Funny (sort of)

Colleen: Knock. Knock.
Me: Who's there?
Colleen: Banana.
Me: Banana who?
Colleen: Orange.

This is a blissfully shortened version of the "Orange you glad I didn't say banana?" joke that is a plague to so many adults. Elizabeth is trying to teach her the real version on the sly and as I type Robert is sitting next to me demonstrating the full impact of the joke. Groan.

Sleepy boy

Robert is a fairly typical 5-year-old boy. He's loud, rambunctious and almost never just walks. Everywhere he goes is at full speed.

But he does one thing better than either of his sisters: He sleeps.

Elizabeth couldn't sleep in her own bed through the night on a consistent basis until she was about 8 years old. And she was getting coddled to sleep until about a year ago. And Colleen, well, shoot, she's not quite 3 yet, so it's hard to expect too much of her. She sleeps alright and it isn't hard to get her to sleep, but she requires the most attention.

So lately, Cate's been working at 6 on Thursday, 3 on Saturday and 1 on Sunday. That's a three-nights-in-four stretch where it's just me putting all three to bed. Robert gets the brunt of it. And he's been the star.

The girls share a room. Typically, Elizabeth reads on her own and I read Colleen and Robert a book in the girls' room so I can get Colleen to bed more easily. And when reading time is over, Robert goes to his room, gets under the covers and goes to sleep.

That's it. Sometimes I can come in and tuck him in without losing containment on Colleen, but not all of the time. And he's a big boy -- he gets it done all by himself.

Not that Robert stays in bed all night, but he's pretty easy to deal with. Sometimes he gets up in the middle of the night and plays night watchman -- he'll walk around the upstairs and check in on everyone, make sure they're OK.

One night recently, during his rounds, he came into our room and checked both sides of the bed (I wasn't asleep yet), then came back to my side. I asked him how his rounds were going and he said, "I'm cold, and my blanket is cold!" So I invited him to bring him and his blanket in to my side of the bed to get warmed up.

You can't do that with Colleen and you couldn't have done that with Elizabeth at that age, because it would've been tears when you sent her back to bed. But after about three minutes I told Robert it was time to go back to his room.

And he did.

Because he's our best sleeper.

"I wanna go snow!"

This was Colleen's wail every time we came in from playing in the snow last week. She'd bang on the inside of the front door (luckily muffled by her gloves) hoping to entice someone to take her out again. Robert must be really warm blooded because he'd go out without zipping his coat or putting on a hat. No amount of snow down his collar seems to bother him.

In all, lots of hot chocolate was consumed; snowmen were decapitated; wagon loads of snow were moved from one end of the yard to the other (no point to it - it was just fun) and the kids enjoyed pushing snow back onto the driveway so Mom could shovel some more.

The snow is mostly gone now but Elizabeth is prolonging her enjoyment of the winter stuff with a day trip with her friend to Liberty Mountain in Pennsylvania. Right about now she's zooming down the mountain on an inner tube.

Robert is spending his day off mostly on the computer and with his trains but he told me that he's very impressed that "Dr. Luther King gets his own holiday even though he wasn't even a president. He's very important."

Thanksgiving Break

Elizabeth wrote this for a school homework assignment in November. I recently came across it and thought it should be shared. I didn't fix any spelling but I did add paragraph breaks.

This Thanksgiving I went to Pennsylvania were my cousins and great aunts live. My family and I drove there with my aunt and grandma all day.

We went to my great aunt Mimi's house, near Washington Crossing. For dinner we had roasted turkey with celery stuffing, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, carmels, stuffed celery, fruit salad, banana-nut bread, hot apple cider and lots of other things. It was delicious.

When I walk into the kitchen, it smelled like all the good things in the world. Scents of cinnamon, apple, flowers and warmth floated through the halls.

All my family was there. There were crackers that you pull on each and it pops and toys, a crown and a puzzle fall out. I got a chain puzzle and a box with a pen in it in a cracker.

My cousins Christopher, and Cassidy played with my brother and I the next day. Cassidy and I played Polly Pockets. Christopher and Robert play Lego Pirates.

That night went to see a movie. We saw, "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium." It was funny.

My birthday was that Saturday. We celebrated it there. My great aunts got me: a globe that has constalations on it and a light bulb inside, a toy monkey, and clothes. I also got: a coat, a book, a giftcard, more clothes, a Webkinz, and a Harry Potter castle.

It was a fun Thanksgiving Break.

Choppin' broccoli

It's been fun over the past year or so to have Elizabeth's help and enthusiasm in the kitchen.

I'm not sure whether it was License to Grill or Top Chef that caught her attention, or perhaps some other cooking show that she watches during the day with Cate, but Elizabeth has been willing to learn and help.

One of my favorite parts of the holiday season is preparing Christmas dinner, and it's a role I've claimed for myself. In the retail world, Cate's busiest days are in the final week before Christmas, and since that is when the Division III football season has just ended, I'm home and re-acclimating myself to the family.

So I plan, acquire and prepare dinner for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

This year, Christmas dinner was a leg of lamb, because I felt like doing something new. And we told the kids it was beef, because shoot, we weren't even entirely sure if we would like lamb ourselves. Elizabeth and I went grocery shopping a couple of times before the holiday, and I had her pick out a handful of Granny Smith apples and baby red potatoes. Both are her favorite, and we stumbled on a potato dish that she loves, involving quartered baby reds, red pepper and red onion roasted in the oven. And dinner was a success, even after we told Elizabeth what the main dish was.

One thing Elizabeth is great at is chopping. The other day I added chopped apples to a cookie-out-of-the-bag recipe just because it could involve her. Watching her focus on mincing the apples is pretty cool, I have to say. She also loves to marinade.

And even more cool -- as we were wandering the aisles at Wegman's the other day, she asked if we could make lamb again.

But I can wait. Gotta go find a recipe.

And, in the interim, some new ideas for chicken.

Brushing off the Colemans' Couch

As long as you're not coming looking for psychiatric advice, welcome to the Colemans' Couch.

We find that we have too many kids and too many stories and no place to easily share them with people, or in the case of Cate and I, even with each other. Colleen is becoming more and more verbose and occasionally says things that just floor us.

Here's a story from each of us.

Sunday afternoon, Colleen woke up from a rare nap and was still kind of woozy. I had pulled a shirt over her head and was taking her downstairs to get pants from the laundry. Robert was attempting to play with Elizabeth and a friend of hers and we heard him scream.

Colleen: What's that?
Patrick: That's Robert. He's playing with Elizabeth and Nicole.
Colleen: What did he do now?

Already siding with her big sister, apparently.

Then this from Cate this afternoon:

Colleen found playdough and was playing next to me at the table. I'm not paying too much attention because I just noticed the dough is gone. I asked her where it went and she said, "Oh, sorry. I ate it."

This blog is where we hope to host these stories. Thanks for listening.