I'm Suprised He Didn't Come Out Holding a PBR And Watching Nascar.

For the first three years of my career in parenting, life was all about a girl. A dresses-nail polish-Barbies-playing beauty salon-sweet powdery smelling girl. That is all I knew of parenthood, the endless hours playing dress up and letting her put makeup on me until I resembled a car accident survivor. I marveled at how this girl seemed to be born with the innate knowledge of what to do with a blush brush and how to spin around and make her skirt twirl like a fairy and how to find the most glittery, pink item in a toy store. So, too, do boys. Apparently. As Charlie rapidly moves from Baby to Boy, I am in awe of how much like a little MAN he is. There are no gentle caresses for a baby doll. Baby Doll gets thrown across the room or gets her head smashed into the wall repeatedly. As a member of The Gentler Sex, Ella was content to sit and play with her shape sorter for an hour, actually trying to figure out where the pieces fit. Charlie? Holds said shape sorter over his head and bounces up and down, bangs the pieces into another toy, and then grunts and yells like Tarzan. I knew going into this that boys and girls are different from one another, but I don't think I was fully prepared for just how different they can be. I give you Exhibits A-E to display how little boys are just tiny little men.

A. He is obsessed with The Junk. I believe Ella was a few days shy of her third birthday before she realized, hey! there is something down there! Charlie grabs incessantly at the bits during every diaper change.

B. He doesn't pay attention to one thing for more than three seconds. One minute he's playing with his car, the next he's all "Hey! Let's go knock some crap over!" It is vaguely reminiscent of my conversations with the hubs: "Hon, could you take the trash to the curb, it's..." "Yeah, sure...WHOA! Golf is on! Score."

C. He wants a woman (ie. ME) to do everything for him. Why make the effort to lift that Cheerio to your own mouth when there's a woman to do it for you? Holding your own bottle? Psssh, Mom's got that covered. Any day now he'll start leaving the new toilet paper roll propped up ON TOP OF THE OLD, EMPTY CARDBOARD ROLL.

D. His feet stink. I'm not sure what this is all about, as he doesn't wear shoes yet, and they stink first thing in the morning, when the last thing they have touched is sweet smelling bath water the night before. I now firmly believe that men are born with a stink gene that makes this possible.

E. He grunts and yells and is about three seconds away from pounding on his chest and yelling "MORE POWER!" a la Tim Taylor The Tool Guy.

But he sure is cute, and there truly is nothing else like the snuggles that he reserves for only me.




It might look like he is playing in the yard, but he was actually about to crawl inside to get on the couch, scratch his crotch, burp, and then watch football.

Like Cats and Dogs.

Like cats and Dogs, my kids are. On so many levels, in so many ways.

The fighting. Has gotten ridiculous here. Charlie will be holding a toy and magically, all of the sudden, Ella NEEEEEDS it NOW. She will absolutely cease to exist if she cannot have the green alligator-shaped baby rattle this very instant. She doesn't know how she has survived up to this point without this rattle. And Charlie? He feels the exact same way. I got a scary glimpse into the next, oh, four years this weekend. Ella was playing with her Magna Doodle, drawing and writing and having fun. Charlie decided he needed the magnet pen part thingy right that second. He grabbed at it and got it. Mommy told him no, and took it away from him to give back to Ella. Again. And again. Repeat twelve times. Finally, after the thirteenth time of being reprimanded and shot down in his attempts to steal the magnet pen, Charlie got a look of resolve on his face. Stuck out his bottom lip, knitted his brow, and crawled over behind Ella. And bit her on the ass. Yes, at a few days shy of eleven months old, Charlie has become A Biter, the most dreaded of playground playmates. I didn't know what to do first: laugh hysterically (which I did), tell Chrlie NO, or tend to the now hysterical victim of his drive-by biting.I was doing the Trying To Hide It Because It Is SOOO Not Funny But, Hey, It Kinda Is laugh, Charlie started laughing because I was laughing, and Ella was sobbing because in addition to just having been bit on her butt cheek, she thought we were laughing at her.

It's gonna be a loooong four years.

We're heading into Fall as a family of four for the first time. Crap, that sentence had a lot of Fs in it. Anyway, there is no shortage of Fall activities to keep us busy, and busy we are. Halloween parties, visits to the pumpkin patch, Fall bonfire parties to attend, and the list goes on and on. All of this on top of our everyday nonsense...school, cleaning, playing short order cook to two kids on a daily basis, laundry and laundry and laundry that never ends. So until things slow down a bit, here are some photos of what we've been up to lately.

Finger painting outside on one of our old moving boxes and leaves and anything else Ella could find. ***I take no credit for the outfit she is wearing here. She came home from my mom's house in it. And I promptly declared it Messy Arts And Crafts Day! Hooray!***







Halloween Party.



I heard Ella SCREAMING from the bathroom a few days ago, yelling, "OH MY GOSH Mom, we have NEVER seen this kind of animal in here before!" You can imagine how quickly I ran in to the bathroom to see what she was talking about. A squirrel? A snake? Or was this merely one of Ella's overactive imagination scenarios in which there is perhaps a unicorn in the shower that is her new best friend? Nope. There was an actual, slimy Lizard Thing in the toilet. I screamed, and then flushed the sucker. Ella cried because in the 2.6 seconds it took me to run in there, she had apparently named it. Steve.



Charlie, being cute. And planning on swiping some candy from another kid at the Halloween party.



Playing outside and taking as many photos as I can before Ella crosses her arms and storms away because she's "Mommy always just take pictures and NEVER EVER plays with her". Dramatic much.





I got these of Charlie:






And then he gave me this look:



And I knew it was time to stop.

And one more for good measure.