Sadie's tricks

In typical fashion, one of the kids (Sadie) did something cute and, by the time we found the camera, refused to do it again. But in the process of trying to get her to do it again, she did just about every other trick she knows.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to report that I think we actually have friends! It's still a little early to be sure, of course. But the signs are looking good. How did we meet them, you ask? All it took was for Michaela to crash into their car. One minute they were exchanging insurance information, next thing you know, they invited us to their Xmas party. So, our insurance premiums will probably go up, but by golly it'll be worth it.

Oh, I almost forgot. In this video, Sadie is wearing a shirt that Dee and Sasha bought for Soen when they were in Argentina. It's my favorite shirt. It has a picture of a chicken and below that it says Mr. Cock.

Traitor!

Soen talking to his dealer.

We've been having some behavioral problems with the boy lately. Bad attitude. Lying to us. Getting into trouble at school. It was like he was turning into this little hoodlum right in front of our eyes. Then all of a sudden this weekend he started being our cute little boy again. That is until he and I were watching my Cowboys lose to the Giants and he asked me which guy I liked. I said I liked the guy in the white shirt. I expected him to say, "Me too," but he said, "I like the blue guy." The blue guy, I asked? "Yeah, because he looks like a Power Ranger." Well, at least he had a good reason.

Playground Adventures

Soen holding Sadie on the recliner swing.


Owing to weather that is nice enough to beckon us outside but isn't yet warm enough for the beach, we've been spending a lot of time at the playground recently. Here are some of the highlights.

1. Due to Sadie's tough-gal persona and her complete lack of fear, she wants to do everything her brother does, including going down even the highest, spiraling slides on her own. The first time we let her do this we were a little apprehensive, since she is just 16 months old. But she is quite capable. She's more physically advanced than Soen was at this age. In fact, she's more capable than other 16-month-olds. It's fun to see the looks on other parents' faces as she goes flying down these slides. They go launching themselves to save her, but she laughs her way down the slide and gets off just fine. Then the parents ask us, "How old is she?"

2. Trying to lose Gromit. So Gromit (our most annoying cat) has taken to climbing into the car every time we get in. One day as I was taking the kids to one park, she climbed in as was fighting me on trying to get her out of the car. Fine, I thought. I'll bring you to the park with us. Well, this was fun for a while. She got out of the car, promptly took a dump in the woods, and followed us over to the playground. Then just before we were ready to leave, she was gone. We looked for her for a few minutes but she was no where to be found. So we left her. Luckily, I escaped the dog house by finding her later in the day on my third search and rescue attempt. Frankly, she barely seemed to recognize me. Dumb cat. And to think I was actually starting to miss her.

3. Soen as bad influence. We were playing at this one jungle gym and this little 2-year-old boy came over to play with us, accompanied by his parents and grandparents. Well, this little boy naturally wanted to do everything Soen was doing. His grandmother even said how nice it was for him to follow Soen around, and how cute my kids were. Then Soen started in with his "poopy butt" running commentary, and his new favorite expression: "What the?" So the boy's mom would ask Soen a question he didn't know, like "How old is your sister?" and he would respond with, "What the?" Most parents might have been embarrassed by this sort of thing, but I just thought it was funny. Frankly, every time he says "what the?" it cracks me up. I try not to laugh, but what are you gonna do?

2008

So, 2008. Unbelievable. We celebrated with a lovely solstice (stockings and presents included). New Year's Eve consisted of a hot meal (sometimes a luxury since we're both working full time now!), memory game with Soen (umm, he always wins.) and the movie Waitress (see it). We had a great visit with my parents--Kit and Bonnie really helped up out with child care as well as some much needed family love. Kit humored us and played Acquire (a completely out of control capitalistic board game that Scott is surprisingly adept at) one night--which is the reason for this post.

I don't think I'd played this particular game in over 5 years. The last time was likely up at Tom's mom's Poconos house with the entire "family". This spurred many memories, great..happy..fabulous...sarcastic memories of one Mr. Mike Young. How he was such a stickler for rules when it came to board games. How he would always use a particular rule in Acquire to win. How no one could get Mike and Tom out of the kitchen...and let's face it who would want to??? It made me (and Scott..since I kept saying, "Remember when Mike would do this..." and "God, if he wasn't so awesome I would have resented his perfect pecan pie"). It was soooo nice to remember those days.

That's all. Those memories were a good, good present.

Smooches. Michaela