Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week has been a bit stressful.  All of us has been sick at some point this week.  Robert had croup last night, Alice has had a head ache off and on this week due to sinus pressure, and all of us have had some stomach problems.  It has not been fun.  Hopefully this coming week will be better.  Other then that life has been mostly normal.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week felt very long.  I have been very busy at work trying to get everything done that I need to do.  Home has been a bit busy too.  Home has been fun.  Yesterday Alice and I played two bored games together.  It was fun to actually talk to her and play games with her.

Play Dates

It's been a blah kind of week, and Alice REALLY noticed, so I promised her we would do something new and different today. We invited Alice's newest friend, E, to join us at the indoor soft climbing place at the mall after preschool. Alice and E are the silliest, strangest little pair of preschool girly-girls I've ever encountered. I've been curious about their relationship for some time, wondering what it is about these girls that draws them together. This is the first of Alice's friends that I didn't hand-pick for her, after all ;) Here's a picture of them at the Preschool Christmas Program last year (matching hair bows, a gift from E):

With permission from E's mom, I picked them up from preschool and headed straight to the mall. The kids ate lunch on the way. The girls shared silly, nonsensical jokes and slapstick humor the whole way. They whispered together about a special secret surprise they had prepared at school for this very outing. They chattered about mermaid fairies. When we got to the mall, they insisted on bringing Alice's school backpack with them. Why? Because the secret surprise would have to be unveiled WHILE we were in the play place. It had all been planned just so.

"Um, okay, as long as you're the one carrying it."

We started with a carousel ride. Why not? Life is short. They picked horses side-by-side and Robert was plopped onto the cat figure next to them. He likes cats an awful lot, but he was so disoriented by the lights and music that he could barely walk straight. I buckled them in. The girls got squealy nervous as they waited for the carousel to jerk forward. Throughout the ride, Alice just kept exclaiming,"It's like Mary Poppins! It's just like Mary Poppins!" E was all smiles, but she didn't really describe the feeling until we were heading to the play place, "That was like opening presents on my birthday!"

When we got to the play place, there were quite a few kids there already. Alice and E ran off, immediately engrossed in the fantasy play they had planned on during school. Both girls followed the rules, spoke politely, took turns leading, entertained each other, and cheerfully got ready to go right when I said it was time. Creepy. Cool! The girls were such low maintenance on the whole outing that I actually had time to play with Robert. It changed the outing from 'a study of Alice's friendship structure' to a play date with my sweet little son. How on earth did that happen?! I loved it. The super-secret surprise, by the way, was a set of handcrafted paper popsicles they had prepared for everyone: Alice had a cherry butterfly, E had cinnamon, I was given orange with blueberries, and Robert had chocolate. Each paper popsicle was colored, cut out and taped to a real popsicle stick by the girls during preschool. I just crouched in the cubby hole cave, clutching my paper popsicle (as directed by the girls), and marveled at these curious little girlies and their elaborate play. I think Alice made a fine choice in friendship. Balanced, interesting, and well-matched...so far.

Anyway, we dropped off E at her house and started heading home. Alice, a bit disappointed at the end of the play date, started on her 'sour grapes' attitude. She confided in me that sometimes E doesn't let her lead as much as she would like (which is, ahem, ALL the time). I empathized and said something about friendships needing practice. We came home for quiet time and Alice slept good and hard.

Then we finished the day in another extraordinary way: the Evanses joined us for a play date and a dinner of tuna noodles, beef stroganoff, gyros, and french fries :) Certainly not the "blah" I had grown accustomed to all week.

Bobby's Sunday Summary 2 (I forgot something)

Susan just reminded me about something that happened on the car ride to church this morning.  We play a game with Robert every so often where we ask him to say a word, and then he says it.  Just to see how his pronunciation is, and to see if he will say silly things.  Well, Robert was feeling a little stubborn today and every time we asked him to say something he would say "NO!".  So I asked him "Robert can you say NO?", And he stopped, and thought about it, and finally decided that he was not going to say anything at all.  Everyone laughed which put him in a better mood and then he started playing the game as usual.  It is funny to see him catch on to what I was trying to do.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week was fairly good.  We had some friends over for dinner the other night, and it was nice to be able to sit and talk while the kids played together.

Buddy has been growing up a lot lately.  He is easier to understand, and he wants very much to help.  He wants to help clean, and help cook, and also help pick his own cloths.

Yesterday was bath night.  Alice decided that she wanted to have curly hair, so we twisted her hair in some rags.  This morning you would not believe her hair.

Yes she went to church today like that.  She loved it, but also got a new nickname.  She is now curly girl.  It actually looks really good now that it has had 12 hours to relax. 

Photo Booth

Will and Kayla came over for a play date and we pulled out the Photo Booth application on our computer. It entertained all of us for over an hour. The older kids were running it on their own by the end. Dude, this program is awesome. 

Then Alice asked for another round with just Robert and herself. (You mean I can make dinner without interruption? You bet!)

Buddy

 

 

I don't write about Buddy as often as I would like. The moments I have with him one-on-one are unpredictable. Half the time I think, "Man! I should write about that on the blog!" and the other half of the time it's completely normal 2-year-old stuff that will only be deemed "cute" once I'm out of the trenches. I never seem to make the time to write about either one, unfortunately :)

If there's a cup of liquid on the table, Buddy will accidentally spill it 90% of the time, even if it's not his own cup.

He hasn't been sleeping well lately. Last night was a golden night when he slept from 7:00pm to 6:30am. Holy cow! Unbroken sleep is a glorious thing. One night can't make up for several, though, so I lay on the couch for a while this morning while Alice was at preschool. Buddy came tromping over and climbed over me to squeeze his dense little body between my back and the couch cushion. It's the closest thing to a snuggle you can get from Robert. We started playing the little games he likes to play.

