Wil's Veggies are missing. Remember that box of packing peanuts from Wednesday? We think Wil hid his Veggies in it. The box went out with the trash on Wednesday morning. We noticed the Veggies were lost on Wednesday night but figured they'd turn up somewhere. The probability of their being in the box didn't dawn on me until this afternoon. When I asked Wil if he put his Veggies in the box, he cheerfully said, "I think so." We haven't told him the rest of the story yet. I've got a lump in my throat and a knot in my belly just thinking about it.

What would happen if Wil was left alone with a ball of string? It happened yesterday, unintentionally, and he wrapped string around every chair between the breakfast nook and living room. It was an impressive mess. Thankfully he mostly wraps instead of ties so it wasn't too hard to simply rewind the string onto the ball. Clean up still took a lot more time than I anticipated and he was no help.

Now can you guess what would happen if he was left with a box of packing peanuts? Clean up was easier. We played 'Scoop' and 'Muck' and had so much fun, they wanted to do it again. Especially Elizabeth. With a little direction, she's generally very good about cleaning up.

I better log something good.

Bathtime went ok. The other night Elizabeth wanted to take a shower with me. She did and it went fine and then, since I was in, Wil chose to take a bath with me and that went fine.

So, last night, Elizabeth chose a bath with me. Well, if I'm going to take a bath with her, I'm going to wear my swimming suit. First she wondered why, which I didn't explain. Then, she wanted to wear her suit. We compromised: she could put her suit on after I washed her body and before I washed her hair. 'This is going to be fun!' she said. And it was fine.

And then it was Wil's turn. So I washed him and then it was time for my shower and I asked him if he wanted to shower with me and he said yes. That went fine, too. When we do that I let him help me wash my hair. I'd say 'Are we done yet?' and he'd say 'No, not yet.'. So bathtime was pretty good.

Should I change the title to 'twin-sleep-log'?

Elizabeth asked if she could sleep with us last night. I told her no and she took it ok. I also told her we'd do it again some other time.

Wil, however, who didn't nap much yesterday, pulled out his 'little monster' act for bedtime. Christine had to ride herd on him from his room. I finally took pity on him and went in and laid down with him. At first he said 'God took everything away from me.'. Wholey mackerel! That's one of the last things I want my son to feel. He said God took away his family and his sister. First, I tried to reason with him - 'No, you have your family and your blanket...' To no avail. Then I just decided to divert. I asked him if he wanted to talk about a story. Of course he said yes. I forget which one. And I slept there with him all night.

What was my reward? Him waking up from a dream saying 'I don't want that little girl to hit me.'. Then 'I want pajamas without socks.', which I was not about to do for him first thing - little arbitrary whim demands. So he said he wanted Momma to sleep with him - thinking he'd get different pajamas - and that's a fine howdoyoudo after I'm the one who slept with him all night. Finally he said 'I want to go talk to Momma' and I said Fine! and left the bed and went and laid down with Momma and let her deal with him. Of course, he laid on my side and put his feet all over me, but it was tolerable. As usual, the thing that got me up was him starting to kick his legs. I said 'Do you have to pee?' and he said yes and off we went.

It was a crappy way to wake up this morning. I did not want to be the daddy.

Well, we caved on the new protocol: Elizabeth slept in our bed the whole night last night. Wil was already asleep. It was 10:30, and we were both too tired to want to go through the bedtime ritual with her.

She was sweet about it, in an innocent, sad sort of way. I asked her if she'd like to lay down with us and she said 'Yes, but only for a little while because you don't want me to sleep in your bed.'

That was so hard for me. In a way, I do want her to sleep in our bed. That time can be really sweet. It was last night. We snuggled. But it's not good for my sleep, and it's really not good for Christine's sleep, and, on a nightly basis it would be bad for our marriage.

So, we might have to fight the battle again to keep her out tonight. But that's ok. There are rules, and it's ok to have exceptions. She has to learn that, too. She can even ask for exceptions. But we get the final ruling.

Wil has developed a very-spotty, very-strange ... accent. I hesitate to type 'southern' accent, though that's what it sounds like. The word I know the best is 'mah' in the place of 'my', eg 'Where are mah covers?'. It makes me laugh out loud every time, of course, though it is very alarming. Where would he get such a thing? We don't even really know anyone who talks like that!

