Saturday, March 23, 2013

wait for it

The last time the I went bowling, I was with a bunch of golf course superintendents that were rained out from their planned golf outing.  There was competition, there was heckling, there was a pitchers of beer and somehow there ended up being 4 grown adults smooshed into the back of a sedan with a poor sober pregnant friend driving.  It was the kind of fun that only happens once in a while.  It was not bowling with a group of 4 year olds.

This was the kind of fun where A. stops half way through and says, "Thanks, for doing this, Mom." melt.my.heart.

However, it was also the kind of organized chaos that is more chaos than organized yet somehow everyone makes it home safely.  The bowling alley near our old house apparently does birthday parties every Saturday afternoon from 2:30-4:30.  That means that up to 20 birthday parties are going on at one time.  There were cakes for 4 year old girls and even a 37 year old man.  At any given moment, there were 15 people singing happy birthday and hoping their kid would blow out the candle before starting a fire and a stampede of bowling shoes running out of the building.  Then, there was the random group of twenty something year old men.  I don't know how they ended up next to us but they were obviously trying to have the kind of fun that occurred on my last bowling trip.  Not the 4 year old birthday fun.  

Look at this bowling ball throwing form.  It's a thing of beauty.  She would do a wind up, stop half way through to replace the hands because 6 lbs is a lot for a 4.5 year old girl, readjust, wind up, throw, and dismount with hands in the air.  The majority of the time, the ball started slowly down the alley.


 When I say slowly, I mean s.l.o.w.l.y.

 Notice how the ball is 3/4 of the way down the alley and A.'s friend was able to come up and join her and they both could squat on the floor to watch.
Second toss, another little party friend had time to run up, A. had time to get comfortable.  

 Oh wait, it has progressed about 3 more feet and yet another girl had time to come up to sit and watch. It could be painful except that they were so happy.

I don't know if you noticed before, but I said, "the majority of the time, the ball started slowly down the alley."  Yes, there was one time where the ball totally missed our alley and went 2 alleys over to where 1 of the twenty something group had set his beer down and was poised to bowl.  A. went screaming after her ball, tripped over the guys feet and slid about 1/4 of the way down his alley before retrieving her ball and quietly returning with a very serious face to our alley.  The guy was stunned into silence at the 4 year old hurling herself after the ball; I was laughing so hard that I almost fell over; the birthday girl's grandmother was mortified and ducked behind the computer; the other twenty somethings were heckling; and the remainder of the party goers were just grateful that it wasn't their kid.  I was expecting a reaction from A. perhaps embarrassment.  Nope, she came running back with the birthday girl asking for the next time it was her turn.    


Happy Birthday, C.  I hope you had as much fun as A. did... perhaps more fun than the twenty somethings or the 37 year old man with a birthday cake at the bowling alley.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

pretend

This is the playroom where my children play.

It is a glorious mess after about 2 minutes.



 My husband is happy because he can just shut the door and the rest of our house is not covered in toys.  I am happy because there are labels and bins and toys and blocks and trains.  oh my!

K. and A. are just now really starting to play together. However, their play almost always ends in a fight because, according to A., "K. just doesn't make sense."

Scenerio 1: playing firehouse
A. what is the emergency?
K.  uh oh lion
A. it is not a problem with a lion K.
K. lion bath
A. no, don't put the lion in the bath tub. I just want an emergency

me: I think a lion in the bath tub would be a real emergency.
pause
pause
pause

ok.  fireman removes said lion and passes it to elmo whom then places the lion in a truck


Next:
Daddy: fire at the train station
A. Mommy, let's go
me: ok wouu wouuu fire engine on it's way
K. dinosaur train
A. no dinosaurs on the train
K. dinosaur train
me: that would be a real emergency if a dinosaur was on the train.  Stand back dinosaurs or I'll take you to jail
A. begins to pick up the dinosaurs with elmo and throw them into jail.

I try to partake and A. says, "we are done playing that now."

Obviously, K. doesn't make sense but elmo taking dinosaurs to jail and lions in trucks does make sense .  How I love 2 and 4 year old minds.


Monday, March 18, 2013

little photographer

For some reason, A. has been obsessed with taking pictures recently.  hhmmm, I don't know why she is used to having a camera around all the time...  She, however, wants to capture what she sees on a daily basis.  Then she tells me about the pictures.  Here are her most recent photo journal.

