Simon on the Sidewalk

I suppose we really only have ourselves to blame. We got Alice the scooter for her birthday, then took her down to the sidewalk to practice riding it. Then, in Ohio, we picked up the green bike, and took Simon down to the sidewalk so he could ride it. Now, nearly everyday the kids will ask to go down to the sidewalk to ride bikes. That's fine; that makes sense. But one day, Zac brought the new bubbles from Oscar's birthday party down to the sidewalk for Simon to play with while Alice rode something. Now, Simon always says, "I want to go blow bubbles on the sidewalk" and refuses to blow them anywhere else.

So now, we spend our evenings with two little kids on a sidewalk right next to a well-trafficked street. It could be worse, I suppose--it could be a highway or main road. But still, it's not the most relaxing place to play. Luckily, neither kid has ever run into the road, but still, Zac and I live in terror as Simon blows bubbles and "rides his motorcycle" on the sidewalk.

Simon's bubble head

Alice flips

Just recently Alice started doing these flips. She loves it!

Stirring spaghetti

Alice always wants to know what we're having for supper right when she walks in the door. I usually tell her that she will find out after she takes off her shoes and washes her hands, to motivate her to complete these simple tasks quickly. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

Today, when Zac brought the kids home, Alice washed her hands really quickly and ran out to the kitchen while I was getting Simon's hands washed, a process that he always inexplicably resists. By the time I got back to the kitchen with Simon, I almost had a heart attack because Alice had pushed a chair up to the stove, had put on oven mitts, and was stirring the pot of spaghetti.

Oscar's birthday party

Although this was the third birthday party of Oscar's that we've attended, it was the first one held at his house. When we walked in the door and saw their train tables, the kids were so happy. That's the best part about going to their classmates' birthday parties: playing with the other kids' toys.

Simon is happy to see a train table!

Max, Lukas, Simon and Alice play with the train table

But then we saw the creatively-landscaped backyard, which was an amazing work of making the most of a small space. Let me see if I can list all of the features:

Felix and Oscar watch Izzy, Alice, and Grayson walk in the stream

• two waterfalls and a stream
• a chicken coop
• a basketball hoop
• a T-ball stand where you smack the ball on to the roof of the garage so it rolls back to you
• a baby swing
• a pergola with climbing pegs stuck into it and a fireman's pole
• a cannon (cast iron, but not real)
• a giant Connect Four game
• a bubble machine (maybe just for the party and not a permanent installation)
• a music wall with pipes and pots and plates to bang on, arranged artistically
• a play kitchen
• a mini-golf putting green
• a scooter, tricycle and custom-painted batmobile

Needless to say, we were immensely jealous and felt like total underachievers.

Alice and Anna push Izzy

Lukas and Alice play with Connect Four

Simon in the Batmobile

Between all the outdoor playthings, the giant train set, and their friends, the kids had a great time. Then, add in some pizza, juice, and cake, and life could really not be any better.

Oscar, Alice, Grayson

Alice only had one meltdown. When they brought out the cake, Alice quickly formulated a plan to go sit by birthday-boy Oscar. She headed over and was nearly there when they started singing. I saw Alice's face start to crumple in disappointment, and I quickly scooped her up and took her inside so her crying wouldn't interfere with the festivities. Between sobs, Alice explained, "They didn't wait for me! They started with out me! I was left out!" I tried to explain that there were a lot of people there and they didn't know she wanted to sit by Oscar, so no malice was intended. She was eventually consoled, and managed to eat a few bites of cake, even although it was chocolate.  Simon, on the other hand, who doesn't show much interest in cake, ate his whole (small) piece. 

Shortly after the cake, we headed home. While I put sleepy Simon down for a nap, Alice played with her party swag. 

Return of the red car

On Sunday morning, the kids woke up early so we had time to play outside before heading to Oscar's birthday party. Alice was riding the green tricycle around in circles while Simon sat on his "motorcycle" and repeated, "Oh! I'm stuck in the grass, mommy!" It's this weird routine he does whenever he's on a bike. He barely scoots around, and then gets "stuck in the grass" for a long time.

