Monday, May 19, 2008

May 19, 2008

It is officially hot here now:). Summer has arrived. The boys have been outside playing in the water for the past couple of weeks. One day last week, it was warm outside but was not hot yet. They were wearing shorts and T-shirts and playing in the couple of inches of water in their little swimming pool. They waded in it once in a while but, for the most part, they were leaning over the side, filling up containers with water and then walking around the patio and yard and dumping the water on various things. I was sitting on the patio, reading a book. Out of the blue, they both decided they wanted to take off their shorts and their diapers but they wanted to keep their shirts on. We have a wooden fence around the yard and, heh, you're only young once, right? So they played for a while with their T-shirt on and their little birthday suits from the waist down. I thought it was quite funny.

Today, the dad was outside with Nick, while I was in the house cooking dinner and Ben was sitting nearby at the kitchen table, coloring, cutting and pasting. The dad later told me that Nick was going behind the bushes to hide and then yelling, "honey! honey!" at the dad.

We are now hearing almost-full sentences from both boys and they never shut up! (I love it most of the time:) Today Ben told me "mommy, boo boo all better".

Tonight at the dinner table, Nick said "that tasty", after tasting lemonade for the first time. That was the first time I had heard either one of the boys use the word 'tasty'. They pick up on new words so quickly these days. It is so amazing.

Whenever we are out shopping and someone happens to be in our way, as we are going down an aisle with a shopping cart, before I have a chance to even consider it, one of the boys will be telling them 'scuse me'. They say this to each other in the house if one of them is in the other's way and they also sometimes say it to stationary objects that happen to be in their way...and of course, they also say it to the cats if they are in the way.

Nick is now at the point where, if he happens to hurt me accidentally, by kicking me in the head when we are laying together on the couch for example:), and I say 'ouch, that hurt', he will immediately say 'soddy mommy' and give me a hug and kiss. He is big on doing this with brother too but brother frequently does not want the hugs and kisses, as he is annoyed at being injured. Nick also gives Ping a hug and a kiss and says "I'm soddy", as we read the book The Story About Ping (I think that's the name).

They are both very big into the blame game these days. If I ask 'who did that?', they will both say the other one did it.

I got tired of hearing the boys whine and ask me to help them every time they got stuck while riding their tricycles in the house. So I finally told them, "when you get stuck, you should say 'oh man!' and then get off your bike and move it so it is not stuck anymore'. This has really worked remarkably well and I smile every time I hear 'oh man!', as they are riding around the house. If they forget and start whining, I give them that raised eyebrow look, like only a mom can deliver. That usually gets a cute little smile and then 'oh man!' and then the stuck child climbs off the trike and pulls it free.

Today I bought a $4 vinyl table cloth that I can throw over the kitchen table when the boys want to color, draw or paint. Much nicer than using newspaper every time and much more likely to prevent writing on the table. Ben really enjoys sitting at the table and coloring (scribbling), cutting and pasting often now.

It seems like we definitely have two opposite personality types in our house with our two sons. Nick loves being outside and would stay out there all day long if we let him. When we have been outside for a few minutes, Ben is likely to start asking to go into the house. Twice within the past few days we were outside, I was reading and the boys were playing, when the dad got home and came outside to join us. I had to go inside to start dinner and, soon after, Ben wanted to come in with me. As soon as he came inside, he asked to sit at the table and color, cut and paste (he always does all three:). Nick stayed outside with the dad until he absolutely had to come in.

This evening Ben asked me "mommy, read, read?". As he climbed up on the couch next to me, out of the blue he said "no poopy mommy". Big red flag. I asked him if he was poopy and he said again "no poopy mommy", so I checked him and, sure enough, he was. I had not even suspected anything until he spoke up. He was not too happy when I told him that we needed to change his diaper before we read our book.

Today was the last day that our Parents as Teachers lady will come for the summer. We will see her again in August but we will age out when Nick turns 3 in November, so we will probably only see her again three more times, once each in Aug, Sept and Oct and then we will probably be done. I think I enjoy her visits as much as or more than the boys. She and I spend a lot of time talking about everything and anything while she is here.

It's hard to believe that summer is already here. We have two graduations to go to this Friday evening. My two nieces are both graduating from different high schools on the same night. I think within the next week or two, all of the schools here will be out for the summer.

No comments: