Language Lessons

Since the boys aren't in school yet, they have been delightfully sheltered from colorful language.  I think they believe "stupid" to be the worst word possible.  And I'm pretty happy about that.  Yesterday, though, I got a glimmer of what is to come when they start school and get exposed to older kids or their friends who have older siblings.

We were in the car, just pulling into a parking spot, and I hear Graeme say: "What out house hole."  Excuse me?  What was that?  He says it again with a mischievous smile.  I resist the urge to correct him; instead, we have a little conversation about polite words and tone of voice.

But this is a sign that our little world is changing.  I love that they are still little enough to be clueless about mean words and not-so-nice people.  School might be a rude awakening.  For now, we are doing our best to make sure they aren't the ones using the mean words.If anything, we have a new code word.  Don't a be "house hole."

As the snow melts...

As the snow melted over the weekend, we found a few exciting things.  First, a trail to follow.   

Big paw prints in the snow, which lead to:

 "I found a heart!" Graeme exclaimed.  

Gavin and I hadn't seen it as we followed the trail.  

Just a little reminder that love is everywhere.  

Barf, I know.  But still cute.

And then he found a letter: "P" 

It's backwards, so maybe it is really a lower case "b," but who can be picky when you're finding letters in the snow.

After that, we found a little glimmer of hope.  Springtime might just come pretty quick.  I'd forgotten about planting new bulbs in the front yard and they were a fun surprise.  Now if I can keep the boys from stomping on all of them unawares...

...I also received the seeds I ordered for the Spring/Summer garden!  Very exciting!  I got three new types of tomato seeds and new types of cucumbers.  When we start planting indoors, I'll write more about what we're planting and how helpful the boys might be.  They are enthusiastic, so we'll see if that translates to actual productivity.  Because, you know, that's what little boys are known for, for sure.

Snowy Days

Well, it is the fifth day at home for me and the boys.  Monday was a holiday, so my morning yoga class was cancelled anyway, but then the snow decided to join us and stay.  It is still here.  And I am ready to head to Mexico.  Seriously!  I guess if you got snow like this all the time, you'd know how to drive in it and, thus, not be home bound.   The cities may also have enough plows and staff or who-knows-what else is needed to keep the roads clear and safe.  Not so here.  I have to admit, it was nice to have a week off to sleep in until 7am as all my early yoga classes were cancelled.  But, let's here it for rain and warm temps!  I think we're all ready for our normal gray.  (I find myself quoting Thomas the Train: Snow, pah!  Silly white stuff!)

Here are a few pictures of our house, and the convenient sledding hill right outside our doorstep.  The fun part about all the snow (aside from copious amounts of hot cocoa) turns out to be the neighborhood gatherings every afternoon for sledding.  We meet our neighbors yet again and sheepishly ask their names - we wrote them down this time!  But all the kids are out, and even some of the older neighbors take their turn down the hill on sled or skis or snowboards.

 View from across the street.  

More snow came after this photo as well.

 Graeme taking care of Crushety Crush, the monster truck tractor who the boys carry around like a puppy.  He had a cold night outside on the bench.

Gavin and I sledding.  He made two runs with me before he decided that it was much more important to shovel the driveway and scrape off the cars.  It was snowing so much that both those tasks were constant.  But Gavin had to do his job!  (I wish he was that diligent about his jobs inside... like cleaning up toys and putting clothes in the hamper!)

 After it got too cold and dark outside for us, we came in for dinner and a game of Scrabble.  We played teams and, though Graeme was on my team, you could imagine he wasn't the most helpful.

Here is is holding all but two letters, putting them in his shirt saying: "No, Mummy, the letters are scared of you!"  Not so conducive to teamwork.  (But for the record I still won.)

The Negotiator

You may be able to guess about whom I am speaking.  He will present his ideas, enforce them if possible, and negotiate at length to get what he wants.  (For the record, if said negotiation does not work or is not understood by younger playmates, rougher tactics may be used.  We are working on that.)  Indeed, he rarely stops talking - so much so that you have to laugh.  He is SO focused on how things should be; it really is quite amazing.  I'm not really sure where I'm going with this, but it had to be documented in some way.  I'll give you an example.

Today, we packed up for a little run around Kirkland with the boys' bikes.  There's a nice, flat paved trail that  wanders down to the main "beach" area by the lake.  Our goal was to give the boys are little ride and get a walk in ourselves.  Gavin, of course, had his own plan.  As we were leaving home, he began talking about making crafts.  With trash.  Then he proceeded to explain to us that the only reason to go to the beach was to find trash to bring home for making crafts.  We could bring it home, put it in the school room, and then make crafts.  (No, Gavin, we are not bringing trash home for crafts.)  Well, that's the only reason to go to the beach... We could go to the beach, find some trash, and bring it home for making crafts!

And on and on... all the way to the beach.  While we were at the beach.  And on the way home.  Luckily for us, Kirkland beach is pretty clean.  Not much trash to be found.  Phew.

He is incredibly sweet with all of his plans, and makes us smile in lots of other ways too.  For instance, Craig enjoys the fact that Gavin's starting to finish sentences with "Eh".  As in: "Crushety Crush will really like the new house we built for him, eh?"  He also says, "Zed."  (I tell him to at least say "Zee" here and "Zed" in Canada.  But so far I'm not winning this one.)

And one last example of his quirkiness, we got a page-a-day Dot-to-Dot calendar for Christmas.  Gavin loves this.  He does it everyday.  It is for adults, so the numbers go quite high... and he says, "Kachow!" every time he passes the number 95.  Can you figure out why?

Everyday Excitement

If only I could capture and share the excitement of every moment of Graeme's day, the world couldn't help but smile.  No matter what he is doing, he has this incredibly cute (usually high-pitched) energy about him.  Tonight we are having "Movie night" and he's been bouncing around all day, singing "I want movie night!  Is it dark out?  Is it time for movie night?"  He even peeks trough the curtains to check if the sun has gone down.  He runs with a little hop everywhere he goes.  He bounces.  It's lovely.

If he finds the right puzzle piece, he has this guttural, self-satisfied laugh that is precious.  I need to catch it on video.  For Christmas, he got a number of presents, but the most exciting were the few packing peanuts that were left in the bag of gifts from my parents.  "I got some 8's!" he shouted.  "I love 8's!"  Then he found a suitable plastic cup for them to sleep in and carried them around for the next few days.  Once forgotten, I threw them away (horrible mum that I am) thinking that was that.  A few days later, however, Gavin was snooping (as he often does) for toys or snacks or anything new and interesting.  Lo and behold, he finds a very large bag full of packing peanuts from the larger box of gifts sent by my parents for Christmas.  The scene unfolded as follows:

"Hey, look!  It's a big bag of 8's for Graeme!," says Gavin,  "Hey, Graeme, look it's a bunch of 8's for YOU!"

I say, "Oh, Gavin, let's not get those out.  They will just be a mess and I don't want you to --"

Graeme enters, "My 8's!  I love 8's!!  I want to count them all!  I love to count."  And then he proceeds to grab the bag and drag it out into the living room.  Since I love for them to count - practice is good, right? - and it is cute that they are still entertained by packing peanuts, I make them a deal.

"Here, Graeme, how about this... I'll give you some to count, but I get the rest of the bag so things don't get too messy."  He agreed. And I dished out a couple handfuls of peanuts.  (He can only count to eleven after all.)  Everyone wins.