Spring Program

Benjamin had his spring performance this past Thursday.  It is put on by his day care and is the infants through 3 year olds singing through 6 or 7 songs.  The day care is at the same location as Joshy's preschool and one of the older classes at the school decorated the stage as their art project.  Ben sat front and center, which was great, since he spent the majority of his time just staring at the crowd like this:

And this:

But as soon as motions got involved, he was sparked into action and singing along with the song.

As soon as they said "Itsy Bitsy Spider" he had his spider fingers ready to go.  Same with Baby Bumble Bee and This Little Light of Mine.  Nothing is more fun that shouting "No!" every time the teacher threatens your light with a bushel.  The part of the program with the motionless rhymes was just not enough to engage a boy who usually was in bed a half hour prior.  At the end of the show, Ben hopped up to walk off the stage until his chocolate radar went off and he saw the teacher with the sweets out of the corner of his eye and plopped back down until the candy bag made it his way.  When it comes to candy, this boy ain't playing.

The most adorable part occurred prior to the show when Joshy was eating dinner and one of his classmates, Sylvia, came up to say hello.  Her first comment was that Joshy was eating a hot dog just like her, to which he said, "Does it look like I am eating a hot dog?  Nope.  I'm eating a sun." and then repeated with some other random stuff.  I just smiled at the little boy who has picked up his mama's humor.  Tonight we went to eat and while Ben was jumping on the booth seat singing 5 Little Monkeys, Joshy, John and I were talking about names for Jessi's baby girl.  I asked if Sylvia was a good name for a girl and he looked at me with this wry smile and said "Yeeesss".  Then John suggested Autumn to which Joshy replied, "Autumn isn't even a word".  We then covered the alternate word for fall and when John suggested it again this time Joshy still shook his head with a "A person definitely can not be Autumn."  We also ruled out Ann but he was okay with Mary and just gave me his "you're being silly" look when I was carrying around imaginary baby Pineapple.  If only he knew that was one removed pine away from an actual baby's name...

We're Drawing in the Rain

This afternoon we had a brief spring shower come through.  The kind of shower that goes from breeze to monsoon and back again as the clouds pass over.  We told the boys that with the rain we would go out to eat tomorrow instead of tonight.  Of course, they insisted that we go right then because we had umbrellas.  We joked that they would be soaked and poked at them with whether they wanted to go out right now and see how wet they would get.  "Yes!"  So, we said, "okay" and out they ran, barefoot with chalk in hand, to play in the rain.  It was pretty adorable to watch...from the porch...where John stayed nice and dry.

I love two little boy's feet with puddled jeans, sopping up rain around their ankles.

Ben tells Joshy the plan.

Ben likes to rock his daddy's hats.

Two wet and happy boys.

Email to blog

Here is why this picture is amazing...I emailed it to my blog!!  I have been blogging for awhile now and I just figured out that I can take a picture from my cell and email it to my blog and voila, when I sign in a post is waiting for me with the picture inserted.  If I am sitting at a computer and an idea pops into my head, I can just type it up and email it to the blog and it will be sitting here, ready to publish.  I took this today at a wedding of my coworker's that I attended.  To the left is Heather and the right, LeAnn.  Both a part of the many laughs I am privileged to share in at work.  The wedding was lovely.  The dj was classy, the reception was elegant, and the bride flawless.  But let's not sway from the main point of it all.  I can email to my blog!!!

Oh and they were playing this game on their iPhones called Words with Friends or something of the like and what was basically iPhone scrabble, turned out to be entirely addictive.  When I got 30 points for the word quid, I looked around, fully expecting some pats on the back or perhaps a gold star.  Nothing.  So, I rewarded myself with a second piece of cake.  And victory tasted wonderfully good.

iPhone Repairman (a post by John)

So it started 3 weeks ago.  I was dropping off the boys at school and walking back to my car.  I was not paying attention, carrying some assorted papers from the school when I tripped.  Ready?  Cause this is where it gets good. As I tripped, some of the papers in my left hand were about to fall but in my right hand I was carrying my iPhone. So what do I do?  That is right.  I dropped my iPhone without thinking, grabbing the papers and remember feeling the relief that the papers were OK.  Relief followed by "wait, what was that sound...".  Ah, the classic sound of breaking glass.  Yes, Ladies and Gents, I just smashed my iPhone to save a paper from touching the ground.  Wait...it gets better...

