Nicholas and Natalie Save the Day

Pip has recently begun coming out of his room after we put him to bed to play what he thinks is a fun game of "Annoy Mommy and Daddy". He opens his door, makes some noises, then smiles at us when we have to go up there to put him back in his bed. While Phil and I disagree on the exact method to stop this, we eventually took turns holding his door shut last night until he gave up. That was the prelude to today....

Our days started out ok, but Pip quickly devolved into fits of boredom. The trains were no longer enough to amuse him and he wanted to go to Nicholas's house and/or Charlie's house. Viv sensed his restlessness and decided to weigh in herself with her own whines and cries. The house was a veritable maelstrom of complaints. Pip decided he was hungry, despite having had a pancake, yogurt fruit snacks, and half a banana for breakfast and insisted on yogurt at 11.

During phase 2 of Pip's whine firestorm Viv was napping so I got out the dinosaur that you put the balls in from the attic. It was quite dirty and Pip was temporarily pacified by the cleaning of it and the promise of playing with it. He did calm down after for a bit and drove his forklifts all through it. Most of the balls were in Viv's room so we couldn't use it properly until she woke up. That lasted a short bit -- then back to whining about yogurt.

Finally Nicholas & Co arrived and there were squeals of delight. Pip immediately showed him his "new" toy and they had a blast shoving balls into it and seeing who could grab the most and shove them back in the fastest. Viv perked up at all the activity and was a sweet pea as well. She's doing great sitting up lately, just needs the boppy and a hand every once in a while.

Pip also showed off all 4 of his library books and I think we had to go through a full two rounds. There was a parallel timeout for Pip and Nicholas (separate rooms) for turning on the bath water (second offense). No more water after that.

Only downside to the visit was that just as he was leaving, Pip convinced Nicholas to run up into our room for a round of "jump and scream on Mommy & Daddy's bed" which woke Vivian from a nice nap.

I put Pip in his bed and he immediately began the other fun game: "come out of bed and open the door". I have the door "locked" with a nylon strap and a bungee cord now. There was some knocking, but generally he played up there for an hour. When I went up to confront him, he was clearly not going to sleep. So let him out of his room and we decided to head out to run a few errands.

Before we had even traveled 2 miles, I looked into the back seat and Pip's eyes were half open. I was like "WHAAT!!! You can't sleep Pip ... you just said you didn't want to nap! Now you want to sleep in the car." He muttered back at me, "sleep in the car mommy" and was out cold. He had a blast at Trader Joe's and we found a fabulous toy store right near us that we will surely frequent.

When we got home we made Vivian some butternut squash puree which both she and Pip enjoyed for dinner. While I was making it, Pip was busy taking the credit cards out of my wallet and slipping them between the slats of his table. "I'm WORKING!", he shouted, I should have known he wasn't harassing me for a reason.

I attended the wake for our neighbor, Jack McBride, this evening. He died Sunday at 76 yrs, leaving his wife Mary, 80 yrs, a widow. So sad. Phil watched the kids while I went and enlisted Pip to train Vivian how to crawl. In the photos below, Viv nibbles a bit and Pip demonstrates crawling technique while saying "CHEESE!" to the camera.

After this very long day, Phil reports that Pip fell asleep in his bed while getting songs sung to him .. so no drama at his door requiring bungee cord locks this evening.