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.