Sleep by a nose

I'm glad I got to sleep in this morning, but then I only experienced the coloring session photographically.  Doing it over, I'd still choose sleep, but it's a close one.

Back and forth

The kids were driving us crazy, so we took them to E. Coli Land to run around.  Rowan's at the stage where he's confident venturing away, but also aware that he's leaving us on the bench, two parents who represent for him safety and security.  Lyla was the same way when she was two.  So he stood with us and watched the other kids play for 10 minutes or so.  Then finally something caught his eye and he ran off to play for five minutes, but ran back for quick reassurance and affection before running off again.  Back and forth. 

Metaphor?

"Daddy, I have ice tates! Tate my pit-sur."

Two other boys also had ice skates.  One other dad was there taking his son's picture on request.  Then the boys began deliberately falling over.

It's all a metaphor for something, but I'm not sure what.

McPolite

Lyla and Rowan are often emotional disasters when I bring them home from daycare.  They want to eat immediately, and they can't believe the world is so cruel as to require chores like washing hands and removing shoes.

But on the rare occasion when they get McDonald's, they become refined and demure, like little aristocrats. 

"You are what you eat" does not apply here.  They are the opposite of what they eat.

Why I gave Lyla a quarter

"Daddy, I need money."

"Then you need to get a job."

"But I do have a job."

"What is your job?"

"It's the same as your job.  I take care of Rowan."

Specialty

"Lyla, what kind of doctor are you?"

"A princess doctor."

"What does a princess doctor do?"

"Takes care of princesses."

Cram holes

After each candy holiday, my parents always had an attitude of "When it's gone, it's gone."  At least that's how I remember it.  The days following Halloween, for instance, it was up to me to decide how much of my candy I would cram into my cram hole.  It worked because I kept a conservative regimen of candy intake to ensure that I'd still have resources at least until Christmas Eve.

My children did not inherit my calm and calculating attitude toward holiday candy.  They would prefer to cram it all in their respective cram holes immediately and with great force.  Perhaps it's their age.  But as it stands, all I think about when they get a basket of candy is that if I'm not careful, I'll spend my evening cleaning up crib vomit.

So we regulate their candy intake like a couple of high-strung helicopter parents.  This evening after they each put forth utterly pitiful attempts to finish their tacos (come on: tacos!), they insisted it was time for me to get their Easter baskets down from the mantel, where I had so oppressively placed them earlier.

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" they said.

I told them they could each have one piece.  When toddlers become teenagers and talk about sticking it to the man, they mean people like me.  I'm the man.

Of course, then Lyla's "piece" became an entire box of animal crackers, and Rowan's "piece" became an entire bag of fruit snacks, but you can't regulate everything.  And look at them there all nice and polite with each other, like two hyenas stuffed with fresh wildebeest.