Sleeping Habits

Mermaid Princess has two identical duck lovies that she sleeps with. They are getting very velveteen rabbit-ed; the fleece is gone from their hats and their beaks are starting to fray. She has the oddest habit of stroking them and clicking her tongue to fall asleep. Woe be unto us the day they are lost or frayed beyond repair. She, of the three, is the most attached to her Duck-Ducks; she will run for them at the least sign of trouble and holds them near during the scary part of whatever books she's reading.



Flash has three identical frogs. Well, sort of. They are meant to be identical, but two have been chewed and shredded so that major surgery has been required to keep them in a semblance of the genus/species. The other, for some reason unfathomable to his father and me, has emerged completely unscathed. To fall asleep, Flash chews on the webbed foot of a frog and hums to himself. Loudly. So loudly that MP used to wear a noise-blocking headset to fall asleep when they shared a room. He really has no need of the frogs during the day and less and less at night these days. Hopefully, the humming stops too. I would hate to have to draw a serious girlfriend aside and give her fair warning.

"Daddy Nouille" (short for Grenouille)

MP in her Flash Headset Protection

Flash has another odd habit. He has the coolest handmade race car bed I have ever seen, given to us by friends. He has another sweet air mattress/sleeping bag sports bed on the floor. And where is he sleeping tonight? On the floor in the corner of this room. I just pray it's not some sort of training for eventually becoming a S.E.A.L. or Ranger.

JackJack has two identical bear lovies. I noticed a few months ago that the satin on on the paws was falling off, and attributed it to poor quality. Foolish mother! The other night, I went in to check on the kids, and found my youngest half awake, half asleep, and stroking only the satiny paw of his bear. No wonder they've been slowly disintegrating.

I'm blessed - not a pacifer-craver in the bunch. And we somehow avoided thumb-sucking too. Still, I do wonder if and when these habits will be outgrown... I know I had a bear that I took with me to college (the first year, anyway).

What was your childhood soother and when did you give it up?

Play 'n play

Today's title is JackJack's word for clay, as in "Mommy, can we do play 'n play today?" For my own record, I would like to note that he never says "play and play" without also doing the sign language for 'game'. Which now has me confused between the sign for game and play - which are really nothing alike.

Army tank, complete with crayon barrel

Thanks to my sweet friend, Heather P., who clued me into recovering my mealtime sanity. She introduced me to the 5pm art project... setting the kids up to do some sort of artistic creation while I finish up dinner. Kids are close by, occupied, and content. I'm not interfering in their creations as I have an infuriating tendency to do ("But what would happen if you put the boat here on the water instead of in the middle of all those cows?"). And boy, do they scramble to clean up the family room as a precursor to getting on their smocks.

Daddy and MP sitting under a palm tree

MP with her creation

For my part, once I'm in kitchen clean up mode, adding a couple of paintbrushes or some cookies cutters to the dishes ain't no big deal.

JackJack with his turtle. Good thing he told me what it is.

Kids having a blast, Mommy enjoying them as they show her each new brushstroke, and general joy in the kitchen at 5:30pm. Who'd've known? (Okay, besides Heather...)

Scrubby clean!

When Mermaid Princess turned 5, one of her new "big girl" rules was that she could no longer shower with Flash. At least two times a week, they STILL ask if they can shower together. And I say no. And they ask why. And after 100 queries, I STILL don't have a good answer; well, a good answer that I can tell them.

Cute when they're grubby; cute when they're clean. It's a good deal all around!

Halt... or I'll say halt again.

Rainy last week, so I rearranged the family room furniture so we could wrestle, play a little nerf b-ball and generally have space to get the wiggles out.

The sofas ended up becoming bunkers. Daddy had one; the big kids took the other. Wearing snorkel masks and using the snorkels as rifles, a raging battle ensued.

My favorite exchange:

Flash (jumping out from behind the sofa): Put your hands up!

Daddy, with great reluctance, raises arms all the way up.

Flash eyes him for a second.
Flash (takes aim, makes sound of 'gunshot'): Tszchoo!

Daddy: Hey! You can't do that! I put my arms up. I put myself in your protection. Start over.

Flash chews on his lip while processing this new bit of information and returns to his bunker.

Daddy (head popping up from behind sofa with an evil laugh): Aahh haaa haa haaa!

Flash (jumps out from behind the sofa): PUT YOUR HANDS DOWN!!!!

Perhaps not quite the right attitude for going into law enforcement.

"I've never loved you more"

Music to a girl's ears when they come from her best beau.

What can I say? I cancelled tonight's weekly planning session (logistics, finances, weekend action plan)...

At one point I remembered it was the start of the NFL season. Separately, I remembered that this is the wrap-up of the Republican Convention. For either of those, I would have made sure it was brief and let the man get to his remote.

But both the man's obsessions highlighted in a single evening???

No, no. We can reschedule.

We won't be watching any commercials tonight!

Words to the wise

Words that our children got wrong and we delight in so much, we've never had the heart or will to correct them:

Commercional (commercial)

Kamote (remote)

Black minnow (Black widow - as in spider, and that's a whole story by itself)

On this same theme, Flash is currently appearing at my side at random moments with a stuffed animal in hand, generally his lizard, and informing me of some heroic deed his lizard just completed.
Flash: Mommy, Lizard just jumped from the brown sofa to the orange sofa and rescued JackJack from the sharks.

Mommy (as I pick up Lizard and hold him up to my face in serious discussion): Lizard, I am so proud of you. First, for being brave. And secondly, for taking care of a Chambers Champion! Good job, Lizard.

Flash (reaching up to pet Lizard): Yea good job, Lizard! He's a brave lizard, isn't he, Mom?
Mommy: Yes, he is, honey. A brave lizard who wants to give you a kiss.

Flash (with implied eye roll): Noooo, Mommy. Mommy, Lizard is just pe-tend.

Mommy: Yup. Okay then.