Day 1833

Tonight, while we were making dinner, Lizard carefully measured out a tablespoon of baby cereal, put it in a bowl, and poured in water from a measuring cup. Then she announced that she had made Charlie's dinner.

She also deployed her new strategy for dealing with scary things while we were watching a movie: make loud noises at it until it goes away.

Day 1832

It turns out if you totally ignore your kid after serving a meal, she'll actually taste it.

Day 1831

Time for another round of Why Is the Baby Grumpy?

Poosplosion? Gas? Discomfort from eating baby cereal for the first time? Runny nose? Maybe an ear infection? Overtired?

Oh. Baby had chubbier cheeks at the end of the day than he did at the beginning. Growth spurt.

...and also probably the gas at the runny nose and the overtired.

Day 1830

Introducing Solids: Take Two. After one bowl, Chinchilla seems tidier and more enthusiastic than his sister was.

He was also kinda grumpy for the rest of the day.

I see a bunch of mom songs in my future...

Day 1829

If you give a Lizard a notebook with stickers in it, she will forget her shyness in the interest of telling literally everyone in the house that she has stickers.

Day 1828

Went to the doctor's office for Chinchilla's six month appointment. He was in charge of not crying during his shot and of grinning at the nurse; his sister was in charge of entertaining the nurse with her chattering.

Also, she chose Star Wars stickers.

Also also wik, after a day of eerie silence, I have my puppy/hot water bottle back.

Day 1827

I am thankful to have two good little travellers - including an extremely enthusiastic one.

Day 1826

To celebrate being married for five years, we browsed for books without kids, gathered all the overtired cousins together for an extremely loud and amusing dinner, and watched some Galavant. Perfect.

Day 1825

The amount of running Lizard is willing to do expands to fill the zoo she's in.

Day 1824

Trying to put an overtired toddler to bed is exhausting, frustrating, and time-consuming. But if you wait until they're totally exhausted, they suddenly become extremely compliant.

On a related note, while I do wish that Lizard would nap during long car rides, I must admit that she's a pretty fun travel companion.

Day 1823

Soundtrack of the day: Babies Not Napping.

Day 1822

If you're going hiking in bear country, bring a cranky baby with you. You won't have to figure out what to talk loudly about.

Day 1821 (Belated)

We have a little mountaineer! Ish.

Day 1820

That thing where you figure the kid can just sleep in the car during the three hour drive.... and then they just....don't.

Day 1819

It was wonderful to see little shy kids forget to be shy because COUSINS!

Day 1818

Lesson learned: once you have two kids, don't go anywhere on vacation until they're old enough to sleep in real beds.

Day 1817

High on the list of things that are pathetic: a baby with a runny nose.

Day 1816

Today I found out it is still possible for the baby to poop into his diaper, and not get poop all over everything else. Who knew?

Day 1815

Sometimes you have to remind yourself that the baby doesn't mean to poop all over everything. There is no poop agenda. There is no poop vendetta.

Just a baby insisting on napping in his swing, which happens to be his favourite place to poop.

Day 1814

For the first time, it looks like both kids might be getting sick at the same time.

Yet another milestone to enter in our imaginary parenting scrapbooks.

Day 1813

Lizard has now helped with a full cycle of vegetable gardening. She planted basil and beans (both sprouted and everything!), pulled the leaves off weeds, got misted when we watered the garden, and helped pick beans.

As she says, "I'm a good gardener!"

Day 1812

It is sometimes quite obvious that our primary goal is to make food delicious. Luckily, even a hot mess can be delicious.

Day 1811

If you need an excuse to give a two year old a bath and/or to wash every article of clothing that they're wearing, just give them an ice cream cone.

Day 1810

Start contemplating taking your kids to an unfamiliar place and, like magic, the baby will immediately ramp up efforts to learn to crawl.

Day 1809

Lizard was talking about how much she loves her pants in the car on the way home. When I showed her the 'fabulous' skirt that her friend across the street brought over for her, she immediately stripped her pants off.

Apparently fabulous cannot be denied.

Day 1808

Our poor puppy. He wants to be friends with everybody, and is sad and confused when his overtures are rebuffed (even by cats). He gets particularly snuggly with the babies just when they start getting particularly good at grabbing and pulling. And perhaps worst of all, his people refuse to go to bed at a decent time, and therefore keep him up past his bedtime.

Day 1807

Lizard was in denial when I woke her up from her nap and told her the power was out. But when I explained that people from the power company were going to fix it, she got very excited and bounded out of bed, announcing that *she* would fix it.

She was also so excited about the pizza man coming to bring her pizza that she ate almost two whole slices by herself. And talked about the pizza man almost the entire time ("the pizza man ate his own pizza because he was hungry. The pizza man went home and went to bed because he is very sleepy." If you don't believe projection is a thing, go find a two year old).

Day 1806

Apparently it is possible to sprint/march/jog around the zoo for a few hours when you're two.

You can also be very excited about dinosaurs, then decide you don't want to look at most of the dinosaurs because they're too scary...and then immediately ask to go back to see the dinosaurs.

Day 1805

Chinchilla hin chills is still at an age where he will readily show off his new skills; Lizard is apparently too old for that, even in front of people she's pretty comfortable with. It's an annoyingly small window. How am I supposed to show everyone how awesome my kids are?!?

Day 1804

Our little sponge picks up so much that she knows what we're talking about even when we spell out the key words. I wonder how many codes/languages we'll have to learn to stay ahead of this girl...