7 posts tagged “boys”
Here are some pictures from our short-lived snow day!
I know it's been a while since I've blogged. It's been a busy Christmas season for us - busier than previous years, but I'm sure that's just going to increase each year as the boys get older. This year we've had decorating, gift buying, cookie baking, preschool programs, church programs (which Coulson refused to participate in, but thankfully his cousin Lauren did a great job as a last minute stand-in wiseman!), bell-ringing for Salvation Army, cookie swaps and preschool parties. We've had a great time preparing to celebrate Christ's birthday.
I hope you all have a blessed and joyful Christmas or Hannukah!
At Disney World, we went to the Lego store at Downtown Disney. This was a very deliberate and much anticipated shopping trip, as we used the occassion to make the official transition from Duplo to regular Legos for Coulson (and as it turn out, for Charlie also, because now he's not at all interested in his Duplos, but loves to take the hair and hats off the little Lego men). So we got Coulson's first set of Legos there, and now that we're home, my husband has found the urgent need to expand our arsenal of Legos a couple times already. We are having a great time building cars and trucks and buildings - if only the kids would stop getting in the way...
On a related note, Casey and I have also been having fun playing the Lego Batman video game that we rented. Coulson and Charlie are very excited simply to be allowed to watch us play, so I can tell that today isn't going to score strong in the field of excellent parenting :-)
Today we took the boys to see Thomas. For those of you without preschool aged children, Thomas, as we know him today, is the creation of some marketing genius-turned-millionaire. It's incredible how much Thomas merchandise there is out there - It far surpasses SpongeBob or Dora! You can't simply get a Thomas train and expect it will be the right one. There are at least 5 different Thomas train systems and none of them are compatible with the other systems. And it doesn't stop at train toys. Today I saw hats, lunchboxes, silverware, bed sheets, pillows, games, cups, plates, clothes, etc. And Day Out with Thomas is another scheme they have devised to separate loving families from their hard-earned cash. (Well, this is how I felt when I bought the tickets, but now we are planning a trip to Disney World in a couple weeks and Disney's plan to suck all the money from our wallets is much more devious and greedy, so now Thomas seems almost well priced.) Basically, there is a real train designed as Thomas and it goes around the country (both here in the U.S. and in England) to various railroads and you can buy tickets to ride in one of Thomas' passenger cars. They make it a big thing with other activities to do, complete with a super large gift shop full of Thomas merchandise. This particular Day Out was held at the NC Transportation museum and the Thomas event probably brings in 50 times their usual annual attendance. We've been a couple times before and it's a very interesting museum, not specifically geared towards young children, but interesting enough to hold Coulson's attention if you don't linger too long.
So yes, we forked over the money and we had a great time! Coulson is a mild fan of Thomas - he likes watching the show on rare occasions (it's only on once a week and at 8am, so we're not usually watching TV then) and he can identify Thomas as "the blue one", but we're not really sure about all those other characters. But he enjoys trains in general and has a few Thomas trains for his train table, which we mix and match with trains and tracks from other generic sets. We have a couple Thomas books that he really likes too. And since anything that's on TV is amazingly cool, I knew that Coulson would really dig a Thomas train ride. When I told him this morning what we were doing, he ran around the room jumping up and down, which is really why parents do this stuff, right?
Even Charlie got really into it, which I didn't expect. I told him that we were going to ride on Thomas the train and he responded in his simple "oh" and I assumed he didn't get it. But when we stopped the car to briefly check out a local church's craft bazaar and yard sale, he asked, "I ride with Thomas now?" and then when we got to the parking lot at the railroad an hour later, he asked again. It's funny because he asks these questions with no emotion and always responds to whatever answer I give with his simple "oh." But just the fact that he's asking shows that he has been thinking about it and must be interested. And he's mentioned it a lot since then with cute phrases like, "I ride Domas da tain" and "Domas da tain go dugga dugga too too" (translation: Thomas the train goes chugga chugga choo choo). They also had a 15 minute show with Bob the Builder and Charlie told me "I dance wit Bob da Bidder like dis" and then kicks his feet back and forth (he was sitting in his car seat at the time.) So he had a great time as well.
