How surprising, You're not dead.

Memaw and Papa are in town for a visit. Yay!

Devin loves his elders. I've commented on this before. He's not shy when seeing someone he hasn't seen in several months. He just starts looking for the buttons to turn on the shower of love so that he can dance in its comforting downpour.

The first button he looked for with Memaw was an odd choice, I thought.

"I thought you were dead."

Yep. Upon seeing his Memaw and getting to the understanding that she is the other grandma, the one he doesn't see as often, he commented, "I thought you were dead."

Apparently, he thinks this "I thought you were dead" button is very efficient because he's been telling his Memaw ever since she got here just how surprised he is that she isn't dead.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone

The kids are out of school this week. I had a babysitter for half the week, but it just didn't seem worth it, so I "fired" her (she seemed a little bored, anyway.)

So, the kids have been playing in the basement with each other, not loudly, with no TV, and they aren't asking for snacks. They aren't wearing shirts, but that seems to be the only thing they aren't doing right, and honestly, I don't care if they don't wear shirts. I just want them to wear underwear, and I don't care if they're inside out and/or backwards.

I went down a little bit to make sure they were breathing. They were.

Trevor said, "we're becoming good brothers."

It seems, this week, that they are.

Misunderstood

I took the kids to the park tonight. I brought along their water bottles from their school lunchboxes. It's hot outside, and Trevor drained what was left in his bottle pretty quickly. Then, he asked Devin if he could have some of his.

Devin offered to share. But, when he handed the bottle over, Trevor said, "EWWW!" Devin had been finishing off his sandwich, and he left a little bit of it in the cap of the water bottle.

Devin, ever the gentleman, cleaned it off for his brother.

I thought he said, "I cleaned it for my brother."

What he actually said was, "I cleaned it with my slobber."

I have a secret!

Hi Internet!

I have a secret. I'm not supposed to know this secret, and neither are you, so keep it quiet, ok?

Trevor heard from girl at school that another girl at school wants to have a play date with him, and she wants to marry him, too.

Also, Trevor has a crush on this girl who wants to marry him. That's not a secret. That's just what he told me the other day.

OK, don't tell anyone.

Lesson from my child

This parenting racket is a rough business. Keeping all my rules straight, making sure they don't feel entitled to things they don't earn, feeding them healthy foods without teaching them bad eating habits. It's simply fraught with pitfalls and black holes that I must navigate.

I am setting up a kid date with another mom who has 2 kids pretty much the same age as my kids. I asked Trevor what he thought of that. "Ummm, no thanks," he said.

"But, I want to go so I'm going to go ahead and set it up." I told him.

"OK. You demand me. I don't demand you."

See that. That's a lesson to live by that Trevor tried to teach me this morning. I can use that lesson to help navigate some of these tricky pitfalls.

Sandbox Politics

Yesterday, I took the kids to the park. On my bike with the trailer attached. The trip from the house to the trail was a little sketchy, and I had to push the bike, trailer and children up the hill at least 4 times, but HEY, I took my kids to the park on my bike in the trailer (4 miles round trip). Yay me. Did I mention the trailer with kids probably weighs 120 pounds and that my thighs only burned for 1 day? OK, I have now.

So, the kids were playing in the sandbox in which there were 2 little girls who refused to share their toys with another little girl who asked politely to play. Not only did they refuse to share, they moved to another portion of the sandbox. Not my cup of tea, but to each his own. I was sad for the little girl whose feelings were so hurt that she cried. There was also a really big and handsome and friendly 2 year old boy who my old children refused to play with. Not my cup of tea either, but aside from telling my kids that it would be really nice to play with that handsome young fella, there wasn't a lot I could really do. His grandma was glad he was trying to make friends, and so was I, even if my own kids weren't interested.

Did I mention it was a windy day? It was a windy day.

I don't care if my kids throw sand and it gets in their own eyes. Eventually, that ought to learn 'em, right? But I don't really like for them to throw sand into the eyes of other children.

That's just a side note, though.

There was another little girl who was happily building a sand castle and dodging flying sand. After the two little girls made the other girl cry, the little sand builder's mom said, "Ah, talk about sandbox politics." I laughed.

But, she really hadn't seen nothing yet.

After the two leaver-outers left out the girl and made her cry and had been playing controversy-free for about 6 minutes, Devin walked over and stomped on their sand structure, knocking off the top third of whatever it was they were building.

I wish he was standing up for the little sad girl who just wanted her own bucket and a couple of new friends. But, he wasn't doing that at all. He was just being mean. And, I was rightfully appalled at his atrocious behavior.

I think I mumbled something about how that wasn't nice. But, it wasn't very heartfelt because I had already decided these girls were a little mean themselves. And, they proved they were the queens of the sandbox when one of them came over and kicked sand in Devin's face.

True. It served him right for his earlier transgression, and I didn't even so much as make a mean face at the mean girl. I just capitulated on his behalf and removed my children from the sandbox and tried to put the whole sandbox experience behind me.

