Brothers

Today Charles overheard the following as Jack tried to shut Theo in the bedroom.

Theo: 'Jack, bullies aren't suppose to shut their friends in rooms. That is one of the commandments.'

LOL.

Mr. Pajamas

Jack pops out of the bed in the morning. Adelaide is also a popper. They both wake up happy and ready to go. Jack is dressed with shoes on before he enters our room. Adelaide insists on getting dressed immediately.

Part of the fun (and challenge) of parenting is that they are not all alike - Theo is not like Jack and Adelaide in this area. Theo is a slow riser. He wakes up pretty happy, but he just doesn't want to get dressed. He often asks 'can I wait to get dressed this morning.' If we aren't going anywhere until after naps I usually say yes.

Well today I was just making small talk with Theo and asked him what he thought he would do about getting dressed so late when he got a job someday. He very confidently answered as follows:

Theo: I have thought about this, and I have a plan.
Erin: Oh, what is your plan.
Theo (very very confident): When I am older, I will get dressed right away on work days and stay in my pajamas a long time on days that aren't work days.
Erin: That sounds reasonable. When do you think this will start happening? When do you think you will be 'older'?
Theo: Um, probably around 50.

He takes after his mother - such drive and motivation! :)

Little Miss Orderly

Here is a great little snippet of insight into Adelaide's personality.

Today after lunch I was sweeping the kitchen (which I have to do after every meal!). I got all the junk dropped (or thrown, thank you Eliot) swept neatly into a little pile. It then dawned on me that Eliot really needed to get to his nap as he was falling asleep in his chair so I made the logical decision to leave the pile in the middle of the floor and sweep it into the dustpan upon my return from putting Eliot into his bed.

Well, before I could get back, I found Addie trying to sweep up the pile. I asked her what she was doing and she looked very disgusted and said, 'I not like that' while pointing to the neat little pile of junk on the kitchen floor. She is so organised. She likes things just the way they are suppose to be and not a hair different from that.

There are loads of other examples. Here are three that quickly come to mind:

• A friend came over the other day. I poured her a Diet Dr. Pepper into a glass and sat the can on the island. Well, empty cans aren't suppose to be on the island. They are suppose to be in the recycling bin in the garage. It didn't take Addie more than two minutes to spot that empty can and move it to its proper place in the garage. 
• Another friend came over a while back. She walked in the house with her two boys and then after getting into the kitchen realised that she was tracking in a lot of dirt on her shoes. She was so upset with herself that she just took her shoes off right there in the kitchen. We then went on our business and had a lovely time together. When it was time for her to leave she went to the kitchen to retrieve her shoes. They were not where she had left them. We were both perplexed, and then realised that Addie had moved them to the rug by the front door where shoes that aren't being worn, and are dirty, are suppose to sit!  
• Similarly when we were living with my parents, my mom made an extended search for her Crocs one day before finding them the next morning in her closet neatly lined up with her other shoes. Who would have ever thought to look where they actually belong! Only Addie!  :)

Sledding with the Garbers

With all this snow, we had the great opportunity of going to St. Louis and sledding with our cousins. There is a great hill right outside a very pretty church near their house that we made our sledding home. The kids had a great time. My sister's kids were great too - especially at helping their younger cousins out. As you can see from one of the videos below I wasn't the expert in this area. Despite my failed sledding, we had a great time (and Addie's cheeks were just fine!)...

The Crew

Erin showing Addie how to sled...

All the cousins with their sleds....

Walking to Burger King?

As I mentioned a few posts ago, we have had quite a bit of snow. This snow has closed the public schools for four of the last five days. As a result, a few days ago a friend asked if we wanted to meet them for lunch at Burger King, which has an indoor play place.  We were all a little stir crazy and quickly jumped at the chance to meet some school aged friends.  I told her we would try, but I wasn't exactly sure how our van would do getting out of our cul de sac.

As I was loading the kids up, I told them all to put their coats in the car. I told them they didn't have to wear them (a hassle with seat belts and I didn't want them lying all over the floor at Burger King), but I wanted them in the car just in case we had car trouble and had to get out in the cold and snow. They complied.

As we were backing out I asked Jack to pray for our safety. I really didn't know if we would be successful getting out because of how we had seen so many neighbours get stuck in the snow. Jack was happy to pray. His prayer went like this:

Dear Lord, Please help Mommy be a good driver (I fear he may have meant like Keith see early post #littleboyswatching) and please get us there safely so we don't have to walk to Burger King. Amen.

I almost laughed out loud. There is no way we were walking to Burger King. We wanted to go, but not that bad!  Burger King is about 2 miles away and in the snow it would have taken us at least 2 hours to walk. In a seven year old's mind - we were getting to Burger King even if we had to walk.

Praise God we were able to make it up the hill... and didn't have to 'walk' to Burger King!  :)