Into things

We have been reveling in not having to be up for swim practice early in the morning. But when I checked my phone at 10:30 and found that a bunch of swim team moms were meeting at the pool to play...did we go? Absolutely. 

We arrived at 11:00 and we played until 3:00 and saw so many of our friends. 

When we first arrived the O and Cu families were there. But the Cu family had to leave for haircuts and the O family decided they wanted to make it to the library for a puppet show this afternoon. I actually had that—quite tentatively—on my schedule as well and I asked the kids what they would rather do: wait for the M family to show up or go to the puppet show. They all voted to stay at the pool—with Phoebe gushing, "I'd rather see Miss Julie!" (the mom of the M family)—so that's what we did.

It turns out that staying at the pool was a good decision because the O family texted to say that the library programming for the day had been cancelled due to some maintenance issues. Plus soon after the M family showed up, the Cl family showed up as well. 

The kids had a blast...and only got a little bit sunburned (in spite of my forcing them out of the pool to reapply sunscreen). 

Here's Phoebe pretending to sleep in the fort Zoë helped her make after we got home:

She has been...a real handful lately. I don't know if it's because everyone has been so sick and tired (to be fair to the rest of us, she has also been sick and tired...so...it should have evened out, right?) or if it's just that she's a real spitfire...but she just is...into mischief all the time! 

So I'm grateful for these moments when the kids are happily playing together and keeping her in good mischief instead of naughty mischief. It's nice when they get along, too. 

The kids had a little spat at the pool this afternoon and I told them to figure it out and start being kind or I'd just assume they were tired and needed to go home (we'd been at the pool for about three hours at that point). They decided to figure things out amongst themselves and when I returned to where all the moms were sitting in the shallow end, Julie said, "You know, I think that was the first time I've seen your kids argue—and I'm happy to see it! I'm sure they're different at home, but they always get along so well at swim team. It's nice to see they're normal!"

And that was so nice and reassuring to hear—that's probably why Phoebe wanted to stick around to see Miss Julie. She really is one of the nicest people alive!

Anyway, Phoebe is into things all the time. 

If she had a superpower (which apparently she does) it would be the ability to open anything. 

Peanut butter jars. Tubs of vaseline. Child-proof medicine bottles. Water bottles. 

She seems to always have her hands on something...and often in something because there's a 99% chance that—yes—she can open that lid.

The other day Andrew went to take some off-brand Mucinex and found one of the little blister packs open...with a soggy pill inside. We all tussle with those blister packs like they're made of titanium...but apparently Phoebe can rip right into them because she admitted to opening—and trying—the medicine.

"But it was yucky, so I put it back," she said. 

We had a long discussion about who is allowed to distribute medication to whom in this household (interestingly, one of our rules is that three-year-olds are not allowed to self-administer medications), which is a discussion we've had before. 

And, yes, I know that medication should be stored "out of reach" of small children. But this child is adept at scaling surfaces. She can use the grooves on the cabinet doors to hoist herself onto the counter and has been known to climb the bookshelf to reach the vitamin bottle...that has a useless childproof lid on it. Fortunately for her our bookshelf is mounted to the wall...otherwise we'd have other issues on our hands.

Oh, she also can pick locks!

You may recall that Alexander went through a lock-picking stage last year, which if I'm being totally honest has continued to the present day. His fascination with picking locks has rubbed off on Phoebe who has also developed some interesting lock-picking skills. 

The other day Andrew was in the bathroom and when he came out, both doors into his office were locked. 

"What?" he said, jiggling his door knob. "Why is my door locked?"

"I'm pick-locking!" Phoebe sang, running around the corner from the music room where she'd evidently locked the door from the outside using her thumbnail. "Alexander said I wasn't a good pick-locker! But watch this!"

She proceeded to unlock the door using her thumbnail.

Cool trick. So glad she knows it.

She knows how to lock and unlock the water/ice on the fridge. She knows that she can't (as in physically—we don't technically have a rule against this) open the front door but she can open the garage door and then push her stroller or her toy car underneath the garage door opener in order to open the garage door to get outside by herself. 

She can open yogurt. She can open strawberry containers. She can open any pre-sealed package (and if she can't do it with her hands, she will use the scissors). 

Speaking of scissors, we finally sat down to do birthday balloons (or "birthday abloons" as Phoebe calls them...she also says "water abloons"...but when she says balloon in isolation, I think she actually says "balloon"—I'll have to double check that though) last night. 

Andrew was getting pieces of tape to put on the backs of all the balloons, but he wasn't going fast enough, I guess, because Phoebe disappeared for a minute and then reappeared by the trees painted on our wall (where we put our birthday balloons). She slapped her balloon on the wall and said proudly, "There! Sticked it up with glue!"

She'd found a glue stick...which I think can be a tricky thing to open sometimes, but she opened it...slathered the back of that balloon with chunky streaks of purple glue and...yup...stuck that balloon directly onto my dining room wall. 

She's a problem solver, that one. 

The problem is that her solutions often cause other problems. 

So I'm always very grateful when she's blissfully pretending to a puppy-owning princess asleep in a castle of cardboard blocks under the watchful gaze of her sister The Queen because it means she's not off trying to figure out how to navigate the world (or even just our house) on her own.

(Could I/Should I watch her myself? Yes, and I do sometimes. But I also have to work sometimes. And I had just taken the kids to the pool for four hours so...it was about time for me to do some of that aforementioned work, so I was grateful she was really truly engaged in an activity rather than telling me she was going to play blocks but really going into the storage room and opening packages of fruit snacks and turning off the water heater (because that also happened this week)).