Soap Castles

The weather this summer has been brutal!

For this reason, I have been forced to find ways to entertain Pickle inside.  The other day, he wanted to go swimming, but the water in the pool was too hot (and sudsy...don't ask, I sure didn't). 
Instead we decided to play with water inside.

Pickle was so excited to be given free reign in the bathroom. He grabbed toys, wash rags, and unbeknown to me, soap and shampoo.

I gave him the only rule I could think of, no water on the floor, and left him in there alone to play and have fun at the sink.

He had been in there about 10 minutes when he said "Mom come look."

I went in there and he had a sink over-flowing with suds!

"Look at my soap castles! Do you like them?!?"

"Yes they are beautiful!"

That night when I went to give him a bath, I found out that he had used his whole brand new bottle of body wash for his soap castles....

When Chef got home from fixing the car, he found out that Pickle had used all the hand soap and an enitre can of shaving cream....

They were beautiful castles!

Chew. Swallow. Repeat.

I say these words too many times a day. Sometimes, I even include the words open mouth and insert food. See, the boy has a real problem eating. And by that I mean, he loves to talk (mainly at inappropriate times like while eating, while anyone else is talking, and especially while you are going to the bathroom).

His talking started out as a good thing. Family conversations while eating are a good thing, right? Well in my case the answer is no. Here's why....it generally takes the boy about an hour to finish eating ANYTHING. When we give him a popsicle it usually melts before he can finish. He reports that he is hungry every time I pick him up from school because "they don't give him enough time to eat his lunch." I talked to the teacher and she says that he talks during lunch to the point that he has to sit by the teacher or her assistant in order to get him to eat the small bit that he does.

At a loss of what to do to encourage him to talk at different and more appropriate times, we have tried many things.

1. Riding in the car with radio off......I try this everyday. I ask him lots of questions and he responds with one word answers. After about 5 minutes, he starts asking me to please turn on the radio, and he continues to ask every few minutes for the entire drive.

2. No TV until he talks about his day....all he talks about is what cartoon he is missing. Then he starts to cry because he has missed cartoon and ends up losing tv for the day (which is not such a bad thing, unless you are the one that has to listen to the all day tantrum).

3. Board Games...These encourage lots of talking about the game, mainly how the other person or people are playing wrong...and some cheating, but that is another post all together.

4. Arts and Crafts...This one is working the best! He will talk about the craft that we are doing, crafts he has done in the past and crafts he wants to do soon.

All day long, I cannot get him to talk about his day, things he learned in school or pretty much anything, but , without fail, as soon as you put the food in front of him, he finds he has so much to talk about.

Chef's Mail

Today Chef got a letter addressed to him from the Research Institute of Mother and Child Care. Curious, I opened it up expecting brochures for various child care places or possibly pediatricians in our area. Instead it was a survey and this is how it read:

Dear Mr. InsaneDaddy

This survey is easy and will only take a few minutes to complete. The questions apply to the youngest infant in your home, regardless of whether you breastfeed or use infant formula.

After I stopped laughing uncontrollably, I was left wondering 

 

A) Whose job is it to check the surveys before they get mailed out

B) Where does a man get that type of "equipment" 

C) How can I convince Chef that he should breastfeed the next one?

A Stroll Around the Lake

Today we went to the park to feed the ducks. They were not interested in eating.

We decided to walk around the lake. About half way around, we saw something poke it's head out of the water and then quickly disappear. We stopped to see if it would come back up.

While we were waiting, we were talking about what it might be. I had no ideas. Chef thought it might be a Water Moccasin.

Pickle said, "No silly, it's a Sea Monster."

We also saw swans with their heads in the water and their butts up in the air. Pickle thought this the funniest thing. That night when we put Drama in her bed, she put her face down on the mattress and her butt up in the air and started moving around and making funny noises.

Pickle said, "Look guys, Drama is a swan!"

It's that time of year.....AGAIN!!!!

Everybody in my house is sick!