He asked about Daddy and I told him Daddy was at work. Buddy says, "Ma-woooo!" Yeah, Daddy works at Yahoo. Then Buddy points to the wall and says, "Daddy wah."

"Is Daddy in the wall?"

"Yeah," with a giggling smile, then he starts calling for Bobby through the wall, "Daddy! Daaaaddy!"

His smile looks very "Poulson" to me. Beyond the obvious pebble teeth, there's a set of sizeable canines that I never saw with Alice. It's a funny sense of pride seeing bits of my family in my offspring.

The Daddy game goes on for some time. Robert calls for Daddy in the wall, the ceiling, the floor, and the overhead light. He's giggling the whole time and I'm making surprised expressions every time he suggests a new Daddy hideout. Then Alice is the one hiding everywhere. Then Daddy is at preschool with Alice. I start calling for them, too, and Buddy reaches out to touch my tongue with one finger. He yanks his hand back like he can't believe he actually did it. I think it grosses him out a little. Then he "steals" my tongue and puts it in his mouth (makes a fake grab for it and pretends to eat what's in his hand). I LOVE this body-part stealing game. It cracks me up! I steal his nose and put it on his elbow. He knows it's a game, but he also wants everything put back right away. He steals my nose, my eyes, my whole mouth and eats them all. I take them back. Then I start taking parts of his face and head faster than he can get them back. This distresses him a bit and he throws his arms up over his head to protect what's left. That's when I give everything back and start the "permission" game.

"Hey Robert, can I poke your belly button?"
"Yyyyyyyyyeh-no!"
"Can I kiss your chin?"
"Nnnnnnnnno."
"May I touch your hair?"
"Yyyyyyes."
"May I tickle your hair?"
"Yyyyyyyyes."

I try all kinds of tricky verbs and body parts and he determines whether it's a risk worth taking. Cracks me up every time. His vocabulary astounds me. A lot about this boy catches me off guard. I'm just not watching him as intensely as I was watching Alice at this age. It's fun to get that focused, individualized play time every once in a while, especially if I can lie on the couch for a bit of rest :)

Robert and Alice were playing a kitty game this morning. Robert was the cat and Alice was the bossy, nurturing owner. Alice has also decided she likes to help Robert in "Mommy" ways: wiping up messes, helping him wash his hands, retrieving things from out of his reach. Robert appreciates the extra help/attention so far. Conflict usually arises when his well-intentioned physical impulses appear deliberately aggressive to Alice. He throws things when he gets excited. He pushes and head-butts and yells when he really enjoys the game. Alice thinks he's attacking her. I have seen him "attack" her once or twice in a half tackle sort of way. Not in an aggressive way. She was lying on the couch and he just climbed up and sat on her belly. She had a hard time breathing. Another time, she was sitting by the piano and he crawled over, reared up on his knees and threw his chest into her chest, knocking her backwards. Fortunately, she thought that attack was funny. We all did.

Buddy is the one I find myself thinking about most these days. He's at the age where every day is something new: new words, new forms of expression, experimenting with routines, pushing boundaries, exploring independence. I love this age.

Bobby's Sunday Summary

This week started out fairly normal.  But ended up being very stressful.  Yesterday we had plans to go to Lowes and get celling fans, and a number of other projects.  However Robert had a different idea.  He got an ear infection and had a high temperature.  We did no know it was an ear infection at the time, so we called up dial a nurse and they told us we needed to take him to the emergency room, because they were worried about him being dehydrated.  He filled his diaper just as we got there and it ended up being the most expensive popsicle that I have ever bought, but he is doing fine.

Mini Orchard and Garden Plans...Version 1.2

It was a crazy-beautiful afternoon today. When Will and Kayla came over to play, Alice asked if they could go outside. She didn't have to ask me twice :) We pulled out the riding toys and everything else outdoorsy I could grab from the garage. Then I enlisted Kristin's help in marking out where each aspect of my new garden and orchard would go. Mwah ha ha haaaaaaa!

The kids were running around in imaginary play. A new scenario I hadn't witnessed before. They were mean witches casting spells and eating helpless victims. Our backyard neighbor was eventually toasted to a crisp and added to worm soup, despite her best efforts to cast protective spells, use magic wands of her own, and offer exciting distractions (i.e. dinosaur bones and dinosaur eggs from her own garden). These mean witches were ruthless. They rode around on a broom dragon and cackled like maniacs. My poor neighbor never stood a chance.

Robert spent most of his time begging to be held or looking for a Siamese cat that had peeked out of the bushes.

I did eventually get the orchard and garden laid out in situ (i.e. I spray painted place markers onto the grass and laid out the raised bed frames). The dream seemed disappointingly small in real life :( I stood back a bit and saw, however, that the large oak on the north end of our property was not as bushy as I had planned. I *could* stretch the three garden beds another 4 FEET each. Huzzah! That adds another 48 sq ft to my vegetable gardens, bringing the total to 304 sq ft. A sizeable sum, to be sure. The largest vegetable garden I've managed so far is 144 sq ft, so I'm officially in over my head and I *like* it that way (happy dance). Now there's room for ephemeral perennials like rhubarb and asparagus...so perfect in early spring when one craves something fresh.

Now I get to take a shovel to the sod! Happy, happy day. It's hard to plan a garden party when the weather is unpredictable. I hope my shovel-wielding friends don't need too much advanced notice :) My backyard neighbor did offer us the use of his tiller/wheelbarrow and such...I hope he can forgive us of his wife's untimely and gruesome death.