I told you, I told you, I told you, A parent's mantra

Both kids are back at school tomorrow and after a cool, cloudy weekend school is a good place for them. We spent the morning cleaning up the yard of winter's grip and getting the last of the raking done (not all of it, but the last that I plan on doing). Lisa was getting a much needed breather after my long weekend away and the kids and I headed up to the Oconto forest to do some hiking and potentially some geocaching. Heading into the woods with one child dressed in a blaze orange hat and the other one wearing what appears to be a fur-bearing animal hat --looks poor in hindsight but it was completely unintentional no matter what Freud says about my ID. I had a couple of geocache sites programed into the GPS although we did not get close enough to them on our abbreviated hike to let the kids in on this plan. Sophia slept on the way up and Merrick, fresh from his own nap, was very excited about going into the woods and continued to holler that he was going deer hunting. Every group of three or more trees was followed by his shouting "woods" and "go in there." This did seem to add some time to the half-hour trip. We eventually made it to the trail I intended on hiking this afternoon and the kids quickly found a turkey feather followed by deer tracks and large turkey tracks. We even found some horse tracks followed by the inevitable "parade tracks" that had Merrick shaking his head with a wrinkled nose and saying "gross, gross indeed." Merrick was on my shoulders for a very short time, actually only until I heard a very wet sneeze followed by his high voice saying "on your hat." We found a melt water pond for the kids to toss rocks into and then a large mud puddle in the trail. Sophia and I walked around the puddle--that is right there were three of us on this trip. I told Merrick twice to get a way from the puddle and Sophia grabbed his arm to pull him away. It was as if the Sirens of Greek mythology had a grip on the boy and he broke loose and ran into the puddle, stumbled fell and was drenched. The picture of them holding hands is on the return trip, Merrick is soaked and cold. I had been carrying him but that didn't stop his crying. When I put him down to walk thinking it would warm him up he and Sophia grabbed hands and he quit crying. Back at the truck I stripped him down and we all had a "truck picnic" of peanut butter sandwiches and Easter candy.

I am Baaack

Well this weekend was the culmination of Merrick's birthday week. At age two birthdays drag on like Hanukkah or the TV show, ER. At any rate we took the family out to eat on Friday night with a couple of other friends and their children. Not an outside activity obviously but the kids were very impressed by wonderful combination of all you can eat desserts and parental apathy. The Bryan boys (and Becky) were at our house when we returned. Friday evening was short for the kids, and Saturday's weather was nice enough to get some backyard soccer and wagon pulling out of the way before Merrick's party started. His party was well attended although it proceeded out of order (presents then food) he was highly impressed by his balloon bouquet and made sure that everyone that arrived was dragged into the living room to see the balloons. The required happy birthday song was sung by all, albeit so out of tune as to not need to pay royalties and was finished off with Sophia's solo of "ChaChaCha."
Merrick is starting to come out of his bashful stage and after a short respite in another room came running into the kitchen and announced in a clear young voice over the din of adult banter "I am baaaack." This generated enough laughter that he continued doing it for the next 8-10 minutes. As his party ended and he in some cases actually pushed people out of the door, it was naps for everyone. As the house woke up in various stages there was little more outside time in the backyard as the adults turned their conversations towards the pending snow storm and the holiday break to come.

blackmail springs eternal

With the weather oscillating between nearly warm and nasty cold, some days I have rolled Merrick's window down on the way home from school. He waves at his friends, holds his hand out the window and generally enjoys himself. Yesterday the weather was too cold and I told Merrick I wouldn't roll his window down when the following conversation took place:

Merrick: Daddy Window
Merrick: Daddy Window
Merrick: Daaaaddddyyy Windoooow
dad: no Merrick its too cold out to have the window down.
Merrick: Daddy Window
dad: no, its too cold
Merrick: daddy Window
Dad: no
Merrick: Daddy Kiss
dad: Merrick you want to give me a kiss?
Merrick: Window daddy

His voice tone changed and it was very clear he was willing to trade his affection for rolling down the window. From mere button pushing to blackmail, alas they grow up so fast.

