We love Nutella around here. If you've never tried it before, I highly recommend it. Just be aware that it is a highly addictive substance, it comes in a tiny jar, and if you eat too much of it, you'll be as big as a barn in no time.

Eliza had her first encounter with Nutella the other day.

 Eliza, meet Nutella on whole wheat.

Nutella, meet Eliza.

Besides being highly delectable, Nutella also makes a lovely false beard if you want to impersonate your daddy.

I just can't stop taking pictures of Eliza, no matter what she's eating. You'd think I'd be over the whole cute-kid-eating-and-making-a-mess thing, but I'm not. I love me a messy baby eating spaghetti.

And Eliza?  She loves her some Brian Williams. Really. He draws her like a moth to a flame.

I prefer Nutella, personally.

This was the scene this morning as I gazed out of my (very dirty) living room window.

Haven't we done this before?

Yep. Same scene, November 2007.

The same two guys fixed our water line today. The baby-faced backhoe driver has grown a beard over the past two years, which is reassuring. When you have a man directing heavy equipment that near to your house, you like to know they've made it through puberty.

This time, we had not just one leak, but two. Apparently, we have some sort of strange soil chemistry that caused the brand new copper water line to corrode, pit and leak like a sieve. Lucky us!

The good news about all of this? After it was all over, we had easy access to lots of freshly dug soil to use for our "worm parfait" science experiment.

Hopefully the night crawlers will survive. They're hardy creatures, but you've got to wonder what is in soil that burns holes through metal.  

You'd best back away from the dirt, guys.

Since my only sister was seven years younger than me, I've always watched Lydia and Abigail's relationship with a sense of curiousity. Sure, I have a brother near my age, but it's not quite the same as having a sibling of the same gender. I never would have dreamed of shooting Legos at him with a crossbow, and he certainly wouldn't play Barbies with me. Now, had I suggested that he shoot my Barbies with Legos from his crossbow, we would have been in business.

Lydia and Abigail, however, are two peas in a pod. Abigail makes sure of that. When Lydia plays soccer...

Abigail joins in, too.

Unfortunately, they were on separate teams this year. Abigail was NOT happy, but then again her idea of playing soccer mainly consists of wrestling with her friends on the team. She got over it.

Lydia loves to read. She can read an entire 150 page book in one sitting.

So guess what? Abigail wants to learn to read, too. She's making great progress, with big sis helping along the way.

Naturally the sisters love to dress alike.

On multiple occasions.

Yep, Abigail tries to imitate Lydia in about every way possible.

And Eliza? She also emulates one of her big sisters. She'll crawl on top of anything and everything.

She'll attack from behind and give sloppy kisses and bear hugs.

And now there's the matter of a certain red monster...

I only hope Abigail will be as patient with this little mimic as Lydia is with her.

Abigail's lovely handwriting adorns art projects and pieces of paper throughout our house. This prize example:

is her attempt to phonetically spell "Jesus". Good job Christa and Kim!

Now for Halloween.

Abigail and Lydia were allowed to choose any costume they liked other than anything scary. We don't do scary Halloween around here. (If it were up to me, we wouldn't do Halloween at all, but I'm a party pooper. ) 

Abigail dressed up as Thumbelina, which is her favorite story in the Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales book from Core P 3/4. I can't count how many times I've read that story to her and now she has an outfit to match.

Plus this costume has the whole princess/fairy vibe that Abigail digs.

Lydia, on the other hand, thinks she has outgrown princesses. She's almost 7, you know, which is almost 10. When you're 10, you're practically a teenager and that is grown-up. So she picked a costume that reflects her desire to bend the rules.

Here's Daphne from "Scooby Doo."

"Scooby Doo is merely spooky, Mom. It's not scary."

And last is Eliza. She didn't get a choice and instead had to wear a twice-handed down costume.

"My mom made me dress up like this." Her expression says it all.

