She knows how to look after me

This morning I was running late for work.
I plonk myself onto the rug and start putting on my socks.
She senses the urgency and starts mumbling as she walks off to the front door, grabs my work shoes and brings them to me.
She holds them up, motioning for me to slip my feet in.
I tell her it's not necessary, and gratefully take the shoes from her.
Next she walks over to the lounge room, and brings out my work bag.
For her, it must weigh a tonne, but she lifts it up by the strap and slowly begins walking to me.
The bag is too big for her, and it drags along the floor. Yet she still holds it up, in front of her, kicking into the bag as she awkwardly steps towards me.
I tell her that it would be easier if she dragged it behind her instead. But she ignores me, her face full of concentration.
I smile at her as she reaches me and give her the biggest hug and kiss.
She reciprocates and then says 'Bye bye' as she waves to me and backs away.
Then she runs off to Bart and Lisa to tell them I'm about to leave.

Marge and I could only watch in amazement.
Our 19 month old Maggie is truly an amazing child.

Statistics

Bart's meals per day: 3
Bart's desired meals per day: 6
Minutes after breakfast for Bart to declare he's hungry: 10
Minutes after his post-breakfast sandwich for Bart to declare he's hungry: 5

Number of times Lisa has told me she wants to go to the toilet: 3
Number of times she has actually delivered the goods: 0
Metres between Lisa and me before I realised that she poo'ed her nappy this morning: 1
Seconds to rush Lisa into the bathroom to change her: 10
Jars of Nutella that I could have bottled from Lisa's nappy (and pants, and the sides of her legs) : 1

Maggie's favourite word : Daddeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Number of utterances in a day: 200
Number of utterances directed at Daddy: 10

Number of times Marge needs to call Bart before he responds: 3
Number of times Marge needs to call Lisa before she responds: 7
Number of times Marge needs to call Maggie before she responds: 1

Number of seconds for Bart to respond after Homer wields the cane: 0.1 - by rushing into obedience
Number of seconds for Lisa to respond after Homer wields the cane: 0.1 - by crying profusely, unable to move
Number of seconds for Maggie to respond after Homer wields the cane: 2.0 - by seeing what Bart and Lisa do first

She P's

Last night, I was crouched on the floor, doing some handywork around the house.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Lisa walk over and stop beside me, almost standing over me.
Before I had time to ask 'Lisa, do you want to go to the toilet?', I hear a waterfall as she semi-squats and shoots a jetstream of pee into her nappy.
I roll out of the way, just in case she tries to 'use the angle'*
She looks blankly at me, and then innocently waddles away with the nappy bulging through her pants.

* A few times, Lisa has managed to position her nappy in such a way that creates a pee-through blind spot.
The first time it happened, it was quite disturbing. A puddle of wee at her feet, yet the nappy was completely dry.

She speaks

This month, Lisa started to really talk.
It's not just words anymore.
Lisa has finally realised that speech is a viable communications medium.
It's useful for getting into tit-for-tat arguments with Bart.
And for dobbing in her little sister whenever Maggie hits her.
And for telling Daddy over the phone about the busy day she's had.
This week, she even began to comfortably talk to other grownups.
Though we're still waiting for her to tell us when she needs to use the toilet.

Sleep Wars

It's been over 6 months since I wrote about kicking Maggie out of our bedroom releasing Maggie into her own personal space.
Well, after this paragraph, I will finally reveal the truth about what REALLY happened.
[Queue 'Twilight Zone' music]

The celebrations were shortlived.
Gone were my plans of setting up the HP Notebook as a bedroom Media Centre.
Even though the cot and all the Maggie-ware were in Maggie's new room, Maggie was not.
She wanted nothing to do with the new room, crying herself into a frenzy if she was ever placed there for an afternoon nap.
Maggie continued to claim the master bed as her territory, refusing to sleep anywhere else.
Not only that, but her siblings soon wised up, and started to revolt against their own sleeping conditions.

'Mummy-Daddy's bed. Mummy-Daddy's bed!' Lisa's cries could be heard almost nightly, as the clock struck 9pm.
And then 10pm. Sometimes 1am. And 3am - each time while we carried her back to her own room.
But still, Marge and I would wake up the morning to find that somehow, Lisa had snuck into our bed again, under the radar.
It seemed that Lisa was unwilling to concede anything to her younger sister.

Enter daybreak. Enter Bart.
'Not fair! How come they get to sleep in Mummy and Daddy's bed. I'm sleeping here too!'
So he climbs in. But of course he wouldn't actually sleep.
He just plays. And baits his sisters. His sisters laugh, then cry.
And they all incur the wrath of a sleep-deprived Homer.

To be continued...

Before the beginning?

Bart and I began a theological discussion last night, over dinner.
It didn't get very far. I couldn't even get past his first question.

Bart: "Dad, I know that God created everything. But how did God exist in the beginning?"
Homer: (thinks Doh! Doh! Doh!): "He just did, son"
Bart: "Yeah, but HOW?"
Homer: (silence) "Hey, what else did you learn in school today?!"

He told me that he also asked his teacher and she said that she didn't know.
Not only that, but she reckoned that no-one in the entire school knew the answer.
That has got to be THE understatement of the year.

I try not to think too much about such things. It just makes my brain hurt.
I'm hoping that God will give us all the answers after the game. *
Maybe with a play-by play commentary of everything that's happened in the history of everything. *

And then we'll probably all go "Ahhhhhh...  Why didn't I think of that before?"
or "So that's what really happened to the dinosaurs..."
or "Wow, that's all we had to do to cure cancer?!"
or "Man, if only I had known my Nintendo DS could be modded to solve the world's energy crisis"

(* Yeah, I know these statements probably aren't biblically sound. But are they biblically unsound?)

Turning back time

Daylight savings ended yesterday.
So we effectively gained an extra hour.
('We' being Homer and Marge. The kids didn't need to concern themselves with such frivolous matters.)
So we didn't bother adjusting the clocks in the house...

It's amazing what you can accomplish with a bit of chronological deception.
We managed to get the kids ready for church an hour earlier. :)
And we convinced the kids to go to sleep an hour before their actual bedtime. Woohoo!

Unfortunately, the start of the school week unravelled our scheme.
At 6am this morning, Bart woke everyone up, ready to go to school.
Marge weakened, and confessed the actual time.

But it's gotten me thinking...
Somebody needs to invent a remote control for clocks!