Ruthless and Toothless

The weekend was one that was high on desire and low on accomplishment. We had some walks around the neighborhood, but did not make it to any of the hiking trails in the area. The ground is mostly exposed and the snow is only still in the deep shadow areas. Sophia played with the neighbor girl for most of Saturday afternoon. We spent the day putzing in the yard, although it was too wet for any real spring cleaning. Lisa did manage to loose her wedding ring while picking up sticks and then miracalously find it on Sunday morning. Saturday evening we had dinner with friends and Merrick showed his developing monsterness. His attitude is playful, but he is really pushing buttons, as evidenced by the picture (he was told to eat in the kitchen). A small fire to burn some brush, combined with a soccer game that turned into a baseball game. Sophia was board with baseball and Merrick quickly turned it into hockey, either out of boardom or necessity--the ball is much easier to hit when it is on the ground rather than in the air.
Sophia had a birthday party on Sunday for one of her school friends, but she did manage to pull out her first tooth just before we headed over to the party. We were a little late but well worth the new milestone. The tooth fairy is prepared and will give her a gold presidential coin tonight. Then I suspect we will spend most of tomorrow trying to tear her bed apart to find it.

Springing into Saturday

With the first beautiful weekend of the spring season, we still found ourselves indoors much to often. The snow is on its way out, but the revealing yard is one step above a 'sippi hole' and much of Saturday was filled with domestic chores such as hair cuts and oil changes. The girls did sneak out for a while and did their part to stimulate the economy with the purchase of some new summer dresses. Merrick chose to nap instead and I burned the large amounts of branches that fell during the high winds of last week. We did get a brief walk in and the kids took turns pulling each other in the wagon. Sophia tried to get out of the wagon after Merrick had pulled her only a few feet, he quickly hollered at her "no fair" so she politely sat back down so that he could get his fair share of pulling her. I was ok with not being given my fair share of pulling either one of them.
Merrick did spend some time exercising his Y-chromosome and turn a benign object into a gun. He was able to turn Sophia's scrunchies into projectiles and 'shoot rubber bands at the stars"
Merrick also spent about fifteen minutes emptying a bottle of antibiotic hand soap into the toilet, mixing it up into the expected lather and then washing the bathroom floor and walls with toilet paper. Obviously there was a mess to clean up. This situation left us as parents, (albeit initially inattentive) with the question of how do you clean a kid that has just been playing in the toilet with antibacterial soap--he should by the nature of his actions be cleaned, right? Being unsure of proper parental protocol, we figured our bases would be covered if we just gave him a bath. Between his morning bath, and now his mid day bath and figuring in his four changes of wet cloths from being outside for any duration longer than 30 seconds--he was pretty much wet all day long.

Hockey no More (or Ending with a Bang)

This was Sophia's last week of Hockey and possibly last time playing as she doesn't think she will do it again next year. Her apathy towards the sport could be an issue of timing (Sunday nights) program design or maybe (aghast) she really doesn't enjoy it. She does have fun when she out there playing and has enjoyed getting all the snow on her skates, to throw at me later, and asking me to feel how sweaty her head gets. At any rate she ended with a bang. She was making great passes and even knocked over a couple of kids--it was just drills and there wasn't supposed to be any contact but I was impressed with her balance. She also so made a nice goal, when the keeper came out and gave a standard crappie flop in front of the net, Sophia just lifted the puck over him and scored--I thought it was a good show of patience. She was also asked by the coach to demonstrate here skating to the rest of the kids and had every other kid watching her. Merrick on the other hand will miss hockey and the zamboni. He only sat still on my lap when he was attentively watching the zamboni doors for the ice beast to come out. The was alternated by him hollaring for the zamboni or foraging. He did score a couple of 'bleacher fritos' A bleacher frito covers a wide range of objects, but all definitions include "previously dropped, potentially edible object that is found." This time I think he even found an actual frito, I would be remis to not mention that he apparently filled up on bleacher fritos as he ate nothing for supper when we got home.

From FEMA to Family

The family had a much anticipated albeit indoor movie night on Friday. Complete with a futon nest, popcorn and rootbeer that settled mightily in bellies already filled from a junk-food supper. Saturday the snow pounded down adding and an additional five inches over the day and some pretty good drifts. The kids pretty much laid around the house, our FEMA project and watched a cartoon marathon complete with sponge-bob (I refuse to treat this as a proper noun) and Arthur et. al. We did rouse everyone in time to make a 7pm Gamblers game which came down to the final shot in a shoot-out. The game set two records one for the number of teddy bears tossed onto the ice (6,021) and another for attendance about 6700 people. The teddy bears are donated to the pediatrics ward of a local hospitable. The people attending, I presume returned to their respective houses. Sunday necessitated a massive clean up effort after two days of ignoring said task. Lisa's inlaws came over in the afternoon and we headed out to the Sophia's Sunday night hockey practice. She skated well and tallied up 24 goals, apparently a three generation audience suited her. Merrick did his part to hollar everytime a puck smacked the glass. This post is again sans photos after pushing the USB port all the way into our camera body.