Merrick's Very Busy Day

Yesterday was Sophia's Birthday, and rest assured she was treated like a queen, but it also turned out to be a very "busy" day for Merrick.
The weather here has been very rainy and although we were planning on going to an amusement park for Sophia's Birthday, we ended up going to the Children's Museum and on our way home we hit the mall. Sophia and Lisa wondered off to do some girl shopping and Merrick and I were going to head to Scheels. We didn't make it far when Merrick had to go to the bathroom. As we are coming out of the bathroom and heading down the long hallway back towards the mall a college-aged girl and her boyfriend are coming toward us. Merrick is wondering like a drunk in the dark as a three-year old will do. The older guy is trying to get out of Merrick's way, but when Merrick looks up and sees him there, Merrick just doubles up both fists and punches the guy in his nuts--yep two fists two testicles. I apologized to the guy, the girl was still covering her mouth in laughter and in true midwestern spirit the guy apologized back to me. Once in Scheels we headed to the bike section and there is a sweet tricycle, low rider style and it fits Merrick really well. Actually he can really motor on the thing. In his napless, birthday sugar induced mindset he takes off down the aisles leaves the bike department and drives over the putting green in the golf department before I can grab hold of him and the bike and get him headed back toward the bike department. Still on the bike he tears around the corner only to find a lady in the aisle--he politely hollers "Passing on your left" and shoots right by her. She was wearing a fancy bike jacket so she to understood the rules of the 'trail." But the best was yet to come after a supper at Sophia's favorite restaurant we loaded up the truck and headed out to the drive in. The kids were playing at the park under the big screen waiting for the sun to set. Merrick walked over the to the "Play at your Own Risk" sign dropped his pants to the ankles and pissed on the sign. Yep, apparently he is an antiestablishmentarianist to the core. I thought Lisa and I were in the clear because we were in the back of the truck--nobody knew who's kid was peeing in front of everyone. Sophia however wanted to make sure we knew what was going on making a bee line to us in all of her pink clothing and looking like a flare coming towards the truck. Merrick realized he was going to be ratted out wanted to get to the truck and start his defense campaign, so he started to pull up his pants on the run. So he starts chasing the pink flare over the grass berm, gravel, grass berm, gravel never really getting his pants up and never really slowing down as they both came right to the truck allowing everyone to know just who was in charge of these kids. The big puddle in the back ground, obviously there was another story there too--but really do you need to know more?

A weak review of the week

The first week of summer vacation is already in the books and we tried to keep the kids busy and edutained. Soccer was still in full swing and only last night concluded for the season. Grandma Nancy and Grandpa Bob made it over to see one of the last games and Grandma kept her streak alive and brought the rain. In fairness we took some rain ourselves to the air show when we went to see them (as well as a jet bus and the blue angles). Gymnastics started for Sophia and Merrick started swimming lessons again. Both sessions are at the same time freeing up some of our weeknight time. Merrick is the only boy in his class and given that it is at the downtown Y it is Merrick and the chicas. He has really taken to the class as well as shopping as it he likes to ride in the cart and look for the 'fancy girls." His little boy eyes really light up if we happen upon a pig-tailed girl. We also managed to get down to the WIAA state baseball tournament to watch Joel play. The weather was great, the stands looked like a family reunion and the game we watched, Joel's team was able to beat DePere and the umpire. Sophia just wanted to talk to grandma, and Merrick liked to hollar "it's outta here' for each foul ball. We headed to the game after a family photo shoot at a local park. Sophia eats up the camera and I am excited to get the pictures back. The photographer was doing a single pose of Merrick and asked him to "give me a big smile" so obligingly Merrick reached out his hand with writhing fingers and said "tickle, tickle." We found an excellent little ice cream shop about 3 or 4 miles from the house along the bike trail so we are able to ride the bikes down. Sophia's bike usually gets strapped to the back of the rickshaw for the return trip and her and Merrick have a cage match all the way one--but at least we are staying active and are outside. There have also been a lot of campfires at night, in part because I have wood that is rotting and needs to be burned and in part because so many of the nights have been just gorgeous. Plenty of smores to go around. We also were able to watch a beer bottle melt in the hot coals so the kids are getting some lessons on rheology and phase changes. We spent some time along the river fishing spawn sacks off the bottom, but there were no bites. Still in the early stages of potty training with Merrick so I pretty much let him pee where we are. He peed once on a tree near the river next to the bike trail and then again on the park sign. The park sign was also near a geocache that we found last year so the kids were able to revisit that treasure as well. As for the public peeing I figure he pees less than a German Shepard (the dog not the occupation) so we should be fine. We have already had two trips to the library again it is along the bike trail so that I get to count that as a double activity. The first day down there a kids program about the "Hungry Caterpillar" was taking place and a becostumed caterpillar was walking around. After Merrick punched him the second time I thought we should leave. Sophia has been enjoying reading chapter books and is staying up late to read them as well as hanging around in the hammock in the afternoons. Tried to go to a drive in but it was filled up--over 300 cars were already there more than 2 hours before the movie started. Saturday was also Sophia's party for her school friends. We went to a local version of chucky-cheeses (but edible pizza) great service, great fun -- pizza, games and ice cream. If every week is this busy I am going to need a vacation at the end of this vacation.

