Snuggles

Aaron: I want to snuggle John
John: No! Dangit Daddy!

Handles and Pretend Play

John frequently rides on Aaron's shoulders. Each time he does, he finds a different "handle" to hold on to. Sometimes it is Aaron's hair. Sometimes his nose, his eyes, or his cheeks. It is never his chin, which is what Emma would hold onto when on Aaron's shoulders. I seem to remember the chin being the most logical handle when on my dad's shoulders. Today, John just stuck his fingers as deep as he could in Aaron's ears. I honestly love to watch John on Aaron's shoulders because it just looks hilarious and Aaron is a great sport and just lets him hold onto whatever he wants.

Today Emma had a friend over today. They played "Relief Society." One might ask what that is since it is pretty vague. Here is what you do:

1. Prepare a lot of food.
2. Set up chairs in a semi-circle
3. Pray
4. Eat food.

Pretty well sums up 17 years of my experiences in the organization. Emma's inspiration for this is my preparing stuff for my calling as Relief Society Meeting Coordinator, a.k.a. Enrichment Person.

John also engaged in pretend play today. He pretended to call Avrin on the phone and chat with her. He told her that he loves her. It cracks me up that he talks on the phone to Emma's imaginary friend/sister. I can't help but wonder if in a few years John will turn to me and ask, "So who is Avrin?" I wonder if he knows that she is pretend and doesn't exist.

Ideas

Boys have ideas and girls have ideas and these are not the same ideas. For example:

1. John took apart his peanut butter sandwich and stuck the peanut butter side to his face, under his nose. The he said, "Look at this!" Quite proud of himself. In fact he repeated this several times throughout the meal. I had debated about giving him a shower before dinner since he had been playing in the sandbox. I chose wisely to postpone that shower until after dinner.

2. Why did John need a bath? Because he was playing in the sandbox. I didn't want him to play in the sandbox so I could avoid giving him a bath tonight. He got the idea to climb under the sandbox cover and play in the sandbox anyway. This is just a fabric cover on the sandbox that Velcros on to it. So he was hunkered down playing in the sand. Pretty sure I would have just played with something else. Emma did.

3. In this same meal, John told me (rather excitedly, in fact) that he could stick his straw up his nose. I told him not to do that.

4. I know that boys and girls have different ideas because neither Emma, nor I, not my sisters growing up have ever thought to do anything like that.

5. Fire ball. This is a game that Aaron told me about that he played as a kid. You douse a tennis ball in kerosene and then light it on fire and kick it around in a field in Arizona. I was an adult when I first heard about this. So were my sisters. We had never dreamed of any such thing.

6. Emma on the other hand looked at her strawberry and asked what would happen if you stuck a straw in a strawberry and drank the juice. So I gave her a straw to find out. Turns out it didn't work so well.

Eagle Cheeks

John walked up to Aaron and asked to look at pictures of bugs. The implication was on the computer. So then he started to list off what he wanted to look at: bees, bugs, skateboards, eagles, and (my personal favorite) eagle cheeks. Personally, I would like to know what would come up when you google "eagle cheeks."

Shower

John doesn't say the word "shower" properly. He calls it a "showya." Today I asked him if he wanted to take a "showya." He looked at me and said, "no showya its shower." I kid you not, he corrected me on my pronunciation. Then he continued to call it a "showya."

High Five

John just asked me for a high five as I was walking out the door for putting him down for naps. This kid cracks me up. It is just too bad that he isn't celebrating the fact that he gets to take a nap. Because that is what I would be doing if someone were putting me down for a nap.

Bluebonnets

We took the kids to take pictures in the bluebonnets. We do this every year. When it was over, I realized that John is in a non-cooperative stage of life as far as pictures are concerned... and a bunch of other things as well. We got a a lot of pictures, most were funny, one had everyone looking at the camera and a lot were no good, but a lot were really funny and funny is important.

At one point John closed his eyes and looked up at the sky in his act of quiet defiance and rebellion. Every time I look at the picture it makes me giggle. After we took the pictures we took Emma to play at the playground and John to look at a military fire truck that happened to be at the park for an event. John sat in the drivers seat and walked around the truck and about a million times. He was in love. Serious love.

Emma was having a grand time herself at the park. There is a huge rock structure for kids to climb on. At the peak, it is probably 6.5 feet tall. She would climb up and jump off for Aaron to catch her. She has to fear because it isn't as though Aaron was standing at the base to catch her. She was taking a big leap out to him. It is strong evidence that Emma has a good amount of Russell genes.

Overall, the playground and fire truck made up for the fact that we tortured the kids with pictures.