Miss Abigail created this lovely piece of artwork yesterday.

Here's a close-up of the title:

Any guesses as to the word Abigail was trying to spell?

Answer in an upcoming blog post.  

We need a name for Baby 4.0. No, not his real name. We've had a boy name picked out for at least five years. What we really need is a nickname to call him before he makes his debut this winter, just as we've done with the girls before him.

We didn't know whether Lydia was going to be a boy or girl. I think I got an ultrasonographer on his first day on the job. Either that or he got his diploma from one of those correspondence schools they used to advertise on late night TV. Basically all the ultrasound showed was there appeared to be an alien life form, of unknown gender, living somewhere in my abdominal region. So until Lydia was born, we called her the generic name of "Spud".

But what a cute little Spud she was.

Abigail went by "Spud II" until we found out her gender. We pretty much dropped calling her "Spud II" in favor of "Baby Abigail". This caused a problem since we were trying to keep her name a secret until she was born. One of the grandparents asked Lydia what the baby's name was. Lydia was two at the time and as loquacious then as now, so she spilled the beans.

Good thing she was still cute.

And so would be "Spud II".

Soon after we moved into our current house, I started teasing Lydia and Abigail when I tucked them in.

"Goodnight, Lydia. Goodnight Abigail," I'd say.

 As I turned off their light and shut the door, I'd whisper "Goodnight Sparky."

The kids had no idea WHY I was saying goodnight to someone named Sparky. Sadly, they have been deprived of a classic 1980s Sesame Street skit about a dog named Sparky that pretended to be an alligator after the lights are turned out. After we found out we were expecting Eliza, the name Sparky stuck.

We learned our lesson from the Baby Abigail incident and Eliza went by the name of Sparky until well after she was born. Sparky actually is completely inappropriate as a nickname for Eliza.  "Happy" would have been more fitting for a laid-back kid whose first two words were "hi" and "hug".

So what about the latest little one? I've been calling him Baby 4.0, but that seems a bit... clinical. Or at the least impersonal. No nickname really seems to fit.

I thought about using one of the girls' nicknames for each other for when they "play baby". We've had babies named Peto, Goulash, Burrito, and Bootiole. Lee, however, objects to calling his son "Bootiole".  I'm not sure why.

In some sort of medical inside joke, Lee has been calling Baby 4.0 "Baby Dendrite". The girls call him this as well, though they don't know a dendrite from dandruff.

What do you think? 4.0? Burrito? Dendrite?

She's adventurous.

That would be a sheep's rear end that she's trying to pet.

And this is a lorikeet she's feeding.

She's fun-loving.

She's an all-star in front of the camera.

No one else noticed I was taking a picture, but Abigail has a sixth sense for camera lenses.

She's tolerant of others, even big sisters who try to "help" her blow out her candles.

Our  little Abigail Grace is four years old.

Happy Birthday, Abs!

When she saw that Lee and I were looking at the headstone Lydia created for Dorothy's grave, Abigail shouted:

"I want to see Dorothy in the gravy!"

Sometimes people ask me if I ever get bored staying home with the kids. My answer is an emphatic "NO!". My friends from high school and college who have high-powered careers may not get it, but being a stay-at-home mom is both challenging and delightful. Well, sometimes it doesn't feel very delightful, but those times are fewer than you may expect.

Take for example the recent loss of our goldfish, Dorothy.

The little shrimpy thing took ill and passed on to her reward.

Lydia took it upon herself to handcraft a coffin and plan a funeral, complete with Bible readings and hymns.  

Traumatic, yes. Dull, no. Thankfully our other goldfish, Elmo, is thriving.

Speaking of trauma, who would have thought that watching a hot air ballon deflate would cause a child to have a serious case of the vapors?  

Abigail thought that the deflating balloon was dying and began to howl.

Luckily, Lydia was able to explain to her what was really happening.

And when all three girls get together?  There may be bloodshed, there may be tears, but it is never dull.

