Hallelujah!!!
It's about time. Paulchen has just had another day extended to his life. I found my wedding ring today. It was sitting under the water pull-out tray for our air-conditioning unit. It was pure chance I found it. I was sitting on the floor with Paulchen and happened to glance over at the tray. I saw the end of a screw and something round. I figured those two items didn't belong there, so I pulled them out. The screw was attached, but the round thing was my ring. I cleaned it off real quick and it's back on my finger, safe and sound.

On another note, Paulchen and I sang our ABCs. He wasn't able to sing the correct letters, but he kept the beat the whole time. Even at the "L,M,N,O,P" stage, the beat was correct. It was very cute. He knows his letters, it's just a bit much for him to sing them as well as he says them. But he will learn. He'll probably do well by the time family comes out in July. I took a video of him "singing".

I also took video of Ava. She may sit perfectly still, but once I place her blanket on her she kicks like a maniac. Every single time. So I threw her blanket over her legs and taped her kicking it off as usual, with a big smile on her face. She likes that game.

LICE!!!
Our darn son may have caught lice. I'm not quite sure and the doctor didn't look too closely, so it may have been dandruff, but we went through the motions anyway. That meant we came home and stripped all the bedding, pillows, and clothes that were lying around and we are now do massive loads of laundry. I also had to wash all their well-loved stuffed animals. As well as ALL my hair ties. I'm not sure which ones were safe and which weren't.

Then I had to vacuum and clean all the upholstered furniture and sterilize our brushes and combs in alcohol. Of course that's the easy part.

The pain was washing Paulchen's and my hair with the foul-smelling, medicated shampoo. Then the tangles and possible nits had to be combed out. On Paulchen's hair that wasn't so bad. His is short. The same with Paul's buzz-cut hair. But my mid-back length hair was a nightmare. Paul had to comb through it all and really made me grimace and complain. There were so many tangles, it drove me up the wall. But at least we're all clean and Ava was fine. If she had it, we would have had to pick them all out by hand. She's too young for the shampoo.

I swear I went 26 years without ever having to deal with lice. My darn son could only last just over 2 years. Just another thing to mark on our payback board. Once that boy is old enough, his father and I are going to take turns holding him down and pummeling him for all the grief and sickness he's passed on to us.

Dishes, Diapers & Crayons... OH MY!
I heard a clinking sound in the kitchen last evening and realized both Paul and I were in the living room. That left just Paulchen as the culprit and I jumped up. I ran to the kitchen fearing a mess with a whole bunch of dishes spread around. Instead, he was pushing his plate into the sink. He had finished his snack and was just putting his plate away like Mum and Da do. I was so proud of him.

The same could not be said for today's events. I had given Paulchen a quick shower and thrown him in just a diaper. It was so hot, I didn't bother with any other clothes. Big mistake. When I was working on the computer for a bit, I looked over and suddenly saw Paulchen and his winky. Now that should not have been showing if he was wearing a diaper. Safe to say, the little bugger had taken it off. So we went into his room and I put on another one. I couldn't find the diaper anywhere in the apartment, but it looked like he threw it in the diaper pail. Well, at least he was clean about it.

As I was changing his diaper, I noticed our suddenly blue floor, areas of walls and his blue bedroom door. Ah, kids and crayons. So out comes the cleanser and paper towels. The floor and door were easy to clean. The walls were a bit harder and took tons of elbow grease. There's still a bit of a blue tint in those areas and I'll have to scrub some more.

Then while I was cleaning, I suddenly saw Paulchen's winky again. Off went another diaper. Since I was blocking the room with the diaper pail, this one ended up in the living room. After I threw him in ANOTHER diaper, I put him in clothes. The little bugger wasn't going to get me a third time.

Exersaucer
Today I put Aveline into the Exersaucer and she really got the hang of it. She doesn't have the dexterity yet to manipulate the toys on the thing all that well, but she managed. Aveline noticed when she hit the toys, she made them spin or move. So she used her whole arm and knocked the toys around. She did very well and grew rather excited at one point. She began standing up and bouncing around a little bit while she cooed.

She is also sleeping through the night, which I am very happy about. She began that on June 11th at 3 months and 1 week old. Paulchen didn't sleep through the night until he was almost 6 months old.

As for Paulchen, he is being his typical pain-in-the neck self. He's basically a good boy, but he really likes to test the limits and see how often he doesn't need to obey me.

On the other hand, he's very good with his letters now. He knows almost every single letter in the alphabet. Even the ones he forgets the names of, he can still point to them when asked where they are. At least the uppercase letters. So many of the lowercase letters look similar that he still gets them confused a bit. Now we're working on colors. The only word he knows in "green" and he doesn't even get that correct when I ask him to point. But we just began colors, so it'll take a little bit and I'm sure he'll catch on just as quick as he did with his letters and numbers.

I'm working on the lowercase letters so he can get those down and then we can move on to phonics. I honestly think he will know how to read at least a few words by the time he turns three.

A Celebration
We just went to our first SCA event today. It was AWESOME!!! It was a little dull to start with, but really picked up. The premise was Lady Judith and Sir Gerhardt had been wed and this was their wedding party.

Most of the day was a tourney. Sir Gerhardt had to prove his worth as a husband and a possible future father. All the fighters were divided into two teams. Sir Gerhardt headed one and Sir Maximillian, our Baron, headed the other. Sir Maximillian was the "villain" who hoped to prove Sir Gerhardt didn't have what it took.

The first round had Sir Gerhardt stay close to where the woman he was "in love" with and fight his opponents from there. Whenever she moved, he had to move. If he "died", one of his team members took his place. The second round had him hold a "baby" and protect it while he fought. The third round had a weight tied to his leg while he fought, which symbolized a toddler getting under foot. The best part of the third round was when one young female fighter, who was in armour, wrapped herself around the opponent's leg to hinder him. Eventually she switched to Sir Gerhardt's other leg, so he was hampered on both legs. It was hilarious.

After the tourney we went in for the feast. Some people sang songs and Clan Tynker went around doing magic tricks at the tables. They also did a small show in between one of the removes (food courses). They juggled clubs around Lady Judith and juggled knives around Sir Gerhardt. There was also dancing in between the removes. Lady Judith and Sir Gerhardt would do a dance and then everyone would get up for a simple dance.

The food was really good. It was all from Medieval, 14th century recipes. After the feast we went back outside and Clan Tynker did their full show. It had incredible juggling, fire eating, dancing, sword swallowing and a humorous skit of "midget" wrestling.

Paulchen was not feeling that great, so he was rather obnoxious and made it hard for his father. Aveline was all smiles and cooed over a bit by the other people there. All in all I had a great time. Paul had a good time when Paulchen was behaving.