12 days of Christmas

On the 12th day of Christmas my true love sent to me...

12 Broken Ornaments

11 Nights of dancing

10 Online orders

9 Christmas movies

8 Carols butchered

7 Rounds of Egg-nog (Brent makes a killer froth)

6 Trips to Costco

5 Sleepless nights

4 Opened gifts

3 Returns

2 Two-year-olds

And a pretty baby Ally

We hope your December has been as crazy (in a good way), busy and blessed as our family's has been.

Merry Christmas!

Mockery

I had hoped to avoid it for at least 10 more years. But sadly, I am mocked several times daily by my offspring.

Last night at dinner I was trying to keep Keith and Cole from putting their feet up on the table when Keith pointed his index finger and said, "I said no!" and smiled.

Cole finds it funny to hit Ally on the head or bang a maraca on the blinds and then ask, "Go time-out?"

Keith believes it hilarious to ask if he can kick Ally or throw food from his plate and then say, "Go time-out?"

If I say, "yes" to either request, both boys answer with an upbeat, "Okay" and put themselves in time-out.

If I ask, "Do you want to go in time-out?" they answer with, "yeaaah" and put themselves in time-out again.

The funny thing is that once they are in time-out they cry. Needless to say, I stopped doing time-outs when it became a game several weeks ago. But they find it hysterical to taunt me and honestly, they crack me up.

Clearly something is not working here. It would be a lot easier if they weren't so clever and comedic. If anyone out there has any ideas on how I can not fail at disciplining, send them my direction.

Even sweet little Ally has to get her digs in. Yesterday was her 4 month check up and she is in the 95th percentile for height. Considering her mother spent the majority of Junior High under 5 feet tall and was kicked out of more than one roller-coaster line, it is unclear from which gene pool she swam. The good news is that I might just have a basketball star on my hands. The bad news is that she may catch her brothers soon. She could end up protecting them from the "bad guys" that they pretend to fight, instead of the other way around.

Fight Club

From the moment Cole wakes up until he goes to bed, he does nothing but talk about who is fighting whom. For example:

"Monkeys fight gorillas?" "Bad guys fight hyenas?" "Mickey Mouse fight elephants?" He ends these phrases with a question mark because he expects an answer.

"Yes, Cole. Of course monkeys fight gorillas and bad guys fight hyenas."

He will continue to repeat each phrase over and over again until you repeat it back correctly. If you do not understand him and you try to repeat back to him what you are hearing, HE KNOWS. Don't try to fake it. (Did I mention that I am now fluent in toddler? I'm thinking of adding it to my resume.)

Occasionally, Cole changes up the fight scene to include members of the family:

"Dada fight T-rex?" "Mama fight penguin?" "Baby Ally fight monsters?"

And recently he throws in a few festive favorites: "Keith fight Santa Clause?" "Donkey fight Wiseman?" "Baby Jesus fight Snowman?" (Nativity characters are not off-limits in his world of combat imagination.)

Keith has decided to push buttons by testing out who he can hit, kick, and pinch. For example: "Hit Baby Ally with baster?"

"No, Keith. We don't hit Baby Ally with the baster."
(At least he asks first, right?)

"Hit Mama with baster?"

"No, Keith. We don't hit Mama with the baster."

"Hit Spiderman with baster?"

"Yes, Keith. You can hit Spiderman with the baster."

I've decided that I can't say "no" to everything. So, whenever Keith suggests bodily harm to an action figure, animated character or inanimate and disposable object, I let him dream big. The sky is the limit. I hope there is no limit to my patience with repetitious toddler phrases and boyish fight-scene imagery.

Little Ally just turned 4 months. She smiles constantly, especially when her Dad tells her that she is pretty.
She often puts up a pretty good fight before bed, but we still can't get enough of her. I think she's just a budding socialite who doesn't want to miss out on a thing.***

***Disclaimer: The reasoning behind the unfair ratio of Ally to brother pictures is purely practical: Ally can't move very far and the boys can't stay very still.