Bye Bye 2013

This year, my year-end Bye-Bye post will serve only to revisit my post from last year at this time and see how I did with my goals.  This is my first time looking at the list since I wrote it.  I had kept a mental note of most of it throughout the year and did find myself motivated by it... sometimes.

Here's the list and how I did with each goal:

1. Introduce monthly goals back into life.  I will start January as no-pop month.  I think I made it through the end of April and made the weakest possible attempt to do a gluten-free May, failed at that one and just never picked it up again.  My monthly goals included no-pop January, no-caffeine February, 80-ounces-of-water-a-day March and... hmmm... what was April?  I know I did it but can't recall.  Weak, just weak.
2. Make 100 blog entries for the year.  Admirable goal.  I remember my thinking - just average 2 per week.  I didn't.  In the end, I had about 80... maybe exactly 80 if I count this one.  It was a respectable performance, I think.
3. Read 6 books.  Criminy.  I didn't even read one.  Not one book.  I did watch significantly more Lifetime movies, though, if that counts for anything.
4. Run the ½ Marathon in Naperville… whenever it is.  I tried to sign up for this one the same day registration opened for it; however, it closed quickly.  So I signed up for and ran the Oak Brook Half Marathon.  Despite having done all of the training runs, I it was a bad race for me, one that I left vowing never to do a half marathon again.
5. Run at least 9 miles per week.  If I average my runs out over the full year, I did achieve this one.  The intention of it was to just keep me running, though, which I failed to do after mid-November.  November was a pretty rough month for me, and my commitment to running suffered.  I didn't run once in December, unless I count the time we had to run from the train to our car to get out of the lot in time to pick up the kids before school closed.
6. Work out at least 4 times per week.  Umm... nope.  I did have a pretty good run of Body-for-Life workouts in September/October, if that counts for anything.
7. Sign Cal up for swimming lessons.  Done!  We started Cal with lessons in March or April, and he's still going.
8. Wrap for-sure-not-to-be-returned Christmas presents as they are bought (within 2 days of buying them).  I forgot about this one.  I didn't do this, but I did have most gifts wrapped and didn't feel overwhelmed doing so a couple of days before Christmas.  That was the intent, so I'm okay with failing to achieve this goal.
9. Put up more Christmas lights next year – currently thinking on bedroom windows, on all bushes in the front of our house and draped across entertainment center and at landing. We had some issues with lights (i.e. they didn't work), so we had to replace the ones we had.  I did buy some colorful light sets for the window in each of the kid's rooms, so I think this goal could be said to have been achieved.
10. Sign up for and attend full set of yoga classes. (Note: class would count as a workout day.)  Dan bought me a gift card to a local yoga place for my birthday (in March), and all I needed to do was pick a class and time to go.  Never did.

That was it.  Tomorrow I will compile a "Hello" post which will contain a new list of goals, ten sounds good.  I don't know what they'll be yet - at this point, the only ones I can come up with are "Don't let the kids drive me to yell" or "Don't let the kids walk all over me."  Yes, it was that kind of day.  These two seemingly sweet, adorable, lovable kids are finishing the year having defeated me (blog-worthy, not gonna make it, though).

Bye bye, 2013!  I'll probably miss you someday, but I'm not going to miss you tomorrow!

Jane the T-Rex, Homer the Triceratops and Ella the Crab

That Sunday ended the way it did with Ella crying upon the realization that she'd be going to bed with no books read and no rocking beforehand wasn't surprising.  It was a fitting end to a pretty rough day, one full of battles, constant irritability, exasperation and defeat.

I had made a simple request that she brush her teeth, which she chose not to do the three times I made the request, the last of which included the alternative of me brushing her teeth for her and then sending her to bed without books.

That was on the heels of my daily battle to get her to walk up the stairs alongside me instead of me walking her up in my arms.  It's not that I didn't want to carry her; I know there'll be a day I can't and will long for the days when I could.  But I had bags to carry and I'm trying to wean her off of, well, me.  I can't go to the bathroom without her either joining me or feeling like I'm abandoning her.  "You need some privacy," she'll tell me as she enters the bathroom in my shadow and closes the door behind her.  That's if she is able to keep up with me.  When she can't and I close the door before she gets there, she cries.  So when the news that I wouldn't be carrying her up the stairs got through to her, she cried her way up the stairs, holding my hand as a consolation.

That was just the topper of a day that just didn't live up to even a tenth of what I had hoped for it.  I'm not naïve to think that everything that we do with and for the kids will go smoothly, them with smiles on their faces, fully engaged, entirely cooperative and genuinely happy; Dan and I relaxed, smiling and fully engaged ourselves.  But I'm growing a little tired of virtually nothing being enjoyable.

I can't remember the last time we had fun as a family.

It seemed a perfect plan - we'd go to my nephew's birthday party near Rockford; and instead of making the hour and a half drive back in the dark, stay in a hotel room up there.  We'd enjoy the excitement of staying in a hotel, spend some time in the pool and take in a museum.  There was a natural history museum nearby that had a dinosaur exhibit - Cal likes dinosaurs.

It probably didn't help that my day followed a terrible night's sleep in the hotel bed.  I slept with Cal.  The poor kid has been battling a cold for a couple of weeks now and nearly hacked up a lung several times as he slept... next to me. Not surprisingly, he wasn't a still sleeper - he kicked me many times throughout the night.

First thing in the morning, my second shadow came looking for me.  "Mommy..." Ella whined repeatedly as she shuffled her way to me from the bed she shared with Dan.  Can I just catch a break?  She crawled up next to and then over me to be only to be met by cranky Cal who proceeded to make it difficult for Ella to share the bed space with us.

So I left for Ella's spot next to Dan who was still half sleeping.  I was foolishly acting as though I could catch another hour's worth of sleep knowing I wouldn't even get a minute's worth.  Ella, of course, followed me, whining loudly still.

