Our life with three Kirchhoff men...

We spent some time outside this afternoon before this coming week's deep freeze. I won't say that Matthew appeared to be enjoying himself, but he was definitely less perturbed than when we had previously gone outside to play and there were a few hard earned smiles. Sam enjoyed playing with his skid loader (or snow plow as he calls it, it's beside Sam in the picture) and he also ventured out into the deep snow and climbed up the 5 foot mound of snow by our mailbox and excitedly touched the mailbox. He also went sliding down the mounds of snow along our driveway repeatedly although the sliding was really quite slow and involved much exertion on his part. Sam has really "warmed up" to playing in the snow and it took some work to get him into the house.

When we got in the house I worked on extracting Matthew from his outdoor get-up and Sam insisted upon undressing himself. However, not only did he take off his coat, boots and snowpants, but also his pants and diaper. He struggled with his shirt for awhile, but had difficulty getting it over his head so he gave up and settled for going naked from the waist down. Since we were going upstairs for baths shortly, I let him run around as "naked boy!" (as he proudly calls himself on such occasions) for a bit.

While I was getting Matthew ready for his bath, Sam announced that he had to pee, and he went to the bathroom, grabbed his pee pee cup and relieved himself, then dumped the contents into the toilet and flushed. Now if we could just get him to do that in the toilet rather than the pee pee cup. All I know is that someday he will be potty trained, how and when, I am not sure yet.

The kids took uneventful baths other than Matthew was perturbed by Sam's taking over his tub. Sam is not really very good at sharing things, in particular cars and the bathtub, and insisted on trying to push Matthew to one end while saying "No, Matthew!" and gently patting Matthew's bottom. We finished up, then went downstairs for dinner.

Dinner was veggie pizza (with crescent rolls, cream cheese and spices, topped with assorted veggies and shredded cheese) and hot dogs. I really should have done dinner before the bath, but wasn't sure if Matthew would be up for a bath after dinner as dinner was closing in on 6PM. Matthew loved the veggie pizza. He is sometimes a picky eater, so I thought I'd combine veggies (his least favorite foods) with bread and cheese (his favorite foods) and it worked like a charm. He ate 1/6th of a 9x13 pan of veggie pizza. I couldn't keep up with his demand. He'd grab handfuls of the tiny pieces and devour them quickly, then protest when he ran out, giving me the evil eye while I'd cut up more pieces. I tried giving him a few pieces of hot dog, but he did not want to have anything to do with hot dog, he only wanted veggie pizza. He'd shake his cream cheese-covered hands and bits of shredded carrot would fly off and then he'd dive in for more veggie pizza. Sam, on the other hand, picked at his veggie pizza after covering it with strawberry Nesquik. Yuck. He ate a whole hot dog, drank a little milk and then went off to play. Unfortunately, Matthew's cream cheese covered hands were not limited to the table and putting food into his mouth, they of course went into the hair. Matthew never seems to touch his hair other than when he's eating. Why that is, I have no idea. He then got a second bath involving a very wet washcloth and went to bed quickly after that.