Day 2777

The good news is, touching the hot element has not turned Chinchilla off the colour red. He says red is his first favourite, beige is his last favourite, and black fills up the middle.

Meanwhile Lizard: keep her walking and you keep her happy. Unless you suggest that she can’t spend all her time outside.

Day 2776

The siren song of the red stove element proved too much for our foolhardy Chinchilla. Hopefully everyone internalizes the lesson on this one.

Day 2775

Lizard seems to be at her happiest when we go out for rambles. I really hope that continues, and that her siblings feel the same so we can do random family rambles all over the darn place - preferably without strollers or carriers.

Day 2774

Is your baby even still a baby if you give her spaghetti for the first time and it doesn’t end up in her hair?

Day 2773

The longer these kids stay home, the weirder their vocabularies get and the more convoluted their games get. The costumes are already bonkers. It’s hard to imagine where they’ll go next.

Day 2772

Chinchilla has figured out his big sister can read, so he’s started trying to get her to read books to him after we put them to bed and once he wakes up in the morning.

Another source for his story fix...

Day 2771

Apparently yes, it is possible my kids are getting weirder every day. It’s a total mystery what the influence could be...

Day 2770

Twice today I was treated to a dramatic recitation of Chinchilla’s favourite book. By some miracle, I managed to get it on video (complete with his big sister yelling lines from the book while sitting on the toilet off-camera). I will treasure it forever.

Day 2769

It’s pretty fun watching my precocious children converse with unsuspecting adults.

Day 2768

When your baby starts to give you real hugs and very moist kisses...

Day 2767

There have been exactly two benefits of having a zillion rabbits in our yard this year:

1. The kids know owls eat rabbits, and are enthusiastic about the owls dealing with all the “gross bunnies”.

2. We got to see bunnies fighting, which was HILARIOUS. It would not be out of place for them to start snapping their fingers, “When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way...”

Day 2766

An illustration of our feelings about books on this family: long after bedtime, I was hearing pages turning in the kids’ room. I went in and found Chinchilla holding a book on his chest, not looking at it, just slowly turning pages.

His sister sleeps with her bed books pressed against her side so that she “knows where they are”.

Security books. We have security books.

Day 2765

Banana recently adopted a silly squinty smile that is extremely charming. Today she started Deploying the squint without the smile to try to convince us to do her bidding. I’m not sure whether she thinks that it’ll make us happy so we’ll do what she wants or if she’s trying to control us with her mind.

Either way, still adorable.

Day 2764

Banana has set herself some new challenges: pull herself to stand on anything remotely feasible; be tired all the time; and get mad at all puréed foods.

But all in a very good-natured way.

Day 2763

That feeling when you set up a scavenger hunt for your kid and she’s disappointed because she thought it was going to be math problems...

Yep, that’s my kid.

Day 2762

One of my favourite things in the world is listening to Chinchilla make up stories. He’s so good at talking and his understanding of the world is so fundamentally flawed that it is profoundly entertaining.

This evening he told me a fire truck came to our house and our house was on fire and he had to run outside! And he burnt the fire all up! And he put it in the fire truck!

Day 2761

Maybe we should stop calling it the baby jail given how much all the children want to play in it.

Henceforth it shall be the baby zoo, as we all gather round to watch the cute baby animal, and undersupervised children try to sneak into the enclosure.

Day 2760

It’s official: Banana has realized she can stand up on her own. Hopefully she’s not quite as adept at bonking her head into everything as her big siblings (still are).

Day 2759

Is it even a real pandemic lockdown if you don’t cut your hair?

Day 2758

Lizard thinks that the Easter bunny might not be real (she thinks it’s probably Santa who brings the chocolate), but she still tidied the living room very enthusiastically because she didn’t want him to trip and fall and get hurt.

Chinchilla helped tidy... and also jumped up and down so the Easter bunny would come.

Day 2757

Lizard is probably grown up now; she’s drunk real tea and played ticket to ride with her parents and what else is there, really?

Day 2756

Our sweet silly boy has decided he needs to wear sock to bed... on his hands and feet. Sometimes doubling up on the foot socks. And then asks if he can wear short-sleeved shirts.

Tonight he found himself in terrible difficulty because one of his hand socks had a hole in it, and he was at a complete loss for what he should do.

Definitely an emergency requiring a parent.

Day 2755

Santa: what an absolute unit.

Day 2754

Chinchilla demonstrated how Worms wobble, announced “this calls for drastic measures!” while washing his hands, and snuggled into me while holding my ponytail after I rescued him from nap.

Day 2753

The bigs were doing some pretend baking while the actual muffins were in the oven. It involved elaborate costumes, which Lizard insisted were required in the recipe “and you have to follow the recipe if you want baking!”

Meanwhile the flooding has started on a new front. The literal front of the house.

Day 2752

Reminders to be thankful:
We have income
We have health
We have each other
Our house is not on fire.

Day 2751

My daughter is old enough to read books AND play Ticket to Ride. Let the indoctrination begin!

Day 2750

I made a person who can read.

Day 2749

Someone needs to have a chat with this baby and tell her that a global pandemic is not the right time to start sleeping through the night.

And tell our boy that a global pandemic is not the time to start fighting about naps and potty training and clothes and sharing toys.

For the record, it’s a goddamn global pandemic. Everyone just be nice to everyone else!

Day 2748

April 1st in the midst of a global pandemic and we’re waiting for the snows to come.

Apparently the Powers That Be want us to stay *more* home.