Cribless

Yeah, so this is happening.  Our house is now cribless. 

Lyla girled up the whole occasion by going all mom on Rowan.

The face

Rowan imagines this face is the last word on any matter.  "Buddy, eat your toast."  Face.  "Oh dear.  I seem to have made a mistake.  Please eat your toast only to the extent that it pleases you, sir."

Dad activities

"Lyla, that's my chair."

"No."

"It's a daddy chair."

"I'm sitting here."

"Every daddy in America has a chair that he gets to sit in no matter who is already sitting in it.  It's the law."

"You can sit with me."

"I'm going to sit on you."

"No!  No!  Dadderdeflerbemerba!"

Our city has a nature center.  Apparently, very few people know about it.  But my taxes know about it.

My children think nature hikes are bullshit.  They have very little character.  More consistent and grueling exposure to nature hikes will change their minds.
 

Yes, I took them to a sports bar for lunch.  Rowan and I watched baseball highlights.  Lyla mostly colored.

Swagger

Rowan was eating goldfish crackers when all of a sudden gravity pulled him out of his chair and onto the floor.  That sucker he's eating is heart-shaped; it's from Valentine's Day.

Later, he didn't care about his eye.

That's at Chutes and Ladders.  That ledge continues to the right, step by step, culminating at about seven feet off the ground.  There's also a space between the ledge and that fence about the same width as Rowan.  So contrary to my typical hands-off playground style, I yanked him off the thing.  Maybe on a less accident-prone day, I'll let him go crazy.

Oh--here's the eye.

I think it looks you-should-see-the-other-guy awesome.  The kid's got swagger.

This, that, the other thing

I gave Sienna her first pickle, and after her initial feelings of panic and betrayal, she liked it very much.

Then Jason and I watched as the women and children converged around Sienna, Rowan doing most of the feeding. 

He would jab it into her cheek, neck, and nose, while Sienna waited patiently with mouth agape, and eventually the connection was made.

Then haircuts.

Dozens of little girls flirted with him, and also some moms.

I have no idea what kind of knot that is.  I suppose we'll find out if it's untieable if she ever lets us touch it.

This evening, dinner and a movie - Brave.

Hopefully no nightmares tonight about big scary Scottish bears.  Great movie, though: badass princess and no prince in the entire movie.

10

Julie and I got married 10 years ago today.  We're old.  We also managed to secure a last-minute babysitter from daycare.  Above is when we checked on Rowan upon returning home.  We checked on Lyla as well, mainly to double-check that they were actually on premises and not in the backseat of the daycare teacher's car, swifted away to Canada or back to daycare or whatever.

Seriously, no matter who babysits our kids, if it's at night and we come home while they're in bed, I think we'll always check their rooms to verify their actual presence.  My mind goes to tomorrow morning, waking up and discovering the kids missing, and then getting some video message from the babysitter twirling her invisible mustache and being like, "I think your my kids will be very happy in Luxembourg, ha ha ha!" or whatever.  Perhaps it's irrational.

Anyway, ten years!  Ten years ago we didn't have a house, kids, and we barely had jobs.  Ten years from now Lyla will be a teenager and Rowan will be a pre-teen.  They will hate us.  Oh well: time flies.

Hilarious and dangerous

At the park the kids were being hidangerlarious, so I fought with myself about how to respond.  "Ha ha ha!  Stop doing that!" is not effective parenting.  When Lyla let go and nearly bowling-balled Rowan over the edge, I had my opportunity.  "Stop doing--ha ha--that."  Damn it.

Full spectrum

Coffee grinder.  Wimps.

Bad-asses.

10 minutes in a confined space with a 4-year-old

Topics covered on the 10-minute ride home from daycare:

• Boys can pee standing up.
• Because they have a penis.
• But girls can have babies.
• Brothers and sisters usually do not marry each other.  
• We don't know who Rowan will marry, and we don't know who Lyla will marry.
• Lyla and Rowan will not marry each other, nor will they become Mommy and Daddy after their mommy and daddy die.  It's not like "Mommy" and "Daddy" are titles in a monarchy that you inherit.  (This last point was mine.)
• Teenagers are so called because their ages end with "teen."
• When Lyla is a teenager, she will drive a car to Rapunzel's castle.
• Rowan can come if he wants.

Sharks

At the dentist today the hygienist x-rayed Lyla's teeth and showed us the adult teeth behind the baby teeth.  She looked like Jaws.  And once again the gentleness of the hygienist and dentist allowed Lyla to continue her belief that a teeth cleaning is a highly pleasant activity, not a horrifying torture.  Maybe I should ask my hygienist to send me home with a foam ice cream cone gun.

Back at home, I packed the kids into the Burley and took them to the beach.

Definitely time to do swimming lessons again with Lyla.

Three hours later, we headed home, and they napped until Julie came home and we woke them up for dinner.  Boom.

During our date night...

My dad sent me those from the splash park yesterday. 

Also, a conversation between Lyla and my mom, recorded by Auntie Lori:

Lyla: Grandma, what's this?

Grandma: That's my shaver.

Lyla: Why?  What do you do with it?

Grandma: It's what I use to shave my legs.

Lyla: Why do you shave your legs!?

Grandma: So they don't get too hairy...

Lyla: Grandma!  We do NOT shave our legs!

And finally, Lori had an orange towel around her neck.

