Secret Hideout

The other weekend, we cleared out all our junk from the space under the stairs and Ben turned it into a server room. It's now not uncommon to go looking for Ben, and find out that he is hiding out in his "den" fixing something.

Isaac discovered this room the other night when Ben was working in there, and he happily spent an hour playing his gameboy next to his daddy.

However, it has now become his "secret hideout". Ben came home from work, and Isaac ran downstairs to get his gameboy while calling out "Daddy, I'm going to the secret hideout."

For now I'm going to let boys be boys, and they can have their hideout. It's kind of nice also knowing that it's the boys space, but I know where to search if I need to find them.

Apportioning Blame

One of the great things about having a brother or sister, is there is always someone else that you can blame. If something goes wrong, it's never your fault. The downfall happens when one of group goes to school. There is no longer someone else to carry the blame when something goes wrong, or even if there is any possible chance of getting in trouble.

That's when Elizabeth arrives on the scene. No, not our Lizzy, but the other Elizabeth. The doll that goes everywhere with Lizzy.

"Mummy. Elizabeth wanted a pear." (as she uses the doll to lift the pear from the fruit bowl, and then begin to eat it.)
"Mummy. Elizabeth wanted to play in the water." (when explaining how water got on the floor)

Yes. It's good to apportion the blame. In theory that surely means that she gets in trouble half the time.

Poetry

Isaac has been learning to write poetry at school, as April was National Poetry Month. They learnt all about free verse, and these were Isaac's efforts at writing some...

The Fish
A fish can swim
Fast as a rocket
going to the moon.
That is fast!
Wwwwwwooooooowwwwww!

Hurricane
The eye is calm.
No winds at all.
Outside, strong winds
blow trees
until they bend.

Pokemon
Gameboy.
Double screen.
Fun to win.
I love Pokemon.

Orcas
They look like
I could swim
with them
and have fun,
fun, fun, fun
fun, fun, fun
fun, fun, fun, fun, fun.

My favourite was the Hurricane poem. I was really quite impressed with them all though.

Tip-toeing through the Tulips

Last weekend we headed up to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, and were lucky enough to see the fields in bloom. (There had been concern due to our unseasonal weather that they wouldn't bloom in time). I thought I'd share this little part of our weekend with you...

This is how Lizzy spent much of her time at the tulip farm...

The Grandma's will be proud...

Lizzy has decided that we need to have tea parties.

She will pick flowers (read...weeds with little purple flowers) from the garden, and put them in a cup. Next she tells me that it's time for a tea party, and I need to make cups of tea. Then we choose a snack. She likes to pour the milk and put the sugar in her tea.

So for the past week, she's been drinking tea almost every day. I'm sure that within the year I may even be able to tolerate a cup. Right now, I just dutifully take a mouthful and say "thankyou".

So next time we are home, Lizzy will probably be drinking tea with the best of you tea drinkers and loving every minute of it.

My Favourite Words

Elizabeth

becept - except
Awona - Werona
Lawy - rally (imagine the vowel sounds being correct but "L" instead of "r" and then "w" instead of "l"


Isaac

optapus - octapus

Their little word exchanges are quite cute, but I have to smile at Lizzy with her "becept". There is nothing like an arguement where she's saying "Becept I wanted to have my turn first."

Why?

Everybody warned me about the "why" stage which every child goes through. Why is the sky blue? Why are you doing that? Why? Why? Why? Like every parent, I chuckled over the many why questions, but was also relieved when it ended.

What I was never warned about was the next stage. It's slightly more advanced than the great question of why. It's called the "What would happen if..." question. Isaac is in this stage right now.

What would happen if the earth was broken in half?
What would happen if there were more people than houses in the world?
What would happen if ....?

We've moved from basic facts to the hypothetical - and it's driving me crazy.

Camping On Hold

We were supposed to try out our tent for the first time this weekend. But as you may see, I am here at home posting to this blog.

Whilst I am blogging, I am looking out the window watching the snow clouds move across the sky. It's been snowing on and off since yesterday. What is the meaning of this? Snow in Spring? It's totally wrong! I'm just hoping my new plants won't be too upset about it.

So our camping trip has been put on hold. While I expect to encounter rain, for that is what living in Seattle is all about, I really have no desire to set up a tent in snow.

Let's hope for a nice weekend next week.

Bloomin' Spring

Spring is here. The daffodils are blooming, and all the other bulbs are about to bloom. Within a few weeks my garden will be full of tulip blooms, and soon after the roses will appear. I love this time of year.

However, this afternoon, it felt more like saying "bloomin' spring" rather than spring blooming. Just picture one child with a potted daffodil in hand, running and screaming "No, no, it's mine" with the other in chase, in tears, screaming "no, I want it!". My peaceful spring image was quite distorted, although I could not help but laugh. Once I pulled myself together I had to go and intervene. "Isaac. The daffodil is Lizzy's. She picked it out today at the nursery for her garden. Perhaps you'd like to come and choose another flower and we can work out where to put it."

Thank goodness he was willing to cooperate, and once the tears had been dried, we were back to the work of making Spring bloom.

Camping

If you have read Ben's blog today, you will have seen that we are getting into Spring. To go along with this theme we bought a tent today. We've been married for 8 years now and I don't think we've ever been camping. However, I grew up camping and have wanted to do it for awhile. Ben has finally relented and, in fact, is quite excited about the idea now.

