“Come!” Nolan says, taking my hand and dragging me towards the TV. “Cooommmmeee!” And he points, expectantly, to watch another round of “You’re Welcome” from Moana. So much for no screen time before the age of two with this second-round kid. Enjoy, buddy. #thirdkidlife
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Though his actual favorite song is "Wheels on the Bus". "Bus!" he screams, "Buuuuusss!!!" Unfortunately, he knows that we have it on CD in the car. Just FYI, it takes us 3.5 rounds of "bus" to get to Target. 4 to get us to preschool. I don't even want to know how many it's going to take when we road trip it to Iowa.
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First day of Preschool:
The outtakes:
Asked if they missed me and they both said, "No." In a tone like, duh, mom, why would you even ask that?
First day of dance:
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Stillwater is one of the more picturesque suburbs in the Twin Cities. I danced out there several times a week starting in elementary school, so I kind of feel like I grew up there. It's a bit of a drive, now - 45 minutes or so in light traffic from our house - so I don't get there much now. Saturday we were able to spend the day there, a first with the kids.
We started out on a boat.
Only a matter of time before we get the "are they triplets?" question...
Caden was in his element and asked 4587 questions about water and boats. Though I think he was disappointed it wasn't a boat like Moana sails on. (Only a little, though.)
We then moved on to ice cream.
I would just like to point out that Nolan's ice cream is half of a normal kid's-sized portion, and Caden's, which includes both his cone and the entire cup of ice cream sitting next to him, is almost a full-sized kid's portion. Why is America so overweight anyway? The world may never know.
We ended at the park. But not just any park. Teddy Bear Park.
Where Nolan and this bear became BFFs. (And he's not sunburned, and no I didn't up the saturation of these images, kid literaly gets that red the second he steps out the door in any sort of humidity. Combine that with running around the playground like a crazy person and the result is a face as red as his pants.)
A little braver every day.
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Every. Time. We. Bake.
Their combined voice power when they run around playing is louder than ten mixers running at the same time, but sure guys, cover your ears while this single mixer whirrs around on medium. YOU GUYS MAKE NO SENSE.
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Speaking of running around playing, Caden and Brooklyn's favorite game lately is to play "Neighborhood". Which, to most kids, would probably be called playing house, but here it's an almost never-ending refrain of: "Do you want to play neighborhood?" "We're playing neighborhood!" "You be the dad and I'll be the mom so we can play neighborhood." Maybe I have Daniel Tiger to thank? I really don't know, but it's adorable. They go to sleep, wake up ("The sun's up! It's morning!"), make food, go to the store, go to work, take care of their babies, and I was especially proud of Caden the other day as I overheard him say, "Daddy's going to make dinner because mommy has to go to a meeting. Bye mommy! Have fun at your meeting!" And also: "Daddy's going to the store so he needs the diaper bag!" and he slung a pink purse over his shoulder. That's right little man, you rock that pink "diaper bag", and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. #feminism
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Let it be known that the summer of 2017 was the official summer of "Do you want to see a trick?"
Flips, drops, jumps, twirls, slides, and ten types of climbing. Between them there's nothing these three haven't conquered on this playground. And Nolan is RIGHT THERE with the rest of them. Might as well be triplets, after all.