Madeline and Charlie

Madeline recently renamed the dog, Sniff Sniff. Now she often corrects me when I call for Maple. Here are a few other funny things she's said recently:

• Today, she leaned over and put her nose to a gorgeous purple Iris that just bloomed. Then she told me it smelled like rice and beans.
• At bedtime, I was closing the door behind me and I heard "Mommy...?" Here it comes, I thought. More water? Don't go! Can you tell me another story? "I have sausages in my ears," she said, then giggled her maniacal throaty laugh she saves for things that are especially funny to a three-year-old.
• The other day she propped open the front door and bellowed (past the neighbors who were chatting in the street), "Maple, you little stinker (pronounced stinka). Get back in here!" Then she did it about three more times so that the little veins were popping out of her neck. This was all before she renamed her Sniff Sniff.
  
• After calming down following a bath time fit, Madeline said, "Mommy, I forgot." Naturally, I asked her what she forgot. "I'm sorry I forgot my manners."

Even though Charlie can't talk yet, he's cracking us up too! He wants to try everything, but has no idea he's still a baby -- almost every day, I help him "ride" Madeline's two wheel bike (after lots of grunting and pointing). And he runs around with the big kids on our street and at the playground imitating everything he sees. Tonight at Chick-Fil-A, there was a giant dancing cow, a balloon man and a guy on guitar. Charlie followed around the cow like she was his long lost mother. And he clapped his hands and danced to the music inbetween repeated attempts at running behind the counter. Yesterday, I came into the kitchen after stepping away for a few seconds and he was standing on Madeline's craft table in a surf stance. The best is how mad he gets sometimes, especially during a diaper change. He throws his little body down on the ground and flops around, howling -- how do you not laugh at a cute little bare bottom jiggling and flexing in his pint-size anger. That said, he's turned me into a Diaper Jedi. I simply don't remember the last time I changed him lying down. And almost every time I lie him down for a nap or bedtime, he waves goodbye with a giant smile on his face.