It's behind me now.

The Routine.

Here's our usual routine. I wake up first and feed the kids from the industrialized food chain, usually sugar coated cereal. The Computer Guy wakes up second and supervises the dressing of the children. With Trevor, this is normally as easy as saying, "Trevor, Get Dressed!" With Devin, it is never, never, never this easy. Come to think of it, it's not even easy to feed him. He wants milk with cereal, then "Actually, no, no, no milk." Then, he wants milk. And, he wants his special spoon. And, then he doesn't want to eat.

John just woke up and Devin said, "But, it's not time to go!" He didn't want to get dressed. He's having a good time playing with Trevor. So, he said, "I don't want to change!" We put him to bed in the clothes he wore yesterday, so it looks OK. But, he can't wear the same clothes 2 days in a row! The Computer Guy tried to explain this with little success.

Then, Trevor stepped in. "You can't wear those clothes because they have 'yesterday germs.'"

He elaborated that the yesterday germs were too small to see when Devin objected that his clothes were not covered in yesterday germs.

Yesterday germs! How clever is that?

The pictures you've been missing! They're here now!

Trevor is playing T-ball this year. He doesn't like it. I think he would if he went to school with his team mates, but he doesn't know his team mates, and he finds them lacking in fun. Anyway, here's a slideshow!

Here's Walt Disney World:

Devin likes Stickers. At Disney World, it's the Year of a Million dreams where Cast Members give away big prizes at Random. They gave Devin stickers, making all of his dreams come true. These were taken before we went to WDW, but I think they illustrate my point really well.

Here's our Photo Safari From Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World:

Daytona Beach:

Hi!

Sorry it's been so long! I've been busy trying to lose weight, going on vacation, figuring out to eat eat local, and my blog has suffered. I'll try to do better.

We all went to Disney World a couple of weeks ago, and we had a great time. I'll try to post some pictures and change my slide show soon. We spent most of the time with Grandma and Grandpa Roth, Great Grandma Roth and Great Aunt Louise (aka, Great Grandma Roth's handler). It was wonderful to get to spend so much time with everyone at the same time. Devin took long luxurious baths in the attention of his elders doing everything he could to keep it on him as much as he could. Trevor has outgrown Disney Characters and he wasn't as enthusiastic as Devin about having everyone around, but that's not to say he didn't have a good time. He loved every minute of it (except those minutes where he was miserable, and there were plenty of those, come to think of it.)

Both of my kids are big fans of nature. Trevor is truly the resident expert on all things natural. His favorite park is currently Animal Kingdom. We decided to take the safari ride at the same time as the parade, and it was great! Since no one was behind us, our tour driver took his time, and we were able to get some good photos on this photo safari. (I'll try to post these soon). Just as the tour began, I said in my most excited and engaging Mommy Voice, "Look, Kids, there's a zebra!" and I pointed to a striped zebra looking bottom off in the near distance.

Trevor said, "That's an Okapi."

Then the tour guide, in his best tour guide voice, "if you look off to the left, you'll see an Okapi. Although it resembles a zebra, it's actually more closely related to a giraffe."

I was all, "John, did you hear that!? He knew it was an Okapi!" And, the rest of the trip, I asked two or three times a day, "What was that animal that looked like a zebra?" And, he would always tell me "Okapi."

Devin spent a good part of the first day picking up leaves that had fallen from the Magnolia trees at the resort, and handing them to any nearby adults to carry back to the room to save for later. He handed a couple to his Great Grandma Roth and her sister, and they noted the leaves were tough and a lot like leather. Devin responded, aptly, "just like you guys." I'm pretty sure that he meant this as a compliment.

There were at least 68 other things that were precious, cute, and/or maddening. But, I took too long to update the blog, and now I've forgotten them. So, I'll close with a cute little exchange from this morning...

Trevor was playing video games on the computer and Devin was watching. I'm not sure what happened, but Trevor suddenly said, "OW!" Devin promptly said that he was sorry and then said, "But, I'm still your best brother, right?" Trevor grudgingly agreed that he was.

I'm slow, but Devin isn't. ALSO.

Sometimes, you have to explain the joke for me to get it. Sometimes, I still don't get it. It's probably not surprising that I'm not a very good joke teller.

Devin woke up and came downstairs this morning and I said to him, "What's up?" He pointed at his chest. "Your shirt?" I asked, confused. He smiled at me recognizing that I'm slow. He pointed again at his chest. "OH! You! You're up!"

Isn't that clever? Devin is a funny clown.

Here's the also part. I signed Trevor up for T-Ball. I signed him up late. I would have signed him up for Soccer, which all his friends play, but I missed the cut-off. Anyway, he's signed up for t-ball, and he's missed all the practices, and the first game is on Thursday if it doesn't rain. I've been trying to teach him the game. Who knew it had so many rules? Who knew I would remember enough rules to think there are "so many rules"?