Lydia put Eliza in her toy shopping cart and wheeled her all around the basement.

They had a blast.

Watching your children grow and play together is priceless.

I had my ultrasound appointment today.  I'll let the pictures do the talking.

Life is about to change around here!

There is a downside to teaching your 3 year old how to write her letters:

She may decide to practice writing them

with marker  

on a wall

in a hallway

that is painted with flat, decidedly non-scrubbable paint.

Just so you know. The bright side is that she has admirable penmanship.

Posted in Homeschooling

We're a fairly science-y bunch of people around here. Lee majored in chemistry and human biology, plus he's got that whole doctor thing going for him. I managed to graduate college without taking any science classes, unless you count the classroom management class I took as animal science. Nevertheless, l value and enjoy teaching science to the girls.

We had been using Sonlight's  science curriculum. We really enjoy Sonlight in general, but their science program leaves me cold. For one thing, the experiments they schedule have absolutely no correlation to the readings assigned along with it. Each year's curriculum also consists of a sprinkling of many different topics, rather than a more focused exploration of a particular area of science.

I recently found the perfect curriculum for us: REAL Science Odyssey(RSO).

 We've really enjoyed the past six weeks we've used their Life Science curriculum. Why?

1) It is classical.

RSO follows the classical model and consists of a four-year cycle: life science, earth science and astronomy, chemistry, and physics. Each child will complete the cycle three times over their education, building on previous foundations and going in greater depth each time. RSO is a work in progress. Only the first three years have been published, but Pandia Press continues to add titles.

RSO makes a point to introduce scientific terminology, the scientific method, and mathematics even at the lowest level.  

2) It is easy.

It's a no-brainer for mom. I pull out our science notebook and we're off.

Ah, direct, fool-proof instructions.

It is a good thing that it is such a no-brainer, because I frequently feel like I literally have no brains. When you add in pregnancy hormones, I'm down right dangerous.

3) The experiments are relevant to the readings and are fun.

For example, when we learned about plant and animal cells we made cells out of jello. Recently we've been studying the circulatory system and one of our labs was making a jar of blood.

The blood actually consists of these items:

Once she made the blood model, Lydia colored and labeled the different components of blood on her lab sheet.

Easy, fun, and comprehensive. That pretty much sums up RSO.  

"I'm waiting for my Medicare."

-Lydia, playing "spa" with Abigail and trying to request a manicure.

Do you think she may be responsible for the Obama Health Care plan?

When Abigail met Elmo

The last stop on our vacation was Sesame Place, a Sesame Street-themed park in Langhorne, PA. Honestly, the park is a bit of a rip-off. It is very, very expensive and you don't get as much for your dollar as you do at the other places we visited. But when you have a child like this

reason goes out the window and to Sesame Place you go.

During the majority of our vacation we experienced great weather and managable crowds. The day we visited Sesame Place, it was both sweltering and very crowded.

I never could get my folks corralled to get their picture taken here. So let's pretend those random people on the steps are related to us somehow.

The girls really enjoyed riding this roller coaster. Can you spot Lee and Abigail above? 

There were a variety of other rides.

The highlight of the day for Abigail, however, was meeting Abby Cadabby

and who else? Prior to our visit, Abigail had asked me to get a carseat for Elmo so that he could come home with us. I guess she was too tongue-tied to ask him once she finally met him.

Abigail was so Elmo-struck that she forgot to adequately hug and kiss him. We returned for a second visit so she could get her fill.

One of the other highlights of the day was the "Elmo's World" show. Just prior to entering the theatre, Abigail, in her typical accident-prone fashion, wiped out and banged up her knee. I took her to the rest room to repair the damage while Lee took Lydia and Abigail into the theatre. Right after they took their seats, the ushers asked for volunteers and Lydia was selected to play a crucial role in the show.

Behold the "Fishy Friends" doing their best fish imitations. Lydia is in front of the piano.

