Election Day 2012

Tuesday, of course, was Election Day.  In a close race, Superman and Belle ran against Batman and Cinderella at the St. Louis Park KinderCare.  We don't know which dynamic duo won, but we can report that the votes of our dynamic duo cancelled each other out: Clara voted for "Belle" (and Superman), and Joe voted for Batman and Cinderella.

But of course, there were other races going on, too.  Joe was just a handful of months old of course when we last voted for President.  He went with us then, so it seemed only right that he, and now Clara, should accompany us to cast our ballots this year, too.  We arrived very nearly after the polls opened and waited in line for perhaps 20 minutes.  The highlight of that was when Joe asked Ted in a fairly loud voice why Ted was going to vote for the candidate for whom Ted voted--only Joe used the man's name.  Civics lessons in order, clearly.

So the line was not so terribly long, but it was long enough that by the time we got our ballots, Clara was starting to see what trouble she could stir up.  We were playing man-to-man defense, and Julie's man was Clara.  First play by Clara, the old hang-on-the-arm-and-swing-in-a-wide-arc-down-there-on-the-ground trick!  Next up, the old saying-the-opposite-of-what-is-actually-desired trick!  So it was that Julie came to scoop Clara up only to have her wail she wanted to hold hands while grabbing hold of the voting booth and giving it a good shake.  (Don't mind us over here tearing the place up while you try to do your civic duty!)  That's when Julie knelt down and delivered a fast and furiously whispered admonition to Clara who decided to hold Julie's hand long enough for Julie to finish voting and make sure she hadn't voted Batman and Cinderella to lead the nation for the next four years.

On the way out, a friendly St. Louis Parkian offered to take our picture and then hurried off in the rain with a "Great tradition!"  It is, isn't it, Fans?  By the time Election Day arrives it feels like the candidates have been running forever, the air seems thin, and it's all rather exhausting. But then, on the actual day, there's something so inspiring and hopeful about heading off to the polls and waiting in line with your neighbors to cast your vote for the future, especially when it's standing in line next to you, holding your hand.

Sweet Sunday Morning

Saturday mornings are for cleaning, but Sunday mornings are for snuggling and pancake making.  This past Sunday morning, Joe was up and at 'em so he and Ted headed to the kitchen to make pancakes while Julie and Clara stayed in Clara little bed.  We have written here before of Clara's love of a snuggle and Brigade, it just never gets old and we can only hope she never ever outgrows it.  There will come a day, of course, when her little hand is not so little, but for now, it is just the right size for reaching up and touching Julie's cheek while she says, "Mama."  And somehow, Julie's hand is just the right size for cupping Clara's cheek while she says, "Clara."  So the Birds touched each other cheeks and softly called each others names back and forth like a couple of looney birds before Clara flipped over and pressed her back into Julie's tummy.  That's when the sing along started: Baa Baa Black Sheep (huge right now); Itsy Bitsy Spider, ABC (now, it's usually ABC instead of ABCD, and she knows most all of it!; sometimes she skips TUV), Wheels On the Bus, and everyone's patriotic favorite: This Land Is Your Land.

A morning at the end of October.  Birdie will always ensconce herself in the middle of a snuggle pile.  No shame in her game.  We had fallen back yet so the room was very dark, and the flash was very bright.

Little Bird, Big Help

Fans!  Monday morning found the Birds' felled by colds and by Tuesday, Joe had been taken out, too.  So we have a lot of catching up to do here!  We should first go back to last Saturday morning before the onslaught of sneezing and coughing and the grumpiness that comes in their wake.  Joe's swimming lesson are at the very bright and early hour of 8am, while Clara's Little Gym class is at the slightly more reasonable hour of 9am.  The Birds have fallen into a pattern of speed cleaning at least the downstairs part of the house after the boys leave.  Clara is keen to help.  She excels at picking up, and always likes to try her hand at cleaning the toilet.  (She is fond of lifting the wand with the disposable head out of the toilet as she crows, "I did it! I did it!", as blue-tinged toilet bowl water drips all over the floor.)  When it's time to vacuum, she follows Julie all about with the little yellow vacuum.*

Birdie putting the Halloween candy collected in the jack-o-lanterns and the leftover candy from our bowl into the one big bowl that sometimes sits on the dining room table.

Now Birdie's latest is helping to fold the laundry, or, more accurately, roll the laundry.  Julie rolls her pajama pants up and Clara, having watched this action carefully, has the notion that all things are rolled: her underwear, her pajama pants, you name it.  One has to follow along surreptitiously behind her, folding.  But, it is also worth noting that she matches socks like nobody's business.