Instead of continuing everyone's suffering (Dan's, Cal's, mine, all of the hotel guests), I took Ella out of our room to get some breakfast.  Cal and Dan could sleep, I could get some coffee and Ella would get her Mommy-Ella time that she apparently needed.  Great.

Breakfast actually went pretty well.  Ella actually ate her pineapple, cereal and yogurt.  I got my coffee and some food as well.  She made several trips to the breakfast bar for "paper towels" (napkins), the first after quite a bit of direction from me and "huhs?" from her, the others just muscle memory for her.

And then it happened - she announced that she had to go potty.  Usually, she's telling the truth; so back to our room we headed, Ella demanding that I carry her, me insisting that she walk.  Somehow we made it to about 10 rooms away from ours when she stopped and proceeded to do her combination whine-cry loudly.  Great.  This presented me with a dilemma - carry her, and she learns that she can beat me with incessant whine-crying; insist she walk, and she wakes up the entire second floor.

Without hesitating, I walked quickly to our door and pretended to go in, hiding behind a fortunately-placed bend in the wall right by our door.  Right or wrong, mean or savvy, this approach - scaring her into thinking I was gone - usually works; and it worked on Sunday. She appeared in front of our door, still whine-crying, almost as soon as I had gotten there.

The struggle wasn't over, though - I had to help her go potty without the appearance of helping our headstrong, independent girl.  This was impossible. With the first "No, I don't need help!" I left her alone in the bathroom.  She came looking for me to help her immediately, and I responded with a direct, slightly angry "if you ask me to help you, you have to let me help you... it's not bad to let people help you."  And she did.

Meanwhile, the boys were still giving the appearance of being asleep; so Ella and I headed back to the breakfast area where we were met by Dan and Cal maybe 5 minutes later and proceeded to have a loud, tense and contentious breakfast with them.

Why is it that our kids are so much louder than any others? We are always "those" people in restaurants... the ones with the loud, ungrateful kids... the ones hunched over the table as we respond constantly to our kids with pursed lips... the ones with the kids crawling under the table or staring - or, in Cal's case, growling - at the people eating next to us.  Always.  Virtually every time we go out to eat, we're leaving with Dan declaring, "we're not doing this again," meaning, we'll just stay at home to eat from that point on, a promise that we find is virtually impossible to keep.

Breakfast ended with the announcement that we'd get into our bathing suits and go swimming in the pool.  The kids loved this idea and cooperated fully.  Looking back, our experience in the pool probably wasn't as bad as it felt at the time.  What I felt was the tension of battling Cal's continued apprehension with swimming in a pool despite his successes with weekly swimming lessons.

"Swim to me, Cal.  It's the same distance as at swimming lessons," I'd say.  It really was.

"No! I can't!" he'd respond, crying. "You come closer!" he'd insist.  I never did.  And he never swam to me.

In parallel, I was begging Ella to get into the pool, first to even put a foot in and eventually to jump in with me catching her.  This is probably not an uncommon story.  Every kid's afraid to jump in the pool for the first time.  But by this time, I just needed something to go well.

All the while, Dan was sitting outside the pool in a chair, encouraging the kids from a distance, not getting in himself.  Really?  I mean, I guess I had it under control.  But it's not like I wanted to be the one in the pool. My body isn't exactly bathing-suit worthy, nor am I one to spend much time in a pool.  I don't swim, so it's kind of like taking a bath - I don't like baths.  I was in there only for the kids... my loud, headstrong, apprehensive kids who say they like to go swimming but don't really play the part when it comes time to swim.

But Cal did eventually find a little swimming route in which he was comfortable.  Staying in the 3-ish feet depth of water, he'd roll into the pool from a sitting position on the side and then kick and stroke his way across to the stairs, in all, maybe 10 feet across.

And Ella eventually did get the nerve to jump into my arms in the pool without first holding my hands, reached up toward her. In some cases, I even let her go under water.  She was actually having fun in the pool, fun that was eventually negatively tainted by the struggle I had getting her to leave the pool.  Of course.

Back in the room, we all showered and dressed, which, of course, involved Cal freaking out about his pants. They were the new ones that were "TOO LONG!!!"  So I told him to just put on the ones he had worn yesterday.  The kids yelled at each other, Dan and I packed and we all then headed out the door.  It was time to see the dinosaurs.  The kids were all about this plan, exclaiming, "we're going to see the dinosaurs!"  We found the museum, open but not busy in the least.  I think there was one other family there, which you wouldn't necessarily know given how quiet they were.  Perfect.

We weren't in there 5 minutes, and Ella was insisting I carry her.  "No, you can walk," I'd tell her.  This wasn't what she wanted to hear, so she proceeded to try to beat me down again with incessant whining and crying and begging for me to pick her up and carry her.  I didn't give in and proceeded to try to act as though she wasn't walking in my shadow, screaming for me to pick her up.  I took pictures of Cal, fully engaged in the museum, in front of a few dinosaurs and a mammoth.  I "read" the information in the various exhibits, most interestingly about Jane the T-Rex and Homer the Triceratops.  I pretended that she wasn't screaming at me and asked her sweetly if she'd like to see the dinosaur or feel the fossil.  She didn't.  She just wanted me to carry her.

Ella used the "I have to go potty!" tactic to get me to carry her once, and I had to respond to it.  I unhappily dragged her to the bathroom where she proceeded to insist she didn't have to go.  So I went and then old her, "If you have to go potty, go now because I'm not bringing you back here.  Do you have to go potty?"

"No," she responded. Great.  I knew we'd be back in the bathroom, making me a liar. I really felt like I was committed to not bringing Ella back to the bathroom and would have let her wet her pants before I'd do so. But it's not like I wouldn't have to cut our wonderful visit to the museum shorter than it would end up being anyway and clean her up.  It was an empty threat that I shouldn't have made. Anyway, she was firm on not having to go potty, so I dragged her back out to the dinosaurs where Cal and Dan were waiting for us... I don't know why - it would have been more enjoyable for them to have gone ahead without us.

