how bizarre

David woke up early this morning, screaming my name.

No matter how many times I hear "mom" screamed in the middle of the night, it always wakes me with a start ...

I went downstairs to check on David, he was still half asleep. His face was contorted and upset.

"Did you have a bad dream?" I asked him. Although, I already knew the answer. "Do you want to talk about it?"

He was mumbling, putting words together I didn't understand. I expected the usual bad dream - he was in a funny store and lost me. He's afraid of being alone. Which always strikes me as odd. The kid is obsessed with dinosaurs. One movie we watch, and that he loves, is called "Chased by Dinosaurs" and it is literally about a dude being chased by dinosaurs. You would think this is what would give him nightmares ....

But, I digress.

Where were we ...

Right. So David starts talking about food in a funny magazine. I figure he is still asleep. I laugh. His eyes open with a start, a horrified look crosses his face. "The sausage bit me."

Okay, now I am laughing and can't help myself. I am laughing now typing this. He was so horrified. It just took me by surprise that it was because a sausage bit him.

I am trying hard not to laugh, take his fear seriously. "David, sausages don't eat us, we eat them."

He smiles a little. "It was so long. I don't like them when they are big like that."

"Well, next time you have a bad dream about a big long sausage that bites, how bout you cut up into bite size pieces and eat it up."

He smiles a little, laughs a little.

But, the dream stays with him and he's up a couple times during the night, afraid of the sausage that bit him.

I dream a lot. Almost every night. Events of the day seep into my subconscious, the characters of the book I am reading become my friends, stresses work themselves out or become nightmares. So, what is it that could have possibly triggered such a dream in David?

How bizarre ....

... a little bit of this

... and a little bit of that

David and Kate still love the song Go Baby. They both sing along. Seriously, there is nothing cuter than David singing "where my ladies at."

We've been reading Richard Scarry's Big Word Book. Each page is a scene (country scene, city scene, dinner table) with everything labeled. Last night we read the page "when I grow up." It had pictures of different animals dressed up as different professions. Before we went through all the pictures I asked the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. Typical Kate said a Barbie Princess, David said a truck driver. I am going to be a Taxi Driver (per David) and a Judge (per Kate).

One of David and Kates favorite games is playing pretend animals. David is usually an Alligator, but occasionally a dinosaur. Kate is always a lion, a lion that sometimes meows. I am always the prey. That's actually what they"the prey." They chase me around the house, catch me and then pretend to eat me. David will pretend to nibble off little pieces of me and then throw his head back as if he is choking down chunks of my flesh, just like in his dinosaur movies.

David is really into knock-knock jokes. Although I don't quite know where he learned them ...
This is how they all go ....

David: Knock knock
me: Who's there?
David: (insert something random. tonight it was: banana, pumpkin, salt, orange ... )
me: (random) who?
David: YOU!

I don't get it either. But, he thinks its hysterical.

Halloween

In a nut shell ...

well, more like a delicious peanut butter cup.

hmm.
There actually isn't too much to say about Halloween.

Dad, Conor and Meredith came. David had refused all week to get dressed up and go trick or treating. He wanted Kate to go instead and get him candy. But, he finally decided that day that he would dress up as a pumpkin. Kate was a princess. Conor and Meredith dressed up as a penguin and a cowgirl.

It didn't take David too long to get into trick or treating. He kept wanting to go to the next house. I am not sure if Kate really understood. She had a bit of a confused look on her face the whole time.

Odds and Ends

Kate changes her clothes 50 times a day. David needs to wear the same pair of green shorts every day. He will put on pants if we are leaving the house, but as soon as we get home, he has the green shorts back on.

David and Kate's current favorite song is Go Baby by Lupe Fiasco. We listen to it a lot. (a lot).

Kate is asking to use the potty, but wants to pee standing up.

Anatomy 101

Our friend Karen came for dinner tonight.
David, Karen and I were sitting at the table, eating our pizza.
Kate was off being Kate.

She came over to the table and tugged at my shirt.
"Penis."
Karen and I kept talking.
"Penis."

"No Kate. Mommy doesn't have a penis."

"David penis," she told me in her matter of fact voice with her most serious face.

"Yes, that's right," I told her.

"Gina."

"That's right. Kate has a vagina."

Kate smiled. "All belly's" she said.

David, on cue, stood up and showed us his belly.

"That's right Kate. We all have belly's."

simple pleasures

It's bedtime for Kate.

We climb into her bed to read a couple books.
She and Abby snuggle in close while I read.

"All done Kate. Time for bed."

"Mommy here." She points to the pillow.

"Would you like Mommy to stay a couple of minutes?"

