Last week

If I'm not blogging very regularly, it's no indication that my children are getting any less cute. If anything, it's that they're just doing more stuff than ever, hence giving me no time to write about it. But I thought I would write down a few events from this week.
(After I asked Anaya why she had just unbuttoned her shirt.) "Oh, I just wanted to be sure it was okay in there."
"What was okay?" I asked.
"I wanted to see if there were any spiders and crabs inside," she responded.

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I've been trying to get Anaya to understand that she needs to clarify when she is describing real situations versus pretend ones. Please, no more dashing in from outside yelling, "There's a snake chasing me!" Instead she has been instructed to scream, "There's a pretend snake chasing me!" But as I was getting into the car after putting all three kids in the back seat, Anaya squealed, "Mommy, we have a 'mergency back here! But it's not a real 'mergency," she assured me quickly, "So don't call 9-1-1."

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This week we decided the boys were old enough to understand not to touch a fire, so we started building them in the fireplace. So I built a fire, gathered the boys close and explained the dangers to them in terms I hoped they could understand. "Hot! Owie! Not for Sethie! Not for Skyler! No, no!" They watched wide-eyed and avoided the fire obediently while I was in the room. I congratulated myself on having such well-behaved, obedient toddlers.
A few minutes later I heard a suspicious rattling. I came back into the living room to see my boys attempting to poke twigs through the fireplace screen.
Then again, should I be surprised? Their uncles are the ones who set fire to the field behind their house and burned down the servants' quarters as kids. (Their father, of course, insists he was just watching wide-eyed the whole time.)

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Seth continues to amaze us with his sudden language skills. Rather than practicing all the time, and getting very frustrated when we don't understand his garbled words (like Anaya when she was learning to talk), Seth tends to wait until he can say the full sentence. He silently picked out his star stickers for his chore chart (on the refrigerator) by pointing to the one he liked, until one day he announced, "I choose g'een skicker!" One day when his exhausted parents sneaked in a nap while all three were sleeping, we were jarred out of our beds by Seth's sudden bellow from the next room. "Daddy, get me OUT!" (Where did he learn to say that without practice?!)

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Skyler's little language skills are improving, too. He is now faithful in saying "thank you" ("dit-duh"), and even "please" (peeze?). He will cheerfully meow like a cat or tweet like a bird on command. Dogs and ducks still growl--we're working on that.