Like a little burrow!

Owen wore jeans this weekend.  It was kind of a big deal, because the children are not huge fans of "buttoning," "zipping," "snapping," or "supporting their own weight."

Elastic waists for life in this household.

But Owen dressed himself in jeans this weekend.  As in more than once.  On purpose.  Without laying on the ground and moaning about how there were no pants left, only jeans.

So as he was putting on his PJs tonight, I asked him why he chose the jeans.

"I was just looking to have pockets," he says.

And I think, "oh shit."  Because I do the bulk of the laundry around here.  And while I understand that Chris is a squirrely little man and I have to check his pockets for mints and tissues and buttons and batteries and chap sticks and whatnots, the children don't really tend to use their pockets so I will admit to having become quite lax about checking their pockets.  And now I'm wondering what manner of odd little collection I've been running through the washer.

"Pockets?  Why pockets?"

"Well," Owen responds, "I just really like to have somewhere to rest my hands."

Oh.  Well.  Of course.

Lilly's Christmas List

When I ask the boys what they want for Christmas, I am met with blank stares if I am lucky, and, if I am not lucky, they do not even glance at me as they mumble, "I don't know."

On the other hand . . .

"Hey Lilly," I ask, "what do you want for Christmas?"

"OH," she turns to me, breathless with excitement, "I want an Elsa doll, an Elsa dress, some Elsa books, an Elsa plate, Elsa pajamas, and an Elsa house.  Then, I want a baby doll, and a mermaid princess with a Hello Kitty stroller."

Winter is Coming

Winter kind of ran up behind me and smacked me on the head this year.

I had not bought snow boots at the end of last season.  Largely because I thought Owen and Lilly would still either fit into last years pair, or wear the outgrown pair of an older sibling, and Sam has refused to wear boots at all for two straight years now.

But then it turns out that Owen is only two years younger than Sam and because I spent Sam's last two years finding the most vaguely boot-type footwear possible in hopes that Sam would wear them, so Owen has only bootesque footwear and Lilly is still wearing her damn rain boots.  Because you try telling Lilly what to wear.  Word of advice: bring a magazine, because she's going to be crying on the floor for a long time.  

Also the car scrapers seem to have spontaneously combusted, which is weird because I didn't even hear an explosion.

So while I was at Target this weekend I grabbed the last car scrapper there, literally seconds ahead of at LEAST 6 other people.  Then those people just milled around for a while, glaring at me.  I was hovering at the end of the aisle where they put the clearanced car washing tools, waiting for the crowd to disperse so I could sneak back and see how much my treasure was going to cost me, and one lady ran up, shoved my cart aside and snatched a car mop up.  I guess you could say that the car mop kind of looked like a scraper, but was clearly labelled as car washing tool, so I'm not sure how that's going to work out for her.  All in all, it's the closest I've ever come to an end of the world type event and it was rough.

Anyhow, that whole story is moot, because when I drove the kids to the museum on Sunday, I took Chris's car, and the precious scraper was not in that car.  When we came out the car was COVERED in snow.  The kids were all, "yeah, good luck with that," and tucked themselves into the warm car.  

So I looked around his car and found an old newspaper Sudoku and and hanger and wrapped the hanger in the newspaper and was, overall, super klassy.

It was not terrible efficient, and it is possible that I was swearing a little bit, because I didn't have gloves, either.  And I think maybe I worried Lilly.

Because this morning, I noticed Lilly repeatedly going to the window and peering outside.

When I was putting my coat on, she shouted, "MOM.  MOM.  MOM.  I have an idea.  I can help!"

And she runs off, and came back with a book, and her princess dress up hat - not a crown, but that cone shaped one.

"You can push the snow off with the book, and you can put your hand in here," she gestures to the hat, "to keep it warm!"

Honestly, probably still better than a newspaper and hanger.

It's all just so confusingly similar

"MOM," a voice cries.  "MOM!  I FELL ON THE STAIRS AND HURT MY PENIS!"

I'll give you three guesses which one of my children said that.

(Hint: It was Lilly)

We did have another discussion recently about penises and vaginas.

"The hard thing is," Lilly says to me, "that they look and sound the same."

You know, lots of things about genitalia are difficult, but I wouldn't have listed "looking and sounding the same" among them.