It's 9:25pm. . .

And Our Hero is still awake.  Julie just went in to the bambini's room to whisper "I love you Joseph Trump Ekkers," and "I love you Clara Jane Ekkers," before heading upstairs to bed, and Joe popped right up as she entered and (sleepily) said, "Mommy, is it wake up time?"  When Julie told him no, he asked why, and Julie tried not to laugh and explained that to wake up, one first had to sleep.  Joe said o-kay.

Birdie, meanwhile, was lying in her crib, asleep, in her pajamas, but sockless.  There was nothing else in her crib.  That's because everything was on the floor.  Everything included Pink Dog, Pink Bear, Baby Doll 1, Baby Doll 2, Pillow Pet Gorilla, Georgia the Giraffe, My Cat, and two blankets.  Julie also noted that the blinds were askew.  Clearly, Birdie had been busy.

The bambini were on a bit of a tear when we arrived home after joining Marco for his birthday dinner at Yum!  The tear began when Joe made to exit Yum! without a parent and then really got going when he all but laughed when he was given a talking to about making to run out of places without a responsible minded adult in tow.  Conditions were, thus, ripe for all sort of pre-bath shenanigans to ensue, but they did not and here's why: because Julie and Ted decided they weren't up for shenanigans.  So it was that the bambini were told that bathing is a privilege, in which they would not be partaking tonight.  Joe wailed until he was told that if he didn't cut that right out and pull himself together, Julie would not be reading books this evening.  (He stopped wailing immediately.)

But the bambini were not done.  No pre-bath shenanigans?  Story time shenanigans it is!  Except Julie was having none of that either.  Julie does, as our Loyal Readers know, love reading bedtime stories, but not with Loopy Loo McGoo and Loopy Loo McGee.  After Julie had told Joe for the second time to sit on his bottom and find a position in which he could be mostly still, and he started thumping his leg like a jackrabbit or something, while grinning, Julie snapped The Very Busy Spider shut and said enough.

So the bambini were put to bed and told that no one would be coming in if they pitched their "friends" on the floor, or their blankets, or if they got an owie because they smacked their heads or arms or legs or whatever on the wall or bed or crib or whatever because they were acting like goofs.  They were on their own!

And so were Ted and Julie who retired to the porch for twilight cocktails.  They came back in an hour later at 8:32pm, and this is what they heard.*

Kind of hard to say who had the last laugh, huh, Fans?

*At the Zoo is still at the top of the Raleigh House Billboard chart.

The Runaway Bunny, But Not Just Yet

At Joe's music class this past Saturday, the book selection was The Runaway Bunny. Besides creating a renewed interest in hopping like a bunny, this selection prompted a renewed interest in the book at home. For the past three nights, we have read both The Runaway Bunny and The Runaway Dinner. Joe quite deliberately picked out this pairing, though book books had been out of rotation for some time (though The Runaway Bunny, sadly, was never really in rotation). Toward the end of The Runaway Bunny, the bunny announces that if his mother will become the wind and blow the sailboat he becomes wherever she wants him to go, then he will fly away on a flying trapeze. The mother bunny tells him that if he goes flying away on a flying trapeze, she will become a tightrope walker and walk across the air to him. When we looked at the illustration of this scene, Joe excitedly told Julie, "I want to go up high and you to catch me. I must get bigger." He must, but hopefully not just yet.

Birdie Adjusts

Rain, rain, go away. . .

Something is not right here with my diaper.

I gots to pull this up! I keep telling them. . .

UP!!!!!

That's better. Can't hide these thighs.

Just a Couple of Cats

Of late, it is not uncommon for Joe to inform us that he is some sort of animal. On Friday night, he was a platypus. He constructed himself a habitat on the chair, but then must have decided he needed more room, because he decamped to the sofa, where he had a mud area (the--brown--pillows), and a river (his Grandma Jane's blue blanket).

Saturday morning, he announced he would be constructing a kitty cat cage, and set off to do it. When it was complete, he asked Julie to play kitty cats while Ted was making pancakes. Joe pointed out all of the cages features to Julie. For example, the gap in the red and yellow blocks in the foreground in the picture just below is where the food "can come in." Now Fans, you might have thought kitty cats ate Fancy Feast, and to be fair, many do. But did you know that kitty cats also eat raspberries? And that, in a pinch, puzzle pieces can serve as raspberries?

Kitty cats do, of course, need some toys to bat about, and a perch on which to snooze. This last was insisted upon by Julie, and that's when Joe told her she could snuggle in under the hippo blanket if she wanted and Fans, that is just what Mama Kitty wanted to do. Joe kindly gathered up the raspberries and tossed them at her. But there is no rest for the wicked. Kitties, as it turns out, have to be up and at 'em! Wouldn't you know it? All of the kitties were sick! They had to put on their coats (blankets--very confusing for the still literal minded Birdie which is why Julie is holding Birdie's actual coat in the picture below) and head off to the doctor's office (sofa--again, Birdie had a look on her face that said, "Um, it's the sofa, Dum Dum? I know what Dr. Harrington's office looks like, and this ain't it.").

There the kitties sat until Dr. Ted dispensed kisses to make all the kitties better in time for pancakes. (Julie was sort of hoping for bed rest as--we think it safe to say--is evident in the picture.)

Take Me Out To The Ballgame

On Saturday, Ted and Joe met up with Graham and his Dad at a Minnesota - Northwestern baseball game at the HHH Metrodome. It was a chance to take the boys to a big league stadium but in a low stress and inexpensive way. $4 tickets and about 100 people in the crowd was just about our speed. We took some seats behind home plate, actually we took a whole section for ourselves. The boys got to meet the UM mascot, "Goldie", stand for the national anthem, and sing Take Me Out To The Ballgame (finally, all that practice pays off!). The highlight for Joe was probably getting to go out to the concourse and buy M&Ms as a treat. We left after 7 uneventful innings (we learned later the Gophers won in the bottom of the 9th with a 2-run walk off hit) and headed home to mow the lawn - another national past time.