Lesson

Whatever.  I'm down with it.

"Puh.  Heh."

"Rowan, we do not spit."

"PUH!"  All over my face.  "Ha ha ha ha!"

When a toddler spits in your face, you must engage in psychological warfare until a lesson is learned.

"Rowan.  When you spit on my face, you make me very sad.  Very, very sad.  Do you want to make Daddy sad?  Because when you spit on my face, I am very sad."

His facial transition from laughing to sobbing was like watching glass shatter in slow motion.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

I picked him up.  "Rowan, do you have anything to say to me?"

"I sowwy.  I sowwy, Daddy."

"Thank you, buddy."

Donut ho

Lyla extended her bedtime by peacefully listening to a book on CD in the other room.

"Daddy!  Everybody is mad at Amelia Bedelia."

"Why?"

"Because she does everything wrong."

Pretty apt summary, actually.

Meanwhile, Rowan's behavior earned him an early bedtime.

And earlier than that, when I returned home with groceries and the kids, both of them acted like lunatic wildebeests.

"Daddy, MY KNEE HURTS!  WAAAAAAAAAAH!"  Her knee did not hurt.

"Mommy, TUNIP NICKED ME!  WAAAAAAAH!"  Tulip was nowhere near him.

The carrying on continued.

"Hey," I said in the general direction of the shrieking wildebeests.  "HEY!"  They paused and looked up at me.  "I don't want to hear any arguing whatsoever with what I am about to say.  Do you understand?  Lyla, listen carefully.  Rowan, listen carefully.  I'm not going to say this again.  Each of you is going to eat one donut hole right now."

A beat, then:

"Yaaaaay!"

"Yaaaaay, Daddy!"

Julie just gave me a look.  "You too, Mommy," I said.

"No thank you," she replied sniffily.

"I ha Mommy donut ho?"

"Nice try, Rowan."

Special boy

"Daddy, how old is Daisy?"

"Seven, I think."

"When is her birthday?"

"Uh."

"Is Tulip seven, too?"

"Tulip is six."

"Are they older than me?"

"Yes."

"When will I be older than them?"

"Technically, you'll be older than them a couple years after they--"  After a nanosecond of deliberation, I opted not to toss pet death into Lyla's already crowded emotional bucket.  "The dogs are older than you, kiddo.  That's just the way it is."

"Why?"

"Because they were born first.  But you can do a lot of things they can't do, like eat at the table and go to school."

"Well, dogs can go to school.  They go with other dogs.  And Daisy sometimes eats things off the table."

"Excellent point.  But you can--"  Of the myriad ways dogs are not like people, let's see what I came up with.  "You can use a toilet."  Check out the big brain on Dad.

"Daddy, can people poop in their backyard?"

"Absolutely not."

"Rowan poops in his diaper in the backyard."

"Rowan is special."

"Yeah."

Cook it

Rowan thinks if he gets out a plate and sits down, the food will magically and immediately appear.  When I tell him the water isn't even boiling yet, he loses his mind.

In other news:

"Lyla, how was your day?"

"Well, when one friend pushes another friend, then that friend pushes another friend."

"Like toddler dominoes?"

"What?"

"Never mind.  Did someone push you?"

"Someone pushed Lucy, and then Lucy pushed me."

"How did that make you feel?"

"Sad."

"Did you have music class?"

"Yes."

"What did you learn?"

"We don't learn anything in music class.  We just sing songs."

I bet some of my students think the same way.  "We don't learn anything in English class.  We just read books and write papers."  Plus, I think they think if they sit there long enough, tweeting or whatever, the paper will magically appear, or the book will read itself. 

"Daddy, I hundy."

"Gotta cook it, buddy.  It doesn't happen by itself."

Oscar night

One of those photos that requires no explanation.  I'm going to watch the Oscars tonight.  Provided the kids cooperate and sleep.

Launch

Rowan has been running through the bedtime routine with a highly masculine doll.  First he forces it to guzzle water.

Then he sings the ABCs.  Aside from sounding drunk over W and X (dubba-ets!), he's pretty much ready for middle school.

Then he launches the baby into the crib and cries for me or Julie to come extract the baby from the crib so he can start the routine again.  And again.  And again.

Speaking of launch:

Cousin Ava had her birthday party at a gymnastics place.  That's a pit of E. Coli foam cubes that allow you to practice your flips without becoming a quadriplegic.  That's Ava in the purple bow, and that's Lyla's head of braids toward the bottom.  And that lounging lothario is Rowan, four seconds after I chucked him in from the side.  Find a video on Facebook of another time I propelled him into the pit.  I'm definitely going to be sore tomorrow.

Maybe I'll ask Rowan to put me to bed.

Throw-downs

Our bedtime strategy does not involve quiet activities or lavender-infused baths.  Before teeth and books and bed, we have dance parties and hardcore throw-downs.  "Don't rile up the kids before bed."  We totally rile up the kids before bed.  I don't know why it works.  Our kids are weird.

Tie

Well, Lyla had a good daylong run as top kid, but now it's back to a tie with Rowan, where it will likely remain, at least until one of them gets a $5,000,000 bonus from his or her law firm and retires Julie and me to a remote but luxurious hut in Bora Bora.

Ranking the kids

Lyla was a much better person than Rowan tonight.  She wins.

"How can you SAY such a--"

Shut up.  Julie's at a work function tonight, so I played solo caretaker and endured Rowan saying, "I wan mo titten nuddets!" approximately 75 times.  That's actually a low estimate.

"Eat your peas and apples first," I said.

To which he replied, "I wan mo titten nuddets!"

"Hey, how about those peas?  Can you try an apple?"

"I wan mo titten nuddets!"

