If You're Happy and You Know It, Don't Come to Our House

J Frog has developed a nasty habit of gagging himself when sitting in his high chair. He likes the attention and giggles when we grab his hands to prevent him from throwing up the few small bites of food he manages to swallow. (We've got Early Intervention coming out for the first time this week, so hopefully that will change soon.) So, to keep from acknowledging the game and encouraging him to gag himself, I started singing, "If you're happy and you know it" to get him to clap his hands. He just picked up the skill a few weeks ago while we were in Florida and likes to show it off. The trick works for the most part as long as I catch him early.

To make it more fun for everyone at the table, I like to include the other kids in the song. So the other night I sang, "If you're J Frog and you know it, clap your hands!" That's to get his attention first. Then when I'm sure he's clapping and not gagging, I move on to Missy. "If you're Missy and your know it, clap your hands!" LR always helps me sing, so the next verse is for him. "If you're LR and you know it, stomp your feet." The other night, L-"Spontaneous"-R took the next verse. "If you're Mommy and you know it, say, 'darn it!'" Ah... the mirror that is my oldest child. Thanks, LR. Feeling pretty good about my Mommy skills now. Guess it was a good thing it was just "darn it."

Family Outing to Fresh City

It's actually such a production to go out to eat with the family that I decided to document one outing with photos. That meant another thing to carry with the diaper bag, food bag, toy bag, travel seats, purse, jackets, shoes, and anything else that decided to fall off during the adventure.

We piled into the minivan with Marian and LR in the way back. The babies took their spots in the middle of the van and Daddy charted a course to Fresh City! It was a Friday night at 5pm, so the place was deserted. That worked for us since we needed the one table in the corner that was a circle so that we could attach both the baby seats. It took a good 5 minutes to get settled between getting coats off, picking a seating arrangement that would work best, and putting the travel high chairs on the table.

Getting the food was a trick since someone needed to stay with the kids at the table at all times. The people at Fresh City were very patient with us since we were the only people in the place. Then when the food arrived we realized the table wasn't quite big enough to keep all the food out of reach. It was a free-for-all! Little grabby hands everywhere!

The sun was shining right in our eyes half the time, but it didn't matter since I didn't really want to see the mess we were creating anyway.




Vivian realized the food was gone and tried to climb out of her seat. We have to strap her in now every time. She's a climber just like LR was. We've also put all the dining room chairs inside the superyard, otherwise I kept finding her standing on one looking very proud.

At last, our reward - Coldstone Creamery!