Scotch

Rowan wasn't into hopping the proverbial scotch, so Julie drew that circle around him and told him he was stuck there forever, like it was a driveway oubliette.

Apparently we have a Houdini on our hands.

Lyla, hopping scotch:

Maybe this summer I'll introduce her to foursquare and totally rock her world.

Biker chick:

Not yet a biker dude:

His legs aren't quite long enough to pedal properly, so he still scoots like a dog trying to express an anal sack.

That might be one of the worst best sentences ever written.

34

"Rowan, it's my birthday today."

"Is your bertday?"

"Yup."

"How many counts are you?"

I love that.  Incidentally, I'm 34, which feels like being 23 but with the hairline of a 34-year-old.

Later, random kid at daycare: "Happy birthday, Lyla's dad."

Then on the way home in the car:

"Happy bertday, Daddy.  I said happy bertday, Daddy."

"Thank you, Rowan."

"Daddy?  I don't want carrot cake."  My birthday, my cake choice.

"Lyla, carrot cake tastes nothing--"

"Happy bertday, Daddy!"

"--like carrots.  They just call it carrot--"

"HAPPY BERT--"

"Thank you, Rowan."

"--DAY, DAAAAADY."

"But Daddy, I don't like--"

"It's not like carrots, Lyla.  It's just orange cake."

"Happy bertday, Daddy."

"Rowan!  Daddy, he already said that."

"He can say that as much as he wants, Lyla."

"Happy bertday, Daddy."

"Thank you, Rowan."

"Daddy?  I don't like carrot cake."

"Daddy, I nike cawwet cate!"

"Rowan, you can have Lyla's carrot cake."

"No, Daddy!"

"I'm kidding, Lyla.  But if you don't like it, you can give it to your brother."

"Happy bertday, Lyla."

Spoiler alert: Turns out Lyla loves carrot cake.

Double negative

Rowan normally sleeps with a doll (pretty sure the relationship is not platonic), but he left it at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  This evening Julie tried to convince him to take a different girl to bed.

"Do you want Dora?"

"No."

"Do you want Rapunzel?"

"No."

"Do you want this other doll?"

"No.  I don't want nobody."

When Rowan gets upset, his grammar gets erratic. 

Bean tree

"Daddy, apples have good sugar."

"You are correct."

"Apples are not candy.  They have sugar that's good for our bodies."

"I believe it's called fructose.  You know, if it grows on a tree, it's generally good for our bodies."

"Daddy, I'm going to plant a jellybean.  Then I'll have a jellybean tree."

"This is an inspired but ultimately flawed plan."

"When I turn 16, first I'm going to go to Target and buy some jellybeans.  Then when I plant them in the ground, a jellybean tree will grow and have jellybeans on the branches."

"And you want a jellybean tree instead of an apple tree?"

"Yes.  But Daddy?  I will not eat them until after dinner."

Hellion

She's actually awake in that photo even though her eyes look closed.  I realized I (gasp) forgot to get a photo, so I opened the door expecting to get a sleeping shot and instead found her reading about princesses.

"Go to sleep."

"Well, I'll just read--"

"Go to sleep."

"One more story."  She held up her pointer finger to aid in my comprehension of "one."

"Fine."

Hopefully we're at the rebellion highpoint of her childhood: sneaking princess books at bedtime while it's still light outside.

Transitive property of not zombies

Zombies?

Not zombies:

See, because zombies want to eat brains.  Since they love Barney, who clearly has no brain, they must not be zombies.

Gender stereotypes

We had Julie's family over for a belated birthday party for Grandma Jackie.  I built a fire in our outdoor fireplace, and then for a lot of the day, Matt and Jason and I sat out there and tended it.  Fires are very dangerous, you see, so we had to sit in front of it to make sure it didn't get out of control.  We also took charge of adding more logs when it died down.  And if not for us, then what would have happened to all that beer?

At one point (I think it was while Lyla and Rowan napped), I entered the house to find the women-folk huddled around my laptop and watching Lyla's last dance recital. 

I don't think I've ever switched directions so quickly. 

Non-birthday non-party

"Mommy, how do you spell half?"

"H-A-L-F."

"How do you spell come?"

"C-O-M-E."

"How do you spell party?"

"P-A-R-T-Y. Wait, are you saying you have to come to my party?"

"Yeah."

"Then it's H-A-V-E, not H-A-L-F."

"No."

"Well Lyla, it's--"

"No, Mommy!"

Then Lyla made about 15 of these.  Read it down one side and down the other side.

Important to note:

1. It isn't her birthday.
2. There's no party.
3. The invitation's seeming reference to a half birthday is just a misspelling of "have," even though it actually was her half birthday four days ago.
4. It is perhaps the bossiest invitation ever written.  Certainly the bossiest invitation ever written for a fake party in honor of a fake birthday.

Mean cat

Since Julie's family is coming over this weekend, Julie and I put a movie on for the kids so we could scurry around and clean stuff.  Here they are during a scary part in the Tinkerbell movie.

 If I understand it correctly, a mean cat was threatening the very existence of the winged protagonist.  The kids got through it okay, even though two seconds after the photo, Lyla burst into tears.

