Simon's Happy Feet: A Porch Dance

Grandparents Day 3: Prairie Ridge

My parents' flight wasn't until Saturday evening, so we took a little trip to the outdoor play area at Prairie Ridge.

Here is Simon, all ready to go with his little snack cup.

The kids played in the fossil digging area for a while, and Zac was happy to find lots of shark-teeth fossils (since the dirt is dumped from a local mine).

Simon found a toy truck there and had fun pushing it up the slide and letting it role down.

Alice soon busied herself carrying water over to the digging spot to make mud soup.

I love that my daughter loves making mud soup!

Simon found a log, and decided to try and reach the light at the end of the tunnel. It didn't go well.

 

Once safely extracted from the log, Simon practiced his new skill of going up and down steps. It's so cool how children will naturally practice and practice a new feat.

After a while at the play area, we took a walk through the prairie to a little pond.

The world is her playground!

Back home, after nap, there was some time to build with the blocks before taking grandma and grandpa back to the airport.

Grandparents Day 2

On the second day of grandparents, we went to work again and they took the kids to the red park, which is a farther walk.

Grandparents Day 1

The kids pretty much ignore us when the grandparents are around--which is fine since we were headed off to work for the day. At home with the grandparents, the kids had fun reading books, building things, and going to the park.

In the evening, we took a walk to the pond to feed the chickens and see the geese.  Simon loves riding on grandpa's shoulders, clinging to his hair with his little monkey hands.

Countdown to grandparents

I waited until about two weeks before the grandparents were due to tell Alice they were coming. We ended up having to make a paper chain to break off each night to count down the days, because everyday she would say, "I'm not going to school tomorrow! My grandma and grandpa are coming!"  But, at last, they did come Wednesday night.

Where's Alice?

Normally, when I pick Alice up at school she immediately drops everything and runs to me.  But today, when I arrived at the playground, she just kept working.  What was she doing that was so fun?  Painting the roof of the playhouse with mud. 

I finally gave up, left her there, and got Simon. When I picked him up, he looked at me and asked, "Where's Alice?"

It was like a conversation! Something about it was different from how he had communicated up to now, which was always about immediate, present things, or something he personally wanted, such as a train or more cookies.

But this was a new level, like he was just curious. It also shows he's paying attention because although Zac always gets him first, whenever I do pickup, I always get Alice first so I don't have to carry Simon for quite so long.

We soon came back for Alice, but even then, her teacher had to help tear her away.

What good helpers!

Look Mom! No hands!

Up until now, Simon has nearly always needed to crawl up steps.  But recently he's been trying it without hands, on shallow steps like these.

Bubble trouble

 

Simon has loved bubbles since he got some for Easter. He really just likes holding the bubble wand and putting it in and out of the tube. He can't aim his breathe well enough to actually blow the bubbles, and the bubble tube at this point is empty since he spilled it all on the first day. Nevertheless, he will wave the wand in the air saying, "Look! Bubbles!" The fact that no bubbles ever emerge has not dampened his joy at all.

Then, for unknown reasons, his love of the bubble tube and wand grew to unhealthy proportions this week. He would cry if he found the wand but couldn't find the tube. He would fill the tube up with water from the water table on the porch, to pretend it was full of bubble solution, then spill it all over the floor in the house. When I wouldn't let him out on the porch to fill it up, he tried to fill it up from the water in my toilet. He would run away shrieking if you tried to take the tube from him, and at mealtimes and bedtime he would cry when you took it away.

Things escalated Saturday evening when Alice asked to sit out front and blow bubbles while Zac finished making supper. I figured Simon was already obsessed, it wouldn't hurt much to give him actual bubbles (there was one tube left for him and Alice that hadn't been spilled or broken yet).

We had a nice time in the front yard, enjoying the nice weather and blowing bubbles.

But when we took away the bubbles at supper time, Simon threw a fit. This is video of him after he'd already been crying for about five minutes.

He eventually calmed down and ate supper, so we let him have the bubbles again after supper, and he even took them with him to the bath. But when it was time to say goodbye to the bubbles, Simon refused to cooperate.

I guess I thought his obsession would wane after a while, but since that didn't seem to be happening, I decided to just make all the bubbles disappear. After the kids were in bed, I found all the bubble containers and wands and hid them in the back of the closet.

Simon did ask for them the next day, and would look for them in the bathroom several times, but I just told him they were all gone. He reverted to his normal, happy self and went back to playing with trains, which he loves, but parts with easily.

Bike to water

After Alice's haircut Saturday morning, we went to nearby Shelley Lake Park, where the bike path goes right by the lake and passes over a nice creek. Zac had taken Alice here last summer, and discovered a perfect little spot for the kids to play in the water. We thought Alice would enjoy riding her bike, but she was very slow, fell off a few times, and whined and wanted Zac to carry it. I don't know if she was just low-energy this morning, or if biking just isn't her thing anymore. But we eventually got to the creek and the kids had a lot of fun playing in the water.

Simon checks out a centipede on the playground.

Happy boys!

Zac picking up Simon from daycare.

Look at me!

Alice has been waking up early in the mornings lately, and will pop out of her room as soon as she hears us up an about. Normally, she's still wearing her pajamas, but this morning she emerged dressed like this. She always puts this dress on backwards because then she can zip it up herself. It's a hand-me-down from her cousin and it's the worst dress ever because it's covered in glitter that comes off on everything. But she loves it.

Zac took her out to get the morning paper, but she had to exchange the slippers for boots.

Stay tuned: with her svelte figure and good looks, this fashionista may be coming to a runway near you.

Electronic babysitter

On Monday, I went to daycare to pick Simon up early, since he was still a bit under the weather, and sometimes he will get a fever in the afternoon and then he can't go to school the next day. However, when I went in to pick him up, Alice saw me, so then I had to get her too. Both kids were pretty content to eat popcorn and watch TV while I fixed supper, though. Thank you, electronic babysitter!

Mother's Day

The night before Mother's Day, Simon woke up crying. He had a little cold, so we thought he was just uncomfortable, so we waited a few minutes, and he laid back down (we were watching on the spy camera). But then he got up and started crying again. When I went in the see what was the matter, I discovered he had vomited all over his bed. Zac changed the sheets while I changed Simon. He then threw up a few more times. A few outfit changes later, I rocked him to sleep and put him back to bed.

Moments like these aren't miserable for me. It seemed somehow fitting that on the night before mother's day, my son was throwing up on me. It's for nights like this that parents are honored. If it was all bubbles and sunshine, we wouldn't need a special day to force children to thank their parents.

You may recall that last Mother's Day was a bit of a mess, so we decided to keep it simple. No lemon meringue pie, for one. And we got all the laundry done on Saturday. In the morning, we went to Harris Lake Park. It's a fun place, but we were also going to scope it out as a possible venue for Alice's potential birthday party. In the end, we decided it was nice, but probably too far away (30 minutes) to ask people to drive just for a playground and picnic shelter.

 

While Zac and Alice went to explore the green pond, Simon took a little nap on me.

Alice fell asleep in the van on the drive home, so when I brought her in the house, my non-snuggly child actually wanted to lay on me for a little bit. It was the best mother's day gift.

As always, Alice was very helpful in unwrapping the presents.