Tender Moments

This entry refers to the book Guess How Much I Love You, in which Little Nut Brown Hare tells Big Nut Brown Hare how much he loves Big Nut Brown Hare, only to have Big Nut Brown Hare respond with an even greater amount.

This weekend, after stories and songs, I kissed Megan good night and told her, "I love you so much."

Megan responded by throwing her arms over her head, "I love you this much."

I put my arms up, too. "I love you this much." We hadn't read Guess How much I Love You recently and I was interested to see if Megan remembered the story, so I added, "And I love you to the moon."

On cue, she chimed in, "I love you to the moon and back!"

"Who says those things?" I asked her.

"Little Bunny Foo-foo."

"Noooo! It's Little Nut Brown Hare!" I corrected. I knew it had been a long time since we read that book. "You're my Little Bunny Foo-foo." I told her.

She knew just the tender thing to say: "And you're Hairy Brown Nuts!"

Bodypainting

It was supposed to just be finger painting, but it turned into a whole body affair. Even though Liam wants to do everything that Big Sis does, some things he is just not ready for!

Kid, Cat, and a Magazine

What's better than heated tile floors on a cold morning?

Love and Caring

As a parent it seems as if you spend every waking minute caring for your kids. One routine task in our day is giving Liam a head to toe wipe down after meals. "Clean, clean" he chants as we de-grime his hands and face. "That's right we're getting you all clean, clean" (We've been told we are reinforcing Liam's doublespeak by doing it ourselves - yep, yep, so true, so true, wink, wink!).

So it should have been really nice when one of my kids decided to take care of me. Today, Liam ran up to me and yelled, "clean, clean!" It would have been really sweet if he hadn't been rubbing me down with the toilet bowl brush at the time! Somehow, I just didn't feel very clean after that.

Election Day

Monday night, I finally got out my ballot (hurray for Oregon's vote by mail system!) and started filling it out. Megan came into the kitchen a bit later,"Mommy, are you voting?" Indeed, I was. "Can I vote, too?"

"Sure," I said. "Come sit by me."
"How do you vote?"

I got out the voter's pamphlet. On the inside there are some sample arrows that show you how to vote. Megan had them all filled in in a few seconds. "Now what?"

We turned the page. "See all these pictures?" I explained,"These are the people you can vote for. You can look at them and then circle the one you like."

Megan looked down. "TTT-ooo-mmm - Tom. Ssss-tttt-aaaa - Sta"
"That's Stu, honey," I corrected.
"I like Tom the best" she stated, as she circled his grinning mug.

And so we went through the book together, with me helping her read the names and her picking her favorites (I had already finished my voting in case you were worried that I might be biased by Megan's choices - haha!) She voted for Deb because I have a friend named Debbie, and she voted for the guys with the last name Smith (for obvious reasons). Finally, we got down to our last "vote"; Sam vs. Gerry.

"I want Sam because I like Green Eggs and Ham." ("I am Sam. I am Sam. Sam I am"). It seemed like better voting logic that some people use!

Fall Back

Saturday was the end of daylight savings. It is always sad to see it end, but with mornings still dark at 7 am, it was time. At least there is a consolation prize: an extra hour in the day. For most people, this is a great opportunity to catch up on sleep, but not for those with kids!

With Halloween and Mac's mom visiting our kid's didn't really need a time change to mess up their sleep schedules, but time waits for no man (or kid). And so with the time change Liam was yelling for attention at 5:20, which even on DST, would be early for him. I got Liam and then Megan came clamoring into our bed around 5:45. We had stayed up a bit later than usual with Mac's mom and had already changed our clocks, so it really did feel like 5:30 and not 6:30. By 7:00 (standard time), we had already finished breakfast.

So, How chipper was Mac after that "extra" hour of sleep? "This is the worst frickin' day of the year!" he said, just about the time he was pouring his third cup of coffee.