The next t-shirt I buy must say 'Laundry Happens'.

It's All Coming Apart

Rex had his first official time out today, for hitting me (slapping me, really) across the face when I was giving his sister more attention. He's just starting to become competitive with her on most levels, and since I am a huge piece of real estate they both have to share, my kids usually take out their anger with each other on me. It's what I get for having two kids, I guess.

So lately if Veronica gets hurt (stubbing her toe landing on a metal toy airplane falling onto the ground after tripping over absolutely nothing) Rex will reenact the entire scene in order to get a little love, or a bandaid. (WHY will kids do just about anything for a bandaid? We have a rule: No blood, no bandaid. Maybe I shouldn't be so stingy, but I don't want to raise a pack of whiners and hypochondriacs, either.) Anyway, it's fun to watch Rex act out his pretend injuries. He will carefully fall to the floor, roll around clutching his foot, moaning in feigned agony. It makes me laugh, which then makes Veronica mad, because she thinks I am laughing at her real injury. (Which sometimes, I am. I am planning to pay for her therapy some day.)

Today Veronica was having one of her 'mornings', where she gets out of bed and absolutely everything in her life is totally wrong. She could get a huge chocolate bar and it would be too big, that sort of thing -- something that normally isn't an issue. So she was screaming in my lap for the tenth time over a thing I can't even remember (and don't have the energy now to fabricate) and over comes Rex. I didn't even see it coming, but the slap knocked me a little sideways.

And then the little bastard laughed.

I didn't even blink ... I just picked him up and put him in the big bathroom (one of the only rooms left that has a baby gate) and said, "That's your time out. No hitting Mommy!"

I think it worked, although I'm going to have to find a better spot for his time outs because we all need the bathroom. We have two other bathrooms but Veronica likes the big bathroom, and when she is in a 'mood' the last thing I need is for her not to have her freaking big bathroom available when she needs it.

I'm pretty psyched about having given Rex his first time out. We're going to start doing it for biting, too, which he does in spades, but only to people he really loves. (Me, again.) I'm already rehearsing it in my head: "No biting Mommy!"

It's Eerie

Both of my children can read my mind. I am not kidding. Either they are truly clairvoyant or they're so multi-channel perceptive they can simply sense what I am going to say next. Maybe it's because we live in a relatively small world (home-park-school-home) with a shared set of memories and experiences. Maybe it's because we're so big on routines at our house any dummy could guess what will happen next, but I doubt it. Maybe my kids are just extra-special. Do I sound ridiculous or what?

It happens at least once a day, with one child or the other. For instance, I will be thinking about how I really should make chicken for dinner, and Veronica will run in shouting "Chicken!" and flapping her arms. Or Rex will say "Nana, Grandpa?" the minute before the phone rings (guess who). This all started happening when Veronica was around one year old, and at first I thought maybe I had said my thoughts out loud and then forgotten I'd said them, and she was just babbling my thoughts back to me. Then it started to happen all the time, to other people who happened to be with Veronica when she did it. And these people would later say to me, "You'll never guess what Veronica blah blah so-and-so such-and-such etc. today!" and I would just nod. After a while we all got used to it.

Now it's the same way with Rex. He seems to take everything Veronica ever did when she was his age to the nth degree, and I am happy to see that he's got one of her more charming traits. I'm sure I will feel this way until the kids hit adolescence and become way smarter than me (this may be happening already) and the mind-reading thing will backfire. For now, it's just very cute, and I remain in awe of my kids' mental abilities.

Yes, I know I still sound ridiculous.

Dig the Dirt!! Dig the Dirt!!

Today Rexie and I walked all the way to Kate's Cat and Dog Salon to pick up Sanchi. It's more accurate to say that Rex ran, rather than walked, because halfway there he spied a major construction project in the distance and began to sprint. So our little afternoon jaunt became an eight-block baby race. Fun. And I guess I should point out he's not really a baby any more, since he's almost two, but I still like to call him the baby.