She smiles and puts her head down. I reach up, turn off her light and lie down next to her.

"belly. belly. belly." she says as she rests her hand on my stomach and closes her eyes.

"Good night Kate. Mommy loves you very much."

Smiles and hug from Kate.

First Day of School

Today was David's first day of preschool.

I paced most of the morning.

I was nervous about how he would react, how I would react, getting out the door ...

There were some tears this morning. He didn't want to wear his sneakers. I snapped at him and then promptly felt like shit. And, then he told me he didn't want to go ... So, not a great morning, but we made it out the door.

Kate needed to bring her backpack too.

Mike surprised us at school.

And, then it was time ...
We walked him to his class. He chatted with his teacher, put on his name tag, gave me a hug and was off.
just. like. that.

Class was only an hour today for the first day. Kate and I went shopping and picked him up. He told me about the new friends he made. How one little boy didn't listen. How you shouldn't run.

The first of many experiences he will have without me.

I need a montage

I've been in a bit of a funk this week.
Sad to think that the summer is coming to an end.

So, (appropriately) a montage of the good and bad from this summer:

... trips to the zoo, my defunct garden, classes at the little gym for the kids and David learning to do a forward roll on his own, the Sunday that Mom and Rick came for a BBQ, Davids constant whining, blueberry picking that was really raspberry picking (what was that noise?), a visit from Mr. Ox, Citifield and the game ending unassisted triple play, swimming in pop-pops pool, sitting outside with a book, a cold beer and watching the kids play when I should have been weeding (which I did not do once this summer), letter-boxing in the mud through Webster Park, blueberry picking (for real this time) and Kate deciding it was more fun to eat the blueberries than pick them, Museum of Natural History and sitting in Central Park, Kate wanting to constantly be naked (nunie as she says) and the time she pooped all over the house and herself (no, it's not marker), David needing to be naked every time he went in his kiddie pool, David/Mom time at the library sitting on the purple couch learning more about dinosaurs than I ever thought possible, Harry still having trouble potty training, the weekend it took us took us to put together the swing set, lazy rainy days spent inside doing puzzles, teaching David how to eat a slice of pizza, Mike and my dad eating 4lb lobsters, ...

My favorite memory is from the start of the summer, school might not have even been let out yet. It was a sunny day and we had gone to the zoo that morning and come back for a picnic lunch in our backyard. Mike was watering the garden and the kids and puppy were running through the hose. There was something sort of exciting about that day - nothing was planned and we had 10 weeks of vacation ahead of us.

the Imaginator

We came in from outside today and David rushed Kate and I into his room.
"Get in. Quick. There's something scary. It's a lizard. Quick."

Once we were safely inside, he closed the door. (sigh) "It died."

He opened the door and let us out.

We were getting lunch ready. After lunch, we would be heading to the zoo.

But, again David came scrambling into the kitchen.
"Quick. It's another lizard."

Kate and I made our way to Davids room. Kate was toddling along. I'm not sure if she understood the gravity of the situation.

He closed the door. (sigh) "It died."

No sooner are we out of his room than he sees another scary thing - an eel.

hmmm ....

Are they really scary? (and, more importantly, are we going to be running from eels and lizards all afternoon?) Maybe they are just some misunderstood animals who happened into the hallway. So, I asked David what he thought. Instead of running from the eel we decided to pet it.

It wasn't scary after all! It just looked scary. But, really the eel was quite nice. He gave David a wet eel kiss on his cheek.

We came out into the kitchen to find quite a zoo. David informed Kate and I that there were 4 lizards, 4 eels and 4 tigers playing baseball in the house. The tigers were pitching.

We decided what anyone else in this situation would do - we would take them to the zoo with us and drop them off.

David sort of forgot about them when they got into the stroller, but they have yet to show back up here, so I assume that they are happy at the zoo.

The zoo was fun today. We are enjoying Mike's last week home before the new school year starts again.

How it all begins.

Kate wakes up before the sun comes up and won't fall back to sleep.
After lots of screaming, she finally falls back to sleep in our bed upstairs.

But, now I'm awake.

And, so is David.

He's had an accident and is soaked.

I had carried just-back-to-sleep Kate downstairs and put her in her room to help David clean up, so now she is back awake again as well.

I am getting myself a cup of coffee and hear the stool in the bathroom moving. I go to investigate and find Kate standing in the toliet with a book, fully dressed. "pooh potty" she tells me.

I set out to make breakfast. While doing this, Harry (our puppy) pees on the carpets I just cleaned last night and poops on the stairs to our bedroom.

And, that's how today begins.