I believe! I believe!

It has been a noisy interesting last couple of days. Erin is ferociously teething. She will not let me get more than a couple of feet away from her without crying. She wants to be held constantly--by me. Whenever Chris holds her she reaches out for me. Part of me is all touched and 'aw-isn't-that-sweet'! The rest of me just wants to go to the bathroom in peace and quiet without a sobbing baby sitting on the floor pulling at my leg.

And we've figured out that Ibuprofen does not sit well on her tummy.

On the flip side, Ian is doing tremendously well in the potty training arena. Except now he tells Everybody every time he has a body function. For example, he used the restroom in Wal-Mart (he's still scared of the noisy auto-flush). We clapped and yay-ed and when we were in the other end of the store, 20 or so minutes later, Ian saw an older woman and gleefully announced to her "I went pee pee in the toilet! Want to see?" She handled it very well and said no thank you, but did congratulate him on his success. She was really sweet. But does he have to invite everyone to look at it? I believe, I believe! (Some part of me is thinking of Peter Pan, where we clap and say "I do believe in fairies!" I don't know why.)

There has been another cold snap after the days of horrible thunderstorms and hail (yes, hail!). During one episode of penny sized hail, I went to the carport to pull the Jeep up a bit, in case the hail got bigger. There was some hail that had bounced over so I picked it up and brought it inside to show Ian. I explained to him that hail was just "Ice rocks from the sky". He looked at it, held it a bit and popped it into his mouth. "Mmm. Cold" was all he said. And that was that.

Last night it got down in the 40s. We are cold. It is really weird to be freezing and have the heaters on again and to look out into the yard and see the kiddie pools and the slip 'n slide.

I must take the time to mention that there are large warnings all over the slip 'n slide for good reason. Chris took Ian outside in his trunks (we're trying to get rid of the white pasty legs) and wet the ramp down and put dish soap all over it (just in case it wasn't slippery enough). Ian couldn't figure out how to slide down the strip into the little holding pool. So Chris kind of picked him up and did the old heave ho and skipped him down so Ian was sliding down on his bottom, like you do on a slide. Ian loved this and begged to do it again and again. Eventually Chris got tired and we debated on who should teach him how to go down on his belly. This is where the illiteracy comes in. I volunteered for the first skid and passed the baby to Chris. I took a run and leaped onto my knees (hey, I'm a girl and there are parts that make it painful to slide anywhere on your belly!) and promptly skidded off the edge into the muddy part. Naturally.

My knees and ankles and feet were kind of scraped up.

Well, Chris gave me a towel, passed the baby back and stated that you weren't supposed to go on your knees. Everybody knows that! So he (in pants and boots) backed way up and took a running leap and went down on his belly and skidded off into the same muddy spot (ha). He got scratches all down his belly. Ouch. They are still there.

Then we noticed all the writing at the beginning of the slide. The ones that say "For children between 2-12. Not for adults! Not for anyone over 100 pounds!"

Oh.

For laughs, I'm posting a picture that Chris took last week. He had taken Ian out to help him wash his police unit and then Ian decided that his trike looked kind of dingy, so he needed to wash it too. :)

Oh, my okra has popped up. The squash and cucumbers are growing very nicely, new leaves all over the place. The tomatoes still look peaked, but the peppers look the same size. We got a tiny strawberry off of Ian's plants and split it 3 ways. It was surprisingly sweet and Ian wanted more. He is waiting impatiently for our 2 plants to yield more. He checks it 5 or 6 times every time he plays outside.