Sean was out of town for a couple days this week. The twins did really well in his absence until last night. Wil woke up at least once sobbing and he cried for Sean for at least 15 minutes this morning. Heart-wrenching sobs. "Daddy come back." He opened the front door and wailed, "Daddy I need you." Poor boy. He's watching 'DragonTales' right now, but we've done a lot of cuddling and tickling and squeezing today. "Can you squeeze me and say 'Mmmm'?"

My friend Kathy and I have discussed the disadvantage we are at when playing with our sons. We don't know how to make very good car sounds or any other engine noises for that matter. We're not very good at sword play because we can't get that "swish" sound right. We certainly never had any practice making the sounds of a laser being fired or an arrow slicing through the air. It must be genetic. Wil and Elizabeth are playing 'Mulan' right now and as Wil grunts and swishes through their attack on the Hun army, Elizabeth says, 'Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight."

The best word I can think of to describe Wil playing 'Mulan' is gleeful. He is in his element. Elizabeth lets him call the shots, so he gets to say, "Can you say...?" alot. She is Mulan and he is alternately Captain Chang Li and Mulan's horse. The Veggies are filling in for Mulan's family or the other soldiers. You can tell which part they are playing by whether or not they have pots and pans on their heads - Wil's good idea for helmets. Except for Laura the Carrot. Laura is a Hun, which doesn't make Elizabeth too happy. Occasionally she says, "I don't think Laura wants to be the Hun anymore." But Wil says she does and the game continues.

Wil and I read the Bible story of the 1 leper out of 10 healed who said thanks to Jesus. I asked him what he wanted to thank Jesus for. He said:

'For my Grampa. For my father named Daddy. For my Momma. For my Grampa called GramPaul. For my Gramma called Gramma Sue.'

Sweet, aye?

Wil's middle of the night request for the past several nights has been: 'Daddy, can we talk about 'Rolie Polie Olie: Great Defender of Fun?' Usually I humor him a little. The last two nights he's come and asked me this in my bed. To save Christine I take him back to his bed and we talk about it a little before we fall asleep again.

Elizabeth and I tried to bake a cake last night for my birthday. It was pretty bad. She spilled cake mix on the counter. We didn't have enough vegetable oil. Or frosting. Or enough of the right ingredients to make frosting. Then part of the spatula broke off in the batter. I think she had fun anyway.

Elizabeth wanted to dance with Sean this morning. "We're married," she said. "I the princess. You the prince." Then they went to the living room to dance. Sean sang, "Once Upon a Dream," from Sleeping Beauty, her current favorite song. What could make a girl happier?

VeggieTales 'Star of Christmas' DVD came in the mail wednesday afternoon. I knew we shouldn't show it to the twins that day because there wouldn't be time to watch it. So I put it in a bag and when Elizabeth woke up yesterday morning (Wil was already up), I told them I had a surprise and would they like to see it. Wil started quoting before the first showing was over. Bob sings about their big break (they're sort of portraying Gilbert and Sullivan), so Wil has Bob and Larry saying things like 'Let's go find out break.'. He started singing the song after the second viewing. The dude's amazing.

Oh, yeah. He wanted to watch it when they got home from Mother's Day Out, but he needed a nap. So he watched it immediately upon waking up.

And...they he was wanting to watch 'Rolie Polie Olie: Great Defender of Fun' on wednesday, so Christine decided it was time to go ahead and invest.

That's about all Wil wanted to tell my dad on the phone last night: that he got those two new DVDs.

We went to the Touchets' last night and kept the kids up too late trying to watch the extended Fellowship of the Ring, but pausing if they came in at scary parts.

When I laid down with Wil I had it in mind that I might just sleep in there the whole night. It seemed better than waking up, going to my bed, having him come in, and then going to his bed, and maybe going back to my bed another time.

I did sleep there all night and it went pretty well. At some point he woke me up demanding I irrigate his nose, which I could tell he did not need. I ignored him successfully, telling him we'd do it in the morning (if he remembered, which he didn't) and we both went back to sleep.

We woke up shortly after 7, but I didn't know that then. He always propositions me with reasons to get up. The can't-fail one is 'I have to pee.'. 'Let's eat some breakfast.' Is also pretty effective. 'I want to watch a video.' almost never works. I wonder if he has figured out this order of efficacy? I don't think so.

One more downside: I've had really bad allergies today. I think I'm allergic to a couple of different things in Wil's room - almost certainly the gold-colored blanket (but I really value being warm). Maybe the pillow, too.

