Visiting

We have friends. Hard to believe, I know, who would be friends with people with 5 kids? Certainly close to no one in Minnesota. At least, I choose to think that it's because of the 5 kids that we were never invited anywhere, regardless of how many times, how many people, I invited into our home. Turns out all those weenie-Minnesotans really missed out. We went visiting last night.

True, it was just me, the dad and daughter. However we have gone over in the past with all 5. Daughter was in rare form last night. Exacerbated by the fact that Mr. F. immediately pulled out his bag of tricks, not having kids of his own quite yet, and fed daughter fruity-snack-things, a popsicle, a pudding-with-whip-cream-on-top and Ben & Jerry's. Not that she ate every bite, but she got sugared up all the same.

Partially it was that daughter loves getting all the attention from not just two, but four adults. She pulled out her own bag of tricks, saying all the things she thinks are cute:

"Oh man, check out what's-his-face!" About the dog.

"Who do you think you are talking to?" In response to Mr. F.'s question if she wanted whipped cream.

"No way Jose." Several times, sometimes not the right answer.

"Dude, that's mine." To the dog.

"Yeah, I didn't crack my head open!" Upon missing the edge of the wine rack while running past.

"Hey! What do you think you are doing!" Again, to the dog.

"What's your problem?" To the dad. That went over big.

It didn't help that our friends burst out laughing with every little thing she uttered. It just stoked her fires. If I'd had a camera I'd post pictures of her antics, which were funnier than the words coming out of her mouth. Besides a dog our friends have a cat. With the cat comes one of those super-deluxe scratching posts. A scratching post that's really a series of ledges, boxes, etc. halfway to the ceiling. Daughter pretended to be a cat and managed to get all the way up to the top of the scratching post, miauwing loudly while the dog ran circles underneath. By the way, I won that hand of domino's.

The funniest, to me, was when she figured out that Ms. J.'s exercise ball could be used as a trampoline. She placed it between the loveseat and the couch, then jumped from the loveseat to the ball to be bounced, for the most part, onto the couch. I though Mr. F., while 10 years younger than us, was going to have a heart attack. Those of you that don't have young children can't really understand the rubberness of a four-year-old's neck. It can seriously twist two different directions, with the full weight of the body on it, and still be fine. Mr. F., not having a young child, freaked out several times seeing daughter twist on landing. I say it's his own fault for shoving sugar down her throat.

Luckily, or maybe unluckily because at this point I started to lose at our domino's game, her favorite show came on and she parked it on the footstool thingy. We were still interrupted occasionally, primarily because the dog parked it by her feet with his squeaky toy. In order for the squeaky toy to squeak the dog must push on the squeaky toy with both front paws. Why he can't chew on it like a normal dog to produce a squeak is beyond me. Anyway, every time he pushed on his squeaky toy, he'd make her footstool shake, which made it hard for her to watch her favorite show and caused one outburst after another from her directed at the dog (see above for a partial list). He ignored her.