We came through the time change fairly well – A & M slept until almost 6am EST today, which is better than we’d feared considering the number of early awakenings we had this week. Of course, we carved pumpkins tonight. Maggie, ever hungry for new experiences, really enjoyed it, as you’ll see.

This week, Andrew has demonstrated he’s developing a keen sense of humor. And by “keen,” I mean “less funny than a booger in my broccoli.”

I was sorting the mail on Saturday when he bounced up behind me. “Daddy, you want to hear a silly joke?”

“Sure!” I put down this week’s sheaf of pre-election cries for attention from the empty shell that passes for a Republican party in Massachsetts and turned around.

“How does a squirrel brush his eyeballs?” Andrew clasped his hands in front of him and leaned forward on his toes.

“I dunno, how?”

“He doesn’t!” Andrew giggled and put his hand over his mouth. “Want to hear a funny joke?” By this point, he was bouncing from foot to foot.

“OK.”

“Butt!” He pushed past me and ran upstairs.

I know, I know, he’s only four and he’ll get it eventually. And if he doesn’t, he might have a successful career as a sitcom writer.

Maggie, on the other hand, piled on the vocab this week. “It’s OK, It’s OK” she said when Andrew wailed after bumping his head. “Siiiih…ook, ook” is how we know it’s time to read. And she’s climbing on positively everything. We had to hide the plastic trike from her, since she had taken to standing on the seat and wiggling around. She dragged the bathroom stepstool into the living room and danced on it for a while tonight. And of course she’s figured out that Andrew yelps when she pulls his hair.

No video this week, but there is a new gallery from Mike and Nancy’s recent visit. I regret that I couldn’t take time off of work to be with them more. However, the pictures reveal that they had plenty of fun without me.

This week has been quite a rollercoaster for me, and when I say “rollercoaster” I mean mostly the downhill part with the crushing G forces at the bottom. I shouldn’t go into detail here, but something happened this week to remind me how lucky I am to have two healthy kids, and that I shouldn’t take them for granted. In fact, you should go hug your kids right now. G’head, I’ll wait.
Andrew has become more aware of music over the last couple of weeks. A few months ago he didn’t want to sing at all, I think because he could tell he wasn’t very good at it. Lately he’s become less self-conscious and has started enjoying music again. One barometer of this is what we call the Jammy Song. As long as I can remember (which really means “Since at least last Thursday”), Elise has sung a mashup of Queen’s “Another Bites the Dust” and MC Hammer’s “Hammer Time” to signal bedtime, with the lyrics “Jammy Time!” used in place of Hammer Time. As a baby, Andrew would clap along. As a three-year-old, he didn’t even want us to sing it. Now, he’s singing along with us. I also bought him They Might Be Giants’ Here Come the ABCs DVD/CD combination, and after a single listening I caught him singing snippets of the lyrics to himself. His favorite seems to be “E Eats Everything”, although he’s doing a fair job with “Alphabet of Nations” as well.
I hate to mention this, for fear of jinxing it, but Maggie has slept through the night for the past three days. We seem to be past the worst of the teething – molars, for all their utility, are no fun to grow – and the stuffy nose that moved in a couple of weeks ago has packed up and moved on. In fact, we’re starting to get into the Halloween spirit. As you’ll see in the video below, the kitchen was possessed for a while on Saturday.

Yesterday was Elise’s birthday, and we managed to sneak out for a romantic night of seafood and light shopping at the local temple to consumerism. Of course, the kids provided the major topic of conversation at dinner. As all you parents out there know, we can’t wait to get away from the kids so we can spend a couple hours talking about how lucky we are to have them.
Andrew did provide some entertainment in the form of an urgent phone call from the babysitter just as I had tucked into my mahi mahi. Andrew had begged a juice box, and of course Maggie wanted the same (she’s now saying “ooooou” for juice), and Andrew casually mentioned that “she might be allergic.” She’s not, of course.
Maggie was a tour de force of nap avoidance techniques yesterday – she giggled, she writhed, she took her clothes off. I spend half an hour trying to get her down, until Elise finally rescued me and stuck her in the car. She was much easier today, and when I came out I noticed that Andrew was playing quietly in his room. He had taped a small plastic bag to the outside of the door. I wondered who he had in there – hey, at least it wasn’t a tie on the doorknob – and when asked he told me that “that’s what I put on the door when I want to play by myself.” I turned to leave and he stopped me with “Daddy, let’s plant some grapes.” Never mind the bag, and never mind that he hates grapes. Just make with the plow.
Mags is heavily into assault by book this week; we can’t turn around without her shoving a Clifford or Thomas book at our knees. Even Andrew is getting into the act…

Tonight we went over to a family’s house for dinner. Mags pointed at the cat and said “ow,” which is her current version of meow.
I tell you, we are so hosed.