She danced with "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle" as well.

Needless to say, this made Abigail just a wee bit jealous. She's still quite bitter about the subject. Bring it up at your peril.

The majority of Sesame Place actually consists of water rides. I was worn out by the heat, so Eliza and I sought refuge in an air-conditioned restaurant while Lee and the big girls enjoyed themselves. After a full day, we packed up and began the journey home.

The trip home took another two days and was fairly unremarkable. When we returned home, however, Lee loaded the photos from the girls' digital cameras on the computer and found these:  

OK, Lydia's entertaining herself by taking her own picture. Pretty straightforward.

But how did she take this picture? (And about 4 others where it is obvious she is not holding the camera.) Weird.

I've always said that child was scary.

So that's that. I'm tired of blogging about our vacation and I'm sure my readers are tired of reading about it! Next time I'll return to blogging about my normal random topics.

Three Little Mermaids Visit Dutch Wonderland

Lee adores swimming, but unfortunately he is so busy that he doesn't get to do it as often as he would like. On our vacation, however, he indulged his passion for the water and swam at least once a day.  

The girls loved it, too. Abigail became quite an expert floater.

Abigail is completely fearless about most things, water included. She was quite miffed when she found out that she was too young for swimming lessons. She will be able to take them next summer and I predict she'll be a champ in no time.

Eliza enjoyed the water as well.

She's wearing the adorable lady bug swim suit her Aunt Kayla bought.

I love this picture.

The next stop on our vacation was Dutch Wonderland. Dutch Wonderland is an amusement park located in Lancaster, PA that is specifically designed for families with younger children. It was a perfect fit for the ages of our girls.

 Abigail is always willing to pose by whatever tourist-y object I found.

There are lots and lots of kid-friendly rides.

Because I am pregnant, Lee got the fun of riding all the kiddie rides with the girls.

 Somehow I don't think he minded.

 Dutch Wonderland also has a small waterpark attached.

Apparently this slide is pitch black inside. The girls did not enjoy it.

They found plenty of other things they did enjoy doing, though.

We spent the entire day at Dutch Wonderland and then drove to north Philly. Our destination? Sesame Place. Abigail's world would never be the same.

Stay tuned for the final installment: When Abigail Met Elmo

Posted in Whatever

to bring you a taste of what we've been up to around here when I'm not posting lengthy blog entries.

Baby 4.0

As of today, I am nearly 15 weeks pregnant. Everything is going great. My last pregnancy was  difficult at times, but so far I feel fabulous. Most of the time I can't even tell that I am pregnant - other than the fact that my belly is popping like a can of biscuits. And also because Lee gives me a shot in my abdomen every day.

Those three PEs I developed last year means that I need to have a blood thinner injected every morning. The girls love to gather around and watch the daily show. I should start charging admission. It's really not a big deal except my muffin top is starting to look like a blueberry muffin since I have so many bruises.

A New School Year

On the Monday following our return from Pennsylvania, we officially started our new school year.

Lydia is proud to be a first grader.

Abigail is now an official preschooler.

To celebrate our new year, I bought the girls leis, stickers, and Hot Tamales. You'd be surprised what these girls will do for a Hot Tamale or two.

Swimming Lessons

That same day, Lydia began a week of swimming lessons.

Lydia remains a little hesitant about treading water or swimming where the water is too deep for her to touch the bottom of the pool.

She made really good progress, though. By the end of the five lessons, Lydia could dive for rings at the bottom of the pool and does a passable front crawl.

RIP Pharaoh Fruitenkamen

After a month of drying time, our favorite dead Egyptian fruit conglomerate, Pharaoh Fruitenkamen, was ready for his burial.

He was wrapped in linen bandages and slathered with copious amounts of resin (ie. Elmer's glue).

Behold the mummy!

The next step was to craft a cartonnage coffin for ol' Fruity.

