What the Boys Are Up To

I can't believe Casey built this house completely by himself. I saw it and immediately asked Chris, "Did you help him build this?" Chris was equally confused. Well, if neither one of us had a hand in it, and probably Darby and the cats weren't involved ... Casey's a lot better with the Lincoln Logs than anyone knew. It's got a door, window, two levels of roof, and a fence! Very impressive.

Darby has also surprised me this week. I had my back turned to him while he was painting and I was unloading the dishwasher, and when I checked on him, this is what I found. Not much paint on the paper, but four or five distinct colors streaked through his hair. I'm not sure if he does this intentionally, or if he just happens to run his hands through his hair a lot while he's contemplating his next brushstroke.

Bath time!

Casey in Concert

We get to see Casey in his first school holiday program in a few weeks. Here is a little preview of his vocal stylings.

Sugar High

Hildale Mall had some sort of gingerbread event going on Saturday, so I took the boys over to check it out. They went very reluctantly--it turns out neither one of them knew what gingerbread was, so they didn't see the point. Even Darby protested, that's Darby who a mere six weeks ago was up for anything that got him out of the house. Finally I mentioned there would be cookies involved, and suddenly they were both miraculously buckled into their carseats.

The main event was a live gingerbread house decorating contest. We went pretty early in the day, so the teams were just getting started, so that wasn't as interesting as I had hoped. But the kids each got to decorate their own gingerbread man with frosting and sprinkles and candy, so there was just as much sugar involved in the trip as I had promised.

I helped Darby decorate his cookie, but he kept eating the candy as fast as I could put it on.

Casey was a little more into the whole decorating process. He put a face and some buttons on his.

Lookin' good.

Nobody got too emotionally attached to their creations to eat them.

There was also a giant gingerbread house that the kids got to help decorate. Casey took a turn slathering some icing on and attaching a candy cane.

Neither one was hungry for lunch when we got home, but at least now they know what gingerbread is.

Drinking to numb the pain

The kids were passed out by 8:15 tonight, but it was a hard-won victory. We've been building up to this for days while we train Darby to stay in bed willingly.  Perhaps tomorrow morning will go better than it did today.

Because today, at quarter to 6, Darby threw the door of his room open and called down the hallway, "Mommy?" My wife, who is perhaps the kindest person I know, groaned menacingly and said, "I hate everyone."  These are dark days.

Fortunately, there are bright spots to tide us over.  Like drinking.  We've been planning for the holidays and just the other night spent some time watching the kids run in circles while we shared visions of fuzzy navels on Thanksgiving.  We decided I would be in charge of visiting the liquor store.

Casey, who has radar for this sort of thing, immediately lost all interest in running, giggling, and knocking Darby over. "What's a liquor store?"  Oh boy, here we go.

"It's a store where they sell liquor."

"What's a liquor?"

"It's a drink that's just for grownups."

Casey immediately got into character.  "I'm going to go to the liquor store and pick up liquors for you!"

"Ooh, I don't think they'll sell you any, buddy.  You're too short."

"They're not for ME, Dad, I said they were for YOU."  Sometimes, I just don't get it.

"Oh, right, you said that.  Well good luck, Casey, let me know how it goes."

Thirty seconds later he returned and announced, "Daddy, I got you seven liquors!"

"Wow, seven!  Good job, pal.  I usually stop after one or two."

Two is Tough.

One-year-olds are so sweet and angelic. Just a few weeks ago, back in the good old days when he was one, Darby always said please and thank you, always went down easily for a nap, and just wanted to do whatever he could to please his mommy and daddy. The most challenging things about him were that he wanted to be read to all day long, and he had a habit of smearing food and paint through his hair. I wax nostalgic because ...

Two-year-olds are nap-refusing, boundary-pushing, fire-breathing MONSTERS. I exaggerate, of course. He is still super sweet. But let me tell you some of the things Darby has started doing since he turned two. He has started pushing a chair up to the counter to get access to whatever he wants. What he wants, usually, is sugar. I used to keep my canister of sugar near the stove and microwave, very handy for all the cups of tea I need to sweeten. Then I dared to turn my back on Darby, and he used the opportunity to push a chair up, get the lid off, and start helping himself to fistfuls of sugar--as well as spilling it all over the floor. For some reason, it took this happening twice to realize that I needed to move the sugar to the top of the refrigerator. And supervise my toddler better. If Darby's playing in the kitchen while I'm cooking, and Casey calls to me from the basement, I can't leave Darby alone in the kitchen for 30 seconds because he might push a chair up to the stove and start conducting experiments with boiling water. (He hasn't done that--just considering the worst-case scenarios.) It's made life a little more difficult.

