Bits and Pieces

I jokingly called Joel and Everett "Smart Alecs" one night after a whole bunch of wisecracking from their direction.
Everett laughed and replied, "Papa's name isn't Alex!"

William is walking now.  But when do you officially say that a child can walk?  Ten steps?  Never crawling anymore?  He goes about halfway across a room before he remembers that crawling is faster.  Everett and Ashley's excitement over William's new trick even trumps his own.  "Mom, William's walking!!!!" they exclaim all day long.  William just giggles and goes about his wobbly toddling.  My favorite is when he walks to me--his excitement grows with each step until finally he throws himself at me and puts his arms around my neck.

I've had several talks with the kids about keeping all of the toilet lids down and the bathroom doors shut.  If one is even cracked open, William will open it and pull all the toilet paper off the roll and start throwing things into the toilet bowl.  His favorite bathroom is mine, where he pulls all my make-up out and has even broken a container of nail polish all over my tile floor.  (Fortunately I heard the shatter and cleaned it all up before it stained.)

William has started saying "Uh-Oh!" when he hears or sees something drop.  Yes, it's adorable, and yes, we egg him on whenever we can.  His other babbles are cute as well because he talks in unintelligible sentences, but this one takes the cake.

Instead of "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," Ashley has started asking me to sing the Spiderman theme song when I tuck her in at night.  She obviously has brothers.

Preschool is almost over.  I am so glad Everett has another year before kindergarten.  I am not ready to say good-bye to him (kindergarten is all day where we live), and I know he is not ready either.  That little homebody has a hard enough time going to preschool two afternoons a week.  It really is fun having him home and I am not looking forward to these early years of simple worries being over.

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Some of you have heard this story before, but it is worth writing down somewhere permanent.  A few days ago I found Everett and Ashley running around our back yard half-naked (shirts still on, but no underwear).  I was mortified ("what will the neighbors think?") and I grabbed Everett by the arm and began dragging him inside.  "But mom!" he said, "We are going to the bathroom outside!"
"I don't care!" I said.
"But I pooped over there!" Everett was more insistent this time.
"I don't care!" I said again.  "I have told you many, many times never to take your clothes off outside!"

As soon as the kids were dressed, I sent them out with an old yogurt container and a wad of paper towels to pooper-scoop the mess they made.  When they came back inside, Everett proudly thrust the container under my nose.

"We got it all!  See!"  he exclaimed.  Smell was more like it.  I told him to throw it all away out in the garage.  Blech.

Then I put the kids to work scrubbing the kitchen.  They actually did a pretty good job.

When I tucked Everett and Ashley in bed, I asked them what their favorite part of the day was, as I always do.  I don't remember Ashley's answer.  But Everett?  He said that cleaning up the poop was his favorite part of the day.

So much for a lesson learned.

To be honest, I don't really care if Everett chooses to "water the plants" once in a while.  I figure it's just part of being a boy. (And no, I would probably not allow the same behavior from Ashley.  Call me sexist, but to me, anatomical differences rule.)  But we don't have a dog for a reason and I am not about to add scooping poop to my long list of chores.  Besides, the whole running-around-without-pants-on is only cute when kids are non-verbal.