Upon waking Roman up this morning at 9am:

Me: Good morning, buddy!
Roman: I did a quiet toot in my bed.
Me: That’s cool, I like quiet toots.
Roman: And I like pirates.

This morning Daddy left for a 5-day trip to NYC. This is the longest he’s ever been away from all of us! The kids had a GREAT day and were on their best behavior. The stern talk with Dad this morning before he left clearly made an impact!

Today we had lunch on the porch. Ada sat at the picnic table with the big kids for the first time and it turns out she loves it! She ate all of her food off her plate without chucking anything on the floor. Not her usual mealtime routine!

Harper and Roman had the following conversation over lunch:

Harper: “Roman, you’re my best friend. And you too, Ada. And you too, mom. And my other best friend is the one who is at work for five days. And my other best friend is the one who lives in Charlottesville. And my other best friend lives there too.”
Roman: “Harper, Ada’s not two, she’s one.”

All considered, I think we had an A+ day flying solo!

This morning we took our first trip to the Choo Choo Park (Burke Lake Park, for all the grownups out there) for the 2011 season! For the past 4 years this has been our favorite hang-out, and the kids are always so excited to go. Today was no exception. When I told Roman that we were going, he immediately found his paper Acela train from National Train Day, brought me his shoes, and was ready to go. Unfortunately this was at 8:30 AM, so he had to wait a few hours.

Today our friends Laura and Grayson met us for a train ride and some post-train ice cream cones, which was very exciting for all parties involved.

After cones, Harper, Roman and I had a track-side picnic lunch.

“Enough pictures already!”

The best part of every picnic is waving to the train!

When we got home, we found Dad and Ada mowing the lawn!

A few nights ago we killed some time before dinner with a little finger painting on the porch. Or in Ada’s case, finger paint tasting. I’ve mentioned before that she eats all of her meals standing up. Well, apparently she also does her best artwork standing up. She downright refused to sit down on the bench, which was making me super nervous until I saw that her little toes were curled over the edge like claws, keeping her firmly upright on the bench. She is so determined to be in on the big-kid action!

This is Ada asking for the swing. She points to it, makes desperate-sounding grunts, and says “sssss! sssss!”

In other news, Ada is finally a full-time walker, as of a few days ago! Video coming soon…

I have to write this down so that I can remember how everyday life is with 3 little ones and/or make fun of myself in a few years when we have more kids and it’s even more crazy!

• Weekly grocery bill: $250. We get 4 gallons of milk delivered from a local farm each week and often go through more than 1 box of cereal at breakfast. We can eat an entire box of frozen waffles in one sitting and someone will still be hungry. Where we used to have leftovers, we now eat more than a pound of meat or chicken at dinner; when we eat fish we can finish a pound and a half!
• Laundry: one load of cloth diapers each day and at least one load of clothes (usually 2). You would think that laundry would decrease when it’s warm out because we wear less, but the kids get so dirty playing outside that they usually each go through 2 outfits a day!
• Diapers: I don’t normally count, but I would guess that I change about 15 diapers per day (hence my daily laundry load of cloth diapers.) Roman should start potty training soon, thank god.
• Meals served: 18 per week. Daddy serves breakfast, Mommy cooks and serves lunch and dinner. We eat out for about 3 meals per week, usually one lunch and 2 dinners.
• Middle of the night calls: at least one per night. Ada still wakes up once (most nights), and at least once a week someone else is up for something: scary shadows, dreams, potty breaks, etc.
• Bed time: Ada 6:30, big kids 7:30; wake-up time: 7:30 (or in Roman’s case, more like 9. He likes his beauty sleep!)
• Time to myself: ha!

I’ve recently had a tough time handling Harper’s behavior. She has been testing me a lot, and just has not been good. Disciplinary infractions usually involve excessive whining, crying about things that are out of my control or are just downright stupid, inability to leave her sister alone, unreasonable demands, and getting out of her bed too early (before 7 AM). Last week I just reached my limit, and found myself screaming at her more than I was talking in a normal voice. I’ve had success with sticker charts in the past, so I figured it was worth a try.

