Does It Still Count As Sleeping Through the Night

If you're awoken by your overly enthusiastic toddler brother?

I woke up this morning to the sounds of "Hi, Lowly!  Hiiii!  Lowlyyyyyyy!"  (giggles) "Lowwwwlyyyy!" I opened my eyes, squinted at the clock, and realized it was 6am.

My immediate thought was "Ugh, why is WeeBee awake already?" followed by "Why is there a Thomas train running over my foot?"  Then it dawned on me that it was 6am, and Lowly hadn't woken up...since 9:30 the night before.  So I jump up, completely disoriented, thinking, "Oh my gosh - is she ok?  Is she dead?"  (Lovely optimistic person that I am, no?)

Well, turns out, she was fine.  At that moment she started squeaking, because it's really difficult to sleep through a two year old six inches from your face, yelling your name, even if you don't understand a word he's saying.  So of course, I was quite relieved...and slightly ticked off at WeeBee, because who knows how long she could have slept if he hadn't decided Mommy and Lowly needed to be visited by Thomas the Tank Engine and friends at 6am.

Say Hiiiii!

WeeBee just grabbed my hand, waved it up and down in front of Lowly, and told me "Say hiiiiiii!  Hiiii!"

When he's not driving me insane by trying to stick his fingers in the fan, I have to say, this kid cracks me up.

Where to Begin?

This is bizarre on so many levels...

Man Charged With Stealing House

1. The cops can't explain how the house was stolen.  Just how many ways can you steal a mobile home up in Canada?
2. Nobody noticed this?  It sounds like it happened in the middle of the day, and in some sort of community, so someone should have seen something.  Wouldn't you wonder why the 45 ft building that had been down the block for the last ten years was suddenly going by your front window?
3. Just how poorly secured was this thing that the thief decided it was worth forging paperwork and trying to run off with the house?  Squatting is one thing, but who wakes up in the morning and decides "I'm going  to go run off with a mobile home today!  No one will ever notice it's gone!  And no one will ever notice I've suddenly got one!"

One Day...

I will figure out how to get two sleeping children in a double stroller into the house, without waking either of them up...

Today was not that day.

That being said, we had fun.  WeeBee had an awesome time patting Lowly on the head and saying "Hi, Lowly!" every block or so.  (The seats are one behind the other, not side by side.)  We went looking for ducks and saw tractors and bikes and debated if birds lived in trees.  (WeeBee was a bit skeptical of that one.)

Poor little guy was so exhausted by the end of the day, he fell asleep over his dinner.  Figures.

Guess Who Got 9 Hours of Sleep Last Night!

I did!  (Insert happy dance here.)

Baby Lowly slept for six hours straight, for the second night in a row.  Then WeeBee slept until 9:45 this morning, for reasons known only to his little brain.  Unfortunately that same little brain just interpreted "Lean on your step-stool to draw pictures on that paper" as "Ditch the crayon and paper and use the step-stool to climb up on Mommy's bed and crawl through the laundry she folded but didn't get to put away because you were hollering for yogurt."  I don't really care though, because I got to sleep!

That really sounds pathetic, doesn't it?  :)

Oh, well.  I'm off to change diapers and take on survival of the fittest at Costco on a Sunday morning.  WeeBee just finished the last of the milk, and until our town changes the zoning and allows cows, I must go risk death by giant carts filled 6 ft high with 200 rolls of toilet paper, pushed by 5 ft tall women on cell phones...

Crazy News

I'm glad the European Union has nothing better to do...

http://www.newser.com/story/120719/european-union-court-to-france-save-the-great-hamster-of-alsace.html

Thanks, Dad, for drawing my attention to this particular bit of idiocy.  I mean, if the people of the Alsace region want to go form hamster support groups, that's one thing, but does this really call for the EU to get involved?  Shouldn't they be off preventing bankrupcy or looking for terrorists or something?

And since I've been so bad about posting lately, I give you this other gem...

http://thetablet.org/?p=583

Let me get this straight...your 8 year old thought it would be a good idea to drink a six pack of Red Bull in one sitting, went to the hospital, you're still not sure if he learned his lesson, but you think you're a good parent and it's Red Bull's fault?  I hate to break it to you, sweetheart, but if your kid is that stupid, a little warning label in size 6 font is not going to get through to him.  And if you didn't put the fear of God into this kid after your little hospital adventure, that's your problem, not Red Bull's.

That being said, the fact that he was physically able to finish said Red Bulls without puking his brains out may indicate he has a promising career in those extreme eating competitions.  Might want to look into that...

Shopping Carts Are Not Mommy Friendly

I never gave it much thought before Lowly was born, but the average shopping cart is not Mommy friendly.

I attempted to go shopping today with WeeBee and Lowly.  WeeBee was perfectly behaved.  Lowly screamed bloody murder every time I stopped to get an item off a shelf.  I did discover today that fortunately people think newborn screaming is much cuter than toddler screaming.  Either that or the sight of me pushing a cart with my elbow and rib cage while holding a newborn with my toddler saying "Hiiii!" to everyone we passed was so entertaining that they didn't give me the skunk eye.

Which brings me to my problem - with the exception of Costco, which has double wide carts, going shopping with these two turns into a game of tetris.  In some stores I can put Lowly in the front and WeeBee in the back.  I wouldn't mind too much, but I never know when WeeBee is going to decide that we really don't need that glass jar of spaghetti sauce, and send it flying.  In other stores Lowly goes in the back in her carseat because the angle is too steep if she's in the front, but then the carseat takes up all the space in the cart, and I have to wedge groceries around her.  I'm always afraid I'm going to accidentally miss something that's slipped under her carseat, and the cashier will think I'm trying to shoplift.  I'm not saying that all the stores should have all their carts seat 4 or 5 kids.  Is having a few carts that are designed to fit 2 children all that unreasonable, though?

And You Thought Snakes On a Plane Was Bad...

How about thousands of snakes running you out of your house?

http://finance.yahoo.com/loans/article/112850/idaho-foreclosure-snake-home

It kind of makes you wonder what else is in the house, doesn't it?  I mean, the snakes have to be eating something.  And if you take away the snakes, will whatever that something is take over the house instead?

Personally, I think Chase should look into using it as the set of the next Indiana Jones movie.  I'd rather see Harrison Ford fight snakes than some stupid aliens any day.

Cuteness Overload!

Baby Lowly smiled for the first time today, at Daddy.  She was sitting on my lap as Daddy walked past to go downstairs, and he stopped to ask me something.  She looked up and saw him and grinned.  I'm just a teensy bit jealous, because whenever she looks at me I get the vague impression she thinks I'm mentally stunted.

Continuing with the cuteness theme, WeeBee fell asleep on Lowly's bouncy seat today.  Usually I'm able to keep him out of it (I couldn't find a weight limit on it, but I doubt it's made for 25 lb little boys) and he's happy enough letting his teddy bear sleep in it.  Today, however, he climbed in it and took a nap.  He's so big his legs were hitting the ground, and I can't see how it would have been comfortable.  The funny part is, I don't think he ever slept in it when he was tiny - he would sit and play with the rattles on it, but he slept in his swing.

Unfortunately he's hanging upside down off furniture right now, so I'd better run...