What a thoughtful boy

This morning as I was getting out of the shower, Colin came into our room and said, "Mom there are some crumbs in Lauren's bed." I asked him why there were crumbs in Lauren's bed. He said they were hungry so he got them a snack. He continued to say that it was a lot of crumbs, but not too much cheese from the ritz bitz cheese crackers. I sighed and was a little worried at what I would find when I went in her room. Sure enough, her crib and blankets were filled with crumbs from the ritz bitz cheese sandwich crackers (including some of the cheese) and cereal bar crumbs from their snack. After cleaning it up, I reminded him that food does not belong upstairs and that it needs to stay in the kitchen. He looked at me and said in his serious voice, "but Lauren was hungry." On the bright side, I managed to get my shower before I had to get her out of bed. I sure hope Lauren doesn't expect to be fed breakfast in bed every Sunday morning.

One of those mornings...

This morning was one of those mornings where it was tough to get to work. It is mornings like these where I would love to say either I am just going to work from home today, or I think I need a day off because by the time I get to work the day will be half over (not really).

After getting Lauren dressed, I put her in her high chair and gave her a cereal bar while I got mine and Jordan's lunches packed. When she was done, I think she was wearing half of that sticky cereal bar as crumbs on her belly, hands and face. I picked all those crumbs off. Then I soon found out, that I think she was actually sitting on the other half because after carrying her on my hip and putting her down, I found enough cereal bar crumbs on my shirt to eat as a snack for later. I picked them off the best I could and thought, "I hope I don't have contact with too many people at work today, because it looks like I am wearing a dirty shirt." I didn't even consider changing because I need to do laundry and didn't have a clean shirt to change into anyway.

Next we go out to the car and the boys remind me that they need sunblock before they go to school. So I first put Lauren down and slather her with sunblock and plop her in her carseat. Then the boys stand side by side and I spray them down. They get in the car and I go in and wash my hands. When I get out to the car, I realize I don't know what happened to my keys. So I spend the next several minutes searching inside and out for those keys. In the meantime, I ask all the kids if they have seen them. Lauren is the only one who shakes her head 'yes', but I decide to ignore that because how would she know where my keys were? Well, when I finally found them, I found them under Lauren, who was buckled in her carseat. I guess when I asked her and she shook her head 'yes', I should have paid attention. I'll blame it on the sun, since I misplaced them while applying the sunblock on the 6 legs, 6 arms, 6 ears, and 3 faces of my wonderful children.

Then we got to daycare and Jordan goes in ahead me and by the time I walk in the room with Colin and Lauren, Jordan is crying and explaining to me that it is career day. Of course, trying to be a good mother (even though we are already running late and I still need to stop and get gas before getting on the freeway to get to work), I try to get him to calm down and explain to me what he needed and try to figure out how I could help. He needed to dress up or bring a prop for something he wanted to be when he grew up. I first asked him what he wanted to be. He cried even harder because he didn't know. My first thought was that he was dressed exactly how people I work with dress...he could be a software engineer (or computer guy). Unfortunately, this didn't make him stop crying. Then I suggested a firefighter because I knew I could run home quickly and get a fireman's hat from the dress up box. Then I suggested a detective because that is what he told me he wanted to be last week. The daycare teacher said, she thought they had a magnifying glass he could borrow. That is not what he wanted to be either. I suggested a teacher because he already had a bunch of books in his backpack that he has been reading, then a clown since that is what he wanted to be a couple of weeks ago when we asked him. Then he said he wanted to be an army man. Okay, so he wants to be in the military. How does he dress that part? Also, he can't bring weapons to school. Maybe if I had a little more time we could have come up with something, but not this last minute. Then I said I could go get his computer and he could be just like me...a software tester. After a little more convincing, he finally agreed and stopped crying. I ran home, got his laptop and brought it back to put in his backpack....whew, disaster averted! I hope his day gets better.

The clock keeps ticking... As I was leaving the daycare, the second time, I didn't make it through the first green light and had to wait for the next one before I finally made it through the intersection. I was finally able to get the van filled with gas and get on the freeway. Thank goodness, the traffic was Friday light. I was only about 20 minutes later then usual...even with all the distractions.

Because I'm Smart

One of Jordan's favorite questions when we tell him something is, "Well how do you know?" Sometimes I answer with something intelligent like, "I read it in a book" or "I heard it on the news" or sometimes I answer with "because I am the mom" and sometimes I answer with, "because I'm smart". Afterall, one has to be pretty smart to be able to answer many of the questions six year olds come up with.

