Playing puppets

My husband and I had a conversation about how life seems "urgent" .  There always seems to be an urgent something to do - a diaper needs to be changed, a crying baby needs to be picked up, we need to go shopping, we need to separate two fighting children...and the list goes on.  We talked about how we sometimes fall into being "urgent" all the time, always doing something /going somewhere and miss the little things  - like playing  puppets with Sarah , reading books to Abby , counting with Nathan , and letting little Hannah look you full in the face making lots of eye contact.  Sarah is always asking us to play puppets .  She has a wonderful imagination and loves to use it and watch us use ours.  Recently I've made myself take at least 20 minutes to play puppets with Sarah - I don't always want to.  I'd rather play on the computer or clean up what I can before the next "urgent" thing comes up, but play for her is important and it should be important to me as well.  A lot of important things happen during the day ... things I will want to remember when the kids are older.

Abby sings now.  We don't always know what she is saying but she sounds good :).  She sings "row row row your boat...stream....merry merry merry dream!"  Sarah has been singing for awhile now - and has several songs memorized.  I love hearing my little girls sing :). While giving them a bath tonight I heard the usual "knock- knock" jokes.  They are funny because the kids don't understand how or why they are funny.
Sarah: "knock knock"
Me: "Who's there?"
Sarah: "Sarah"
Me: "Sarah who?"
Sarah: "SARAH!"

Nathan: "Knock knock"
Me: "who's there?"
Nathan: "boat"
Me: "boat who?"
Nathan: "Nathan's boat!"

They go on getting sillier ending in giggles because I'm laughing at them and they don't understand why :).

While walking (or rather force marching) the kids to the library this afternoon I had a hard time getting Sarah's attention.  She seems to move at negative speed when you want to get somewhere sometime.  I was standing at a corner calling her for what seemed like a full minute when she finally came ...and then threw a snow ball at me.  We crossed the road and then started a toddler snow ball fight (me purposely missing  - even though I wanted to hit them.  Nathan and Sarah proudly throwing snow fragments/balls I made for them on the sidewalk).  Sarah discovered that snow covered gloves become wet gloves.  The princess ended up in the wagon wearing my gloves.  Abby had socks on her hands (I could not find any gloves that fit her-why do those darn things get lost so easily?) so she mostly complained ... very loudly. Hannah was having fun relaxing in the wagon snuggled in a large baby bag I had worn when I was a baby.  Each trip to the library is an adventure :)

Little things happen, sandwiched in with the urgent things.  I hope I will remember to play puppets , sing silly songs, laugh at knock knock jokes that don't make any sense , and take a few extra minutes on the walk to the library to discover things or just stand there humoring Sarah :)

Hannah really liking her fingers lately - teething? NO - please no- not yet 

Football watching with dad :)

Abby is very passionate and has a variety of expressions ... I wish I could get them on camera