Kooky kid fun

True Confessions

If you are looking for me- you will find me here:

I haven’t done a puzzle in about..oh, I don’t know…four and a half years maybe.   I was looking at puzzles while shopping the other day and this one caught my attention and I was like a drug addict waiting/drooling for a score. Is that the right terminology? I don’t even know. All I know, is that for the past few days, my spare time has been spent here. Alec has been threaten within an inch of his life not to touch it or take any pieces. I didn’t make the same threat to Erik but I am thinking maybe I should have. I can just see me getting to the end of the puzzle and there is one piece missing and Erik is laughing to himself walking down the Vegas strip. There will be hell to pay – I can assure you that!

I had forgotten how therapeutic a puzzle can be – fitting the pieces together and watching progress being made and peacefully ignoring my family.

This probably says a lot about by mental state but lets not go there.

And because I know you didn’t check out the blog to hear about me….we quarantined Alec over the weekend. He had stuffy nose and we didn’t it to blossom into anything so we laid low and made some juice to fight the germs. It did the trick and no major cold for him. Now I have it. I want to quarantine myself so I can do my puzzle. :)

If you are keeping track (and knock on some wood for me) it has been over 3 months since he has had one of those mysterious high fevers that come on quickly with the very bad headaches. Yep..since he got his tubes. Guess they made a difference. And since we are talking about the tubes. They have completely made a difference in his hearing. He really couldn’t hear us. I had been on the fence about whether he really needed them or not  but now I see it has made a huge improvement in the quality of what he hears.

And so, I will leave you with this….

(mom and dad you will notice…the coffee maker has not moved since you left..and at this point it won’t move until you get here again…and yes…we did at least clean it)

Nesting

Alec built Shania a nest.

He’s hoping she’ll lay* some eggs.

I didn’t correct him.

 

*Amy..what is it about little boys and laying things???*  :)

Snow in October?

Ugh!

But we made the best of it. It was perfect snow for snowballs and snowmen. Alec was way into throwing snowballs and he instigated all the fights. Erik and I? We just kept trying to make it fun. These moments won’t last forever and hopefully the snow won’t either. :)

No offense Frosty you are awful cute and all but I hope we don’t see you again for a while.

Who knew?

Erik was out tonight and so over dinner Alec and I were talking and I said ‘hey –did you know Hannah and Nathan are coming for Thanksgiving?” And Alec quipped back with “Yes, I did know that” (pause)  “well, I might have mostly known that” (pause) “mostly but not a lot I knew that” (pause) “nope…I sure didn’t know that”.

Glad we got that settled.

And now on to other scintillating dinner conversation…..

Are germs and bacteria the same thing? Why are some good and some bad?

Why are lungs spongy?

Are your throat and your airway the same? So when  I breathe out am I spitting out chunks for food?

How does Santa get all the toys in 1 bag? How big is it that it can fit all those toys?

Who helps Santa make all the toys? I thought there was no such things are elves? THEN WHO MAKES THE TOYS?

followed up with a side of….

I really don’t understand how he can make it around the world in one night.

With that one I stuffed my mouth full of food so I didn’t have to answer him.

Once done chewing, I announced that dinner was over and I whisked his half-eaten plate away. No battle of wills over cleaning his plate tonight. He wins. His clever strategy of asking too many questions until I want to stick a fork in my eye trumps my drive and determination to make him eat a well balance meal.

Game over.

Parent 0 /Child 1

It has occurred to me recently that I am my own worst enemy when it comes to his knowledge.  I had read somewhere in a couple studies that boys typically score lower than girls in reading these days. There are lots of theories about this but part of this revolves around the fact that there are mostly women teachers in the younger grades who solely read books about ‘feeling’s and ‘fluff’ and that some boys would become avid readers if given non-fiction read/hear. Boys like facts and reality. Make sense. Alec gravitates towards those books. So I bought more books of that genre. We read lots of nonfiction. The problems lies in the fact that I, being a girl, could careless about the facts and would prefer the fluff. But since I want to encourage him to enjoy reading, I am stuck having these conversations that drive me crazy. :)

Good thing I think he’s cute!

