How much time does it take…

to put a dent in the energy of two little boys?  Apparently the answer is 6 hours of continual playing in the pool, running around, water fighting, climbing, sliding and swinging. 

Mind you, this didn’t use all their energy but I noticed that rather than it seeming like they were moving at the speed of race cars it had slowed down to something closer to motocross speed.

To be perfectly honest it wasn’t a full 6 continuous hours.  There was one 5 minute restroom break and one 15 minute banana break.

Just thought you’d like to know in case you had ever wondered.

Introducing their Royal Paini (paininesses?)

Sir Cranks-a-lot and Lord Whiny Pants.  As you may have guessed these are informal names and, better yet, names they aren’t even aware they have.

This afternoon Little Lord Cranky decided that he only needed two moods; content to play by himself and throwing a screeching fit at the top of his lungs.  The fits I can deal with but why must they screech?  Sir Cranks-a-lot went to bed early.

Good Sir Whiny was in obvious need of a nap after school.  Not that he would admit that.  From the time I picked him up from school until his day ended, I believe he whined about something or other that was not going right in his world approximately every 20 minutes.  Lord Whiny Pants went to bed early too.

To compound this about 5 hours of this afternoon sucked.  Not in a major way, but in the everything I touched was wrong in some small, yet infinitely, annoying way.  Since this entire month has not been stellar and I feel like all I have done is complain (perhaps I can be Princess Pissy) we will skip the details on today’s little adventure and focus on the fun.  Yes, I know even with all that we still had fun.

The boys got new water guns today and they put them to good use while I worked on my new birthday present. 

Some background - About 3 or 4 years ago I bought this awesome pool at Costco.  After years of vigorous use it finally died at the beginning of last summer.   I spent all last summer looking everywhere (and I do mean everywhere) for a pool like it without any luck.  I was slightly obsessed with finding this pool again. :)  I went through two pools in the span of 1 month last year.  The first one died after less than 2 days and the second one limped along for about 2 weeks.  After that the boys were san pools for the rest of the summer.

As I was walking through Costco in March of this year I saw the ‘updated’ version of the pool I was looking for. 

Yea!!!  Unfortunately, this pool is a little pricey (not when you think I had to buy two last year, but still) so I couldn’t get it at that time.  When my parents got back I asked Mom if she still planned to buy me a Birthday Gift.  When she said yes this is what I asked for.  Thanks Mom and Dad! :)

To make a long story even longer, their Royal Cutenesses and I set the pool up this afternoon, had some water play, shrieked because the water coming out of the hose was cold (shocking, I know) and made a date to play some more tomorrow. 

 

Lets hear it for sunny weather and outside play.

PS:  Are you digging the swim trunks on the little one?   When I sent him in to get his swimsuit on I forgot that there were four pair of swim trunks in his drawer a size 24 month, a 2T, a 3T and a 4. (Don’t ask me why they are all in there.  They all fit last year.  That’s my story and I’m sticking too it)  Guess which size he picked?

I’m going to tell you a secret

Ready?  The secret, for those of you who don’t know me well, is that I’m a little competitive.  That coupled with the fact that I was taught that if you are going to do something you need to do it correctly (Mom and Dad if you’re reading this I know I didn’t always apply that, especially in say high school, but I was taught it).  This means that sometimes K and I clash regarding the effort something should receive.  K can be very focused but at the same time once he decides he is bored or doesn’t want to do something it is hard to get him back on track.

Today was K’s belt test for Karate class.  Honestly I don’t think he will be getting a stripe for his yellow belt, but as I didn’t really practice with him this session and he wasn’t interested in practicing for the last week we’ll take what ever he gets.  His group also went last which unfortunately meant that he had been sitting for an hour and his attention span was shot.  So while he did listen to Sensei and didn’t act out, he also spent most of the test trying to do his Karate moves while biting the nails on at least one hand.  It is hard to do two handed moves crisply when you have to keep yanking your hand away from your mouth and then promptly trying to get it up there again.  *insert eye roll here*  Oh, he also had to go to the restroom during the middle of his test.  Hello….you’ve been sitting for an hour.  It didn’t occur to you to go before now?  *more eye rolling*  So he missed doing some of the required moves while he ran to the bathroom.

