no good very bad day

Yesterday was terrible. Noah was pretty much on me all day long. He was either climbing on me, stepping on my foot, standing in front of me, trying to crawl through my legs, or jumping on me. I don't think I've been particularly inattentive lately, so I'm not sure what gives.

I also tried to run errands with the kids. Not a good plan apparently. I needed to renew my drivers' license, and being the end of the month, the line up was super long -- no fun for Noah. Fortunately Molly was content to play with toys in her carseat and charm the other folks in line. At that point, I should have heeded my instinct and gone straight home, but I wanted to make chicken burgers for supper and needed ground chicken, so we went to Safeway.

Driving between MPI and Safeway, I forgot to buckle Noah's seatbelt, so he started freaking out as we were leaving the parking lot. There were cars behind me, so I needed to pull out and park with Noah standing up and almost in the front seat yelling at him to sit down while he's crying about his seatbelt. Bad bad Mommy moment.

In Safeway, Noah would not sit still in the cart and kept leaning out and trying to touch things. When he was out of the cart, he tried to run away 3 times.

There will be no more running errands with more kids than adults.

When we got home, I decided to hang diapers on the line for a little sun bleaching. Note to self: diapers are very very heavy when wet. The line broke. There were diapers all over the yard.

I think this was also the day Noah started saying: "I'm going to kill you Mommy."

That's it. Bad day over.

this post is about me

Today is my birthday. Yup, I'm 35, and I'm not actually as freaked out about it as I thought I would be. I spent the day with the kids (as usual on a weekday), and planned to have a picnic in the park for supper. I thought maybe we would get some ice cream as a birthday treat. Noah was extremely concerned about the lack of cake in these plans, so this morning's outing was to the corner store for a cake mix. You know you're a Mom when you bake yourself cupcakes with rainbow sprinkles when it's almost 30 above! To a 3 year old, a birthday - any birthday - without cake is just plain wrong!

baking with the boy

Noah is an avid baker -- as long as there are no more than 3 ingredients! One of out favourite recipes is for peanut butter cookies (1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 egg) which we found in the Mouse Cookies cookbook. Now, whenever Noah feels the urge to bake, he says,"to the mouse cookbook", with the same emphasis as "to the batmobile". Too funny!

she sings!

Molly is 5 months old today, and has just recently started singing. Noah likes to hum while he plays (usually the Larry-Boy theme song or music from Hermie: a common caterpillar ) and Molly will now hum along. It is an absolutely charming sound. She is actually quite a charming baby (if I do say so myself). She's very content and doesn't cry very much at all. She smiles and laughs and blows razzberries.

We have recently starting putting her in the high chair when we eat supper, and she loves being at the table with us.

belly laughs

Molly has been laughing a lot lately. She has been giving us the odd chuckle since she was a couple of months old, but this past week has been full of belly laughs. I read her a little story last night, and she laughed every time I read the word puppy (which was on every page!). She finds Noah especially hilarious. It really doesn't matter what he says, it cracks her up. Sadly, Noah doesn't seem to realize what a beautiful thing this is, but it is wonderful to see how Molly looks at him.

21st century boy

Noah asked me today what he would have to do to get email. I told him he would have to learn to read. He said OK. So, I guess that's what we'll be doing. Of course, I'm not sure I want my 3-year-old to have an email account, but I do want him to read and to love reading. I do think it would be fun for him to get messages from his cousins and grandparents. Mind you, he'll be asking me to check his email every five minutes (just like Mom!)

thoughtful Noah

Noah is in a defiant phase. At least, I hope it's a phase. He very rarely says "no" anymore when I ask him to do something. His response is now "I WON'T". Unless I ask him not to do something, then it is "I WILL". That said, we had a really good day today with only a few stormy moments one of which involved Noah throwing some grass at me around lunchtime. He didn't want to get out of the paddling pool and have lunch.

Around suppertime, Noah told me he was sorry for throwing the grass at me. It was a simple statement, and yet it meant and means a lot to me. It is an indication that he thinks about things (other than movie plots that he talks about constantly) and has internalized some concept of right and wrong -- not just when he gets caught and wants the time-out to be over.

Another sweet moment today was when Noah helped me with a diaper change. He took a wipe from the package and wiped Molly's bum with it and fondly called her a stinky baby. Too cute. I think I'll change her diaper on the floor more often.