R Day

Just a couple of cool, "proud Dad" moments that I wanted to get down before I forgot.

1. If you don't have grade school kids, you might not know, but "show and tell" has become "share" and it's kind of a themed thing now. Today was "R" day, you can share anything to do with "R". So Charley is bringing his pet rabbit etc. As usual in our house, the conversation about what Jake could bring to share occurred while I was holding the front door open, waiting to walk him to school on R day. As neither Marisa nor I were feeling particularly creative this morning, we came up with the collective surrender, "We've got nothing!". Jake decided he would just not share today.

We then proceeded to walk to school in the freshly fallen snow, until we came upon these raccoon tracks. I told Jake what they were and we followed them for as long as we could down the sidewalk, thru yards etc. I wasn't thinking too much about it other than they were cool looking tracks, when Jake said, "Raccoon starts with R, so I am going to share that me and you followed a Raccoon to school today."

2. Cool thing #2 is a book that Jake brought home from school. The book has pictures and the beginnings of a sentence on each page and then the kid finishes the sentence however they want (creative writing of sorts). Anyway, one of the pictures was of a Dad smiling and the caption started, "I see my Dad, and he says..."

Now...

I have always second guessed my move here in terms of my job. Not the move itself, I love Idaho, just the choice of job. I took a lower paying, no stress job, as opposed to running a company or doing something more taxing for more money. Normally, I'm perfectly happy, but I always wonder if the trade off was worth it. We have less income, can't afford to do as much stuff etc., but I am home everyday for the kids, can help around the house, don't ever have to work late etc. So, I always come back to I made the right choice, but that doubt and second guessing is always there in the back of my mind.

Anyway, back to Jake's book. Here's how he finished the caption: "I see my Dad, and he says "Welcome Home!." So even if I'm not always sure I made the right choice, I think he is....and yes I teared up a little bit.

The Kids

JAKE
Brian and I watched "Mama Mia!" over the holidays and Brian thought Jake would really enjoy it. I was doubtful. Guess who was wrong? Yep, Jake's favorite movie is "Mama Mia!". He goes around the house singing "Super Trouper" and, of course, the title track over and over. He may be the only one in the world who thinks that Pierce Brosnan's singing is "Great!".

He had Friday off school so he and I hung out while I "worked". I love having that one-on-one time together. We did a yoga video at lunch- which he really enjoyed-completing several Sun Saluations proudly. He keeps asking me if we can do it again.

He still loves four square- we taped off a court in his bedroom so we can play inside since it continues to be COLD and FOGGY here. He can beat me with one hand tied behind his back.

Although I am not thrilled that he and Tanner woke up at FIVE AM both days this weekend, I am so proud of how they play together in their room in the mornings- Jake reads Tanner books, they draw on the easel, play their computer games, build Lego towers, and just generally crack each other up until it is time to come into our room at 7.

Speaking of reading.... I am amazed by what he can read these days. He and Brian are reading a non-fiction book on "Baseball's Greats". They take turns reading pages. He picked up a "Magic Tree House" the other day and just sat down and started plowing through it. ( In fact he is now reading this over my shoulder as I type...)

TANNER
He loves school now. After sobbing uncontrollably for months on end every time we dropped him at Miss Wendy's, he now goes happily, always picking out a book to share at reading time and asking if today is field trip day (they take a "field trip" once a week to local free places (Burger King, the mall, the park, Cabelas).

He loves that he has 'homework" (This is just letter practice he does with Miss Wendy but he likes to call it HW so he can be like his big brother). He carries it back and forth in a Steelheads folder.

He is proving to be quite a basketball star and "announces" games as he dribbles through our living room and shoots into the laundry basket. He calls himself "Koby Carl"- who is the star player on our local team. While I was in the hottub yesterday he bundled up (it was 25 degrees outside) and shot three-pointers in our backyard. That kid is so persistent. He did not give up until he made that shot. It took a lot of tries.... but he did it.

He also shows a lot of talent for football. He can catch it from across the living room now and can throw fairly accurately. I don't know where these kids got their athletic ability from, but he's got it in spades. We call him our "Retirement Plan"...

He would survive on PBJ if I let him. And cold pizza. That's his favorite breakfast.

Whenever he falls down or hurts himself in some way he says, "OH... THAT'S gotta hurt!".

