The Weekend

Usually by halfway through Monday I can't remember what we did over the weekend anymore but I'll give it my best.

Friday: Bob and I went out in the morning to get the rest of the rubber mulch for the kids' little swingset/playground area. We spent the rest of the day getting ready to have Stacey and Andy and Kyle and Keely over for dinner and a fire. We had a nice time sitting around the fire and didn't find out till the next day that we were out there in the middle of a tornado warning. We live too far away to hear the sirens so I guess our only warning will be someone saying, "Man, it sure is getting windy out here . . . AAAHHHhhh!

Saturday: Carla and I took the kids for a walk in the morning from Metzger Park to her mom and dad's house. It's about 3 mile but we're studs, we can handle it. Then we took Walker to see Ratatouille. As soon as we sat down Walker said he didn't want to watch it. I think he was scared of the giant people and rats on the screen. It was a pretty rough experience overall. Walker sat through it, which was good, but the popcorn tasted like buttery Rolaids and I'd give the movie itself about a French onion dip on Bryan's scale.

Sunday: A vocal group called Myrrh came to our church and vocalized. They were much better than I expected and have an amazing testimony. They even had a bluegrass album which I bought and found to be pretty good. Then, off to Bob and Kay's for Lisa's birthday party. It was fun 'cause there's always lots of people there who play with the kids so Carla and I got to lounge in the pool for like 45 minutes and just talk. Haven't gotten to do that in a while. Also, to be true to the "stuff the kids say" theme, when we got home last night, I gave Ellie one of my harmonicas and she started "playing" like she does sometimes. Then, out of nowhere, she stopped and said "I got the balloon". She meant "blues" 'cause Walker and I do that sometimes. It was pretty cute.

Huh, I guess I did pretty good remembering.

Lesson Learned

You know that trick you can play on sleeping people where you stick their hand in warm water? Well, I found out it works on Ellie, too, even when she's wide awake. Especially if she's reaching into the warm bathtub water. Especially if she's naked. Especially if she's straddling my foot.

Hamfeet

Walker loves watching Curious George. One day while watching, he and Carla had an interesting conversation. I think it went sort of like this:
Walker: Mom, why does George have hamfeet?
Carla: What?
Walker: Why does George have hamfeet?
Carla: What are hamfeet?
Walker: You know, hamfeet.
Carla: What?
Walker takes off his socks, then in his condescending, just-try-to-understand-this tone: Mom, Mom. Look at my feet. I don't have hands on my feet. George has hands on his feet. Hamfeet.

Move forward about 4 or 5 months to yesterday. I laid out 2 pairs of his underwear (or 4 underwears) side-by-side on the floor to let him pick which ones he wanted to wear.
Kurt: Walker, which ones do you want, white with gray or white with blue?
Walker: Is this the white one?
Kurt: Well, that one's white with gray.
Walker: No, the white one.
Kurt: Those are white with gray. The other one's are white with blue. Which ones do you want?
Walker: No, is this the WHITE one!?
Kurt: I give up.
Walker, the gears grinding in his little brain: Dad, against left.
Kurt: Oh, the RIGHT one?
Walker: Yeah, white (geez, my parents are simple).
They were, and he picked them, not because they were white and gray, but because they were on the white (right).

Dropping Food and Bouncy Pretzels

Kids, funny. Food, delicious. Kids + Food, deliciously funny.

A couple months before Walker turned 3, he got the flu for the first time. He didn't know what throwing up was yet, so his first experience was, to me, both heartbreaking and thoroughly entertaining. He had been sleeping for about an hour when I heard this pitiful cry and saw him coming down the stairs looking very confused. I asked him what was wrong and, after he thought about it for a few seconds, he said, "I dropped some food in my bed." I had no idea what he was talking about until I walked into his room. Poor guy. I felt so bad but had to laugh.

Also, Motts' (http://www.mottsgreenhouse.com/, yeah, who knew they had a web page?), has these delicious pretzels that look like mini donut holes. I had Walker there one off-Friday and he was looking around and said, "Hey Dad, look at these bouncy pretzels."