Thousands of Things Thursday

The running continues on, but there's not really anything to report there.  So, I figure I'll jibber-jabber about the kids today.

Norah

This pic, below, is from last weekend, at our friend's son's (Mason, who you may remember me heroically freeing from the confines of our bedroom two weeks ago) 1 year old b-day party.  His actual b-day is today, and Norah is sitting with her friend Rylee, whose b-day is also today (we like to keep things tight in our circle of friends).  Look how sweet Norah is smiling here.  She never smiles like that when I want to take her picture.

So, Norah Beans, what's she up to as of late?

Well, all kinds of stuff, actually.  She turned 3 a few weeks ago, you know, so now she's got a full-blown LIFE.  Complete with exta-curriculars and everything.  She's taking swimming lessons on Saturdays right now, and she's doing Zumba on Thursdays.  Zumba, right?!  It wouldn't have occurred to me either, but her school offers it and they had a free class last week, and turns out, dancing around like a wild person to wild music is right up Norah's alley!  We always knew some kind of refined dancing wouldn't really jive with her personality, but this?  This makes sense.

She's also a chatty-Cathy lately.  We do all kinds of talking now, and some of our riveting conversations have included the following pertinent information: Tigers are kinda scary, but she likes kangaroos; she wishes she had a Tinker Bell on hand so she could fly -- she needs Tink's pixie dust; and, can you believe this?  Some kids at school do NOT have Scooter dogs!  The very idea, right?  (Their parents must enjoy not waking up to dog yak first thing in the morning.)

Lastly, we can't seem to get her out of our bed lately.  She's like a case of bed bugs and our bedroom is like an NYC hotel room.  Sometimes she waits until the very wee hours of morning, like 5:30 or 6 am, to sneak in; other times though, she just appears there around 2 or 3 am, and I only know she's there because I wake up with her leg draped across my neck.

Between her delivering a roundhouse to my head each night, and Scooter crowding my feet each night, I either need a bigger bed, or Norah does -- so I can go sleep in there!

Caleb
This dude just remains the cutest little bugger ever.

Contrary to his sister, he is not talking much, though.  Oh, he talks, he has a handful of "words" -- words in the sense that Jerry, Norah, and I know what he's saying but would just sound like the screeches of a pterodactyl to anyone else.  But, despite not saying much, he's understanding basically everything now, and that's handy because I can now issue commands.

"Go get your shoes," "put this in the trash," and his favorite: "go get a towel and clean this up."  Strangely, the dude LIVES to wipe up messes off the floor.  He practically races to get a kitchen towel when either he or Norah spill.

But, already, he can also be a real shit pickle: Hitting, pulling Norah's hair, coloring on the floor with markers (this one is gonna give Jerry a stroke one day -- you can practically SEE the veins in his head collapsing when he spots Caleb + markers), eating Norah's art supplies, playing with the toilet plunger (another bane of Jerry's existence), and one of his favorite mischievous activities: unrolling every square of T.P. in the house.  We just have piles of toilet paper now, nothing stays spooled.

I guess he has to have extra-curriculars too!