Squirrels
So the other day, Noelle and Isaac were home, and they hear this godawful sound coming from upstairs.

They proceed to Isaac's room, and just outside of his window, is a squirrel, to whom it soundls like we should be administering last rites.

I should mention that it has been unseasonably warm here.

So the squirrel carries on, and Noelle can't help but thinking - please don't die outside Isaac's window. I don't want to have to explain death right now. Oh the irony.

So the squirrel moves to a neighboring tree, where it is joined by another very 'assertive' squirrel, who begins the process of - well - making more squirrels.

It's a few seconds before Noelle has a chance to react, and Isaac manages to sneak in the question "Are they fighting?"
"Kind of," says Noelle. "They're wrestling." Which is about as appropriate a euphemism as I think I can imagine at that juncture.

They then proceed out of his room, and post haste downstairs, where she distracts him with something else.

Now, normally, I encourage questions, but I think even the most liberal reader of this blog would agree that the age of 2 is a little early for "the talk". So we left it at that, and mercifully it hasn't come up again.

He is, however, displaying more and more precocious tendancies. The other night in the bath, he looks down sheepishly at one of his toys and says, "Dad, what's the situation?"
"Pardon me?" I reply.
"Nothing." he says.
Then a few minutes later "What's the situation?"
"The situation, kiddo, is that you are taking a bath, then mommy will put you in a nice fuzzy sleeper, Dad will read you a story, and you'll be off to sleep.'
"Ok."

On one hand, I have been known to say "I don't know where he gets it from." But the problem with that is that I DO know where he gets it from, which means there's a whole lot more of it to come.

Finally, the other night, I was sitting on the large Ikea piece of furniture (let's hear it for the 'As is' section!) that houses most of my music collection, and is known as the 'crate'.

Isaac pulls on my hand and says "Get up daddy."
I'm thinking I'll turn this into yet another manners lesson, and just sit there until he figures out to say please. Once again, oh the irony.

Because the very next thing out of his mouth is "Come on, Stupid daddy."

I have to admit, I raised my voice. And when you're two, an erstwhile Opera singer's voice when raised, can carry quite the punch. So he ran to Mom, and when she began to chastise him aswell, the howling started.

The thing was, he knew he had screwed up. I think the main thing he was upset about was that he was getting "told" in no uncertain terms just how much he had screwed up. And he didn't like it one bit. No siree.

Of course, he calmed down, but for the next half and hour or so he was a little "snitty" with me, knocking toys out of my hand, and just generally seeing how much he could push the envelope in terms of expressing his displeasure with me.

It's going to be an interesting few years.

On a brighter note, the preperations for
****SPOILER ALERT - SPOILER ALERT****
IF YOU DO'NT KNOW THE GENDER AND NAME OF THE BABY THAT IS ON THE WAY, AND DO NOT WISH TO KNOW, PLEASE DO NOT READ ON.



















Sam's arrival continue apace. The room is painted (our usual one wall routine, apple green this time, and we did the window trim the same colour), and the Crib has been disassembled (with remarkably little opposition from Isaac - it could be a result of the tables we set up in it's place and all of the extra Thomas the Tank Engine train track we assembled on them). We are just awaiting an appropriate "cooling off period" before we reassemble it in Sam's room.

We also have a lovely glider rocking chair, that will be wonderful for nursing in. I even might let Noelle have a go.

So all is good in Allen land. Sorry for the long distance between posts. You know how it is.