Zac had the shed door open because he was getting out clippers to trim some bushes when Alice went in it and saw her red car, which we hadn't gotten out for a while. She immediately wanted to ride it. It was the first time Simon saw the car, and, because of his great love of anything with wheels, it was almost unbearable for him to see Alice riding around in the car and not him.

I soon convinced Alice to give Simon a turn, and offered to let her wash the car while Simon sat in it. Alice loves washing things, so it was a win-win, if you just overlook the reinforcement of stereotypical gender roles.

The Universe according to Alice

Whenever we go anywhere, at some point during the drive, Alice will always ask what side the point of destination is going to be on--her side or Simon's. She likes to know in advance which window to be looking out.

Tonight, one of Alice's bedtime stories was the ABC Universe book. As we looked at a picture of the sun, Alice said, "When we go to space, I think the sun is going to be on my side of the rocket ship. But I won't touch it!" I love how she imagines that in the same way we all pile into the van to go to the swimming pool, one day we'll just pile into our rocket ship and fly by the sun.

Later in the book, we were looking at a picture of a white dwarf, "a star that has run out of energy." I suggested it was probably because it didn't do a good job eating its meals, but Alice had another hypothesis: "I think it is because it barfed up its breakfast and its lunch and its supper and all of its snacks!"

*************

Earlier that day, Alice had somehow got on the topic of Easter, and said, "Does a real bunny come in to our house and hide eggs? That's silly!"

I avoided answering the question by saying, "What do you think?"

A moment later she conjectured, "Maybe it's just a person wearing a costume."

I just repeated what she said: "So you're think it's a person in a costume?"

I always get worried at moments like this that she'll pursue the topic to a point of no return, but just before a critical point, she'll shift topics to something completely mundane, like the location of her chair relative to Simon's. Phew!

Twinkle twinkle, little star

Whenever Simon encounters a star, he will immediately burst into a rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. 

Swimming pool with Grayson

It is too bad that Alice's greatest  joy, swimming, is also the least documented because water is the mortal enemy of cell phones.

On Saturday morning we met Grayson and Lindsey at the Ridge Road Pool. It has a splash yard, a baby pool, and a large pool. Alice, with her short attention span, kept going back and forth from the baby pool to the large pool. She still always uses her water wings and tries to avoid putting her head in the water. But she enjoys kicking around. Grayson, who couldn't find his water wings today, did a great job of putting his face in the water and trying to swim, and jumping off the side. When Alice was two years old, she would do those things, but has become increasingly aware of her mortality, and is more fearful now.

Simon is liking the water more and more. He loved going through the "water tunnel" created by the fountains. He also spent a lot of time in the baby pool playing with toys.Then, in the large pool he let Zac and I push him back and forth across the water while he pretended to swim by flapping his arms and flailing his legs. It was pretty cute.

There was a tragedy during snack break when Alice got sunblock in her eyes (after I reapplied it) and cried for five minutes. I kept telling her to cry with tears, as that would help wash the sunblock out, but alas, not a single tear was shed.

We left just after noon and both kids fell asleep instantly in the van.

The last stay-home-with-the-kids day of summer

Friday marked the last day of the kids' part-time daycare schedule. Next week they will return to full-time and I will return to work on Wednesday. I've enjoyed these days home with them, and with all our visitors and trips, my summer break has flown by. But, I enjoy the stimulation of work, so I don't mind going back.

The day started as all days do: with a battle get Alice to eat breakfast. I keep trying different things, looking for the magic bullet. Today she had a bowl of frozen peas. She liked it, but it still took her forever to eat, and then Simon wanted some and then there were peas all over the floor. So, not the magic bullet.

The kids spent a lot of time playing with the new train table, but Alice hadn't been to the park in a while and was begging to go, so off we went. I'd never taken the kids to the park by myself before, so I gave Alice a big talk on how there was only one mommy for two kids, so I would mostly have to watch Simon and she would have to be very obedient and not run off. She agreed to all these conditions.

