Another dozen trips to Home Depot later...

Thing 1 and 2 are in the other room watching TV. I can hear their conversation through the open door. Thing 2 becomes inordinately upset and is wailing about a line on her foot. Thing 1 looks at it and says it’s just a line, just a wrinkle on your foot. Thing 2 says but I don’t want a line on my foot! Why is it there? Thing 1 says “It’s just the way Jesus made you.”

For anyone else this would be normal, not particularly noticeable conversation. But for me, who has too long ignored my children’s religious upbringing, this brings joy to my heart. Somewhere along the line, from Church, from reading, or from me, Thing 1 has indeed picked up a little bit of religion.

This morning Two was quite excited about breakfast. She grabbed the Nestle strawberry milk powder from the pantry and galloped with it to the table. However the lid was not snapped on tightly and in her galloping, she was exuberantly tossing the container around as she galloped, the lid flipped off and about ¼ of a large container of pink powder went all over the floor, which she skidded on, and all over her clothes. Her response, not too unexpectedly, was to start to wail. No matter how many times she is encouraged to not wail as a first response, it is still her first response to anything the least bit negative.

Hubby came back from Italy on Sunday. The girls and I spent most of the previous week in Logan, culminating in a couple of days on Bear Lake with my brother’s family. The girls had a fabulous time, I think their favorite part was riding on the chariot innertube thing with Megan. But they really enjoyed jumping on the trampoline, riding in the boat, and playing in the water. We wore them down to the nub and even Thing 1, who isn’t much of a napper, fell asleep in the boat for a couple of hours. All in all they just had a fabulous time.

Speaking of which, when we were in Logan my uncle Glade and Aunt Vicki came up for a reunion the next day and since we were looking for a babysitter so I could go to the play with Kristin that night, we asked them to babysit. They said everything went well, but thought the girls exceptionally funny and cute. Glade was particularly amused when something happened that pleased Thing 2 and she said it was Fabulous. Apparently they’re not used to three year olds calling things Fabulous.

I came home and put up the 2nd tarp on the fort, so now both sections have shade. This was a no-question requirement for me, as the sun beating down really warmed up the decking, and from about 10:00 a.m. on the higher slide section was directly in the sun, and as the sun moved across the sky, the too-hot-to-stand-on section just got bigger and bigger. Yesterday we all had lunch on the fort about 2:00 pm. before Hubby left, and the whole deck was in the shade. I am very pleased with how the fort turned out. There are about three things left to do: We need to buy and dump in three or so more bags of sand. The two person swing needs to be put on, but I’m not sure I’m going to get to that. The rails are half nice redwood posts, and half shanty-looking cedar planks, but I don’t know if or when that will ever be taken care of. The grassy area below the slide level ought to be planked over with some decking as it is too small to mow, but that might not ever happen either. And finally, there is an issue with the lawn back there. I broke the sprinkler pipe when I was getting ready to lay the sod, and Hubby hasn’t had time to fix it so right now we’re hand watering it. The problem is it’s hard to get out there to do it every couple of days. The other problem is the kids are out there a lot and they’re pretty hard on the grass. In a perfect world we would lay down some sort of rubber chips or sawdust or something, but I don’t know if or when that will happen.

Must Haves

Thing 1 woke me up at 7:30 this morning demanding help to find some weird little bag that my sister had given them filled with toys at Easter. Thing 2 had found one downstairs and had been carrying it around and suddenly this morning Thing 1 woke up the whining and calling that I MUST go down and help her find it. I dragged my feet, knowing the thing was probably not there, and resenting being dragged out of bed for something so inane.

They’ve been just great lately. I’ve been so busy assembling this family cookbook and I’ve been ignoring them to do it. They’ve had to watch more TV, and entertain themselves more than usual.

I did want to write down some funny things they’ve said:

One of the student teachers at Thing 1’s school told me they’d gone on a field trip, looking for rocks, or bugs, or something, and Thing 1 had looked up at the mountain behind the University and told her it is “the Big Stone Mountain of Many Colors.” She said it had a lot of snakes on it, “Snakes of Many Colors.” But not to be afraid, because they’re nice. The girl also told me that they’d been having a unit on Dirt at school, and when asked what dirt felt like, Thing 1 had gotten thoughtful for a moment, and then announced “it feels like Salsa.” The student teacher had found this particularly amusing. I guess most of the other students answers hadn’t been nearly so entertaining. I told her Thing 1 is not a big condiment eater and I am not sure how she even knows that word.

She never says “Remember” it’s always “Benember.”

We were coming down the stairs one morning all together and Thing 2 was chattering on endlessly like she sometimes does. Thing 1 was coming down next to her, one step at a time on her bum and says, completely bored and uninterested, “I see. I see.” She was so obviously just placating Thing 2 I thought it was quite funny.