This is going to be a lot of tidbits thrown together, but let me start with the monkey business.
Grant has become quite the little monkey. He will climb on anything. The kids have a little table and chair set in the playroom and I had put a toy on top of the table that he kept sitting in and getting stuck. I walked away for 30 seconds only to come back to find that he had crawled up onto the folding chair and was attempting to crawl into the toy that was sitting on top of the table! In effort to make the room safer I had Brandon take the table and chairs down.
Elizabeth has a two step step-stool at the side of her bed to make it easier for her to get up into her bed by herself without tugging on the covers. He has now mastered climbing up that, which means he can climb on top of her bed! In an unsupervised moment this weekend he did this, while Sister was apparently jumping on the bed and he tumbled off (I take full responsibility for this one) Elizabeth's version "I was jumping on my bed, I stopped jumping and he went boom!" The step-stool has now also been removed and replaced with a smaller one so that he can't reach the top of the bed.
We brought the kiddie trampoline up from the basement. It got pushed against the couch. He not only crawls up onto the trampoline and tries to jump (more like bending his legs and making the cutest baby sounds) but then actually crawled onto the couch and stands up leaning over the back of couch with the proudest look on his face! I am confident that there is nothing this kid won't try to climb! I have to admit there are times when I wish he still had his helmet! He flipped over the edge of the bathtub one night this week. I was sitting right there and caught him. I was trying to make him understand why it is dangerous to stand up in the bathtub, but it is hard to explain that to a 13 month old.
On this stormy day Elizabeth is upstairs playing in her playroom, which she often does. I think she enjoys the quiet time to herself. Although I don't know who she asks all of her questions to while she is up there! After she had been up there for awhile she invited me up for a party. As I walked up the stairs I see that she has reassembled the table and chairs that have been removed for Grant's safety! So now we have a little engineer on our hands! This involved screwing four table legs in. So we are having this pretend party and all of the family is invited, a lot of people. So as I am playing along I say "hello, Fred, Stan, Sally, Norma, etc..." Well she keens in on Sally and Sally is now our new best imaginary friend. "Can I call Sally Mommy?" "Is Sally downstairs?" "Is Sally behind me?" So there we have it, our first imaginary friend and I helped name her Sally. As a side note, if you ask her what her baby dolls are named it is "Lula". No idea where that came from.
What would the weekend be without an Elizabethism...We were eating lunch and it was actually a quiet lunch, meaning we weren't answering 20 questions and out of the blue she says "This lunch is horrible!". Brandon and I cannot keep a straight face. We are trying, but we can't. We are waiting for each other to pull it together and explain to her that those are not nice words to say and not good manners. But we just can't, because truth be told it was a horrible lunch!! It was a Volia meal. A quick skillet meal that I keep on hand in case we need a light meal and have nothing else. Unfortunately today was that day. We did finally manage to wipe the smiles off our face and explain why we don't say that. I don't think Brandon's explanation of "mommy worked really hard on this meal and it isn't nice to say that it is horrible" was all that sincere! It was really too late anyway. She had a big smile on her face and knew she had said something funny that made us laugh.
These kids keep us on our toes!! Our eyes have to constantly be peeled for Grant to make sure he isn't climbing or hasn't put something in his mouth he is going to choke on and Elizabeth keeps our minds sharp! I never knew we would have to come up with so many answers! It is bad to scream "I don't know, I just don't know!!" .... right??? It was great relief that during dinner tonight (when Grant had dropped his plate of juicy watermelon on the floor,thrown his bowl of green beans and Elizabeth refused to eat pizza, which she never turns down) that Brandon just prayed for patience and we just looked at each other and laughed. Seriously, what else was there to do, but just laugh! We want our children to be well behaved, but the constant discipline can be draining. We are going to choose our battles and just love and laugh with our children.
