Four

Happy Birthday, Colleen! Cake will come later. I promise.

This morning I asked Colleen what she wanted for breakfast, waffles or a bagel. She looked around the kitchen curiously and said "I don't see a cake." She thought the cake came first thing, like finding a quarter from the Tooth Fairy under your pillow or something. Cake will have to wait until her party on Saturday but she did recieve three phone calls today with special birthday wishes from Nanny, her Godmother Jennifer, and Nonna (on her own birthday vacation in sunny Iowa).

And... she and Cousin Amelia had their first fight at lunch. Amelia really wanted to trade her sippy cup for Colleen's water bottle. Amelia tried to hand it to her but Colleen said, "I have my own water. I don't want yours." Amelia grunted and tried again a few more times, with pointing and everything. Amelia finally gave up and chucked the sippy cup at Colleen's head. She's pretty strong and of course hit her mark. Colleen whipped around and shouted at her, "Amelia, you are so rude. I don't like you anymore and you are NEVER getting my water!" Amelia screamed right back, something which will in the near future be "MINE!"

The argument didn't last past Amelia's tears because Colleen then gave her a kiss on her cheek and told her "Poor little kid. Don't be sad. " Amelia forgave her too, leaned in for another kiss and patted Colleen on her shoulder. Amelia then handed her some watermelon to share and Colleen accepted it. Awww.

Colleen just came in as I'm writing this. She wants to know why her name is everywhere. I told her that I'm writing about her birthday. She wants you all to know that she looked but there was no cake.

Sleepy girl

Singing a rainbow

Robert said something tonight that triggered my memory of seventh grade choir. Here are some of the songs we sang.

Keep in mind, this is 1985.

Theme from Ice Castles
Ben
Brian's Song
You Light Up My Life
Sing a Rainbow
For church, Pass It On and Amazing Grace.

So Robert got three completely new songs for him tonight. And I got to curse this steel trap of a brain that can remember every lyric from songs from 24 years ago but not to fold the shirts the way Cate wants them.

What she said

Was it wrong that you had to go on even numbers?

That's what Elizabeth just stumbled into our room to ask us. She used to do this all the time when she was littler, stumble out into the living room, rub her eyes, while we were watching TV, and say something completely incoherent.

Then again, Robert has been known to do the same.

I kind of miss those days.

Saving the Earth

Shame on Minneapolis North High School for not recycling pizza boxes. Cate and Elizabeth rescued these 56 boxes that were destined for the trash bin following the city-wide fifth grade math competition.

Yes, fifty-six. Cate and Robert flattened them out and bundled them up, and they're going out tomorrow with the recycling. Just in time for Earth Day.

At said competition, Elizabeth brought home an honorable mention ribbon and worked with a team that earned another honorable mention ribbon.

I quizzed her as she came home, and it's a legitimate honorable mention, putting her in the Top 15 of 250-plus fifth-graders who participated. (Division III football fans know how I hate fake honorable mentions that simply honor everyone.) Twenty-three kids from Lake Harriet Community School took part, with one of her classmates taking home some pretty impressive honors.

About the recycling, I can say we've been glad to be in a neighborhood which is part of the rollout for the city's composting program. We generated a ton of recycling when we lived in Virginia and this house generates even more, thanks to the newspapers. Can't imagine that all ending up in landfills.

Still the Beatles

I'm working from home today and a Beatles song just came on the radio. Colleen jumped off her chair, literally, and ran over to the radio, before announcing Here Comes the Sun!

It's all right.

Happy Easter from the Colemans!

Quote of the day

After 9 a.m. Mass today we all had brunch at the homestead. Afterwards, Pa (you know, our 95-year-old grandfather) told Ryan, "you're getting fat."

Ryan paused for a second, before blurting out, "you're getting old!"

Oh, and Happy Easter, everyone. Photo to come.

Tales from the bedtime

While I've been at church the past two nights, Cate has taken more of a hands-off approach with bedtime, leaving Robert and Colleen to their own devices after a short time.

This involves a lot of giggling and shoving. And eventually, sleeping.

Thursday night, Colleen sang songs to Robert to try to get him to go to sleep. Her memory is rather limited, but she sang Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Jingle Bells. But Robert had enough pretty soon, and stopped listening.

"I think Robert loves Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, you go try that."

So Colleen goes back to the bedroom and asks, in her customary outdoor voice: "Robert, do you still love Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? Robert? ROBERT? RO-BERT??"

Colleen came back and reported: "Mom, Robert stopped talking. I can't see his face, there's a pillow over his face."

Yes, Colleen, that's the international sign that he's sleeping.

"He stopped talking!"

Cate replied: "You stop talking! Go to sleep!"

Robert related later that he wasn't really asleep. Robert playing asleep and lying still for any amount of time is a tremendous effort.

Last night I got home before they fell asleep. Robert had been singing for Colleen but was already out of songs, so I finished them off. "I don't sing Up on the Roof or Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," Robert told me.

Future diva, that one.

Kids and their technology

I recently discovered that Colleen can shut down the desktop computer by herself. In fact, she's so good at it that it takes her about two seconds to do. Click the Start button, hit Turn Off Computer, select Shut Down, bam.

Also, when her turn is done with the computer and Cate or someone else takes over the browser, she says, "Open a new tab -- I'm not done with my game!"

Elizabeth keeps her email account more organized than anyone else I know -- she has all sorts of tags filtering her email by -- I don't know, sender, subject, color, Harry Potter book referenced, etc. And Robert is the expert in terms of switching the television from the DVD player to the Wii. (Not enough inputs for both, so only one of them can be plugged in at any given time.)

We three kids

The kids went to pet farm animals at the garden store, you know, just another typical Sunday. But the real purpose of this post is to introduce the newest photo of the three kids. Now if only we could have gotten them all to both smile and look at the camera at the same time.

Not so much. But at least nobody was poking anyone's eye out.

We also had brunch at Dixie's on Grand, thanks to a gift certificate from Neil and Alicia for Christmas. Thanks!

Happy Birthday, Amelia!

We had about 30 people here today for Amelia's first birthday party. While I'm sure this will be covered in more depth on Baby 365 at some point soon, I'll just say we all had a great time. (In fact, new photo at Baby 365 now.)

She didn't go face-first into the cake, or throw food all over the place, or anything like that. She didn't pitch a fit or get overly tired at the gigantic pile of presents.

I've seen football games with fewer cameras than this birthday party. Neil counted nine cameras at one point during the present opening, not counting cell phones. I posted two photo galleries on Facebook with many more photos, including shots of ... the shots.

Cate and Elizabeth's present was a big hit with the adults. Amelia, of course, didn't seem nearly as interested in the doll (which Cate crocheted, with accessories crocheted by Elizabeth) as she was in the box that it came in. But while I could try to describe all the steps and all the work that was involved, I couldn't possibly do it justice. Hopefully Cate will elaborate.

Colleen, Amelia's Aunt McKenzie and her second cousin, Nina, were among the hits of the party. Colleen is about to turn 4, Nina is 5 and McKenzie is 6.

Oh, and after everyone left, Amelia took her first steps. Great day for all.

One more step to full Minnesotahood

We got a little closer to being fully Minnesotan today as we (read: Cate) registered the Honda and got Minnesota plates on it. So now both cars have Minnesota plates.

Cate likes the irony that I'm the only one still carrying a Virginia driver's license. I also still have a 703- number on my cellphone. But I did have a Minnesota driver's license once, and, there's still that whole thing of having a house in Virginia. We're getting close to being rid of that, too.

Robert helped me put the plates on the car, and yes, I blurred out the license number.