Out of curiosity, I asked the boys the other day what they were hoping to get for Christmas. Ollie wants a pink tractor. No_ah wants to be able to be invisible. Just in case you haven't got your shopping done yet...
They also want to have a baby. They play this game a lot, often after reminding me that my tummy only has food in it. When I gently remind them that boys don't carry babies inside their tummies, they say they will be a "daddy kind of mama". Glad we got that all worked out, boys.
Interestingly, the baby is always a boy.
But actually, I do have a suggestion if you live around here and love these two and want to make their day around Christmas or anytime: Take just one of them somewhere. Anywhere. It is so rare that they get time without a brother and having a beloved grown-up all to themselves, and the other boy left behind will equally benefit from a little special time with a parent. Our schedule permits very little of that, unfortunately. I'm sure they'll be thrilled to receive a few gifts at Christmas, but they need that time way more than they need more stuff. (For those of you with kids, I'd even be happy to trade kids (1 for 1) for an hour or two.)
These are taken through the kitchen window, so they're not the greatest pictures, but it shows our Ollie going out all by himself in the morning, letting the girls out of the garage henhouse and into the run for the day.
He is so proud of this, and it's quite a little job for a kid at an age when two-step directions are just being introduced in preschool. He has to get himself dressed, get the bowl of scratch, go outside, open the coop, unlatch the door to the henhouse, prop open the run door, then spread the scratch. I used to think of No*ah as more of an animal lover, but Ollie sure loves chickens! He talks about them all the time, and is determined to get our shyest hen to like him.
Speaking of which, we've had a fair number of "double-yolk" eggs recently. The eggs are enormous when this happens! I guess it's more common in young hens, poor things. We call them "twin eggs".
The above fried eggs are from 3 eggs.
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And yes -that's a blue-green egg.
When Zo*e and Aug*ust came to visit, it was too cold to go see the ladies, so I brought one in. Polly preferred it to walking in the snow, I think. Now that they're laying, the girls are as gentle as can be, and even try to get in the house. One afternoon, Coco got in between Ivy (dog) and the screen door and suddenly ended up in the kitchen! She was quickly evicted - it feels too much like a barnyard in my house as it is.
On Saturday mornings, we've often gone to the story time at our local library. Ollie has a little routine: he likes to go sit by the nice library lady and smile up at her until she says, "Ollie, it's so nice to have you sit near me, but if you sit over there, you'll be able to see the story!" Then he picks up his pillow and goes and sits with the other kids, giggling the whole time.
At our Early Childhood classes, there's an alphabet rug that we sit on during "circle time". We have a tradition of having N sit on the "N", O sit on the "O", and me sit on the "M" for "Mama". On Saturday, Ollie sat on the "L" instead, and No*ah started to object. Ollie leaned over me and smiled at N*oah saying, "I'm Loliver!"
We have snow, and this year the little hill in front of our house is a big hit. I found these two sleds sitting against someone's garbage can this summer and threw them in the car. I'm glad I did -they're perfect!
I know this, because I can see it from the warmth of the house while listening to public radio and drinking tea. Motherhood is such hard work sometimes.
