Hit the Deck, Lazy Jack and Cougar Power at the Breakfast Table

First, and randomly, Laylee is always telling me and DY Dad that we do a “GREAT JOB!” This morning was one of the weirdest ones yet. I had just finished pulling on her pull-ups when she stopped, got very serious, inspected them thoroughly and then looked up with a furrowed brow and deep look of respect. Very slowly, emphasizing each word, she said, “Mommy! You did a really good job at that.”

“Well, thank you, small fry. I’ve had a little more experience pullin’ up the ole’ panties than you have. Mine also happen to be dry. Wanna check em for me? Can I have an M ‘n M?”

Okay, so Magoo is still at the “hit the deck” stage of his sleeping abilities. This means that if we step on a twig or creek the door hinges as we enter the room, he will stir and look up. If he sees us, we’re dead-meat. The screaming! If not, he looks around groggily and then goes back to sleep.

So, if one of us sees his head start to raise, we will mouth to the other, “HIT THE DECK!” at which time we drop silently to the ground and pray that our clothing will allow us to blend in with the carpet. Then we lay without moving for sometimes several minutes until he stops looking for prey and goes back to dreamland. “Whew, that was close!” The hardest part is to keep from giggling. When we’ve “hit the deck,” my husband and I can not look each other in the eye or all is lost. You see, Magoo is sensitive to movement AND sound, particularly the sound of his parents’ maniacal laughter.

Laylee has long since passed the “hit the deck” phase. She is now in the phase where we can pick her up by her toes, rearrange the blankets, twirl her around like a baton over our heads, take her parasailing, dress her up like Tina Turner, snap a few pictures with the flash on the camera, remove the lipstick, and put her back in bed with a kiss and some loving words. She will then open her eyes a slit, smile and say, “mmmmmm,” and go back to sleep.

In other news — Jack is either the laziest or on-the-verge-of-dying-est fish ever. He lies on the bottom of the tank all day except to eat. He spoons up to the fake plants and just “sleeps?” I have a feeling he’ll be “sleepin’ with the fishes” before long.

At breakfast this morning, Laylee held up her fist in what looked like a black power sign and said, “Now you should go like this!” Usually I don’t give in to demands that don’t involve the use of the magic word but I decided to play along.

“There!” she exclaimed, “We just did ‘GO COUGARS!’”

In a burst of school spirit a couple of months ago, I decided it was a travesty that Laylee did not yet know the cougar fight song. She has the shirt, where’s the mindless singing and cheering, I ask you, where?

So we began singing it periodically and she is in love with it. She even asks us to sing it to her at bedtime, which we do, slowly like a lullaby (Does anyone else have the feeling of deja vu? Are you ever writing a post and think, did I post this exact same thing a couple of months ago?).

Our favorite part comes at the end:

“Rah-Rah Rah-Rah-Rah. Rah-Rah Rah-Rah-Rah. GOOOOOOOOOO (hands rolling) COUGARS! (Fist up in the air)

Then we attempt to calm down enough to eat the rest of our Panda Bear Crunch cereal, saltines, and watered-down gatorade that we like to call – breakfast. Stop yelling at me! I’ll throw her a banana in an hour or so.