Isn't she lovely?

Delaney has been two years old for a few weeks now, but I am just now getting around to wrapping up all the "milestone" activities. I try to take portaits of the kids around their birthdays to hang on my wall and pass out to all the relatives. Since I am convinced that I can capture my kids' true personalities better than any photographer, I struggle through at-home photo sessions each November and January. So, after carefully preening Laney's hair and getting her all dressed up, she proceeded to cry, whine, and scream "Nooo!" through each of the three times I tried to take her pictures. Not that she's opposed to having her picture taken, in particular, just to being told what to do. The result is that I ended up settling for the picture on the right. She's in her grubby clothes, with after-nap hair, but is happy and smiling after a brisk ride on her rocking horse. It may not be studio-quality, but it really does capture the Delaney that Todd and I get to see (almost) every day.

Delaney also had her annual weigh-in at the doctor's office along with a check-up. She is continuing right along the 90th percentile curves in both weight and height. She was just under 3ft tall (35.75") and 31.5 pounds. I'm just happy to see her back on the charts, after looking back and seeing how far above the 97th percentile she was at 9 months old! And she charmed the doctor and nurse at her appointment by saying "Hi, Doctor Jones" when he walked into the room and happily pointing to all the body parts that they quizzed her on. The doctor made a point to remind me that each child is different and to not necessarily expect the same developments and abilities from Delaney that Tyce had at her age. Yeah, like I could forget that. Delaney makes it quite clear that she is her own little person (or as Tyce would say, "I belong to myself!").

Continuing with her insistence on doing things her very own way, Delaney is refusing to eat foods that I know she would love, like lasagna and bananas, and requesting raw onions every night while I cook dinner. She seriously eats about 1/8 of an onion every day, but won't touch them cooked. I think that she is surviving on on avocado, onion, and cheese sticks at the moment. Her favorite phrase right now is "My do it!" which roughly translates as "I can do it myself!" or "Let me do it!" or "Back off!". This applies to almost everything that we need to do when we're in a hurry to get somewhere: putting on socks and shoes, zipping up her coat, buckling her carseat, etc... She's an independent one, that's for sure.

Last night the kids had a "play date" with their babysitter while Todd and I went to a movie. I couldn't wait to hear how it went because the last time we left them with the sitter Tyce tried to convince her that Delaney wanted "to go to Panda Express for Chinese food." They both kissed us goodbye and seemed happy when we finally left them alone to play. Tyce told me that they did play-dough, cleaned up, read books, and found friends to take to bed (stuffed animals). Sounds like a good night. The sitter did mention that Laney had a hard time going to sleep because she kept asking for her cow. The cow in question is a hard plastic cow that she has been inseparable from for the last few days. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to get it out of the bathtub, where she had taken it right before the babysitter arrived. Oh well, it can't be all that comfortable to wake up with four little hard hooves in your back anyway.

We are looking forward to the upcoming holidays and seeing and hearing from all our friends and family!

Random Musings from Tyce:

Statues and fish do not wear shorts. Statues have hard lips, fish have wet lips. Sharks don't have lips. Neither do TVs and screwdrivers.

The Why? Why? World

As anyone who has spent ten minutes or more with Tyce lately knows, he asks a lot of questions. Pretty much a continuous stream of questions all day long. Laney has even learned to ask "Why?" Usually in response to me telling her something like "Lane, you can't use my contact case as a spoon to drink from the cats' water bowl!" Here's a little excerpt from our drive home today:

Tyce: Why do Tiger Sharks eat garbage?
Me: Your book says that they'll try a bite of anything, but usually they just eat fish meat.
Laney: Sharks eat candy?
Me: No, Laney, sharks don't eat candy, they eat fish meat.
Laney: Fish meat, Tyce.
Tyce: Are animals afraid of being meat?

I can't wait until his Aunt Amanda is in town to explain all the humane treatment of animal stuff to him. I think she's better prepared for it than I am. While I am hoping he is a sensitive and empathetic little guy, I'm not quite ready to prepare all vegetarian meals yet. Luckily, he was quickly distracted. As we drove across the blue-bridge:

Tyce: Can I climb a bridge?
Me: No, Tyce.
Tyce: Why not? (I really should have seen that coming)
Me: Because bridges are really tall and have water underneath and you might fall a long ways down into the water.
Laney: Water in your nose, Tyce.

