"We Don't Even Have Any Chickens!"

I'm a sadistic mother.  I know this because sometimes when my daughter sobs I have to walk away to laugh.

Only when she's crying about the really big stuff--like her hair, the weather, her shoes, breakfast...those types of things.

And please keep in mind that when Sara Head cries, she sobs.  Gut-wrenching, shoulder-shaking, face-scrunched-up-beyond-recognition sobs.  When she's crying about something truly sad, this is a pitiful sight.  But sometimes, she enters your room looking as if her world is crumbling, and you console her, and between deep breaths and tears she chokes out broken phrases.  And sometimes you put them together and suddenly the absurdity of the reaction is just too much.

And you turn away to stifle the laughter.

This morning, we were cleaning the house.  We had told the girls to clean their room about 55 times in one hour, sending them back after each escape attempt.  They were running out of tricks and things they had to tell us, and it was looking as if they might actually have to pick something up off of the floor if they were ever going to get to emerge.

Here she came.  Wailing:  "Mommy!  Hallie isn't helping me clean up!"
Me:  "I'm sorry, Sara.  Tell her she has to help."
S, incredulous:  "But mommy!  She says she won't help because she has to feed the chickens!"
Me: quizzical look
S, waving her arms to emphasize the injustice:  "And we don't even HAVE any chickens!"


I blinked as Hallie's strategy became clear.  I saw in my mind Hallie explaining the division of labor to Sara--"Sara, you clean the room.  I'll feed the chickens."

And Sara realized she'd been had.

Happy Birthday to Brooks!

This is what we call "selective blogging."  I realize Christmas never happened on the blog, but I've decided to ignore it for now and live in the present--or at least in the last month.  Brooks turned 4 on March 3.  We started the day opening gifts and eating doughnuts on the birthday plate.

 
Then we took doughnuts to his class at school, where they dined on Avengers plates and napkins and sang to the birthday boy.

 

That weekend we took our little crew to Atlanta for a whirlwind birthday trip.  We ate at the Varsity and swam in the pool at the hotel on Friday night.

 

 

  

And Saturday we spent five fun hours looking at some reallllly big fish (and sharks!) at the Aquarium.

  

 

 

 

  

  

  

  

We wore ourselves out and slept on the way to Birmingham, where we ate supper at Gigi's. It was a great birthday for our big boy!

Happy Snow Day!

Thanksgiving at Aunt Ellen's House

Gigi also came through with some Thanksgiving photos.  (Thanks, Mom!)  I don't have any from our trip to Cookeville.  We will have to remedy that when we head north for Christmas!

Aunt Ellen hosted the Manly Thanksgiving gathering at her house, and she set up a really cute kids table, complete with crayons and Thanksgiving coloring pages.

I'm taking total credit for the grin below.  A.J. and I were playing a game where we made a mad face at each other until he laughed.  Apparently my mad face is VERY funny.

Filling in the Gaps: Fall Festival and the Mountains

As promised, Gigi's pictures included several I did not get.  So here are a few more of our Fall Festival Fun at Gigi and Grumpy's church (preceded by dinner at Chickfila, naturally) and our mountain trip!

Gigi took these pretend Santa shots in the mountains.  They're the closest we will get to sitting on Santa's lap this year.