I remember camping with a great big heavy tent, however our new tent roles up to the size of a sleeping bag and is about 8kg. It fits 6 people, giving us room to live in when it rains, because living in the Northwest means that you have to expect it to rain while you camp.

So over the next few months we are hoping to go camping at a few state parks in Washington, and enjoy seeing some more of this beautiful land.

The Jesus Sandwich

Lizzy has started to make her own sandwiches for lunch. She takes great joy out of coming up with various combinations.

Today she made a sandwich and happily annouced that it was her "Jesus" sandwich.

"Your Jesus sandwich?"

"Yes. The carrots are Jesus and the bread is the tomb."

I was so stunned that I totally forgot to ask what the cheese was. However, I am happy to annouce that yes, Jesus did come out of the tomb - although in this instance he now resides in her stomach. For the time being anyway.

Summer Holidays

"Isaac, do you know where we're going for our summer holidays?"

"Australia?"

"No..."

At this second the bottom lip starts quivering.

"But I want to go to Australia. I miss my grandparents."

Followed by a very unhappy face and some more quivering lips.

"How about we call Jan or Joe tonight?"

"OK!" And all is right with the world again.

Like Father, Like Son

I had my hair cut on Tuesday. It used to be fairly long, probably about mid-back length. I had it all cut off back up to my shoulders again.

When I went to pick Elizabeth up from preschool, she noticed straight away. "Mummy, your hair is smaller!" Usually I give advance warning to Ben when I get my hair cut, but I decided that if my 4 year old could see a difference, surely my husband would be able to.

The next test came when I picked up Isaac from school. I was not really surprised when he did not notice, so I asked "Isaac, is my hair any different?" He looked at me for a moment and said no. Groan.

So with one child noticing and one child not noticing, the odds could go either way. Would Ben notice?

Let's just say, it was a case of "like father, like son".

Adoration

Lizzy loves her brother. If Isaac does something, she wants to try it too. Her adoration became very apparent a number of months ago when she told Isaac's speech therapist "When I am five, and a boy, I'm going to do speech therapy."

Although the boy part is a little out of her league, it looks like she may achieve her goal. She has just started physical therapy, and the therapist noticed that she has low facial muscle tone and recommended some speech therapy.

She's thrilled that she is now doing PT and will start speech therapy, just like Isaac. Obviously there is nothing like following in the footsteps of an adored brother.

Girlfriends

On Valentines Day, the receptionist at Speech Therapy asked Isaac if he had a girlfriend. After moments pause he replied "Lizzy is my girl friend." There was a collective sigh and comments of "What a sweetheart".

However, obviously alot of thought has gone into this question over the past couple of weeks. We were in the car yesterday, and we got into a conversation about last names. He thought the story about how our last name came about was very cool. That turned into a conversation about how girls have the option to use thier husbands last name when they marry. In the middle of all of this he suddenly says "I'll marry Grace if she is still my friend when we grow up because she is my girl friend." Yes...he's still a sweetheart.

I'm so glad I'm dealing with girl friends rather than girlfriends. I still need a few more years to prepare for that.

The best option...

As Lizzy cried out in pain after stepping on lego for the second time, I made the statement "Well, you know the best way to stop that happening, don't you?"

Ben pipes up and says "Yes...put on a pair of shoes!"

What ever happened to cleaning?

A Little Shopper

Isaac needed new shoes, so today we went shopping. Lizzy decided that she wanted new shoes too. I explained that Isaac only had one pair of shoes and he'd grown out of them. She, on the other hand, had 4 pair of shoes which fit her perfectly. I ended this with a question "Who needs the new shoes, Isaac who only has 1 pair that don't fit, or Lizzy who has 4 pair of shoes?"

The answer: "I need 5 pairs"

Despite the protests, we did only come home with a pair of shoes for Isaac. She was not happy with the outcome, but such is life.

All Beaten Up

What on earth happened?

No, he really wasn't beaten up. However he did fall over at school on the concrete. He had his hands in his jacket pocket and was unable to put his hands out to save himself. His chin took the worst of the fall, but he also has a nice bump and bruise underneath his hair.

Little Gordon's

We have a population crisis. Today I discovered 22 new baby fish in our 10 gallon fish tank. This is on top of the 3 adults, and 6 babies we already have. As a result of our over-population problem, we have bought a new 26 gallon tank. It's really quite a nice one, with a stand and all. I think it will become the girls tank. Boys will be banned to the smaller tank.

Whilst setting up the new tank, I mentioned to Ben that it was Dad's birthday today. He quickly dubbed the babies "Little Gordon's."

So dad I want to wish you a very Happy Birthday, and as a honour we have named 22 babies after you. Yes - even the girls, although maybe once we work out which ones are really girls they can be called Gordona's.

Just How Old Are You?

"No. I'm pretty sure that Grandma & Grandad were not children when the dinosaurs were alive."

"No. I'm positive. The dinosaurs lived a long, long time ago."

"No. Trust me. They really, really have not seen a dinosaur."

I know that you've all turned a year older in recent months (or are about to!) but it took Isaac a lot of convincing for him to accept that you all really were not children when the dinosaurs roamed the world.