The Whole World's Gone Fogsy

So, we had a dual birthday party for the boys at the end of January. We will keep combining the two until individualism, pre-teen angst and sibling rivalry dictates that we have two events for them. Birthday parties for toddlers are pretty much ridiculous. Ask the parent about the birthday party, and they’ll say something like, “Oh wow, it was wild. We had to get all these balloons, and then change the date, and then we had to get the cake and there were all these kids here and….” Ask the kid and they’ll likely say, “My friends came over. We played and ate cake. Look, a butterfly…” In other words, for us parents, it’s much ado about nothing. But you gotta do it.

This party was a superhero themed party and it was a big hit. Colin dressed like the Hulk and Lyndon, who HAD to have a Flash costume, was the Flash. By the way, this is the costume OFF-season and it will cost you about $40 for a kids’ Flash costume. But the boys loved it and their friends all came over dressed in various superhero costumes. The attire gave the kids a chance to trash the house with their super battles which included all sorts of weapons such as light sabers. So, essentially, what we’re telling kids is, “Violence is bad, unless you are dressed up in multi-colored tights with lightning bolts on them.” Works for me.

The party was unique in that it occurred right after an ice storm, so we went back and forth on postponing until we decided that everyone should risk life and limb to walk up our driveway, and many did. The only negative was that both boys had hard falls that resulted in an assortment of cut chins, lips and noses. On the plus side, it went well with the super hero theme and Lyndon was very proud of the blood on his Flash costume.

Latest Lyndonisms:
o At the bank, they decided to stop giving out lollipops to kids. I’m serious – you know the economy REALLY sucks when that happens. I liken this business decision to McDonalds playing hardball with ketchup bags, but then dumping $100 in Quarter Pounders in the dumpster every night. Anyway, when Lyndon heard the teller say that, he said, “That’s bad business.” He’s not cut out for finance – too much sense.
o Lately he’s been very interested in Norway and Vikings, which is pretty cool.
o When eating cereal, he always insists that I stir it up to make it “fogsy” (rather than soggy).

Colinisms:
o Colin is BIG into colors. Just as he was obsessed with numbers, he now goes around IDing colors at every turn.
o Colin is like a ninja in the middle of the night. He comes into our room, slides into bed with us without our knowledge, then POW – begins tossing, turning and kicking like Bruce Lee. It’s a great way to start your day at 3 am.

"Santa Claus Knows That You Did That?"

There are drawbacks to everything. Take utilizing Santa Claus as a behavior modifier. Hey, it works, and if you have kids, you know you've done it before, too. But I fear that I overused the old "Santa is watching" thing back in December. Mainly because earlier this week, it came back to bite me a bit. Lyndon has had a thing lately of challenging reality when he has meltdowns. I can't explain it any other way. Like he's say, "No we're NOT out of juice" despite the fact that I'm showing him the empty bottle. He just denies reality in these situations. Vikings fans probably did this last week, as well. At any rate, it's PRETTY ANNOYING, and the other night, he had an episode when something was wrong with pirate PJs. Except nothing was wrong and he kept muttering the same phrase until I felt I was locked in a cell in Guantanamo Bay or something. So, I snapped at him and left him to cool down a bit in his room (so I could do the same elsewhere in the house...and for those of you never raise your voices to your kids, I applaud you -- I am a work in progress). A few minutes later, we were both calm and I apologized to him before bed while strongly encouraging him to improve his behavior. The next morning he comes up to me and says, "You are sorry?" I said "Yes, I am." He follows up with, "Santa Claus knows that you did that?" Touche, my son.

Lyndon's quotables are really almost too prevalent to keep up with. The other night, he wanted to wrestle but instead decided to watch "Wall-E" with his brother. As time went on, he looks up at me says, "Daddy, I'm sorry we didn't fight tonight." When I warned Colin not to stay away from Lenny's poop in the backyard, Lyndon said, "When I was little, I walked near poop." He left out the walking barefoot to daycare for 50 miles each day, but I'm sure it's coming.

Colin continues to pick up the pace on his two-word phrases, including "go away," "show mommy/daddy," and "Meek blankie" (the milk/superhero blanket combo that is necessary for him to fall asleep). He continues to be very adept at identifying letters. He's also reaching that point where you begin to hope that maybe this will be the year he gets out of diapers, sparing a good chunk of change every month courtesy of Pampers. I could have a solid beer allowance with just the money we spend on diapers. Not to mention lessening my exposure to poop. I wonder if Sam Adams has ever thought of a diaper based marketing campaign?