the Amelia Bedelia theory

I had an idea inspired by this gal. Incidentally I love when my children love the same books I loved as a kid. I can barely read Amelia Bedelia without laughing.

What makes her funny is that she takes idioms and figures of speech literally and also needs VERY clear pronoun references(one of my favorite things to pick on as an English teacher) (yes I am a nerd).

So she ends up doing cukoo things like dusting the furniture (putting dust ON it), and taking a nap herself when the list says "time for a nap" instead of putting the baby down for a nap. I should try that one. But that isn't the Amelia Bedelia theory.

After reading a few of these books lately with Mimi I realized that Amelia messes up ROYALLY every single day and does her entire list of things to do WRONG. And so do I sometimes!

But guess what? She makes a ridiculously delicious dessert at the end of the day and it somehow makes the world right. No matter where she fell short the rest of the day! Even if she is showing no real signs of improvement!

So I've come up with the Amelia Bedelia theory. I think if I make a delicious food item every day all shortcomings and blatant errors of the day will vanish with one taste.

Think it'll work?!

fly me to the moon

NO those are not pullups (CLEAN!) on their heads! They are space helmets for these three astronauts. Of course.

Sammy was the mastermind here, I might add.

Why do we ever buy them toys?

bwothers

Boys will be boys.

And we have a couple of those in our house. Three actually.

Here's one in his ultramanly gear of safety goggles and popgun. VERY intimidating I know.

The other day Mimi found out that a future cousin will be a boy and she broke down into tears. And she even tried NOT to cry. She dreams of having more girls around, specifically sisters or cousins. If she didn't have The Soph I don't know what we'd do.

We know some GREAT gals who had all brothers and we always point to them to give her hope of turning out OK if she happens to have all brothers.

The boys have lots of fun together. My brother was the only son so I can see he really put up with a lot just having sisters. I love watching these brothers play together. They usually laugh and laugh and have so much simple fun. Like bucket rides:

And they get to wear matching jammies...

I read an article the other day about Jimmer. (Please pretend you know who he is so my husband can still be your friend. Just kidding. Kinda.) Anyway the article centered on how Jimmer was driven to greatness by having an older brother. Something like that. So although I know they might be competitive and roughish in the distant and non-distant future, it's nice to think they will compel one another to greatness. I have that hope for them.

But I also have the hope that having a sister to think about will teach them things too. And vice versa. Miranda has already learned to discern in her young experience with males between the ones who "respect women" --her words-- and those who don't. Interesting...

She and Sammy love to play together. They love to disagree sometimes too, but lots of times they are great to each other and they defend each other like crazy. One of miniman's first words was "manda," and all she has to do is touch a finger to the piano and he practically transports himself to the bench next to her and plays with her, a big grin slapped across his mug.

One day they fell asleep on the couch and I found them like this! Ha ha ha!!!!

So cute. Toxic, but cute.

Anyway, I guess the point of this post is that I feel blessed to watch these three interact. I like to see the lessons they learn from their natural interactions and the interplay between masculine and feminine thought and interest. Fernando once did a research paper about how siblings play a part in future marital success skills and there was a connection there. So if you have skills thank your siblings, right?

Fernando also has reminded me a few times how our siblings are the people in life we know the longest, who are with us for the longest amount of time here on earth. Whenever I am with mine or Fernando is with his, we notice in each other laughter and personality that ONLY our siblings bring out.

So I guess the best gifts we've given these three is each other.