Hey, Bartender, Let's Back Up

One of the great advantages to stockpiling your groceries for pennies on the dollar, is that it gives your children something with which to entertain themselves on days when swinging on the swingset, dressing up dollies, and jumping in leaf piles seems ho hum.  Joe drinks a lot of PowerAde when he's training for a triathlon, so I try to keep a stock of it around the house.  I had no idea my children would spend hours entertaining themselves by dragging out the bottles, lining them up on the table, running in circles with the bottles in hand, bowling with them, and generally just thinking they're really fun.  I'm thinking of returning all of those fun Christmas presents we just stuffed into an embarrassingly large number of suitcases, lugged home via airplanes and luggage carts (yes, multiple carts), stuffed in our van (and I mean stuffed) and spent a week unpacking.  I'm thinking that instead I should just buy a few more bottles of PowerAde.

Speaking of Christmas, suitcases and toys, well, actually, I think we won't speak of that for at least two more weeks.  After opening the picture file on my computer today and discovering a whole gob of unpublished pictures from November and not really having any desire to just skip over them, I vote we go back in time, back to November 2010.   And since I'm in charge around here (wow, that's scary, huh?), off we go.  While others are busy ringing in the new year with resolutions, good intentions, diets, penny pinching, and exercise, we'll just be over here avoiding reality, living in the past, dreaming of days gone by and avoiding all of the aforementioned resolutions and good intentions.

To start, here's a whole crop of November pictures and all the witty commentary I can dream up about them.  Okay, the commentary won't be witty, but I can promise there aren't more than 50 pictures here.  Hey, it's either read this or stare down the candy bar that's calling your name deep in the freezer where you hid it before you started dieting.   See, living in the past isn't so bad after all, is it?

Aliyah likes little things.  She likes to find them, put them in bags and carry them allllll around the house.  Upon cleaning up any room in the house, you can guarantee that I will find either a bag of little items or its remnants. 

On this particular day, the small items were hair clips and barrettes.  Once she figured out that I would put them in her hair, she brought them to me one by one and had me put them in her hair.  I love almost two year olds and here's why:  on any other day before then and since then, she has had no desire for me to put a single thing in her hair.  If I put a pretty barrette in her hair, she rips it out of her hair within two minutes, if she waits that long.  Clippies, ponytail holders, headbands are all destined for the same fate:  the floor of whatever room Aliyah happens to be standing in when I style her hair.  The only thing that works are those tiny, plastic, impossible to get out of your hair rubberbands, and the only reason they work is because they are impossible to get out of one's hair.

It was my hope that this day was the dawn of something new:  cooperation with mommy over the fixing of the hair.  It only took about 20 hours for me to realize that this was not to be the case. 

Speaking of accessories and small things,  Aunt Tami and her crew, sent these make-your-own purses for Xandra's birthday and our girls have enjoyed making them, remaking them, and carting them around the house for weeks on end strewing all the cute little items from within the purse all about our house.  When they're empty they simply fill them with new small, losable things, and then repeat ad naseum.  Where do all of these small things come from?  For a week or so, the purses would all get hung on the back of their chairs at mealtimes, just like an adult woman would do in a restaurant.  I don't know where they learn this stuff because I haven't carried a purse in about four years.  Maybe, as females, it's just inborn.

Aliyah is big enough that the other girls can oft be found playing with her.  Hiding from everyone else, as pictured above, is something that's easy for her to be a part of, too.  Actually, she makes it easy for the seeker, as she is loud and too little to truly understand the game.  Just listen for Aliyah and you'll know exactly where everyone is hiding.  It's fun to see her becoming more of a part of the antics, even if the lights aren't all on, yet.  The flowers on the table in this picture were an afternoon craft that the girls did with Ms. Carol (our next door neighbor).  She cut the shapes and they went crazy with the glue sticks.  They LOVE the glue sticks!

Another fairly recent development in our house is that Xandra has gone from chasing and tormenting the kitty cat, to having the kitty willingly jump on her lap to be petted.  As you can imagine, Xandra thinks this is really great!

Anytime an adult sits down in a space big enough for even one child, regardless of what that adult intended to do when they sat down, they will immediately have three of our four small children climbing on their lap and begging them to read a book.  Since one of us is often holding the fourth child, it means that you are faced with the task of trying to juggle four kids, all of whom would like to sit on your lap, and read a book.  Actually, Aliyah likes to get up and down three or four times during the book reading, which always adds an unpredictable side to an otherwise calm activity.

Daddy's getting very good at juggling!

Joe and I aren't the only ones that share our laps these days.  Theia still loves to hold and pour lots of attention on Baby Joey.  On this particular day, I left baby Joey laying on the futon in the front room very briefly and when I returned Theia was sitting on the futon holding baby Joey.  They were both happy as could be, which leaves me to assume she was careful when she picked him up without permission.  Either that or she jiggled him so much that his brains are now mushy mush.  I'm voting for the really careful almost two-year old, how about you?

The kids like to make sure we keep things even, so if one kid holds baby Joey than the other wants to, also.  Funny how when we supervise the holding of the baby, he cries.  I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Tomorrow's Thanksgiving Day around The Doolittle Gambit.  At this pace, we'll be back to reality by Valentine's Day.  On second thought, I'm guessing even when I'm current on the blog, reality eludes me, at least that's what my husband tells me.