Juice Box Revelation

Juice boxes: the scourge of parents everywhere until their child is old enough to understand his or her own strength.  Does it matter how many times one hands a toddler or preschooler a juice box with the admonition to hold it gently, not to clutch it in a death grip that results in juice spurting out on the front of his or her shirt as it is lifted up to his or her mouth?  It doesn't.  We've not yet reached the glory of design that is represented by the Capri Sun, but here we pause to ask: who designed its ridiculous packaging?  A foil pouch that has to be punctured just so with that flimsy straw?  Really?

For our Fans out there who are not yet past all of the joys of juice boxes, we offer this life-changing tip, which comes to us from Daphne's mom who shared it at Birdie's birthday bash: flip up and hold it by the wings.  You know how the tops of juice boxes are folded down on either side of it's top?  Like if wrapping paper was being folded into a point on the side of a present?  If you flip those puppies up and then hand it to your wee one with the directive to hold it by the wings, your success rate for spurting-free sipping increases by 100% because the death grip is being exercised on the wings, rather than the center of the boxes.

Ah-mazing.  (But you're on your own with Capri Suns.)

Birdie Turns Three

Well Birdie Brigade, our Clara Jane is three.  She's knows she three, and can hold up three fingers, so we figure she's pretty much set for the year.  It's been one long celebration since Friday morning that began with her waking to her family's enthusiastic chorus of Happy Birthday.  (Well, to be fair, Joe was not very enthusiastic.  It took him a bit to get on the it's Clara's birthday train.  But it had not really pulled out of the station before he'd hopped on and by Saturday afternoon's party, he made himself busy ferrying the gifts Clara's guests brought inside to the dining room table without anyone asking him.)  The festivities culminated in a birthday bash yesterday outside on the front lawn.  Clara celebrated with Grandma Connie and Grandpa Charles, all her great-great-great aunts, her third cousin (or a cousin some number removed--cousins get confusing, right?), and about 20 other of her nearest and dearest including about 12 under the age of 10 who consumed their collective weight in juice boxes.  And, it was in low seventies, Brigade!  We could not have dialed up a better day which we think seemed only fitting.

Birdie, at three.

First cake.

Second cake.

Heh.  I got two cakes.  Do you think I'll get three cakes when I'm four?  Is that how this works?

It's my birthday.  This is my cake.  I can stick my fingers in the frosting. 

Fros-TING!

"I want some letters."

C-L-A-R-A

Finding the leftovers after the party.

Party Girl

Shangri-La

Despite the morning mayhem that kerfuffle might suggest, Ted has just informed Julie that the bambini have, of late, been donning their coats, hats, gloves or mittens, and shoes without excessive reminders that culminate in someone--a parent--fulminating about how departing the house in the morning is like mounting a military campaign with one sock and shoelace.  (That's the sort of nonsense that comes out of your mouth when you are trying to maintain forward momentum toward an on-time departure in the morning with an almost-five-year-old and almost (even more!)-three-year-old.)  Ted reports that sometimes, the bambini announce that they're ready to go, and he isn't ready!  Apparently, we should be renaming Raleigh House Shangri-La because it is all la-di-da around here in the morning's final departure push.

It only took all winter.  They're set for the season the only they they need to put on to leave besides underwear and clothes are Crocs.  Perfect.

(Really, we strongly suspect that the impetus for the newfound ability to move swiftly and deliberately through the final make-ready-to-leave tasks is Joe's desire to race out the door first; reach the front gate, open it, and go through it first; and reach the car first--hopefully with enough time to climb up on the back gate and peer over it at the slow pokes who follow.  The Raleigh House name change may be short lived once the shine wears off of all that.)

Not Smart

On the way home a few weeks ago, Joe asked Julie what stupid meant.  Before answering, Julie naturally had a few questions of her own like: did you call someone stupid?  Did someone call you stupid (like a big stupidhead)?  Where did you hear the word stupid?  Joe naturally had no answers.  The word just popped into his head of course.  Julie told him that stupid meant not smart, but that it wasn't a very nice word to express that idea.

A week ago Monday, in the morning, Julie was standing in the bathroom curling her hair, when she heard a kerfuffle of some sort break out in the living room and Joe wail, "CLARA!  YOU'RE BEING STUPID!"  When Julie quickly admonished him and told him that we never call someone else stupid, especially our sister, Joe hesitated the briefest of moments before wailing, "But Mommy!  She's being NOT SMART!"

He's very smart, Fans.

Keeping the Faith

Fans.  We did not abandon you.  No, we've just been shoveling snow, because as we have noted here before, we do spring like winter here in Minnesota.  Now, to be sure, the six to eight inches that accumulated here in the Twin Cities last Thursday night was not so terrible when one compared it to the events that unfolded in other parts of our nation last week, but around here, well, it felt like another log on the fire all the same.  And it's snowing AGAIN right now, Fans.  AGAIN.  (Do you remember, three years ago this week, when Our Birdie burst onto the scene?  The apple tree was in bloom and we brought her home on a perfect, blue-sky spring day.  Now that was a spring!)  So we've been sort of glum--trying to remember all that is beautiful in this world while we watched terrible things happen and tried not be scared, and slogging through snow, cloudy days, and colds.  (Birdie has been sick, and so has Ted.)  But, we are told that this winter storm is our very, very last and it might reach 70 this Saturday when we celebrate Birdie's third birthday here at Raleigh House.  Birdie is well enough to be getting into trouble with her erstwhile sidekick again, and Ted is well enough to be entering that fray again.  So we keep the faith, we keep the faith for brighter days.

As it happens, today is Earth Day.  When Julie arrived home with the bambini and they settled into read for a bit while Ted finished making dinner, Clara selected Hug Time from the shelf.  Clara calls this book "Heart We Love You" because the cover features its main character, a tiny cat named, Jules, hugging a large pink heart.*  In Hug-Time-Heart-We-Love-You, Jules embarks on a quest to give the whole world a hug to make it feel better and learns that "The world is so big. . .And yet so small, It's time that we embrace it all.  That's something that we all can do.  Start with the one who's closest to you."  And that's when you holler "HUG TIME!" and wrap your arms around everyone who's around you.

As we say, we are keeping the faith, holding on to those closest to us as we wait for a new spring.

*Fans of the comic strips Mutts would recognize the illustrations of Hug Time's author, Pat McDonnell.

Flowers, blue skies. . .

And Birdie.