Halloween

Here is the last of the Halloween festivities. I could probably drag out the blog for a few days with all of it but I’m pretty over Halloween so I will lump it all together.

Friday afternoon my work had their Halloween party. Last year I swore if I was still working there that I would bring Alec in and so I did.  It was well worth it. I feel like the pictures I can show you don’t do it justice.

My prestigious space. Jealous aren’t you? 

Our little corner of Human Resources. We handed out balloons to the 40+ kids that came. They were a big hit. What kid doesn’t like a balloon?

One of the conference rooms filled with crafts, games and food.

The Farm…it was awesome. The red thing in the back is a cut out of a barn.

Payroll was a lame with their cutout skeleton face.

Next up was the garden path.

And a Circus …that had a popcorn machine and cotton candy machine. I didn’t get too many pictures of it. (I took this the day before)

I took this the day before- on the big day the conference room was transformed into a haunted house put on by the Technology group. It was awesome and pretty scary! Alec would not go through it without me.

Some of the graves:

And one I swear was made just for Alec:

If you don’t get it –stop by my house. Alec will explain it to you.

These were just a few of the stops in the building. It was a fun afternoon.

Saturday morning we attended Saco’s Haunted Breakfast with the Knox Family.  We got there a little late (read: on time) so our seating was a little dicey but we managed.  The kids were pretty low-key for them and didn’t eat much but that really isn’t the point at a haunted breakfast is it? :)

They got their faces painted and tattoo’s on their hands.

They played a few games and 50 minutes later it was done. Now that’s what I am talkin’ about.  In and out baby! 

And finally the big night. You know all about it so I will just show you the pictures.

Hopefully this is the last time we will see the Spiderman outfit on Alec on Halloween. 2 years is just a little much for me. I think I would have been so much more excited if he was wearing something different. And don’t think I didn’t try ‘cause I did. I tried just about everything. I even sat him down with a costume catalog and told him I would buy him whichever one he picked. Took a gamble there didn’t I?  ;)  But nothin’ doin’. For him it was Spiderman. Non-negotiable. And so I was left to dig deep, get over myself, and be thankful for a healthy young boy who wants to be a superhero. And a cute one at that.

My fingers are crossed for Halloween 2012.

PSO Spooktacular

The Portland Symphony Orchestra put on family friend, affordable show on Sunday the 30th. It is part of their discovery series they are putting together for families to introduce kids to the arts. This was their first foray into the series and I would say it was a hit. It was a sold out show.  It was very cool.

Here is how it was described:

Discover a Halloween experience filled with symphonic thrills and chills for the whole family! Maestro Robert Moody leads the ghouls and goblins of the PSO in some of the greatest “spooktacular” music ever written for orchestra, including the Funeral March of a Marionette by Gounod, music from from Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, and The Chill of the Orchestra by American composer Russell Peck. Dancers from Portland Ballet will join in “Bella’s Lullaby” from Twilight and lead the entire audience in the zombie dance stylings of Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

Come in costume, and come early for games, crafts, a hands-on instrument petting zoo and lots more family-friendly musical fun.

We went early as it was a general admission seating and we wanted decent seats. As luck would have it, we got decent seats and then we left Erik in charge of saving them and Alec and I went exploring.  The preshow activities were mobbed. He did play a few percussion instruments and then went to a lesson on dancing thriller. That was too much for him. He just stood there while people danced around him. After that I ushered him back to our seats before he (I) melted down from too much stimulation.

All dressed up!

 

Thriller dancing…or not dancing.

The sumo viola-ist won the top prize for costumes for the orchestra. It was great!

Alec’s view of Erik and I (below)…

The show was great and very family friendly.  We can’t wait to see what they come up with in the future.