Snow shovels & precessions

"Shoveling snow is great!" Craig (see photo below)

Thanks to a pretty good snowfall, we took pity on our oldest child today who has been asking us for a snow shovel "just like Peyton's" since last year and hauled out the plastic snow shovels we were saving for Christmas. Fear not, they will still have plenty of stuff under the tree. Craig really had a great time!

Yesterday Anna and Pete were out doing some last minute shopping so Craig and I stayed home. I needed to exercise and he wanted to watch TV so we decided to put on a movie that he had not seen yet...Bambi. Now being his mother, I had some small idea about what I was getting myself into. Mr. Sensitivity wasn't going to be too keen and seeing (or hearing) Bambi's mother being shot by hunters so I warned him about it ahead of time. "It's OK mom, we can just go past that part." So by the time we get to that part, I decided we'd been watching TV long enough anyway and told him that we were going to turn it off because we had been watching it for awhile and that this was the part he didn't want to see, anyway. So, guess what we spent the rest of the afternoon talking about? Yup....you guessed it: Bambi's mother, the motives of the hunter, who was taking care of Bambi after his mother died, etc. etc. etc.! "Craig, I think you're obsessed," I told him. "Yes," he said, "Yes I am! I am precessed with that hunter!"

And speaking of precessions, Anna is suddenly precessed with books. She grabs one or two of them, and backs right up in the direction of your lap to plop down in time-honored story-reading-position. The other day Pete was on his knees instead of sitting cross-legged, and she told him, "I need lap sit in, daddy!" But it's not that she necessarily wants you to read the story to her. More often than not she'll tell you, "I do it!" and if (heaven forbid) you forget and turn a page for her, she'll take your hand firmly, move it aside and re-insist, "I do it, Mommy!" So, occasionally we've taken to asking permission to read some of the stories, "Is it OK if daddy/mommy reads this story, Anna." Sometimes she's agreeable, and sometimes she's not, "No, I do it!"