The power of persuasion........

I got a call from Kali today.........

Me: Hello?

Mrs. Lime: (muffled) Say hi to Daddy.

Me: Is this Kali?

Kali: Mmmm-hmmm.

Me: What are you doing? Are you eating?

Kali: Captain Crunch!

Me: Mmmm, that sounds good. Are you eating it with milk?

Kali: No!

Me: All by itself.....I see. Are you eating anything else?

Kali: (to Mrs. Lime) I need something else to eat.

Mrs. Lime: Well, we'll get something once you finish talking with Daddy.

Me: Kali, do you need to let me go so you can get something else to eat?

Kali: Yes.

Me: OK, I'll [click on other end] let you go.

I guess getting something else was far too urgent to take time to say bye-bye.

Wiffle ball........

I had to go out to do some work at another location and Mrs. Lime needed me to take Kali 2.11. When we got there, the person I was supposed to meet wasn't there yet. As a result, I had extra time with nothing to do and a two year old getting tired of waiting. Thankfully, I came prepared.

I remembered I had put my wiffle bat/ball in the trunk of the car. I asked Kali if she wanted to play wiffle ball and she was eager to do so (despite not knowing what that even was). Once I got it out, she recognized it as 'baseball' right away. I gave her a few minor pointers to get set up, and then I tossed the ball her way. She actually hit it, though it may have been a bit of luck that the ball and bat happened to collide with each other.

Unfortunately, she missed on the next 4-5 swings, so it was now considered a boring activity. I did let her set the ball on the ground and hit it around, but that got boring as well.

Eventually, she just wanted to play 'chase'. So we just ran around in circles and she thought that was fantastic. Such is the interest level of a two year old girl.

Giselle 0.2 picture blowout!

That's right. The pictures are back. We have a larger baby on our hands..

Daddy. Leave me alone. I'm sleeping.



What???????



You've got to stop waking me like that, Dad.



Man, I look good.



More flashes?????





AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!



Kali! This is MY picture blowout! Get out of my pictures!





Uh oh. Dad is back with the camera again.



What in the world caused that bright light?!?!?!



My toys are SO cool looking!

GO GET 'EM!!!!!!!!

First laugh.........

Finally got a laugh out of Giselle 0.2 tonight. She's been smiling for awhile now. I was making faces at her and talking to her. She smiled and then sucked in some air for a mini-laugh. It was pretty funny.

She's starting to look at my mouth when I talk to her and try to make noises to respond. Lots of vowel sounds and she's pretty sure that she's talking to me. I'm sure once she's able to sit up and watch Kali, her vocabulary will just explode.

The short-circuit of the Obama administration......

I'll admit it. I was gleefully happy about Scott Brown winning the special election in Massachusetts this week, effectively killing any hope Obama and the Democrats had of passing their health care bill.

It's been baffling that health care, cap and trade, and other useless policies proposed by the Democrats have been pursued with such vigor despite the fact that the majority of Americans are against their passage in their present form. Suddenly, the GOP wins Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat and they realize, 'Oh, maybe the public isn't real crazy about what we're doing. I told Mrs. Lime that the grounds crew would be busy at Arlington the next day since Teddy likely rolled over in his grave all night long and tore up the ground above his grave.

It's amazing how the stupidity of one group of politicians which allowed the Democrats to ascend to power is quickly forgotten by the public when the new group of politicians make moves that are equally as stupid. Hopefully the group that replaces the current politicians in November learns from the past. I won't hold my breath.

Keeping Daddy on his toes.......

Me: (sarcastically) Kali, I think you have some real issues.

Kali: Daddy, I don't have issues. I have tiny shoes!

Daddy day-care.........

I spent quite a bit of this past weekend taking care of Kali 2.11 and Giselle 0.2. While it's certainly enjoyable under most circumstances, it can be a good-size job at the same time. Kali 2.11 is the main issue. She's far too intelligent and always looking for ways to do different activities while attempting to circumvent any situations where I say 'no'. It makes for some rather animated discussions at times.

On the other side, Giselle 0.1 has been wonderful thus far, though she does little more than eat and smile for the most part. She's been sleeping through the night on a regular basis, much to the delight of Mrs. Lime and I. She also eats from a bottle without too much protest, making my job easier when Mrs. Lime is busy at work or away on other matters.

Overall, it's been surprisingly easy transitioning to two kids as opposed to one kid. It's a little more work to do certain things, but it comes much easier when you've already done it one time. Now if we can just get Kali to stop being so opinionated..........

Wisdom of a 2 year old......

Kali 2.11 and I had a dinner conversation this evening with profound observations......

Me: So, did you have fun with Mommy today?

Kali: Yes.

Me: What did you all do? Did you go somewhere?

Kali: We went to the cookie store to get cookies for Mommy!

Me: You got cookies for Mommy?

Kali: Yes, and I got M&M cookies.

Me: Oh, I see.

Kali: I've got a pink shirt and you've got an orange shirt!

Me: That's right.

Kali: I'm not sick anymore.

Me: That's right. We were sick, but we aren't anymore.

Kali: We got everyone else sick!

Me: You mean YOU got everyone else sick.

Kali: No, we got everyone else sick.

Me: OK.

Kali: But the doctors made everyone better.

Me: That's right. Do we know any doctors?

