Mommathon

The parks and rec department sponsored this event today and it F.U.N. Not only did the boys get to climb on, in and around every sort of truck, car, rescue vehicle you can think of, they also got popcorn and a drink while they were there and a great goody bag which included a Hot Wheels car, coupons to various kid-friendly restaurants and some Skittles. They had a limo, a satelite American Red Cross rescue truck, an armored car, a street sweeper, a race car, a police car, a firetruck and the list goes on.

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Colm and I had to run some stuff down to my dad’s office today. So we did that and we stayed for a while and chatted with my step-mom. It was a little past lunchtime at that point and both Colm and I were getting pretty hungry. There is a restaurant down near the office that I have not been to since I was probably in high school or college during my vegetarian days. Back then it was a tiny hole in the wall where you just might bump elbows with the person sitting at the next table it was so cramped. I wasn’t sure what Colm would eat, but we were in the neighborhood and I was hungry, so we went. You can tell that they don’t have a lot of children pass through their doors. The hostess looked at me as if I might be lost when we walked in and the waitress wasn’t quite sure what to do with us. You could tell Colm’s presence was throwing them off a bit. I asked to see a menu before we sat down to make sure there was something Colm would eat and to my delight there were a couple of things he could choose from. I am so glad we went. I had the tastiest lunch and now I know we can go back with the kids….whether they want us to or not.

Tonight we had a dipper sampling at dinner. We all had fresh green beans, fish and rolls. Normally the green beans would have sent the boys over the edge. Colm would have thrown them on the floor or on my plate and Liam would have pitched a fit. Not tonight. I didn’t say much of anything about the food on their plates because I had them all wrapped up in the variety of dips I had set on the table to try with their dinner. The dips were: ranch (which my kids don’t eat), italian dressing (which my kids don’t eat), melted butter, ketchup, strawberry salad dressing (which they love) and honey. They were so busy seeing which dips tasted good with which foods that Colm totally forgot he hates green beans and Liam ate all of his fish after dipping it in honey, butter and ketchup. Liam even tried a green bean without putting up ANY sort of fight. He EVEN (and this is the amazing part, folks) spit out the first bite because he didn’t like it, but tried it again with a different dip. He still didn’t like it, but he TRIED and no one cried. Not even me. 🙂

Liam officially knows more Spanish than me. He was saying something to me tonight while he was stretching and I thought I just couldn’t understand him because he was stretching and talking at the same time. Finally he explained to me that he was saying “I am tired.” in Spanish. He then rattled off five or six other phrases. Hmm…too bad they don’t offer French at his school then we could actually have a conversation.

It is raining teeth around here. Liam lost ANOTHER tooth tonight. It has been loose for a while, but he WORKED at this one. I won’t bore you with the gory details, but let’s just say he could have waited a while. He has tooth fairy fever, so he is willing to withstand a little pain to get some shiny coins under his pillow at night.

Liam started soccer today. He has the BEST coach. He is so good with the kids and Liam seems to listen to him. I was so proud of Liam today. The coach told him to defend the goal if he didn’t have the ball and that’s exactly what he did. Liam also got his first pair of soccer shoes. They are silver and he thinks he is HOT STUFF with those shoes on. (I’ll have to add a picture of them later.) They had a great first game and Liam had a lot of fun and it was a beautiful day to be outside playing soccer.

Someone stole all of the doorknobs out of our new house. They weren’t installed yet, so I guess that is good. I don’t know how they did it since the house is always locked. They think it was an inside job a) because the house is locked unless someone is working in there and b) they were in boxes inside the kitchen pantry-not the most obvious place to look for doorknobs.

Colm’s first day of preschool was today and he did GREAT! He walked in and didn’t even look back or give me a kiss or a hug good bye. (He did when I reminded him though.) 🙂 He is such a big boy!

You will never believe what I did this weekend! Where to begin…Okay, we have some things in storage since our house is on the market and and the rent for our storage unit is due the first of every month. On Saturday we drove by the place where our stuff is and I realized we hadn’t paid yet, so Sean turned around and drove back. The place was closed, but they have a little slit in the door where you can drop off payments. So that is what I did. Then I realized that they would be closed Sunday as normal and on Monday for the holiday. I started to freak out a little that our check was just laying there on the floor where anyone could see it through the glass. It has our address, names, etc. on it. What to do? So, later on when the boys where in bed, I went to the grocery store and then I drove back to the place to see if I could somehow throw some paper through the little hole to cover up our check. (This was probably ten o’clock at night.) Oh my! I tried EVERYTHING and every piece of paper I tried missed. I had some Blue Clues coloring sheets, a sheet on how to pray the Rosary, some cardboard from a lightbulb wrapper….you can imagine what their floor looks like now. I am sure they are going to walk in on Tuesday morning and wonder what in the world happened. However, since the place has video surveillance all over all they will have to do is go back through the tapes and watch me looking like a complete dork throwing paper through their door. And if they didn’t get it on tape, there is a bank next door that has video cameras, which probably got it all on tape. I just hope I don’t end up on the evening news. 🙂

Love this show! We watched the first one this morning. It is great because both of the boys can participate at different levels. They did word sorts, word families/rhyming, letter ID, reading, spelling and probably some other things I am forgetting. They also used a familiar story to help solve a problem that kids can relate to. The boys like the website, too. There are definitely some elements borrowed from other children’s programs though. I hope the rest of the shows are as engaging and as educational as this one. Liam is also anxiously waiting for the premiere of Wordgirl. We’ve got the DVR all set up so we won’t miss it.