Parenting Assistance and Luminary Walk

I have been so fortunate lately to be receiving excellent parenting assistance from sweet Bradley who lets me know when Eleanor is doing something wrong and even suggests ways to correct the behavior.

It's serious business for a little boy. It's probably not great that my initial reaction was to say "whaaaaat?" with a huge grin on my face and then unsuccessfully try to keep from laughing.

There is a fair bit of parenting to do with our sweet Eleanor though. I have to say things that I never thought I'd say, like "the pony is not a hat" as she said "hat hat hat" while whacking Bradley over the head repeatedly with one of the my little ponies.

Bradley adores her though, he mostly acts a bit bemused when she "gets" him. And while he has been refusing to kiss either me or Daddy lately he has no problem with smooching his sweet little sister. 

Buds

And one of my favorite new developments is Bradley demanding that Eleanor be the one to take off his socks for him whenever he decides it's time to run wildly about. (We have a no socks rule when running on wood floors - fewer slips and falls this way)

This literally happens every time. He'll plop down and holler for Eleanor to come help him and she'll toddle over and happily pull off his socks.

I'm also going with a parenting strategy that I call "You Can't Get in Trouble if You're Being Nice to Your Sister." Bradley has been bringing the step stool out of the bathroom so he can use it by the Christmas tree to touch forbidden ornaments (the ones I LOVE that were made by his great grandmother) but he gets away with it because he sets the stool up by the tree then instantly begs Eleanor to come stand by him on it.

He'll help her up and then will generally help hold onto her.

We've been giving Bradley "foot baths" lately to help with stinky feet and both kids are huge fans. Bradley asked for a foot bath during a regular bath the other night so I'm fairly certain he's been enjoying them. I just enjoy any excuse to take pictures of these cute kids with lots of sweet baby skin showing.

Nathan has been getting in on the Bradley and Eleanor love fest lately.

Sometimes he's even awake for the cuddles. To be fair, this was after a pretty long day at a very cold Seahawks game.

Eleanor is finally into tv shows but with the caveat that cuddles are involved. She'll run over to the couch and start yelling "guppies, guppies!" (her favorite show is Bubble Guppies) and then holler "sit, sit!" and pat a spot on the couch next to her so you will know to sit by her and cuddle. It's tough dealing with someone so cute, I used to love putting a couple shows on for Bradley so I could get things done around the house but how can you say no to cuddles when it's this?

Yep, Layla usually gets in on it too.

And then things got ridiculous. I don't know which of the three was happiest about this situation.

Bradley has been a Daddy's boy lately and I took a rather sweet video of him asking about Daddy when Nathan had left on a work trip.

It may help Nathan's popularity that he does things like take Bradley to his first movie at a real movie theater. Bradley was excited, to put it mildly.

He saw the Penguins of Madagascar. I heard a lot about bad guy octopus and monster penguins when they got home.

We went to a luminary walk at the Overland Park Arboretum this past weekend and the kids were adorable little maniacs. As far as I could see, we were the only ones there with toddlers and no stroller or wagon. The Scott children are not interested in sitting still and watching the world go by.

Bradley smiles for pictures now! Very exciting development.

Eleanor wild and free. Things went downhill fast when we tried to reign this in.

They had a free Santa at the Arboretum and I was kicking myself for not dressing up the kids ... until we realized that Eleanor was mad that Santa was keeping her from being wild and free and she fussed and cried until she was able to run around again. No fear of Santa, fear of being kept away from all the cool lights and fun things. 

Bradley, on the other hand, was VERY excited about Santa and had to be held back from cutting in line and running ahead to him on his own. We've read enough Christmas books that he's in the know about Santa and he is a big fan.

Our favorite moment was after pictures when Santa asked Bradley what he wanted for Christmas and Bradley bounced around excitedly without saying anything for about ten seconds until he finally yelled out "CHRISTMAS TRAIN!" Neither Nathan or I or Santa really knew what that meant. Which makes it even more awesome. 

We did go and visit this lit up train immediately after Santa time. Perhaps he was talking about this? No idea.

Bradley is so much fun to take out to places now. He's into everything and he's pretty good about listening to us.

Gnome village at the luminary walk. Seriously cool.

On our way out.

We've been getting to do a bit more with the kids lately, I don't if they've gotten easier or if we've gotten more accustomed to the crazy. We finally went out to eat with the kids at a place beside Costco a couple weekends ago and had a surprisingly delightful time.

Bradley only shrieked with joy at the fireplace behind us for about five minutes and both kids loved the food at Panera. 

We even had reasonable table manner and used utensils and everything. This is generally not the case at home.

My mom has been sewing up a storm lately and Eleanor has been the high fashion queen at church.

Even her name embroidered on the front. Grandma is too much. So amazing!

 Our little sweeties. We are so smitten with these two.

New Eleanor phrases "I don't like it" and "help me please". She races Bradley into the bathroom to wash hands for meals and he howls with sorrow when she beats him. She chugs loudly when she drinks out of her cup (so funny) and she says "five, six!" on repeat when counting something. During prayer time before naps and bedtime she'll starting saying "row row" in a singsong voice because she knows that songs follow prayers. She's going through a rather intense Mommy phase which is cute but clingy.

New Bradley sayings "oh my goodness!" and "that's a big nono". He can sing the whole alphabet more or less correctly but refuses to do it on command and often combines it with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. We like to ask him if he's our big boy and he always responds "no, I'm a LITTLE boy."

It's so strange to think that we'll have another one of these little persons in about four and a half months. The pregnancy has been going well although I've been told I'm a little whiny about having to eat as often as pregnancy requires. Today at the kids' snack time I told Bradley I wasn't feeling great so I had to eat so he came over to me once he was down from the table and started rubbing my belly a little bit and said "I keeping baby safe" while trying to hug me. He's going to lose his mind during my ultrasound this Wednesday. Can't wait to find out baby gender!