Surprisingly, Wil fell asleep at naptime after Elizabeth. I think I can count the number of times that has happened on one hand. They both slept for a couple of hours and are playing very well together now. As best I can tell it's some combination of Ariel and Veggies. Laylee is Melody, Elizabeth is wearing a crown and answering to 'Mom,' and Wil is speaking for the Veggies. For example, Wil says, "Laura's mom, the Veggies are laughing," then he laughs for them.

Poor Wil.

He went to bed late last night. We were all up early for Christine's folks' departure, Wil rising around 6:30. He was tired and crabby in his class this morning. Went we went to pick him up he said 'That girl hit me.', though I don't think she had. She might have shouted at him, but I think we can all agree he needs to be a little more resilient than that, eventually. He cried when he found out I wasn't coming home until after naps, too. However, he's looking forward to playing with Connor's Larry-Boy tonight. Mainly, he just needs to take a nap.

We've got Elizabeth pretty well confined to her bed. Wil is up and down a couple times a night. Last night he came to bed and I was too tired to take him to his bed. Then he had to get up to pee. Then he said 'Let's go sleep in my bed.' Then I went back to my bed to sleep, after he got up with Gramma Jan. It's ok for now. At least Christine isn't so discombobulated as she was. We'll see if I need to make a change or not.

I just read Sean's comments over on Collaboratory about Elizabeth on Halloween. I laughed out loud. It's such a great description:

Elizabeth, on thurs pm in the neighborhood, did her best Emmitt Smith impersonation: head down, hit the hole, run by the big people, ask for treats. she wasn't trying to be pushy, just direct. she was great.

We went to the zoo again yesterday. It was a beautiful day. Our friends Karen and Connor went with us. They had never been in the Rainforest and we hadn't been in awhile. It was great. Many of the animals in there are free-ranging, so we got up close to marmosets and lots of colorful birds. The Scarlet Macaws were the kids' favorites. One of them kept saying "Hello," which the kids thought was hilarious. Elsewhere, we saw one of the baby snow leopards for the first time and three baby kangaroos. When we arrived a zookeeper was setting out food for the chimpanzees, so we went back later to watch them eat. The kids are amazed that chimps eat lettuce and sweet potatoes and Cheerios just like they do.

We did it. No more kids in our bed. Elizabeth is still pouting about it, but we haven't seen her in three nights. However, this morning I gave her breakfast in bed at 5:30. Wil still comes to get Sean when he wakes up in the morning. He has to go to the bathroom and it's not easy getting that footed-sleeper off. Today it was pretty early, 6:30ish, so we let him get in bed with us for a little bit. He pretended to paint our hands so we could make turkey handprints like they made last night at church. Then he and Sean got up and ate breakfast together.

That's enough. This nighttime wandering has got to stop. It just makes everybody crabby.

Probably what we should do is say the kids can't come to bed with us anymore. They can lay quietly on the floor or ask us to come sleep with them. But this free-for-all is not working. Agreed?

Aunt Erin and Uncle Jeff came for a short visit this weekend. Wil and Elizabeth enjoyed them. Wil, especially, connected with Uncle Jeff, asking him to carry him sometimes. We're grateful for their visit.

The last two times I've come to church without him, Wil has sent his sword with me. He really likes to put it in my 'pocket' [belt] for some reason. I asked him if he didn't want to keep it because I was going to be gone all day and he said no.

Here's an update on Sean's post below: Wil cried almost all morning about Bob and Larry. At 11:30 we had lunch and then he and Elizabeth played before naptime. Elizabeth announced that she had to poop and Wil nonchalantly said, "I poop in my pants. Now we have to take a Veggie away." I couldn't believe it! He said goodbye to Junior.

The twins are backsliding on potty training. Ugh.

So first Christine instituted a cold bath to get cleaned up if you pee in your pants. This woke Elizabeth up. It didn't bug Wil at all.

Wil has especially been pooping in his pants. This is driving Christine mad, as it would any sane person. Last night we were at a sunday school Halloween party and he did it again. It was close, so Christine ran him home. She had had it. So wanted to get through to him. So she decided to start taking away Veggies. He loses one everytime he poops in his pants. He gets one back everytime he poops in the potty. He lost Bob last night.

He lost Larry this morning. He was inconsolable. He said stuff like 'I'll never get Bob and Larry back. Bob and Larry don't want to play with me. Momma took all of my veggies away.'

I feel bad for him, but we really have to get through to him. This is crazy. I support Christine 100%.