We are starting a garden and have been composting for a few months. He loves to help Brian in the garden, turning over the soil, picking up leaves to compost, etc... I think he will really get into it when we actually get to plant things and (hopefully) see them grow! Now if we could only get him to EAT vegetables, that would be good....

FAITH
We have reinstituted "Family Game Nights". Faith loves them! It is a challenge finding games that all three of the kids can enjoy together. So far we have two: One of them is a Disney DVD Bingo game and the other is a Disney Pictionary game. I help Tanner, Brian helps Faith, and we play for about half an hour. When it is time to turn it off Faith just falls apart. She sobs inconsolably. The boys love Game Night, too, and would gladly have it every night instead of 2 nts/week.

She loves to be naked. She runs around the house screaming, "I NAKED! I NAKED!" and when we try to put a diaper on her she yells and bucks her body around, making it almost impossible to get her dressed.

She loves to play sports with her brothers. She does this little tippy toe dance with her hands in the air yelling "I READY! I READY!" while she waits for her brothers to throw, pass, punt, kick, hit, bounce, or roll the ball-of-the-moment to her.

She is definitely showing signs of being almost 2. Yikes. She's always had a scowl that could stop you in your tracks but now she combines it with this loud mean grunting sound. Lovely girl. I'm so proud.

She is addicted to Diego. She was home sick one day last week and I had to work so I plugged her into a CD that had 2 hours of Diego on it. She watched it nonstop the protested loudly when I turned it off. I put her down for a nap and the only way I knew she was awake is that I heard her plaintively repeating, "Dieeeeeeego! Dieeeeeego!" in her crib

She loves animals. She has always adored Milo and will lavish him with love (sometimes a little too roughly) but Miss Wendy has a dog, a cat, a bird, and a turtle and she can't get enough of them. She also loves to play with stuffed animals and currently has a cat, a giraffe, a monkey, and whenever she can manage to steal it away from Tanner.... a "penguino" that she calls "Geeno".

She is the best hugger. She gives these bear hugs that I just eat up. She also holds my face in her hands and says, "I love you Mama!" while staring into my eyes. Seriously. It's a heart breaker.

US
Brian turns 40 on the 30th of this month. His mom is coming to visit for a few weeks and she and my mom are going to watch the kids for two nights so we can get some time alone. This will be our first night away since Faith was born. We are heading to beautiful downtown Boise!!! Yep, we are staying in our own town- but with the huge difference of getting to experience it without little ones. We are taking a snowboarding lesson together on Saturday, have dinner reservations at nice places both nights, plan on seeing a matinee on Sunday, and will sleep in or at least stay in bed both mornings until well past 7AM. We can't wait. Also, LOST starts on Wednesday so its a pretty great week ahead all the way around.

Quick Hits

Things I actually wrote down because I didn't want to forget to post about them:

1. I was reading the dire predictions regarding global warming in a book that Marisa had gotten for me as a Chistmas present, you know flooding, freezing, more extreme weather etc. Tanner was listening in and his verbatim response, "Wow, that's cool Dad". If it's a wreck of a planet we're leaving him, he doesn't seem too concerned about it.

2. We went over to visit Cori before she left to go back to CA and caught her while she was doing her laundry. She had the ironing board set up and we sat and talked for a few minutes before Jake spoke up, gesturing to the ironing board and said, "Hey Dad, what's this thing for?". I may do the laundry here, but I do NOT iron. We don't own an iron, much less an ironing board. If you want something pressed in this house, get a job and take it to the dry cleaners.

3. Jake stayed home from school sick for three days right before we left for Christmas (how sick he ACTUALLY was is open to debate). But he "rested" on the couch while I worked in the office. He is quite the sports fan and will watch old college football games on ESPN classic etc. But I came out from the office and saw him watch, two COMPLETE....Spanish Cup Soccer Games (yes in Spanish)....from the 1998 Spanish Soccer Cup. I don't know if he was sick, but man he MUST have been bored.

I love the dichotomy of kids....they're either cracking you up, or driving you insane.

G Diapers

In a "better late than never" effort to cut down on the number of diapers we put into landfill- and in our continuing quest to lessen our carbon footprint- we started using flushable/biodegradable diapers this week. For those of you with children of diaper age, I highly recommend them. They are easy to use, easy to flush -and you can even compost them if you want. There is some controversy over the flushing (amount of water used) vs. landfill. But since there is no way I am going to use cloth diapers, this is good middle ground.

Faith is modeling one for you!

Check out their website here.