We also met up our friends from Charlotte since the transportation museum is located half way between Winston and Charlotte (yes, it's near the park where we went camping!) So Coulson and Charlie got to play with their friends. Note the strange anomaly in the picture of all four kids in front of Thomas. For anyone who has every tried to take a picture of more than one child at a time, it won't take you long to marvel at the fact that all four kids are not only looking in the same direction, but also smiling. And we only took 2 shots! For comparison, when I tried to get pictures of the cousins, I took over 30 shots and never got one good shot.
We rode the train and had a nice picnic on the grass under the tree. All the kids got to squish some pennies (a great souvenir for only $0.51, we look for penny squishers anywhere we do something special!) In all, it was a great day. Coulson has already asked to do it again.
Sorry for the scarce blogging lately. We close on our house next week and then we move in the following week, so the paucity of posts will probably continue through the next few weeks.
I mentioned in my previous post that I would write more about the Nintendo Wii. I'm sure you remember the way I practically martyred my marriage in the ultimate gift of love. (Casey, reading over my shoulder, says that I can't use the phrase "martyred my marriage" because it doesn't make sense. Oh well, it makes perfect sense to me.) So, for the past few months, Casey has been whining about getting a Wii. Due to the forces of low supply and high demand, Wiis have been practically impossible to find in the stores. So we made a serendipity pact. If we happened to come across one in the store while out shopping, we could get it, but we weren't going to go out and actively search for one. So Casey got in trouble when I checked on a text message he recieved while he was sleeping one morning, alerting him that Wiis were available a Sears.com. Text alerts are not serendipity!
Well, as we were packing for our trip to the OBX, Casey used a bag to pack a "special toy for Coulson." I was surprised because Casey doesn't usually buy toys for the boys, but I shrugged it off with only mild curiosity. Then as were packing other bags, I noticed that Casey had slipped in the battery charger. I was confused because we weren't bringing the XBox (what we usually used rechargeables with) and our camera doesn't use batteries. Something about the look on Casey's face when I asked him about the battery charger told me everything. Sharp intake of breath - "You got a Wii!"
It turned out that he did in fact buy the Wii in a moment of serendipity while shopping for my mother's day present! At least he had the sense not to give it to me for mother's day ;-) But he was saving it as a surprise for the big family vacation. But his brother also found a Wii and brought it to vacation, so we had two games going most of the time. A big change from a family who spent all their family vacations in a small cottage without TV or A/C!
Casey had always maintained that the Wii is more of a family game and that's why he wanted it. I must admit that we have had fun with it. Coulson is actually pretty good at bowling and he's working on his tennis. Casey and I can play tennis doubles together and fight each other in boxing (I've won twice and we tied once, do you think he's letting me win? Casey says no, it's not in his nature to let me win, so "Go girl!")
But best of all, he downloaded the old-school version of Kid Icarus, a game I loved to play in the Nintendo days of my youth. My friend Bethany and I used to play this game for hours! Her mom got it at a yard sale so we never had the instructions for the game, so we had to figure it out ourselves, which made it even more fun for us. (If you're following my links, you can probably get a better idea if Kid Icarus from the Wikipedia site, but I just loved how old-school the first link is - the horrible graphics, the horrible background, the poor guy who's running a web shrine to a video game from 1987.) Now Casey complains that my Kid Icarus playing cuts into his Halo time (on XBox), so now we apparently need another TV.
On a related note, Casey got a whoppie cushion for Coulson, which accounted for a lot of giggles during lunch today.
We had a great Christmas Day! Coulson was so excited about everything. He got the scooter that he wanted, plus a whole lot more. He had his moments: "I want another Christmas present for me!" But overall, he had a great attitude (And if you must ask yourself, "Why wouldn't he have a great attitude, it's Christmas?" then you probably don't have a 3-year-old yet and you haven't experienced the massive and often illogical mood swings of his age group. So yes, we were pleasantly surprised at his wonderful attitude.) Charlie also had a great time playing with his new toys, but he didn't really get into unwrapping his gifts. Luckily for him, his big brother was more than happy to unwrap his gifts. His big brother was also generous enough to test all of Charlie's new toys for him to make sure they worked correctly. And then he demonstrated for Charlie how to play with the toys. Charlie is grateful to have such a wonderful brother.
