Peter is very bright. He learns fast and is excelling with all his school work. He brings home many beautiful pictures that he’s drawn in school.

And many behavior notes from teachers. Even from teachers I didn’t even know had a direct connection to him. Also, I have never before seen a child get a behavior note from gym class.

I am not sure I even want to know what he did to earn that one.

I keep trying to tell myself he is just a spirited boy.

Biting, hiding under tables, “disturbing his neighbor’s snack”, and rough housing are this week’s list of offenses.

That’s….a little more than spirited. That’s bordering on possessed.

On Sunday we decided to take the kids for a hike up Sugarloaf Mountain. It’s about a half mile each way with lovely, winding paths and 5 million stairs. (They deceptively placed the stairs on the “easy” trail. Any trail with that many stairs is decidedly NOT easy.)

The way up went well. The kids enjoyed the trails and looking at the colorful leaves.

Then, we reached the summit. Beautiful views of Lake Superior and colorful forests surrounded us. It was a lovely moment until…

“Mom. I have to go to the bathroom.”

I made the mistake of asking him, “1 or 2?”

“BOTH.”

There are no toilets in the middle of the woods.

I told the boy I could take him in the woods and he could do his business there, off the path.

“NO,” he shouted in horror. “I need one of those little blue bathrooms!”

I knew for a fact there wasn’t a port-a-potty within 10 miles. Try as I might, that boy was NOT going to go to the woods to poop.

So, we started charging down the mountain in the hopes we’d make it to the car and the car would make it to the nearest public toilet in time.

“I gotta go, too,” whined my other son.

We were having a Code Red emergency…and Aili wanted to stop to examine every rock and leaf on the way down.

“We need to GO,” I hollered. “Husband, take Aili! I’ll run with the boys!”

It was like one of those movies were people are being chased through the woods by a ghost ax-murderer. We were running and looking behind us and straining to see how close we were to the car. All it needed was a John Williams soundtrack and we would have had a major blockbuster on our hands.

Finally, we made it to the car. But, it was too late.

The ax-murderer got the boys.

Oh, and they pooped in their pants.

And they were wearing boxer shorts.

And they had recently had full Italian dinners.

As we raced back to town with the windows rolled down for much-needed ventilation, I called my mother since she lived the closest to the mountain.

“Mom, could you please get the bath tub ready? I’ll also need a lot of paper towel and soap. No, it would be best if you didn’t ask questions. We’ll be there in 5 minutes.”

Robert looked at me as I plopped him in the tub at Grandma’s house.

“Next time we should go up a shorter mountain. One that has blue potties,” he said very seriously.

It has been a whirlwind month, but I am back!

I learned how incredibly difficult it is to be a parent with a job that involves travelling. I will never again take my 20 minute commute to work for granted. Being 8 hours away from my family for the better part of a month was quite the eye-opening experience.

Each of the kids learned to deal with it in different ways. Robert got sullen and refused to talk to me on the phone. (He grumbled that I was on vacation without him.) Peter would talk on the phone and sounded so small and lonely every time we spoke. It broke my heart. But, Aili, as usual, took the cake. She was a bubbly little critter whenever I called home, but the second I actually came home? She became a permanent fixture on my side. I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without her constant companionship.  If this trip was hard on the kids, it was many times worse for me. By the end I was turning in to an angry bear, looking for her cubs.

Life is slowly settling back in to place now. Aili only needs to hang on me 80% of the time!

So, now I need to get back on schedule with blogging. They kids are back on schedule with antics worthy of re-telling, after all.

My cubs in their cave.

Just to be clear:  Tina didn’t run off and join a commune or anything.

Last week, our laptop’s power cord and battery died on the same day.  After a simple but poignant funeral service wherein the children learned important lessons about life and death and the infuriating nature of shoddy manufacturing practices, we put a new cord on order and got it on Monday.

Everything would have been back to normal at that point, but then she got a big promotion by the bank where she works and had to start getting herself ready for a month of training in Minneapolis.

So that’s that for the time being.  I’m not sure how much computer access she’ll have, but I’ll post something here on occasion (if I remember) just to keep the ball rolling.  I’m sure the children are off doing something “adorable”  or “horrifying” as we speak.