Runny noses, coughs, and fevers. And I am sure that congestion and vomiting are not too far behind.

Fun times!!

The Tooth Fairy

While I was brushing the boy's teeth the other night, I discovered that the tooth fairy may be visiting my house soon.

Me: You have a new tooth coming in!

Boy: Really where!?!   Cool!!!!!

Me: Guess we need to go see the dentist.

Boy: No! The tooth fairy comes to you and she takes the tooth with her.

Me: Really!! What else does the tooth fairy do?

Boy: She gives you money for your tooth.

Me: How much do you think she gives you?

Boy:  She gives you $1 for the small teeth in front, $2 for the next few teeth and then $3 for the way
          back teeth!!

Me:  Really!! Why does she pay you for the teeth? What does she do with them?

Boy: She buys them from you so she can sell them to somebody else and make money.

Me:  Who does she sell them to?

Boy:  I'm not sure but they pay her by weight. That's why she has to collect a lot of teeth to pay her
          bills.

Drama Turns ONE!!!!!

Drama is one now!! Time has just flown by!

She had a Hello Kitty birthday cake, and the grocery store gave us a free toddler cake for her to play in. She was so funny playing in the cake. She started by painting the table and then she started painting herself. She painted her whole body from her hair to her toes.

She really didn't seem to like the taste of the cake at first. However as soon as she was cleaned up and everybody had their piece of cake, she started screaming for cake. We fed her some and she loved it.

Now every time we get food she jumps up and down and screams until we feed her some off of our plate.

Bad Day.......

Tuesday I had a bad day.

I took the boy to school and came home. Nothing eventful happened.....or so I thought.

When I went to leave to pick him up from school, I had a flat tire. I called the husband and he said put air in the tire and drive straight to the school and back. No matter how much I tried to convince him that his "plan" wouldn't work, he would not listen.

Ten minutes later I was stranded on the side of the highway with a blown out and shredded tire.

Worse Day

Thursday the husband called me on his way home from work.

Husband  "I got some news"

Me  "What's up?"

Husband  "My car just died"

Me  "What? Are you kidding me?"

Husband "Yea, I just like to pull over and stand by the side of the road on the highway."

Me  "Well as long as you are having fun."

Carving the Pumpkin

This is the first year we have carved a pumpkin as a family. We thought that Pickle would love it. He could get messy and not get in trouble.

We were wrong.

Pickle drew the face on the pumpkin, including ears. It looked so cute! All he could talk about was putting a candle in his jack o'lantern and see it all lit up.

As soon as Chef cut the pumpkin open, the whining started.

"I am not putting my hand it there."

"I am not touching that nasty stuff."

By the time the top was off, I was ready to throw the pumpkin through the window.


In an effort to convince Pickle that is was fun, I stuck my hand in the pumpkin. When I pulled out a handful of the insides, Pickle said, "That's so gross. I am going to puke!"

Chef tried to convince Pickle to put his hand in the pumpkin with great success. It only cost him $1.

Pickle held his hand in there for about a second before he jerked it out and flung pumpkin everywhere.

Things I learned from this experience:

1.  Smart people carve pumpkins outside.
2.  Pumpkins look just as good when they are painted.
3.  Things you just know your kids will enjoy.....they won't.

Happy Haunting

With Pickle as Spiderman and Drama as a Gators cheerleader, we went out to get some candy.

We went trick or treating at Downtown Disney this year!  As soon as we got there, I knew we were going to have an amazing time.

Drama refused to sleep all day and add to that the fact that she has been refusing to eat anything for days meant that she was super happy to be out trick or treating.

Pickle was so happy to be getting all the candy and be at Disney that he was bouncing all over the place. He kept running off to look at everything. After a few minutes, I was seriously considering finding someone with a pair of handcuffs...but then again who would that punish??

The lines were so long. They were giving out very little candy. And last but not least there was hardly any Disney to be seen, except for the stores.

We had so much fun, we left after one hour.

Next year it will definitely be door-to-door for us.