Hugs With Teeth!

Last weekend after spending 4 hours driving around the county, hoping in and out of the car (more on that later) we spent some time with cousin Soren and Auntie Chesna while Daddy worked with Uncle D and Pappa on the house. Soren is all over the place and it is adorable (here is where you add in the sigh of a tired mommy chasing around an insanely curious and hellbent crawling 8 month old...cute isn't the 1st word that comes to everyone's mind, go mama go!).

Soren wants to get into everything and be everywhere and does it all with a smile, until it doesn't go his way! Then he lets you know how frusterated he is, but recovers quite quickly and flashes that big 2 toothed smile before racing off on another adventure. I watch with amazement and a little bit of disbelief and fear knowing that Noah will be motoring around soon and realizing that my apartment is not even close to being ready for a crawling infant! After managing to keep Soren from stealing Noah's binki and intervening what Chesna and I deemed, "giving cuzzi a hug" (which was more of a take down) we headed off for a visit with The Young Family 5.

We haven't seen the Young Gang since September's Movie Night Extravaganza. (Which by the way Alicia was 4 months ago and waaaay too long between visits!) We invaded their home around 5pm and were greeted with the same enthusiastic, bouncing off the walls, "let me show you something," insanely cute boys that I missed oh so much! Adult talk has taken on even more of a challenge now that Rivey and Noah are not just little blobs! It used to be us talking over Vancey, pulling him off our lap, or out of my purse, shooing the boys outside and checking to make sure they were behaving. Now we add to the list, the cooing, babbling and screeching of both Rivey and Noah, picking up the forever dropped toys, wrangling the crawlers out from under Vance, and trying to keep everyone entertained. Sounds crazy when I write it out like this, but really, it's not that bad. Really, I swear. You just do it with out even thinking and we always have a great time.

We managed to get all 8 of us over to Pizza My Heart in Downtown Santa Cruz on a Saturday night at prime time...and get a table, thanks to Treyton and Vance! We all ate, with out any major melt downs (minor ones yes, but nothing we had to go home for!) and made it back to Alicia's in time to tuck in the big boys for bed, and enjoy some delicious ice cream from the family creamery (Polar Bear Ice Cream...it's soo good and among other places, Marini's sells it! :) ha ha ha, be sure to ask them about it when you order some!)

As we tried to continue our "adult talk" Noah and Rivey were hard at work...playing with each and every toy in the room! They emptied out each box of toys I think. Of course they wanted to play with the same toy which inevitable let to a power struggle and a mommy intervention or 2, or 3 or 4! My favorite part of the whole night though, was when River continually insisted on being in Noah's lap, or rather on him in any way shape or form. Mind you, the two are comparable in size, though River is about 4 months older and has more strength and mobility and teeth!


As Alicia and I pried the two apart for the 4th or 5th time, and they both had big ol' drooly smiles, Alicia apologized, and my response was, "don't be sorry! River is just giving lots of hugs...hugs with teeth!" and we all busted up laughing...including Thing 1 and Thing 2.