excuse me

I have been working with the boys on manners.  When I was a kid my mom used to read us "Miss Manners" by Judith Martin.  Any and every small rule of behavior was covered in her books.   We grew up constantly hearing "Miss Manner says..."
Anyway, at dinner the other day I was trying to get the boys to chew with their mouths closed and to stop talking with their mouths full.  However, I made the mistake of telling them that if they absolutely HAD to talk that they could cover their mouths so no one could see their partially chewed food.  So now throughout dinner the boys will cover their mouths, mumbling through a mouthful of food, "Mom, look at me!"  Then they will exaggeratedly demonstrate how nicely they chew with their mouths closed.  Not quite what I was going for, but at least they are trying.

Also, James has discovered burping.  He does it quite frequently- not usually on purpose but certainly more than necessary.  Today as he was talking to me he let out a nice big one.

Me: (trying to remind James of his manners) Excuse me.
James:  No.  Excuse ME!

My kids make me laugh every day!

Oh and Matthew is rolling over and saying "Dadadadadadadada".  Why is it they always say dada first?!

random thoughts

moving stinks
I took the boys to the library near our new house for the first time today. We were there for a total of five minutes and then some cranky, nasty old guy started shushing my kids. They weren't being that loud, they were just talking, apparently making any noise at all is not ok for them though. Whatever. And then a librarian snapped at James because he was touching a cart with some books on it. Gove me a break! It made me really miss Sellers library! The staff there all knew me and the boys and the patrons at least thought my boys were cute even if they are kind of loud.

Grandma Hains
My last surviving grandparent passed away last week. She was my Dad's mom. I am sad that she is gone but I am also experiencing a wide range of other emotions. My feelings towards my Dad's side of the family are complicated since the divorce seemed to polarize the adults into two camps; camp A thought my mom was a horrible person and that everything was all her fault, camp B would be polite but strained with mom when no one else was watching. I haven't had much to do with them since then. The funeral is on Friday. I wish I could go and see my cousins, I miss them so much! But I am also glad that I can stay in Philadelphia and sort through my emotions on my own.

Build-a-Bear
While walking through the mall on Monday Samuel noticed that Build-a-Bear now has...ZEBRAS!!! So of course after a day of trying to convince Daddy that he really needed yet another zebra, we took the boys to Build-a-Bear and got Sam that zebra. And since we can't get something like that for Sam and not for James, we let James pick out something too. James was not expecting anything for himself so when we told him he could pick something out too, he got an enormous smile on his face and picked out an adorable, squishy bunny. I will have to post pictures sometime soon. The boys are very excited about their animals and don't talk about anything else anymore.

pets

The day we finished building the swing set John found a toad hopping through the yard. Samuel claimed it as his pet (naming it Toady Toad if you can believe it.) so we set up one of our small fish tanks with rocks and water and stuck our new pet in there to play. John has been catching crickets for its meals. The next day James found a baby toad in the back yard (He named his Froggy) so now he has a pet too. In order to play with their pets the boys take them out of the aquarium and put them in a big cardboard box with rocks and sand and a little water so they can reach in and pet them and pick them up and everything.

I have never been one for creapy crawlies or amphibious thingys. The boys only get to play with their toads when daddy is home to catch them if they get loose.

I feel so bad for these poor toads. My kids keep picking up their toads and dropping them, putting leaves on them, swinging them on the swings, setting them in the water to see if they'll swim, etc. As I said, I am not a big fan of amphibious thingys, but there can't be anything worse than being the pets of two, little, curious boys.