Darby is a short little guy--officially 2 feet 9 3/4 inches, according to his doctor's appointment yesterday--but he doesn't let that stand in his way. In addition to using chairs and stools to get what he wants, he's an excellent climber. In our downstairs family room, we have a wooden ledge halfway up the wall. Darby has decided it's fun to climb up on that ledge and jump off onto a pile of cushions--next to the coffee table. Whoa, bad idea, dude! When I don't let him do what he wants, he gets really mad at me--kicking, thrashing, screaming mad sometimes. Now, when it comes to my kids, I'm probably a little bit of a softie. But let's recap what Darby wants: to eat pure sugar, and to leap off a 4-foot shelf. I'm not the one being unreasonable here.

The little climber has also decided that he doesn't need to sleep anymore, like, ever. He's been climbing out of the crib, so we finally gave in and converted it to a toddler bed, which basically meant removing one side of the crib. We knew that meant he probably wouldn't stay in bed, so we put the gate up on the door to keep him in his room, figuring probably he'd just eventually pass out somewhere. Now, let me tell you about this gate. This is not the same gate we used for Casey when he was 2. This is the taller gate we bought after Casey started escaping the first gate. So this is the serious gate that we previously thought was an impenetrable barrier. Three-year-old Casey couldn't get over it. It took Darby, who can barely see over it, ONE DAY to escape.

So ... he didn't nap Sunday. He stayed up late Sunday night. Woke me up several times during the night and got up for the day at 6 a.m. Then he didn't nap Monday despite seeming ridiculously tired and finally fell passed out at 6 p.m. in a chair after a totally pathetic meltdown. Today, we struggled once again at naptime. He escaped several times and came to visit me, only to be returned against his will. After about an hour of this, I discovered him coloring in the kitchen and told him he had to go back to bed. "No, still coloring!" he insisted pretty sweetly, and I was tempted to let him go. But he's too young to give up his nap! I'd seen overtired Darby too recently, and it's not pretty. Back to bed he went. And now, he is finally sleeping. Too bad we have to pick up Casey from school in 20 minutes.

P.S. There are lots of good things to say about Darby. I owe the little guy a counterpoint entry sometime soon.

Happy Halloween!

Don't worry, we'll get to Darby's birthday. But first, I  haven't gotten the trick-or-treat photos up yet. This was basically Darby's first time trick-or-treating. He rode along in the stroller last year, but he didn't actually get to go up to any doors and get candy. (He didn't even know how to walk yet! Now, that just blows my mind.) And he's lucky he got to go this year--when Casey was two, I was nine months pregnant on Halloween, and we just stayed in that night, waiting for Darby to jump out and say, "Boo!"

Two years may still be a little young, but Darby wants to do everything Casey does, so of course he got to go. At first, I wasn't sure if we could get him to wear the pumpkin costume, though. If I asked him, "Darby, what do you want to be for Halloween?" he would reliably answer "pumpkin." When Casey was that age, he was so excited about that pumpkin costume, and I thought Darby would be similarly thrilled. He gets to look like a pumpkin! What could be better than that? But whenever I tried to put the thing on him (say, for the library's Halloween dance party), he refused to wear it. When it came time to trick-or-treat, Chris was the hero. He forced it on him, distracted him with a few candy corn, and got him out the door. Once Darby was outside, he was just happy to be outside and forgot about it.

Then he caught on really fast to what we were doing. He didn't usually say "trick or treat," but he always said "thank you," and sometimes he totally brought down the house with a random "Happy Halloween!" He seriously impressed everyone. I even heard some random little girl tell her mom the story of the tiny little pumpkin who said thank you. Darby's small for his age, so I think that made it look all the more impressive.

Casey also did a great job saying "trick or treat" and then "thank you," but he's four, so that's just business as usual. He was actually supposed to be a pirate this year. He has been in a huge pirates phase for ages now. Back on his birthday, Susan gave him the costume, and Darby gave him the hat, and he wears them to play pirates on a regular basis. It was pretty set in stone that was what he was going to be for Halloween. He was super excited after I took him to the dollar store to get a pirate sword to finish off the look. But ... I don't know what changed. Maybe the pirate outfit feels too much like everyday wear at this point that it didn't seem special enough for Halloween anymore. Maybe he thinks he really is a pirate, so he had to dress up as something else. Whatever the case, he suddenly on the the day before Halloween decided he wanted to wear his monkey costume from last year. I didn't argue with him--it was going to be chilly, and the monkey costume is way warmer.