More Peanuts

• Melissa loves to have books read to her. "Readzabook! Readzabook!" she demands. We keep a stash of rotated library books in the drawer of the entertainment center. She will pull book after book and clamber onto your lap expectantly. She is very insistent too, and will push whatever else you may be doing aside so that you can read to her. I usually peter out after four books, somewhat to her dismay.

• Baby counting... Everyday when Daddy comes home he throws the kids in the air and counts to 10 as he tosses them. (Incidentally this used to make Mommy panic, but I've since mellowed a bit about Daddy games. He hasn't dropped a kid yet.) Melissa now counts 1..2..4! She's getting there!

• Matthew likes to put the dog harness (it's a soft backpack that looks like a dog and it's tail is the leash) on Melissa and order her around the house. He calls the game "pet shop". Melissa, for her part, seems to enjoy the game and barks and licks things (while crawling on hands and knees).

• Matthew wanted to play "crashing boat game" when I gave him his bath yesterday. This game consists of, well, crashing boats into each other. Matthew is pretty rough, so my knuckles get a beating playing this game. I persuaded him to play a word game instead to spare my hands. He has a collection of foam letters that stick to the bathtub wall. We used words that end in "ip" He was very pleased with the words we made. lip, sip, tip, rip, nip, zip, hip, dip...

• Yesterday we were desperately low on TP. (You potty train a kid and toilet paper usage more than doubles!) I was certain we had more in the pantry, but alas. Since it was Sunday, we figured that if we rationed things we'd be fine until Monday. (Meaning kid use of tp was to be strictly monitored.) We didn't get to bed until late that night, and Jonathan gets a little loopy when he's sleepy. He had a "brilliant" brainstorm. "Hey dear, we can produce and market pee rags for crunchy people! Our slogan can be 'Save a Tree! Pee on Me!' or 'Pee is for Planet!'" Righhhtt.... And he likes to tease me about how crunchy I am! Okay, okay, so we do the cloth diapers, don't buy formula, don't use disposable feminine products, and prefer natural childbirth, but STILL!!! Night night, sleepy scheming husband!