Mischief

As mentioned previously, Caedmon has started giving us a different sort of expression when we take his photo and ask him to smile. We finally realized that he's smiling with his eyes, as he tries so, so hard to comply with our request. We took a lengthy series of photos after supper this week and showed him the picture each time, he was so funny!

With the cold weather keeping us indoors, and with him becoming more and more independent and curious, our Caedmon has had opportunities to do deeper excavations into cabinets. One day earlier this week, he struck gold, in his eyes, with a package of marshmallows. Since it was almost time for lunch, I bargained with him that he could have some if he ate his ravioli...so, he would take a few bites, then break for a marshmallow, and so on until all his ravioli was gone, then he got the rest of his loot.

I put the chip clip, which is still impenetrable for him, back on the bag, and refocused my attention on feeding Isaac his lunch. Caedmon managed to snatch the bag of marshmallows off the island, and I began my "We can have more later, you already had your marshmallows..." admonition, hoping that he would be agreeable to that. Instead, his eyes lit up and he said, while nodding his head, "Put marshmallows back in cabinet." He then turned and walked out of the kitchen, as if heading to the hall pantry. Now, he's not quite tall enough to reach the shelf in the hall yet, so I wondered if he would get his step stool, or if I was witnessing the first really sneaky maneuver on his part. His little footsteps kept going down the hall so I got up and followed him. He very quickly darted into Isaac's room and I found him hiding in the corner behind the crib, nervously trying to get the clip off the bag. He jumped when I walked into the room (probably a total of about eight seconds after him) and knew he was caught - so he immediately held the bag up to me and asked for help opening it. Poor guy really, really wanted some more marshmallows!

Our little Isaac is already seven months old! I took a series of photos of him one afternoon this week. His giraffe is looking smaller and smaller!

It's so fun to see our boys more and more able to interact and play. Isaac has discovered Caedmon's little play tunnel and has made several trips through it. We had a little head-on collision between him and his big brother but they worked it out with Isaac only getting a little squished.

I don't have a photo to go along with the story, but our Christmas shopping was definitely an adventure this year. We could only make a couple of stops each day so by the time Christmas was getting close, I was really ready to figure out how to pull together the last items on our list. One day we mustered our courage (or maybe that was just me) and headed out to the mall. With the boys in our double stroller, we tackled the too-crowded aisles and had several incidents of barely fitting through racks and displays - or not at all.

Our first stop was JCPenney - I really wanted to look for some men's dress socks and ended up squeezing our stroller in between the sock rack and another display, smushing up against the socks in the process. After not finding what we were looking for, we headed out, up the elevator, into another store, and finally ended up in the food court to grab some lunch. Caedmon requested chicken nuggets, which he then refused to eat. So, I saw a place I could grab him a fruit smoothie, which he was agreeable to drink.

With that, we were off to Dillards. I let Caedmon keep drinking his smoothie as we walked - as briskly as I could push them - to the store. I knew the boys' fuses were getting shorter but am never quite sure how much time I have left! Isaac, Mr. Curious, decided that he needed to check out Caedmon's straw, and made continuous efforts to snatch it away, much to Caedmon's consternation. After several stops to try to appease Isaac with his own toys, we made it to Dillards and I again rammed our stroller through the displays where I could find enough space. As I scanned the shoe department, Caedmon started yelling at his brother, who had managed to reach the straw and yanked it out of the cup. As they tugged and flailed, dark purple smoothie from the straw splattered on Caedmon's jacket, blanket, and Doug. Thankfully we had picked up some napkins, which I retrieved and used to dab up as much of the sticky mess as possible, then stuffed them into my purse. When I finished and looked up at Isaac again, he had grabbed a shoe from the closest display and was getting a good taste of, I'm sure, genuine leather. I pried it out of his hands, gave it a quick wipe, and put it back to make as quick an exit as possible after our little scene.

As I backed our wide load back out of the displays of shoes, I looked up to see Isaac hanging on to the clear shelf-like stands that hold shoes at different levels, and it was coming with us. We stopped, I removed his fingers from their tight grip, and we kept on moving. At this point I was ready to reconsider my goals for what we'd accomplish that day and getting to the car moved to the top of the list. We happened to bump into a lady from church that we haven't seen in awhile, and she took a quick peek at the sweet little cherubs in the stroller before hurrying away.

As we passed the "water" (the fountain in front of JCPenney's, with large turtle statues on the outside that squirt water into the fountain) Caedmon, as always, requested that we stop and check it all out. I pulled the stroller right up to one of the turtles, and Caedmon leaned forward and started slapping on it with his palms. Isaac, of course, followed suit. They were so funny, and so enthusiastic about their turtle-whopping, that I moved to the front of the stroller so I could watch their beaming little faces. This is when I realized that at some point between leaving the shoe department of Dillards and that moment, one of the boys had swiped bright purple smoothie all the way across Isaac's face. As I quickly wiped it off, my mind started listing all the things that others, particularly my friend, were probably thinking about how I neglect my boys, and do they ever get their faces washed or get a bath?, and why was such a little baby drinking a berry smoothie anyway?

Embarrassed again, I grabbed the handles of the stroller and we were off to the car - and it was at this point that I realized that stuck to an exposed piece of velcro on the side of our stroller...was a single dress sock. From JCPenney's. From the very first stop on our shopping trip. So, although I wanted nothing more than to be in our car on our way home, we meandered back to the too-crowded sock display, where I located the pack missing one.

And then, we went home.