Fun at the Park

Drawing Lessons

Caleb has been incessantly begging me to draw smiley faces for him.  Since I got tired of hearing his “smiley face!” litany, I’m trying to teach him how to draw his own.  Can you figure out which ones he drew? 

Since I know you’re curious, here are the instructions:

1. Draw a circle.
2. Draw 2 bumps. (Then say, “Eyes!” in a really excited voice.)
3. Draw a V.  (Then say, “Mouth!” in a really excited voice.) 

As far as I know this is his first attempt to actually draw something more than squiggles, lines, and dots.  Maybe someday I’ll discover he’s been drawing elephants all along. 

Quarantine

We’ve been quarantined for the past week and a half waiting out a mystery virus.  I think we’ve used more infant Tylenol in the past week than in the past two years (which tells you how healthy we’ve been over the past two years).  I’m also thankful that a mystery virus that we knew we’d eventually beat has been our biggest concern over the past few weeks!  We broke quarantine today by having a picnic lunch and playing at the park.  It’s a beautiful day, and we were all stir crazy.  We may go out again this afternoon. 

In the meantime, I’ve been smelling a lot of paint fumes as I’ve been painting lots of this:

Last time we refinished our deck, we never managed to get the lattice replaced as we were hoping to. Two years later…I’m hoping the lattice gets put up this weekend. 

 

Looks nice!  And I can say that since I didn’t do any of the staining on the deck itself.  All the credit goes to this guy:

Remember Wilson from Home Improvement?  I think there are several similarities…one of which is their uncanny ability to avoid cameras. 

While we were painting the deck, Caleb got to paint too.  His masterpieces:

   

 

And his paint clothes:

In other news…there isn’t much other news.  Evidently when I don’t meal plan, we eat a lot of rice.  Sticky rice.  Cilantro-lime rice with burritos.  Spanish rice with tacos.  Rice with cranberry chicken.  Wild rice.  Um, yeah.  All very good, but I think I’ll wait to make stir-fry until next week. 

What I could have blogged about…

I can’t believe how fast September is flying by.  I thought it was still summer! I’ve been meaning to blog about many things this summer.  Since summer’s over, I think I have to settle for a list of what I could have blogged about:

• Dedicating Sophia in July and what that means for us as her parents and you, as a reader of my blog.
• How eating lunch with toothpicks makes it so much more entertaining (and thereby effective).
• What we learned from the pacifier removal fiasco.  Lessons on earning trust, the ritual of bedtime, and contentment.
• Listening to jazz, drumming with chopsticks, “dancing” by running in circles, playing the trombone with chopsticks, downspouts or just an arm.  Enjoying spontaneous moments with a two-year-old.
• Expectations and second babies. How I expect so much less and so much more of Sophia than I did of Caleb.
• How PB & J can turn into elephants, letters and dinosaurs with just a few bites.

Expensive Entertainment

Before and After:

During:

Donuts, Apples, and Dumplings: Weekend Highlights

Look who’s moving!  It’s not directional movement yet.  In other words, Sophia gets stuck underneath chairs and moves herself in the opposite direction of where she’d like to be, but she definitely doesn’t stay in one spot anymore.

We made donuts for breakfast on Saturday morning.  This is what was left.  Since Caleb eats oatmeal pretty much everyday (and loves it, I might add), it’s fun to splurge on a sugary breakfast once in a while. 

Caleb, wearing his daddy’s big shirt, so that…

…he could paint.  We used an apple to dip into the paint and make apple prints on the paper. Most don’t look like apples, but that’s ok.  Caleb had a good time.

Sophia, happy to make her way to the toy box.  This is the first time I heard Caleb possessively say, “Caleb’s toy box,” so we had a chat about sharing toys with Sophia.  The first of many, I’m sure.

“Relaxing” on Sunday evening. 

Another highlight from Sunday evening: eating dumplings and sticky rice.  Once again, I don’t have pictures of the food. Eating food seems to be more important than taking pictures of it.  ;)  I love that Caleb loves sticky rice.  This is the first time I’ve attempted making dumplings myself instead of just getting the frozen kind.  I think there’ll be a repeat performance.   

Luke and I also went out for a date on Saturday.  We’ve done a lot of home dates lately, but we managed to find a babysitter that was free when we wanted to go out.  Miracle!  While the orchestra concert on the Brucemore lawn was a bit chilly, we warmed up at a coffee shop and had a fun evening.  I think there’ll be a repeat performance…when we find a babysitter that’s free when we want to go out.

Apple Orchard

I took Caleb and Sophia to an apple orchard on Monday.  We met a few friends at the orchard, ate a picnic lunch, tasted several varieties of apples, took a hike to the trees, picked a few apples, and came home.  It was a gorgeous day to go.  While a little crazy to do with little kids, we had fun.  We picked up some Honeycrisp apples for eating and some tart Jonafree apples for cooking.  I think Caleb’s favorite part was carrying the basket we used to collect apples.  Oh, and eating the apples.  We’ll have to see what he thinks of apple crisp.  Sophia was a little oblivious to the apple picking, but she did fairly well.  She rode in the stroller for half the time, and I carried her in our front pack the rest of the time. If you’re looking for a good hill to work out your calf muscles, you can borrow my kids, my stroller, and my front pack, and head out to Wilson’s Orchard any time!