George Washington's Lap

A couple days ago the boys and I were driving down the GW Parkway, and as we approached Mount Vernon, I told them that we were about to drive by George Washington's house. Caleb got very excited and asked, "want to go sit on George Washington's lap?" I explained to him that he couldn't because George Washington died a long time ago, but the boys have yet to grasp the concept of death, so he's asked again several times since then. He probably got the idea because recently we have been talking about sitting on Santa Claus' lap this Christmas, and the boys have assured me that this year they would sit on his lap and not cry. We'll see whether or not they follow through... I for one am not placing any bets. Anyway, I guess the boys have assumed that you're supposed to sit on the lap of any old man with white hair. When you look at the world through the eyes of an almost-4-year-old, you realize that a lot of our cultural norms are really pretty strange.

In other news, you should once again be able to leave comments on our blog. I know that most of you are silent lurkers, but comments are always welcome and appreciated!

Mischief at 8 Months

Moses is now 8 months old and is getting into everything. His favorite variety of mischief is playing with his brothers' shoes. Caleb has become quite the tattle-tale, frequently informing me that "Moses is touching the shoe" or "Moses is eating paper." It amazes me how the complusion to tell on one's siblings is so innate, since I'm sure that no one explicitly taught him to do this. I guess Caleb feels it's his duty as the eldest to keep his younger brothers in line. Joshua likes to keep me up-to-date on Moses' activities, as well, but his reports usually have a more positive spin, such as, "Mommy, Moses stood up," which actually happens so frequently now that Joshua doesn't even bother telling me about it most of the time anymore.

Sometimes Moses surprises us with other forms of mischief, such as the other day when I found him sitting on the kitchen floor sprinkled with a flaky green substance. Upon closer inspection I determined that he used his four enormous teeth to bite through a tea bag. After all, how could he have resisted something that so closely resembles his favorite delicacy, paper? Then today we caught him standing at the toilet, happily splish-splashing away. Miraculously, the toilet and toilet water were relatively clean, which isn't often the case in our one-bathroom house where two little boys have recently learned to pee standing up. To give you an idea of the kind of abuse our toilet suffers, the twins' favorite thing to do is stand at the toilet side by side and "make a cross" with their pee streams. But I digress. I'm sure we sent splash-happy Moses mixed signals when I asked Joe to go run and grab the camera and snap a few pictures while he was still in the act!

Moses is so much different than his big brothers were at this age. In addition to putting everything in his mouth (we were thankfully spared this common phenomenon when the twins were babies), being a lot bigger (he now wears the same clothes the twins wore when they were walking), and being developmentally advanced, he also seems much happier and is always smiling. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that he sleeps much longer stretches than his brothers did at this age. Moses also seems to have abandoned typical baby babbling and instead prefers to communicate by growling. The first time I heard him growling I could have sworn there was a grown man in the room, but no, it was our sweet Moses. It probably doesn't help that I tend to growl back at him, while hugging and kissing him, of course. I'm sure he now thinks this is a normal way to communicate!

Daddy Slop

In light of the cold, rainy weather we've been having recently, we decided that a dinner of homemade chili--something we haven't had since last winter--would hit the spot. So I threw a batch together, and when the boys came home from preschool this afternoon, Joshua peered into the crockpot and proclaimed, "it's daddy slop."

"What's that?" I asked, confused. "Daddy slop", Joshua reiterated. And then it hit me. The chili looked exactly like the sloppy Joes filling that I often cook for dinner, and of course Joshua is well aware that his daddy's name is Joe. From now on I think we'll have a new name for sloppy Joes in our household!

And now for a slightly less palatable anecdote from today. I asked the boys what they did at school, and as usual the first thing to come to mind was what they had for snack. Caleb told me that he ate crackers and oranges, and that the worms ate oranges, too. At first I thought he was making stuff up, and then remembered catching a glimpse of a new addition to their classroom--a worm composting bin. The children must have put their orange peels in the composting bin after snacktime. Caleb then went on to tell me that "the worms look like red spaghetti." Lovely. I think I'll stick to daddy slop for the time being ;)

Hummus Tummus

One of the great things about the boys' preschool is that the parents take turns bringing in healthy snacks to share, and the children serve themselves family-style. While I think I'm pretty good about exposing to (or should I say "forcing upon") the boys a variety of healthy foods, there are some things I've never bothered with, one of those being hummus. Yesterday's school snack consisted of whole wheat bagels, carrot sticks, and hummus. Much to my surprise, Mrs. Lavergne reported to me that Caleb, who is usually suspicious of new foods, simply couldn't get enough of those smushed chick peas. Joshua, of course, wanted nothing to do with the stuff. So after school I asked Caleb, "what did you eat at school today?" and he told me he ate, "bagels, carrots, and tummus."

"Tummus?" I asked. "Don't you mean 'hummus'?"

Caleb grinned and replied, "No, Mommy. Tummus. Tummus Jefferson!"