I've been a long time gone...

Wow, it has been over a week since I posted!! Shame on me. We've just been terribly terribly busy - not to mention sick. I'm not sure that I even have much to say right now, but that hasn't stopped me yet now, has it?

Let's see - oh another thing about NYC. You spend all this time teaching your kids not to cross the street when the red hand is up, only when the white walking guy is showing. Then you take them to NYC and all bets are off.

E: "MOMMY! We can't walk now!"

Me: "Shut up and walk kid - the guy behind us is about to bowl us over!"

We also spend a good deal of time listening to They Might Be Giants sing "Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle in the middle in the middle of the block block block." Again, NYC screws it all up. At least we used "our eyes to look out, use your ears to hear."

Charlotte has hit an unfortunate (for me) phase. She can repeat what you say with great clarity. This past weekend, we went to visit Gram. We all sleep in the same room, which typically works out fine because everyone tends to wake up at the same time. But Elisabeth had gone to bed late and was battling a cold, so when Charlotte declared "done nap Mommy!" I wanted to get her out of there quickly before she woke everyone up. My dear, dear little Charlotte has no concept of quiet - she only knows loud, louder, and blaring. She started out with "done nap Mommy" at a loud volume, at around 6:40am. I got up and began searching for my shoes because, well, I'd have to let Ginny out and then guard the koi pond to keep her from using it as a lap pool. This required shoes.

Of course at 6:45 am when I have not slept very well (due to a 75 pound labrador retriever with a paw in my face), finding my shoes under a pile of junk is not easy. It gets harder when a nearly 2 yr old is yelling cute phrases and just being generally difficult. So I shhshhed her. Which, as I'm sure you can guess, made her upgrade from loud to louder. I pleaded for quiet. I sshhshhhed some more. Louder bordered on blaring and so I said..... "SHUT UP Charlotte! People are sleeping! I am trying to find shoes!" To which she loudly and clearly replied: "NO SHUT UP."

Even worse? Doug wasn't sleeping and I was caught red handed.

Luckily we haven't heard the words resurface. Can you imagine the glares you'd get from people in stores if your otherwise adorable 2 yr old said "SHUT UP?"

As an aside, I'm pretty sure my new least favorite words are "done nap Mommy."