On the plus side his behavior in class was wonderful.  Testing day is always tough because it lasts about an hour and 20 minutes and if you are not being tested you are supposed to sit still and watch quietly.  Admittedly I bribed him before class by telling him that if he could sit still (no spinning, no getting in peoples faces, no moving around, etc) he could have the Bakugan that was purchased for me but hadn’t been opened.  I even took it into class with us so that he’d have a visual reminder (which also made him the most popular kid as they all came over to see the Bakugan, still in the package, before class started).  As a bribe it worked wonderfully and, hey, sometimes you have to do what you have to do.  Now if we could just get some of his bored/nervous habits under control we’d be golden.

I guess the just of this post is that while I’m proud of K’s behavior in class, and that he did try his best during the test, I’m disappointed that he probably isn’t going to advance.

To add more frustration I learned, right before class started, that some of the information I’ve been searching for on the web regarding moves, the Kata, etc. was on the dojo website, along with the specific items the kids were going to be tested on today.   I checked it out when I got home and it is wonderful info.  It was cleverly hidden in the Students Only section of the website. A section I hadn’t checked because I figured you’d need a password or some such idiocy and I guess I didn’t think the YMCA info would be there, just the info for the people who attend the big dojo.  Well heck!

I love it when a plan comes together

Really, I do.  I love plans.  I love when they work, I love making them, I love plans.  Today’s Memorial Day outing would have gone the same without a plan.  *Sigh*

Disclaimer:  I realize today is Memorial Day.  I knew going places was going to be crowded.  I had even steeled myself to be calm, not to stress and to basically just have fun.  I just wanted to say that.  This has nothing to do with me not knowing other families were going to be out.

I will admit that I was a bit indecisive with my plans for today.  I had thought about taking the boys to Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium since I’ve been trying to get them down there for a year, but then someone asked if I really wanted to drive there and back in Memorial Day traffic.  Ummm…no.  Okay, next plan.

I thought about the Woodland Park Zoo or the Seattle Aquarium, but I spent a little too much this weekend and decided that maybe spending the money for either of those wasn’t the wisest plan.  So, that left going to a park.  Not a problem, the boys and I make a game out of going to parks we’ve never been too.  We take snacks, plan to be gone most of the day and generally have a good time. 

Today I thought it would be fun to go to a new park in the northern part of town.  We had found the park (playground section) previously, but it was rumored to have beach access.  The boys had on their swimsuits, had their buckets and shovels.  They were all set.  My Mom graciously decided to go with us and she drove.  :) 

On the way, Grandma decided that we should stop at McDonald’s for ice cream.  The boys were thrilled.  They both got chocolate dipped cones. K thought his was great.  I’m not sure if D actually ate more than 2 bites, however it did melt and drip all over him, his car seat and Mom’s back seat before he decided it was okay for Mom to throw it away.  Boy did he need a little time in the water to clean him up. 

We find the playground part of the park and decide to venture down this little road next to it that had a sign saying “No Access.  Local Access Only”.  We wind our way down this hill and at the very bottom, in the middle of a sharp turn is a little drive barely two cars wide.  As we are passing said drive I happen to see a little sign that says “Park Hours”.  Whoops, we missed it.  We drive a bit to somewhere we can turn around and then head back down.  We get to the parking area and it is full.  Packed, not a space to be found.  I was expecting a large parking area, but nooooo.  This place holds maybe 75 cars.  Who the heck makes parking for one of the only sandy beaches in the area that only holds 75 cars!  Idiots.  This is supposed to be the oldest bathing beach in this part of the city.  Maybe the parking area held more horse and buggies.  So we make our way out of the parking area (no easy feat as there is no turn around area and after explaining to the boys that no, we can’t take the parking space that someone it pulling out of because someone is waiting for it with their blinker on) we head for Plan B.  (Oh, we also passed about 20 cars coming into the same little parking area as we were leaving.  Really, city planners can be idiots)

Plan B (after much discussion and cell phone surfing) became heading to Mukilteo Beach.  We pull in and…NO PARKING there either.  Arrgghhhh.  I haven’t even had time to get frustrated by all the people milling about because we can’t get out of the car!  I can’t even blame poor design for this since it has tons of parking.  It was just insanely busy.  So after a lovely tour of the parking area, including the newer area, we head off.  At least the boys got to see a really long train go by as we took our tour so that was nice. :)

Back to Forest Park. Not a new park, but somewhere we don’t go very often.  NO PARKING.  People were parked on the edge of the road, down the steep hill, leading out of the park. 

