Daddy's Notes

1. Aviva thinks she's a big girl now. Mostly because she now sleeps in a big kid bed. About a week ago we asked her if she wanted to sleep in the bottom bunk of Max's big-kid bunk bed. Boy did she ever. The first night, she fell asleep quickly and every night since she's gone to sleep at night and for naps on the bottom bunk. After a night of successfully sleeping in the bottom bunk, she said to me, "I's a big kid. Baby Leo sleep in my crib." So that's that.

2. Aviva is also fully potty trained. Well, it's been a long time since we remember her last accident. You may recall that she potty-trained herself a few months ago. Then Leo showed up. She was all out of sorts with his arrival, but now she's back on track.

3. Max loves his mommy. Kristin now leads music time during primary at church (which is impressive since she has no musical training to speak of). But she shares the responsibility with another mom named Holly. Last week after church, Max and I were driving home and I asked how church was and what he did. He mentioned singing time in primary and I asked how Holly did. No lie, he responded with, "Why would you think she's better than mom?" Um, I didn't Max, but good to know you got Mom's back.

4. And his fingers, too. It's disgusting, but we cannot keep him from putting his fingers in his mouth. Argh.

5. Max and his CTR ring. In primary at church, Max's teachers gave him his first "Choose the Right" ring with the acronym CTR on it. He loved it. And lost it within 24 hours. On Monday, he got in trouble and Kristin asked Max why he did the thing she'd asked him not to. His answer, "I lost that ring that told we what to do."

6. Leo looks just like Max. Only I recall Max smiling a lot. I know that Leo is still young, but I wonder if we have a serious "Max" on our hands. It's almost incomprehensible because if there's one that thing that Max is not, it's serious.

7. Leo is a great sleeper. And almost doth convince me to have another baby. (Well, technically, Kristin would do the heavy lifting.) He'll take one long nap in the afternoon (3-4 hours), then he'll sleep at night from 9/10-5/6 on almost a nightly basis. And he'll go right back to sleep after waking up at 5/6. It's a miracle. Seriously.

8. Aviva hates to be at home. She's starting to recognize our neighborhood and as soon as she figures out what's going on (i.e, we're getting close to home), she screams like crazy from the back seat, "NO HOME. NO HOME!!"

9. Aviva thinks she's Kristin, or likes to act like it. When Max gets in trouble and Kristin reprimands him, Aviva will almost always repeat Kristin. Immediately. As if she's Kristin's echo. "No, Max, you no do that." Which prompts Max to scream, "You're not my mom." Aviva's not scared to get in on the act in other families either. At Max's friend Noah's house recently, Noah got in trouble and Noah's mom heard an echo: "No, Noah, you no do that."

10. Max loves filthy lucre. We forgot how much Max loved money until we recently decided we were tired of helping him get dressed every morning before school and get in his pajamas before bed every night. Kristin has started offering him a quarter every time he puts on his clothes/pajamas after only being asked once (don't worry, we stop shelling out quarters after he's shown he can do it on his own for a while). He's made a lot of money this week. Sadly, all he wants to buy are things like this: http://toys.goolian.com/index.php?case=product&proddb=9&pid=12786.