Parker

Parker is so fun.  Seriously.  The kid is exhausting, but he is constantly saying and doing the most ridiculously laughable things.  For example:

 someone 'heart attacked' us for Valentine's day so there were dozens of hearts tapped to BBQ sticks, stuck in our lawn.  Chris and I were just enjoying the view when Parker wiggled through our legs and exclaimed "Zelda's Hearts!"  He and soon Lyra gleefully began gathering the hearts, just like Link did in the Zelda game.  It's a connection I never would have made, but now that he mentioned it, yeah, that is what it looked like.  Now I get what Link was doing! 

Parker is also insanely persistent.  I do not give in to Parker, especially when he cries or whines so now he just diligently follows me through the house 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please' 'cookie please.'  If I chance to sit down he then climbs up in my lap, holds my face between his little toddler hands and with his nose touching mine he asks a little higher and quieter, 'cookie please?' 'cookie please?'.  And I don't give in, because I reward the annoying last half hour of cookie please.  Plus, he gets naughty when he's had more sugar, but man, the kid is persistent.  He will have stopped, I will have sighed with relief and an hour later he will be asking again 'cookie please?'  Entire days can go like this.  No, seriously.  Entire days.

Parker can be a scoundrel.  Trust me on this one.  I blame Chris.

Parker has an exceptionally sweet side.  Lyra is occasionally put in a time out for grabbing something from Parker and then refusing to give it back or say sorry.  When Lyra's time out is done, Parker will invariably bring the item to Lyra the moment she is done with time out and insist that she can have it.  Parker will also, without warning or solicitation walk up to you and give you a big hug.  When Grandma Phipps was here, he crawled up on her lap, gave the unsuspecting woman a huge hug, then crawled down off her lap and on to mine, gave me a great big hug and from my lap he toddled over to Chris and gave him one too.  None of us had said a word about hugs.  Also, today Chris had given us all a kiss goodbye as he headed off to work Chris was climbing into the car and as Parker was watching he started demanding another kiss.  Chris was in a hurry so I didn't call him back, but it took some smoothing over before he settled for the one kiss he got.

Parker is smart.  It would be exceptionally long winded to explain the dozens of occasions where Parker took something that we had said about one thing, and made a very clever connection to another.  One more simple one was when we told Lyra that we could not go see the Christmas lights right then.  Parker then turned to her and explained that it was because it was not dark.  You can only see them when it is dark.  Yes, kinda' obvious, but unbelievably reasonable and insightful when coming out of the mouth of a toddler.  unfortunately that day, we still did not go see the lights, even when it got dark.  Sorry kids.