Caddie stole a cookie right out of Wyatt’s hand today. I yelled at and chased her down, but the cookie retrieval operation was not a success. Wy pointed at her angrily and said “Ba Do!”
I would call this an impressive stringing of two words together from an almost 13 month old, except that in our house, bad dog is really one word.

Lily walked up to Wyatt today while they were watching a cartoon and I was making dinner, shoved him over and kicked him. Unfortunately for her, I was watching. She totally enjoyed my interrupting dinner prep, draggin her to her room, yelling at her, then coming back after an interval to get her so she could apologize. I am going to have to think of a better punishment.

She also did something very cute today, but of course that’s harder to remember. We read an alphabet book. She pointed to every letter and announced, not the letter name, but its sound. She said enthusiastic good-byes to everyone who came to the house. She snuggled into my lap and said I love you.

Sam has suddenly transformed into a much bigger kid, the kind who cautions his baby sister (if you leave that there the dogs will get it) and draws her pictures, and helps the carpenter by putting together a laundry rack all by himself. He’s wonderful. The best kid. I should never yell at him, but he encourages me to expect perfection. Plus, he’s the only one that yelling at has any effect on. I really hurt his feelings the other day, yelling at him “Whatever you’re doing that’s making that noise, stop it!” when really the noises I wanted to stop were the other two screaming, want to be picked up while you’re making dinner children. Apparently he was doing something harmless with a truck. I found him crying in the playroom about ten minutes later. I felt truly horrible, but it has to be said that he, too, enjoyed the reconciliation very much. They are all drama queens, all three of them, and I am the audience.