A Week's Worth of Adventures

Friday, I watched Melissa Brady's kids while she volunteered at the school. It was fun for the kids who are the same ages. Only 8 weeks separate Dasha and Brookelle and only six weeks for Preston and Dylan. Interesting to note is that Preston is in the 98 percentile for weight and Dylan is in the 3rd percentile. Preston outweighs Dylan by 15 pounds. He darn near doubles the kid. I watched carefully as they played together because in a tug of war for a toy, there was no question who would be on the loosing end and I wanted Melissa to continue to entrust her children to my care. All went great. They decided to play outside and each had their own ridding device. Whew!

Sunday morning while mom was away at choir practice, Dad decided to introduce the kids to paper mache. While he was busy mixing the gooey glue, the kids decided to get into my swim gear. Thankfully for all involved, the only evidence of both activities were the fun pictures they took. The mess was blissfully cleaned up by the time I got home.It would seem that my swim top is a little bit large for Preston. He'll need to work on evening up his tan lines with this gettup.

This picture is taken in the same entry as the above picture. The difference? A very large box of packing peanuts was emptied and systematically destroyed and then tracked all over the main level with the help of Nanny and at the encouragement of Dad. "Let the kids be kids." Nanny commented that it looked like they were swimming in snow. At this suggestion, Dasha once again donned her swimsuit. That kid loves to wear swimsuits. Wondering were I was? Downstairs asleep through the entire episode. I have been sicker than a dog since Saturday. I took some NyQuil and checked out for a four hour nap. By the time I woke up, Heather had cleaned up the entire house. Sometimes it's better to sleep through certain things.

Speaking of sleeping.... If you look closely, you can make out the shape of Dasha asleep on the middle shelf of her closet. I told her to go get into bed. This was her idea of a princess bed. She dumped all the clothes on the ground and made a bed. She freaked when I said that princesses didn't look pretty when they had bruises from falling out of their beds at night. She was determined to sleep in her closet. I decided to pick my battles. I returned 30 minutes after she's gone to sleep and transferred her into her bed. My plan worked until 3:30 a.m. when she woke up ticked that I'd moved her. She came into my bedroom crying and yelling at me. It seems I lost in the end anyway. The only way I could calm her down was to let her finish the night in bed with me. Thankfully, this was a one night battle. She told me later that the closet wasn't that comfortable.

Mom and Dasha got breakfast in bed the next morning. William fixed a French breakfast of baguette, jam and hot milk. It was delicious and a nice change from the usual syrup drenched fare.

Things were quiet, too quiet. Where's Preston? The search led to the jungle gym in the family room. Hiding under the platform in the cubby hole was Preston eating.....dog food. Yes, dog food. Now, I know there is nothing in dog food that will hurt him (I know because I have read the label several times) BUT STILL!!! Gross!!!!! Some kids eat dirt, some eat boogers, my son eats dog food. He loves it, too! He asks to feed the dog and then goes through the motion of giving a fist full to Coquette and then pops a kibble into his mouth for his own enjoyment. The bigger deal I make out of it, the more his affinity for dog food grows. I've had to turn the monitoring of feeding the dog totally over to William. I can't stomach to watch it. William assures me it's O.K. Says his brother Arthur used to pound the cat food and he's smarter than the rest of his siblings. I'm not sure I believe there's a connection....

Stay tuned.

Hurray for William! He was able to stain the fence before Winter fully set in. It took half the time power washing it did. You're the Man! It looks brand new!