Promotion
Today Paul was officially promoted to his new rank in front of everyone.  I never told him, but from the beginning, I planned to have Paulchen pin on the rank.  Actually, now with the new uniforms, the rank is only held on by Velcro, so it was vrey easy for Paulchen to pin his Da.  Paul had wanted Paulchen to do it, but never mentioned it, as he thought I really wanted to do it.  It was a nice surprise and made both Pauls very happy.

Party!!!

It was so cute today.  Paul has been promoted to Staff Sergeant and I threw a surprise party for him.  I claimed someone I knew was coming over to help me sew and I needed a little peace.  So Paul took Paulchen out to walk around for about an hour.  It was great.  Almost everyone arrived in that time and everything was set up.  When Paul came home, he was so confused and surprised.

Paulchen was the cutest though.  When he saw everyone after coming in the door his face lit up and he called, "Heys guy!" (Translates to "Hi guys!")  He went around and greeted everyone.  then he saw the Chiuahuah someone brought and kept chasing it all over the apartment.  Fortunately the dog had a wonderful temperment.

Ava however, wan't so keen on the dog at first.  Even though she's been around a big German Shepherd a few times and okay with that, Bear (the Greman Shepherd) never licked her.  I guess the Chiuahuah gave her a quick lick which freaked her out and she started crying all of a sudden.  She was okay later, but it was funny how she reacted to this little dog, about half her size.

Paulchen also had a blast with popping balloons.  He had the tail of one in his mouth and pulled it away.  Eventually the balloon gave out and popped in his face.  Instead of crying, he loved it and started laughing.  After that, he went out of his way, testing the limits of the next balloon he had.  Half the guests and myself were watching him, waiting for the balloon to pop any second.  It must have been a stronger one, as it lasted the rest of the day.  Then Paul popped it, like the other ones we had, just behind me to make me jump.  It was very annoying.  Overall though, we all had a fun time.

Electronics, Pepper & Diapers

Well, the other day our anwering machine was on the fritz, it kept blinking and wasn't working.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I went out and bought a new one.  The new one didn't hook up properly, but while I was trying to hook up the new one, Paulchen fixed the old one.  He was pressing buttons on the old one and suddenly it stopped blinking.  I couldn't figure out what he did, but just counted it as good luck.  Later I found out what was wrong.  The next day he turned off the power strip the machine was plugged in.  When I restored power it was blinking again.  It turnes out when there is no message recorded, the machine won't work.

 The next day, I woke to find CD-ROMS all over the place.  I couldn't understand why there were.  All our disks are in two places.  One is a drawer too high and too heavy for Paulchen to open.  The other place is a little cabinet on the counter with the more frequently used disks.  He had opened this little cabinet, taken out the disk he wanted, put it in the computer and put the case back in the cabinet.

 Today I woke up to find a $20 bill in his hand.  It turns out he climbed back on the desk and reached the money jar.  When I went to put the bill back in the jar, I found pepper all over the laptop.  I had a big mess to clean up.

 One thing good he did today though, was his diaper.  He started whining, "diaper", which meant he wanted it changed.  I'm glad he's finally bothered by a dirty diaper.  It took a long time and that means he's finally ready for potty training.  He didn't mind the training before, but it didn't mean anything to him.  Now it's a way to avoid a dirty diaper.

Now if he would just stopped whining for a banana and then telling me he doesn't want it after I cut it up for him.

Scissors, Screwdrivers and Sitting

Today was a busy day.  Paulchen has been very interested in helping me as I sew our Medieval garb.  He helps me move the fabric through the sewing machine, place the pins in the fabric and cut.  When I'm not using the scissors, he takes them and likes to cut by himself.  Unfortunately they are a little too large for him and he has trouble handling them properly.  He uses one hand for each finger hole; more like gardening shears.  So today I broke down and bought him his own pair of scissors.

 Now the package said ages 4 and up, but Paulchen's pretty good at learning things and I supervise his cutting.  What I didn't expect was what he'd do when he first used the scissors.  He placed his fingers in the correct spots and cut a perfect slit in the paper I gave him.  I figured he's hold them wrong, like he had on my large scissors or they'd flip to the side and he'd crease the paper, not cut it.  But Paulchen must have been watching me while I was cutting all the fabric for our garb, because he cut like a pro.

 Paulchen also learned another trick today, but that was because of Da.  For a while, Paulchen has mimicked us in using a screwdriver.  But tonight Paul helped Paulchen unscrew a real screw.  Then Paulchen did anopther one on his own.  He has done a few screws now.  Now we have to make sure the screwdrivers are up, or Lord only nkows what we'd find in pieces.  Boy our son is clever.

 Ava also made progress today.  Now when we sit her up, she'll stay sitting for a little bit on her own.  She's not pulling herself to a sitting position yet, but this is the first step.  We're very proud of both our children.

Bite Me!
Ava finally cut her first tooth today.  And it almost cut us.  We began to see under the gum, a few days ago.  Christa was the first to feel Ava's deadly bite.  I've felt the threat of it, but pulled my finger away in time.  It's so funny though.  She now has this little inscisor on the bottom jaw; a lone tooth in a mouth of gum.  But one thing we learned from Paulchen, toothless grins are adorable, but toothy grins are adorable too.  So she's losing the toothless grin, but soon we'll see her teeth slowly poke through and that's just as adorable.