When we got to the park, it was empty except one other mother and her daughter. Alice played with me and Simon for a few minutes, but I kept telling her to go try and play with the other girl, and she eventually did. Later, at the sandbox, I was able to talk to the mom, and found out her daughter, Juliet, was about six months younger than Alice. The mom also worked in a school and had her daughter in part-time daycare for the summer and was about to go back to work. What a nice coincidence!

The kids had fun at the playground. Thank goodness Juliet was there to help keep Alice occupied since I needed to stay with Simon the whole time. Both kids love the swings the best, although they'll both play on the other things a bit.

Alice playing with Juliet

But they had the most fun playing bugga-bugga on the empty tennis court on our walk home:

Revealing the new train table!

Right before our trip to the mountains, a giant package arrived on our doorstep. It was Cam's birthday present for Simon. But, since we were getting ready to go out of town, we hid it in Zac's closet. After the trip, the kids had school the next day, so we didn't want to give them a new toy when they wouldn't have time to play with it.

So finally, Thursday night, Zac stayed up late putting the new train table together, since Friday the kids would stay home with me all day and would have plenty of time to play with it. There was a slight security breach while Zac was assembling it when Alice came out to go potty right before bed and escaped to living room. Zac was vague, though, and just said he was assembling a new table. Even that mundane description was enough to excite little Alice, who woke up early the next morning to see the new table.

It kind of worked out that she got up early to see it, that way we could see how Simon reacted to it separately, since Alice tends to dominate so much.

We look forward to many hours of maintenance-free children as they stay occupied with this great train table!

Simon's nice spy camera

Earlier this week, Simon had trouble sleeping and was lying in bed crying. When I went to see what was the matter, I asked him, "What's the matter?"

"I'm scared, mommy!" he said between sobs.

"What are you scared of?"

"I'm scared of the spy camera!"

Ah yes, the terror of the spy camera phase. I remember Alice went through a similar phase around this age, and it really makes sense. It is scary to have a glowing red eye staring at you while you sleep.

I rocked Simon, and read him books, and talked to him about what a nice spy camera he had, but what really seemed to help was turning off the infrared, which enables us to see the kids in the dark, but also causes the glowing red lights.

The next day, I began the exposure therapy. We would look at the spy camera closely, and talk about what a nice spy camera it was and pet it. We'd go visit the spy camera in Alice's room, and look at it, and touch it, and talk about how nice it was.

It seemed to eventually work and Simon stopped waking up at night scared of the spy camera. He may still be slightly scared of it at night, but he tolerates it.

The other effect is that he now thinks it is a fun game to "Go see Simon's nice spy camera" then to "Go see Alice's nice spy camera."  He'll make us go back and forth a dozen times, enjoying facing his nighttime fear in the comfort of daylight.

Morning story

Sometimes, if Simon is having a rough morning, I will read him a story after plucking him out of bed. A good book will quickly make him happy.

"Hello, Mommy speaking"

Simon likes to pretend the scanner on the cash register is a telephone. For a long time whenever he answered a phone, he would say, "Hello, Daddy speaking." Now he's switched it to "Hello, Mommy speaking." He gets his phone etiquette straight from Peppa Pig.

Pisgah Trip Day 4: Arboretum, Bean, home

Monday morning we sadly had our last breakfast on the porch--although the kids were quite happy.

As we were packing up, I noticed a large slug on the sidewalk, and called Simon over to look at it. He watched it for a long time as it slowly slithered across the stones. He was occasionally called out, "Oh! It's running away, Mommy!" which I found hilarious, because, well, it's a slug.

We got all our bags packed up and departed our cabin around 9:30 am, a time which I am reporting because I think it is quite impressive.

Since we were in no hurry to get home, we took advantage of being in the Asheville area and visited the NC Arboretum. They had a cool exhibit about pitcher plants and venus fly traps.

Simon's favorite part was the plastic bugs with velcro on the back that you could stick inside this carnivorous plant. Throughout the rest of the visit, Simon kept saying, "Go see itsy-bitsy spider?"

This was a garden that they designed to look like a quilt.

We were excited to find a large model train set, but then quickly disappointed to discover that the trains only run on Saturdays (today being a Monday).

They had a pretty extensive bonsai exhibit, which was really cool. Zac made a good point that they should really combine the miniature trains with the miniature trees.

