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.