So naughty

A week or two ago I hadn't heard anything upstairs for about 10 minutes, so I went upstairs quietly to try to catch them in the act of whatever super-naughty thing they were doing. (I suspected they had found my ipad and were looking at pictures.) Instead, I found this. They had dragged the chair over in front of their dresser to climb up on top and read chapter books. They clearly thought they would be in big trouble. But==hard to be mad about that! I tried to act like it was very naughty and told them they needed to be careful getting down from the dresser.

Snow fun

In between snowstorms and windchills below 0, we sometimes go outside and shovel and sled.

Surprise!

It's two boys in a box!

naked train

After breakfast the boys headed up to get in the bath. After playing for a while, they got out and played hide-and-seek in our bedroom (hint: they're always under the covers, in bed). Then they went downstairs to play with cars and build trains. It is about 0 degrees outside and maybe 66 inside, but they refused to get dressed.

Interesting thoughts/observations from Theo and Beckett

I told Beckett I had picked up his blanket on the floor. He said, "That's good, Mama. You might fall if the blanket was there. You don't want to fall, because then you might hurt the baby. If you hurt the baby, the baby would cry, and then your belly would be all wet."

Theo is still expressing a lot of reticence about going to school. We have been asking him in different ways what it is he doesn't like, but we haven't gotten much from him generally. This weekend we were talking about what day it was, and what was going to happen that day and future days, and he got anxious about going to school on Monday (as per usual). I asked him why he didn't like going to school, and he said that at school Miss Mo tells him to do things that are too hard for him, and he wants to stop but Miss Mo tells him to finish it. It was my first clue about what goes on at school for them. I asked Beckett about it, and he said that when Miss Mo tells him to do something, he does it, and it's not too hard for him. I'm not sure if what Theo is talking about happened once, or has happened repeatedly. Theo tends to be very sensitive about scolding and not feeling competent. I'll have to ask Miss Mo about it. On another day, Theo was again complaining about having to go to school, and when I asked him why he didn't want to go, he said he wants to do whatever he wants and he doesn't like it when Miss Mo tells him what to do. Beckett then said, "You can't just do whatever you want all the time, Theo." Right on, Beck.

Needless to say, Theo was thrilled about the snow day we had Monday 2/9 and when he woke up Wednesday, he ran to the window with a huge expectant grin on his face and said "Is there too much snow to go to school today?"

Death: the boys have recently become interested in death. I believe it started with a discussion about a picture in the dining room of Jeff and his grandfather at our wedding, which also led to a discussion about where Daddy's grandpa is now. In the last few months I have gotten a couple questions a week about death, or heard conversations between the boys about death. Some common themes are: I don't want to die. Is (name of relative or friend) going to die? Am I going to die? When am I going to die? Do trees die? Do tigers die?

As these discussions have progressed, and they have gotten used to my saying that everyone dies, even plants and animals, they have started saying things like "We don't know when we're going to die." It's a difficult conversation to have and I'm not sure how much they are understanding of it, but I'm fascinated by their first questions and explorations of a very difficult topic.

Some big words Beckett has used spontaneously, appropriately, and in context in the last week: fragile and stabilize. (As in, while I was helping him put his new shoes on, "Mama, hold my shoe to stabilize it.")

Billy Beez trip

A new place called Billy Beez opened up at the Destiny mall last winter, and we've been meaning to take the boys to try it out. We went Friday, when thankfully there were hardly any people there. A lot of the stuff is meant for older kids, probably between 5-9, because the slides are very slippery and fast, and it's so large that my little guys became disoriented while up in the structures. But there's room for parents to walk around beneath all the elevated tunnels and bridges, so I could help direct when they couldn't figure out where to go. The most fun they had was with the low trike things, and they have a great track set up so the boys could whip around on the trikes like it was a drag race. Beck loved the lava slide (above) but it was too slippery for Theo. He bonked his head once on one of the fast slides and didn't want to do any more sliding.

This was the best picture I could get of Beck on the trikes, because it was a curvy track and he was going SO fast!

There's also a big room with lots of foam balls and a giant whooshing fan that sweeps the balls up in the air. The MOST also has a similar thing but with a much louder WHOOSH that scares Theo and is the reason we haven't been to the museum in many months. He really liked loading this one up and then pressing the button to make the fan blow all the balls up into the air.