We returned to the bathroom maybe 5 minutes later.

After that Ella abandoned the insistence that I carry her and, instead, insisted I hold her hand as we walked the rest of the museum.  Another compromise. This wasn't as sweet as it may sound - I rarely moved forward as quickly as Ella wanted to, and she always let me know it.  "Mommy, come on!" she'd whine if I spent more than 5 seconds at an exhibit.

We were leaving the museum not more than an hour after we had gotten there.  It was a short visit.  This isn't unusual - Dan's not one to dilly dally... ever.  Plus it was small and, well, one word: E-L-L-A.  It was time to get something to eat for lunch anyway (great, another restaurant with the kids) and head home.  By this time, I was having unfun.  My happiness reserves had been depleted with all of the battles, big and small, that our hotel-museum treat had presented me.  At this point, I didn't even want to have fun with my family.  I had checked out.  I was numb.

The thing is, this is typical.  We are always battling and miserable.  Maybe it's the kids' age.  Maybe it's the plans.  Maybe it's my expectations.  Maybe kids Cal's and Ella's ages are like cats - throw them a wad of paper and a fancy toy, and they'll choose the wad of paper to play with every time.  Maybe we just need to be sure we throw the kids different types of wads of paper for now and let them do with them what they will.

'Twas the Night Before the Leatherkid Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas, in the Leatherman home.
The tree was still lit, and Zoe Kitty was on the roam.
The stockings were hung o'er the half wall, all four,
Anticipating Santa would fill them per lore.

The Leatherkids were abed, coughing but sleeping,
Cal sucking his thumb, Ella under blankets heaping.
Daddy in his jammy pants, went to bed first,
While I in my Christmas jams, was in a Lifetime movie immersed.

And blogging in parallel, my connection got weak.
Something was amiss, an explanation I should seek.
See, from the backyard, I heard jingling sounds.
I thought, just the neighbor dog, making his rounds.

I made my way to the back door, and peeked out on the lawn,
Didn’t see anything, and let out a big yawn.
Before I had finished, I couldn’t believe my eyes,
When Santa and his reindeer emerged from the skies.
Forty-five Christmases, and this was the first
I’d actually seen the old elf, my mind, ‘bout to burst.

Cal would love this, Ella would be scared,
I recalled this year’s Santa pic, Ella cried, Cal glared.
How will he get inside, I wondered and gaped,
No fireplace in this house, and no entry Santa shaped.
He wasn’t concerned, he’d been here before;
And he made his way toward our garage side door.

He stopped short at the dryer vent and made his way through,
Popped open the dryer door and gracefully out of it he flew.
He then snapped his fingers and his bag of goods appeared,
He grabbed it and smiled and then scratched his beard.

I thought I should pretend I was asleep on the couch,
And let him go about his business pulling gifts from his pouch.
Thinking I was asleep, he’d be his efficient self,
Eating cookies and gifting and meeting Robin the Elf.

So I did just that and watched under droopy eyelids,
Santa tiptoe to the kitchen for what was left by the Leatherkids.
He first read the note Cal left him and quietly chuckled,
Then ate the two cookies and his pants he unbuckled.

He then washed them down with the full glass of milk,
Then sat down at the table, out of a note he would not bilk.
In the Special Plate book, the kids got Santa’s tidings:
“You were good, thanks for the treats, Merry Christmas,” his writings.
On the table he left the letter Cal had sent him weeks before,
Stood up, grabbed his bag and headed toward the front door.

Robin was still perched on a branch in the tree,
“Hi, Santa,” he whispered, “ready for me?”
Santa replied he almost was but had a bit of work to do,
Then pulled out a red bike with a small touch of blue.
“Cal will like this,” he said and placed it by the tree;
“And for Ella, some Princesses will bring her such glee.”
 
He then looked to Robin and gave him a wink,
Off the branch the elf jumped and I felt my heart sink.
He was leaving us ‘til next year, and this made me sad.
It’s nice to talk to him when the kids drive us mad.

Santa and Robin exited just as Santa came in.
The kids were still asleep, so I hoped for no din.
Santa exclaimed it anyway, as his sleigh took flight,
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

Chatty (fka Pukey) Ella

It was Thursday morning of last week.  We were coming off a sleepless night of caring for two sick kids, pukey Ella and feverish Cal.  I had somehow muscled myself out of bed and managed my way to the bathroom to shower and get ready for work.  Exhausted, unhappy and questioning my motherhood (go to work with two sick kids at home?), I was in no mood to interact with another human being.

Unfortunately, Ella was shadowing me throughout my routine and was chattier than ever. Most people clue in on it and leave me alone.  Not Ella.  She just chatted me up to her heart's content. Initially, I mustered a grunt or an "oh, yeah?" after each of her provocative statements; eventually, I decided to write some of them down.  What follows is a sampling of some of the things she said that morning... that morning after she puked the night away...

Holding my watch she said, "This is your clock. You can wear it when you're done taking your shower."

Holding the plastic cup we keep in the bathroom, "I'll leave the water in here so Cal could drink it because he'll be thirsty."

Holding my towel, "This is your towel because it is bigger.  I'll put it right here so you can use it when you're done taking your shower."

About the "froggy" mat we throw on our shower floor when the kids take showers, "Big kids don't get froggies, just little kids so they don't slip."

"Boys can... boys can stay in the shower so they can dry off."  (Dan will dry himself off in the confines of the shower so as not to get the floor (even the bathmat) wet.)

Grabbing the lotion, "Mommy, these are for girls.  I gotta put some on me.  These are for girls, not for boys."

