Hootball

While pregnant with Grant, people would ask me if I wanted a boy this time since I already had a girl. I'd answer that I didn't have a preference, I'd love to have a boy but I also loved the idea of sisters. But if I had a boy, he wasn't playing football. I had a whole plan laid out where I'd get him involved with soccer, which conveniently runs at the same time as football.

So, of course, Grant's newest obsession is "hootball". Just about anything can turn into a "hootball hat" - an empty box, Hub's hats turned backwards so the strap runs across his nose, his own too small bucket hat with the chin strap across his nose, the little rubbermaid that holds the bean bags at Wigglin Worship, anything. He loves to put on his hootball hat and have you roll the football to him. Then, with impressive skill, he kicks it right back. It has a perfect arc, it stays nice and straight, and he manages this perfection with every single kick. He'll play for as long as you'll roll the ball to him.

So I've been forced to amend my previous statement about my son never playing football. He can play football, but he can only play kicker. It's a nice compromise I think. Grant gets to play football, and I keep my sanity around it since there are rules about not hitting the kicker. We both win.

Checking things off

• finished book club book - check

• restrung blinds - check

• neighborhood walk - not so much, quick trip to the store instead when I realized I had agreed to bring 2 dozen cookies to preschool tomorrow for a staff luncheon

• baked 2 dozen cookies - check

• break when Hubs got home - nope. He's sick with a cold and in trial so no break in the horizon. That's okay, I'm feeling zen about it. MOPS is tomorrow, that always helps!

On the agenda for today

Hubs "conveniently" booked an early afternoon flight (convenient for him maybe, he gets to sleep in) so he won't be home until late afternoon. So, on the agenda for today?

Well we started the day with Grands cinnamon rolls, frosting and all. Quite a treat around here. And still the yumminess I remember from my childhood. Now I'm sipping coffee and the kids are racing around in the back of their dump trucks. They squeeze their hineys into the back and use their feet to move the trucks. Then they race around the house and dump each other out. It's pretty comical.

Then we're off to church for 2 services, I'm working in the nursery for one of them and then worshiping in the other. Being in Sunday School for 2 services always equals tired kids so we'll rush home for a quick lunch and then resting time. Ahhhhh resting time. I've got plans to finish my book club book (did I mention I joined a book club? It's a bunch of same age gals from church) which I still haven't decided if I like or not. Then maybe I'll restring those blinds I didn't do last night. Mom called and we girl chatted instead.

I think a neighborhood walk is in order too. Grant and I have been working on walking calmly next to me (yes, like teaching a dog to heel) and he's a superstar at it now. Thus he can walk on our neighborhood walks and collect leaves and stones and sticks to his heart's content. We just wander up the road for a bit, then mosey our selves back home. It's fun.

When Hubs gets home I'm taking some sort of break. I'm not sure what....but I've got all day to decide! Oh dear, Emma got dumped out of her truck one to many times. Maybe it's time for a quick Signing Times video to chill some bodies out.

A little bit of this and a little bit of that

Grant is going potty almost exclusively in the potty now!!! Poops are hit or miss, but he pees everytime. And most of the time without me asking him, he just runs his little hiney into the bathroom and clamors up onto the potty. Awesome job little dude!

Grant has also discovered a love for the word "why" this week. I was hoping beyond hope that he would skip this stage, what with the late talking and all. Sadly, it was not to be. It's as irritating this time around as it was with Emma.

Emma is obsessed with coloring. All coloring, all the time. When she's home, it's pretty much all she does now. We're single handedly destroying the forests of America and keeping the paper companies in business.

Emma's new thing right now is "What can I do to be helpful?" when I announce dinner is almost ready. It's wonderful to have a helper setting the table, getting milk cups out, pushing Grant in, carrying my water to the table for me.

