Choices

Do forced choices ever work? That is, if you give kids two equally acceptable choices, do they ever choose one of the provided options? Because here's how the forced choice scenario plays out around here:

Me: Luke, you can either hand that book back to Weston yourself or I can help you do it. Which would you prefer?
Luke: None of the above.

Me: Would you like chicken or pizza for lunch?
Luke: A peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Me: We have no bread. So chicken or pizza?
Luke: No, no, no. I want a hill of peanut butter and jelly on my plate with no bread. Please.

Me: Please stop playing with your milk cup.
Luke, as he continues playing with his milk cup: Snarble.
Me: You may either put your cup down or I can put it back in the fridge.
Luke: Do you know who says, "Snarble?" Snarble-monkey-monsters say, "Snarble." And snarble-monkey-monsters do not understand person rules because they are not persons. They understand snarble-monkey-monster rules. And snarble-monkey-monster rules are that you always, always should play with your cup.

Me: Weston, would you like to walk down the stairs or be carried?
Weston: No walk. No Mama carry. Duke-bear carry. [Aside: Yes, he now calls Luke "Duke-bear."]
Me: No, Luka-bear cannot carry you down the stairs.
West, yelling: Duke-bear! Duke-bear! Help me! Carry Weston!
Luke, running to lend assistance: Yes, I'll carry you, Weston!
Me: No, you will not. Only mamas and dadas carry children down the stairs.
Luke, looking at me: You sound grumpy today, Mama.
Weston: Grumpy Mama!

Today

Fails:
-I am exhausted. Completely, utterly, cannot-move-a-muscle, down-to-the-bones, I-might-never-feel-rested-again exhausted.
-There are two piles of clean clothes that need to be folded and put away but we haven't been home for long enough this week for me to do it.
-I'm pretty sure there's another clean set of laundry still sitting in the dryer, getting wrinkled.
-I'm pretty sure there's a wet load of laundry sitting in the washer, but I'm going on the theory that if I don't verify, it must not be in there. As a result of which it'll need to be washed in hot water tomorrow morning. (Even if I did verify, switching it now would wake at least one kid--possibly both kids. Nooooope.)
-All the shoes in our shoe closet are currently out of our shoe closet and scattered in our hallway. Luke pulled them all out this morning while looking for his sandals and once they were out, I noticed the pile of sand on the floor of the closet, so I told him to leave them out so I could sweep it up and over 16 hours later, I still haven't had the time (or, now, the energy) to do it.
-I saw a woman at the park today who had six kids. They were all cheerful. No one was mid-tantrum. They wore matching clothes. I realized that I will never, ever be that good at this job. (I mean with respect to the cheerful, non-tantrumming part. Not so much the matching clothes part. That was a little bit creepy.)
-Luke's room has blocks all over the floor. The playroom has puzzle pieces all over the floor. Our room has (clean) clothes all over everything.
-I know that I will not be able to do anything about getting my house to a less stressful state tomorrow because we already have commitments that will keep us out of the house for our non-napping hours. And during napping hours, I have to maintain some semblance of quiet because Weston is definitely not a child who can sleep through noise.

Wins:
-Today was the first really warm, non-rainy day we've had in almost a week and I can honestly say that we made the most of it. We wrung every ounce of life and joy out of this day.
-Luke brought home some artwork from school today. One was entitled, "Ostrich Storm." Another was described as "a rainforest [with a] tree and a bird and an alligator." The third reportedly contains a "snake and a rainforest giraffe." What, pray tell, is a rainforest giraffe?
-I love, love, love hearing Luke read. I love how much he enjoys sitting down with a book. I love that he volunteers to read to Weston. I love that even when it's my turn to read him a book, he gets so excited by the time we're halfway through that he insists on reading the rest to me. I love that every library book we have has a bookmark in it because he cannot leave a book without knowing that he can come back to the same spot later that day.
-I bought a toddler baby carrier today (yes, I know. A baby carrier. For my enormous toddler. Here's hoping it's comfy enough to actually allow me to carry him because good grief, is it ever inconvenient to have him walking sometimes.) I've had my eye on this one for nine months now.
-We had bacon for dinner.
-Weston fell asleep all by himself today for the first time today. I mean, he's been falling asleep without direct assistance for a while now, but this was the first time that he did it without me in the room. (The funny thing is this: Luke was right around this age when he first started being able to fall asleep without us in the room, too, but that was such a production! This was just...a sweet tuck-in, a couple of trips out of bed to collect various blankets and toys, a couple more trips out to make sure I was still in the hallway, and then off to sleep he went. No fuss, no tears, no coming out of the room 127 times. He did, however, need the following items in his possession before he would fall asleep: one regular pillow, one curved pillow, one blanket, one stuffed shark, one stuffed dog, one football, one cookbook, one bookmark, one ancient Mother's Day card, one mitten, and one hat. Not to worry, all but one pillow and one blanket were removed when I checked on him soon after he fell asleep.)

I think that overall, today counts as a win, even though my energy levels and my house might not bear witness to that fact.

Something Like Logic

Luke: Monsters are as big as aliens.
Me: Oh? How do you know?
Luke: Well...I know that monsters are as big as robots...and I know that robots are as big as aliens...so monsters must be as big as aliens, right?

I think my kid just told me that if x=y and y=z, then x=z. (I'm still not sold on the premises here though.)