Nice and messy. It involved making a paste out of flour and water and gluing pieces of brown paper towel on a cardboard box.

After it dried, Lydia painted it. Here is the finished product:

We are still studying about Ancient Egypt, but the remaining projects we have are less messy. Bonus!

The girls get pets

Our county fair was a week ago. Despite the fact that we had just returned from a vacation spent mainly at theme parks, we still went and enjoyed the rides. Abigail is still too little to ride some of the more exciting rides, so she hung out with me while Lee and Lydia rode on the Ferris Wheel. Her little pouting face was too much for me to take, so when she asked to go and play a game to win a goldfish, I couldn't say no.

Could you resist that face? She turns me into mush.  

The problem is that we actually won a goldfish. The shrimpy little thing was promptly named Dorothy, after Elmo's goldfish on Sesame Street. 

I did a little research on the Internet and found out that goldfish really aren't supposed to be housed in goldfish bowls, much less mixing bowls on my kitchen counter. Somebody better tell Elmo quick before he getsPETA on his case. So we made a trip to the Pet Store and bought a small aquarium and this guy.

Any guesses as to his name?

Elmo and Dorothy have settled in quite comfortably in their new home. Now, these are the kind of pets that I can handle. They are clean and do not chew on shoes or shed on my furniture. They don't make messes and there is no danger of stepping in their poop.

Come to think of it,  maybe they can teach the girls a thing or two.

Goodbye Hershey, Hello Hands-On House

One of the challenges of using Lee's CME conference as our family vacation is that Lee has to spend a lot of time in class. After all, the reason the hospital was paying for this little outing was so that Lee could hone his medical skills. That meant the girls and I had to find something to occupy our time.

We were randomly driving around Hershey when I spotted this enormous playground. Funnily enough, this same playground, "The Cocoa Castle", was featured on an episode of Jon and Kate Plus 8. Our family used to watch that show before they first became corporate shills and then degenerated into tabloid fodder. In fact, the vast majority of our vacation destinations were also featured on that show.

Whatever. The girls and I spent a morning there quite happily.

Little Abs is becoming an expert on the swing. Having your own swing set helps.

Lee's conference at the Hershey Lodge lasted for three days. Three chocolate-filled days.

Are you more likely to dream of chocolate if you hug a Hershey's Kiss?

   After it finished, it was time to say goodbye to Hershey (or as Abigail calls it, "Hiroshi").

We stopped by the lovely Hershey Gardens on our way out of town. They are magnificent. The smell of roses as you walk through the gardens is heavenly.

The gardens are on a hill and you get a great view of Hershey Park from there.

We decided to forego Hershey Park since its rides are geared towards older kids. I wasn't disappointed, but I think Lee got a little misty-eyed.

One of the best features of Hershey Gardens is its Children's Garden.

The kisses in this garden are a bit sneaky and squirt water as you pass by.

The Children's Garden also has a Butterfly House. I just couldn't bring myself to go in there. I have a long history of butterfly phobia. I don't think they are beautiful, I just think they are bugs. Bugs that fly erratically and want to alight on me. Therefore I sat outside and allowed the kids and Lee to enjoy it on their own.

I think Abigail looks a bit concerned.

See? This is what I knew would happen to me. If a butterfly landed on me, I'd run around and shriek. Then I'd cry. No one wants to see that.  

I guess they keep cocoons in this area. Does anyone else besides me find this really disgusting? Who wants to have the job of Cocoon gatherer and pinner?

(As an aside, we are supposed to raise butterflies from caterpillars as a vital part of our Life Science curriculum this year. I may need a prescription for tranquilizers before I let those ugly little crawlies in my house.)  

After we explored the rest of the garden,

We hit the road for Lancaster, PA. First stop: Hands-On House Childrens Museum.

The girls enjoyed painting their own faces.

Abigail cracked me up. She painted herself with a goatee just like Daddy!

Did you know that Abigail calls it a "donkey", not a goatee?

