Sweet Boy, Funny Girls

So here's the latest...

Emory now has a fancy-schmancy Lightning McQueen sleeping bag that came in its very own backpack with a water bottle.  She also has LM underwear to entice her to potty train when "the time is right," and she chose some LM stickers for her reinforcer.  Part of me can't believe I just bought her boys' underwear, but then again, it will REALLY excite her and nobody will see her underwear anyway (I hope.)  I think this is the most any of my children has been caught up in a particular character.  They LOVED Blue's Clues for a while, but I guess they just didn't have the amount of retail items out there because my kids were all born after Blue had her HeyDay.  (???)  

Alanna is in a bit of a stage where everything is scary to her.  This can be a little challenging at times, but what can you do!  Other than that, she just loves to pretend she is rescuing animals like Diego and Alicia on Go, Diego, Go!  She has learned a lot about wild animals I never would have thought to talk to her about from this show.  (Diego is Emory's second favorite character)  Alanna and Emory would love to have some Diego clothing; they prefer him to Dora.  But the darn marketing people feel like Dora is for girls and Diego is for boys.  Hmmpphh.

Aidan...we were at Target yesterday, and I was picking out some cards for Mother's Day.  Aidan wanted to know who I was buying cards for, so I listed the people I had in mind.  Then he said something like "I want a card with a heart that says 'I love you" for Mommy!"  I stopped dead in my tracks.  It was so sweet, so I told him he and Daddy could come to Target to find the card he wanted to choose.  I love getting glimpses of his inner boyishness.  He's typically so serene and laid back, that it makes me smile to see some "rough and tumble" come out.  It's a fun change of pace.  We had some lizards in the front yard yesterday, and while Alanna kept her distance, he crouched down to get a good look and just watched quietly.  And of course, there are random times when he just throws something (like a sock) across the room just to be silly.  But today, we went to our friends' house for lunch, and their three boys are on the opposite end of the spectrum as Aidan, not to mention Aidan is surrounded by estrogen all day!  He loved getting into "the mix" with them.  He got a little overwhelmed at times, but he was still laughing and smiling if he stopped to watch.  He squealed with delight when he'd jump back in for a minute or two.   I didn't want to drag him home for nap time!