Things these kids do

Miriam loves chaos.  She will crawl around and pull things off the food shelf, then go to the toys pull a bunch out, go to the bookshelf, and then to the TV to pull stuff down.  She will survey her work, and then restart her cycle.  Eventually if it is messy enough she will amuse herself elsewhere.  I try to clean it up, or the big kids will clean it up (it gets so bad, that they feel the need to clean it up), but once Miriam sees the clean space she insists on "fixing" that.

The other day we were in a restaurant and it was really empty.  A customer came in and started bantering with the waitress and then exclaimed, "Darn it!"  Only not using the substitute word and in this whole scenario the substitute word was never used.  Well Joshua looks at Brian and says, "Daddy what's 'Darn it'?"  Brian says that it is a not nice word that we don't say.  Joshua then asked Brian, "What's 'Darn?'"  Brian reiterated that it was a word that people say when they were upset, but we don't say it.  Joshua proceeded to look at the stack of jam next to him, and started to mumble to himself, "jam, darn, jam, darn."  Joshua then picks up a package of jam and asks Brian, "What is this Daddy?"  Brian tells him that it is jam.  Joshua looks at him and says, "Daddy, you said a bad word!"  He totally set up Brian.

We are in the process of potty training Minna.  After the first couple of days, I thought it was going to be quick and easy, then Minna got over the novelty of peeing in the toilet, and now we have our good days and our wet days.  I try to keep her out of a diaper at home because she knows she can pee in the diaper or the pull-up without feeling wet or making a mess.  Lately she hasn't been wanting to wear underwear, I think because she would rather not bother with going potty.  I told her I wouldn't put a diaper on her, so she decided to wear "just pants".  So basically she goes around our house commando style. 

Minna and Joshua like to wear goggles as part of their superhero costume.  The other day Minna wore her goggles all day long.  Then she took her nap in them.  That afternoon Brian and I finally got them off of her.  She put up a good fight and starting sobbing.  Her eyes were all marked up, she looked like a raccoon.  It was like that for like 16 hours.

Minna has a talent of getting people to do what she wants for her.  She has many many methods.  The other morning Brian was playing with her giant stuffed walrus.  Minna wanted it back, and when Brian gave it back, but then she just put it down.  Brian picked it up, then Minna looks at him and says, "Daddy, you can just put the walrus on the bed."  She was super polite about it, but you could tell she just didn't want Brian to have the walrus. 

They are crazy kids, but we love them.