Tiny Tyrant Trainer

Now that the big girls are back in school I can get out for a walk every morning with the littles in the stroller. They usually do pretty well but today Patrick kept yelling at me about something and I just couldn't figure out what he was saying. He couldn't think of another way to explain it to me so he just kept saying it louder and louder. I finally understood... he was saying "faster". A few weeks ago he got a bloody nose during a stroller ride so I had to run home to clean him up, can only imagine what people passing us thought as he was a total mess. So now he wants me to run the entire time and after I figured out "faster" he then went on to yell, "run, Mommy, run" the rest of the time. I tried to explain what retired from running means and how if he and Emily wake me up no less than 8 times each night, then I can't possibly have the energy to run and push a very heavy stroller up and down hills. When I mentioned this to Sean he asked if I felt like I was on the Biggest Loser. Who needs to hire a trainer when you can just give birth to one?

Let the record show that after waking up at 4:30am and dashing to the couch to "sleep" and/or repeatedly come into my room and demand TV, the Tiny Tyrant is now taking a long nap on the couch. I'm thinking I need to call the sitter so we can go out tonight and let her put him to bed...

Extra Energy

Patrick insisted on some fruit smoothie this morning that I later realized contained "energy boost". So not what an almost 3 year old boy needs. He burned some off doing tricks on Emily's jumpy thing (my apologies to the kind person who loaned it to us, we'll buy you something new!). She was quite entertained. Good news is that he still went right to bed at 7pm and was sleeping like an angel when I got home from a meeting. So deceiving...

Letters to a 4th grade about nothing

My sister Andrea sent me letters that her 4th graders wrote recently and I am working on my responses to them. They were obviously working together to come up with questions for me to answer because a high percentage want to know if I live in a ranch or two story house. I cannot wait to blow their minds with my answer.... ranch in the front, 2 story in the back. It's like the mullet of housing. One girl wants to know what kind of house Andrea lives in and she guesses not a ranch because she doesn't seem like that type of girl. What the what? What exactly is the reputation of someone who lives in a ranch house? Someone with bad knees who can't handle stairs?

They are also quite curious about my favorite animal. I have to admit, I haven't ranked my favorite animals since well, 4th grade, so this is a tough one. I have no problem discussing all my favorite foods though and how they can acquire them on a trip to San Antonio if they beg their parents. I wonder if I will get any letters back from parents? Almost every letter mentions that they heard I am funny so the pressure it on to come up with a way to work in some 4th grade humor. Time to go google jokes about bodily functions....

Future Attitude?

Probably a teething thing but somehow I have about 85 pictures of Emily sticking her tongue out. Not as cute in a few years but for now we love it.

Full Set

Put them together and they have a full set of teeth.

Long week?

Megan asked us if she could sleep in tomorrow since it's Saturday. Hmm, I don't know, I love to get everyone up and fighting at O' dark 30, set that alarm. Anna choked her tonight when she tried to take a piece of her popcorn and even worse, tried to justify her actions to me. Naturally the punishment for taking a piece of the popcorn that they are supposed to always share is to choke the thief. Anna might be small but she rules with a big stick (and a quick scream). Megan allows her reign to continue in exchange for nighttime body guard duty, aka: be the wolf bait.

Update on Tiny Tyrant:
He insisted on bringing his bike inside this morning and I convinced him to at least take it to the back porch. He was very businesslike and rode it round and round the table, thankfully he didn't demand that I chase him like we do during "play squirt gun with me". I get so dizzy. When it came time to go pick up the girls from school he wanted to bring the bike in the van. I resisted but then gave in so we wouldn't be late. Never occurred to me that he had a bigger plan in mind, which was to get it out of the van and ride it up and down the sidewalk full of people while we waited for the girls to come out. I held firm which meant that instead of running into people with his bike, they merely had to listen to him cry for his bike for 10 minutes. I made the mistake of getting the bike out when we got home, of course HE had to get it out, then drag it back into the house and out to the porch. Apparently the P90X is working for him, freakishly strong. I should have given him a protein bar for dinner and now that I think about it, I don't think he had any dinner other than the baby food that he begged for. It's expensive but at least it's better for him than chocolate chips and goldfish, but it's still not really dinner. Disorganized night here.

Pet Peeve of the Day:

This is the strip you peel off the Netflix envelope when you mail a movie back. Someone is unable to put them in the trash, perhaps likes to flaunt his accomplishments and leaves it around for me to tidy up. Another movie off the queue, good job.

I'll try to be more cheerful tomorrow, but no promises. Sean is on call and is reluctant to leave the house. I should have planned a trip and taken advantage...

Night Shift Entertainment

Sean is always appreciative of something new to read when he's working a night shift but since we just had weekly date night, I'm kind of out of new material. It's our only night to finish a conversation and tonight Sean was finally able to explain the finer points of the looming helium shortage (good news for those of us not fond of balloons). Now, I did insist that he tell me this in the car for fear that someone would overhear us at dinner and mock us. It's a small town, you never know who is listening in.

Of course if he needs to tell me something in public and not have anyone else understand he just goes into dictation voice which is very fast and monotone (punctuated with agitated swearing when the voice recognition software- or me- doesn't pick up on a word). He has a lot of preset dictations saved so he can just say, "power scribe: old brain" or "power scribe: normal chest". I suppose the day is coming where he will power scribe a conversation with me. "Power scribe: random army task day not related to real job" and "power scribe: list of places I want to go golf". Trust me though, he will still have to listen to me discuss in great detail the antics of the Tiny Tyrant. If I have to suffer through the OCD demands, then he needs to hear all about it. Or at least look at me and pretend to listen while he dreams of Pebble Beach.

ps Of course a Tiny Tyrant eats his bubble beard.