Making Mommy smile on the teeth

Gotta love the rainbow on the TV.

I just like Doc
Maybe we watch too much TV. Or, maybe Mommy's camera is only available when we are having quiet down time.  I prefer the latter but I still feel a little crappy about my parenting right this minute.

Journal 2:


Too pretty.  It's for my best friend

just her card

The bag was pretty
A. actually spent about 3 hours over 3 days decorating this present for her friend's birthday party on Saturday.  I think my favorite is the card but I also love the flowers (not pictured) that she drew next to the wrapping paper flowers.  Then she says, "I hope she likes everything about here present."

Saturday, March 16, 2013

proud moment

If there was one thing I would change about my childhood it would be that we prayed more as a family.  We said the typical blessing at dinner and a wrote prayer at bedtime, but I never learned how to really talk to God.  So, it is really out of my comfort zone to pray in front of anyone, even my children.  So far, they haven't taken on that fear.  This picture was taken at a birthday party for K. and Brayden.  The adults were still in the kitchen getting everyone's plates ready and we heard the kids table say, "let's pray"  Go to town kiddos.  Pray and be thankful!



Wednesday, March 13, 2013

this is why we live here

We used to have to pay 8 dollars a kid to visit a petting zoo.  We used to have to plan ahead and travel pretty far to find some baby animals.  We used to be surrounded by 24 other kids begging for 50 cents to purchase the gross goat feeding chips just to stick one hand into a cage.  Not anymore, welcome to quiet small town living.  

This weekend, out good friends/ neighbors/ babysitter and their 2 kids, invited us to tag along to one of our many neighboring farms.  These little sheep were 1 week old.  A. got to feed them while K. stood by watching and taking in all in to his quiet reserved brain.  The family who owns the farm also have a 6 year old little girl.  That little sweet girl took A. under her wing and taught the kids how to get eggs out of the chicken coop, hang upside down on the play set, pet a bunny, and how to hold the little lambs.  








Here is K.'s version of the story...
baaaaaa

"bak ey bal" on a farm...

"Dee Trato" on a farm... Could this day get any better?

oh it can, a dump truck.


Here is my future prediction for K: I think he may be a farmer.  It would suit his quiet yet active lifestyle ie. the animals won't bother him like his sister, he can play in dirt, he can drive a tractor, and he can give his mother all the vegetable and eggs that she wants.  Deal... I think so


.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

toys toys toys

Guess what is happening at our house!! That's right, 2 years ago, our little guy graced our presence the day before his daddy's birthday.  That means we get to celebrate 2 birthdays.  Or, according to his father,it means that the adult birthday now gets overshadowed.    

 I can't imagine why he thinks that.  What 32 year old does not want a cake in a dump truck.  hehe

Despite the intro, I actually wanted to focus on toys rather than birthdays.  For K.'s birthday, we got him this...
 B. and his brother spent over an hour hanging this master hot wheels wall track.  I'm not sure how long was hanging and how long was playing, but the kiddo's are pretty happy with it.  K. can't even reach the top yet he stands at the bottom and watches the cars zoom past and fly out the bottom.  At night, he puts his cars under a blanket to say "night night"  He is pretty grateful.
He also got this.  He calls it a man hat.  I don't know why except that he is usually wearing a purple bonnet or a pink thunder hat so maybe his father invoked gender identification and told him to dress like a man.  He now runs around the house hammering and sawing everything in sight.
 In addition to multiple small dump trucks and a true genuine German double decker bus, he inherited a John Deere tractor from our family friends. He has yet to figure out how to push the pedal and move, but his sister sure has.  He likes to sit on his "ta ter"  and smile. Again, pretty grateful

But, as grateful as he is for all of these big things, I think the best gift was from the cashier at the True Value in our small town.  She gave him a wooden paint stick.  According to B., he was holding onto the large stakes needed to block off our backyard for our new fence coming in a few weeks.  The cashier apparently judged his parenting and quickly traded it for a small paint stirrer.  Said paint stirrer acted as a screw driver, a hammer, a magic wand, a saw, a drum, and my favorite, the car launcher.  Much like the really fancy one hanging in his room now.  He and his cohorts, A. and B., played with it for an hour at least before it broke in half and began to look like the backyard stake.

Happy Birthday, K. I hope you enjoy all of your presents.  Next year, you are getting only a paint stick.