Good Bye to Daddy's Glasses

Good bye glasses.

Mommy's glasses
Daddy's glasses.

We're down to
one pair
each.

It's sad to see
them go.

They've served us well
and lived to tell

of many a time
in a child's hands
and yes,
drooly mouths.

Till now.

Jake and Katie,
you've done it.

Between the two of you
destroyed

at least 4
pairs of glasses

(maybe more
cause daddy's a collector
and I don't know what
he's got goin' on)

ahem...

please, have mercy
on these, our last two.

Katie and Jacob go to Play Center

Katie and Jake went to play center last night. It was great! We got there in time for Katie to make a cornucopia. Everything was already cut out so all we... I mean all she had to do was glue it down and draw the lines (like for the grapes and banana and stuff). She did great with the glue and the lines. We hung it up on the drying hanger and she went to play.

She was going to play with some fruit and scales until I drew her attention to the COOLEST dollhouse and dollhouse accessories! I think she played with that for at least 30 minutes with grandma while I wrangled Jake. He loved watching the kids and crawling on the toys. He even pushed one of those little vacuum cleaner type toys with the balls and when you push it the balls bounce and make popping noises. I held him up so he could stand but he used his little legs to move!

It was fun.

At the end of the night, after clean up time, the kids sat in a circle and the teacher led them in a song. They had "maracas" they made out of milk jugs from McDonald's and rice and shook those for the song.

I guess I should mention here that *some* of the jugs had beads, some had dry corn, and some had rice. The rice jugs weren't too loud but the bead jugs were verrrrry noisy.

And Katie is a little picky about noise. In fact, when she's not making it, she expresses a very strong dislike for it.

And these jugs were loud.

I was very proud of her when she joined in, despite the noise, and shook her little shaker just like the others.

I held my breath a little when I saw that she was shaking a little less each time that part of the song came up. Till finally her shaker, still in her hand, was resting on the floor. Whew. I was worried that she would throw it down and have a loud fit... telling everyone what she thought of the noise.

We got through the song and had a story. I liked it and I thought she did too.

Then we sang the goodbye song and headed out.

As we were leaving the parking lot, Katie says "Mama, I don't like that. I don't like the story and the singing."

So I decided to roll with it and I said that she didn't have to go back next week and then she was all "but I like play center, I want to go back!" and I was all, "Okay, but not next week because play center's closed."

Crisis averted. Again.

Go stand outside!

So about two weeks ago I was going to the store with Katie. She was wearing a dress. To be more exact, she was wearing a sun dress. A little chilly for the weather, I know but it's warm in the house and she's pretty much the dictator for what goes on while the kids are with daddy. I've come home to find her in a long-sleeve, heavy fabric dress in the summer and her sun dress in the winter and those are just the days when she's actually in "outside" clothes. I've pretty much decided to let it go and call it a draw. (And yes, we've tried to put an outfit in her "tomorrow spot" but if she's not "feeling it" she won't wear it.)

So, back to the store...


Katie didn't want to change out of the sun dress which was my first suggestion. And she sure didn't want to put pants on *under* the sun dress, which was my second, ahem... suggestion.

Finally I decided tough love might be the answer and I unlocked our sliding door and looked at her. She said "what mama?" in that cute *I don't know what you could possibly want from me... I already said I didn't want to put pants on or change my outfit so let's head out already* voice. She had on her shoes and socks and jacket and I ... I told her to go stand outside.

She happily went out and stood by the house. Smiled at me while enjoying the great outdoors. And didn't seem cold at all. Then I figured that standing next to the house wasn't the same as walking into a store so I figured she needed to go out a little more... to really experience the great outdoors.

So I sent her to the farthest part of the deck. She still didn't quite get it. Till I asked her if she was cold. She denied being anything less than cozy and warm but was ready to come in pretty quickly to get her pants on so we could go.

I guess that's "thinking outside of the box."

Mommy - 1, Katie - 0 (at least for now).