White tights

Dance recital tonight:

Notice the white tights.  We got to the recital and saw that, in accordance with the teacher's apparent edict, every other girl was in black tights.  I love it when things like this happen because the tights are 100% Julie's domain.  Now for the next six months when I screw something up and Julie calls me on it, I can be like, "Whatever you say, white tights," and she'll give me a sitcom "How could I be mad at you?" look and then start making out with me.

Anyway:

Questionable plan

Lyla imagines that after tomorrow night's dance recital, she will hand out name tags to all her delighted friends.  Hopefully we'll be able to distract her before this plan falls apart.

Power play

Lyla in a timeout, resolutely not learning her lesson.

Little bit of it

When Rowan plays, he whispers to himself.  I think it's developmentally appropriate.  Either that, or he sees dead people.

"Lyla, you look like you're headed out on the town."

"Yeah."

"Is that a baby in a butterfly net?"

"Yeah.  Don't wake her up."

Flowers planted with Mommy this morning.  Lyla helped and Rowan "helped."

Remember in November when Lyla rejected Benjamin Franklin's whole "penny saved, penny earned" credo and spent her birthday money on a plastic heart mirror thing and comb?  Today Rowan opened it and snapped the plastic hinge, leaving the heart in two pieces.  Lyla sobbed. 

Later, she said, "Daddy, Rowan broke my heart."

"Literally or figuratively?"

"He broke a little bit of it."

Dudes

He copied my wardrobe.

This afternoon, Julie and Lyla headed out to have girl time, so Rowan and I did dude things.

A remarkably clear action photo, no?  Of course, due to the muggy weather, he was sliding about one inch per second.

We were at the Hyland Play Area in Bloomington, commonly called Chutes and Ladders, and after dabbling for a bit on the smaller playground, Rowan ran me ragged all over the park for the next hour.

On the giant slides, I sent Rowan down first and then followed, ready to slow myself with my foot should I happen to come up behind him.  The slides were all painfully slow, remember, and plus I read somewhere that a ridiculous number of toddler broken bones come from riding on a parent's lap down a slide.  You think the leg is tucked in, but then it snags on the slide's edge, and--man, I'm cringing just thinking about it.

So Rowan had the time of his life and felt like a hardcore bad-ass on those slides, though he might be in for an ego-check the next time it's dry out and he zooms down one at proper speed. 

Anyway, then we went out for pizza.

Proving once again that he has no attention deficits, at least with pizza, he spent 40 sustained and highly methodical minutes dispatching two slices.  "Is dat da bay-ka?" he would say each time he saw a waiter or waitress.

"No, buddy.  That's the waiter, not the baker."  I think he wanted to express his compliments.

Faceless

I didn't take any pictures, so there's no photographic evidence of the kids' existence today.  That's kind of a big step for me, as the narcissism-by-proxy stretches back to their births.

There's an article in Time I've been meaning to read about the Millennial Generation and how they're the most photographed generation in history, and it's not even close.  You take an average kid today, and there are more photos of them than any celebrity/world leader/athlete/etc. from any previous generation.

I don't think the article is all so scary and negative, though.  The entitlement of this generation (thanks to coddling, Gen-X parents like me) will ultimately lead to crazy innovation and overall good things.  We'll see.  For now, I hope Lyla and Rowan will someday forgive me for not putting their images on the internet on May 17, 2013.  Maybe I'll make it a yearly tradition.

Dish boy

Rowan wanted to help me stir a boiling pot of potatoes.

"It's too hot, buddy."

"I do it!"

"Do you want to go play with your cars?"

"I hep with tay-toes!"

"Can you get out a plate for you and a plate for Lyla?"

"Yeah."  Just like that, no longer upset about not getting to be sous-chef.

The Force is not strong with this one

"I'm making all these for Peter's birthday.  He's having a Star Wars party.  That's when the Care Bears are in a circle in a bowl and there are more Care Bears in the bowl."

"Wait, Lyla.  Wait wait wait.  What is Star Wars?"

Big sigh.  "I just told you.  Star Wars is when the Care Bears are in a circle in a bowl and there are more Care Bears in the bowl.  Daddy, why are you breathing like that?"

"It's called hyperventilating, honey.  Just give Daddy a minute."

What the hell do I do now?  Show her the movie Star Wars, with all its violence and scary parts?  Or live with her thinking it's some nonsensical Care Bears acid trip?

Why do I get the feeling Julie is somehow behind this? 

Digits

I made the mistake of asking Lyla whether 5 + 2 would still equal 7 if she calculated it on her toes instead of her fingers.

Luckily, dinner was about over anyway.

Twenty

I made the kids quesadillas.

"Daddy, what does quesadilla mean?"

"Queso means cheese in Spanish, so a quesadilla is a cheesy tortilla delight."

"How do you know that?"

"Porque yo conozco mucho Español, chica."

"What does that mean."

"Because I know a lot of Spanish, girl."

"Well, I know a lot, too."

"Yo conozco más.  I know more."

"No, I know more.  Uno, dos, tres, quatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez."

