Dawdling Toward the Day

Besides repeating incessantly some scrap of words, Joe can also often be found dawdling.  At four, he is lolling through life, and loving it.  As you may know Fans, the way the mornings most often run around here, is Ted gets the bambini settled in with breakfast before taking a shower and getting ready while Julie finishes up getting ready who then takes over and shepherds the bambini through the getting dressed portion of the morning fanfare.  For Joe, this means laying out his clothes, save underwear--not because he's already wearing it.  Please.  Fans.  Toss logic out the window.  No, underwear is not laid out because Our Hero likes to select a fresh pair himself, no mater that the pair he is wearing at the time was put on following his bath and has only been slept in.  While Joe wrestles with that decision, out of his pajamas, and into his clothes for the day, Clara is on the yellow dot and helped out of her Pull-Up* and pajamas, into her underwear and clothes, and has her hair done up.

Yesterday morning, for reasons that will be lost to us forever, when Julie prompted Joe to "move with something approaching all deliberate speed" (a phrase that is right up there with "period, the end" on the Julie catch phrase popularity chart), he informed her that she had forgotten to lay out his underwear.  Julie, mistakenly going right for logic, informed him she had not; he was wearing underwear after all, and with an air of put-that-in-your-superhero-drawers!, went about her business with Clara.

When Clara was ready to run headlong into the day and tore off to do that, Julie again glanced over at Joe.  She found him buck naked (the underwear conundrum still obviously a hurdle to be surmounted), lolling about on his bed like some miniature Adonis.

This is where we have had to learn to issue the edict that we will, at some point, be departing the house and that all will be doing so in whatever state of dress they are in at that time, and then--and this is the key--walk away.  You can't get your underwear in a bunch, whether they've got superheroes on them or not.

*A note related to the Pull-Ups we've been meaning to mention: the Pull-Ups we buy for Clara have Cinderella on them.  Clara of course hasn't met Cinderella yet, and so will almost always point to Cinderella and say, "That's Clara!"

Two Little Ducks Go Quack Quack Quack

Clara and her compatriots are learning about sand right now, so beaches, deserts, sand dunes, tide pools, and the like are hot topics of conversation.  Yesterday, they learned about sand dunes.  Birdie Brigade, it is tough to ask a question about sand dunes that isn't too much a leading question, and isn't so open ended that a member of the two-year-old set can still answer it.  Members of the four-year-old set meanwhile, of course, know everything and are eager to share their knowledge with the world.  That's how we came to have this exchange:

Julie: "Clara, where do we find sand dunes?"
Clara [making motions with her hands to indicate a hill, clearly catching what is being thrown, but not quite able to toss it back--finally, in a rush]: "At the beach!"
Julie: "Yes, sand is found at the beach.  [beat] And the desert!  Are sand dunes in the desert?"
Joe [not to be contained any longer--he knows this stuff!]: "Yes, sand dunes are in the desert."
Clara: "NO!  No, Joe!  Talking to Mommy!"
Joe [blithely undeterred--he knows more about sand and deserts!]: "Grandpa Tom and Lynn live in the desert."

It is really a kick to hear Clara string together longer and longer sentences, and to pick up speech patterns and norms.  For example, this whole no-I'm-talking-to-Mommy construct is one she's heard a lot in recent months as we try to teach her exuberant brother the fine art of conversation, including the benefits of not interrupting other speakers, especially with non sequiturs.  But it is also a kick to hear out loud, in his speech, the leaps and connections Joe is making.  You can hear some of this here in what is really meant to be an audio clip until you are 1:44 in because when one turns a camera on the bambini, they will of course stop doing what it was you wanted to capture unless you are quite stealthy, and it is difficult to be stealthy when we are all in the car.  So you will get a glimpse of our route home, Fans!  But hang in there, because there are things in the clip to love more than the flashes of St. Louis Park.

For example, right off you will hear a bit of Joe singing Five Little Ducks, which is all the rage right now, and why the camera was turned on.  But the jig is up 30 seconds in, and reverse psychology fails to elicit more, from Joe anyway.  You will also get a flavor of he above sand exchange, and witness something else that continues to be all the rage: mindless repetition, Rain Man-like of words and phrases from Joe.  And at 3:00, don't miss Joe chiding Clara because he's four, you know, and knows how it all goes down.

