Just some random tidbits to share:

It's getting too cold for the boys to sleep in the sunroom. We've been trying to figure out where to put everyone, and we're thinking we may have the boys and Natalia sleep in the same room (her current room, their old room) for the winter. I brought this up with Leon and Michael just to get a sense of how they would feel about it. Even after emphasizing they could keep their toys in the sunroom, and keep a gate on the sunroom to keep Natalia out, Michael was not sold. Leon, however, was a huge fan. He told me, "I could come get you when Nati won't stop freaking out. I could say, 'Mommmmm, Nati needs booba.'"

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The kids watched an episode of Sesame Street about careers. As they were watching it, Natalia grabbed her bag and sippy cup and told everyone goodbye. Jeff explained to the other three that Natalia wanted to go to work like I do, and, of course, they thought it was hilarious. So Jeff asked them what they wanted to be. Ree said she wanted to be a fashion designer. Michael wanted to be a "kid doctor." Leon wanted to a be a pirate.

Given Leon's previous career ambitions of being Mickey Mouse or Stefanie Baker, being a pirate sounded pretty reasonable. That night during baths, I asked him about him.

Me: I hear you watched an episode of Sesame Street about jobs. Dad says you want to be a pirate.
Leon: No, I want to be a builder.
Me: Oh, like Bob the Builder?
Leon: No. (Rolls his eyes.) LEON the builder.

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On Saturday evening during dinner, I happened to look out the window and I noticed the wind had really picked up. After gusting for almost 24 hours, we finally had some definite sustained winds. I made the mistake of mentioning this to my family. Suddenly, all the kids wanted to "feel" the wind.

It turns out, the easiest way to convince kids they don't want to go out and play in a tropical storm is to let them go out and play in a tropical storm. They ended up spending less than 2 minutes in our sheltered backyard before running inside and deciding they were not quite ready to replace Jim Cantore.

Pumpkin Decorating

For us, Sandy could not have picked a better time to visit, and for once I am being completely serious. This weekend the Bengals have a bye and we have no visitors. That means we get to spend our hurricane day relaxing and catching up on life.

It's been an interesting week. The heating element in the oven went out. (Actually, it made a loud popping noise, and when I peeked in the oven, I noticed it happened to be on fire) The motor on one of my car windows died (I already had an emergency repair of another one this fall), and my cell phone started acting all crazy and not really working. So the downtime was very welcome.

Among other things, we used today to start getting ready for Halloween. We had great intentions of getting the Halloween decorations down two weekends ago. However, that was the same weekend we also decided to completely rearrange our bedroom one night after the kids went to bed. We were trying to make room for a desk so we would have a place to do work and we could finally open the all-in-one computer we had purchased two weeks before after the death of our computer. (What is it with us and things breaking? I forgot to mention the ice maker in our freezer also went hyperactive this week and we have mountains of ice pouring out. I should probably find the instruction manual and figure out a way to stop that instead of just seeing it as an excuse to make unlimited frozen margaritas.) In rearranging our bedroom, we finally took down the crib that Natalia slept in for about six total hours ever. It got placed in the garage. Right under the shelf with the Halloween stuff. We did not plan, and we were not moving the crib parts to make room for the ladder at that point.

The last weekend, our friends Mike and Janae came to visit. Janae kept her camera handy and snapped some great pics of the kids. Halloween stuff definitely didn't happen last weekend.

But we sold the crib this week, and with nothing but rain and wind outside, we had no excuse but to get down the Halloween stuff. Jeff got out the boxes and left them in the living room. Natalia quickly proved that she was able to figure out how to open them, and she showed she had her brothers' knack for throwing holiday decorations and shattering them. At least her brothers taught us to immediately put anything breakable out of reach.

Natalia was actually quite a terror all morning. Thankfully, she begged to go down for an early nap. Once she did, the big kids were able to get busy decorating pumpkins.

In the past, we've always carved pumpkins. The problem is the kids can't carve them by themselves, and they end up swinging from the table like deranged monkeys while we slice and dice since they don't want to miss anything but they don't actually have anything to do. It's been a rather painful experience. This year I gave them acrylic paint and let them go to town. Ree quickly started complaining, but once I gave her a bucket of Sharpies to use instead of paint, she was a happy girl.

The only thing we didn't get to today was making Halloween costumes. I did start working on them, only to realize I was out of glue sticks for the hot glue gun. But it's only the 27th. Plenty of time!

Riverfest

Ree's fall break was a very busy three weeks filled with two sets of visitors, an overnight trip to a training session for me, and all sorts of outings. One of our adventures was a trip to Riverfest here in Wilmington with my parents.

The U.S.S. North Carolina sits just across the river from downtown Wilmington.

Riverfest has free admission and a free play area. (We love Riverfest!) Everyone loved the inflatable climbing wall.

Ree and Leon loved the giant slide.

 Bouncing was lots of fun too.

Natalia did not limit her climbing to the designated area.

 The kids all went for train rides.

When it was over, the kids were too tired to even clean up toys before naps.

Talk, Talk

Over the past few weeks, Natalia has gotten so much better at communicating. For quite awhile, we had been asking her to show us what she wanted, and she dutifully drug us around the house with quite a bit of success. But then I noticed she started asking for "more," especially at meals. And to make sure we knew she wanted more, she would say the word and sign at the same time. (Not that she ever used the sign BEFORE she knew the word. I'm afraid she thought it was a package deal. Or she liked torturing us.)