The construction project involved ten or twelve guys in orange vests and hats standing around watching one other guy operate a lift-loader, or backhoe, or digger or scoop-thingy (apparently my first child was a girl, who referred to all of them simply as 'trucks') in order to put large steel beams vertically into a large hole in the middle of the street. Fascinating. And then the boss lady (I am not making this up) came out of her car and started screaming at the one guy to "do it faster, because you're taking too long and time is money!" No kidding. I wanted to ask her if the other guys, standing around doing nothing but obviously not wasting any time, were just actors or there for moral support, but I was legitimately afraid Rex would run into the large hole. He's like that, enthusiastic about everything.

So we watched for what seemed like hours and then went to pick up the dog. Sanchi always smells and looks great after leaving the groomer's, and Rex couldn't keep his hands (and mouth) off of him. I guess this is the right time to note that in almost two years, Rex has bitten Sanchi approximately 47 times, and Sanchi has bitten Rex only about three times, and never very hard, while Rex usually puts his whole body into it. It's a wonder Sanchi has any fur left. We always thought Sanchi was such a freeloader until our kids were born and he began to earn his keep, first (and still) by sleeping in Veronica's room to ward off nightmares and second, by not killing Rex.

As an aside, Rexie has always behaved like a dog, like a young, roly-poly pack-animal cub. In his young life we have witnessed him bark, lift his leg to pee (in the tub), lay down on Sanchi's bed, chew Sanchi's toys (even, no especially, the disgusting mallard), gnaw on the windowsill, pant repeatedly, chase birds and ducks, eat food off of the floor, tree squirrels, eat dog food from the dog bowl, drink the dog's water, growl, attempt to stick his head out the window of a moving car and hump many objects, both animate and inanimate. There are more I can't recall right now, and the most amazing thing about all of this is that Rex has done most of it without seeing Sanchi do it first. He's a natural.

Of course we had to watch the whole construction thing again on the way back. Two guys were working this time, and the boss lady was in her car, steaming up the windows, flinging her permed ponytail back and forth while yelling into a cell phone. (By the way, you never want to mess with a lady construction captain. Those chicks are fierce.) Eventually Sanchi and I got bored and I had to drag Rex away, past all of the other bored-looking mothers and captivated little boys. Sanchi was the only dog.

All three of us ran home, with Rex yelling, "Dig the dirt! Dig the dirt!" the whole way and stopping, every so often, to molest the dog. I thought of turning Sanchi loose, the way you do with livestock when the barn's on fire (at least that's how Pa did it on Little House) but then realized I had not one, but two animals to keep track of. Better keep at least one of them on the leash.

Oh yeah, that's another one. Rex has tried to wear Sanchi's leash.

Choppers

From last fall ...

Rex was up all night getting new teeth. Molars, I think. He already has like, twenty-two of them, but apparently he needs more. Anyone want to join my pity party? Because even though I'm not the one getting the teeth, clearly I am the one suffering.

I define 'up all night' as bouts of waking up, screaming and hollering for Mama stretching for hours, punctuated by small periods of fitful moaning and sleeping, only to wake up again hollering just when I was drifting back to sleep.

The good part is that while I was up (all night, did I mention?), cursing my son's intrepid new teeth, I was also crafting this blog. So this morning all I did was sit down at the computer, put my fingers on the keyboard and tip my head sideways so the words could run out. No work at all.

Did I mention Rex likes to bite? I have a silver dollar-sized bruise on my right thigh where he sunk his choppers into me on Sunday, vampire-style. Every new tooth Rex gets sends a chill up my spine.

Right now both kids are outside playing with the hose, getting soaked. SOAKED. Veronica likes to put the hose into Rex's pants, which he really hates. When I told her about saving water because people in other parts of the world don't have enough, her response was:

"Fine. Let those people drink water from dams and underground then and let us have our hose."

Apparently I am not raising a future U.N. Ambassador. Dammit!

Mouth-To-Ear

From January ...

It's been awhile since I've written, but this is just so funny I have to share.

The kids are outside in the hallway playing with the bike pump. Veronica is ferociously pumping, up and down, 'getting a real workout', she says. The hose is connected not to her bike tire, but to her brother's ear. His ear!

"Are you pumping air into Rex's ear?" I ask stupidly, hoping it's not like blowing air into a pregnant woman's vagina, which we all know causes the fetus' brain to explode, or something like that. (Rex is very cute, and could probably get by in life on charm alone, but he might still need his brain for something.)

She cheerfully replies. "Yes! I'm keeping him alive! And the extra air can just come out of his butt."

Right.