Where is Thumbkin? Where is Thumbkin? Here I am! Here I am!

Hello Readers!

Today I plan to entertain you with several anecdotes about my Hoffspring.  Most of them are Courtney-centric, let's be honest.  That girl is a one-woman show, I'm telling you!

I'll begin with Hide and Seek.  So, I'm not sure where they learned how to play H&S.  I know there is an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse where they're all trying to find Donald, but until the other day, I had never seen them show interest.

Now my day consists of one of them running over to me and commanding, "Count, Mommy."  I close my eyes and count slowly to 5 (because, let's face it, they're not going to hide that well, and counting any higher will just prolong their impatience…) Usually, whilst my eyes are closed, I can hear them slapping their feet in the kitchen, or leaping into the tarp-bottomed play tent.  Meaning - their hiding is so obvious, that it could NOT be any cuter.  

At least they're actually hiding now.  Until Jason and I showed them what hiding was, they'd stand behind something that was shorter than them…i.e. they were uncovered from the waist up.  But I digress.

Let's go back to me counting to 5.  All the rustling has stopped and I pretend to look for them, loudly saying, "Are they under the pillows?  Nooooooo.  Are they on the bookcase?  Nooooooo."  The first few times, they were legitimately surprised when I'd jump out at them and find them in their 'hiding spots.'  Nine times out of ten, Courtney would get too excited to be found and come bounding out from her spot before I could get there.  

THEN, the game evolved.  When I would say, "Are they in the kitchen?" before I could say "Noooooo," I would hear a little voice from her hiding spot go, "Nooooooo."  

So, so cute.  The best part is when they play alone - Earlier today, we were upstairs and Courtney and I were in Connor's room.  I noticed Courtney slide behind the curtain, and heard from the other room Chris counting.  I hear: "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13…13…13..13…*he always gets stuck here*  Ready not come!"  And then his little body running from room to room going, "Sissy?  Where are you? Sissy?"  So freaking cute.

(You may be wondering why Chris gets stuck on 13 - I actually know this!  We have 13 steps from the bottom level of the house to the second level, and from the second level to the third.  We count the steps when we climb up or down, hence his ability to count to, but not past, 13.)

The second hilarious thing I want to share from today happened at lunch.  Now, Courtney is ALWAYS making noise - talking, singing, whatever.  She just LOVES the sound of her own voice.  (I don't know WHERE she got that...*looks away, whistling*) Today, she was singing, making up her own tune.  Normally, someone doing that would probably be like, "La la la la," etc. right?  That's what I would do, anyway.  Not my daughter, no.  MY daughter sat there singing, "Booby booby booooooo booby booby booby…"

Yes.  Booby.  

A word she's never heard (at least to my knowledge).  I know to her, she was just making sounds, but to Jason and I, who exchanged amused looks over her head, it was HILARIOUS.  

FYI - Her 'Booby Song' made an appearance a few more times today after that.

My final Courtney story from today involves a toy motorcycle we have.  It's not huge - it's chunky, but small.  Anyway, Courtney picked up the toy and the rest of the conversation went like this:

"Dumbcock!" she exclaimed <her word for dump truck…I know, I know…> 

"Well, it's not a dump truck, it's a motorcycle," I clarified.

"Motocycle."

"Right."  She thought for a minute.

"I ride motocycle," she proclaims.  

"You want to ride the motorcycle?" I ask.  She nods, grinning.  Under my breath I say, "I have no doubts that someday you WILL ride a motorcycle."

With that, the girl climbs on top of the toy, and this is what I see:

I fell out.  Then I, of course, made her pose for a picture.  Ai yi yi.  That girl!

<sigh> My kids.  Love'em.

Moving on to that nasty biotch (that my computer autocorrected to 'biotech,' btw) Irene.  I hope that all who reads this is fine - I assume you are.  Maybe you lost some power, or had a few limbs fall, but nothing too terrible.  We really got nothing.  But I did see something cool today when we walked the golf course after dinner.  There were limbs and a few trees down blocking the path we were on, but then I paid attention to some of the sticks. I saw this:

If you cannot tell, this stick is stuck directly into the ground and is standing completely vertical.  There were tons like this.  I thought it was kind of neat - it meant the wind was so strong, they were launched directly into the ground!  Nothing big, I just thought it was interesting.

I will end this blog with a pic I caught of all 3 kids looking the same direction - this NEVER happens!  HOW did I capture this adorableness, you ask?  

Well, the kids have this Dora book (I HATE Dora, btw...topic for another day...) and it has a small piano they can hit keys on and make music.  One of the songs it plays is Frere Jacques.  So, Chris hits the key and I began singing, 

"Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, Dormez vous? Dormez vous? Sonnez les matines, Sonnez les matines. Ding Ding Dong, Ding Ding Dong"

All 3 kids stop what they're doing and look at me like I have 2039584893275 heads.  Yes, I was singing in French, and yes, they hadn't heard it before.  But it wasn't until later that I realized why they looked so confused - later in the day, I caught them playing the song again, but doing hand motions - and it hit me - that's the same tune as "Where is Thumbkin?"  Mystery solved.   Thank goodness I was already taking pictures and was able to capture their wonderment/confusion!  

<sigh>

Until next time, Readers!  Goodnight!