Rowan: You yook yike a yion!  A yion with showts on!

Winner, winner

We have a date night.  Untz, untz, untz.  Too bad our passports expired; we could really go cray-cray.  Actually, we're off to a dinner thing in St. Paul.  Then we're going to go to the casino and play blackjack.  Julie doesn't know this yet.  She'll probably nix the whole deal.  But still: there's a 1.4% chance I'll win thousands tens of dollars at blackjack.  If she agrees to go.  Which she won't.

Hey, great news: I probably won't lose any money at all playing blackjack tonight.  Can you tell I'm giddy for date night?

The life

A lot of people think raising two toddlers makes for a glamorous life: playing polo, lounging at exclusive nightclubs, jetting off to the world's hotspots, hobnobbing with celebrities, eating quail eggs, dodging the paparazzi, etc.  For me, there's more to it than all the fast cars, bling, and Dom Pérignon.

I prefer the day-to-day.

Four kids

I took to the kids to Auntie Jodie's house to hang out with cousins Ava and Cam.  

When Jodie left to pick up lunch, I was alone with the four kids.  I don't know why you'd ever have four kids on purpose; it was basically a free-for-all.  I hung out with Cam, the immobile one, while Lyla, Ava, and Rowan--well, I don't actually have any idea what they were doing.  Painting the bathroom mirrors?  Cutting up the bedsheets?  Using a Bunsen burner to heat a spoonful of heroin?  I'm good with two kids because I have two eyes, one for each kid.  Any more than that and it's like, Lyla, you're the oldest?  You're in charge.

Here's Rowan and Cam.

A moment later, Rowan booped Cam's nose (touch it and say "Boop!") about 700 times.

Hot day, cool day

What do you do in this heat?  We went to Choo Choo Bob's.

The front of the store has all kinds of model trains running.  You sit on benches and watch them.

Time of their lives!  They look like those creepy black-and-white Hallmark kids.  Of course, then Lyla began to feel extra affectionate.

Then we went out for ice cream.

When the younger kid is two-and-a-half (versus last summer's one-and-a-half), everything is easier.  Ice cream, for instance, isn't the sticky mushroom cloud catastrophe it once was.  Now it merely involves getting them both seated and giving the boy a couple pointers.  "Don't tilt it.  Try to keep it out of your hair."  That's it.  We just sat there and existed, me hardly paying attention.  It was good.

Lothario

Rowan this morning:

"Tit oh teat.  Smell my feet.  Dive me somefing dood to eat.  I don't tare.  I'll poh down my undowear."

He's gonna have so many girlfriends.

Feral

"Daddy, can you take the Band-Aid off Rowan's mouth?"

"Who put it there?"

"I did.  Can you take it off?"

That shouldn't have been a complicated question.  I mean clearly the correct, humane, research-backed option is to remove the Band-Aid from your toddler's mouth.  But he had been so, so whiny earlier...

"Could I take it off in five minutes?"

"Daddy."

"You're right.  I'll take it off."

Riiiip.

"Ow!  Dat hut, Daddy."

"Did it, Rowan?  Did it hurt?"

It was one of those days.  Some good moments:

But mostly the kids impersonated various zoo animals all day, hooting and screeching and bellowing and snarling and sniveling.  And you also see all that shit on the floor behind them.  The tip of the iceberg.

Dinner:

Still in pajamas.  They each ate half an apple and one cheesy noodle before shouting that they were done.  Went to bed in those same pajamas.  Now they both seem to be asleep, but it wouldn't surprise me if they've crawled out their windows and are hunting squirrels around the neighborhood.

Rough girl

Camping highlights...

Before roughing it, we smoothed it at Original Pancake House.

After setting up camp, we headed to the visitor center where Bruce the Bug Guy (seriously) was showing kids a tarantula (or non-venomous tarantula-alternative...we came late).  Lyla didn't want to hold it, so I took one for the team.

Back at the campsite, here's the hand washing unit my dad built. 

Little holes in a sand pail, hang it from a tree.  Soap on a rope.  Another pail of water with a ladle to transfer it.  Mirror also tied to the tree to remind you how good you look.  Towel draped on a branch.  Genius.

Speaking of looking good:

Lyla ate two s'mores and then told me it was bedtime.

This morning:

Still very excited about her glow stick. 

Got her home, and she's covered with mosquito bites.  I had her Deeted up good, too, so not sure what happened.  She doesn't care, though, because she's bad-ass.  Even if she wouldn't hold the tarantula.

Pioneers

I'm in the wilderness camping with Lyla. She refused to eat the delicious pizza sandwiches I cooked for her over the open flame. She stated erroneously that they were burned. Instead she gorged herself on unspectacular macaroni and cheese. I'll post photos tomorrow, provided a bear does not rip us from the tent.

Scissors tyranny

We found these at a neighborhood garage sale.  Lyla's now certain that our basement is an exact replica of kindergarten.

Due to the relative lack of direct adult supervision, Julie wouldn't let her bring scissors down there.  We also don't allow knives, hammers, grenades, or rocket launchers in the basement.

Lyla freaked out at the injustice of having to leave kindergarten to come upstairs every time she needed to cut something.  We both explained the adult logic involved, but she was very, very mad at us.  Julie offered her a hug.

Toddlers still want to hug you when they're pissed at you.  That's not going to last forever.