Whining Animals

The first time I heard about Halloween, I could not believe the story.

"So, you knock on the door and people give you candy? What is the catch?"

Halloween great because you could spend two hours wearing yourself out and have enough candy to gorge yourself for maybe three days.

Turn the clock ahead to kids today. My kids spend about 45 minutes outside - if that, and they got some decent candy out of it. When I was a kid, you were lucky if it was chocolate coated (Three Musketeers, Milky Way - wow). These days, the kids are getting two or more of these premium candies at every house. Kit Kats, Reeses, Kissables, wow!

I tell you, kids today are weak. If I was a kid today, I would be out there for the whole two hour period collecting enough candy to fill a bathtub, especially if they're handing out the good stuff. I certainly wouldn't come in before 8pm.

The problem with cribs is that they were designed for kids from the last century and not for today's gigantic children who are in the 90-100 percentile of the growth chart. Jared managed to escape from the crib today at nap time. Not only that, but he managed to open his bedroom door.

The problem is of our own making. We feed our kids lots of food so they get big and then we take them to "My Gym" so they can practice escape manuvers on all kinds of odd gym equipment. It all seems to be practice for the escape from the crib.

A two year old is not capable of being unsupervised, yet they make the cribs for these small children. I think we should probably tie his feet together so he cannot climb out and hurt himself, but I suspect that "child protective services" would be called if we were to actually go that route.

Jared is such a snot. When we found out he could climb out of his crib, we had to move the diaper pail out of the room to prevent any accidents. Kids are really curious and I was not curious enough to see what he might do.

So now when changing Jared's diaper, Emily leaves him on the table while taking the diaper to the decontamination chamber. She used to tell him not to move so he doesn't fall off the table, but snot that he is, if you tell him not to move while he's got his feet in the air on the table and his butt feeling a nice cool breeze, he'll get all excited, wiggle his feet and hands and say, "I'm moving! I'm moving!" Emily no longer tells him not to move.

Snot that I am, when I find her changing Jared's diaper, I tell Jared not to move just so I can see him doing his little exited "I'm moving" dance.

Kids need their vaccinations went up to the doctor's to get their shots. I used to go because Emily couldn't handle the crying. I remember one time when Alex needed three shots one day. I got to hold him while the nurse gave him his first shot. Now, if you've never seen a baby get a shot, it goes a bit like this. First the needle goes in and the baby gets a strange look on his face for about a second and then starts screaming. The second and third shots increase the volume of the screaming and the color of their face to a deeper shade.

Alex is much older and can take shots without the screaming. Jared is a bit younger and still cries. Both kids needed some shots so Emily took them to the doctor. Alex was fine, but Jared started crying and whimpering until Emily said "Shall we go get a shake?"

Jared told me when I got home that "Doctor hurt me."

I asked him a few days later if he wanted to go to one of the stores. He said "No." I asked if he wanted to go to see the doctor. He said "Yes" then paused and then said "No doctor."

Wising up, I think.

The sad part about parenting is laughing at the things your kids do sometimes. We took Jared into one of those glassed entranced commericial buildings where they have the glass door and large glass windows cleaned nightly. On the way out, I lead with Emily and Jared behind and I open the door for the two of them. I heard a thunk (like something solid hitting a window) and turned around to find that while Emily had followed me out the door, Jared could not tell that what he thought was a large exit was a large window and he smacked right into it. The shock of hitting the invisible force field started him crying.

We had to show him the difference between the door and the window. He didn't seem to care much as long as he got picked up.

It's funny when kids learn to speak and start to put words together. When kids are learning the language they start to associate rules of the language, like a guy can run, guy running is a run-ner. One day, Alex found a hook and was using it to pick up thing. He started saying things like "Look at my hook-er. The first time he said it, I wasn't sure what he was saying. Then it was "My hooker can pick this up, and my hooker can do that and ... "

"Uh Alex, it's a hook. Not a hooker. A hooker is something else."

I was reminded of this because Jared was in a restaurant today and wanted someone to blow on his face. He turned to Alex and spoke in his loud voice, "Blow me." Fortunately, the restaurant was noisy enough so I don't think anyone heard him. After a few times, we had to correct him before someone else heard him.

"Jared, you say 'Blow AT me'"

The next time he asked it came out like "Blow" pause "at" pause "me". Whew!

Just like the time Alex asked if warehouses are where werewolves lived...

Single people don't appreciate the ability to go out without always looking around to see what mischief your children are up to. We did get to go out for the first time in years without kids and get the grandparents to watch the kids and put them to bed.

It appeared to be ok as we managed to leave without the kids making a scene. However, the report by the grandparents afterwards shows a different side. Upon putting Jared into bed, they asked Alex if the light should be off or on. His reply? "Sometimes on and sometimes off." Sure. So they left the light on and soon found that someone was trying to open the door. Jared had apparently managed to climb out of the crib and wandered over to the door. Fortunately, he cannot open the door yet and I'm not about to teach how to open the door that since that would be asking for trouble at his age. The second time, the put him into the crib and left the light off. He appears to be less adventurous with the light off.

Alex managed to get his grandparents to believe that he also gets the light on and proceeded to stay up and do some reading in bed. Alex has started to really take to reading so it's not all that bad. Alex has also started to play Starcraft, but is not willing to go on the offensive.

We went to a hospital party sponsored by the pediatric cardiac unit a few weeks ago. We were supposed to bring a dessert to the party so we went out and got some cookies on the way to the party. We dropped off our desserts to find that the only food available at the "cardiac" party were the desserts that people were bringing - cookies, cakes, chips, and all kinds of very unhealthy goodies. To top it off, they also got a goodie basket filled with candy and assorted flavored sugar. Naturally, the kids loved it and proceeded to sugar themselves up. They did, however, crash on the ride home falling alseep pretty much as we got onto the highway for the ride home.