Every father's nightmare

Both of them pregnant!

It did take a bit of herding to get this picture. Usually I don't pose the pictures. Victor (whose idea it seems to have been) came down to show his pregnant belly to me, I have no idea what made him think of it.

The main reason it took a bit of herding was because, while Anna did show me “pregnant” when she came down with Victor, what she really wanted to show me was her bunny tail. But after I expressed my appreciation and took a picture she was willing to go back-to-back with Victor.

Animated

In the morning Anna made a nest it the “corner of the stairs” again.

Victor and I discussed what he was doing the Lego, I don't remember what it was about, but I'm glad I thought to catch of picture of him so animated.

On the way home from daycare, they're both singing We are Young again. It helped that I'd put the song on my phone to prompt them. We arrive home relatively quickly, singing the song kept them moving.

Anna was pretty tired, and soon put herself to bed. Later I took her temperature, finding it to be 102. So she seems to be fighting something.

Here is image 9365 of Victor playing with his Lego.

We had fajitas for dinner, which is a favorite for everyone. The burger in the small frying pan is a veggie burger for Caity, she cuts them into strips for her fajitas.

Balloon battle

Victor and Anna started out the day with a balloon battle. Victor had the big balloons and Anna had all the little balloons (that's a balloon in her hand). I would say "Of course Anna had the little balloons", and she probably would have picked the smaller balloons anyway, but she's been collecting balloons for some time so she has many balloons that are low on air and are, therefore, small. Victor, on the other hand, has balloons only because I blew up a bunch on the weekend because Caity held a little birthday party for a friend of hers.

When he got home Victor found it amusing to create a "Mr Nobody" who had no face. Strangely enough, not Star Wars themed. And he actually asked whether we could look at Harry Potter Lego! Star Wars is no longer the centre of his universe?! What is the world coming to?

Meanwhile Anna created a little nest at the bottom of the stairs. Note the tiny little ponytail that she absolutely insisted that I create in the middle of her forehead this morning, and then insisted that I fix as soon as I arrived to pick her up at daycare.

Anna and the tomato factory

Victor and Anna really enjoyed their first band practice at daycare. The song they are learning is We are Young by FUN, with some of the lyrics tweaked to be more appropriate for the daycare demographic. They had fun singing all the way home. I sure hope nobody in the neighbourhood was trying to sleep.

When we got home, Anna noticed the basket of grape tomatos on the counter. She set up a Tomato Eating Factory:

Pick up two tomatos.

Wash them.

Put the washed tomatos on this plate.

Dry hands.

Eat.

And repeat. For, oh, half the basket or so.

Meanwhile, Victor was in the Droid Factory. Not nearly as nutritious.

Just before supper Anna replaced her watch battery. I showed her how to undo the first screw, and she undid the rest, took out the old battery, put in the new one, and put the back of the watch back on. She attempted to put the screws back in but had trouble with it, so I finished that part. She was very keen to do it all herself.

Hurry!

Victor is hurrying to get dressed so that he can have more playtime before we need to go to school.

Anna is hurrying so that I'll fix her hair into three braids, I told her we might only have time for a single braid.

While I was doing the braids she said she wanted to put every single hair clip in her hair (she had a pile of at least a couple dozen) but in the end she decided to only use three. Now that I think about it, I wonder if she was teasing me? I think she was. My attention was on the braids (yes, braiding hair takes my full attention), I queued up the question of the hair clips for when I was done, and she decided on only three before my brain had gotten back to it. I need to pay more attention, she's got a great sense of humour but extra encouragement and appreciation can't hurt.

Back to bed

After getting out of bed this morning Victor and Anna promptly decided they would pretend to go back to bed. But in the middle of the hallway where it was much more convenient for everybody.

Recursive laps

After a good breakfast (good meaning it was served by Caity instead of myself, thank you Caity!), nothing beats a Jedi battle on the planet Geonosis.

I don't understand. This appears to be Victor but I don't see Lego or Star Wars.

Still no Lego or Star Wars. Am I in some twisted dimension where Victor can enjoy something else? You can tell by the headbands that they are doing Karate.

Victor and Anna breaking the laws of physics. There is no way the two of them can fit in that little toddler tent thing.

Apparently laps are for sitting on, and this applies recursively.

Attack!

You've got to be watching the enemy at all times or before you know it, they'll seize the high ground and attack!

They started it here, but of course the snowball fight didn't end until we got home... 30 minutes later. The snow and weather were perfect for a snowball fight.

Not that they wanted to go inside when we got there.

Where did they go?

What do you mean we shouldn't be in the neighbour's yard, or throwing snow at the car?!?

“Victor accidentally dumped snow on my head with the shovel.” She didn't seem upset, just felt that this information needed to be shared. She headed back outside.

Starting to get dark.

Not the morning creep

Today was not the day, but someday I am going to capture of picture of Anna's “morning creep”, how she stealthily creeps into the middle of the hallway like a soldier crawling low to stay under enemy fire, except much more cheerful and far more adorable*. I only notice her as peripheral movement out of the corner of my eye as I'm shaving. I was not stealthy picking up the camera (had to go into my office to get it) so the hamming-it-up started long before I could capture a picture. And anyway, she'd pretty much finished her creep, having headed to Victor's room to check out what he was doing.

And he's playing with Lego. Quelle surprise.

Here is a close-up of my finger in a glove. Also a picture of Victor and Anna on the way to school.

*Well, I have no military experience, so I can't say for sure that Anna is more cheerful or adorable than soldiers crawling under enemy fire.

Darth Vader's blankie

I noticed this on Anna's dresser when the kids were at school. Apparently even Darth Vader needs a nap with his blankie sometimes.

While I was cooking supper Anna invented this game with a few sets of memory game cards we had around. I'm not sure what the rules were or how she decided that she or I had won the game (I think she won 4 and I won 3 games, or something like that). She would lay out all the cards in a deck in a couple of rows, and then announce that one of us had won.

While Anna was setting up her game Victor was, of course, playing with his Lego. I asked him to show me his favorite.

Snowy Day

The pre-breakfast clone/droid battle.

There was a little snow to contend with on the way to school.

The Ice Mountains

Victor and Anna valiantly trekking across the dread Ice Mountains.

Art this week

You can see Anna is thinking about the family in the artwork that comes home.

The other side, with her mirror writing in evidence.

Victor isn't interested in art, so typically I don't see much from him, but when Anna was doing her maps earlier he was very interested and drew several of his own. Everything on his maps represented something, and you could actually follow them if you understood what everything was. You can see the stairs in our house here, this was a map from the dining room to the secret Lego minifigure in his bedroom. I don't remember what the other elements on the map are.

This is Anna's map that we were “following” in the park. This is actually a whole book of maps that she drew at daycare. For Anna the map was more a prop; there was no need for it to be actually representative. The key was to follow her to the treasure.

Sick day

Victor was feeling better — here he's telling me about what this clone trooper is doing — but the standard advice seems to be keep them home 24 hours after a fever.

I'd let Anna colour in this magazine. She decided to invent a game: whoever gets the biggest “pack” wins, and she gets to put her Benny drawings in the white squares, and I can put my circles in the black squares. Diagonals count, but I have a feeling she's still going to win this game.

But soon enough Anna was felled by the fever, not so high as Victor's though.