Warms the heart

Afternoons are the best time of day when I pick up the kids. When I greet them at the door of their classrooms, they are just a-runnin' up to me with smiles. With their arms out and high-pitched squeals of delight - I am just in heaven to hug them so close after a long day of work. It's certainly moments and days like these that I'm ever thankful for their unconditional love and affection. Even though they are getting much smarter each day, one thing they can count on is that mommy and daddy love them with all our hearts. My heart is filled with love and joy just thinking about them and how they make me feel when the work-day is done is indescribe-able.

Clap Your Hands

Last night, we put our little fella to bed and he fell asleep pretty quick. I knew that would be a bad sign...he didn't drink much of his milk, fussed quite a bit, and then just fell asleep pretty quickly. About an hour later, as the hubby and I were just chillin' on the couch, we heard him start to stir. At first, he cried, and then he got a little bit louder. About five minutes in, we heard something completely strange and it caught us off guard. We of course rushed to the room to find he was standing up, and clapping his hands.

You see, most recently, we've been trying to have him sign when he wants "more" of something. That looks very much like clapping hands - so - he was standing up, clapping his hands. He has equated the "more" sign with his milk and was feverishly asking for more milk. We both giggled a bit, and happily gave him his sippy cup of milk. He downed the sucker and then fell back asleep. Unfortunately for daddy, he didn't stay asleep, but that hand clapping was quite amusing.

At 2 a.m., he was up again and daddy came to the rescue. I was so tired, I didn't hear a darn thing. The alarm went off early at 6 a.m. and I couldn't believe the night had just flown by. I think I had some very weird dreams, but that would have to be an entirely different post altogether.

Truthful Toddler

Last night, I made tacos for the family. Tacos are such a great, easy meal that everyone loves. My little girl will down three whole tacos for dinner - and that says a lot. Even Y will devour a bowl-full of taco meat and cheese. The whole family loves it so much that they didn't even complain when I switched to using ground turkey instead of ground beef. What was interesting about last night's dinner is a great story.

On our way home, I told Roo that I would be making her favorite tacos. She then says plainly, "but don't burn the tacos mommy." You see, just a few weeks back, when I was making a batch of tacos, I was seriously multi-tasking...the meat was simmering, I was chopping up lettuce and tomatoes and threw the shells in our toaster oven. All the while, I was getting the kids some yogurt or fruit to eat. About 10 minutes into all of this - I smell the shells a-burnin' in the toaster oven. Blast! The darn things were burnt to a crisp and there was a small fire within the toaster oven...(something about me and burning things in appliances)! So of course, that was fresh in her mind...well not as fresh....but she still remembered. So she just politely reminded me to not burn them.

After dinner, she thoughtfully said, "Good job mommy. I'm so proud of you for not burning the tacos."

Who wouldn't want to bottle up that cuteness and not just love her brutal honesty?