Hubs is out of town this weekend at a wedding for some college friends. A weekend away wasn't in the cards for us since we just went out of town for a hockey game a few weeks ago. So I'm home with the kids, doing the same thing I do M-F. And trying not to be bitter. They hung with my inlaws this morning, then this afternoon we went to get the car washed (they love to watch the cars go through and get soaped up, it's a car wash where you are NOT inside the car). Things started getting chaotic right around 5pm when the no nap crazies started to rear their ugly heads. After an early dinner, I popped in home videos from last year. Awwww they were so little then! Grant had so much hair and it was still red, and Emma's little 3 year old voice was the cutest thing ever. It was hard for me to turn the video off for bedtime!

Now I've got the whole evening ahead of me. Alone. Blissful. I'm going to eat dinner, and then re string the blinds that the kids broke. Good times.

First 5k - done.

I started off my first 5k today with two goals - finish the race running and not get lapped by the 10ker's who were starting 35 minutes later. I didn't care about my finish time, I didn't care how many times I had to stop to walk, and, much to Emma's horror, I didn't care if I won.

Well, I met both my goals. In fact, I ran the ENTIRE race. And at a pretty good pace too! The run was through a great neighborhood, it was perfectly cool weather, and apparently I have a lot more energy for running in the morning than I do after living my life all day. Hubs, the kids, my brother, sil, and niece were all at the finish line cheering me on so when I rounded the corner and saw the finish line I also heard all of them shouting for me! It was so great to have the family rally around me, get themselves up out of bed early, and then stand around waiting for me to finish. That doesn't happen much to moms, it seems like we do a lot of cheering on, but don't always get a lot of cheering. It was great to have such an awesome run, to have accomplished a goal, and then have a cheering squad to walk back to after the race was over. I'm a lucky girl.

A perk of the run is free admission through the back of the zoo, so we spent the rest of the morning with my brother's family, casually wandering through the zoo. Everyone had their listening ears on, the whining was at a mininum, and the weather continued to be great. At one point Hubs and I were walking ahead of the group, trying to catch up with Grant, and he mentioned that Emma was noticeably bothered when the first runner turned the corner to finish and it wasn't me. He finished in 15ish minutes. I finished in 35 minutes. Emma later suggested I run the race faster next year so I can win. I'm not holding my breath.

But the fun doesn't stop with the morning. After resting time we're headed over to a friend's house to help break in their new blow up pool. Then we're tucking the kids into bed and having dinner on our own while watching The Amazing Race.

It's going to be hard to have a better day than today has been.

Tongs

When Grant was still an infant, I went to a Pampered Chef party and won a cheapo pair of bamboo tongs. Emma loved them, and begged to eat something for dinner she could pick up with tongs. The plan that night for dinner included asparagus, which would be perfect for picking up with tongs. That night, after meticulously picking up each stalk of asparagus she ate, Emma had more asparagus for dinner than she had eaten in a lifetime. She was addicted to using the tongs, and knew she could only use them if she ate the asparagus. And it continues - she downs asparagus every time we have it simply because she adores using the tongs.

Fast forward a year or two, and now Grant is intrigued by the tongs. But he despises asparagus. He's never ever eaten an entire bite of asparagus, much less an entire stalk. He wouldn't eat it pureed as an infant, he wouldn't eat it cut in circles, or cut in spears or just simply cut in half to make it easy for him to hold. He's never eaten more than one bite.

Until tonight. He was dying to use the tongs after watching Emma pick up stalk after stalk. But he wouldn't eat any asparagus. We told him over and over that he could use the tongs as soon as he ate the asparagus on his plate. But he ate around it instead. Finally, Hubs says it again and it sinks in. He eats rapid bite after rapid bite, finishing his entire stalk of asparagus in 30 seconds flat.

Then pushes his plate away, takes a last sip of his milk, says he's all done, and asks for a cookie.

That's right, he ate the entire stalk of asparagus so he could use the tongs to pick up another stalk, and then never used the tongs at all.

Zoom zoom zoom

My first 5K starts at 8 am on Sunday! Are you totally jealous of my awesome t-shirt?