Friday, February 20, 2009

Lessons in Preschool Grammar

Today Jonathan had a major dump truck project going. He was filling the back of the toy dump truck with smaller toy cars and then backing it up to the edge of the dining room table and dumping them off.  He really wanted me to see it, so he called me over and said, "Come look at this, mom! It's really going to crack you out!!!" 
 
Sometimes it's difficult to explain proper word usage to a very literal preschooler who knows that neither "up" nor "out" seems to have much to do with it.

He also informed me today that a "pyramid" at the end of a sentence means to stop.  Good to know.

Friday, August 8, 2008

Local Wildlife





One of the great things about where we live is that we get to see lots of wild animals up close, including birds, deer, bears, foxes, skunks, bats and snakes. Our house backs up to a wooded area and is very close to the forest and we also have a creek that attracts wildlife.  We haven't gotten pictures of everything yet, but here are a few.


Okay, the baby skunk picture isn't mine, but I am having a heck of a time getting a picture of our nocturnal cutie, so this will have to do.  Also, I have a limited window of opportunity on pictures as soon we are going to have to find a friendly way to encourage the adorable baby skunk to find a new place to live before it becomes a slightly less cute adult skunk with full stinking powers!

When blackberries "grow up"...

Along the one-lane road up to our house there are dozens of blackberry bushes that they boys have been waiting (im)patiently to produce berries.  We have to talk about them every time we walk by.  Recently, Jon decided to impress Jake and I with his knowledge of blackberries and informed us "See those little green ones? When they grow up. they'll be black. Then I can eat 'em!"

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

If only I had batteries...

We do a pretty good job of buying our children toys that do not have batteries.  Partly because we think that is better for them, and partly for our own sanity.  Every so often though, something slips through and becomes a favorite, thereby earning a place in the boys vast array of playthings (Note to self: Time for another purge of the toys and trip to Goodwill.).  Being the bright child that he is, Jon has figured out what batteries are used for and that certain toys need batteries to work (i.e. make noise).

The other day Jake wanted me to make the "frog" noise that grandma makes. I have to say it's a rather impressive bullfrog-like display including both noise and throat movement.  No wonder they think it's cool.  Jake kept holding his hand up to my throat wanting me to do it, and I told him I didn't know how and he would have to wait for grandma to do it.  Jon looked at his brother and very seriously explained to him, "Mommy can't do that. She doesn't have any batteries."

Well, at least there's a reasonable explanation for my deficiencies. 

Saturday, July 5, 2008

Happy 4th (and 5th) of July!

I don't feel like this is a belated Independence Day post, because our little mountain town celebrates the holiday for two days.  Most of the town turns out, lots of tourists come and there is red, white and blue, and good family fun everywhere. 

Yesterday, we had a parade and foot races.  I took the boys downtown (anyone who has ever been here would laugh at me for using that word) and joined the crowd waiting for the parade.  There were quite a few people there (for our town) and everyone waited excitedly for the first parade entries to come down the street.  This parade isn't exactly a modern marvel of planning, but it seems to work out just fine.  The fire department and the Forest Service had various vehicles in the parade and everyone else just went down to the post office that morning and signed themselves up to walk in the parade.  The parade consisted of fire trucks, an ambulance, Smokey Bear, kids on bikes, kids in wagons, kids with tennis rackets, kids with balloons, a few cars and trucks that were decorated, a girl in a pony cart that was being pulled by a very large goat, a one-horse carriage being pulled by an ATV and one family with the grown men dressed in bizarre costumes and pulling other costumed family members in a cart.  There were other entries, but that gives a pretty accurate picture of the parade.  Everyone loved it. In fact, they loved it so much, they got to see it twice!  That's right. The parade went down the street, looped around and came back again.  And all of this celebration took about fifteen minutes!  Then the owners of the grocery store (who had been handing out free water to parade bystanders) brought out two enormous rolls of bubble packaging material.  They rolled it out in the street and then all the kids ran out and popped the bubbles.  As people were leaving the parade, lots of people moving in different directions with little attention to traffic flow, people followed the bubble wrap "carpet" and grown ups were popping it, too.  

Later in the afternoon, there were foot races. Basically, all the kids who want to participate are grouped together with by age and each race consists of kids who are all the same age, starting with the one-year-olds.  So, what might be a fierce competition when you get to the ten-year-olds, is more like trying to herd a bunch of squirmy kittens when it comes to the little kids.    Imagine getting 4 or 5 one-year-olds (and there can be a really wide range of running abilities in this group) together, and trying to get them to start at one end of the race and run to the other.  Whoever gets closest to the finish line first wins. The lucky winner gets a silver dollar and a blue ribbon.  Quite the haul.  This activity is repeated (though with slightly better prizes) several times to give all of the groups a chance to race.  Some kid always ends up on his or her face with a scraped knee, and some of the little kids have no idea what they are doing, but overall it's an afternoon of fun for the whole family.  I feel like I should add that there was an apple pie booth that was baking the pies on the spot and filling the air with a delicious aroma, and that the pie booth was next to the homemade vanilla ice cream booth, but sadly this was not the case.  I guess I will just have to make that suggestion for next year.

Today there was a firemen's muster and a barbeque downtown in the afternoon, and tonight they are having a dance.  First, there is line dancing for a couple of hours, lessons provided on the spot for non-line dancers, and then for the rest of the night (until midnight to 1 am-ish) there is a street dance.  They did this a couple of weeks ago for Gold Rush Days as well.  This is a town that likes the celebrating and the dancing!  I am listening to the music and the laughter and it sounds like fun.  I can't go tonight (husband at work and babies in bed), but I am looking forward to joining in next time! 

Happy 4th of July!

Friday, July 4, 2008

I guess I'll start to worry when he STOPS asking permission!

The other day, Jonathan (yes, he really is two-years-old) came and found me working on the computer. He had a request. In a very cute two-year-old-trying-to-be-grown-up way he said, "Mommy, where's Daddy's drill? I need to borrow it. I'm going to do a project."

I was glad he didn't know where the drill was (sometimes tools don't always make it back to the right place around our house) or he might have just gone ahead with the "project".

I have a feeling I am going to have lots of disassembled electronics, furniture, etc. in my future. All in the name of "doing a project".