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Here are some log entries from the last few months:

12.31.07 Isaac remarked this evening that “legs li ve in pants.” A week or so ago he told me that we should name the new baby Charlotte and we can have two Charlottes. He said that one will get bigger and he told me that I needed to keep the other one a baby.

Isaac has some phrases that are his own such as: “That I doo-d (sounds like dude)” meaning that’s what I did and “that will be a good idea.” Charlotte loves to approach me with demands. The two most common are “mom, I need cereals” and “I need Mps Mps” (meaning M&Ms).

1.4.08 Every night Isaac needs to make sure he’ll be safe before he falls to sleep. Lately it’s just “mom, keep me safe from all of them” but sometimes it’s “keep me safe from every thing” or “ don’t let anything come in and don’t let nothing come in either” or “keep me safe from the naughty list” which turned into “keep me safe from the nice list.” One night he was worried that babies would sneak in while he was asleep and suck on his train tracks. Another night he thought an engine would get him. One night after I read him a book about animals in the Ocean he said pointing to the book “keep me safe from those animals.” After watching Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer he asked us to take all the scary things to the dentist to have their teeth taken out. One night he even asked me to take all the bugs to the dentist too to get their teeth taken out. We went to the dentist this week for a consultation which took a rather long time and when I tucked him in tonight he said “take them to the dentist and have them take a long time.”

1.22.08 Motivated by the desire not to have three children in diapers, I decided to get serious about potty training tonight. I made some charts for the children and explained to Isaac that when he filled up the row with 5 stars he could earn something special. Whe n I brought in three packaged trucks to show him what he could earn, the urge to use the potty came quickly and to my surprise he actually went. I let him place his first sticker on the chart and then told him that he could drink lots of water and then try to go again to earn another sticker. Little did I know how effective this method would be. I introduced the concept sometime around 6:00 PM and by 8:30 PM he had successfully used the potty five times and earned his first truck! At this pace he’ll earn the other two trucks before I get home from work tomorrow! Oh well, beggers can’t be choosers!

Charlotte continues to amaze me with her increasingly complex and grammatically correct utterances. She adds endings to words and uses better grammar than her big brother. It just seems to come to her so naturally. She enjoys pointing out the obvious and comparing everything in the room. She’ll be eating dinner and say “there’s daddy’s shirt, there’s mommy’s shirt, there’s Isaac’s shirt,” then point to herself and say “Charlotte’s shirt.” While I was on the phone this evening she just climbed up on my lap and said “there’s mommy’s lips, Charlotte’s lips, Jill Pole’s lips” when I came home from work she took inventory of the room by saying “there’s a girl, there’s another girl, there’s another girl, there’s a boy.” She seems to enjoy pointing out gender. She’ll come up to me and give me a hug and say “we are girls” then point to Isaac and say “Isaac’s a boy.” We hadn’t talked about the baby in my tummy for awhile and Charlotte didn’t seem to understand when I explained to her that a baby girl was growing in my tummy, but the other day completely out of the blue she put her hand on my tummy and said “there’s a baby girl in there” I had only a moment to be astounded before she lifted up her shirt and declared that there was also a baby girl in her tummy—so I’m still not sure she understands the concept.

2.12.08 Isaac’s prayers are sometimes interesting. I remember one night he said “thank thee for Charlotte not being good for prayer.” Recently he said “thank thee for all the good things, thank thee for all the naughty things, thank thee for things that will bite me.”  Tonight in his prayer he said “thank thee for naughtyness.”

I don’t remember when a child first said this next one but I think it was Charlotte several months ago, but both children have said it since. They sometimes tell me that glassess keep mom’s eyes warm.

2.23.08 Isaac ran in to the kitchen where I was making dinner and announced “Mommie, I asked Heavenly Father on my knees for donuts.” I told him that if he cleaned up his books, I’d give him a brownie and he responded by asking if Heavenly Father would give him donuts after the brownie.