They "caught fish" and had to measure them to ensure they were a legal size.

They collected and sorted eggs.

Their favorite part was the grocery store. They were given a shopping list and they had to find all of the items.

Abigail put on a puppet show for Eliza

I think she liked it. Or maybe not. With that kind of expression, it's really hard to tell, isn't it?

Abigail built a masterpiece with blocks.

Lydia enjoyed working in the machine shop.

Lydia has had a bee in her bonnet about Red Lobster for sometime. Now, she's about the pickiest kid out there, but she insisted she wanted to try some shrimp. That evening in Lancaster, we relented.

And she loved it! She chose popcorn shrimp with a side of mashed potatoes. She doesn't normally eat mashed potatoes, either. We were all shocked. I even got Lee to try some of my scallops and lobster (he doesn't eat seafood), but we weren't on that much of a roll.  

After another busy day, the girls hit the sack. Sisterly bonding ensued.

 Some day, I'll be glad I have photographic evidence of this!

Coming up: Three little mermaids visit Dutch Wonderland

Our Vacation Continued: Adventures on the Farm

My favorite day of our vacation was the one in which we visited Cherry Crest Adventure Farm. It was a bit of a random addition to our itinerary and was not really very close to our hotel, but it is absolutely perfect for families with young children. They advertise "36 Farm Fun Activities for Everyone" and they deliver all that and more.

Abigail enjoyed interacting with the various animals in the Ag Ed area. Lydia, not so much.

I'm not brave enough to feed a goat by hand.

Goats have teeth, horns and gallons of drool. Other than the horns part, that sounds just like Eliza.

Does anyone else feel sorry for these poor, defenseless chicks? They had a table of them out for kids to hold. I know that after a long day of being squeezed by toddlers, I feel a bit peckish.

They serve freshly roasted sweet corn. Yummy!

There are wagon rides for little folks and for big ones as well.

The kids enjoyed tapping into their inner Danica Patrick on the peddle car race track.

Lee refrained from purposely knocking Lydia off the not-so mechanical bull ride.

Everyone enjoyed the jumping pillows. There was one for smaller children.

And another one for larger kids and kid-like adults. Lee was knocking kids down all over the place. Hey, they don't call him "Dr. Evil" at the hospital for nothing.  

The highlight of the day was going through the corn maze. It's huge!

In case you can't tell, it is in the shape of Pennsylvania. It covers 5 acres and contains 2 and 1/2 miles of paths. It's gigantic!

It's so big that they have a restroom and restaurant in the middle of the maze.

"Why are you taking a picture of me by a Porta Potty, Mommy?" 

There's more to the maze than just finding your way out. There are several checkpoints along the way and photo opportunities.

Lee is carrying a Colorado Rockies flag. They make every group that enters the maze carry a flag so that if you get lost, they can find you.

Considering we had three children with us, we made great time. We finished just over the record time for finishing the maze - about 1 hour and 40 minutes.

After a long, fun day on the farm, we drove back to Hershey. Abigail required a restorative burger to recover from her exertion.

I was glad it was dark so I couldn't see the mess she made!

Up next: Goodbye Hershey, Hello Hands-On House

Our family returned home yesterday after a week and a half long road trip to Pennsylvania. Lee had a CME conference, which meant our whole family got a vacation on the cheap. Bonus!

Lee and I have been to Pennsylvania several times before and think it is really beautiful. In fact, we considered several residency programs there before realizing that we are Midwesterners at heart. Believe it or not, Peoria, IL won out over Willamsport, PA! That was probably for the best since I don't think I could handle hearing people saying "youse guys" and dropping their "r"s (eg. "Take the stairs. It will be quickeh than the elevatah.") I guess I have little tolerance for dialectical variety, LOL!

It took us about 20 hours to drive to PA from our house here in Kansas. We split that over two days, but they were two very l-o-n-g days of driving.

