Excuse Me, Sir

Gamble really likes playing Pokemon Pinball on my Nintendo DS, and we often let him play as a treat if he's been a really good boy (which is most of the time, truth be told, though his newfound habit of challenging authority is certainly at odds with his continued gaming). He's pretty good, and has collected about 150 of the available 200 Pokemon. You're lucky to catch one new one a game, so that should give you an idea of how long we've been playing it.

To do this, he'll often sit on the couch, or he'll sit on the floor. Sometimes we sit together and play; one of us watches the other play.

Now that Random's crawling, she too feels the urge to catch 'em all. And she's insistent.

We were all having family time in the living room the other evening, and she wanted to see the screen. Except for her, seeing the screen involves putting her hand directly over the screen, resulting in the pinball draining out of the bottom.

He doesn't like that.

SO he turns sideways or puts his back to her. Nic and I watched as she grabbed the shoulder of his jammies, and using the leverage she had on the rug (he was on the pergo), she spun him around, then slapped her hand over the screen. She's not fast, but the audacity!

So we kept making with the falsetto, saying things like "Excuse me, sir! I'd like to see you play, sir!" at just the time she was grabbing for him. Oh we were all in stitches!

When a Gamble Calls

One of the lessons this past week was teaching Gamble about phone numbers. She taught him the emergency number, which I anticipate him using the next time Nicole doesn't roll out of bed the second he wants his Cheerios.

We also wanted him to know his own phone number, in case of trouble. After working with him for a few minutes, he learned his number, and proceeded to call the house from Mommie's phone. He repeated the trick for me, and it made me feel that there was going to be another kind of 911 call.

"911. What is the emergency?"

"Officer, I keep getting these prank calls at all hours of the night."

"Ma'am, those calls are coming from inside the house!"

Randoms Roll

Random is now standing more and more. This reminded Nic of an incident just a few weeks back where Random wasn't quite moving yet.

Gamble started getting the bee in his butt that he wanted to move her, since she so clearly wanted to move.

Of course, one day he did. When questioned about his method, he sheepishly responded with, "I rolled her."

I interrupted, "Rolled her? Like gangland style?"

No, but Nic said that he still had a sheepish grin on his face, and she knew that he had more to tell me. She pressed the question further. He said he rolled her... like a snowball.

He's outlandish!

Twelve

Random slept roughly 12 hours in a row last night. About 9-9. Maybe she's finally getting out of her cold that she's had all week.

Or maybe she just knows that her Daddie needed the rest. This may be the latest she's ever slept in.

Of course, Nicole's not up yet. I may just hear that I slept through it all. In which case, I'm in for it...

Alien Grandparents

From Gamble this morning.

"Daddie? Do Grammie and Grandbear live on Earth?"

Oh, some days there's a right answer and then there's the answer I really want to give.

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader which one I gave...

His First Haircut

On the way home from work today, Nicole had me in stitches. She had to spell everything that she didn't want Gamble to know she was telling me, but because I was in the car and not on speaker, I simply laughed out loud heartily.

Rewind.

So today at tennis class, Nicole kept wondering why his hair looked so messed up. He's always had funky hair that's so fine it's hard to comb. That's why we keep it pretty short.

Rewind.

He didn't really want to sleep at naptime. Nicole tells him that he can play with his toys as long as he stays in his room. He played quietly for his naptime.

Rewind.

Earlier today, Nicole put his tray of art supplies in his room to get them away from the baby. His art supply box has a wide variety of papers, crayons, markers, play dough, glue, pinking shears, and scissors.

Rewind.

Random was crawling around the living room last night when we returned from Ohio. She was fascinated by his art box, because it has some strings in it used for lace-up projects.

Rewind.

Random has developed a willingness to crawl and bite anything that looks like an electrical cord. Gamble never had this fascination, but she crawls to anything that's stringy.

Pause.

Fast forward.

"Gamble, why did you cut your hair?"

"I don't know."

Slow motion.

Seems like I've heard this on an old Bill Cosby record. "Himself" maybe. The one in which he comes home and asks his kid why he gave himself a reverse mohawk, and all the child can do is say perplexedly, "I don't know."

I look at his hair. When Nicole spelled out the situation on the phone, she spelled it M-A-N-G-L-E-D, but it really isn't that bad. He clipped his bangs at a funky angle, sure, and he got himself dead center of his scalp.

"Gamble, where did you put the hair that you cut off?"

"In a box."

What? For a keepsake?

"What box?"

"My art box."

Nice, so there's a bunch of loose hair in with the markers and glue. Neat.

Hey, he was nice enough to give us two weeks before Christmas pictures so that it has time to grow out.

Pause.

Back to the regular speed of life.

x2.

Sproinking Forward

So Random's crawling.

I don't know what else to say. She crawled a bit on my birthday, and then I didn't really get to see intent until this past weekend, when I put her on the floor and bade her crawl. She did, after a fashion, but only to get to something she finds fascinating.

Electrical cords. Uh oh.

And now you can really see the intent. She's all about moving. She doesn't crawl properly yet, nor does she army-crawl. She jacks her knees up underneath her and kind of sproinks forward. And now that she knows she's mobile, she's starting to get frustrated whenever she's in a chair or strapped down.

You know, because a girl's gotta party...