Backyard Shenanigans

What began as a morning of yard work turned into a backyard water fight. :) Love my boys.

Feeling a Little Blue (and Purple)

Last night, around 12:30, a wheezing boy with a barking cough wandered into our room seeking comfort. We've got the drill down-pat, you see. Sick kid climbs in bed with Mommy while Daddy moves into the guest bedroom (when given the chance, we've got perpendicular sleeping kids).

After a steamy shower and refilling the humidifier, Jonathan and I settled into a restless sleep. Feeling better this morning, but not 100%, I told the boys we would have to postpone our plans of eating lunch with Opa.

James pouted for at least an hour. I can't blame him, I was bummed, too.

So, with the day ahead of us and an only semi-sick boy, we decided to think of some fun things to do. The boys came up with, "collection day." Already acknowledging their fascination with "collections" (which often includes items that clearly constitutes as garbage), might possibly be the gateway drug to hoarding, I gave into their plans. Just like I always do.

Today's "collection," however was not of the garbage collecting variety (yay!), but instead merely of color. Jonathan decided to make a collection of blue things while James focused on purple. Let's just say in a house of four boys (I'm including the dog here) and only one girl, we have a LOT of blue stuff. Realizing this James said, "Mommy? I feel like we need to focus on getting more purple stuff in our house."

Cats in the Hats

The boys had a party to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday at preschool today and came home with some pretty adorable hats and edible crafts. While I'm not an especially huge fan of Dr. Seuss, the boys sure love The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That on PBS and I'll admit, Are You My Mother? was one of my favorite board books to read to the boys before naptime when they were babies.

At lunchtime today, I asked them about their fun day at school and James had this to say:

"Mommy, it was a celebration. Not a party. A party has cake. This one had ham." :)

Here's Mud in Your Eye

I think when new mothers find out they are having a boy (or two), they should get an instruction manual about raising them. If I were to write said manual, for example, I would include things about enduring detailed conversations about potty experiences, how a tackles count as a hugs and to expect a lot of dirt.

So much dirt, in fact, many moms might find it necessary to have two pairs of play shoes for each boy in addition to their "good" pair (that is getting dirtier by the day).