This is the day I was waiting for

Today was such a good day! The kids were happy and well rested, the two going hand in hand, and everything was enjoyable despite the terrible weather. We spent the morning visiting the shoe store (complete with a train set) and Target, and then back home for lunch and a nap. I got a solid 2 hours of work in while they napped, and once they woke up we did arts and crafts for much of the afternoon until Jake came home. Jake watched a Caillou video with them while I made dinner, and after dinner the kids enjoyed their bath. Before bed I trimmed Nora's hair, probably incompetently (and she kept jerking her head around), but it sprang up into waves and curls and looks pretty decent anyway. Milo got himself dressed and undressed today. Nobody fought over which books to read at bedtime. The kids fell asleep in about 5 minutes. I just finished another 3 hours of work tonight and am feeling good about my progress on the paper I'm writing.

The kids did a ton of fun pretend play and went on imaginary adventures together. They got along. Life has been good today.

Nice things:

When I was done cutting Nora's hair she took the comb and combed my hair and pretended to cut it. It is adorable how she mimics what she hears. She told me, "Okay, hold still. I'm going to comb the hair out of your eyes. Wow, good job! You're holding still. Okay, you don't have to close your eyes Mommy. Now I'm going to comb the hair for you." So authoritative in her manner.

Milo's new term is "I guess I...". Often he'll say it in this pathetic melodramatic way, like if we're taking about 1 nanosecond too long to get him a requested glass of milk, he'll say "I guess I don't get to drink any milk!" But he says it in nice ways too, like "I guess I need to find my favorite book before bedtime!"

Nora & Milo playing for about 20 minutes with a tape measure, each holding onto one end and marching all over the house. (I had no idea that thing extended so much.)

Nora playing with the magnet drawing board with me after nap, asking me to write words so that she could identify them. She can identify Hi, Cat, Dog, Mom, Dad, Milo, Nora, Stop, and today I taught her Cow. She asked me to write Grandmom Lee and was annoyed that I couldn't make it fit well on the tiny board. Stop was interesting because I wrote it and she looked at it and said, "I don't know what that is!" So I asked her what each of the letters was. She stated each letter, S, T, O, P, and then realized "It spells stop!" (This is because Milo likes to say "S, T, O, P, stop!" when he sees a stop sign.)

Going on an escalator for the first time today and hearing the kids call it the "excavator stairs".

Nora's habit of calling Milo "Hon" and "Bud". Or sometimes "My Brudder." "Hey bud, let's go upstairs!" Or, "Where is my brudder?"

Milo's decision that he is going to be a haircutter when he grows up, and then he'll ride his garbage truck home.

Life is so good when the kids are in a good mood.