I Should Really Retitle This Blog "How My Children are Driving Me Crazy Today".

I'm not really sure when the switch flipped, but sometime in the past year, my little girl went from this calm, laid-back, contemplative darling to a chattering whirlwind. Even in her sleep, she still moves and talks. Combined with her equally loud & stubborn brother, they can be quite a disaster, but she somehow still produces frustration all on her own (partially due to her own amazing sense of bad-timing).

(note: this conversation happens at least twice a day, under differing circumstances)
B: "Mommy, tan you help me?"
Me: "Help you with what?"
B: "Jus, tan you help me?"
Me: "Help you do what? I'm a bit busy."
B: "Tan you help me?"
Me: "I can't help you if I don't know what you need."
B: "Mommy, tan you help me?"
Me: "Help you what?"
B: "Jus, tan you help me?"
Me: "Fine, I'll be right there". *puts down the cooking, goes to bedroom and changes shirt; returns*

B: *gone from kitchen, found using potty completely unassisted....like she's been doing for months*

Because Sound Doesn't Travel More Than 10 Feet

Scene: The boy is on time-out in his bedroom for talking back, while the mommy takes a brief interlude in the restroom. The girl wanders in to the bedroom, where this conversation occurs.

J: "Bwidget!"
B: "Hi, Djonas!"
J: "Bwidget, tell Mommy that time-out is over."
B: "MOMMY! TIME-OUT!"
J: "No, tell Mommy time-out is over."
B: "MOMMY! TIME-OUT!"
J: "No, Bwidget, tell Mommy to let me off time-out."
B: "MOMMY! OFF TIME-OUT!"
J: "Bwidget! Tell Mommy to let Jonas off time-out!"
B: "MOMMY! DJONAS TIME-OUT!"
J: "No, Bwidget! Go and tell Mommy to let me off time-out."
B (enters restroom): "Mommy, you off time-out."

More Toddlerisms

(I will be adding more as they occur. She's getting quite loquacious.)

Me: "Are you adorable?"
B: "I NOT a doorbell!"


J: "This is not your toy! You understand?"
B: "I NOT under da sand!"


Me: "Well, aren't you opinionated?"
B: "I NOT a penny!"

Well, Dave's in for a surprise when he takes the car to work...

How to shop with a toddler:

1. Placate the toddler with goldfish crackers, and lead her to the car.
2. Realize you forgot your grocery bags. 
3. Get halfway back up the stairs, and remember that you left 2 bags in the car last time.
4. Drive to the store, listening to toddler sing about goldfish crackers.
5. Get shopping done in surprisingly timely manner, despite repeated requests in and out of cart, and multiple backtracks because you don't need to write a list.
6. Drive home, again listening to a serenade about goldfish crackers. 
7. Arrive home, remove crackers from child, and place on roof.
8. Remove child from car, and retrieve groceries from trunk.
9. Reach for goldfish crackers, and watch as a random gust of wind blows the entire bowl into the open sunroof, and all over front seats.
10. Shrug, and go upstairs.

Playtime with B

As I was chilling at my computer the other day (after cleaning, and being completely disgusted at how much dirt came out of our couch), B apparently decided I'd had enough leisure. (She kindly lets me know this by grabbing my pinky and pulling)
We went into her room, where she walked under one of the pet-nets, and starting pointing.
"Hey! Hey! Needit."
Her gesturing is rather imprecise, so the guessing-game commenced.
"Dory?" "No!"
"Puppy?" "No! Uh'er one!"
"Kitty?" "No!"
"Big Dolphin?" "NOOO!"
"Pooh Bear?" "No!"
"Dolly?" "Noooooo...."
The pet net was quickly becoming depleted, and I paused so she could look at all the animals that had been pulled, or fallen, out.
She looked at the pile.
She looked at the pet-net.
She looked at the pile, and smiled.
"Pooh!"
Pooh Bear in hand, she studied the pet-net again, and the animals on the floor. She placed Pooh Bear atop the dolphin.
"Rying! Pooh rying Dawfin!"
And then she toddled off, holding both. My job was done.

Toddlerisms

B's been having a bit of a language explosion. For your amusement, here're selections from her ever-expanding vocabulary:

sleep: "weep"
trash can: "rash han"
cat: "hat"
juice: "dooce"
cheese: "teez"
train: "rain"
diesel: "deezoo" [she only knows this because of her brother's train obsession]
markers: "mars"
funny sound: "fuh-ee sow"
please: "rweeze"
Blue's Clues: "Woos woos"
Care Bears: "Hare Baos"
sneeze: "seez"
pee: "peep"
tummy: "hummy"
Let me see this!: "Ay bee see dees!"
corndog: "horndog"

We Didn't Have Netflix When I Was a Kid

(or a TV, for that matter)
I freely admit to using Netflix as a motivation to teach J reading--we can't find whatever he wants to watch? Oh, no! We'll have to search for it. He's actually coming along quite nicely, but I'm pretty sure the biggest hurdle is the stupidity & unpredictability of the English language itself. Our recent search-log, with parental searches omitted:

kpper
super [just plain 'super' apparently brings up a lot of "boring stuff". Go figure.]
super why
monster trucks
thomas chrain

Besides his awesome tastes in childrens' programming, I am pretty pleased. Trying to explain all the exceptions in English...not so pleasing. I'm really starting to regret not forcing Dave to learn Spanish so we could just speak that all the time. :p