Kali: Mmmmmmm, Papa!

Me: Yep, Papa is a doctor. Anyone else? Is Mommy a doctor?

Kali: No.

Me: Yes she is! She makes everyone better.

Kali: (laughing) She gave you a shot!

Me: That's right. She gave me a flu shot, didn't she.

Kali: Mmmmmm hmmmmmm. (Pause) Giselle is crying!

Me: Yep, she's a little grumpy.

Kali: I think she's hungry.

Me: I just fed her, so I think she might be a bit grumpy.

Kali: She likes milk.

Me: I think she's watching you to learn how to eat.

Kali: Mommy makes a lot of milk for Giselle in her booby.

Me: She does like a lot of milk.

Communication.........

Kali 2.11 is really starting to come around with her language skills. She's doing a really good job of phrasing and also is much more animated in her conversations. She uses her hands a lot when explaining things to you. Last night over dinner, she sat next to Gwen 2.7 and explained how she had costumes over at her house and she invited Gwen over to play dress up with her. She also went into a long explanation to Gwen of how the 'blue button' was no longer available on one of her favorite Netflix movies, which meant that she could no longer watch it. FYI......the blue button is a 'Play' button on Netflix where you can stream a movie straight to a computer. Netflix has taken 'The Swan Princess' off their streaming list, hence the reason the 'blue button' is no longer available.

Kali is also learning how to spell some words with Mrs. Lime's help. Kali plays a 'princess dress-up game' on Mrs. Lime's Iphone. The first step in the game is to name your princess and you can't move forward until then. The other day, Kali came up to me and gave me the Iphone to look at. I looked to see 'Splig' typed in the name box. I was a bit confused, so I asked Mrs. Lime what I was looking at. Evidently, Kali was trying to type 'Sleeping Beauty' into the box, but only got in 'Splig'. Still, I was pretty impressed that she had got that much given that she's not even three years old. She obviously knew she was typing 'sleeping'.

Giselle 0.1 continues to grow bigger and bigger. She's average height thus far, but 75% in weight, so she's not missing many meals at this point. She's also doing a good job of communicating. She smiles a lot already and also gives a 'coo' here and there. Given that she'll be able to learn from Kali, I expect her to start babbling much quicker than Kali ever did.

Christmas morning..........

Yes, it's way past Christmas, but I hadn't put up some photos yet, so January 12th seems like the perfect time to do it. A groggy Kali 2.10 peeks around the corner to see if there are any presents by the tree.......



I'm guessing from that smile there might be a couple of presents.......



Santa writes his name with pink Magic Markers around our house.......



Princess slippers! Just what she asked for!



Giselle 0.1 gets her first X-mas present from Santa.......



Kali said, "Here, Giselle! Merry Christmas!" right as this photo was taken.........



A Barbie dress to go with pink princess slippers!



Somebody's not too interested in opening presents........



Kali's checking out Tinkerbell 1.1's antics.........

If it's good for Mrs. Lime.........

Saturday night, I had the monthly poker game at my house. Had a good size group. Best part was that I won! I was pretty happy with my play all evening long. I tried some different things after doing a lot of poker reading over the past month or two. It seemed to help quite a bit.

After poker, I had to take care of Giselle 0.1. During the poker party, the girls in attendance all took turns with the baby (didn't take much convincing). Mrs. Lime had to work from 9:00 PM to 2:00 AM. I took over around 11:00 PM from the girls. Giselle was NOT happy with me. While she does eat from a bottle if she's truly hungry, she still gives me an attitude if she's ready to go to sleep and 'The Boob' (Mrs. Lime's new nickname around the house) isn't available. So I have to pull out all the tricks of the trade to get the baby to sleep.

After a good hour of work, I finally got her to sleep around 12:30 AM in the swing. She was snoring pretty good, so I decided to pick her up and take her upstairs to the crib. BAD DECISION! As soon as I put my hands under her to pick her up, her eyes shot wide open and she acted like she had never been asleep. Uh-oh.

After another hour of convincing her that sleep was her best option, she finally went to sleep around 1:45 AM, probably mostly due to exhaustion of trying to convince Daddy otherwise.

I woke up the next morning and Mrs. Lime commented to me how well Giselle slept last night. Mrs. Lime said she woke up a couple of times wondering if everything was OK since she wasn't waking up to eat. Evidently Daddy wasn't the only one exhausted from his late night party with Giselle.

Ever watched a train go by? (Volume 2)

More pictures of the dubious duo watching a train go by........















And an up-close view of what it would look like to be licked by a Saint Bernard dog.....

Ever watch a train go by??????

Here's how Tinkerbell 1.2 and Kali 2.10 do it..........

New Year's Eve Party..........

We just decided to hang out around the house for New Year's Eve with family. Mrs. Lime and her sister, Blondie, picked up some party stuff for the kids. Kali 2.10 and her cousin Alec were determined to make it to midnight to ring in the new year. They did both make it and had a blast. Here's a couple of pictures to commemorate the event. First, a photo of Kali and Alec pretending to be passed-out party attendees. Note that Tinkerbell 1.2 is checking on their well-being..........


In the second picture, Kali is going over to plant a New Year's kiss on Alec. But Alec was having none of it.........



Good time was had by all. The confetti all over the floor that I had to vacuum up the next day was proof that a big party occurred in our living room.