Weekly Updates and a Poem

Andelynn loves to climb into the shower when we are in it and get completely soaked and try to drink the water. 

 She won't eat grapes unless they are whole and on the vine.  I gave her the little one in her left hand and turned around for a second and she had reached over and grabbed the whole bunch off the serving plate.  

 She had cream of wheat for the first time this week.  She would not let me feed her, preferring instead to hold the spoon in one hand while smashing handfuls of cereal into her face.  She managed to encrust her eyelashes and completely block off her nose.

 She climbed up on the kitchen counter by herself this week, leaving mayhem wherever she paused and her mother's blood pressure significantly raised.

 She loves to give big smiles to everyone with her 4 little teeth.  Rafe and Vivien have taken to calling her "Stuckroo" for an unknown reason.  She is babbling up a storm and taking one or two steps on her own, but I have yet to get a good video of it.  Maybe next week.  I LOVE THIS BABY!!

 Rafe's favorite thing to do lately (besides body slamming people who look relaxed) is play dress-up with Vivien's clothes.  He reminds me of Hayley Mills in the parent trap.

 And every time he does it, I have "my brother wears a dress!" stuck in my head the rest of the day.

He has a new thing where he comes up to you and says, "I have a question," and then proceeds to just tell you whatever's on his mind.  He is a silly boy.  With the cutest, pudgiest hands . . .

 Maybe since Vivien's clothes are all being stolen, she feels the need to go around mostly naked all day.  Here she is after eating an impressively large amount of spaghetti.

And since playing musical wardrobe is so fun, Vivien decided to put all of Andelynn's clothes on her stuffed animals.  I thought the bloomers looked particularly fetching as a cap for Rawr-rawr.

She took a bunch of videos on my phone this week while swinging on several bungee cords attached to her bunk bed monkey bars.  The videos are too dizzying to watch, but I thought I'd include a transcript here, just for fun.  It is to be recited like a rhyming poem (that doesn't rhyme).

Hutchins Cuttins, Hutchins Huttons,

Cuttins ran away

He didn't come back.

What did he do?

He stole a market chicken without paying it

A cop saw him running 

Away.

He tried, the cop tried to catch him, 

Well the Cuttins ran faster.

The cop could not catch Cuttins.

He was out of sight.  

Hutton Cuttin, Hushin Tuckin

Cuttin ran away

He stole a market chicken

And then without selling it

without money, money, money,

Cuttin ran away from the farm.

The payer said to a cop,

"Cuttin caught my pet chicken

from the market store."

She was angry, the cop ran after him.

Cuttin ran faster and faster and faster

The cop could not catch'im.

Well, Cuttin's out of sight.

Hey, Cuttin Hutton!

Do not run away from your mother's hut.

Mother said do not run away until you doodle-loo.

Do not get away, do not shut away

Do not do your poomeroo.

Gooly booly boo.

Gooly shooly doo-oo-oo

Do not booty booty

Show your booty butt

Cutty whaty

Hutton Cuttin do not yoolooloo.

Hey Hutton Cuttin

Please don't run away!

My mother was angry.

She did not like me.

I was Hutton Cuttin all the ways.

Smoo-oo-oo

Well I'm a little girl named Do-o-ry.

I have big fish eyes.  

I started as an egg.

Bleh, bleh, bleh.

Hutton Cuttin, let's go fishing!  

Hopin' we can catch a fish.

Do not catch a shark or whale,

They will bite you all the way.

Ok, Hutton Cuttin?  

Do not catch a whaaaaaaaale!

Your poetry analysis is due next week.  Good luck!

 We celebrated the 4th of July Iwakuni-style (read "lamely") with some fireworks the kids got from youchien last year.  The best ones were like good quality sparklers, the worst ones were as impressive as lighting a piece of string on fire.  But the kids loved it, and we did not start a fire on the grass, so I'd call it a success.

 As for my update this week, I think I can no longer avoid replacing my black Sunday shoes.

 And we finally had to clean out the car because we had luggage tags all over from traveling and I am pretty sure this is the worst airport code combination ever.  (Sorry, everyone.)

This has been a good learning week for me.  My kids have a new favorite phrase: I don't want to.  It is their go-to response to get out of anything and everything.  And the more often they say it, the more baffled I am that they actually feel like it's a valid excuse to get out of doing what they are supposed to do.  I want to shout back . . .

 I have been pondering how to handle it and how to teach them that sometimes we have to do things we don't want to do so that we can be healthy and happy and safe, and as with all my parenting struggles, I inevitably come to the realization that it will be very difficult for me to teach them this principle if I don't live it myself.  You know how they say missions are for the missionary, not necessarily the people they're teaching?  Sometimes I feel the same way about parenthood.  When we went to Mongolia and I watched Bujee working, working, working from sunrise to sunset to take care of her family, I felt so ashamed of myself.  I have so few chores, and so many resources available to me to make those few chores as painless as possible, and I tell myself all the time, "I should do that today, but I don't want to." Or I do exactly what I did when I was a child--spend all day not doing chores that would only take me 20 minutes, because the person I'm supposed to be cleaning with isn't cleaning.  So lazy.  So this week I made an effort to just do it anyway.  It reminded me of some swim team practices, when I would be really struggling through a set and want to quit, and I would tell myself to just swim to the wall, and then I could stop . . . and then once I got there I would trick myself and do a flip turn.  Ha!  So, every time this week I thought of something I needed to do and Reluctance reared his selfish head, I gave myself a good mental shake and stopped using "I don't want to" as an excuse.  And I was happier.  And so productive.  Go figure.