The Pajama Peeler Off Rides Again!

Fans, you may recall that there was a time during which Joe would go to bed in pajamas, and sometimes wake up in his underwear and other times buck naked, having busied himself during the night with taking his pajamas off.  (Sometimes he also busied himself with wrestling them back on because we'd find him in them backwards or inside out.)  The phase disappeared as mysteriously as it had appeared.  Fans, it is, perhaps, back.  Twice this week, Joe has taken off his pajamas.  Clara has, naturally followed suit, including stripping off her Pull-Up.  (The second time Joe disrobed after being put to bed, all Clara had to take off was her Pull-Up as she'd been acting like a savage after bath and after all, savages do not wear pajamas.  We found her clutching it underneath her, but not having yet wet the bed.  Julie got her up and put another on, and then Clara flopped right back down, curled up on her side, and closed her eyes, like she'd not been roused at all, in a way that was heart-meltingly dear.)  So it was that Joe was motoring around in only his underwear yesterday morning when it was rather cold, prompting Julie to tell him to find his pajamas and put them back on.  It was right at this time that Joe discovered he needed to go to the bathroom and you could see the wires crossing in his little brain--wanting to do as he'd been told, but needing to go to the bathroom.  That's when he said to Julie, "How about I don't worry about it right now and I'll just deal with it when I get dressed."  (This authoritative statement was also heart-meltingly dear.)

While Daddy Slept and Mommy Was Out

Julie went to a cookie exchange yesterday afternoon during nap and quiet time.  Ted was dozing when she left shortly before 2pm.  At 3:02pm, she received this text from Ted:  "Joes activity while I dozed off was to open the gingerbread and eat some, peel an orange, and let his sister get out of bed."  At 3:59pm, Ted texted, "While in shower joe gave cj a time out."  Fans, we're not sure why, but it seems clear that Joe is thinking he has to do everything around here--make sure there are snacks, get Clara up, keep her in line. . .A boy's work is never done!  Julie arrived home a wide wake of playtime detritus strewn all about, some of which you can see here, including a greeting from the captain and skipper of the USS Playtime.  (To be fair, the churning up of such wakes is much more a function of Raleigh House's small size and the attendant absence of playroom than the harbor master dozing off, and the captain and his skipper have certainly wrecked far more havoc than what you will see in the clip.)

The Joys of Living With Wee Ones

For some time now, we have been meaning to share something we find especially amusing about living with wee ones.  The horror that unfolded on Friday has only made us more mindful of how lucky we are to be able to hold still close the source of so much joy.

Living with the bambini means that one is always finding things where they do not belong, and so often, when one stumbles upon these items--obviously placed in a new home with the utmost care by tiny hands--one's heart cannot help but chuckle.  For example, Ted and Julie both have reading lights that may be clipped to a book or their Nooks that live on their respective night stands.  One was missing for a few weeks in the wake of a fort building frenzy that often found one or both of these lights clipped to the fort's blanket ceiling, dangling down like a miniature chandelier.  It was finally spied clipped to the electrical cord for the light that is mounted in the upstairs reading nook.  The light was attached to the portion of the cord that is between the wall and the end of the chaise in the nook, a space perhaps two inches wide.  It had been placed very just so.

Last week, Julie went to the broom cupboard and saw this:

She laughed, took this picture, and left all as she found it.  So it was that Ted happened upon the same scene yesterday and was able to remark that he'd not heard NORAD had moved its base of operations to the Raleigh House broom cupboard.  Had you, Fans?

Sweet

Fans, the bambini continue their bear cat ways at least some of the time.  This morning, we had a triumph and a failure.  The triumph stemmed from Julie realizing in fairly short order that Joe and Clara weren't simply grunting at each other and laughing, but were, in fact grunting "POOP!" at each other, as though, if you will, pooping, and laughing.  Seriously.  Seriously?  Seriously.  It wasn't even 6:30am.  She calmly separated them, and after a few minutes had passed, calmly told each of them that as they knew, poop was a potty word and was, therefore, only to be used in the same room as the potty.  She added that if she or Daddy heard dirty words coming out of their mouths than there wouldn't be permitted anything sweet the eat--no oranges, no pears, no cookies. . .no cupcakes.  She left them with a swift and frosty, "So clean up your mouth."  Julie felt very Mrs. Piggle Wiggle.

But she felt decidedly less so a little while later when, having abandoned the fun that is grunting poop back and forth with a loved one, the bambini were running around and screaming.  Julie's go-to consequence for running around screaming indoors is to order the bambini to do so outdoors.  It was so ordered with mounting frustration: "O-kay!  [false cheer punctuated with hand claps]  Looks like y'all want TO GO OUTSIDE so let's get your snow pants and boots on!  And your coats and hats and gloves or mittens!  LET'S GO!  [more falsely cheerful hand claps]"  Joe immediately decided this sounded like a terrible idea.  Not because it was all of seven degrees outside, but because it was dark.  He started to cry and Birdie started to cry in solidarity.  No bear cat cries alone!  Julie barreled on even though she sensed that this typically well-tailored consequence to running around inside the house and bellowing at the top of one's lungs wasn't quite as well-tailored given the time and the temperature.  So she soon relented, gnashing her teeth that she was unable to think of an appropriate consequence for the usual lunacy despite the changed circumstances in which the lunacy was occurring.

It is hard to think of the appropriate consequences for misbehavior on the fly.  Tonight, for example, the bambini were back to screaming after having been tucked into bed, and Ted was set to dish out a heaping dose of nothing sweet before Julie said, "No!  That's for potty talk!"

It ain't always sweet, Fans.  But the moments that are make all the rest of them worth it.

Of Batman and Going to the Bathroom

Fans, after we wound up the Starfoxes iditarod and came inside, Joe made a beeline for his blanket and wrapped himself up in it.  It wasn't long before he was pretending to be Batman and set about scouting out a Bat Cave and auditioning his Robin.  (It was a short list, but Clara really nailed it.  She is, after all, already a Bird.)  But in the midst of racing about, nature called.  When Our Caped Crusader emerged, this is what he said:

"I just had to go to the bathroom.  Batman doesn't go to the bathroom, but I do.  Do you know why Batman has a cape and doesn't go to the bathroom?  It's going to fling into it and go away."

And then he was off.

Holy blankets, Fans!