Cupcake Buddies, Dancing Bradley, Hiding Eleanor

Nathan is gone on a work trip to Columbia(!!) and we miss him very much this week.

The kids think this box is big enough to ship them to Daddy

Bedtime is much less exciting while Nathan is away. Our calm time leading up to jammies, brushing teeth, and stories is just plain boring with Mommy.

Eleanor checking out her phone ... what do you mean there's more going on in this picture than Eleanor?

Surprisingly, this did not end in tears. Daddy wins a prize for ending the rough housing before someone got hurt. 

We've also been having a blast playing with the puppets my parents gave us which were left over from my childhood. For the record, sometimes it's really weird having your children play with your childhood toys. I remember doing puppet shows with my siblings with these puppets.

We think Bradley might like the puppets okay

Daddy and Bradley have had quite a bit of good bonding time lately. Here they are playing with Bradley's bath toy turtle - we have quite a time keeping bath toys in the bathroom in the Scott household.

And Nathan is counting down the days until the kids will do this with him for football instead of Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

He's also counting down the days until Eleanor stops being such a dedicated pusher of all the computer buttons but I don't think that's happening anytime soon. The girl is obsessed with buttons. We have to hide the tv remotes from her and out of sight out of mind doesn't work for our determined little girl. She will climb over you and on top of couch cushions and dig around for the remote if she knows we tried to hide it in a particular spot.

Poor Bradley - he is still not allowed to touch the baby monitor or my phone but Eleanor carries them around constantly. Buttons! At least he doesn't seem to notice the double standard.

While Nathan has been gone we've been trying out some fashion:

Boot fashion!

Borrowing Mommy's sandals - looks like she may need to borrow some of Mommy's clothes too.

I've also been giving the children additional lessons in manners and proper eating habits.

Eleanor can drink out of a bowl with no hands! This is surely advanced table manners.

I'm fairly certain that both children ate all the frosting and none of the actual cupcake. Also advanced.

And here we have the children demonstrating the importance of sharing nutritious food with the needy. Bradley was very needy. 

I honestly don't know which child loves this more. Bradley had cupcake on his tray but was not remotely interested in eating it. Eleanor's was identical but it was shoved into his mouth. Delicious!

I'm trying to put the kibosh on drinking bath water and tonight Bradley took a little sip out of his bath cup and smiled big and told me "tastes like apple juice". Sigh. I offer a lot of fresh water drinks while thirsty children are in the bath but how is one supposed to compete with apple juice?

Sometimes parenting is not at all what I thought it would be - it's a lot of me trying to not let my two year old love tackle small hispanic children he has made friends with while I'm trying to buy his sister a pair of shoes, it's trying to convince my children that sitting in poop is not the best thing ever, and it's urgent requests for songs about a bad guy snake when I know no such song. But sometimes it's breakfast with Bradley hollering "cheers!" and holding out his cup to clink with mine and then Eleanor hollering her version of cheers and clinking her spoon against my glass cup and then cracking up laughing at the loud sound it made. And then doing it over and over, laughing and with a thrilled expression on her face, which makes Bradley laugh too. And then once of us starts throwing muffin wrappers on the floor and the spell is broken. But the little moments are there and they are getting more and more magical.

These sweet kids are such darling buddies these days. We went to our first MOPS meeting at church today and when I picked up Bradley from his classroom they asked me if he had a little sister in the toddlers group. Apparently Bradley's class and Eleanor's class got to meet up in a big indoor playroom for some free time and Bradley gave Eleanor a healthy amount of hugs and kisses when he saw her. She didn't seem upset by it and they looked enough alike that the staff figured they were siblings. So sweet.

Bradley has been requesting that Eleanor sleep in his bed with him and he may get his wish soon with the way they are getting along combined with how clingy Eleanor has been while going to sleep.

This happened the other night:

Eleanor rarely gets to sleep in our bed but she is SO HAPPY when it happens. She usually does pretty well at night but once in a while if she wakes up and has a tough time I'll go in there and cuddle her a bit in the recliner and then try to put her back in her crib. Sometimes this means she'll suddenly turn into a little monkey, clinging to me with all of her limbs. It's a losing battle when this happens so I just bring her back into the bed with me (this happens about once a month. If it were more often than that Daddy would put up more of a fuss about poor sleep training habits). She'll snuggle up as close to me as she can and I can generally see a huge smile on her face as she's settling in.

And Bradley occasionally has a tough time being sleepy enough for naps and so he is given a few books to look at in his bed until he feels like falling asleep. At night he sometimes begs for me to stay in bed by him and go to sleep while I have to go put Eleanor in her own room, which takes a while because she's a clingy mess. A lot of these problems will be solved when Eleanor is old enough for us to let her sleep in the same bed as the Bradley boy. (In theory at least, the reality is that they are going to be SO EXCITED when they get to be in the same bed so we'll see how much sleep happens at first)

Bradley's bedtime routine difficulties may stem at least in part to his newfound love of dancing. It is amazing.

So now we'll put him in bed, read a few stories, pray, and then start to sing a sweet lullaby before leaving the room ... and he'll sit up in bed and say "me dance!" and starting bouncing up and down and swinging his arms enthusiastically with a giant grin on his face. I'm not going to tell him not to dance because it truly is a delight to look upon the adorable dancing, but it does tend to make a boy riled up and not at all sleepy.

Eleanor has her own version of dancing

She has also taken hiding to a new level

The expression on her face here is priceless

Best hiding spot in the house

I was going to start a series of photos called "Eleanor while Mommy tries to make dinner" but with just two photos you can really get the full idea of what I was going for.

She does this unless she is held. I can do a surprising amount of prep in the kitchen while holding a twenty some pound toddler. Also, I am no longer impressed by any meal a person without small children is able to make. If you didn't do it with a child crying and clinging to you then it doesn't count.

Bradley and Eleanor had been having full on battles for the Jake and the Neverland Pirates chair that resulted in it being hidden in a closet for periods of time so I finally relented and got Eleanor her own little foam chair.

Minnie Mouse! She loves it.

 Now there is peace in the Scott household once again.

And yes, Bradley loves the chair too. Fortunately neither of them seem to mind which chair they're in too much as long as they are in one of the awesome foam chairs. 

And if you truly want to step it up a notch you throw in sitting on top of Daddy on the couch. 

This series of photos goes under the "our cats are too nice" category.

Sookie loves to be in Bradley's top bunk. So much so that she will tolerate ridiculous levels of child affection in order to be able to stay in her spot. 

She has come into Bradley's room first thing in the morning while both kids are playing and blazed a trail past them in order to get into her spot. 

Things usually end like this. Such a sweet kitty. 

We've been loving the September weather and have been getting a lot of good park time in. Bradley finally likes the big boy swing which makes swing time at the playground much easier now!

But Bradley still goes into the baby swing when he wants to get some serious height.

Eleanor is rarely in the stroller at the park anymore. Have I mentioned how much I love our house that backs on this amazing park? We're at the park almost every day and it is so perfect and fun.

And here is one final video I took tonight demonstrating the cuteness that is the siblings. Many parenting victories in this video, when Bradley does half jump on Eleanor he kisses her in apology AND he later doesn't run her over when given a clear opportunity to do so. Lots of sweet laughs in this video!