The Hazard Chronicles

We are in deep trouble.

At church today Rachel had to take Addy out of Sacrament meeting because she was crying. The bad thing is that Evelyn saw this and grasped hold of an important concept- If she crys then mom and dad have no choice but to take her out of this dreary place. So what did she do?

First, she very politely announced that she would please like to go out too. I told her no. Then she very calmly announced to me that she was crying too and had to go out. I again told her no. So then she looked me straight in the eye, opened her mouth, and very deliberately let out a wail so loud that strangers on the street must have been wondering what exactly happened inside a Mormon chapel. At this point I would have loved to just ignore her and let her learn the important truth that crying was an innefective appeal to emotion that only served to weaken an already faultering argument. However, since her cry had actually stopped the speaker mid-sentance (sorry Lafe) I had no choice but to give in to her antics and bring her out.

So we went in to the primary room with the lights turned off and I made her sit in a chair facing the wall until she begged me to let her go back in and promised to behave. Here, I learned a very important lesson. Never trust a two year old who is in time-out. They will say anything to regain their freedom. Five minutes after we re-entered the chapel the whole show started over again.

Like I said- we are in deep trouble.

Oh- Also, Evelyn has decided to potty train herself. Essentially this means that every once in a while we will stumble upon a dirty diaper that she has undone herself, with her being nowhere in sight. This is usually followed by frantic searching arround the house to assure ourselves that she is 1) on the potty, and 2) not making a mess of the sort I won't describe on this blog. It is difficult, because we want to encourage her independance and reward her potty training efforts, but at the same time we need to teach her that some things just require help from a grown-up. Oh, the joys of parenthood.

And that's not all. Addy is starting to get teeth. This means that she will spontaneously undergo a complete metamorphosis from a darling smiling child to a soppy snarling monster.

We love our monsters...Children.

The highlight of the week for Rachel and I, however surprising this may sound, does not involve our kids. This week was part two of my birthday present from Rachel.

On Saturday morning we took our three lovely monsters to a friend's house and then drove to Mentor for SAILING LESSONS. Yep, we learned how to sail a boat. From now on you can call me Captain Logan, and Rachel is my first mate. It was really cool learning about the rigging of the boat and then going out and actually putting theory into practice as we sailed around the bay. We started out by each having our own set of jobs to keep the boat upright and moving, but by the end were able to manuver around pretty competently all by ourselves. It was tons of fun and pretty darn cool to learn how to harness the power of the wind to take you wherever you wanted just by pulling on a few ropes. I love learning new things, especially when it involves playing outdoors, so this really was a perfect birthday present from Rachel. Thanks again, Love.

Evelyn Climbed a tree.

Here is a picture of us and our little boat.

And here is a picture of what was going through my imagination. There's nothing wrong with pretending, right?