"Rowan--"

"I wan mo titten nuddets!"

Read this sentence aloud 75 times, with ever-increasing pitch and volume: "I wan mo titten nuddets!"  Better yet, hire somebody with an extremely high voice to read it to you.

Meanwhile, Lyla read a book.  She wins.

Tattling

That's not brushing.  Rowan is a major toothpaste sucker.  I think we'll be able to switch him to fluoride toothpaste when he's 25 or so.

In other news:

"Lyla, what did you do at school today that was fun?"

"I played with Lucy."

"What did you play with Lucy?"

"We shake our booties at each other."

"Excellent.  What else did you do?"

"What?"

"Did you do anything else fun with Lucy?  I'm not sure booty shaking can be the basis of a friendship."

"Well, every time I tell on her and then come back, she says, 'What did she say?'"

"Excuse me?"

"Lucy says, 'What did the teacher say?' whenever I tell on her."

"Ah.  So you tell on Lucy sometimes?"

"Yes."

"What do you tell on Lucy about?"

"I tell the teacher what she did wrong."

"I see.  And then Lucy asks you what the teacher said?"

"Yeah.  I'm really tired of it."

"But then you shake your booties at each other."

"Yes."

"Makes perfect sense."

Feats of strength

It's important that my son watches me whenever I engage in feats of strength.  I am his daily example of masculinity, his stolid rock of strapping red-bloodedness.

Damn syrup bottle. 

Meters

"Hey kids, smile nicely for the camera."  And they respond with the tongue trifecta.  That's Lyla's friend Maia on the left; her birthday party was last night at a huge play structure.  Rowan spent most of the time in the ball pit and, miraculously, does not seem to have contracted Norovirus.

Maia is one of Lyla's camping friends from last September.  Here's a photo of them not eating their eggs.

Today my parents and sister took the kids while Julie and I allowed our sanity meters to return to "still insane but getting there."

Then at home, Rowan decided lying on my disgusting bathmat was the best strategy to avoid brushing his teeth.

Lyla quickly informed him of his plan's main flaw.

Tomorrow is Presidents' Day, so I don't have school and Julie has taken it off.  In the morning we will (rather, I will as Julie sleeps) cheerfully and without guilt drop off the kids at daycare.  After another day of decadent childlessness, our sanity meters might even reach "functionally sane for the time being."

More animals

Today is Julie's sleep-in day, so I headed to the zoo the instant it opened and temporarily added to its population two more animals.

While there we met up with Lyla's best friend Anja and Rowan's dude-buddy Ian.

That's Anja on the right, Lyla on the left, back when we thought one child was a lot of work.

And today:

Lyla's covering her ears because a monkey was going ape-shit about something or other.

Here's Rowan, about to devour a goldfish exhibit.

Here's an old one of Rowan and Ian, Rowan on the right.


And here's the four of them today.

Snouts

I read somewhere that when you slice a hotdog conventionally, you create a small pile of the most effective throat cloggers imaginable.  That's why Julie cuts them into octopuses, like in the above photo.  Now the only concerning aspect is what's actually in them: snouts and whatnot.  And that with four legs instead eight, we should really call them quadrapuses.

Deft spatula work

With some deft spatula work, I made a stack of heart-shaped pancakes for dinner.  Lyla objected.

"I don't want a heart pancake.  I want a Minnie Mouse pancake."

Julie grabbed the one on top.  "Okay, here you go.  A Minnie Mouse pancake."

"Ooh, thank you!"

Froggy potty

I wonder if Rowan's actually urinating in his pants on that thing.

In other news, when Julie or I announces it's almost time for bed and therefore time for a dance party, the children typically race into Lyla's room.

"I'm going to beat you!" Lyla calls to Rowan.

"Don't eat me!" he responds and runs after her.

Then eventually Rowan says, "I doe on foddy potty," and runs into the bathroom to give it another go.

Love not war

Afternoon radio DJ on a non-news station: "And on the loose is the psycho, cop-killing gunman," at which point I turned it off.

"Dunman, Daddy!  Ha ha ha!  Dunman!  Dunman!  Ha ha ha!"

"Daddy, Rowan--"

"Dunman!  Ha ha ha!"

"Daddy, what is Rowan saying?"

"Rowan, please--"

"Dunman!"

Desperate for a distraction: "Hey you two, did you know I bought you valentines today to give your friends?"

"Ooh!  Yes!"

"Daddentines!"

Valentines trump guns.  Just saying.

Laying down the law

"No.  I don't like this."

"Lyla--"

"I don't LIKE it."

"Stop it."

"No thank you!  I don't like it, Daddy!  I DON'T--"

"Lyla!  Look at me.  Look at me in the eyes.  Listen carefully.  I am not your servant.  When I give you something to eat, you do not get to shout orders at me.  Do not tell me you don't like it.  You can either eat it, or not eat it.  Got it?"

"Daddy, we don't eat water.  We drink it."

Unapologetically adorable

"I wan nonurt.  I wan donut ho.  Weed dis buht.  I don nike it.  Daisy nicked me.  WAAAAAAAAAH!"  Rowan spent the entire morning either napping or needing a nap, mostly the latter.  He was terribly two.

Finally we came to our senses and hauled everyone outside.  Unapologetically adorable photos follow.

After dinner and baths, Lyla and Rowan bolted around the house, shrieking and tackling each other.  We paid very little attention, figuring if we could hear the stomping of their feet, then they were probably not sticking anything into an electrical socket.  But then the stomping and the shrieking ended, so I ran upstairs, half expecting to find someone wading in the toilet.

But I found this:

So I slowly backed out of the room and sat in the hallway until they finished.