Hey! GOAT!!

Toddlers do not come with snooze buttons.

Case in point: my two little angels, who have both gotten about 28 fewer hours of sleep this weekend than normal, and who both went to bed way way way WAY later than they should have last night...and who were both awake this morning well before 7:15. And once those suckers start buzzing and warbling and EE-EE-EE-EEing...well, they don't shut off.

What they do have? Some crazy sonar that tells them exactly when Mommy is on her Very. Last. Nerve. Once they get the secret signal that Mommy is thisclose to losing her shit if she hears that whiny little "uh-uh-uh" or the "NOOOOOOO!! I DO IT!!!" one more time, they spring into action.

Tate: "Look Mommy! I bit Nora! Whyyyyyyyy can't I watch TV?? WHYYYYYYY CAN'T I PLAY IN THE CAR??? WHHHHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYYYYY CAN'T I POUR MAPLE SYRUP ON THE DOG????????????"

Nora: "HHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZZEEEEEEEEEEESQUUUUUEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" (Translated: "IF YOU DON'T GIVE ME ANOTHER GOLDFISH CRACKER OR LET ME DRINK OUT OF THE DOG BOWL I'MA THROW THE SMACK DOWN HARDCORE!!!")

Me: CLUNK. Twitch, twitch.

Yeah, so apart from the six thousand moments of crabbiness and general hatred of life by our little cherubs, it was a fun weekend overall. Well, apart from Friday, which sucked. But anyway, we spent the 4th at a couple of different barbecues with friends and neighbors where the kidlets partook in the traditional Fourth activities:

Sparklers. The perfect toy for a 3 year old.

Careening down a hill on a plastic duck that was made for no such careening.

Eating

And...eating. Can you believe it?

We all had a lot of fun. We did miss our friend setting his woods on fire, though...bummer we left before that action. Also, our crazy neighbor didn't call the cops on us this year...first time ever. Although I don't think he was home. We scared him away.

Today we took the kidlets to a petting farm up in Door County. This is where I learned that my daughter is obsessed with goats. Good thing there were 200 of them at this place, so she could go up to each and every one of them, pet them, pull their tail, examine their buttholes, and painstakingly pick up single kernels of corn from the ground and shove them into the goats' mouths. Over and over and over. With every single goat. We tried to interest her in the cows or pigs or kitties, but no. Nora the Goatherd would not stray from her flock. As soon as I'd put her down after walking away from the Goats of Temptation, she would turn around and freakin' book back to them. Fine. Nora loves goats. It is what it is.

Tate was not so endeared to them. He mostly spent our goat-viewing hours going "Hey!! GOAT!!! GOAT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING??" Then he'd see a tree or a leaf and wander off to go check that out. Cause, really, if we're going to drive and hour and pay $16 to show Tate stuff, it may as well be trees, right? He did really like the baby chicks, though. He dug the chicks.

So I took 52 pictures today. And honestly, 26 of them are ones I tried to take of the kids together where they were both looking at the camera, didn't have a hand down their shorts or up their skirts, weren't looking constipated, and weren't in the process of yelling, "Mommy, do you have to go poo??" It was a long process. Here's an incredibly condensed version.

I swear Tate isn't peeing off the side of the wagon.

...um, yeah.

Almost...

So close...

Yesss!!! The ONE AND ONLY picture of the two of them not looking like schlubs together.

It was a good weekend. But I'm ready for a vacation now. I've learned the valuable lesson that there is such a thing as too much quality family time. And I'm riiiiight about there.