It's His Turn!

Well, the time has come. For years now, my two older children, Joshua and Anna, have featured prominently on this blog. Their antics and funny sayings have filled the net-waves while my youngest, Matthew, has been somewhat in the background. That is not to say he doesn't do anything funny. On the contrary, he is one of the funniest tiny people I know! It's just that it's hard to translate a one-year old's tales into the written medium and have it still be funny. Lots of things happen that my husband and I find hilarious, but that are hard to to comunicate to the rest of you effectively.

However, the time has come, and it is now Matthew's turn at the spotlight.

Last week the kids and I went to my parents' house for a little mini-vacation time. The previous week, we had decided to start letting Matthew sleep in his siblings' room at night in his Pack n Play, so I continued the practice at the grandparents' house. (Up until this point, Matthew had been sleeping in his crib in our room, mostly due to space constrictions.) I set up the Pack n Play in the older kids' room and put him in it for bedtime. He fussed at being fenced in - until he discovered that, at Mema and Grandpa's house (and Mema and Grandpa's house only), the older kids had a TV in their room and got to watch a movie to go to sleep. As soon as The Incredibles came on, he quit crying and stared up and the TV, then glared at me with a look that clearly said "They get movies in here?! I've been staying in this house at least once a month for the past 16 months of my life and I NEVER KNEW THEY GOT MOVIES IN HERE?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"

The next day, during "quiet time," I decided to go ahead at let him stay in their room, even though at home we usually do naptime back in our room in his usual crib. At home, the older kids play during quiet time, and thus Matthew would never get to sleep...but at the grandparents' house, they got to watch videos, and I figured everyone would chill out and rest. We had just had a huge, exhausting morning of running around and doing a jumping bouncy-thing play place, so I thought if he was just forced to be still for 5 minutes, he would go to sleep.

Ah, the naivete of mothers, even ones who are on their third kids.

Mom and I had been downstairs for about 15 minutes when we heard Joshua make the following statement (in an obvious I-don't-want-to-get-in-trouble-for-tattling-but-I-think-Mom-should-know-this-voice) from the room above us:

"Hey, how did Matthew get out of his crib?"

Mom and I looked at each other. Oh, surely not...

But yes, yes indeed. Matthew had not gone right to sleep, as I had hoped. Instead he had put his time and talents to good use and figured out to pull and swing his tiny, powerful little body up and out of the Pack n Play. I found him snuggled up next to his brother, and when I walked in the room, he glanced up at me with a look that said "What?"

Wondering if it was a fluke of some sort (I know, I know, but I was hoping!), I put him back in the Pack n Play to see what would happen. He immediately swung his solid little left leg up and, working his freakishly strong toddler body around, managed to pull the rest of himself up and over. (Matthew is going to be our linebacker. He is a solid mass of muscle and strength.)

We let him stay up for that afternoon, thus making sure that he was exhausted enough in the evening to fall right asleep in the Pack n Play that night. When we got home the next day, I put him in the Pack n Play that night to see if he would make the connection from the other one. Yep. Within minutes, he was out of the thing and up on his sister's bed, thumping her in the head going "Na! Na! Na!" (Matthew-ese for "Anna.")

So he's back in our room in the crib. And I am just praying he doesn't figure out how to climb out of his crib anytime soon...but I really don't have much hope for it. Watch out - the monkey is loose!

Things Overheard in My House, Part 5

"Anna, do not rub the blueberry on your foot." - Mom

"I can't stand on the potty. I might fall in. And I don't want to fall in the potty. I would miss Rocko." - Anna, age 3

"If you drink all your milk you can put your foot on the table." - Joshua, age 5, making his own dinner table rules

"HAT!" - Matthew, age 16 months

"I'm going to get hurt if I see a giant tomato." - Anna

"Anna, you can't go outside naked." - Dad

"Matthew, quit eating the paper towels." - Mom (kid'll eat paper towels, but the turkey sandwich at lunch, THAT he throws on the floor)

"I don't want to be your sister anymore!" - Anna, directed at Joshua in a fit of rage

"BAT!" - Matthew

Joshua: "I hurt my back!"
Dad: "Do you want me to make it better?"
Joshua, sounding annoyed: "No, you won't make it better, you'll just give me a buffalo kiss."

"Thank you Jesus for Mommy's ear." - Anna

"BALL! BALL! BALL! BALL!" - Matthew

"Anna, stop playing with your cheese." - Mom

"Why is that guy locked up?" - Joshua, while watching a baseball game with his father and seeing the manager behind some sort of fence

"I don't know how to do hard work." - Anna

Dad: "I found my Mp3 player!"
Anna: "PRAISE JESUS!"

"MORE!" - Matthew

"Dad, you know when you go to work tomorrow? (Since) We cleaned up our room...you COULD bring us a prize..." - Joshua

Anna: "Daddy? Why did the poopy diaper go on the road?"
Dad: "I don't know, Anna, why?"
Anna: "Because he's a poopy diaper! Get it? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"NA!" - Matthew, calling out his sister's name!

"HALLELUJAH!" - Anna

And, finally, a conversation I am pretty sure does not happen in just anyone's house:

Mom: "Anna, when you go to preschool next year, you cannot take your clothes off when you go to the bathroom."
Anna: "Got it, Mom!"
Mom: "NO BEING NAKED AT SCHOOL EVER."
Anna: "Deal?"
Mom: "Deal!"

I Don't Even Know How to Title This One

Anna came crying to her father this morning, whining and screaming in an incredibly high-pitched tone that was entirely indecipherable to the human ear.

"Anna," her father patiently answered,"Please use a big-girl voice. You do not need to whine like that. I can't understand you. Now, can you tell me what you wanted to tell me in a big-girl voice?"

Anna took a big breath and said "Joshua took away my pretend ball!"

There was a moment of silence while my husband tried to find the appropriate response to this declaration.

"Well, Anna," he finally said, "Can't you get another pretend ball?"

"BUT DADDY! THERE ARE NO MORE PRETEND BALLS!"

My everlastingly patient husband paused another moment and said "Anna, I don't even know how to respond to that."

But that was ok, because by this time Anna had moved on to the next thing.

The day-to-day absurdity of our lives never ceases to amaze me.