The Warners reach new levels of coolness.

I got really excited about cold weather and the prospect of staying inside, bundled up in quilts, sitting quietly and reading or some such nonsense. Until I remembered that three year olds and almost one year olds do not sit and snuggle for longer than about four and a half seconds. Also, they can't read. And I think I heard somewhere that letting your kids watch 24 hours a day is bad parenting. Must be some new-fangled research. So now I'm trying to remember what we did last winter to keep the kiddies entertained and myself sane. I think it involved having a baby, sleeping on the couch a lot, and letting Madeline watch a lot of movies. So that is totally not my game plan for all winter. Just four days a week. The other day we have to go grocery shopping.

Did I mention that Kimberly has reached new heights of talent? She's been stepping for a month now, but now she's officially walking. She found her confidence about five or six days ago and is now pretty proficient at upright transport. She is not so good at running yet, but since she tries to keep up with Madeline, she falls down a lot still. I keep telling her that hard as I try I've never been able to keep up with Madeline, and she might as well quit now, but she apparently has the youthful energy and determination I lost somewhere around week two of my marriage, so she'll keep trying until she succeeds or dies. And since Madeline likes to "help" her walk, it might be the latter. Kimberly also feels that walking entitles her to new privileges like access to all the cupboards, the stairs, the drawers, and all the other places she had not previously discovered. So maybe we'll spend the winter remembering how to child proof the house.

That's it for today. Kimberly returned to one of her early morning wake up kicks this week, and it's made me a zombie. That and she likes to wake up all night and throw her binki under the crib and yell until I come shimmy under there with my pregnant belly to retrieve it. Not a cool game. I bought her a binki clip to end the fun, but she still likes to yell just to see if I'll come, and since her stamina exceeds my own (see: youthful energy and determination above), she usually wins because I just want to get a little sleep. So maybe I'll go do that right now. Until Madeline needs something urgent, like the answer to one of life's great questions, or a popsicle.

Momma said there'd be years like this.

Some days this parenting schtick kicks my trash. Or maybe some weeks. I'd admit to some months, but let's not ruin my reputation. We've survived sleep deprivation, tantrums, hitting, teething, destruction, messes, and various other catastrophes, and we're still alive and kicking. But I think Madeline just hit puberty and it's going to kill me. Seriously, when she actually becomes a teenager, just hit me over the head with a stick and wake me up when I have grandchildren. I was expecting a few more years of complete Mommy adoration before she figured out I'm not perfect and started exploiting that. The defiance levels at our house are code red. When I'm not being ignored completely. Or hit. Or breaking up fights among the peasants, mostly instigated by Miss Three and a half, because Kimberly is a pretty smart baby and rarely begins a confrontation she knows she is going to lose. Also, Kimberly is easily distracted by just about everything, whereas Madeline has learned to hang on to her grievances with a scary tenacity which I blame on Jessie (but he'll tell you it's all my fault, and he might be right. Just don't tell him that.) Basically, I have not the first idea how to balance independence and obedience, and affection and discipline. Last year I was pretty sure I knew at least a tiny bit about these subjects, or was confident that through study or trial and error or some other process I would learn. I'm pretty sure in the last two weeks I've become a disciplinary agnostic. If that's a thing. Madeline is probably going to grow up to be a homeless bum. Or a politician. If I had any energy left I'd be thinking up plans to negate these outcomes, but instead I've accepted the inevitability and am consoling myself with Ding dongs and the hope that I get a Parenting for Dummies book for Christmas.

Also, on a somewhat related but mostly random note, I'd like to register my alarm that everyone on television gives birth naturally. And screaming. Seriously. Also, labor on television takes an average of twenty minutes to two hours. As a pregnant women, this makes my hormones unhappy. Not all laboring women, drugged or not, are raving screaming monsters. I have enough parenting esteem issues raising a three year old. Please cut me some slack and start showing more women on epidurals happily watching CSI and eating green jello. That's all I ask.

A little bit of absoutely nothing.

Somehow my life got away from me and a week passed, and I have no idea what happened. Which is great when you need something to blog about. So I'll just basically be making stuff up today. You have been warned. Let's begin with a picture. Because whenever I make the effort to be decently dressed with my hair done, we get to take out the camera. The camera is sadly underused.This is us, just shy of 22 weeks. Don't mind the chaos. We just wanted to paint a realistic picture of our life for posterity. Kimberly is teething, so she doesn't like being ignored by both parents long enough to take a picture. Or she may be concerned about getting clobbered by her loving sister, who is unfortunately struggling with pushing, hitting, kicking, sharing, listening, obeying, and many other unimportant life skills. Fortunately for Kimberly, right now Madeline is struggling with concentration rather than physical violence. Probably saw a Pokemon or something. Oh, and there's me, being all pregnant and stuff. For fun, let's take a look at this picture as well.

Oh, the contrast. I knew there was another picture somewhere that looked somewhat similar. Only minus the circus. This is me pregnant with Madeline. Only I'm pretty sure that's less than two months before I gave birth. Whereas now at the same size I have over four months to go. I just love being large. And surrounded by my entourage. What a short few years will do to you. Different house, different furniture, different circumstances. That is the same ficus tree, though. Because that's how we roll. We are fiercely loyal to our fake foilage. Or just cheap.

Other than that, we are alive. I am enjoying the cold weather. The rest of the family is not. Phooey on them, I say. I want it to start snowing and not stop until March. Because maybe that will kill off all the orange cones that are native to our soil. We're looking forward to Halloween. If we make it that long. We might die of sugar poisoning or toddler induced hysteria before then.