Ranger Joe, Meet Ms. Barrette

We thought certain of our Fans might be amused to see the manner in which the Ranger Joe cup unearthed at the Camel Hollow Road house has been repurposed.

On the Bucket Filling Train

"J for Joe!"  (And jaguar.)

In other bucket filling news, Julie has been trying to do more laundry throughout the week, and some weeks, trying to clean a good portion of the house on Friday nights, so that she can hang out properly with Clara on Saturday morning before Clara's Super Beats class at The Little Gym.  Julie had been thinking about how to engineer more play time with Clara, but got really serious about it after the week the boys left--and Clara raced for her little toy vacuum cleaner.  So lately on Saturday mornings, Julie and Clara have been doing puzzles.  The first week when they didn't vacuum and the like, they worked the Melissa and Doug alphabet train puzzle.  It features a long circus train in which each car has a letter on it containing an animal that start with that same letter.  After Clara had turned all the pieces right side up and found A, Julie asked what letter came next.  That's how it went, with intermittent alphabet singing, until they got to N.  Now, it's true, this reporter can't think of an animal right off the top of her head that begins with N.  But she bets that if she really put her mind to it, she could come up with one better than narwal, which is a fish, which starts with F, which is therefore very confusing to people still learning their letters and who might, perhaps, be running out of patience 14 letters in to this circus train of alphabet fun.  Really, Melissa?  Doug?  Narwal?  In Julie's opinion, they also dropped the ball when they chose skunk for S.  Isn't snake sort of the classic S animal?  (For our Fans out there who have already let their mind go to the always obvious problem of X, we will tell you that Melissa and Doug went with an animal ending in X: fox, with an underscored X.)  So Clara was sort of our of sorts when it came to the N.  But she made it past the N, and got all the animals on the train.

Almost there. . .

Choo-choo!

Can't Handle It

As Julie typed in the last post, Joe came up twice to hover less than two inches from her elbow and attempt conversation.  The second time, he said, "Mommy, I can't handle it.  I can't handle waiting."

So we're off the frappie hour.

Operation Bucket Filling

It hasn't been all frappie hours and strawberry rain boots around here though, Fans.  The first picture below was taken after Julie arrived home from her book club on Wednesday night.  If you're looking for Clara, we should tell you that she is the figure completely covered by the blanket on top of the mattress that is in the middle of the floor.  The night before, she slept on a mattress that she'd stripped bare but hadn't relocated to the floor.  She stays dry at night about 50% of the time, but that night, Julie lifted her up while Ted slid some GoodNites pads under her.  Naturally, the following night, on which this first picture was taken when she'd again stripped the mattress bare before relocating it, we took a chance, and awoke to a pee-soaked mattress.  Silver lining: we now know how to remove urine stains and smells from a mattress.*  The night after this picture was taken, Clara slept on the floor with nothing more than a blanket.  This after her mattress was removed in a huff and pitched on the porch just before the door was slammed, locked, and the key removed and placed on a high shelf.

As you may have sensed from the devolution described above, Clara spent a fair amount of time after being put down to bed this week acting like a ferrel animal.  Stripping off her underwear and pajama pants and running around in only her shirt (sleeves are still tricky for her)--around the bambini's room, in and out of it, around the down stairs--screaming, naturally.  A go-to behavior correction tactic for us is ignoring unwanted behaviors.  But this tactic has a lower rate of success when one has two children and one of them is doing something the other finds hilarious.  When ignoring the behavior fails to work, as it inevitably does, we yell.  This tactic, too, has a lower rate of success when one has two children who find this behavior hilarious as well, until one yells so loud one or both bambini start crying.

So.  Clearly it was time for a new tack.  We went back to basics, figuring that perhaps the bambini were acting out because they felt they weren't getting enough positive, focused, individual attention.  Of course there is a part of you that thinks, "MY WORLD AND EVERY WAKING MOMENT REVOLVES AROUND ONE OR BOTH OF THEM!!!!!  HOW CAN I POSSIBLY PAY ANY MORE ATTENTION TO THEM UNLESS I CEASE ALL ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING?!?!?!"  (You think these sort of thoughts in all caps.)  Here's what we've done: we are employing man-to-man defense once the bambini are out of the bathtub, we are both reading to them, and they are being read to separately once again.  So one parent helps one bambino into pajamas as needed and then that parent reads to and puts that bambino to bed.  Everyone's bucket gets filled better because the bambini are each getting focused attention, and we aren't correcting exponentially expanding misbehaviors.

Since we began Operation Bucket Filling, we have had two nights of progressively better behavior post-tuck in.  Hopefully sweet dreams are just around the corner.

*You combine 8 ounces of hydrogen peroxide with three tablespoons of baking soda and a drop of liquid dishwashing detergent in a spray bottle.  Then you douse the stain with the mixture within 20 minutes of mixing it up.  When it dries, the stain and smells are gone.  (What did people do before baking soda?)

Wednesday night

Friday night, night two of Operation Bucket Filling

Ferrel no more?

Monkeys only on the pajamas.

Of Frappie Hour and Strawberry Rain Boots

Fans, we write to you as we await the start of Frappie Hour at the Starfoxes, which the Starfoxes Powers That Be have thoughtfully scheduled to coincide with the end of Our Birdie's nap, thus providing the perfect diversion on yet another chilly, wet Saturday afternoon in Minnesota. . .in May.*  When we--the three of us who are awake--decided on this plan at about 2pm, Joe said, "I know a good activity: getting ready."  We admire the hustle.  He is currently attempting to hasten the awaking of his little sister by playing in the sink with water and plastic cups.  Even though what is involved is water and plastic cups, he is still managing to make a racket that can be heard all the way upstairs where this reporter sends these words out to you across the ether, Dearest Fans.  (With any luck, the sink will overflow!  Now that would be fun.)

No doubt when we make the trek to the neighborhood Starfoxes, we will do it in our rain boots.  Clara was sporting hers this morning when Julie took her to do the Whole Foods grocery run.  As it turned out, strawberries were on sale so there was a huge display of them right by the store's entrance.  Clara, breathless with excitement, bellowed, "Just like my strawberry rain boots!"

*We're not bitter.

Birdie, in her strawberry rain boots