Ellie talks to herself...

Tonight I was getting ready to go to dinner when from outside the bathroom I hear Ellie, talking to herself.

"I really love lotion in my mouth. Yes, I do."

I went running out to find her with the lotion spout in her mouth. I quickly took it away and lectured her that we do not put lotion in our mouth. She answered, like always, with absolutely no intention to obey, "Otay, Mommy. I will not put lotion in my mouth anymore."

A few minutes later, we were walking down the stairs together and she turns to me and says, "I sure can talk better now because I put lotion in my mouth. It is not dry anymore and I can talk so much better."

(Our first child also liked to put the lotion spout in his mouth. At first, I thought it was harmless because I didn't think he could get any lotion out without actually pressing down.....I was mistaken. After watching him put it in his mouth for several days - maybe even weeks, I got suspicious and tried it out for myself. One suck was all it took to get a mouthful of lotion. Just FYI.)

Attitude

That's FAST!!

My kids love to play outside!! Normally, this would be good because I would just send them outside to play in the back yard, but since we are still waiting (not so patiently) for our seeded grass to grow, we do not have a back yard to send them to. They prefer the front anyway, but being that they are only 2 and 5, I'm not sure sending them in the front yard by themselves is such a great idea. Thus, all day I listen to whines and complaints and tantrums of both telling me - "I'm so sad," and "we NEVER get to go outside" (even though I spent an hour outside with them in the morning) and "EVERYONE else always gets to go outside" and "I miss my bike sooooo much," and "I'm so sick of being inside," and "there is nothing in our whole house to do," and "I'm old enough to go outside by myself," and "please please please," and "Mom, all you ever do is feed, feed, feed," ( I would add clean, clean, clean, and cook, cook, cook, and that pretty much sums up my life these days).

Anyway, we've come to somewhat of a compromise. I let them go out on the front porch if they leave the door open and I am downstairs (usually feed, feed, feeding). This has led to some wonderfully hilarious moments for me because I can listen to everything they are saying and they don't know it. Just this morning...

Jason (Peyton's friend): I can run to your house in 20 steps.

Peyton: Yeah, well, I bet I could run faster if my Mom would let me off the porch.

Jason runs back and forth to his house counting the whole time.

Jason: I just ran even faster. That was 18 steps.

Peyton: Yeah, well, I'm so fast too. I'm going to show you sometime, but I can't get off the porch.

Jason: One time, I ran around the block twice with Andrew and we did it in just 10 minutes.

Peyton: How long is 10 minutes?

Jason: It's really fast!

Peyton: WOW! That's amazing. I can't believe you can go that fast. Maybe I could run around the block in 10 minutes too. That's FAST!!