Aaaahh, I'm going to be so tired tomorrow... It is 2:00 AM and I just got back a little while ago from scrapbook night. It was fun, of course, but boy will I pay for it tomorrow. It is outing day tomorrow so I'm going to have to think of something really low-key.
Today after preschool I took the boys to the Weston park that we like. By coincidence I ended up sitting on a bench next to another woman with her two kids who turned out to be Mormon too! She was on her cell phone and was talking to a friend about her mom and grandma in Idaho, so I thought maybe she was LDS, and then I saw garment lines and so I was pretty sure. I made sure to call out to Brigham by name a couple of times when she was within earshot, and sure enough she approached me and asked what church I went to. This may not seem so weird to some of you but there are not that many LDS people out here so it was kind of a strange coincidence that she was at that same park as us.
I like that park and the boys played well and even let me read a few pages of my book. At one point Joseph and Brigham tried to climb over the 4 foot high chainlink fence that surrounded the sand area, and they could actually do it, too! They did get various clothing articles (shorts, shoe laces) caught on the top of the fence but once I freed them, they could scramble over pretty well.
Joseph stayed busy digging a big hole in the sand, looking for "treasure." He was very excited when he found a dime *and* a bolt in the sand. He really loves looking for "treasure," which can be anything from a scrap of paper to an old beer bottle top. I guess I should make a little treasure box for him where he can keep these treasures. It would be pretty funny years down the road to look at all the things he found. Yesterday when Cassidy was over for the afternoon, he spent about 15 minutes drawing chalk "x's" on the sidewalk all the way around the block, making a pirate's treasure map. He's told me a couple of times that maybe he will be a pirate when he grows up so he can find treasure.
Brigham made me laugh out loud today at the park. He got some sand in his eyes and wanted me to get it out. I told him I couldn't really get the sand out of his eyes, but not to worry because his tears would wash it out (it was just a tiny amount). After a second he goes, "Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh" (imagine your best fake crying sound) and then says, "Mom, I can't make my crying work so I don't have tears!" It was just so funny that he thought he could just immediately start crying and make tears come on demand! I told him that if he just blinked his eyes a lot his eyes would water and flush out the sand.
Mosey just never fails to amaze me. He really thinks he can do anything his brothers can. At the park there is this ladder-type-thing leading up to the play structure. It is a ladder which then curves horizontally to meet the play structure platform. This is a tricky piece of equipment to master, and it was not too long ago that the big boys finally got it. Well, I was sitting on my bench reading my book and I notice Mosey walking across the platform to the slide, and then sliding down, walking back around behind the play structure and then appearing again on the platform. He did this a few times before it occurred to me that the only way to get up to the platform from back there was on that ladder thing. So I went over there to watch, and sure enough, he was climbing up all by himself! It took him a minute or so to stay balanced and move from one rung to the next, but he did it! His talking is getting better by the day, too. He can now say multi-word sentences such as "I don't want to, mom," and "Open this orange, mom." He often will add "mom" on to the end of his sentences when he is talking to me, and it is so funny how he says it. His inflection on the word "mom," sounds almost accusatory, like, "Mo-om," with his voice dipping down first and then coming back up. He also has been taking showers with me recently, and letting me wash his hair and everything. Even the big boys won't take showers!
Our afternoon project was making orange juice. The boys really wanted to squeeze some orange sections into a cup at the park to make juice, but I convinced them to wait until we got home and we could make real orange juice with my citrus juicer. Joseph wanted to make the juice, put it on the table, and then hide till Ben got home. His idea was that Ben would come in the house, see the juice on the table, wonder who possibly could have left it there, and then when he drank it, we would all pop out and surprise him and tell him we made the juice! It was a good plan and would have worked except that Ben got home before we were done making the juice... And naturally, during the making and drinking of the juice, 3 not-quite-empty cups of juice did end up on the table, kitchen chairs, and floor... Ah well, I needed to mop the floor again anyway, right?
Ok, that's it for tonight. I'm off to grab 3.5 hours of sleep before I have to get up again.