These conversations were followed in quick succession by more questions: What do staple guns do? Why does the moon shine? Do we smell, wear, or eat groceries? Why does the Earth turn? What do 'maderato' and 'adagio' mean? Why can't we drink germ juice? (What???) Why can't chicks swim? Why are sisters bossy? Why do dinosaurs roar sometimes? Do sharks live in the deep water because they are big, big fish? (Really into sharks right now) What does 'gallop' mean? Why don't grown-ups have snuggle blankies to sleep with? (Hey, why don't we?)

That was all from tonight, I took notes ("What do you think you're up too, Mom? Do grown-ups like writing all that stuff?").

Our family is excitedly anticipating the arrival of two new baby cousins very soon. Laney just loves babies. She loves patting them gently on the head, much to the horror of most new mothers, while squinting down at them and saying "sooo cuuute". She loves to hold babies when their mothers are brave enough to let her (or if the mother has to go to the bathroom and I sneak the baby out of its carseat and into Lane's lap). But, last week she got me into trouble with her questions... Outside of Tyce's preschool, she walked up to a slightly overweight woman who was also waiting for her preschooler, patted her belly and asked "Baby in there?" I hope that Todd enjoys picking Tyce up from preschool every day for the rest of the year because I can't go back now.

Tyce is also fascinated with the new babies joining our family. When I told him that soon he is going to have two new cousins he exclaimed, "But, what will happen to our old cousins?" He was quite delighted to discover that he gets to keep all of his cousins. But then he wondered, "Why do they want a baby that poops in its own bed?" Well, when they grow up to be kids this cute, who wouldn't want a baby? Even if it poops in its own bed.

The Day Away

Last Sunday Todd and I got to spend a day in Seattle with some of our best and most enduring friends, Tim, Mari, and Joel. For those of you who don't already know, the five of us have known each other since we all went to college in LaGrande and spent way too much time hanging out in the "Chem Club Lounge," which was nothing more than a tiny, smelly room with one couch, a fridge, and two computers. Tim went off to grad school at Montana State and quickly convinced Todd and Joel that they should go too. So, Todd and I moved in with Tim and Mari for a month while we waited for our name to come up on the student housing list. We all coexisted peacefully in a tiny, maybe 500 square-foot, house. Tim and Todd would head off to school early each day during the summer while Mari and I would roll out of bed mid-morning then spend the day exploring Bozeman, job-hunting, and watching day-time TV.

We finally got a little house of our own, right behind Tim and Mari's, just in time for Joel to come stay with us for a month while he was on the housing waiting list. First-year grad students had a series of exams to take during the first week of school. There were five chemistry subject areas and by the end of their first year they were expected to have passed three of the five tests to continue in the chemistry program. So, my memories of Joel's time with us consist of Todd and Joel studying continuously for two weeks, while switching off playing some Nintendo football game (I'm sure I'll be correcting the details of this blog later, since apparently the importance of gaming systems/games continues to elude me). If I remember correctly, Todd would play for a few hours until he won and got to "party with the cheerleaders" (a phrase we still use today to describe the happy completion of a daunting task), after which there would be a debriefing session on chemistry and new football strategies before Joel would take over the game and Todd would study. This system must have been effective because Todd and Joel both passed their three tests on the first try and were off to a successful start in grad school. Tim, Joel, and Todd are all three now PhD chemists, living in Washington state, who still enjoy stupid games.

Speaking of stupid games, Joel organizes a football "pick-em" league each year where we all try to predict the winners of each week's football games. Since this is a fairly simple premise that doesn't require me to actually watch or monitor football in any way I have been participating the last few years. This year, I am happy to report, Mari, Tim, and I are in a race for the lead! Joel and Todd are right behind us, followed by the rest of the entries. Since we all have a vested interest in football this year, Joel organized a trip to watch the Seattle Seahawks play the Philadelphia Eagles (Todd's, and by default, my, favorite team).

After recruiting my sister to watch the kids from dawn until dusk on Sunday we snuck out of the house early in the morning, hopped in with Tim and Mari in Ellensburg and arrived at Joel's house in Seattle well before he was expecting us. Another pleasant aspect of the trip was getting to meet Joel's girlfriend, Meagan, who was wonderful and fun to have along. We all piled in to one car and headed to the stadium nice and early. After scoring a FREE parking spot, we found a bar and hung out until the start of the game. I'll include a few pictures that Mari was nice enough to send to me. Although I look drunk in all of them, it's just a case of me being unphotogenic because I only drank 1/3 of a beer the whole day. Or it may have been a product of the garlic fries because they were amazing and had ramifications well into the next day. The game was exciting, with lots of scoring, and the Eagles won, which was a dissappointment to the crowd but good for all of us who had chosen them in the pick 'em league.

Now, better go check my football picks for this week...