Handing me the Resolve carpet cleaner I had left out in the bathroom, I can't remember why, "Here, Mommy, you can use this for Cal's pee pees."  (Awhile ago, I used Resolve to clean up Cal's "accident" on the carpet.)

She contentedly moved from one comment to the next whether I responded or not. She didn't say anything about having been sick the night before, nor did she behave as if she had been.

As for me, I operated okay on fumes at work that day.  The guilt of not staying home with the kids eventually waned -- Papa (Dan's dad) relieved Dan and watched them in the morning and early afternoon, and I know the kids enjoy their time with Papa.  What was left was an occasional quiet laugh as I recalled some of the things that Ella had said that morning.

Weather Week, Day 7 - It Snowed Today

Over the course of the past week, knowing I had a full week's worth of weather-related posts to write, I threw Cal a lot of bones on the topic of a snowstorm.  He just wouldn't bite on them, always taking the conversation to tornadoes and hurricanes and clouds.  He nibbled once and asked if a snowstorm could do damage to a house or a car.  I told him it could but not like tornadoes and hurricanes -- it can be dangerous to drive; but if you're inside your house, you'll be pretty safe.  And that was pretty much the extent of that snowstorm chat.

Mother Nature even helped me out with our first significant snowfall of the year today.  When we went in to the bowling alley for Cal's birthday party it was snowing but only enough to dust the ground; when we came out, guys were shoveling the walkways of the 2+ inches of snow that had accumulated over the three hours we were inside.

Neither Cal nor Ella was impressed.  Cal may have been on a high having had a few hours of active fun with his friends who were there to celebrate his turning 5.  And Ella?  She did drag her purple-sequined maryjanes through the snow on the sidewalk and commented that her feet were cold.

We spun our tires in the snow as we pulled out of the parking lot a bit and got no reaction from our backseat passengers.  Maybe we should have done some doughnuts in an empty parking lot.

Dan even asked if Cal thought the snow flying toward our (accentuated by our headlights) looks like the view of the stars from the window of the ship (Starship Enterprise, maybe?) in Star Wars.  Cal didn't say much more than, "yes."

I even asked bluntly, "isn't this snow cool, Cal?"  Cal responded that it was.

As we approached our driveway, Dan commented that we should call Mahima (Cal's friend) over to shovel our driveway.  That wasn't as random as it may sound -- when she first arrived at the party, she had told us excitedly, "I have a shovel."

Once inside, Cal opened his gifts from his friends; and as he played with one of the gifts, Ella and I went to dig up some boots and other snow gear so the kids would be ready for school and possible outside play tomorrow.  Ella threw on her hand-me-down size 9-10 boots (she wears an 8) and loved them because they're pink.  The 8's weren't.  I found a pair of 12's for Cal -- he put them on and said they're too big.  They're not.  But I dug up a pair of 11's in case he wants to squeeze into those (and I don't want to fight with him about it).

And finally, I threw some snowpants in each of the kids' backpacks.  With those, some boots and their winter coats, hats and gloves, they should be ready to enjoy the snow tomorrow.  Physically, anyway.  I wonder if they'll be genuinely interested in playing in it.

Weather Week, Day 6 - Yahoo Weather

To date, we haven't let Cal do much computing on his own.  Any computer skills he has (navigating with the mouse, using the keyboard) he really learned at school. This is by design -- we have one laptop with our lives on it, and we just haven't trusted our kids to use it without damaging it or its contents.  Plus, no computer use is an easy way to control what they're exposed to.

This afternoon, I walked into the toy room/office and found Cal sitting at the desk, his right hand moving the mouse and his eyes looking intently at the computer screen.  I'm not sure why, but I let him keep doing it and just asked, "What are you looking at, Baby Bear?"

He told me, "the weather."

I walked over to the desk and looked at the screen with him.  Sure enough, he was looking at the Yahoo Weather page with the below-freezing forecast for the next five days. I directed him to the "Details" section of the page where he read the text and learned we might get some snow tomorrow.  And then we glanced at the Sun & Moon and Wind & Pressure sections, but didn't talk about them.

On the right, there was a link to a Hurricane Tracker, which sounded interesting; so we clicked on it and navigated our way to a map that showed the paths of the various hurricanes of 2013.  Evidently, hurricane levels were the lowest they've been for 20-ish years.  We found a video and clicked on that.  I needed to step out for a few minutes, so I left Cal to watch that on his own.

Before I returned, Cal was looking for me.  He needed help getting "back to the weather on the computer."  I just think that's so cool.  I don't know that he really knew what he was looking at, but I liked that he was excited about using the computer and excited about using it to see the weather.  So I found that Yahoo Weather page again for him.

I also think it's cool that Cal is exposing me to all of this weather stuff and new weather sites on the internet.  Is my kid already teaching me things?

Weather Week, Day 5 - Pirates Battle the Elements

Over the course of last week, Cal would disappear into the "toy room" and emerge with a picture drawn in red ink on a piece of paper not bigger than 3" by 5".  Each picture told the story of some pirates who had battled some bad weather out at sea, and each picture had remarkable detail.  I thought I'd share some of them and highlight some things in them that may go unnoticed to anyone unfamiliar with Cal's drawings.

Here are drawings 1 and 2.  In the first one, it looks like the tornado broke the pirate ship in half and knocked a couple of pirates... and a wolf... off of the ship.  In the second, a major snowstorm put some cracks in the ship.  As if the snowstorm wasn't enough, the pirate also had to contend with the shark as they both tried to catch the same set of fish.

Here are drawings 3 and 4.  Clearly, the tornado in the top picture knocked a pirate off of the ship entirely, and that second pirate is barely hanging on.  The expression on the third pirate's face is excellent -- he's pissed. Looks like some nasty lightning came along with that typhoon in the bottom picture -- it must've hit the ship which then caught fire... in two places!

