Tag Archives: kids

Egg Hunt – Ivy Style

While your climbing technique may not quite rival your middle sister’s…Ivy

…you certainly don’t need help like your littlest sister does to find eggs.Ivy

And when it comes to proper containers and egg handling, you’ve got it all figured out.Easter Eggs

All you have to do is keep finding those eggs.Ivy Um… Ivy?Ivy climbs tree

Errr… Ivy? Umm… Did you look just under…

– Oh! –

You were saving that one for Jonas and Jane?Ivy

Silly me. Silly me…

Egg Hunt – Clara Style

Take off at a run toward the highest egg you can see.Clara

Stop at the bottom of the tree. Carefully hang your (optimistically sized) bag on a convenient branch.Clara

Climb tree.Clara

Grab Egg.Clara

Climb back down as you place your new egg in your giant bag.Clara

Repeat. Clara

Come to the sad realization that while you’ve got the best climbing style around, you’re never going to fill that bag.

Egg Hunt – Jane Style

Start with enthusiasm.Jane

Have serious trouble finding eggs and consider letting your over-tired, over-sugared, three year old self start to whine about it.Jane

Then when your Dad steps in to announce, “I can see three eggs from here and I’m color blind!” enlist his help in your egg hunt.Jane & John

And finally, fill your basket Frozen bag…Jane

… with eggs!

Egg Hunt – Jonas Style

Give in to the crazy whims of the horde of adults enthusiastically telling you to pick up the egg on the ground.

Jonas

Wonder what you should do with it.Jonas

Consider snuggling with it.Jonas & Tyler

Consider putting it in the bag.Jonas & Tyler

SMASH the egg into the bag with enthusiasm!Jonas & Tyler

Repeat until your bag is full of nicely cracked eggs to take home.

 

Jonas is, of course, my super cute nephew who came to visit for the weekend. He was even nice enough to bring his mom and dad down for a visit too!

 

Anarchist 2.0 and the Goldfish

Children are masters at wrecking stuff.

I’m not even talking about their mothers’ bodies, peace of mind or plans for Friday night. I’m just, shallowly, talking about stuff.

Stuff like potted plants, picture frames, yoga mats and painted walls. Stuff like chapstick tubes, favorite coffee mugs, screen doors and brown sugar bears. Stuff like glasses, bowls,  plates and your favorite figurine you’ve had since you were a kid.

If you’ve got it, they can wreck it.

And three year olds? Three year olds are wreckin’ it masters.

When Clara was three, John named her The Anarchist.

The universe, finding us cute in our naivety, sent us Jane.Jane crazy eyes

Jane, Anarchist 2.0, puts Clara’s attempts to shame.

Or, *sigh* to be perfectly honest, it’s that with Jane, the third child, came a reduction of her mother’s brain cells. Leaving her poor mother with a memory and attention span that not even a goldfish would envy.

Sadly, that’d be me.

I routinely get distracted somewhere between “Why has Jane been so quiet for the last ten minutes?” and “I better go check on her.” This gives Anarchist 2.0 more than enough time to ply her skills around, say, the bathroom while she, could possibly, empty all the lotion, conditioner, shampoo and stick the band-aids to the toilet, hypothetically of course…

So, if you come to visit and you wonder why we use mason jars as glasses, have band-aids stuck to odd items and finger holes in the screen door. Just remember, an anarchist and a goldfish mom are not a pretty combination, you might want to save yourself while you still can. Jessie and JaneHeaven knows I won’t remember to warn you about the slippery bathroom floor!

 

 

 

Do You Want To Build A Snowman?

We woke to a brief and beautiful return of winter. snowy woodpile  Four inches of the first, perfectly packable, snowman-making snow we’ve had this winter.

Of course I had to ask my biggest Frozen fan “Do you want to build a snowman?”Jane

And she said “No. You build it, I will smash it down.”Jane in snow with fat bat

Obliging mother that I am, I built her a snowman as she waited, fat bat at the ready, to smash it down.Jane smashing snowman

And when there was nothing left but the original ball of snow, her sister took the bat, turned it around and ran the snowman through.Clara delivers killing blow to snowman

I think my girls might be ready for spring.

Morning Things

To say that I’m not at my best in the morning may be an understatement. I am a night owl, I am not a morning person.

But I am an amazingly fortunate night owl,  I rarely have to get up at a prescribed time in the morning. (Thank you Honey!) However, I do have children.

This means that many mornings I lie in bed three quarters asleep trying hard to be all the way asleep while children drape themselves over me and talk to me in ridiculously loud voices. I respond in grunts, mumbles and sometimes yells (Don’t ever tickle my feet or stick your finger up my nose when I’m sleeping I do not like it.) that I hope will make them all be quiet for just ten more minutes. (Ten minutes is, of course, the magical morning time that will make everything better.)

This is not my proudest moment of the day.

I look sort of like this in the morning but grumpier and less cute.

I look sort of like this in the morning but grumpier and less cute.

It takes a Thing to get me up. An extra nudge to convince me that leaving my comfy bed, where sleep might still happen, is what needs to be done. Often the Thing is the beckoning bathroom. (Which makes me feel old.) Some days it’s the sound of children getting into what they shouldn’t. (Think, yogurt falling out of the refrigerator, and chairs being moved for access to high places.) Sometimes the Thing takes the form of animal mischief.  (Puking cats, barking dogs, frightened chicken noises…) On terrible mornings the Thing is a warm wet puddle spreading from a nearby child. And on horrible days the Thing is the alarm clock and my conscience. It is rare that a conversation with a child will be the Thing to rouse me in the morning but it does occasionally happen. (Read Just Imagine for a rather dramatic example.)

On a recent morning Clara was snuggled into my nice cozy bed and talking at me about, well, actually, I have no idea what it was about. Clara was talking and I was making mumbly, grunty noises hoping she’d stop when she dropped a Thing into conversation.

“Mom, when Trip dies, you can make him into hot dogs.”

It was, without a doubt, a Thing. Suddenly I was wide awake, simultaneously giving a lesson on what hot dogs are made of, proclaiming that no one is ever eating our dogs and getting her breakfast ready. Just in case my neglecting to get out of bed in a reasonable amount of time and feed her was giving her ideas.

 

Snow Melt

In less than a week we have gone from over a foot of snow cover to mud with patches of icy slush.

Clara has tried to make the best of the situation.mud sledding

Jane and I appreciate Clara’s efforts but we feel the same way about the loss of our snow.Jane crying on sled

And Ivy…Ivy  …Ivy is ready to embrace all the warm weather she can get!