A formidable Memorial Day

A four-day weekend that had a whole months worth of fun packed into it. I was able to walk the kids to school on Friday as I was off but their schools were in session. Merrick and I walked Sophia about half way to school and then the three of us thought Sophia was old enough to walk the rest of the way by herself. Merrick and I continued on to his school, where in a short while I would wake him from his nap and head to the doctors office to check on his soon-to-be third ear infection in a little over a month. In the end he got stickers and we headed to the ice cream shop to have a couple of cones in the beautiful weather. We walked back down to pick up Sophia at a school and Lisa met us at the playground. I had actually burned my barefoot pretty good on the walk down so Lisa ran back to get the car and then we all headed to the ice cream shop for supper. This was going well until Merrick started spouting off about it being his second ice cream, ix-nay and loose lips sinking ships was lost on him but not the ladies--we were busted. Busted or not we still got ice cream. We grabbed a movie on the way home and the kids flopped on the futon matteress for a good old fashioned movie night. Saturday Sophia had yet another birthday party to go to, a pool party so we dropped her off and then the rest of us did a little domestic shopping and napping. Saturday night the Cup finals were on so we took the kids to the bar, the sucked down rootbeer and various deep fried things (including deep-fried raviolli) and played shuffle board while Lisa and I watched the first period of the game. Sunday morning we drove up to Pennisula State park to take in some picnicking and beach time. There was hoards of people and lot of 'chalkasians' that were nasty red from the early spring sun. The water temperature was way too cold for even the kids to swim (high fifties maybe) but standing in calf deep water and building sand castles was a pretty good way to spend the afternoon. We also found a pretty sweet dirt track with peddle cars for the kids to tear around on while Lisa was inside getting us some cherry strusel and water. We shopped a little in Fish Creek before heading south again, the kids napped on the way home with their new hats in their laps. We had a quick supper and then ran down to the DePere Days festival not too far from the house. Standard Fair stuff of bouncing palaces, funnel cakes and hillbillies--we found a grassy area to spread out our blanket and watch the sunset and eat a funnel cake that had beer spilled on it while we waited for the fireworks to start. It was Merrick's first fireworks and initially not a fan, but by the second artillary volley he was partaking in all of the ohhs and ahhs. The kids also each got a light saber (neon blue) on the way home, so with Merrick on my shoulders we danced through the drunken crowd while Yoda, aka Merrick, taunted each drunk with a light saber to the face. At any rate I made it out of there without getting punched in the nose and the kids were so tired that they even slept until after 6 on Monday morning. Monday we hit the bike trail and drove down to the parade and taught the kids that it was ok to take candy from strangers and play in the street sometimes. We met some of our friends at the parade and all ended up back at our house for a lunch off the grill and kids in sprinklers--that is about as Norman Rockwell as we can get. The plan for Monday night was to watch the second game of the Cup, but we needed to do some minor surgery on Sophia's ear as her earring back had been pushed into the whole and had the ear growing around it--pulled it out with a hemostat on one side and forceps on the other piled on the bacitracine and called it fixed. Like I said we tried to pack a month into four days.