It's my fat girl

Kate no longer takes a nap.

So, to say that the past couple weeks around here have been rough is probably an understatement.

Most of the day goes by in a bit of a whirl wind - trying to keep the kids active, busy, entertained and from trying to kill each other and of course all the other stuff that goes into the day ...

And, most of the day goes pretty well. We have the occasional melt down and they still do take the occasional nap.

Most of the day until dinner.

Dinner is usually the worst part of any day. By 5:30 - 6pm David and Kate (and Mike) are usually exhausted and short fused. They are also fantastically picky eaters, so, trying to figure out something for dinner and getting them to eat it isn't fun.

I don't want to two meals at dinner. But, I have to be realistic - do I really expect them to eat steak fajitas? I try to get them to at least try whatever it is that Mike and I are eating. But, even that some days turns into an ordeal - David crying, Kate crying ... And, I don't want that either. I don't want dinner time to be something negative.

But, tonight. Tonight was different. Tonight was fantastic.

Dinner went well, David even tried the sweet and sour chicken I made. We talked about our days. And laughed.

At one point during dinner, Kate started yelping. We reminded her that there was no yelling at the dinner table.

"It's my fat girl. It's my fat girl."
more screams.
"It's my fat girl."

Oh, Kate ... it's your echo.

I don't know how I got echo from "fat girl", but sure enough, that was what she was trying to tell us.

After dinner, we played hide and seek, cleaned up and got ready for bed.

I know it seems trivial. Maybe even a little silly.
But, a nice stress-free night after a couple rough weeks felt so comforting.

a bit of bad parenting

David is still obsessed with dinosaurs.

Almost every day, at some point, he and Kate pretend to be dinosaurs.

Some days David is a meat eater and I am his prey.
Some days he is a brontosaurus trying to make friends.
Some days he is a pteradactyl looking for fish.


Yesterday, was his most creative day.

He and Kate were pretending to be Allosaurs. They were looking for some meat to eat, because, as he explained to Kate and I, he had a nest filled with babies that were hungry. He was going to kill another dinosaur and bring it back to his babies to eat.

I was actually pretty impressed.

It's hard to explain unless you see him do it, but David does a fantastic job pretending to be a dinosaur - he moves his hands like claws, arches back his head when pretending to takes bites out of another dinosaur, rocks back and forth on his legs.

So, where do you find yourself asking, does the bit of bad parenting come in?

Well, at one point he yelled to Kate, "C'mon Kate (because he was yelling to Kate), there's a baby brontosaurus over here. It's parents left it alone. Lets kill it and bring it to our babies."

And, I told him that maybe killing babies wasn't such a good idea. And, that I think he and Kate
ought to play something else and take a break from dinosaurs.

(See, just a bit of bad parenting.)

I don't know why it bugged me so much. Don't I "kill" meat and bring it home for my babies to eat? It's not like he yelled, "C'mon Kate, lets kill this baby dinosaur and watch it bleed all over the carpet, suffering."

Part of me was very surprised and impressed. David can do some mighty good pretending.

sigh. But, I think part of me was embarrassed as well. Not of David, but for David. Kids can be cruel. And so can other mothers. What would the moms and kids say at the playground at preschool when David was pretending to kill some baby dinosaurs? Do he or I really care? And why would I ever try to stifle his creativity?

I guess I don't know the answer to the last part yet.

I can, at times, be a very insecure person. Am I projecting that insecurity on to him?

Of course, David was really confused. I am sure he didn't understand why I asked him to stop playing. I wasn't sure why I asked him to stop playing.

We talked the next day about it and I apologized for confusing and told him that he could keep playing it. He told me he was glad because he really liked playing it.

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."