A few notes:

Last night we went to Mom's for the Apple Cup, and at one point Madeleine went to the bathroom. She was babbling about a lot of stuff in there (she left the door open), but at one point she said very loudly and clearly, "Huskies stop! Cougars go!" We thought that was hilarious; we hadn't taught her that... she was just doing it on her own. Anyway: Huskies stop! Cougars go!

Yesterday morning Madeleine said she was "too cold" to get herself a blanket or go upstairs to put her clothes on, and it became quite the ordeal, because I wasn't going to do it for her.  And then last night Grant threw a fit, because he wanted his sippy cup, but he kept telling me, "You go get it!"  After a bunch of that, he started crying and saying, "I'm too little!"  Really?  I was thinking he was just copying Madeleine and her little tantrums, but he was smart enough to come up with his own excuse as to why he couldn't do it.  That isn't one that Madeleine has used anytime recently.

Madeleine is dying to sit on my lap now, so toodles. 

11-22-11 

Grant saw snow on trees, and called them Christmas trees.  Then he saw snow on a school bus, and said, “There’s winter on that school bus.”  I really liked that.

Last night we were singing “Old McDonald had a school bus, oigy, oigy, oigy…”  and on his bus old McDonald had a prince.  And the prince went burp burp here, and burp burp there….  Grant is a funny kid. 

For the record, Madeleine threw the worst tantrum ever on Saturday.  Oh man.  She didn’t want to go to a restaurant to watch the WSU football game.  She might have been scared, but I’m not sure.  But the screaming was soooo painful, literally.  Our poor ears!

I’m busy playing Skyrim this week, so I’m not that interested in doing much else in my free time.  Though now I’m a co-author on the Mosaic Bricks blog, so I suppose I should post something! 

Also.... regarding the previous post:  Minty hasn't had her party yet.  She keeps delaying it.  Last night Madeleine told me that she wanted the party to be at 12:30 today, but I said we'd be at Grandma's house, and did she want to have it earlier in the morning?  And Madeleine told me Sweethearts (another pony) was getting married in the morning.  I asked who she was going to marry, and she said she didn't know.  Maybe Blossom.  Then she told me that Blossom is Sweethearts' daddy.  So I said that you don't marry your daddy.   Then Madeleine said she just liked to call Blossom the daddy, but she wasn't really, or something like that. 

Madeleine says Minty (a My Little Pony) is having a picture-drawing party on Saturday.  Madeleine says, "It's a morning party.  It's at 8, on Saturday."  Madeleine tells me that I can come too, to learn how to draw the pony way.  Apparently, the pony way of drawing is to draw a creepy shape on the paper, and then scribble all around it, and even on top of it.  Madeleine has shown me this.  Now she had me write down a note on a post-it that says, "Show Madeleine how to make a pretend cake."  Then she took it to Fluttershy to give to Minty, who will then teach Madeleine, I guess.  I said she could make a cake out of play-dough, and Madeleine told me, "No, sweetie," (just the way I say to her), and told me that they want to make it out of paper. 

Also, for the record, here are Grant's waking up times for this week:  3:30 a.m., 5:30 a.m., and 4:45 a.m.  Wow.  Yikes.

I heard a thump, and then Grant fell down crying.  I asked him, "What happened?  Did you whack yourself?" and he said, "I killed me-self!"  Really?  Then why are you still here crying?  ;-D Actually, I like his idea of what killing is... just getting a little bump.  If only it were that nice. 

We had 234 trick-or-treaters this year.  I think that's down slightly from last year, though I haven't double-checked.  It was a Monday night this year, which might deter a few people. 

I was playing Doodle Jump on the iPod touch with the kids watching me (Grant kept wanting me to play it, and now I play it sometimes even by myself).  Then Grant kept hugging me and saying, "My best friend!" (did he get that from the Cars movie?)  and then "hug!"  Then I noticed he did it when I lost, especially, almost as if trying to make me feel better.  He's so sweet.  He was watching Madeleine skip today, and was yelling to her, "Hi Madeleine!  Nice job!"  My mom says he's a keeper.  It's true. 

The kids did great trick-or-treating.  The neighbor girls ended up going with us, and it was pretty easy.  We got through the row homes, and then the kids got tired on the last street on the way back home.  But they got tons of candy and had a good time.  There was one house at the end that scared Grant a bit.  I had to carry him, and when they opened the door, he didn't say "Trick-or-treat!" but instead said "Hiiiiiii!" in a voice that was strong but tremulous and scared.  It's hard to describe it.  It's like he wanted to start wailing, but was holding it together and saying "hiiiiiii" instead of losing it.  But he couldn't think of what you're supposed to say; he was too scared, I think.

Anyway, it's time to go read books to him. 

And then tomorrow is Brian's birthday!  He's a saint. 

Good night!

P.S.  I checked.  Last year we had 280 trick-or-treaters; the year before that we had 262.  So we were definitely down a bit this year.