If you want more from me, I have an actively-updated Facebook page you could visit and “like.”

We signed Aili up for dance classes today.  She’s no Honey Boo Boo Child, but she has some pretty sweet moves and more energy than a neutron star so, we decided it was time to channel this in to dance. Lucky for me, I was in a musical this summer and reconnected with an exceptional dancer I knew in high school who conveniently owns a dance studio. This was meant to be.

So, we hauled Aili to the studio today to sign up for classes. Her little eyes lit up when she got to take off her shoes and enter the wide, open studio. Mirrors! Music! Other small children!

Aili was in heaven. She began doing every dance move she could think of. She only really spins in circles and then does somersaults for her “moves” so, it looked pretty spastic, but she was having a blast.

I let her go wild, running and dancing with the other little girls while I paid her tuition and got her schedule. Then, I informed her it was time to go.

“No! I wanna stay here!” she whined, still running around like a blonde blur.

“Okay,” I said.

I was going to pull the old, “I am leaving then! See ya later!” fake-out to get her to come running after me.

“See ya, Aili!” I called as I turned to leave.

“WAIT!” she screamed.

Aili came pelting over to me and I was mentally patting myself on the back for getting her to come semi-willingly.

“I want a hug and kiss before you go!” she firmly stated, holding out her arms for her good by hug.

Ooh. She got me.

Fortunately, I am still bigger than her and I caught her in that good bye hug and bolted out with her before she could protest too much.

I think I still ended up losing that battle in the grand scheme of things…

There are two things Aili does that she shouldn’t be doing any longer.

1. She sneaks in to my bed while Daddy is on midnight shifts and thoroughly enjoys sleeping in our big bed.

2. She still tries to nurse. Once a child can ask for milk in full sentences and is better at unhooking a bra than most adult men, I think it’s time to give it up. Aili disagrees.

Well, the other night Aili was in my bed, chasing me around all night. She would scoot close to me and I would scoot away. It was hot and, even in sleep, I was in no mood to cuddle with a sticky-warm three year old. Eventually I ended up on my husband’s side of the bed with Aili taking over the middle.

At 7 in the morning I heard my husband come home from work. He came down to the bedroom and climbed in on my side so as not to disturb the Force. (If you think Darth Vader is nasty, you haven’t seen me when I am woken up prematurely.)

After a few minutes, our sleeping beauty started to wake up. Still on auto-pilot, she started scooting over to where I normally sleep. She reached out with her sleepy hand and – score! Mama’s shirt was already off so, nursing would be easy.

As she nuzzled around, looking for a nipple, the realization that the chest she was trying to attach herself to was flatter and harrier than usual was starting to dawn on her.

Aili sat bolt-upright in the bed with a look of horror on her face. She had just tried to nurse on her daddy.

We tried to stifle our laughter as Aili sheepishly buried her head in to my side.

She never did ask to nurse that morning. I think we’ve found our secret weapon.

I was driving home from and epic grocery shopping trip with Aili. I decided to put on the radio.

“Whip It” by Devo was the first song we landed on.

“No, Mama,” Aili complained. “That’s a boy song.”

Now, the singing hadn’t started yet and she doesn’t know the song at all, but “boy” is synonymous with “bad” for her. I guess that comes with having two older brothers.

So I surfed around until I found what could only be described as a bitchin’ rock ballad from the early ’90′s. (I didn’t know the song, but I have a feeling Eddie Vedder was singing in it. I couldn’t understand a word and it had that I’m-at-the-dentist-singing-while-the-hygienist-has-her-arm-halfway-to-my-colon kind of a quality.)

“This is good,” said Aili. “That’s a girl song!” I almost drove off the road because she started slowly headbanging to the music back in her carseat.

I am not sure if I think it’s awesome that my daughter’s favorite music involves so much hair and spandex. (Calling Eddie Vedder a girl sort of makes sense in a 3 year old way, though. Remember that hair?!) But, I am disappointed that Devo has been relegated to a “boy” band. (You know, if she knew the close connection between Rugrats and Devo, I bet she’d warm up to them….)

Poor Devo.