Post-shopping weekend update

I took the big boys on their first outing to a mall today to exchange some clothing gifts (we got a lot of Gymboree clothing for Rip in a sie 2T, and while he's 2 years old, he's a long way away from being that size). There we found this shirt:
It is way too big, but it pretty much is the quintessential embodiment of Rip at this point in time, so we bought it. I am pretty sure that he has to still be into pizza and wrecking balls in a few years time, no?

The big boys seem to have formed a very clear consensus that country ballads (soft, croony, modern country ballads) are the best of all the different radio station offerings. We always have to stop there in our scan for songs.

Rip is really excited about sensory bins. It's pretty much all he would like to do in a given day, really. I have a suspicion that sensory bins are used in our family like television is used in other families; so the parents can get a few hours break while the kids are happily rapt in another world. Jolly likes to play with more themed setups (farm animals, soldiers) in the bins, but Rip really just wants his tiny trucks to shovel around. Removing sensory bin privileges is pretty much as harsh as it gets.

Rip is really into pear and kiwi right now, which is progress, because they are, while not exactly vegetables, at least green fruit. Given the suspicion with which he once regarded green-dyed (but not red-dyed) pasta, I celebrate this as progress. So is the fact that he did not spend this last haircut screaming "NO NONONONO!" at the barber. He's cautious, still (two pool parties in 72 hours, and not once did he even get anywhere close to the water), but it appears that he can be won over to new experiences eventually (e.g. on the second day we got so far as to put on his swimsuit).

It also has to be recorded for posterity that Rip usually changes both pants and socks several times in a given day even when they are not dirty, because suddenly his mood changes. (His shirts, too, but that's often because they're dirty and need changing.) Today, he started out with needing schoolbus socks, and then, when those were not to be found, he accepted grudgingly an alternative of a jeep, rejecting the cement mixer and dump truck socks on the way as totally inappropriate. About an hour later, he suddenly decided that it was imperative to have dump truck socks, and then another hour later he switched to cement mixer socks. This lasted only briefly until he looked at his feet aghast and informed me that dump truck socks were needed right now before he could leave the house. As we were trying to make it to the ferry, that was not possible; he lived. In between these, there were several pants changes, and also switching to shorts and legwarmers. It reminds me a little bit of the dressing for dinner that happened in the Downton Abbey era, only more so.

Jolly is really into soldiers and knights right now, leading to the rather regrettable loan of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" from the library. For those unfamiliar, as I was, this is actually a tale of wifeswapping, cuckolding and attempted M/M/F threesomes stopped only by Sir Gawain's knightly virtue holding him back, and as such it wins the "most flagrantly inappropriate thing we've found in the children's section" award by a long shot. It is, granted, an old, literary, time-honored tale of wifeswapping, cuckolding and attempted M/M/F threesomes, and let me be clear that as a reader of Fifty Shades of Grey I have absolutely no high horse to stand on whatsoever, but Sir Gawain and the Green Knight just not quite quite the thing for the preschool set. Oddly enough, Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady was totally appropriate, even though it covered Sir Gawain's actual wedding night, where things happen, but his adventures with the Green Knight, though nothing actually HAPPENS, are entirely beyond the pale. A friend helped me cobble together an alternate storyline that matches the illustrations, so I think we can make it through, but man oh man, do I now regret not carefully prescreening every longer book before it comes home from the library. We are going to the library very very often these days, and I'm going with three kids, so I'd been contenting myself with just getting everyone in and out with decorous observance of library rules, but apparently that is NOT ENOUGH.

Tammy is very smiley and kicking and enjoying toys to hold and rattle. She started out with the Winkel, because it's easiest to hold, but she's also growing fond of the Squish, and going to absolute town on things hung on the tripod above her. No rolling all the way, yet, but she rolls onto her side and she reaches for things and her random flailing can move her around a good bit. We are putting a variety of ridiculous headbands on her and she puts up with it, as with everything else, like an absolute trooper. She seems very imperturbable and cheery; I am pretty sure she will grow up to have her glass half full and maybe half full of pink champagne at that. The things she really does NOT like right now are mostly attempts at babywearing that involve cuddling her close to the parent, but she's decided that being strapped facing out, so that the parent is more like a vertical surface to lie on, is totally great. Most of her crabby inconsolable moments come from too much holding and not enough flailing around space, and my greatest fear in parenting her is that it is way too easy to neglect her; for example, when waking up from a nap she will often just hang out, quietly but happily, in her bed until someone wanders in and finds her awake.