One hot tamale

Cici made her first tamales on Sunday at Grandma One's house. Her Great-Grandpa M---- would be so very proud!

Butterflies

Thank you to Auntie Piggy for the pretty mobile! Here it is in full butterfly splendor:

Drive safely

Tomorrow we're off to the K---- house for Thanksgiving; looking forward to the trip.

Anybody reading this knows how sick Ruby was last summer. We're so grateful that she's still with us, and will be for all our Thanksgivings to come. We're also grateful to everyone who took such good care of her, and of us, while she was in the hospital. We're incredibly lucky to have you.

Gobble, gobble!

Pee-Port Card, Part Four

We did in fact try Ruby in big-girl underpants over the weekend, and she's been doing extremely well. Her success rate is probably close to 90 percent when in comes to Number One (not counting nighttime); we've had some accidents where Number Two is concerned, but she's trying, and learning. Way to go, Rubester. Now if we could only get you to get along with your sister. . . .

Pee-port Card, Part Three

More successes. If all continues to go well, we may try big-girl underpants this weekend.

A Conversation Worth Waking Up Early For.

As if to contradict my post from earlier this week comparing my girls to monsters when they wake up, this morning saw a different type of scene. I was getting ready to sneak out of the house for a run - it was about six - when I heard a soft voice from the girls' room say, "Dad?"

Cici. I went in, saying, "Go back to sleep, honey - it's not time to get up yet." She said, "Dad, yesterday, at school, when we got our snack, before going home . . ."

"Yes?"

A rapturous smile. "It was pudding."

With that, she lay back down with the cat and went back to sleep.

Run, Girlies, Run!

The girls will sometimes ask if they can go running or exercise with Mommy or Daddy (usually Daddy because Mommy goes running after 9:00 p.m.). We're so glad that they'd rather be running around and moving their bodies than be parked in front of the television, though we expect that will change once they get older. For now, we get to enjoy them doing things like this:

Cici even remembers to stretch!

Pee-port Card, Part Two

Make that four times!

Pee-port Card

Three times in the past 24 hours, woo hoo!

Rise and Shine.

Watching my children wake up in the morning is like watching them be born again. I can only stand there, baffled and marveling at an agony I can only imagine. They looked a bit like reptiles when they were born, and in the morning they act like them, responding to the gentlest nudges and whispers with hoarse croaks, growls, and subhuman snarls. It's like watching dinosaurs hatch.

Occasionally they'll even roar - today the one who insisted on wearing her shoes to bed greeted her day by pounding a savage fanfare on the wall with her feet and howling primevally. Her sister rarely screams, but she does writhe like an eel in the upper bunk, and squashes her eyeballs shut as the first sensation of consciousness begins to assault her. It's an exaggerated performance, but she's not really faking it. On a dark November morning, I can sympathize.

Biiii-cycle, biiiiiiii-cycle. . . .

Some action shots to prove that Cici is indeed telling the truth when she says she can now ride a two-wheeler.

Ruby, on the other hand, doesn't even use the pedals.

Ruby Slippers

Yesterday morning I walked into Cici and Ruby's room and found Ruby wearing only a diaper and this:


This morning, I discovered that last night Ruby slept in a diaper, a t-shirt, and a pair of tennis shoes. She's somethin' else.

Updates coming soon

Sorry no posts in a while. Momlissa forgot the camera-connecting cable at the office, so we haven't been able to do much from home the past few days. New pictures on the way soon, promise!

Siccups

[Dadam has the hiccups.]

DADAM: Hic!

RUBY [concerned]: Daddy, you have the siccups?

DADAM: Yes, I do have the hiccups.

RUBY [annoyed]: No, siccups!

DADAM: Hic!

Child Care

The first few weeks of September were rough for Ruby because, for the first time in her life, she was spending her days without her big sister around. The transition was tough for both Ruby and Mommy, who had to leave her crying daughter at daycare every morning. Eventually things got easier, and for several weeks now she's been running off like a champ, ready to start her day and play with her friends.

Our daycare provider recently bought a house specifically for the daycare. It's just across the alley from the other location, but now they have a whole house just for running the daycare. Yesterday was Ruby's first day in the new space, and she thinks it's awesome. On our way to daycare this morning she was talking about the new place and said, "I just love it so much!" If you've ever had to drop off your baby with a child care provider, you know how great it must feel to hear something like this. I know she's happy, she's in excellent hands, and she's having fun. Fantastic. Oh, and here's a random picture of Ruby just for fun...

More Fun with the LPs; or, A Pain in the Ear is Worth Two in the Neck

Yesterday I was listening to a great old pipe band record from the late sixties (it was The Choice of Champions, by the City of Glasgow Police Pipe Band), and Ruby, who likes pipe music, came up to me with a question on her face.

She pointed at the record player and said, "Daddy, is that . . . is that you playing . . . um, is that your, your, um . . . " She was obviously having a little trouble remembering the word bagpipe.

She screwed up her face in concentration and tried again. She looked like she probably had it this time. She said, "Daddy, is that you playing your . . . your vampire?"

At least she got the vowel sounds right. . . .

"Cookie Man"

Recently we've been listening to this old Sesame Street record a lot. I don't have to tell anyone here the name of this famous Muppet - but to Ruby he's "the Cookie Man."

"Cookie Man" - hee.

Dodo?

Potty-training continues with success maybe fifteen percent of the time. A new wrinkle is Ruby's nicknaming the toilet "dodo" (as in "I wanna pee on the dodo" or "I gotta pee on the dodo!"). Whatever it takes. . . .

And a few more of Halloween...

Dadam did a nice job on the make-up, no? Notice the pumpkins -- Cici did the white pumpkin all by herself! (Don't worry Grandmas, she used special tools, no knives!)

Halloween 2007

It was a great night, totally tolerable weather, and our cutie-pie little girls out in their costumes. Cici went as a cheetah/leopard (it changed every house), and Ruby was a dog (minus the ears as she didn't want to put her hood up). They made out like bandits and I think everyone in our house went to bed with a stomach-ache last night. They did a great job of saying 'trick-or-treat' along with please and thank you, and Ruby did a nice job of telling our neighbors that, "Cici is a cheetah and I'm a dog."