The Sandbox

We got a sandbox and I am in love. The kids have been playing outside for 2 hours now. It almost seems unreal. They have been happy for the most part until now when Emma started tormenting John. But other than that, I am in love.

Aaron worked super hard in the heat to set it up and fill it with sand - 14 50lb bags of sand. He came inside hungry when he was done. The kids came inside filthy when they were done and we had hosed them off before hand.

So I would sit at the window in the comfort of air conditioning and watch them. I felt like I should be doing something productive since I had kid free time but I couldn't pull myself away from the window. I felt like I was at the zoo and watching animals in a quasi-natural habitat.

Here are some of the highlights:

Emma poured some of her water in the sandbox and noticed that it made a ball. She then put the ball in her mouth and chewed. Then she spit it out. John also ate sand but that was less surprising. He ended up with a sand mustache and go-tee.

John rolled around in the sand, so Emma rolled around in the sand. There is not a square inch of their bodies that is not covered in sand.

John got up on the seat and would turn in circles and fall down into the grass and do it again. He would also stand on the seat and hold his had to the sky and shout things.

Talking

John is now talking for sure. In the past he would babble words like mama, dada, emma, nono and it even sounded like he was saying "all done," however those things would come and go. He would say them for a bit and then he stopped for a long time and I was never sure if he was babbling or talking. I suspect babbling.

About 3 weeks ago Aaron said, "Look what I discovered!" He then hugged John and said, "He-haw!" and on the "Haw" would squeeze the bajeebies out of John and John would laugh and laugh and laugh. So this became a common occurrence in our house. Lots of he-haws and lots of giggling on everybody's part. Then one day John started to say "he-haw." Yup his first word was "he-haw."

Since then, he has added "Emma," "mama" (but not sure he knows it me), and beep. I touch his nose and say "beep." He whacks my nose and says, "bee." It seemed like a good idea at the time when I started it.

Getting Dressed

On a Monday morning while I was putting clothes in the dryer, John pulled his church shirt out of the dirty laundry and handed it to me. He is going through a quasi-sharing phase so I thought he was "just sharing." He was quite perturbed at me for some reason when I put his shirt back in the laundry bag. After breakfast he walked away and came back with his church pants. I finally figured out that he wanted me to get him dressed. I consented and put them on. Then he got his church shirt again and consented and put it on. Later he brought me one sock. Same. Then he pounded on the door. All I could think was, "Do you want to go to church? Because my memory is that church means a subset of toys and confined in small spaces. I don't remember that as being fun."

Later that week he brought me some clothes to get him dressed in again. He is the opposite of Emma. He isn't a nudist. Emma embraced her inner nudist.

Plunder

Emma finished eating her lunch and I cleaned her off. She started to walk away, stopped and turned and asked me, "Can I go forth and plunder?"

John doesn't ask. The fact that he doesn't talk is no excuse for poor manners. This morning while I was blow drying my hair and basking in glory of my kids playing quietly together so happily, John got a hold of a new box of tissues. He pulled out and shredded then entire box. I should learn never to bask. Basking is the source of all plunder.

Clothes

Emma said family prayers last night. She asked that the doctors would be able to help Ben's eye and that they would wear clothes. Actually it wasn't entirely clear if the prayer was that Ben wears clothes or that the doctors wear clothes. Either way, I am sure that is Ben's prayer too.

Tigers

Emma: Mom, do we cut out tiger teeth.
Me: No, we don't cut out tiger teeth. We don't want to eat tiger teeth.

Repeat this conversation three times.

Emma: No, do we cut out tiger teeth so they don't bite us.
Me: Oh, no we just stay away from tigers and then they won't bite us.

Jokes

I think that John told his first joke last night. It is kind of subjective since he doesn't actually talk. At dinner we started feeding John before everyone else because he was really hungry. There was a bit of chaos in the final preparations so I only looked up when I heard giggling from John.

He had put a handful of pasta sauce in his hair and was giggling. Then he took it out, stopped giggling and but broccoli in his hair and commenced giggling again. When he took the broccoli out of his hair he stopped giggling. It was pretty funny. I hope he learns to tell funny jokes that don't require a bath afterwards.

This got me thinking about Emma and jokes. Sometimes when I would make her laugh she would say, "You are making me funny!"