 



Here are pictures 5 and 6.  The tornado in the top drawing brought A LOT of hail with it.  That pirate isn't afraid of it, thought, and that's one sturdy hat he's wearing.  And did the lightning set the water on fire?  In the bottom drawing, the pirates finally caught a break -- a sunny day.  Two of the pirates appear to be pretty content and relaxed; the third must still be worn out.  He's probably the one who was pelted by the hail, putting out the fires and saving his pirate buddies.  I think those stars around the swords are there to make the swords look shiny.  And Cal told me what that box/machine thing on the left side of the second ship is, but I can't remember at the moment.

 



So that's just a handful of the pictures Cal drew of pirates battling the elements.

 

Weather Week, Day 4 - Torrential Rain

A couple of days ago as we all sat at the dinner table, Cal announced that he knew what "torrential" meant and then proceeded to tell us when we challenged him that it meant "heavy."  He even used it in a sentence -- I don't recall the exact sentence, but the term "torrential rain" was at the heart of it.

Dan and I looked at each other and exchanged our familiar unspoken, "did he really just say that?" and proceeded to express our excitement over how much he is learning these days. Lately when we ask him where he learned these types of things, he'll answer, "I just know it."  I guess that's better than, "the Smarties told me," which is what he was saying last month.

Anyway, knowing he had a captive audience (and, of course, liking to draw), Cal whipped up this gem:


Hurricane with Torrential Rain (12/3/13)

It appears to be unfinished.  Either that, or he was drawing the start of a hurricane with torrential rain.

The label with "150" in it is intended to be 150 mph, which is the speed of the hurricane wind.  This is consistent with what he told me yesterday on our way to his swimming lesson (hurricane winds are 150 mph).

The partial earths on either side of the picture are pretty excellent. Cal knows that hurricanes and typhoons are essentially the same thing, that the former occur in the Atlantic Ocean and the latter occur in the Pacific Ocean.  I'm pretty sure that's what he's showing us with these partial earths.

So that's Day 4 of my week's worth of weather-related posts, with a minute to spare.  I'm glad Cal's drawing some pictures to help me keep this up!

Weather Week, Day 3 - Hail Comes from Cumulonimbus Clouds

Cal had his swimming lesson tonight, and I figured out very quickly after having taken three steps into the house when I returned from work that I was the lucky parent who would be taking him. "Mommy, I'm ready to go to swimming now!" a shoed Cal exclaimed as he frantically scrambled to grab his coat and put it on.  Dan was sitting on the couch manning his laptop, and Ella was rolling around on the Pooh plane.  Cal's swimming bag was packed and sitting on an end table in the family room.  I guess he is ready, I thought.  Looks like I am taking him.

I'm not complaining -- I enjoy taking Cal to swimming.  He's made so much progress since his first couple of lessons (see Cal's Second Swimming Lesson), and it's fun to watch him swim so confidently now.  Plus, Dan could get Ella into bed -- I wouldn't need to deal with her incessant bedtime chatter that's always the same and becoming really annoying.  "Turn the light on.  Turn the fan on.  Don't close the door.  If I cry or yell, you'll close the door.  Don't close your door.  Go downstairs."  Dan's so much better at shutting that down than I am.

So as quickly as I had gotten home from work, Cal and I were heading to his swimming lesson. It would take 10 minutes to get there so there'd be 10 minutes of conversation that would surely hit on the topic of weather.

Cal did not disappoint.  In fact, he got the ball rolling as I buckled him into his seat when he declared that the clouds in the sky this evening were stratus clouds and that he knows more about clouds than I do.  He may be right, I thought. "How do you figure that?" I decided to ask.

"Because I do," he answered.

"Yeah, but what makes you think you know more about clouds than I do?" I wanted him to think about it.

"Mommy, those aren't nimbostratus clouds because it's not a strong rain," he declared.

"Yes they are," I insisted.

"No they're not," he wouldn't back down.  Hmm... I do remember reading something yesterday about stratus or alto-stratus clouds sometimes producing a light rain, I thought.

"You might be right about that, Baby Bear," I responded.  It wasn't something we could confirm with our novice knowledge since it was already dark outside.

By now, we were on our way to swimming; but we weren't talking about the clouds anymore.  I decided I'd keep the weather talk going.  Afterall, I had a blog entry to write.

"You know, Baby Bear, we may have a snowstorm on Sunday and Monday.  Wouldn't that be cool?" I threw at him.

He asked me a couple questions about it but nothing notable or nothing suggesting he was excited about this possibility. He then switched gears a bit by asking, ""Mommy, what's stronger, rain or hail?"

"Hail is stronger, Baby Bear," I told him.

"Can you touch hail?" he asked.

"Yep," I told him, wondering if I ever actually had.

"What is hail?" he asked.

"Well, it's a ball of frozen rain.  It's really cold," I told him with a slight hint of doubt that I was right.

"Can it do damage?" he asked.

"Yeah, it can damage cars. It can damage the roofs of houses and windows on houses," I answered.

"Hail only falls from a cumulonimbus cloud," Cal informed me.  Hmm... okay. This I didn't know.

"A hurricane rain can damage," he added. "It's 151 miles per hour."

I had the number 75 in my head, so I thought out loud, "I think it's 75 miles per hour.  But maybe you're talking about the worst hurricanes."

He didn't say anything.  We were in the parking lot of the swimming facility, so it was a good time to end our conversation.

You know what?  I just did a Google search for "hail" and saw this definition: "pellets of frozen rain that fall in showers from cumulonimbus clouds."  Criminy.

Weather Week, Day 2 - This Morning's Clouds

Cal quietly got dressed this morning.  As Dan and I managed Ella and her roller coaster morning attitude, he remained in his room putting on the clothes he had laid out for himself the night before.  We didn't ask him to get ready -- he just did it.

