May 27, 2008

I thought I would end the day on a happy note. These are a few things I have been wanting to document so I would not forget them.

-- Nick is going through a stage where he wants to pull stuff out of the books we read or climb into the book to play with something. Today he saw a slide in a book and put his feet up, trying to climb into the book and slide down. Tonight at bedtime, when we were reading the children's Bible, he wanted to bring Hannah out of the Bible. He does this quite often these days. When he is trying to get in the book or take something out of the book, he makes this 'uh? uh?' sound and looks at me as if I should know how to do this.

-- Ben has discovered that he enjoys licking windows and then rubbing his finger all around on the window where it is wet. He especially likes doing this when he is outside, which I find odd because I would think they would not taste very good, as they have not been cleaned in a while. I am trying to discourage this behavior, since it makes quite a mess of the windows. However, it is quite funny and I usually have to hide my laughter before telling him to stop.

-- Today the boys and I were outside playing in their sandbox. Nick found a small rake and started raking the sand around. I heard him mention 'poo 'poo' a couple of times and was wondering if he had found some cat poo, since we had left the top off the sandbox for 24 hours the other day. I finally figured out, as Ben joined in the 'game', that they were pretending they were cleaning the cat's litter box:). Isn't that special? Since they are in the "help mommy" stage of life, they are always wanting to help me clean the cat box but, much to their disappointment, I make them keep their distance.

Tonight for dinner, I fixed some stir fry Asian veggies. They came frozen with a small package of sauce to put on them and they were quite good. They had mushrooms, broccoli, snow peas, peppers, water chestnuts, those baby corn on the cob things, carrots and I am sure I am leaving out a couple of other things. The boys had not ever tasted water chestnuts or the baby corn on the cob things. They both ate it and enjoyed it. It was funny because Nick especially liked it and I lost track of how many helpings he had. He kept asking for more and more and was still eating about 20 minutes after the rest of us had finished. When he first started eating, he would pick up a piece that he had never seen before and ask me what it was. I would tell him the name and he would repeat it and then pop it into his mouth. I am amazed at how both of our sons will still try any and all new foods and they seem to like everything.

We knew the restaurants would all be packed after church on Sunday so we planned ahead. We brought a menu with us for the place where we wanted to eat and, as soon as we got into our car after church, we called and placed an order to go. By the time we got there, it was ready and we took it home and ate it. It was such a great idea, as the restaurants around here have really long lines during busy times like Mother's Day after church. And we had a delicious, quick and peaceful lunch at home, without having to cook and very little clean up.

One of the side dishes that came with my meal was some spinach orzo which is not something I really care for. I was not eating it and Nick pointed to it and asked for some of it. I gave him a little, thinking he would not care for it and he ended up eating more of it than anything else on his plate. Ben liked it too, although Ben seems to be eating much less of everything these days. It is so odd to see him eat like this.

My attitude about the eating less thing is that I provide plenty of healthy foods for them and let them pick and choose what they want to eat. It is interesting because at some meals they load up on the carbs and just eat a bit of protein and veggies and then at other meals, they load up on the veggies or the protein. When you look at the big picture, they seem to eat what their little bodies need, they are just doing it in a different way now. I have to be careful how much I fix for them for lunch and snacks because we end up wasting more food if I'm not careful.

Tomorrow we are going to the bouncing place again. Our friends have free tickets and they invited us, which is very nice. The boys were excited when we were saying our good nights.

My sister called this evening and it looks as if my grandmother's funeral is going to be on Friday afternoon. I have been trying to figure out the best thing to do with the boys, since the dad will not be able to leave work (he has to see patients on Friday). Our babysitter is out of state on vacation so that's not an option. There will be lots of relatives whom I have not seen in a long time and probably won't get to see again for a long time. So I am thinking of going early and taking the boys with me. Someone can watch them while I say my goodbyes to grandma, I'll get to visit with the family and introduce the boys to many people who have been wanting to meet them but I will not get to go to the actual funeral. That's the only thing I can think of.