Harper and I talked about it, and she decided that she would really like to work towards earning a special trip to the ice cream store with just mommy. I found this ironic because I don’t understand why she would want a special date with someone who just yells at her all the time, but hey, whatever gets her to button up!

Our first few days with the chart were touch and go. She would be good for most of the day, then have a major meltdown around dinner or bedtime and lose her sticker for the day. Then, in a strange turn of events, Daddy had a few long days at the office and was gone from early morning until after bedtime. Harper was an absolute angel. I don’t know if it was the sticker chart, or not having the option to run crying to Daddy, but something clicked. The past few days with her have been utter bliss! She has been reasonable, cooperative, and just downright nice!

In order to work through the getting out of bed too early situation, I bought Harper a color-changing clock. I set the clock to a specific “wake up time” (7:30 AM), and it glows green for an hour starting at 7:30. I told Harper that “green means go,” and she is not allowed to get out of bed until the clock turns green. I was really skeptical, but man this thing works like a charm! From the first night we used it, she has stayed in her bed and refuses to get up until the light turns green. A few mornings ago Portman was up with Ada and saw that Harper was awake, so he told her she could get out of bed, but she refused to get up because the light wasn’t green yet! Verdict: definitely worth $35!

Harper has very vivid dreams, and wakes up several nights a week screaming in a panic because she “went to a different place.” We find it fascinating, and I can only conclude that her crazy imagination has something to do with it. Recently we’ve had to convince her to go to sleep because she worries about things like “what if I go to a different place and there is a dragon there and he is scary and tries to eat me?” Portman came up with the best strategy, which is to tell her that if we are also asleep, we will go to her “different place” with her and help her “fight the dragon.”

Last night Portman wasn’t home for bedtime, so sure enough I stick her in bed and she says “I can’t close my eyes because I will go to my different place and the Wild Things will be there” (we’ve been reading a lot of Where the Wild Things Are). We talked about it for a while and Harper decided that “if the Wild Things are scary, I’ll just say ‘now stop!’ like Max does!” I left her in her bed with her eyes closed quietly saying “now stop!” over and over again while sticking our her hand in a “stop” position.

Whatever she came up with worked because she slept all night without a scream. This morning she said that I was in her “different place” with her, but that Daddy wasn’t there this time. Any dream experts out there? I seriously find this fascinating!

I think my kids are hilarious, and here’s why. Ada climbs into everything. She has no boundaries. Favorites include the dishwasher and the cabinet where I keep all of the food storage containers. She empties it out, and climbs all the way in, sometimes trying to shut the door behind her. The girl has a lot to keep up with in this house!

Harper has an imagination that just won’t quit. Nearly everything turns into a pretend game. Yesterday she was in her room for quiet time. After nearly two hours of her actually being quiet (unprecedented in itself), I went in to get her and found her wearing her bathing suit on her head.

Me: Why is your swim suit on your head?
Harper: (puzzled) Oh! Because I’m being Rapunzel. Mimi and Lumpy are sliding down my hair… see? And now I’m going to slide down my hair!

Makes perfect sense. I made her stay that way so that I could get my camera!

Roman is turning into quite the comedian. Last week Aunt Cammie called Uncle Carson at work, and Roman left the following message for him:

“Hey Carson! If you were a hot dog, would you eat yourself?”

He then erupted into a fit of giggles. His other favorite jokes include “if you were a poop, would you flush yourself?” and “if you were a shirt, would you wear yourself?”

Finally, and unrelated, I took a few more photos during one of our afternoon picnics (snack-nics?) in the field. I can’t imagine why we would ever want to move from this house!

We’ve busted out both the water table and the sprinkler for the season. I actually considered getting rid of the water table because they didn’t really use it last summer, but it turns out that Ada LOVES it, so I’m so glad I held on to it. She recently learned to go up and down stairs, so she is fairly safe out on the porch splashing in the table while I am in the kitchen.

We recently discovered a new park just a short walk from our house. I walked the big kids down there last week while Ada napped and Portman worked from home. It has super fun equipment that we haven’t seen at other parks, and best of all it’s never crowded!