This morning, Colin was watching the fish in the fish tank and he asked, "Mom, where is the one that sucks the water?" (He is actually referring to the algae eater.) I told him it died a couple weeks ago. Jordan must have overheard some the conversation because he then asked where the algae eater was. Colin answered, "He's dead." Then Jordan asks, "How do you know?" Colin responds with, "because I'm smart". I just had to chuckle.

***

On Friday, I picked Colin up from daycare and since he had wet at naptime, he had changed his clothes. He was now wearing his shirt that says,

I'm the smart one
e=mc^2

However, he was wearing the shirt backward, so the words were on his back. Then to make the outfit even a little better, he was wearing his shoes on the wrong feet. I really wanted to get a picture of him walking out of the daycare. He was acting so normal, but I was laughing and wishing I had my camera in my pocket. Unfortunately, by the time we got home, he had taken his shoes off, so I didn't get a picture, but it really was priceless.

Park Hopping

With the nice weather this weekend, I decided I wanted to check out some of the parks in our area that we have not previously been to. Our first stop on Friday night was at Scriber Creek Park. We were looking for Scriber Lake Park, but since I forgot the directions, I was not finding it. We walked the trail from the entrance basically to where it met up with Lynnwood Park & Ride and decided we were not going to find a playground. This was a walking trail and not much more. So we called my mom and had her look up the directions to Scriber Lake Park. After getting the directions, we easily found that park. We took a bathroom break and hit the trails. We enjoyed looking at all the plants and flowers and the birds and ducks. It was a lot of fun. However, I soon realized that I missed the part about this park not having any play equipment, so after a bit of walking, we turned around and went back to the car. By this time, it was nearing bedtime and Lauren was definitely ready for bed, so we went home. Since we weren't successful at finding toys last night, I decided I would try to make up for it today while Tim was helping some friends move. I looked up some more Lynnwood parks and wrote down the directions.

Our first park visit was to Daleway Park. It is a smaller park, but was quite nice. It had a big open grassy field, basketball quart, 2 baby swings and play equipment. It also has a water spray area that looks like it may open this summer.

After playing here for a little while, we left Daleway Park to find Lynndale Park. This is a much larger park with a lot of fun things to do. However, it was actually a little less baby friendly as the play equipment didn't have any low to the ground steps for Lauren to crawl up on so I had to lift her up every time she wanted to slide down the slide. It had a lot more play equipment though for the boys. We took a little nature walk and then found an older slide that the kids enjoyed sliding down several times.

The color of a casket

Yesterday a funeral was held at the kids daycare. When I picked them up, people were mingling in the sanctuary, so as we were leaving Jordan wanted to know what was going on. I told him that one of the founding pastors had died and it was her funeral. He asked if he could go in and see her. I told him that the funeral appeared to be over and that they had probably already closed the casket so he wouldn't be able to see her. Anyway, so we get in the van and he continues to question. "What is a casket?" I explained to him that when we die, our spirit goes to heaven and our body stays on the earth. Our body can then be buried, but they can't just bury our body in the ground without protecting it, so the body is put in a box. I told him the box can be plain or fancy and it can be many different colors, etc. To give him an example, I told him that his Great Grandma Syrett's casket was pink. He then says to me, "I want my casket to be red." Then Colin says, "I want my casket to be purple."

Colin's Prayers

Colin has recently become more independent in saying prayers by himself and we have noticed that some of them have started to get quite long. It is good as he is learning how to thank our Heavenly Father for many things. However, he seems to only pray for the things he currently sees in the room in which he is praying. For example, in his bedroom he will pray for his books (usually a specific one that has been left out), a rescue hero, a shirt, a piece of tape on the floor, etc. All items that are somewhat random, but to him I guess they are important. Also, we do tell him his eyes should be closed during prayer, but they are obviously wandering around the room trying to decide what to pray for next.

So anyway, this morning, Tim wanted to try an experiment. We were all in our bedroom for family prayer this morning and right before we started, Tim placed a pen and chapstick right in front of Colin on the floor. Colin kind of looked at him like, "What did you do that for?" Anyway, Colin started his prayer, he was thankful for mommy and then he was thankful for daddies tie and the orange triangles on daddies tie and the white squares on daddies tie, then he said one or two other things, then he finished his prayer off with being thankful for the chapstick. Tim's experiment partially worked. He put an item in Colin's head and put it right where he would see it and sure enough he included it in his prayers. (Oh, and yes the tie was out where he could see it.) It was so hard to not crack up, but right after Colin finished his prayer, Tim and I looked at each other and just smiled. Colin certainly has a predictable side to his wonderful little personality.

Playing the Wii

Tim and I were observing Jordan play the Wii and realized he plays with his entire body. We find it as entertaining watching him as it is to actually watch the tv screen.