Believe it or not, the best rider out of the three girls was this specimen.

She did pretty darn well for a 13 month old. Never once did she ask me if we were in Hershey yet.

When we were lucky, the backseat denizens looked like this:

We never did achieve getting all three of them asleep at the same time.

After two days, we finally arrived at our destination: the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, PA.

Hershey was built as a company town for the Hershey Chocolate, Co. As a result, it's an extremely chocolate-themed town. Take a look at these street lights.

Our hotel room was no exception to the Hershey-ness. Even the wallpaper had Hershey's kisses on it.

After checking into our hotel, we needed to eat. After 20 hours on the road, I was pretty frazzled. I really wanted to find a nice, quiet restaurant where we could have a peaceful, serene dinner.

What we found was a Friendly's.

They don't have Friendly's in Kansas. It's no loss to our fine state. That restaurant was more akin to Chuck E. Cheese than the peaceful restaurant I was envisioning.

We were fortuitously placed near the balloon animal station. Sigh.

And after the meal, the kids loaded up on sugar.

The kids loved it. I needed two Tylenols and a cold washcloth to the head afterwards.

After a truly peaceful night's sleep...

Lee attended his conference on cardiopulmonary diseases in the morning and the girls and I ate a lesuirely breakfast at one of the restaurants in our hotel. After breakfast, the girls met the York Peppermint Pattie.

Thankfully no one licked or bit this oversized candy. Trust me, I was worried. 

In the afternoon, we all went to Chocolate World, which is like an indoor theme park for Hershey's Chocolate.

We watched a 3D movie and then took the Chocolate Tour Ride. It simulates the process of making chocolate in the factory. I guess they won't allow the unwashed masses in to see the actual process.

(That was not a comment on Lee or Eliza's hygiene, BTW...)

Some of the singing cows featured on the ride.

The kids wanted to ride it again, but the line was enormous. We made our own Hershey bar wrappers instead.

 The final activity we did at Chocolate World was the Chocolate Tasting Adventure. It was a short presentation on the origins, manufacture, and types of chocolate. That was followed by a tasting of six different types of Hershey's chocolates.

Surprisingly for a kid fueled with as much chocolate as she had ingested, Abigail listened very well. The presenter told us to blow bubbles into our Mexican hot chocolate, as it is traditionally served frothy.

As expected due to her extensive prior experience, Abigail aced that activity!

Hershey's goal of propagating the next generation of chocoholics must have worked. That very same day, we overheard Abigail saying the word "Chocolate" in her sleep.

Coming soon: Part Two, Adventures on the Farm

One of my favorite high school teachers told his classes that he was writing a book. The title was "Kids are Stupid" and it was filled with anecdotes from his childhood, raising his own children, and teaching experiences. I don't know if Mr. Gifford ever got that book finished, but I'm sure he had plenty of material. Heck, I might even have provided some of it.

If I was to write a book, it wouldn't be entitled "Kids are Stupid". I don't think my kids are dumb. I do, however, think they are extremely weird.

Need evidence?

Exhibit A:

Lee returned home from the ER early one morning to find this sight:

That's Abigail sleeping with her head underneath our bed. Clearly she does not suffer from claustrophobia.

Exhibit B:

Another morning, this is what I awoke to.

Lydia created a tent around a baby swing and slept happily in the middle of it. Probably the weirdest thing in this scenario is the fact that I slept while all of this happened.

Exhibit C:

Lest you think their weirdness extends only to their sleeping habits, take this in.

Abigail is simultaneously having her tonsils out and delivering a baby. Lydia needed a surgical mask, and finding none handy, um, improvised.

"Please tell me those are clean," I asked her.

"Sure, Mom! I got them off my floor," she replied. I nearly fainted. The child thinks her bedroom floor is a giant clothes hamper.

(Thankfully, I misheard her. She said "drawer", not "floor") 

Yep, these kids are officially weird.