Dinner menu

I ask Buddy for ideas for dinner often although he never has any. Luckily, Bohdin has started suggesting things. When we were walking into Costco yesterday, he suggested fish for last night, a salad for tonight, and a hamburger tomorrow. I prepared the salmon last night along with the acorn squash he wanted me to but last week and some french fries. He ate a bite of squash, two french fries, and two servings of fish. Today he wanted fish and vegetable soup for lunch. He sure does enjoy eating fish.

On Sunday afternoon, we bought a dozen donuts with the intention of having one per day. That was the agreement with Bohdin anyway. Twenty four hours after we bought them, Bohdin walks into the kitchen and says that every time he looks in the box there are fewer donuts. It was true. Buddy and I totally gobbled them up.

Hide and Seek

Buddy came home Friday night. When the door opened Nyla shrieked and ran as fast as she could to the door. She runs to the door every time Buddy comes home but it was even more enthusiastic than usual. I love how affectionate she is. I received an amazing hug this morning.

When we go outside, Bohdin beats me down the stairs, waits under the stairwell and comes running out yelling surprise when I walk out the door. Something happened yesterday when we were going for a walk and his usual exit resulted in a meltdown. (I was already outside with Nyla so only Buddy saw it) It took several minutes to get him back in a better mood. We started walking and he decided to play hide and go seek. He hid behind a bush and wanted us to think of wrong places. We've played this very annoying game before. So I started thinking of places he wasn't. Was he behind the tree? No. Was he under the rock? No. It went on and on and on. We saw him several times but he said "No. Keep guessing." We were running out of patience when Bohdin comes out and asks "Can we stop playing now?" Absolutely. I don't know what made him think we wanted to continue.

I took a bath last night and the water was really hot. I mentioned it to Bohdin so he went to the kitchen and brought me a glass of water to cool me off. I was so touched by his thoughtfulness.

Tricycle

Just before Nyla started walking she went through a very fussy stage. She would cry for everything. If I was holding her and she wanted down she would start squirming and crying. She was crying every few minutes. We're in the midst of another rough patch. This time the crying is more itense and lasts longer. She wakes up in a good mood but soon things start going wrong for her. Yesterday she was mad I stopped pulling her in the wagon after 20 minutes. She was mad that she couldn't have the toy Bohdin touched or the one he touched next after giving her the first toy. It's been awful around here. The neighbors must surely think I'm abusing her. Last night Bohdin was doing his workbook at his little table. Nyla pushed him out of the chair so she could sit there. He moved to the kitchen table which has a bench. She climbed up and tried pushing him out of the way again. She gets mad when nobody spins her in the chair. She gets mad when we spin her too fast or too slow or we're in the wrong spot as we push. Everything is wrong in her life right now and she's sharing the misery.

 

 

I took the tricycle outside yesterday. Nyla discovered a place in the back for herself and rode along. Since there was extra weight I pushed on Nyla's back to help him along. When I was taking the picture today Nyla was mad that I wasn't holding her.
 

I put her to sleep first last night. This morning I asked if she slept well and she nodded yes. She did actually sleep pretty well last night.

Inventor

In the morning I usually ask Bohdin how he slept the previous night. This morning I asked Nyla.

me: Did you sleep well?
Nyla: Shakes her head no
me: Do you know why you didn't sleep well?
Nyla: Signs sleep and points to Bohdin
me: You couldn't sleep because Bohdin was asleep?
Nyla: Shakes her head yes
me: Do you want to go to sleep before Bohdin tonight?
Nyla: Shakes her head yes

Nyla did have a hard time going to sleep last night. Tonight I'll put her to sleep first. I don't know if she understood the conversation we were having but if she did then I should honor her request. When I'm by myself, I put the more tired child to sleep first. If they are both really tired I do the easier child first which is usually Bohdin. He can have a difficult time going to sleep if Nyla is in the bed because she squirms and plays and crawls over him. If she gets out of bed he can fall asleep in a minute. The trick is getting her out of bed.

Nyla can get restless in her sleep if her diaper is wet. I change her and she falls asleep in the process. It's not the only reason for restless sleep but it is one. A wet diaper usually doesn't bother her during the day. Or it doesn't bother her enough to interrupt her busy day.