Once dressed, he made an appearance in our bedroom and announced that he had been looking out the window but couldn't tell what type of clouds were in the morning sky.  These were his first words of the day, and I have to figure they were likely his first thoughts as well.

We all proceeded with our bumpy, pre-train-ride morning routine, gradually making our way downstairs, into our shoes and coats and out the door to the car.  It's rarely pretty, often tense and usually effective.  Before hopping into the car, though, Cal took a few steps onto the driveway, looked up at the sky and declared, "Those are stratus clouds."

I'm no cloud expert, but I've recently done my share of reading and looking and learning about the different types of clouds.  I found this cloud chart and refer back to it often -- stratus, altostratus... our morning clouds sure looked like one of those types.  The kid was right. 

Weather Week, Day 1 - Anatomy of a Tornado

Unlike soccer, Cal's interest in all things weather, particularly the bad kind, has not waned or withered since he first learned about different types of clouds back in early to mid-October.  I thought I'd formally acknowledge the kid's passion, borderline obsession, with a week's worth of weather-related posts, either drawn by or inspired by our little weatherman, Cal.

Kicking off Weather Week is an anatomy of a tornado, drawn and notated entirely by Cal, with no help from Dan or me except for the spelling of "lightning," only because he asked how to spell it.  I'll let the picture tell the rest of the story:

Cal's Anatomy of a Tornado (12/2/2013)

Cal's Gift Ideas for Grandma

My mom called us this morning to find out our birthday plans for Cal.  Since his birthday is during the Christmas season, I automatically thought that she was looking for gift ideas for Cal for Christmas when she asked me for some things that he likes.

Cal happened to be breathing down my neck at that time, so instead of delivering her some ideas myself, I handed the phone to Cal for him to do that.  "Cal, Grandma is asking for some ideas for Christmas.  Tell her some things that you like."

He got right to it.  "Superheroes.  I like Superhero stuff."

He paused to gather more thoughts. "Um, boy things... umm... Daddy, what do boys like?"

"Tell her things that YOU like, Cal," Dan responded.

"Umm... Ninja stuff. Well, Ninja Turtles... I like Ninja Turtles."  And then  he added, "And
Angry Birds stuff."

Cal then listened to whatever my mom was saying to him, or, at least, appeared to be listening.  After several seconds I'm sure he cut her off when he wrapped up the conversation with a matter-of-fact, "And can you try to remember these things for my birthday?  If you don't, that's okay -- you can just call me."

Turns out, Grandma was looking for some gift ideas for Cal's birthday, so I don't think she'll need to call him back about that.  She got some good ideas and some even better laughs.

Cal's Random Act of Kindness

Cal is usually dressed for bed before Ella is, and last night was no different.  She had just gotten her clothes off when a fully-jammied Cal was darting off to the bathroom to brush his teeth.  He did this all by himself and finished before Ella was fully jammied herself.

Without saying a word, he darted back into our room (this is where we do our jammying for some reason) and hopped up onto the bed to lay with Daddy for a bit.

Once I finished with Ella, I told her, “okay, let’s go brush your teeth.  You go to your bathroom, and I’ll meet you there!”  And off she went.  It’s the same statement every night; and, for whatever reason, I ALWAYS get full cooperation from her when I say it (unlike most other things).

I took a few breaths of my own without having to motivate anyone, respond to any questions, drum up any fake excitement over insignificant things before heading to the bathroom to meet her.  These are some of the best few seconds of my day.

I had just stepped outside our bedroom when Ella came bounding across the hallway floor toward me with her toothbrush in her hand.

“Look what Cal did, Mommy!” she exclaimed, her eyes smiling and her mouth grinning from ear to ear.

I looked at the toothbrush she held in her hand and on the brush was a dab of toothpaste.

My eyes quickly smiled and my mouth grinned from ear to ear as well.  I pictured Cal, alone in the bathroom after brushing his own teeth, thoughtfully grabbing Ella’s toothbrush, opening the tube of toothpaste (something she is unable to do herself), squeezing a little dab of paste onto the brush and gently setting it down next to the sink.  No one was watching or expecting this of him, and he didn’t bring any attention to the fact that he had.  It was a genuine random act of kindness, a small action on Cal’s part that warmed my heart and filled me with pride.

“Cal, that was SOOOOO nice,” I told him.  “I am SOOOOO proud of you.”

And Ella and I then went and brushed her teeth.

A Book About Thunderstorms (by Cal)

As I mentioned in my Daddy's Clouds post (see October), Cal is very interested in clouds.  This  interest has recently expanded to lightning, thunderstorms, tornados, hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones.  Last weekend, we made a trip to the library and came home with books on these topics (and a couple of "Fancy Nancy" books selected by me for Ella).  And it's been nothing but weather ever since.  In addition to reading the library books, we do internet searches for videos of these weather events on a daily basis.  Dan and I regularly field questions on these topics and most of the time provide answers based on our experiences and guts; sometimes, we go back and consult the library books for the "right" answers.

 

Between all of the reading, watching, asking and answering this week, Cal wrote another book on approximately 3x1.5 inch pieces of paper.  Here it is:

 

 

 

 

 

The End (unless Cal decides to add more pages).

 

Please Go to Daddy...

I heard the familiar shuffle of little feet across the carpeted hallway approaching our bedroom at 3:40-something AM today.  It’s become routine – hear kid in hallway, figure out which kid it is, look at clock, calculate amount of time left in slumber, sigh.  I knew my alarm was set for 6:03am (yes, I set my clock on an odd, non-multiple-of-five time), so I found some solace in the fact that I did have a couple more hours to get some much-needed sleep before having to wake up for the day.  I’ve been battling a cold and a nasty headache for a few days now, and every minute of relaxation and sleep seems to help; every minute of loud or stressful dealings with kids seems to worsen things exponentially.

