It occurs to me that I’m perhaps the suckiest blogger in the world. I should’ve known it would be like this. I couldn’t even keep a diary when I was younger. Somehow I thought typing would make that easier. However, when I have the time to put my thoughts down on paper, er, computer screen, my bed just always looks so much more inviting.

So I’ll write about my kids.

A’s into Power Rangers. Mostly, I think, because his best friend at preschool has some and has brought them to school on occasion. I caved and bought him one after I had taken J to the ER (more later) on Saturday night. I was feeling pretty crappy about how little attention A’s gotten in the last week since I’ve been pretty worried about J. His behavior was poor, so was mine. Anyway. You’d have thought I actually brought the moon out of the sky and gave it to him on a ZooPals plate. He was beside himself excited. And he hasn’t put the thing down since. In fact, he and D carefully counted all the change in his bank (which he most craftily snarfs from the bathroom counter when we’re not looking - we have recently discussed beginning chores so he can actually earn what he wants to spend...) so he could go to Wal Mart and buy a-nother Power Ranger. It was totally cute. He threw 3 one-dollar coins and 4 dollars in quarters up on the counter to pay for his yellow PR, and I thought the cashier’s eyes were actually going to stay rolled all the way back in her head. Then she saw how absolutely over the moon he was about his purchase, and she got a big grin... So, for all my ranting about keeping him sheltered from violence and all the times I said things like “When I have kids, they’ll never watch/play with crap like that...” well, I’m rather full from eating my own words.

J, speaking of words, has many. It’s pretty striking. She’s actually beginning to combine a couple of words together. Her vocabulary right now: A’s name, mama, dada, mimi/nini (grandma’s name), ball, bath, bubble, apple, car, cup, drink, cookie, cracker, up, more, night-night, Dora, Elmo, clap, toys, no, diaper, shoes, sock, teeth, baby (day-day), uh-oh, light, knock-knock, duck, cat, dog, coat, moo, neigh, quack, book, bottle, fish, color, door, comb, bye-bye, hi, and (my absolute favorite)...gorilla. Many of these words are unrecognizable to anyone but D and me, but they’re definitely there and purposeful. I am, after all, a speech pathologist, so I can say so. Anyway, J’s really beginning to show her personality, and just like A at this age, she’s beginning to taste her freedom and independence, and she likes it. I can see the beginnings of her testing us and asserting herself. Today she came into the kitchen while I was making dinner (she’s figured out how to move the baby gate and open the swinging doors to the kitchen). She plopped down on A’s stool, right in front of a cabinet that had a stack of about 30 plastic cups in it. She pulled the cups out, sent them flying all over the kitchen, then looked up at me and said “toys?” Too cute. Good thing, or else she’d’ve been a goner a long time ago. (ER visit - turns out it was no big deal. Thought perhaps pneumonia. REALLY thought pneumonia when I saw the x-rays and that big white thing cutting across the lower portion of J’s right lung. Turns out that’s just her diaphragm. That’s what happens when a speech therapist tries to read x-rays. Thank chocolate I didn’t actually say that to any doctor but D. The ER doc thought it looked strange, though, until D informed him that J’s intestines are all out of order, but in order, but gathered on either side of her abdomen in an anything-but-natural arrangement.)

I caught myself thinking tonight that it’s not going to be long before both kids are rather independent. A’s totally able to be left alone to play now. He often plays alone in his room or on the computer. To think that’s just a couple of years away with J...well, I don’t know what I’ll do with myself. My kingdom for a house with a playroom where they can just go...and be...and run around and be silly all by themselves for periods of time each day. At the same time, I want them with me too...I want them to stay small and snuggle-able and looking up to me like I make the world work.

And some more about words before I turn this off and go to bed... A actually used the following words today: frustrated, although, and kettle. Whose kid is this?