Yesterday a deed-en was his blanket, shoes, and phone. Today it was a toy train, chicken, ketchup. Who knows what it will mean tomorrow. 
It is a good thing he is a cutie. Yesterday he cried for half an hour before I figured out that the deed-en he was demanding was actually a pickle.
Yesterday I woke up to find we didn’t have water. I am not sure why I have a problem with the water freezing in the pipes down here because I cannot remember a single morning without water in Michigan. Last night, in an effort to save the water pipes, I left the water running in the bathroom. I turned it on right before I went to bed, but I forgot to close the door behind me.
Sometime during the night the boys got out of their room (something that never happens) and saw the bathroom door was open (something else that never happens.) When I got up this morning I found Noah sleeping on the bathroom floor and Charlie in the boys’ room saying “oh, crap! Oh, crap! Mama-mommy up! Oh, crap!”
Noah managed to spread loose makeup powder all over everything. Once the floor was covered to his satisfaction he dumped the rest in the toilet.
Charlie took eye shadow and lip gloss and painted up one side of his face.
After cleaning everything up I know two things:
Cleaning lip gloss off of cheeks isn’t easy to do after it has been left on for several hours
Next time I go shopping I will need to pick up some new makeup and a locking case to keep it in
Santa!
I love that I can wear flip flops in December
This picture is for Jen.
Waiting for Candy
Last week Missy watched the boys so I could go get stitches. Normally when she watches the boys they are little angels for her. Not this time.
She had two ‘incidents’ with them. The first one was when she took a minute to use the bathroom. She heard them sliding the kitchen chair across the floor and hurried out to see what they were getting into. She found them both standing on the chair looking in the freezer. Charlie saw her and jumped down and said “Oh crap, get down Noah Franklin!”
A little later Charlie told her he had to go pee (he says ‘Gotta go pee!’) She took him to the bathroom and while she was back there she heard Noah pushing the chair again. She rushed out before he could get into anything and left Charlie on the potty. Charlie shut and locked the door behind her. Missy said she started to panic because she didn’t know what was in there that he could get into and apparently didn’t remember the number to poison control (1-800-222-1222). She tried to coax him to open the door for several minutes before he finally came out…wearing makeup.
I hope she will still watch the boys for us. They really love their Mimi-Nano.
On Saturday Sam was working in Adel. Some Good Samaritan found a puppy playing in the road was going to take it to the pound. The pound wasn’t open so they, for some reason, brought it to the ambulance station. Sam called me and wanted me to take it home and look for the owners.
When I got to the station, I saw Sam was in love with this puppy. It was a black lab. I knew I was on the losing end of the battle. I made it very clear I would post a couple of ads on Craigslist and try to find the owners, if no owners claimed the dog then we would give it away. I made it clear I didn’t want a puppy.
The first night with puppy went well. He didn’t bark or whine all night. The owners didn’t claim him, but I had several folks interested in adopting him. I told Sam the good news…and he got all bummed out. He really wanted to keep him…so after much deliberation we decided to keep him. Sam got to name him, so Jethro it is. (Aren’t you so glad I picked out the boy’s names?? If Sam had his way we would have Kyle and Mark or two other yucky names.)
We didn’t have any puppy supplies, so Sunday morning I went to the dollar store to get some stuff. I had to go to Valdosta this morning so I ran to Wal-Mart to get everything else Jethro needed. When I got home I started un-packing everything. I was trying to get the leash off of the packaging and couldn’t find the scissors so I grabbed a knife and tried to cut the ties off. I somehow missed and ended up stabbing myself in the hand.
I got myself between my pointer and middle finger. It was basically big hole that I knew a band-aid wouldn’t fix. I ended up being able to just go to my family doctor and had to get stitches. Well, it ended up just being one stitch. I could have used a few more but the numbing medicine didn’t work on me (surprise, surprise) so I just got one.
So, somehow, getting the boys a puppy led me to get stitches. I just hope they like him. REALLY like him.
The other day Sam found an old Nintendo at a shop in Valdosta. This afternoon he decided he was going to teach Charlie how to play Duck Hunt.
I was surprised a game from 1984 still works!!
Showing him how is works
Remember this guy?
Showing him some aiming techniques
Success!
They call this a choo-choo train.
Charlie is under that basket. Noah love to 'catch' him. 
Happy birthday, Noah! We love you!
This morning we tried my first idea—pony beads and pipe cleaners. I sat the boys at the table and showed them how to string the beads on. The pipe cleaners are fuzzy enough so the beads will not fall off. Charlie knows his colors well, so this activity re-enforced colors and worked on counting. I didn’t think Noah would be able to get the beads on, but he surprised us and enjoyed counting to three over and over again and got a good introduction to colors.
An added bonus: they sat for 15 minutes playing with the beads.
I will have to start spending more time looking for activities that they can do at this age. They both enjoyed the challenge and were so proud of themselves once they got the hang of it!