Please go to Daddy, I thought hard.  Please go to Daddy… Please go to Daddy… Please go Daddy. I repeat this in my head every time we have a middle-of-the-night visitor, and I never get the results I wish for.  My kids always come looking for me to address whatever it is they need or think they need in the middle of the night.

“I’m wet.”

“I’m scared.”

“I’m cold.”

“I want to sleep with you.”

“Can you turn my fan on?”

“Can you turn my closet light on?”

“Is it midnight?”

“Zoe’s in my bed!”

I know Dan hears them, too.  Every once in awhile (and by “every once in awhile,” I don’t mean to suggest that this happens with any frequency acceptable by me), he’ll address the need (and by “address the need,” I don’t mean to suggest that he presents solution which is acceptable by the kid with a need) by pre-emptively hopping out of bed the moment he hears a footstep on our bedroom floor and taking the middle-of-the-night visitor back to his or her room where he sternly insists he or she stay in bed and sleep until morning.  For the most part, though, he stays out of it, leaving me to deal with the situation as requested by my visitor.  Not that I blame him for staying out of this – no one in his right mind would deliberately interrupt his sleep to deal with a tired, whiny, unreasonable kid.  Some of us just don't have that choice.

As expected, last night’s middle-of-the-night visitor came to my side of the bed.  Normally, I acknowledge the visitor’s arrival by either getting out of bed to address the situation and get the child back into his or her bed or by just pulling the child up into our bed for him or her to finish his or her night’s sleep there.  I prefer the latter – it’s easier, and I like to cuddle with my kids.  While this is true, I do recognize it’s setting a bad precedent, one that’s difficult to break once it becomes routine.  Plus, Dan very strongly prefers that our kids sleep in their own beds.

Last night, I chose an entirely different approach.  It was Ella.  I knew I didn’t want to pull her up into our bed like she wanted; but I also didn’t want to deal with the struggle that would surely follow my informing her she needed to go back to sleep in her bed.  So I just ignored her and just felt her presence not more than 2 feet from my face.  Five minutes must’ve passed before either of us (Ella or me as Dan was certainly not going to jump in) said anything.  I can be pretty strong willed, but apparently Ella is stronger willed as I was the first to say something about her being there.

“What’s wrong, Baby Girl?” I asked, gently stroking the side of her head, hoping a calm acknowledgement of her being there might have some positive influence on the situation but knowing full well it wouldn’t.

“I want to sleep with you,” she replied, handing me her blanket and sheep as if this proposal of hers was actually going to happen.

I informed her that she couldn’t, which triggered the exact reaction I was looking to avoid by ignoring her when she first came into our room.  She was very upset, throwing pretty tempting phrases like, “I want to sleep with MY Mommy” at me to change my mind.  She also tried supposed statements of fact like, “My bed is cold” and then simple negativity like, “No!”  With every phrase she threw at me, I had a logical, pleasantly-delivered response.  This was a delay tactic as still held out hope that Dan would jump out of bed to take Ella back to her room and get her back into her bed himself.  It also provided me some time to muster the strength to pull myself out of bed to do that deed myself.  I mean, I was tired, sick and prone to getting another headache.  Meanwhile, Dan did chime in with some input like, “Big girls sleep in their beds, Ella,” and then he fell back to sleep.  Gee, thanks for the help.

Finally out of bed, I placed the blanket over my shoulder, picked Ella up and held her over the blanket so she could rest her head on it and then grabbed her sheep.  I love holding Ella in this position.  I then carried them (her, her blanket and that sheep) back to her room where she informed me once again that her bed was cold.

“That’s because your blankets are on the floor, Boo Boo,” I told her.  They were.

“I want to rock,” she informed me.  The glider where I oftentimes nursed her the first year of her life is still in her room, and she likes to rock in it with Dan or me holding her.

“No, we can’t right now” I told her, “but I’ll sit on the floor and hold you for a bit.”  I then proceeded to do so, rocking us back and forth a bit myself.  At the same time, I made a mental note of the time – 3:57am… I’d sit with her another couple of minutes, get her back into bed and then get back into my own by 4:03am.

The room was silent for a minute or two.  After that, it was time for me to transition her to bed.  She initially fought this move, using the same excuses as she did before.  Getting her to actually stay in her bed and fall back asleep seemed a very distant possibility.  Giving up and carrying her back to my bed was more likely.  Plopping into her bed, throwing a blanket on her, blowing her a kiss and darting back to my room only to have her follow me seemed a sure thing at this point.

But, call me the Ella whisperer (last night only), I did get her back into bed without much more of a squawk.  I placed her blanket on her and made sure she had a “handle” (corner of it) in each hand.  I then placed the multi-colored big knit blanket from our neighbors on top of that and then placed her quilt made by Aunt Sandi on top of that.  She could not claim she was cold.

She then told me she wanted to give me a hug and a kiss (this has become a signature Ella thing), to which I was, of course, receptive.  She told me to turn on the fan and the closet light (another part of the bedtime routine), to which I responded with a whispered, “of course” and actually did so.

I was practically holding my breath at this point.  Not that it was good that I was awakened at 3:40-something AM to deal with my middle-of-the-night visitor, but it was ending much better than I had expected.  I was actually walking out of Ella’s room, both of us with grins on our faces, Ella appearing to be cooperative and committed to staying in her bed and me with a good shot of getting almost two more hours of sleep next to my now snoring, fortunate husband.

Our Little Problem Solver

Orange felt star on floor

“Mommy, look, an orange star!” Ella exclaimed to me as she approached me from across the room and saw on our hardwood kitchen floor the smallest of orange, felt stars that had fallen off of Cal’s Frankenstein bookmark.

“I see it!” I responded with the excitement that only a mom can muster over insignificant things and non-events.  I’ve gotten pretty good at this over the past couple of years.

