: What?! She owes you an apology because she pushed her when she wasn't holding onto anything? That makes no sense at all.
Thing One: I didn't push her. I just tapped her.
Me: You just said you pushed her.
Thing One: I meant that I just tapped her.
Me: And she fell off the stool because you tapped her?
Thing One: Yes.
Me: And so she owes you an apologize?
Thing One: Geez, mom! We've already gone over this!

This is where I told Thing Two to go finish her breakfast and headed back upstairs to finish getting ready. Clearly we weren't going to see eye to eye on this one.

See why summer sounds so exciting?!

Thing One was having a hard time listening to instructions this morning as he got ready for school. Thing Two, my more obedient child, says in all seriousness, "Do all brothers always not listen?"

So while we were up at my parent's cabin over New Year's, Ryan was writing down some goals for the new year in a little notebook. Just yesterday, he opened it up and saw that Thing One had left him a note.

One of Ryan's goals was to "Fall in love with Lori more each day" (something one would REALLY have to work on, I promise). Thing One wrote, "P.S. Falling in love with mom ain't going to anything since you're married."

So Thing Two and I were getting ready to leave and she told me she was ready. I said, "I'll be ready in just a second. I need to put some make-up on before we go." And she replied with, "Why? Because you're scary?" Apparently.

This the conversation Thing Two and I had today in the car:

Thing Two: When I grow up I want to be a mom.
Me: That's great. You'll be a terrific mom.
Thing Two: Then I'll be a grandma, but I don't want short hair.
Me: You don't have to have short hair to be a grandma.
Thing Two: Then I'll be a great-great grandma. What will I be after that?
Me: Dead.
Thing Two: No. I'll be a cheerleader.

This weekend the kids didn't have school, so we got out of Dodge and went up to my parents' cabin. They just barely bought it so we hadn't stayed up there yet. We had a fabulous time, and it was really nice to get away from everything for awhile. We were up there for a day with just the kids, and then on Friday we had some friends come join us. Thought I'd post a few pictures for your viewing pleasure. :) This is what it looks like from the outside. Its hard to tell from this picture but the entire front of it is all windows, so it lets in a ton of light and has a great view. So I took this picture thinking it would be a cute one of Ryan and Thing 2 snuggled up on the couch. Then I looked at the picture and noticed that she looked like Ronald McDonald! Apparently she drank a little too much Crystal Light for dinner, as noted in the enlarged version. Thing 1 had a matching mustache too. I wish I would have thought to take that picture!

Thing 1 and 2 actually got along for a little while, picked out some walking sticks and tossed rocks in to the lake. Good times!


When our friends came up, we did a little four-wheeling too!


I look forward to another trip up there. Unfortunately, it might be a little while before we can do it. My boss for youth theater is a slave driver and I have tons of rehearsals over the next couple of months. Geez! There go my Saturdays!

I took my kids to see Seussical at the SCERA last night. Since I directed this show recently, my kids know the music well. Possibly too well. On the way, I had to explain to them that they couldn't sing along during the production. I thought that this was a no brainer, but Thing Two innocently said, "Why not?" This made me really glad that we had this conversation. She didn't realize it might be a distraction to both the cast and the audience.

Then when we got there it was raining really hard. We had to park a little ways away, so I told them to get all ready and we'd run! And Thing One said, "Like 'Run, Freedom Run'!" (This is a song from the musical Urinetown...in case you are theatrically challenged.) When I laughed at the comment, he broke into song.

Then we got in the car after it was all over, and Thing One says, "So what did everyone think about it? What was your favorite part?" This is something I do at theater so the kids learn to analysis what they've seen. Makes them better audience members and performers. Didn't expect him to do it on his own.

Having a mother who teaches theater...a blessing or a curse?

So Kylie just told me that she's never going in our basement again. She said that she saw a "long-legged daddy spider" and if "freaked her out". I wonder if there are any short-legged mommy spiders too...

So on occasion (almost daily) I've been know to mess up a cliche phrase. Something simple like, "I put my shoe in my mouth" instead of "foot in my mouth". Hubby likes to tease me about it because most of the time I don't realize I've done it. But I find that I like my sayings better anyway. :)

Well, apparently it runs in the family. I told Thing 2 today that we needed to clean her room up and she said, "Does it need to spicked and spanned like a whistle?" (Meaning "spic and span" crossed with "clean as a whistle" -- both phrases I use often.)

I'm glad I can pass along this fine tradition to my children.

So I learned something new today: Its only funny to hear your kids sing "Bad Day" like chipmunks (to the Alvin and the Chipmunks soundtrack) the first couple times. After you listen to the same songs every morning during a 15 minute drive to school and back, its no longer amusing. Its just annoying.

And its sad that my kids know the words to "Bad Day" because of the chipmunks not Daniel Powter. However, they can also sing "Funky Town" too, and that's pretty cool. Too bad they sound like chipmunks doing it.