Little Boys

Today started with a visit to the Franklin Park Conservatory. They have an amazing exhibit that features "hundreds of butterflies from more than 100 species from around the world". To my dismay, there were lots of class field trips going on and the garden walkways were pretty crowded.

The boys were not in the least bit hindered by groups of students and teachers and managed to worm their way to the front of a class. This particular class was attentively listening as their teacher described the Blue Morpho butterfly resting on a nearby plant. As the narrative continued, the unfortunate insect decided to go once more into flight - directly into the airspace of a certain little Noah. Before I could react, and to the shock and horror of all the students and teachers watching, Noah proceeded with his best Karate Kid imitation to catch and squish the butterfly in his fist. Embarrassingly, it only got worse as I had significant difficulty wrenching open his clenched, dimpled fingers.

RIP

After nap time, we took a short trip to the library. We have wonderful libraries in our area and they are apparently a huge hit with the retired community as well who were filling the atrium's sitting/reading area. En route to the checkout desk, we had to pass by the comfortable reading chairs- or as Calvin calls them "thinking chairs" (they really do resemble the Blue's Clues chair).
I must quickly interject that I have never seen Calvin do anything like what happened next, and I'm pretty sure I can't even blame this one on RB...

As Calvin passed by an empty "thinking chair" he pressed his face against the arm, and, maintaining contact, continued walking... effectively wiping his nose against the entire length of the nice piece of furniture. The little old lady sitting in the next chair watched with disgust as I, for the second time today, grabbed my boys and quickly left the area.

We Love Noah

In case anyone[else] is worried about our lack of Noah posts, I assure you that this little boy is in no way overlooked. While he has added a few additions to his vocabulary, he still communicates mainly through gestures and looks, and these just don't translate to blog posts.

His latest accomplishments include shoving an entire banana into his mouth, holding five monster trucks in his little chubby hands at the same time, finally throwing a ball up onto the top bunk, and hiding everything that is dear to RB- car keys, xbox controller, and the tv remote.

Here are just a few of his looks- see if you can translate...

"dog"

Mermaid

I've never had to worry about Calvin getting into fights or hurting other children- usually he just runs to mommy. As we discovered last week however, apparently he can only be pushed so far.

One of Calvin's friends was over for the afternoon and they had been playing nicely on the porch for quite some time when I noticed their voices getting louder. Before too long, Calvin was calling me. As soon as I reached them he then instructed me to tell his friend that he was NOT a mermaid. I told them both that of course Calvin wasn't a mermaid and that seemed to end the conflict... or so I thought.

Three minutes later I heard a little boy howling in pain and ran to see what happened. I found Calvin holding his toy lacrosse stick behind his back and his sweet little friend in tears and grabbing his head.

"He kept calling me a mermaid" was Calvin's only reply.

Calvinisms

"Excuse me Sir, I have a comment"

Now that Calvin has been in primary for over three months, I was hoping that his sitting-quietly-and-listening skills would improve. Sadly, this is not the case. He truly believes that if anyone is talking, it needs to be him.

Instead of fighting this behavior, our kind leaders asked Calvin to give his first talk a few weeks ago. Calvin was thrilled at the opportunity to finally get behind the microphone. When the time arrived for him to go up to the mike, I was right beside him getting ready to whisper into his ear word-for-word what he planned on saying. Instead of waiting to be told what to say, he lowered the mike directly in front of his mouth and started without me (though it had nothing to do with his actual talk).

After lots of help from teachers and discussions with mommy and daddy, we've finally gotten the point across to him that sometimes he just needs to listen to what others have to say and that if he wants to make a comment, he should to raise his hand. The only thing that seems to have gotten through to him is the raising hand thing. Of course, he doesn't wait until called on, he just raises his hand and says, "Excuse me Sir, I have a comment." (It's probably worth mentioning that all of our primary leaders are women.) This is usually amusing enough to the person speaking that they stop and listen to whatever random thought Calvin feels like sharing and thus the behavior remains enforced. Still, I'm going to say that it's a step in the right direction.


"You're my Best Player"

Calvin hates to say goodbye to anyone. Lately, right before we leave anywhere, he's started coming up with dramatic farewells. For instance, a commonly used one for RB as he's heading out the door is, "Daddy, you're my beeesssst daddy." He always delivers these lines with his puppy dog eyes, nodding his little head, making the most adoring/sappy look imaginable.

My favorite goodbye for the week came when it was time to leave after playing at a friend's house. At the appropriate time, the little schmoozer got all sentimental and said, "Thanks for letting me come over. You're my beeesssst player."

"I know, he's my fire hydrant."

Calvin loves firefighters. Yet for some reason, he can never remember the term "firefighters" and instead always refers to them as "fire-hydranters" (this could be because of the game we used to play in the car of spotting fire hydrants, but still, I thought the term firefighter would be cool enough for him to remember).

Today as the boys were playing, I overheard him explain to Noah that they were both "fire-hydranters". Calvin hates to be wrong, so as I started to correct him once more, telling him, "You mean fireFIGHTERS," he interrupted me and said, "No mom, I know, he's my fire HYDRANT." So then, just to save face, he acted like he meant to say hydrant and proceeded to attach a pretend hose to Noah, who of course just stood there and laughed.

