Mom! My bird is DEAD!

These are the excited words shouted at me about five minutes ago, as my almost 3yo slapped a Littlest Pet Shop toy into my hand. It *squelched* when it hit my palm because it was entirely covered in yogurt. OH MY, how fun is that?!

When the older and wiser women told me that children would change my life, they were NOT kidding! A dear “sister” of mine is kind enough to drive me, once a week, to the laundromat, where we then tackle the laundry of six people together. It is unbelievable how much laundry three kids and three adults can crank out in a week! Especially my youngest two children! Abby, the aforementioned yogurt-loving child, is particularly fond of changing her clothes ten times a day and “helpfully” putting the ones she’s taken off in the hamper. My son has reflux so he spits up on his clothes 29876 times in a 24hr period. MADDENING, I tell you. Oh he also pukes on me all. of. the. time and no matter how I arrange that stupid (useless) burp-cloth, he misses it! EVERY TIME! Do you know what puke in the cleavage feels like? DISGUSTING, that’s what!

ANYWAY, so my friend takes me to do laundry every week and together we find all sorts of interesting things in the hampers. I mean, change my life? HAHA, if nothing else, I’m certainly never BORED. Let’s see, last week I found various tiny pieces of Littlest Pet Shop paraphernalia, a lizard and a shower poof I’ve not seen in six months.

The laundry isn’t the only place where we discover amusing evidence of vivid little imaginations at work. Cleaning the refrigerator out has become an adventure. I really scrubbed that thing out last week because I knew I had a big shop coming and we were pretty much scraping the bottom of the barrel, here. Prime ‘fridge-scrubbing time, I say! Anyway, as I was rummaging around in the back, I came across a small teddy bear and a car AND a tiny baby doll. I asked Abby (who was “assisting” me) why they were in there and she told me they were in TIME OUT. 0.o

So when they are acting up they go in the refrigerator for time-out and when they are dead they get buried in yogurt! Smearing, dipping or otherwise playing in food is definitely a favorite pass-time of my children.

And don’t even get me started on Body Art. Both of my daughters have this obsession with coloring on themselves and each other. They look like little warrior faeries about half the time. I mean, I don’t really care all that much as I firmly believe that they can do with their little bodies whatever they want (within reason) but sometimes Abigail looks like she’s got two black eyes. She seems to think that BLUE and PURPLE are the BEST COLORS EVER and she scribbles on her FACE with them because you know, she’s putting on “makeup” and doesn’t she just look pretty like a princess?!?!

So far Ethan doesn’t have a penchant for smearing anything on himself aside from food. He’s only 7mo old, though, so he’s got plenty of time to catch up! This morning, that little bird wasn’t the only thing covered in his sister’s yogurt. She had left her little tub on the floor near him (they were having a “picnic” breakfast in front of Dora) and he got a hold of that tantalizing spoon, covered in purple gook. Oh was he happy! I definitely see group bath-time in our forecast today.
I just couldn’t resist posting his latest accomplishment, either. He can now sit up for extended periods of time! This is how he got a hold of his sister’s breakfast, lol. Yay for self-entertaining babies (also known as little mess-makers).