Kids on board

Hazel had her first-ever dentist appointment yesterday, and they gave her some stickers at the end. She fell asleep in the car on the way home. Hours later, after waking and being inside for a while, she asked where the stickers were. We decided to go look in the car. Only problem was, she was wearing just a shirt. I told her that when she had her diaper and pants on, we could go look for the stickers. She got the diaper on, then ran to the door and put on boots and said she was ready. I opened the door to the garage and a big gust of cold air came in, right on those chubby little naked legs. She immediately said, "Not ready!" I assumed she was going to get pants, but no - she said she needed pacifiers!

Some time ago Hazel had been wanting to change her own poopy diapers, which really confounded me. I went through some effort of trying to help her wipe her own bum without getting poop all over the place when I took the diaper off. Also had several episodes of her taking the poopy diaper off herself, and of course then there was poop all over the place. Now my approach is, "When you poop in your potty, you can wipe your own tush." So hilarious, this morning she threw some orange on the floor and then asked for some chocolate milk. Toby hollered, "As soon as you pick up the orange!"

Toby seems to think that his checklist is just for after dinner. Yesterday he spent hours playing, and then got too tired to do anything else, before he got around to folding his laundry - which Hazel had strewn all around the bedroom since he left the basket on the floor. With some help from dad, he at least got it all back in the basket before collapsing in bed. This morning he proudly came to me about 20 minutes before he had to go out for the bus, saying his checklist was done already. He started to read, and I did say, "oh, hey, now that you have some extra time, there is that basket of laundry in the bedroom that you ran out of time for last night..." He went off to deal with it. I had given him a folding lesson yesterday, while I took care of Hazel's clothes. He came to me to ask for a refresher on shirts, then folded all his own laundry and put it away! I asked him how it went and he said, "Great!" He also made his bed about the neatest ever. I commented that the lines on the comforter (horizontal and vertical seams) were the straightest I'd ever seen them.

I blabbed a little this morning about getting my have-to stuff done before any want-to stuff, so I can see how much time I have available for want-to stuff after my responsibilities are done. Like right now, for instance. Now to keep my trap closed.

I left Hazel on the big bed this morning when I went out to the kitchen for breakfast. She hollered and cried for me to come get her down. After a while, I went to her and said "I'm sure you can figure this out, I've seen you do it." I kissed her and left. More vigorous crying for several minutes. I came back and said, "I'm not going to carry you down, but I can teach you how to do it." Hollering and protesting. I climbed down from the bed myself, toddler-style, then invited her to try, of course crying and protesting. Then I physically turned her body and slid her down the edge of the bed on her belly, put her feet on the ledge, and then down to the floor. She continued to cry for a few more minutes from the trauma - but tomorrow I won't be so generous.