Birdie taking laundry to put away in the bambini's room.  She dropped it on the floor when she arrived there.

*The little yellow vacuum was first Joe's.  We got it on a day or weekend when he had been sick for a terribly long stretch (this was before he had the tubes put in) and we all needed something new to liven up the atmosphere.  Joe picked the vacuum cleaner, and Julie can still see him in her mind's eye,  clutching it across his lap in the front of the Target cart.

Adventures in Dining Out

Ted flew to Dallas for work early Thursday morning and returned late Friday evening.  When Ted is out of town, Julie does one of two things for dinner with the bambini: makes breakfast for all (since Ted doesn't like breakfast for dinner), or goes out to a restaurant (no dishes!).  This trip, she decided to do back-to-back restaurants.

Thursday, she took the bambini to Yum!  Yum! (which really does punctuate its name) menus macaroni and cheese and has cupcakes so as you might imagine, Fans, the bambini love it and Joe would for sure eat every meal there if he could.  This trip did not include cupcakes because of the aforementioned siren song of Halloween candy.  That is how glorious that song is: it beats out Yum! cupcakes.  Some of the conversation revolved around Julie telling Joe to pipe down and use his inside voice because Our Hero was repeatedly throwing his arms up like he was crossing a finish line and saying--loudly--"Yum!"  He eventually looked at Julie like she was a total dope and informed her that there was a "shouty thing" after the word so "we got to say it loud."  Indeed.

Friday, Julie took the bambini to My Burger, or "Your Burger," as Clara calls it.  My Burger does not punctuate its title (bummer!), but it does have booths (yippee!).  The booths are some distance from the ordering counter but within sight of it, so Julie left the bambini at the booth with the announcement that if she saw anyone walking on the seat or using it like a trampoline, we would leave right then and there.  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man in the corner chuckle.  Turns out, Julie should have also said no standing on the seat, because there was plenty of that "to lock at the car," as Joe informed her.  The man in the corner chuckled some more.  He wasn't eating and appeared to just be taking in the My Burger tableau.   Dinner proceeded apace and as the bambini were struggling into their coats and gear, Clara insisted on turning her hat such that one of the ear flaps was covering her face.  Julie pointed out that the hat was askew and tried to turn it at which point Clara said "NO!" That's when the Man in the Corner chuckled again and said, "That's what I call boss."  Indeed.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012: was it really only Wednesday?  We began the festivities going to a pre-game potluck at a neighbor's house.  Joe knew that the potluck was really just something that had to be suffered before the main event and although he wasn't surly, he did ask Clara repeatedly if she was done with her dinner (a classic "Are you done?  How about now?  Done?  Are you done?" line of questioning) and when she finally said "I done," he looked at Julie all it's-go-time, and made a beeline for Ted to say what amounted to the same.  So we were in the first wave of trick-or-treaters, beginning at dusk and ding-donging and knocking our way along as night fell.

We pulled the bambini over to Graham and Connor's old block and then the bambini took it by storm on foot.  They were told by almost every person that they were cute, and Fans, they really were in the semi-matching monkey (Curious and usual) costumes.  Most people understood that Julie and Ted were dressed as bananas.

Lots of folks wanted to select candy for the bamabini and put it in their jack-o-lantern pails.  This tactic usually created amusing confusion with Joe and Clara holding their jack-o-lanterns back all get-your-own, while simultaneously reaching forward toward the all what-gives?!  Most confusing was a neighbor who had presorted his candy into leftover butter tubs.  The bambini were stymied, but knew to protect their jack-o-lanterns at all costs.  But they did well getting up to the doors, ringing the doorbells (a Joe job this year), saying trick-or-treat and also thank you (Clara also usually embellished her "tank you" with a happy Halloween).  Once we'd wrapped up that block, we visited the celebrity-demi-goddess babysitters' house where we saw one of them.  Then, we headed for home where the bambini were stripped of their costumes into the pajamas that were already underneath, and allowed to eat three pieces of candy before heading off to bed.

Now, we live with the siren song of the jack-o-lantern pails and the candy they contain.  Thursday morning, they asked if they could have candy and Julie, as you might expect, said no--no candy for, or after, breakfast.  At some point, she was down in the basement starting a load of laundry.  As she came back up the steps, she realized it was awfully quiet.  So she picked up the pace and discovered Clara in the living room with two lollipops stuck in her mouth at the same time, grinning like a jack-o-lantern.