I was so relieved to hear her asking for more instead of just screaming, that I pretty much let her have at least a little of whatever she was asking for more of. The good news is she usually had pretty healthy food. The bad news is that no one really needs a third banana, but hey, Pampers loves us.

Following the success of "more" she started trying out other words, and now the words are coming faster and faster, with her saying several new words every day. One of my favorite words she tried out early was "ice." She never just says the word. Instead, she gleefully exclaims, "Aisssssss!" Every time.

After months of saying, "No, no, no, no, no!" and shaking her head, she also started hissing out "yessssss," too. Even more fun, over the weekend she figured out how to nod her head yes, and it's comical to watch her concentrate to make sure she gets the neck movement just right.

She can now chastise all her siblings by name, and she loves reprimanding them. For a long time she has worried about our dog "Poo" (aka Pru), but she can now also yell at Max when he gets in her way.

My parents and grandmother were visiting for the past week, and today when I came home from work, she said hi then asked, "Gene? Graa? CiCi?" (Grandpa Gene, Gran, CiCi) since they often arrived for dinner at the same time I got home from work. I told her they had gone bye-bye. So she ask again. And when the answer was the same, she slugged me. Sadly, I knew exactly what she meant.

Classic Rock Kids

Wilmington seems to be one of the last cities in the country that still has a wide variety of independent radio stations. We take advantage and always have the radio on in the car, and often in the house too. There are about four stations we listen to regularly, but it's classic rock that always catches the kids attention. And somehow they are able to put images with the music. We were eating at Red Robin one night over the summer when Michael glances up at a poster and said, "Hey! It's the Beatles!" (I do believe we are raising him right.)

Here are a few of my favorite moments from driving in the car with the kids this weekend.

Ree: Is this, "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?"
Me: No. It's...(listening)..."Wheel in the Sky Keeps Turning."
I don't know if I said it wrong, or she heard it wrong, but she then said:
Ree: Shouldn't it be "keeps" and not "keep? A wheel "keeps" turning.
Me: You're right.
Before I could elaborate, the chorus came on, and we both listened. It was "keeps." She sat back in her seat, relieved. And I made a mental note to keep the grammar Nazi-in-training away from country and rap.

Ree and Michael spent at least ten minutes debating the lyrics of "You Might Think" by the cars. Michael would sing a line, and Ree would correct him. Over and over. The funniest part? She never had the lyrics right. I decided not to step in and correct her. For now they can keep singing:

You might think I'm crazy.
All I want is you.
You might think I'm foolish.
To hang around at school.

And my absolute favorite was all four kids singing "Werewolves of London" at the top of their lungs. Even Natalia howled along to the chorus. Oww-ooooh!

The Doll

Ree got a baby doll for her birthday, which Natalia assumed meant Natalia got a baby doll for Ree's birthday. Thankfully, Ree is willing to share.

The doll looks pretty realistic, and it even makes six exciting real baby noises. As with real babies, we occasionally get it to coo or giggle, but it mostly just cries. Natalia likes carrying the doll around and feeding it until it cries. Then she finds a parental unit to help. One night she handed Jeff the doll while it was crying. When it didn't see to do anything about the crying, she rolled her eyes and said, "Bottle." Apparently she thought Jeff was sufficiently trained, because she usually takes him the doll and the bottle when the doll cries.

But one day when he wasn't around, the doll started crying. She yelled, "Mommmmm!" and then thrust the doll at me and commanded, "Booba," her word for nursing. I guess that's how moms take care of crying babies.

Movies and the Beach, Oh My!

Remember how your mother always told you if you didn't have anything nice to say, you shouldn't say anything at all? That's how I feel about last weekend. It wasn't all horrible, but it certainly wasn't sunshine and rainbows either. Lots of screaming and crying. And that was just the grown ups! It seemed like no one was happy and none of us could get along.

So we took a different approach this weekend. Jeff and Natalia ran errands on Tuesday and Thursday so that we would actually (gasp!) have time for fun on the weekend. I normally enjoy shopping, and running errands in general, but Natalia has sucked all of the fun out of that, so I wasn't too sad to turn those duties over.

On Friday night, I took Ree to see Brave which was playing at the movie theater on campus. She's been to the movies a few times before - with Jeff, with my mom, and with a friend, but I had never been to a movie with her, so that was exciting for me. And being that it was about a mom and daughter, it was a perfect movie for us. Plus it was nice and dark in there, so it wasn't quite so obvious that I am a complete wuss and cry at everything. Adding to the fun, the movie was sponsored jointly by a film club and a Scottish heritage society. Consequently, we were greeted with live music performed by a bagpipe player, and there was a contest for best Scottish brogue before the movie. We both enjoyed the festivities.

On Saturday morning, we went to the beach. And we had a good time.

So serene...

Until a wave tried to attack him!

Meanwhile everyone else played in the sand.

It turns out boogie boards make great boats for the preschool set.

Michael requested a picture of his feet.

And his footprints. In the dry sand.

I left the beach feeling more relaxed that I've felt in a long time. In months. In my deliriously content state, I suggested we stop for Mexican food on the way home. We hadn't gone out to eat since Ree's birthday in August, and it seemed like a good time to splurge. Unfortunately, I think Natalia had other ideas. She was, well, I am going to refer back to the first paragraph and stop there. I will say at least the food was good.