Soaking Up the Warmth

When we moved into this house, the very first project that McMoose started was to build a huge sandbox for the kids. Except for the past year and a half, it hasn't been a sandbox so much as a...box. In the yard. With a tarp lining the bottom. With no sand. This was partly (mostly) because this box required two tons of sand to fill it up. Have you ever tried to buy two tons of sand? (A) When we priced it out, the cost was estimated at around $500-$800 and (B) How on earth were we going to transport two tons of sand?! We considered having it delivered, but they would have plopped it down in our front yard and then we would have had to wheelbarrow it to the back. No. Thank. You.

A couple of weeks ago, I reached the end of my sandbox rope and told McMoose that I was sick of looking at the hole in the ground and if we were going to get sand, it needed to be now. Turns out my timing couldn't have been better because we found a new landscaping place that would sell us two tons of sand for about $50 AND our friend and his pick up truck were available to help us get our sand that day. Bonus: his truck fits through our gate, so he just drove around back and put the sand directly onto the box. Yay for no wheelbarrow!

So the first yard project we started is finally complete! And we have been used the sandbox just about every day for the past two weeks. And since we're out there anyway, the rest of our yard gets more use, too.

One-Liners From Luke

-While eating ice cream: "My uvula is freeeeeezing!"

-Trying to get my attention: "Mama! I want you to STOP what you are doing and FOCUS on my words!"

-Talking to his brother: "Weston, if you break my legos again, I might have to lick you."

-Anytime we say something he doesn't want to hear: "You're joking me."

-While biking on a trail: "I think I saw a snake, but don't worry, it was the kind that does not have a mouth. Those are the nice snakes."

-After being told that if he wanted to grow his hair long, he would need to brush it and keep it looking neat: "I am not a person who likes to grow hair. I am a person who likes to have haircuts."

-When asked what he wanted for lunch: "I don't know. Something random."

Always On His Mind

I think that Weston categorizes his world into two sections: Food and Not Food. The line between the two can be blurry, as I discovered this morning...

Weston, pointing: Toe-war!
Me, looking around for something that could be construed as a "toe-war:" What's that?
Weston, pointing more insistently: Toe-war! See toe-war!
Me, spotting a bush filled with purple flowers: Flower? Do you see the flowers?
Weston: Yeah! Pippy toe-war!
Me: Pretty flower, yes, it is.
Weston: Eat pippy toe-war? Yum?

Dapper

We went to a musical for kids this past weekend and Luke took the opportunity to wear his bow tie. Of course, he also considers a trip to the doctor a reason to wear his bow tie. I'm pretty surprised that he hasn't worn it to school yet. Pardon the runny noise and the crumbs around his mouth!

Big Boy

We turned the crib into a toddler bed and it has gotten more use in the past two weeks than it did in the twenty months before that. We find Weston in all kinds of crazy positions in the middle of the night now...this one it's my favorite.

Easter Egg Hunt

We made up a little Easter egg hunt inside the house for the kids on Easter and it was a great hit. I think their favorite part was the discovery that some of the eggs had cashews in them...my children have a somewhat unnatural fondness of cashews. Here are some of my pictures from that day. I particularly love the fat, food-stuffed, hamster cheeks that Weston is sporting in most of them.

Lots To Say

Today, while I was straightening my hair in the bathroom, I heard a toddler voice fussing, "Get down! Get down, Gin! Get dowwwwwnnnn!!!" Growing suspicious, I followed the sound of the voice into Luke's room, and there, perched at the very top of the bunk bed, leaning over the side and grinning, was Weston fussing loudly at himself to get down. So (a) he knows he isn't supposed to be doing that and (b) he was baiting me. Toddlers, I tell ya. (Oh, and he calls himself Gin right now.)

Other things that have been heard from Weston lately:

-When I left the room in the morning to grab a diaper for him, he came rolling off the bed, yelling, "Get in here!"
-McMoose was trying to get him to try on new shoes at the store and Weston was not having it, fussing, "No! Bad shoe! No!" We never did end up getting him any shoes. His loss.
-Every time we go into the driveway, he picks up dead, dried up worms and proudly exclaims, "Eww! See worm! I see worm! Eww, worm!"
-He calls every bus we pass a school bus and every truck we pass is a dump truck. Never mind that he can identify all manner of vehicles--apparently, if it's driving down the road, it's either a school bus or a dump truck.

Spring...Break?

Thing #341 that I didn't know about pre-school: They have spring break. Because, you know, the course load is really super stressful and the 5-and-under set need to just let loose and have some fun now and then. (Thing #342: They have school spirit week. That would be next week. Is it just me or is every single week something special? We're going to have to find crazy hats for crazy hat day and I'm going to have to convince Luke that it's okay to go to school with his clothes on inside out for inside out day.)

So. Spring break? It's been pretty great. I haven't woken up earlier than 8:30 at any point this week, which means that I haven't gone to bed earlier than midnight at any point this week. It actually feels like a spring break for me, too, even though in reality, the only thing that has changed this week is that I have six extra hours of having two kids instead of one. As an added bonus, my teacher friend and her kid are on spring break this week, too, so we have had all manner of fun times: a lazy day spent in the warm sunshine, a trip to the pool, playing with the train tables at the bookstore, going to see a puppet show. I could get used to spring break living. (Even if it does mean six extra hours of two kids instead of one.)