I call the Apple store to see what it would cost to fix the shattered glass, $200 Dollars. Well I am certainly not going to pay that since I can buy an entire used iPhone for less. Shady online dealers want 75, but why even pay that when I can buy the glass and do it myself for $15 dollars! So, I purchase the glass and receive it yesterday. After watching YouTube clip after YouTube clip of do it yourself, I am feeling pretty secure in my  iPhone repairmanship.  I meticulously take apart my prized toy screw by screw, and did a fine job of disassembling.  Well fine might be a stretch, but the job got done in an hour and a half.  We'll just ignore that the YouTube guy did it in 13 Minutes.  Moving on.  I am putting the phone back together piece by piece and am almost finished as I put the new glass in and think to myself...This looks great! Wait...where is that other ribbon cable at?  Insert defeated oh no.  I had sealed one of the ribbon cables under the glass in the adhesive tape. No problem, I can fix this.  Enter hair dryer, warming the glass so I can separate it and retrieve the ribbon.  I go to lift the glass and it is coming up enough that I think I can pull the cable out and out it comes! No longer stuck to the glass and...no longer attached to the iPhone... Yep I had successfully re-broken my iPhone before I could even assemble it again. That takes talent. So now I have re-ordered my glass kit again. $35 Dollars and 3 weeks later, I still have a broken iPhone. Classic Move for a guy. Tries to fix something he is not qualified to fix in the first place and only wastes money or makes it worse. I am the double threat as apparently....I can do both.

You know what they say...

I was washing my face in the sink, thinking that John and I had once again managed to not get to bed early in spite of promising each other 3 to 5 times throughout the day that we would.  As the water splashed off my face and I looked into the mirror at my exhausted eyes, I thought "Welp.  The best laid plans, right?".  And then thought, wait...the best laid plans what?  I have used the phrase a thousand times but this is the first time it dawned on me.  What is the second half of the phrase?  Never work out?  And while sometimes good plans don't work out, indeed, it would seem that the "best" laid plans would not fall into that category a statistical majority of the time.  It is a truth wrapped up in a predicate-less subject.  Surely it started as a sentence.  The best laid plans go down in a roaring ball of flames?  No wonder it is hard to learn English.  It doesn't make sense why my head knows it means what it does.  I understand Bob, but the picture on the wall.  Yes, you stopped caring three sentences ago but the blog post on nothing. 

Know it all

This morning I woke up to Joshua telling us that the toilet had overflowed.  Always a good way to wake up.  He has this new thing where he needs half a roll of toilet paper to blow his nose and instead of the trash can, the unused wad of toilet paper goes into the toilet.  So, we then proceeded to discuss the three square limit on nose blowing.  He left the room as I laid my head back down on the pillow, not quite ready to wake up.  (This goes back to our not wake up time if still dark outside rule).  Of course, my eyes were soon again open to the sound of Joshy moving a bag full of blankets as tall as he is out of his closet (a prior space saver bag failure) and moving his chair in.  “Joshua.  What are you doing?”.  “I am standing on the chair to get my race car off the shelf”.  By race car he means race car track.  As my head goes back on the pillow I tell John, who is just now stirring, “Joshy is about to pull a bunch of track onto his head”.  Then feeling guilty at my initial instinct to choose sleep over stopping him, I again call Joshy into the room, mourning the loss of any chance of more sleep, and discuss the idea of climbing up to his top shelf in his closet and pulling things down.  Two thumbs up on initiative though.  And while there, we decided to rehash the three square rule.  He said “I know.”  “You know, huh?”  “Yep, I know everything”.  “Everything?”  “Yep everything”.  “Okay, then why is the sky blue?”  “Because it is wearing a blue shirt.” (his tone providing an understood "duh")  “Ah.  Why can’t we fly?”  “Because we don’t have wings.”  “Why can’t we breathe under water?”  “Because there is no air in water.”  “Why isn’t water red?”  “Because God didn’t make it red." he says with each word emphasized, as any adult would when putting the kabash on a "why" conversation, before tacking on, "Besides, if it was red it would be lava”.  I can't argue with that.

Meet the new staff

I have made a decision to give something a whirl.  While I am generally a little obsessive compulsive when it comes to writing (I have every written document leaving my department come across my desk for grammar and sentence structure check - yes, we should all be thankful Laura still has any staff left), I have decided that I would try letting John do some posting on the blog as work is taking up more and more time and evening Laura, more and more exhausted.  And when Laura is the walking dead, blog updates are the first to go.  So, I have trepidatiously added him as an author, with the idea that he will save his first few drafts for me to look at before he posts them.  I mean, we can't just start giving people free run, posting all willy nilly.  That is just irresponsible.  That said, you will hopefully soon see his first post about a park and duck.  Once it comes out of editing...

