Michael here. The next post by Amy is much better than this. I don't have the photos off my phone yet but if I don't write this now I never will. Wanted to record some of the regular, random experiences my kids give me:
1. Taking the girls to their piano "festival" yesterday - a pretty formal performance at a big house in front of a bunch of strangers, after which they receive a score from four judges. As we were walking in I stopped them and said, "I just want you to know I'm proud of you both and I love you very much." Catherine leaned into me and smiled demurely. Emma shook loose from my hand so she could keep walking in and said, "You already told us that."
2. Telling bedtime stories. Things have evolved to where I make up a story for the boys every night. I've been doing it a while so I'm running out of ideas. One night I needed something good so I went right to a proven winner - the old time-travel-to-the-land-of-dinosaurs. The little boy landed right on the T. Rex's head and it roared and shook him back and forth. . .
Spencer: and it was a really nice T. Rex and it didn't want to eat him
me: okay, and he realized that the black box in his hand was a remote control that controlled the dinosaur. . .
Spencer: No!!!! and don't make it that it runs out of batteries or that the dinosaur eats it, either!
3. Dad movie nights. On two recent Fridays Amy was away so we rented a kid movie and I watched it with them. First was Madagascar II (excellent). This past Friday we ramped it up and were allowed to eat our pizza WHILE we watched the movie. This incredible novelty was strong enough motivation to drive the kids to clean up the entire family room unsupervised while I made the pizza. The movie was Beverley Hills Chihuahua (not excellent). It's fun that they are all at ages where we can do something like that together and they are all interested.
4. Entertaining the boys during the girls' piano recital. At a different piano-related event to which the whole family is invited, David took off his shoes and socks and was running around. When I picked him up and stood in the back, he started yelling, "This is stoooooo-pid! This is stooooo-pid!" So I took him out and Spencer followed. They ran circles around the piano store we were in and were almost knocking stuff over. I took them outside the store. It was dark and about 45 degrees. David loved running barefoot around the sidewalk. I got them to race each other the length of the strip mall about five times. During intermission, after both our girls had performed, we got David's shoes to take the boys home. But they wanted to explore the strip mall. So we looked through the windows of two different dentist's offices, a mortgage firm, and that pet urgent care facility. Then we came to the health food store! It was still open and for some reason they loved looking at the $11 bottle of cranberry juice, $75 jug of maple syrup, and slabs of free-range organic pork shoulder while I got the full-court press on the magical medicinal properties of unpasteurized milk. Because the sales lady was so earnest I bought a can of coconut juice and we shared it when we got home. The boys loved holding the glass with their pinkie extended and smacking their lips after each gulp.
1 comment:
I didn't need any pictures to catch the vision! Thanks--that was a great post, son.
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