Night life

When naps aren't on top of the priority list--my kid's priority list, not mine--the days are long.  Mix that with the already "long" days where it stays light out until almost 9:00, and we have some really long days. Isabella and Declan are starting to take notice of these long days as they insist every night that it can't be bedtime because it's still light out.  Explaining that whole scenario to a four and two and half year old, gets interesting. Declan begs, as he's laying in his crib, telling me "it not night-night time, mama. it not dark. it light," to stay up longer. Isabella looks out her window when I put her in bed and says "I'm not going to sleep yet. It's not even dark."

And I simply say, "give me a two hour nap, I'll give you a bedtime that begins at dark." Hah.

 Quinn has had a hard time teething. The hardest of all our kids.  Her next set of bottom teeth have been pushing on her gums for over a week. You can see the white, but they just haven't broken the skin.  I don't know if it's that, or this awful heat, but she's not thrilled with eating lately.  Although, if it's in smoothie form or frozen form, she's all for it.  And I love my new Magic Bullet for this very reason. Three smoothies coming right up....and that about sums up our breakfast, snack, dessert, routine most days.

Someone loves the camera. I was changing my lens today and she said "oh, mommy, you got a new camera? Take a picture of me, and then I'll look at it."  I'm just surprised I got one without a tongue sticking out. After all, that is her new favorite pose.

 Today, I made roasted kale, or 'kale chips.'  Quinn liked them, I really liked them, and the rest of the fam wasn't too impressed. So, in my sneaky way, I just kept eating them, offering bites to Quinn, talking about how good they were and how they were so healthy, etc.  Isabella slinked over to the counter and said she'd try again.  She took a bite and said "oh, I do love this brocolli." I told her it was kale, not broccoli, and she asked if I was proud of her for trying it. I told her that I was so proud that she tasted it, even if she didn't like it.  She then decided that she did like it and went back for more. Declan sat by watching this unfold, envious of praise, and grabbed a piece for himself. "Look Mommy! I eat it too."  So he got the whole praise routine as well, went back from more, tried to choke down another bite or two, and then gave up. He was proud that he tried, and thinks he grew another inch from those 3 bites.

 It has begun. I have mentioned it before, especially lately, but boy has it begun. This little one is the icing on the cake of kids that wear me out. Non-stop, she is.  Into everything, climbing, crawling at lightening speeds, trying to walk every chance she gets, and the girl can tear apart a train track faster than I can put one together. Which for the record, doesn't say a lot. But I was less than thrilled when she took apart Declan's Thomas the train track approximately 15 seconds after I spent 30 minutes building it.  Not sure who I was more frustrated with--her or the people who designed those stupid tracks.

Yes, our evenings, the 'night life' around here, is this exciting. Isabella waited all day for this. Declan went down the slide about 2 minutes in, and slipped and went under, so he was officially done for the night. Quinn wanted to just be in on it all. So Isabella was our entertainment. That and slapping away all the bugs in the world, that live at our house.

Guess who was having a fit about this girl playing in the mud and rocks? I'll give you a hint: It was her parent, and it wasn't me. Who knew?

 She, clearly, is never ready for the night life to end.  If water's involved, she could go all day.

Pretty sure this was "Hey!  You said we could swim tonight. That wasn't long enough!"  Or something like that.