Maggie...the teeniest, tiniest baby evor!!!!

Yes, the "evor" is not a typo. Can't you hear Maggie saying, "I was the teeniest, tiniest baby evor?"

Several months ago, Maggie started asking me all the time to tell her about when she was a baby. So I would tell her about how loudly she was sucking on both fists as I left the birthing room to my hospital room with her. How the nurses thought it was so funny. Then how she would sound like a little, bleating goat when she laughed at about 3 weeks old. Then she asked me if she was my teeniest, tiniest baby. Not totally attending to the question and noting that she was asking for me to confirm her speculation, I answered, "You were my biggest, bestest baby." She burst into tears. So I corrected myself and now she thinks she was the teeniest, tiniest baby.

The obsession with her infant years has persisted. She looks at the 8 x 10 black and white portrait on my bedroom wall of her in her Christening dress and asks me questions about her "childhood". Hannah of course has noticed this behavior. So today, Hannah (this is kinda mean, but kinda funny too...) told her that I had photoshopped all of her pictures so that she really looked cuter than she was when she was a baby. Maggie came to me crying and told me what Hannah said. I told her to go tell Hannah that pictures that I really photoshopped were all the ones of Hannah and her long pointy ears so that Hannah wouldn't know that she had long pointy ears before we were able to get that defect taken care of! Hannah got it and laughed. Maggie didn't get it, and laughed because now she thinks that Hannah was born with long pointy ears that were surgically removed!

Oh my gosh...we are sooooo bad in this house! Where did my kids get it? (Answer: their father for sure!!!)

The Latest Max-isms

Max-ism #1 I did clean my room. If you take a look you will see that the debris blocking the entrance to my room has been removed.

Max-ism #2 I think gravity would disagree with you.

Max-ism #3 I did take my lunch. I just transfered it from the old lunch box to the new lunch box. (Should he say something like "switched it" or "put it in"?)

Max-ism #4 Great Grandma and Grandpa Reier are both Jedi Knights!

Max-sim#5 Aren't you pleased with my progress in math?

Maggie. Maggie. Maggie.

So, Grandma Reier passed away about a week and a half ago. Which meant that Uncle Rob and Aunt Sue came to town and the kids and I got to be the guest retreat. I wonder if Rob and Sue felt like they were at a retreat??? Probably not. But we sure did like having them here with us. (This really is going somewhere...promise!)

Sue stayed downstairs in Caiti's room which is down the hall from Maggie's room. I went downstairs to wake Maggie for school. In an effort to not wake Sue up, I closed Maggie's door then turned the light on. This is what I found. Yes. It is Sharpie. Yes. It appears that Maggie and her imaginary friends played some sort of game that required score keeping. Yes. Maggie was the score keeper!

Everyone should be most impressed with my control. I really think I should be inducted into the Parenting-Hall-of -Fame for how amazingly well I handled myself. I scooped the sleeping princess out of bed. Carried her upstairs. (No beating or screaming! Really. Notta.) Got her ready for school. Took a photo after she was at school and posted it on Facebook. So very sorry Bo and Caiti! But, it does appear that you both have turned out alright in spite of me!!!

The Birth of the Universe... according to Max and Maggie.

The more they know, the funnier they are. Max, while shoving rice-crispy treats into his mouth and I doing the dishes, started to explain to me the Big Bang theory. He has it down pretty well. Go Mrs. Oz (his second grade teacher)!!!! Then he indulged me in his own theory which he has titled the Big Crush theory. It goes something like everything was one big pile of matter. It became crushed under the force of gravity and it ended up in what we now know as the universe. So impressed with himself, he began seeking support for his new theory starting with me. Then solicited Maggie's vote. She listened to the comparison of each theory and then promptly and matter-of-factly said, "All I know is that all the planets move around the sun. The only planet that has life is earth. The other planets don't have people on them." Go Miss Eschler (her kindergarten teacher)!!!! Max disagreed... "What about Mars? You know there are signs of life past and maybe even present on Mars!!!!" Wow! Wish I could suck up as much information and spit it back like they can! And, who taught Max how to talk? Would you ever believe he was speech and language delayed as a toddler????

Teeth Keep Falling Out!

OK, we have been doing this for, let me do the math, since Bo was 6 that is 13 years and we probably have at least 4 more years to go till the Toothfairy can retired. Does the Toothfairy assigned to your house ever get so busy she forgets to stop in? Well the Reier's fairy does quite frequently I am embarassed and sad to acknowledge. Sneaky and forgetful as she may be, however, so far, so good. That is until the latest missing tooth. Skeptical Hannah checked promptly (hoping to gather proof for either believing or accusing) to see if the Toothfairy had delivered. Nope. Nothing. And Hannah, again promptly, shared the situation. So, when she was encouraged to check again, viola! The Toothfairy had indeed followed through with a dollar. (You know the economy these days... teeth don't pay so well especially when the Toothfairy doesn't plan ahead.) Hannah, relieved that she could still believe, raced in to show off the evidence supporting the existence of the Toothfairy. She snapped that dollar bill open and out fell a receipt. Apparently, not only is there a toothfairy, but she dines out for lunch and Chan Chun for Chinese!!!!

Kids Say the Dardest Things!

Some of these were first hand conversations I was witness to. Others have been reported recently from those privy to the conversation.

John, Jake's dad, asked me yesterday if we have been living in a tent. Then he told me what Max had said to Daphne, " You guys are so lucky you live in a house!" Max was standing next to me and I looked at him with a "WHAT?" Max shrugged his shoulders and said, "Well, I couldn't think of anything else to say. It was the first time in my life I couldn't think of anything to say!" I agree, that must have been the first time and probably the last!

Zeke likes to play. Chewie not so much. Zeke wants to play. Chewie yaps at him to stop. Zeke thinks it is great fun and keeps pestering Chewie. You get it. My strategy so that I don't call the pound is to squirt them with a stream of water from my stash of super-duper-stop-that-now squirt bottles. Matt and I had just walked in the house from Florida. Maggie greeted us with a full on-the-floor-kick-and-scream tantrum. I picked up the nearest squirt bottle and gave it to her good. She stopped... just like the dogs...go figure! But then she stood up and with her hands on her hips informed me, "YOU CAN'T DO THAT. THAT IS ILLEGAL!!!!" With that, she stomped off to her room.

Oregon Coast Vacation June 2009

The Reier Circus (minus Bo) spent a week in Arch Cape, Oregon. We rented a house on the beach. Arrived with no agenda and made up the vacation as we went.Tom came to dinner on Friday night. Weird having a neighbor come to dinner while you are on vacation. We served burgers. We waited for him to leave before we ate the "real" food on Saturday night.

Maggie's toe after playing with a Dunengous crab. They are delicious by the way!

Check out the "meaty" starfish!

During one of the sand castle building afternoons, Maggie was spotted making a "sand angel". Ya, gettin' sand out of her hair took more than a few showers and baths!

Everyone did well with the long drive. Everyone that is until the last 3 hours home when Maggie totally came apart and started poking and kicking everyone within her reach. We read the first two Fablehaven books and watched some fabulous old movies... Operation Pettycoat.