Old Home Day

From left, Anja, Elsa, Clara, Joe, at day's end

The Knudermuths were back in town in Monday and we spent the whole day together making like at the end of it, they'd be heading home across town instead of across the country.  When they arrived, we were outside blowing bubbles with one of our approximately 56 bubble blowing tools, so right away, Elsa and Anya thought that spending the day with these people they really didn't know was maybe going to be o-kay, and it was.  We did nothing especially remarkable, but that's what made the day so easy and wonderful, just like blowing bubbles.  Just like old, good friends.

Visiting One of the Great-Greats

Later this afternoon, we went and visited Joe and Clara's Great Great Aunt Muriel and Great Great Uncle Bob, or Aunt Bob and Uncle Bob, as Joe was saying, Bob being much easier to say than Muriel, after all.  We practiced saying Muriel on the way over, and told Muriel we'd been doing so when we arrived, because her name was tough to say.  Right away she said it was, it was a tough name to say.  And Fans, there is yet another example of Joe and Clara's Great Great Aunts being an all around lovely trio of ladies because that put Joe right at ease.  Muriel had gone through the toys that linger all over their house from when they grandchildren were younger and had a whole bag of things waiting for the bambini.  She also had bubbles.  And Bugles for snacking.  (Fans: when is the last time you had Bugles?  Like forever, right?!  You should hustle right on out and get some and then find one you can put on your finger like a long fingernail, even though you really shouldn't be playing with your food, Fans.)  At dinner, Muriel and Bob had little cocktail wieners, and chips, and watermelon, and strawberries, and ice cream and cookies for dessert.  There were also baked beans (which went with the ham--not the cocktail weenies), which Muriel and Bob could not believe Joe and Clara not only liked, but loved.  Muriel and Bob live across from a pond where a bunch of geese and ducks live.  As we were leaving, Muriel said that the next time we come, Joe and Clara can feed the ducks, and when you are four and two, life doesn't get much better than bubbles, cocktail weenies, baked beans, and duck feeding.  Incidentally, when you are almost thirty-seven and thirty-six, life doesn't get much better than someone having you over for a nice meal (and Bugles!), doing the dishes, and giving your kids bubbles.

Summer Sunday Morning

Fans, if you asked Joe what we did this morning (as Julie did as the afternoon was beginning), here is what he would say: "Played at the park with Darby and had cake for breakfast."  And it's true, we did play at the park with Darby, and we did have cake, of a sort, for breakfast.  But who would have thought the morning would get framed up quite that way?  Ted played golf this morning, and since we lent Blue to Sanne and Todd (back in town before flying home to Seattle) for the weekend, and Ted took Bronzie to golf, Julie and the bambini were limited to the delights of the neighborhood.  Fortunately, they are many, especially when the weather is just perfect, as it was today.

Julie made a buckle last night or, "summer cake," as our readers with long memories may recall we call it, and, frankly, she felt like a bit of it for breakfast with a spot of cheese on the side.  She knew it would never do for her to have that and the bambini to have anything else, so it was cake and cheese all around.

By the time breakfast was wrapped up, it was just after seven which seemed a bit early to begin our adventuring, so the bambini played while Julie pattered.  At one point, the clouds parted and light streamed from heaven above and the angels sang: Julie heard Joe ask Clara if she would please share her airplane--!!!!!--AND THEN--!!!!!--Clara DID--!!!!!  AND THEN, they played together with that airplane, amicably, for what?  Like at least 15 minutes--!!!!!  (Julie was in the bathroom and it was a good thing because she almost peed her pants.)  It is true that Joe and Clara pretty much get on, but we manage our fair share of toy snatching and the like, so this whole scene was rather amazing to overhear.  Julie was sad that Ted wasn't also around to hear it--though she was also pretty excited to be in the bathroom all by herself.

After that excitement--the toddler-preschooler negotiated airplane share (though the bathroom solitude should not be discounted)--we headed out into the world: Joe on his bike, Clara on her push bike, and Julie on foot.  We motored down to the Starfoxes where we all had bananas with chocolate milk or iced tea and lemonade.

We went home via the park.  We'd not been there long when Darby rolled up with her mom.  Darby showed Joe how to pump his legs when swinging (Joe had fun reaching with his two feet to kick Julie's hand), and Joe introduced Darby--and Darby's mom--to the potty tree, which was probably more thrilling to Darby than her mom.  Before too long some super big kids came and started doing the things big kids do on playgrounds that are too small for them, so we retreated to the baseball diamond which was really lava where good natured Lava Monsters that chomp and tickle squealing little people live.  Good times.

So you see, what Joe would say we did this morning is all true, and then some.