Uppy, Uppy

Benjamin is in the midst of his "fill in the blank" twos. The blank depends on the day and somehow his fits just seem more whiny than terrible. Every time something brushes up against him it is this ginormous cry with him toddling towards you with a "Uppy, uppy, uppy". It his abbreviated version "Up, Please". When he is sent to time out, he cries in between yelling "I love you" and "I'm sorry". Definitely not the stubborn, unapologetic Joshy we are used to. That said, the crying gets in your head. The constant "My diaper", "Joshy touched me", "I hurt my foot", all accompanied by tears can drive a person crazy. Yesterday, in a moment of weakness, instead of attending to his whiny cry, I just started to mimic it, crying and saying uppy, uppy. He looked at me for a second as he ceased crying. He then walked up to me and hugged me and told me that he loved me. He comforted me. It made me smile because he did to me what he wants each time he cries. It just goes back to the truth that we all naturally give as we like to get. If kind words are what reach your heart, your instinct is to show love through kind words to others. I suppose that is the challenge of parenting. Two boys means two different ways of understanding love. Two different ways of correction. Two different styles of pressing their boundaries. When God decided to not send children with instruction books, He clearly hadn't heard the phrase "work smarter, not harder". Then again, neither have the men made in his image each time Christmas and bike assembly rolls around. But what He did know is that those gentle kisses with their little chubby hands on each of your cheeks makes it all worth while. It is quite tricky, really...

A Star Wars Easter

I will have all the pictures and the cute, gory details of Easter up here in a few days, but I would be amiss to not take a few minutes before bed to speak to the ridiculousness of the Star Wars egg dying kit. I don't remember who makes it, but they know who they are. The color pellets were fine. Who can mess up colored powder? The problem came post coloring, once dried in the tear out rings. There were two kits. One Star Wars and one jungle. Ben takes off with the jungle, sticking elephants and trees one on top of another on his eggs. Having dipped a few myself and far too mature for cartoon monkeys, I searched for the Star Wars sticker page to get an Ewok to accent my dual color dye job. Here is the thing. They weren't stickers. After trying and failing to peel them off, I realized that they were something similar to a tattoo type contraption, with the sticky under a solid sheet of plastic. Okay, I think, just stick and rub. So I lay the plastic against the egg and scratch with the stick provided in the kit. Nothing. Thinking that one may have just been a dud, I pick a new one. I scratch longer and firmer. Nothing. Now my dad takes a turn. He thinks hotter and so holds it under his thumb and gets a sliver of one to stick. Now we are one to something. Tina tries a cloth with hot water which brought us back to no cigar and then I come up with the brilliant idea of hair dryer. Out she comes and on it turns, burning my fingers as they try to hold the rubbing against the egg. After two tries and charred skin, Dad suggests heating the egg or perhaps heating the rubbing first. Maybe dryer. Maybe wetter. Maybe it shouldn't take this much effort to figure out how to use something that is made for 5 years olds and costs $2.99. The best part is that here, where you expect me to come to the part of the story where we finally figure it out, you'll have to settle for disappointment. We never did figure out how to get the Wookie on the egg or any of his other Tatooine cohorts for that matter. They are all on the plastic, just as they came. Perhaps the duds of the batch. The inevitable lemon from the factory. But I like to think that it wasn't a dud. I like to think of families all over this country, sitting with sticks and that confounded piece of plastic wondering how in the world it is that they can't manage to stick R2D2 to an egg and feeling just that much dumber for it. I like to imagine the man whose worked 20 years packing egg decoration kits and one night over drinks thought "You know what would be funny...". The man who had the wherewithal to see a joke to the end. The man who is laughing now as I type, picturing me with my stick and wet towel and hairdryer. The man I tip my hat to. He got me. He got us all. And though not the legacy I would have picked, a legacy all the same.

What comes first...

When John arrived to pick up Joshua from school yesterday afternoon, he was met by the teacher and an “Okay...here is the deal…”. They had dyed eggs at school that day and Joshy was very concerned that they stay cold so that he could eat them when he got home that night. He made sure they were kept in the fridge the entire day and although uncertain about taking them out, even though about to leave, the teacher was sure to show him that they were still cold and could make it home. This, of course, begs the question as to why he would associate a hard boiled egg with being inedible when at room temperature, but wanting food refrigerated instead of left out is hardly the instinct to correct. It is the “pizza laying out for two days…probably fine” that leans more towards the questionable. So, they get the eggs home and Joshy tears into the first one. After a bite or two, he asks to throw it away. John isn’t really paying attention, so he says fine and Joshy tosses it with the remainder of the eggs going into the fridge. Later John was asking Joshy about the eggs and he said that he didn’t like them because he didn’t like the cheese in the middle. Yes, sweetie, I don't like that cheese either. Of course, as John was explaining that it wasn’t cheese, it was a yoke and then trying to explain what a yoke was, they got to the part where the egg was what chickens grow in. “I am biting into a baby chicken?!? Gross!”. He then proceeds to mime eating a chicken and how gross it would be to bite in and come away with baby bird head. So what did come first? The egg or the cheese covered baby bird head? I am afraid we may never know...