 

We went to a playgroup yesterday that turned out well. It was 40 minutes away but there were several boys there Bohdin's age. He played more with the 3 year old though. I was proud of Bohdin at one point. A boy was hitting a punching bag really loudly with a sword. Bohdin asked for a turn. The other boy didn't respond but I was glad that Bohdin talked to him. He also talked to the 3 year old quite a bit. He was discouraged that nobody was doing what he was telling them to do. The playgroups are usually held once a month unless somebody wants to host more often. We'll try to go to another one. When I was driving to playgroup yesterday I realized that I would like Maryland a lot better if we were making at least twice as much money. That would put us in a single family home in a decent area.

Bohdin likes to watch the show How Things Are Made. As a result he has come up with many machine inventions of his own. A baking machine would help me bake when nobody else wants to. A bathtub machine will start your bath for you at just the right temperature and then pulls the drain for you when you are done. I can't remember all of them but they are interesting. The other day Bohdin invented a pillow jumper thing. I just asked him to remind me of the name and he said "I call it the jumper now. It is an easy word for you to say and remember." Perhaps I should ask him to invent a memory machine for me. My brain has been running at half speed recently.

Catching up

I finally downloaded the Christmas pictures. Some turned out okay. I would have had more good pictures but I didn't learn until yesterday how to use the manual focus. It's so so simple. We'll still be needing a new lens on our camera since the autofocus doesn't work.

 
 
 
 


Bohdin says he is a baby AND a big boy. This gives him the privileges of both I guess. I was asking him a question regarding that statement and he says "It is SO difficult to talk to you right now".

Kids at the grocery store really do make me buy more things. We came home with a turnip and acorn squash that was not on our list. I said no to the blackberries he wanted.

Bohdin is fascinated with the ongoing saga of his toys. Buddy has come up with a story about him and his toys cleaning up dirty Maryland. Bohdin will have to get tonight's installment over the phone since Buddy will be in Virginia for the next several days.

Back to the old grindstone

Buddy went back to work this morning. We flew back Friday and it was an uneventful
trip. Bohdin refused to sit with me on either leg of the trip. Buddy tells better stories. I'm glad that Buddy has the chance to experience being the preferred parent. For years Buddy has felt a little jealous but now he gets a chance to bask in the favored status. This is certainly fine with me. On the second leg when Nyla was sleeping I was able to sit back and relax. It's not too often that I can do that on an airplane.

The flight attendant on the airplane told me that Bohdin was dear and very sweet. It's true. It made me laugh though because no stranger will ever use those words to describe Nyla. Her adjectives will be more along the lines of feisty and determined.

Somebody who is funny

When I was dressing Bohdin yesterday morning we were playing a little game. I was wondering who would fit into the pants I was holding. I made several guesses but they were all wrong. Bohdin then said "It's somebody who was 3 and is now 4". I guessed one of his friends so he responded with "It's somebody who says lots of jokes and is funny". I asked him to tell me a joke.

Q: Why does a walking chair eat?
A: Because he's hungry!

Todd came over yesterday and Bohdin started telling jokes at dinnertime with a very similar punchline. We were all laughing anyway even Nyla although her laugh was a forced polite laugh because she saw we were all laughing.

I told Todd I wouldn't put this in the blog but I am anyway. We were all sitting in the garage and Bohdin was thinking of a way to climb into the back of the pickup truck. The end was down. He wanted me to hold one of the rope and Todd the other so he could use the rope to climb up. It didn't work. He tried several more variations. I thought his design flaw was the lack of upper body strength but hours later I realized I was wrong. The previous day he had watched the Magic School Bus. They used a rope to get over a vast expanse by hooking their legs over the rope and shimmying across. That's what Bohdin was trying to do. What his real design flaw was that the rope wasn't high enough to clear the open back. He kept hitting the truck because the rope was too low. If I had realized earlier what he had been trying he may have been able to accomplish it.

We need to head to the airport in less than an hour. We need to fly through either Chicago or Denver. I was hoping we could stop in Denver for a little while but it just doesn't work out. I could stay with the kids for a few days and try to catch a flight after the weekend rush but when we were looking at that option I told Buddy that Bohdin was homesick and just wants to go home. Yesterday morning I decided to ask his opinion anyway even though I was pretty confident he would not want to delay going home. When I gave him the option of going home or staying in Denver for a few days he said "I told you I was homesick". His tone of voice implied that I had asked the stupidest question of all time. Last night when I gave him our intinerary through Chicago he said he wanted to stay in a hotel in Chicago instead of taking a late flight. He said he wasn't homesick anymore.