"Very nice.  Once, doce, trece, catorce, quince, diez y seis--"

Hand on hip now, without blinking:  "¡Diez y siete!  ¡Diez y ocho!  ¡Diez y nueve!  ¡Vente!"

And here we had been thinking of pulling her out of Spanish class because we could never convince her to say anything.  

Once it's dark

"Seriously, Lyla, it's bedtime."

"But Daddy, it's not even dark."

The sun sets a good 60-90 minutes after their bedtime.  Often Lyla will think of absurd reasons to come downstairs, and you can't really blame her since it looks like noon outside.

"Daddy?"

"Go back upstairs to bed, Lyla."

"If you tell a teacher something that a friend does, then that's a tattle."

"Thank you for that helpful information.  Go to bed."

"And if the friend is NOT being naughty and then you tell the teacher what they're doing, then it's REALLY a tattle."

"Why do I get the feeling you have experienced this firsthand?"

"What?"

"Nothing.  Go to bed."

"When I'm six, then I'm going to Disney World to see the princesses and Disney Land to see Strawberry Shortcake."

"Strawberry Shortcake is not a Disney--Lyla, quit stalling."  I potato-sack-haul her upstairs and tuck her in again.

"Daddy?"

"Yes, Lyla."

"When I am 100, my hair will touch the floor."

"I don't doubt it.  Good night."

"Daddy?"

"Good night."

Downstairs, we hear her talking to herself about this and that.  Once it's dark, she stops.

Juicer

As soon as Lyla woke up this morning, she informed me of her intention to make grapefruit juice.  "And I will drink it every day, Daddy."  I don't know where this idea came from.  She was rather crazed.

I mean look at her.  Crazed:

"Daddy, tomorrow I'm going to make apple juice."

That'll be fun to watch.

Bedding

Rowan this morning:

"I seep in my kib."

"Yup.  You sleep in your crib."

"Lyla seeps in huh bed."

"Yes indeed."

"An you seep in Mommy's bed."

"Uh, hold on there, buddy.  It's my bed, too."

"Daddy?" Lyla said.  "When I'm 16, I'm going to buy you a bed so you don't have to share with Mommy.

Dreamer

When I woke up Lyla this morning, I said her name, jostled her shoulder, tickled the bottoms of her feet, said her name again, and finally she stirred, waking up instantly, like when you replace the batteries in a toy and turn it on.

"Daddy, I didn't wake up right away because I really wanted to finish my dream, and it wasn't over yet."

"What were you dreaming?"

"I was on an airplane with Strawberry Shortcake."

Calm before the storm

One second before everything went to hell:

I need a vacation.

Last bowl

Today Lyla scolded me for my cereal eating habits.

"Daddy, you can't eat all of the Chex cereal.  You always eat all of it.  You can't eat all of it anymore."

"Sorry, kid.  Hey, maybe next time I'll buy two boxes since it always goes so fast."

Big huffy sigh.  "But then you'll just eat two boxes."

Pitchy

"Smile, buddy."

"Very nice.  Thank you very much."

Even though Rowan doesn't smile on command, he sings on command.  "Rowan, sing the ABCs."

Very pitchy, but with passion: "A, B, C, D," and so on, until: "Emeneno pee, two oh es, teeyou bee, dubba-noo-ets, why an zee."

"Niiiice."

Then:

"Tinto, tinto, nit-toe stahw.  You sin it, Daddy."

"Me?"

"Yeah.  You sin tinto tinto."

So I bust it out.  At least until Lyla begs us both to stop.

Recklessness

In other news...

If a toddler gets hurt during a moment of reckless rule-breaking, when should the parent transition from consoling to lecturing?  "Oh, you poor little monkey-kins.  Oh, let me kiss it.  There now.  There, there.  See, honey, that's why we don't pet the wolverine."

The other day, I got the kids out of the car and carried Rowan down the driveway to the mailbox.  "I det da mayo!" he exclaimed.

"Daddy!  I wanna come to!" shouted Lyla, at which point she began to sprint towards us.  I saw that no cars were coming; hence, it wasn't necessary to put my leg out to clothesline her.  As it turned out, the gravel at the bottom of the driveway took care of her aptly, and she fell and skidded comically on her butt.

"WAAAAAAAAAH!  DAAAAAAAAAAADDY!"

How much consoling before the lecture?  "Lyla, you never run down the driveway.  You never, ever run to where cars are driving."  My vote: zero consoling.

"I HURT MY BUTT, DAAAAAADDY!"

"That's what you get, kiddo.  Hurts, doesn't it?  Don't run on the driveway."

She wasn't really hurt.

"WAAAAAAAAH!

"Did you learn a lesson?"

Cheek to the shoulder, immediately pouty.  "No."

Yes, she did.

On target

Rowan's perspective on seeing Target: "Daddy, I see Towdet!"

Lyla's perspective on Rowan's perspective: "Rowan, if you can see Target, then Daddy and I can see Target, but we can't see Target, so you can't see Target."

My perspective on Target: Target sucks.  But here's a nice father-of-the-year photo.