There was a nature play area in the woods, and Simon really enjoyed walking on this log.

But Alice, who is terrified of webs, was not happy when Kate picked her up for a closer look at the worms that were eating this tree. She was indeed interested, but scared at the same time, so she kept pressing backwards.

Our final destination in the Asheville area was a newly opened vegan restaurant that Kate and Rob were excited to visit.

We were all happy with our orders in this "cruelty free environment" (as the sign on the door stated) except Alice and Simon, who pretty much only ate fruit and a few fries. But there were no meltdowns (due to the timely and clever deployment of a few trains I had stashed in my purse) so we survived and are gradually overcoming the Ihop trauma through this exposure therapy.

The kids slept most of the way home and we miraculously did the nearly 4-hour drive without any stops. When we dropped Rob and Kate off at their house, Alice went in to use the restroom. When she didn't emerge for several minutes, I went to check on her and found that she had convinced Kate to take her in the basement so Alice could ride on the exercise machines.

When we finally arrived back in our own driveway and let poor Simon out, he immediately sat down in the driveway and started scooting his yellow car back and forth. The boy is obsessed.

All in all, the trip was great. The kids held up much better than expected, especially considering that all of their naps were in the van. It gives me hope.

Pisgah Trip Day 3: Moon tree, train, tunnel, river

Sunday morning dawned bright and foggy. While breakfasting at the picnic table, Zac said, "I've never seen it so foggy and sunny." I then, of course, had to quote Macbeth: "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." But, for the most part, the day ended up being quite fair.

I have failed to mention that there were beautiful horses roaming the fields, adding to the majestic view. For some reason, I barely photographed them, but if you look closely you can see them in front of the fence in the center of this picture.

Our first objective for the day was to visit the Cradle of Forestry in Pisgah. This site is the birthplace of forestry conservation in America. We started by walking on the Forest Festival Trail, which had several points of interest.

The first one was this moon tree, so called because the seed for it went to the moon in 1971, then was planted here in 1976. So Simon is touching the trunk of a Sycamore that grew from a seed that went to the moon.

Here, Alice is marking off items on a scavenger hunt that the center provided. She loved this activity.

Along the trail, there were certain places for kids to play, such as this stump-jumping area.

Here is a log with a saddle on it so we can pretend to ride a horse. It didn't have reins though, so that was disappointing.

These were the vehicles used to build roads in the early 1900s.

Alice checks out a spider web with a magnifying glass.

Sometimes it is a team effort!

But by far the best part of the trail was a real 1915 Climax logging locomotive. The kids could climb all over the engine and ring the bell (which was quite annoying, actually), and walk on the track through the tunnel. Simon had a blast and could not have been happier.

After the trail, we headed back to the picnic area for lunch.

After lunch, the kids were tired, but we tarried on. We went to the inside area, where Rob and Kate watched a documentary about the history of the area, while our kids enjoyed the helicopter and tunnel.

The helicopter was pretty cool because you sat inside it and the screen in front showed a helicopter's view of flying over a forest fire.

But the thing the kids played in the most was the tunnel. They ran through it and chased each other through it dozens of times (it is a C shape). It was quite dark inside and had dimly lit models of animal nests inside. At one point, Simon ran into the tunnel wall, bonking his head and ending up sprawled on the floor. He was having so much fun, he got right up and kept running.

The kids were now thoroughly worn out, so we drove along the beautiful Blue Ridge Parkway for about an hour and a half while the kids napped in the van.

Our final stop for the day, once the kids were awake, was at the river. There are many beautiful and famous waterfalls along this route, but they were all very crowded, so we chose this random spot instead. It was less crowded, but there were still other people around.

Alice was very busy making "chocolate muffins" on this rock for a long time. Simon came to imitate what she was doing, which resulted in Alice screaming, "Ah! Simon's sitting on my chocolate muffins!" as he bent over his own rock and put his bottom on her rock.

After our enjoyable time in the river, we stopped for an ice-cream cone treat on the way back to the cabin.

That evening Zac took the kids on a little walk down to the (fake) water wheel that we had been looking at during all our time on the porch.

It was almost too picturesque!