By this time we are getting a little hungry.  I had packed the boys a light lunch but since by now they had been riding around in the car for 1.5 hours with the promise of a park, we decided to go into a McDonald’s (also because some of us had to use the restroom, but still. :)  )  The boys were thrilled to be able to have a Happy Meal and other than the whole voice modulation thing, they did a great job and were really cute.  Imagine, going to McDonald’s TWICE in one day. The thrill for them.

With no other knowledge of parks that had any sort of decent water access and being in the Northern part of town we decided to try a park on Lowell that I had found online.  (cell phones with internet access can be so helpful).  The boys had a great time.  It was a new park.  It had some features they hadn’t played on before.  It had just enough kids that they had fun, but not so many that they were crawling all over each other.  A great park to find.

So the day, while not as planned, was still very fun.

And we learned, courtesy of K, that when you are 100 you have to talk in ‘old person voice’ and say things like “Get off my lawn”. 

I laughed so hard.  I have no idea where he got that but it cracked me up.

Bragging

I know.  Bragging is impolite and can be hurtful, however I am just so proud of K that I have to brag on him a bit.

This week K had a fantastic week at school.  He normally does well in school but this week he went above and beyond.

All the 1st graders went to see Hansel and Gretel at a community theater this week.  I was a little apprehensive (not that I told him) because had he gotten bored who knows how he would have reacted, however I was pleasantly surprised that he LIKED the experience.  He thought the play was great and apparently it had a lot of cute parts in it.  Not only did he say he enjoyed it, but I know he was paying attention because I read the questionnaire he filled out once they were back to school.  He answers were well written and very detailed and showed that he was actually engaged in the play. :)  Yay K!

Today he had his weekly spelling test and scored 100% again.  He has only missed two words all year and both of those were challenge words (ie:  words the kids are not expected to be able to spell at this level).  Luckily he seems to have acquired my spelling skills and not Js.

Today he also had his book talk.  This assignment required that he make a replicated book cover, including author and title, and then tell a little about the book.  The book cover was due last week and I was surprised by how detailed he made it.   All without looking at the original book (I went on Amazon after he was done and he had included almost all the details). 

During his book talk today he had four elements he was required to address (title, author, his favorite event in the book and then a quick synopsis of the book given in a way that would make others excited to read it).  If he met those elements, combined with his book cover and general presentation skills, he would receive a 3 on the assignment.  He choose to go above and beyond and took props to school.  Not only did he take them but he remembered to use them!  That earned him a 4 (above standard). 

I am just so proud of him!

Bugles and other Random Rambles

I was in the dollar store today picking up some water balloons for next week’s Cub Scout Pack Meeting when I happened to see a display of Bugles.  You know, the horn shaped snack.  Now, I haven’t had, wanted, thought about, or in any way acknowledged Bugles in probably 9 or 10 years and even then I probably only had one every 5 or so years.  Upon seeing the display today I had a sudden craving for them.  I totally pigged out on them at lunch and then took them for the boys to have as an after school snack.  D wasn’t sure they were that great, but K thought they were fantastic.  It was so cute.

The most often heard phrase out of the three-year old’s mouth around here is “I can do whatever I want”.  I know you’ll be surprised but Mom has a different take on that. :)

I swear that poor D must feel like he never gets to do anything fun.  Because of the difference in the boys’ age there are obviously things that K can do that D can’t.  Since D idolizes K (well it is an idolize/torment relationship on D’s part, but still) D gets told a lot that he’s not big enough to do <insert activity here>.  Normally he replies by saying he is big.  Well, I think he’s decided that there are some perks to being not quite big enough yet.  We went over to visit my parents the other day and he decided being little was actually okay since it means that Grandma can still carry him, something that isn’t possible with poor K because he is so tall.

This week in Cub Scouts we built Bat Boxes to hang at one of the parks around here.  K did a great job and had so much fun hammering, stapling and using the caulk gun.  The boys definitely did a great job and there should be some happy bats soon.

There was something else cute I was going to say but darned if I know what it was.  Oh well, the memory goes when you get old.