Just Because It's Father's Day

The thing about writing a blog about your kids is that while parents always think that everything that their kids do is a-DOR-able, that adorableness doesn't necessarily translate into scintillating reading for all the non-biologically related folks out there. The girls do tons of cute things every day, but most of them are of the ya-kinda-had-to-be-there variety, and I'm pretty sure you all don't want to hear about every time Leah or Riley makes a cute noise, or every time they make a funny face, or every time they make a grunty-poopy sound at an inappropriate time. Or maybe you think you do, but trust me, you don't. 'Cause, for starters, they sure do make a lot of grunty-poopy sounds.

But it's Father's Day, so in the spirit of Father's Day, here's a little fatherly gushing. Because if there's ever a day when it's okay to gush, it's gotta be Father's Day, right? I apologize in advance. Sorry everybody, it'll be over soon.

As I've mentioned in the past, Leah likes her toys. If you give her a toy, she'll immediately do the following three things, usually in this order.

1. Put toy in mouth. See what toy tastes like.
2. Shake toy. See what noise toy makes.
3. Put toy in mouth again.

She'll do this even with toys that make absolutely no noise, like a teddy bear. Heck, she'll do this with things that aren't even toys. Burp cloths, hats, bottles, it doesn't seem to matter -- Leah will wave it around with this goofy grin on her face. My favorite is when we give her a finger food or a biscuit or something and she puts it in her mouth, takes it out to give it a good shake, then puts it back in her mouth.

As for Miss Riley, her favorite pastime is bouncing. If she didn't have to eat and sleep and poop, she would perfectly happy in her Jumperoo, bouncing all day and all night, from now until she turns eighteen. She's really not all that interested in doing anything else. She'll play half-heartedly with her toys, but we all know that she's really just biding her time until her next bouncing opportunity.

The bouncing is cute as hell of course, but it becomes a bit of an impediment now that we're trying to get her to learn to stand up and walk. We'll hold her up in a standing position or try to get her "walk" across the room, but instead of standing or walking, she'll rhythmically bounce up and down, like she's dancing to some music in her head. She usually has her lips pursed together in a Billy Idol-like sneer when she does this. With the face that she makes and the fact that she's doing these little bouncy pelvic thrusts, she kinda looks like what I imagine Elvis would look like if he were kinda uncoordinated. And about two feet tall. And um, a girl.

I'd better stop now, because I know you can tell that I could go on and on, and it could get very ugly. I did want to post the video below, which shows how the girls reacted when Kathy got the hiccups on Saturday.