"Mommy, I made a bad choice."

This line is one that is, sadly, used too often by Calvin. When he says it, I always have to take a deep breath and brace myself for something I don't want to see. The most recent use of it took place after he had colored all over our one nice rug with a black crayon.

The most memorable time happened a while ago on a trip with RB's family. The short version is that we suckered Uncle Itchy into watching Calvin and his Uncle Will. After Will fell asleep and Calvin was presumed asleep, he got his hands on the hotel's mini-bottles of shampoo and bubble bath and then dumped it all over poor sleeping Willie's eyes and face. When we got back to the room, the first thing out of Calvin's mouth, before anything was explained, was, "Mommy, I made a bad choice." Just a bit of an understatement.

Derby 2008

Last year Calvin and his Lightning McQueen managed to win 1st place at our ward's pinewood derby. He and RB were very proud.Although we were unable to bring home another plastic golden trophy this year, Daddy and boys had a wonderful time carving, painting, and racing. Calvin chose to make a monster truck- Gravedigger- complete with hand-painted green flames and pirate flag. Noah went with a simpler semi-truck named Bubbabilt.

(very proud)

When Noah found out that he couldn't be the one racing his truck down the track, he turned all of his attention to the refreshments.

(Noah ran out of refreshments)

Snowflakes that stay

It's old news by now, but we were snowed on - a lot. After 20+ inches canceled anything with the possibility of being canceled (including RB's overnight call responsibility) we were able to dig out all of the sledding gear for some fun on one of Columbus' few hills.

Calvin was so excited he put on his gear (including hat and gloves) about 45 minutes before we were actually ready to get out the door.

Noah was happy to get outside but seemed more interested in snowflakes on his mittens than anything else going on. After a few times down the hill, he decided he had some phone calls to make inside the warm car.

A few weeks ago RB had taken Calvin out sledding for what turned out to be a real coming-of-age experience. Calvin had been telling RB that he didn't want to go all the way up to the top of the hill because he was "too scared." Something clicked in his little mind when RB coerced him to give it a try - and when he came back in the house afterwards he proudly proclaimed, "Mommy! I turned into a brave boy! I can go all the way to the top!"

This time around, despite a bigger hill, Calvin never hesitated. He wanted to be treated as an equal with everyone else, as shown by this exchange with our friend Scott Rowley who was trying to ensure the safety of the jump we had just created:

Calvin (to Scott, sitting on his tube): "I want to go."

Scott: "OK Calvin, I'm just going to make sure it's safe to sled down first."

Calvin: "But I want to go."

Scott: "Do you want to go next?"

Calvin: "No, it's my turn."

Scott: "How about we go together?"

Calvin: "But you just had a turn."

It's impossible to reason with a "brave" three year old boy.

Calvin did have one pretty impressive wipeout, after which we ran over to make sure he was ok. He jumped up in the snow and yelled, "Dad, I just wrecked like the monster trucks!" He and his Dad managed to take at least a couple more tumbles together as well.


Noah and I were perfectly content to view most of the freezing fun from the car - maybe next year.

Winter Days

By now, the boys are absolutely tired of being kept indoors due to the freezing weather (not to mention having had the stomach flu all this week). Finding new activities to entertain is always desired. My talented cousin posted this wonderful, kid-friendly craft idea on her blog and we decided to try it out today. It was so much fun! It was cheap, fast, relatively clean, and I think they turned out actually kind of cute - which is always a plus. The boys had a great time doing all of the steps involved and I would highly recommend this to anyone looking for something to do on a cold wintry day.

There are beautiful pictures and a great step-by-step guide on my cousin's blog that you must check out if you're interested. She made hers all into little place holders using some wire, we just didn't have any of that on hand. Still, I think it's such a great idea to let each of the kids make their own little animal for Easter dinner. She's made things like pumpkins for Thanksgiving and ghosts for Halloween as well that she says have now become family keepsakes that the children love to see and use.

The ingredients are flour, salt, and water... it only took Noah two taste tests to figure out this wasn't an eating type of treat. Yes, he was very disappointed.

They were able to coexist stirring for about 15 seconds.

Noah, not surprisingly, didn't get into the sculpting part so much and opted to play dough basketball instead.

Calvin on the other hand, requested tooth picks to add details to his designs. (I believe he has some of the artist gene from Aunt Julia.)

Here are our creations drying after we zapped them in the microwave for 40 seconds each. The tiny blob in the front is Calvin's "monster."
Painting was definitely the best part for Calvin.


And the finished product, monster included...

Another great use for these I discovered is for alternative eggs in Easter egg hunts. Calvin and Noah both love finding things, and instead of using the little plastic eggs that they would expect to be filled with candy, I used these today and they loved it. They were all dropped a number of times and still managed to remain in one piece, I was very impressed.

[RB Update]

When I got home and saw all the pastels and crafts I knew I had to act quickly. I took the boys straight outside to play in the mud, followed by racing on their bikes and general rough-housing and demolition.

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