Perfect Fun

My friend always tells me I have "the perfect family," presumably because I have been married to the same man for almost 10 years and we have one boy, one girl, one dog, one cat, American flag out front, white picket fence out back, we are attempting to grow a vegetable garden and until recently drove a mini-van.  

This weekend, we added a Badminton Set to the yard... and as I was making this purchase, I thought about that comment & began to wonder if by "perfect" my friend meant total dorks!!!

Parenting at its Best

While I would give anything to have another child, because I just LOVE, LOVE, LOVE babies, there is something wonderful about having a 6 year old and 3 year old who can entertain themselves.

Case in point - this afternoon after swim class - Henry and Kyra were very sweetly playing on the computer.  They have both rediscovered Thomas the Train (Henry was a HUGE and I mean HUGE fan of Thomas when he was Kyra's age) and were on the Thomas website.  So Brad and I laid down on the couch & recliner and took a bit of a cat nap.  We were in the next room, we would have heard screams, and it wasn't a deep sleep by any means.

At one point, Kyra came into the living room and asked me to play the Thomas Matching Game with her... half asleep, I think I said, "Yes Honey, set it up" and she did.  A few minutes later, at least I think it was a few minutes, she said, "Henry do you want to play Thomas Matching Game with me?" and Henry said rather loudly, "Yes, Kyra I will play with you because I do not want you to play all by yourself."  

Cat nap over!  

Of course, now that the two of them have fallen asleep, you don't see me trying to get them to play with me!  No, on the contrary, I've got close caption working on the TV and am about to turn the telephone ringer off!!

New PJs

I bought Kyra some Dora the Explorer PJs, which she thinks are the coolest thing ever. She is just loving Dora these days. Anyway, the PJs came as a set of 3 - top, shorts & pants. I put the pants & top on her last night - the pants are wide leg and rather flowy, not like sweatpants if you can picture it. As soon as she was dressed, she said, "Oh look, I'm like a mother!"

I didn't quite 'get' why she said that until I put on my own PJs later that night & realized that ALL of my pajamas are oversized, flowy pants!

If only the battery on my camera hadn't died, I'd have taken a picture for you...

"My Mother" by Henry James

One of the best things about KDG is the plethora of goodies they did with the kids for Mother's Day.  Henry was SO excited to give me each item - small heart shaped clay bowl he made in art, butterfly hand prints and a couple of cards - one with his picture in it.  They were all great!  I think my favorite was a fill in the blank that he was given, which he colored & then glued to a pink piece of paper.  It read as follows, with Henry's hand written answers (completely accurate) in italic:

My Mother

My Mother's name is Danielle.

My Mother is 37  years old.

My Mother's hair is brown.

My Mother likes to play with me.

My Mother's favorite food is vanilla ice cream with choc. syrup.

My Mother's favorite color is red.

I love my Mother!  Happy Mother's Day!

Love, Henry

Then today, perhaps in an effort not to be outdone, Kyra came home with a picture she drew for me for Mother's Day.  It was a picture of a pumpkin... and for the very first time, her drawing actually resembled exactly what she said it was!!

Discover This

Today, after dance class & swim class, we took the kids to Discovery Place.  They are currently having a CIRCUS exhibit so I thought that would be cool.  First we checked out the dinosaurs, of which the kids were really not a fan.

Then they both got to sit in the chair that goes up based on air pressure... or something... did I mention this is first & foremost a science museum?  I probably could have learned a thing or two had I been able to read the posted signs, as opposed to getting pulled into a hundred different directions.

Then we were off to the "big tent."  This was really cool.  They had a bunch of things for the kids to dress up as - ring masters, clowns, strong man, animals too.  Henry had a blast!  He wanted to be the ring master & he stood in the center of the tent & used this big megaphone to shout out what was happening next at his circus.  It was really cute!

Kyra is really strong, isn't she?

Time for a costume change...

Kyra was not a fan of the costumes... partly because they were too big for her!

Costume change #3 for the Boy - this one he loved because it was a coat w/ tails, which he referred to as his cape & he stared at himself in the mirror, doing karate moves & twists & turns!

Another favorite was the "who dung it?" exhibit... I kid you not!  Four piles of dung with clues about the animals & you had to guess which it was.   This is Kyra in front of zebra dung.

And this is Henry in front of (and touching I might add) the elephant dung, plastic of course, but life-like looking, don't you think?

Then we went downstairs to check out some other things, but spent most of our time in front of a blue screen where if you pressed a button, you could look at yourself on TV and it was like you were a real weatherman.  Henry really liked this one too - he kept moving so much though that I couldn't get a picture of him.  He was cracking us up - saying things like "heavy rain along I77 moving towards Raleigh!"

So Discovery Place is no Strong Museum of Play (in Rochester), but it made for a fun afternoon nonetheless... and the pizza we had on the way home made for a really easy dinner!!!