Casey's parents celebrated Christmas with us, and then his aunts and uncle joined us for a delicious Christmas dinner. Casey made a fabulous prime rib. Plus he did most of the dishes and clean-up. (I helped out when I could, but honestly he did most of it.) So I had a great Christmas Day simply because I have the most wonderful husband in the world! Charlie was taking his nap while we ate and Coulson played his new toys (which is very rare for him to play by himself!), so Casey and I got to eat a full meal with the grown-ups. My kids never cooperate like this - usually Coulson would be trying to climb all over my lap and begging me to "come play with me" and/or Charlie would wake up right as we sat down to eat and refuse to sit in his highchair and thus be reaching for all the wine glasses and steak knives on the table and I wouldn't be able to listen to or participate in any adult conversation. So I consider my dinner a special Christmas gift from my children, but orchestrated by God.
And Coulson was great when he opened presents from the aunts and uncle. Every gift he opened, he exclaimed enthusiastically, "This is just what I've always wanted!" no matter what it was: books, markers, balls or robots. It made the aunts feel great. And the thing is, we never prepped him to say that - it was pure natural excitement. Charlie was sweet to everyone and let the aunts hold him and play with him. I'm still in awe that my kids were so good.
My favorite Christmas present came last night, although it wasn't so great for Casey. A few weeks ago Casey asked me what I wanted for Christmas. I gave him a list, but then I added, "You don't have to get me anything if you would just throw away your Xbox." Let's just say that Casey plays video games more than I would like. Anyway, on Christmas Eve, Casey turns on his Xbox and gets the Red Ring of Death, which basically means that his Xbox died! Of course, this is a problem that can be fixed, but he must send his box away to get fixed and it could take up to a month to get it back. A month! That's great! Well, this wasn't so great for Casey for obvious reasons, but also because his big Christmas gift was an HD-DVD player that plugs into his Xbox so we can watch DVDs in High Definition (I know, I know, it's all the same to me, but apparently the movies are so much better than regular DVDs?) So if his Xbox is dead, he can't use his Christmas present. Well, he found a little trick on the internet that helped him "resurrect" his machine temporarily, for about 4-5 days, but he'll still have to send it in to get completely fixed or replaced. So we were able to try out his Christmas gift and we watched Transformers this evening. I just hope the mail is slow...
Reader Advisory:
If you have already had and raised your children - read on and smile back on your own memories and relish that they are simply that - memories.
If you are in the midst of raising young children - read on and you can commiserate with me.
If you haven't had children yet - DO NOT READ, just remember that children are the most wonderful things in the world and go have some for yourself!
Why it takes 45 minutes to get to the park
First Coulson has to get dressed because, of course, it's the middle of the day and he's only wearing underwear. But this isn't so easy because too many of his clothes "don't feel comfortable" so we have to go through a few sets of shirts and shorts (yes, shorts -- I know it's December, but it was 78 degrees out, thus the trip to the park). Once he finds a pair of socks that aren't "too tight," he puts on his shoes, and I have to tie them, double tie. Then I need to change Charlie's diaper before we leave and also change him into shorts. Charlie wiggles throughout getting dressed, but settles down for shoes and socks because he loves to wear things on his feet. I opt for velcro shoes for him. Then Coulson cries out that his shoes aren't tight enough. So I have to untie his shoes, un-double tie, and re-double tie them as tight as I can. At this point Chester the dog decides he needs to do his business outside as well. Since I don't have a fenced in back yard, I have to take him out on the leash while the kids play nicely (thankfully) in the yard. As I take Chester back in, I decide that I should also use the bathroom before we leave, so I grab all the kids and take them inside again. (This is the point where Coulson usually decides he needs to go number 2, which adds another 15 minutes to our departure time, but somehow I escaped that fate this afternoon!) As I fill up the dog's water bowl before we leave, Coulson accidently lets Chester out of the house. And Chester runs. So I grab the leash and Charlie and follow Chester up the street, holding my breath as he runs out in the road in front of cars coming around a corner. A friendly neighbor helps me catch him and, with a toddler on the hip, I drag Chester down the sidewalk and inside the house. I stop Coulson from climbing all over the the seats in the car, get Charlie buckled in, get Coulson buckled in, get myself buckled in and we are off to the park!