She continued to make her way to me, sitting on the bottom of the staircase to put on my shoes.  It was Saturday morning, and we were getting ready to head outside to rake some leaves.  I say “we” and mean “we” – the kids actually helped… or tried to help.

Anyway, she and I exchanged some hugs and kisses after she reached me.  She then turned around, looked toward the kitchen and said, “Where is it?”

I knew exactly where it was, but she wasn’t looking for a response from me; rather, she was just wondering it herself.  Where was that orange, felt star?  Hmm… I saw her thinking.

She then stepped toward where she remembered it being but didn’t see it.  Without saying a word or skipping a beat, our little problem solver then walked around the island, then parallel to the sink, then around the kitchen table and toward me.  This was the exact same path she had taken when she stumbled on that orange felt star the first time.

A couple of steps shy of it, she saw it.  “There it is!” she exclaimed, pointing at it.  This time she didn’t seek recognition from me.  She was simply satisfied she hadn’t lost track of it and then proceeded to dart off and play with “Big Baby” (the larger of her two baby dolls).

I found this to be really remarkable and actually worthy of genuine excitement that went unexpressed.  Ella figured out on her own HOW to find what she knew she had seen moments earlier and then found it.  If she’s anything like her mother, this will be a very practical, frequently-used skill when she has kids of her own.

I Survived Downtown Trick-or-Treating

As we walked from our car to downtown this past Sunday, my heart settled into my stomach.  Not again... please tell me I didn't do this again, I thought to myself, not letting on to my kids in full costume (Cal a ninja, Ella a princess) that anything might be wrong.

While Cal laughed at a costumed kid sitting on his dad's shoulders as they approached us, I wondered, why are they walking away from downtown?  And then, it just doesn't seem as crowded as it should be for the start of Trick-or-Treating.  It was just after 1pm, and I thought Trick-or-Treating from one business to the next in the downtown area was to have started at 1pm.

A couple of weeks earlier, Cal missed his friend's birthday party because I had remembered the time for it wrong.  It was just before 3pm and we were on our way to the party site when I looked at the time listed on the invitation.  1pm.  We missed it.  I, virtually in tears, broke the news to party-ready Cal, apologized profusely and repeatedly put all of the blame on myself.  I felt horrible.  I had reached an all-time low as a mother.  Cal took the news better than I expected, and this made me proud.  "It's okay, Mommy," he said a number of times.  At any rate, it's still fresh in my mind and not something I want to repeat.

On Sunday, I thought I actually had repeated it, this time with two kids in full costume ready to get some candy.

I kept my cool as we entered the downtown area.  I could have counted on two hands the number of kids I saw.  Clearly, something wasn't right.  My heart was still in my stomach; the kids had no clue something was amiss.  I love that about kids -- so absent worry and suspicion that something could possibly disrupt their fun.  It's the same trait that makes it so hard for me to actually be the fun disrupter.

Anyway, I decided it was time to ask.  We were close to the running store, a place that makes me happy and comfortable, so I decided we'd go in there and get the scoop.  The employees were in full costume; and on the counter at check-out, I saw a clear container half filled with Sweet Tarts, what I figured to be the leftovers from Trick-or-Treating.

"Did we miss Trick-or-Treating?" I got right to the point.

"It doesn't start until 3 o'clock," the costumed worker replied.  "They changed it because..." and I don't remember what he said the reason for changing it was because I was so stinkin' excited that we hadn't missed it.  Of course, now I had another problem -- I had two napless, fully costumed, Trick-or-Treat-ready kids to entertain for an hour an a half before Trick-or-Treating was to start.

I informed the kids we needed to wait a bit before Trick-or-Treating would actually start.  Ella declared she had to go potty, a good 15-minute time killer; so we used the bathroom in the back of the running store.  Finished, we made our way to the front of the store and across the street I saw an ice cream store.  Before I was able to apply any motherly judgment, the words, "Let's go get some ice cream!" were jumping out of my mouth.  Ice cream before candy -- I was any kid's dream mother at that point.

Knowing we still had a lot of time to kill, I was especially patient with the ice cream selection process.  This was no small feat and one that I surely wouldn't have managed to pull off had I not needed to entertain the kids for an hour and a half before the real fun was to begin.  Cal's vacillation was tolerable -- he pretty quickly went from brown ice cream to pink sherbet to blue ice cream, settling for the latter with white chocolate chips.  Ella didn't know what she wanted.  I thought pink ice cream would be a slam dunk, but she didn't want that, nor did she want the pink sherbet.  Every option I threw at her was met with an "umm... no."  Finally, she settled for the same blue ice cream Cal had picked.  And then I picked sprinkles for her topping as no one needed to suffer through that selection process, time to kill or not.

It was nice enough outside that we were able to eat our blue ice cream on a bench outside the store without being cold.  Ordinarily, this raises my stress to a moderate level.  My kids aren't the neatest eaters -- Cal just eats too fast to be neat about it, and Ella is still just unskilled with utensils.  I'd prefer they not drip and drool and spill all over themselves; but if it happens, I tell myself not to sweat it -- let them be kids, clothes can be cleaned.  But they were in costume, and I needed their costumes to stay clean not only for the Trick-or-Treating we had ahead of ourselves that day but also for their Halloween parade/party at school and "real" Trick-or-Treating we had planned later in the week.  I had a mound of napkins in my hand and used them liberally, immediately wiping every drop of ice cream that didn't make it into their mouths.  I used all of the napkins I had grabbed.

At this point, a half hour had been killed; and we had another hour to go.  There was no park nearby, but there was a Riverwalk, which my kids actually enjoy.  I didn't know if it would be an hour of enjoyment and was certain I'd experience high stress levels for whatever duration it ended up being, but I threw it out there anyway, "do you want to go to the Riverwalk?" I asked?  They did, so Cal climbed onto the tandem stroller and Ella declared she'd just walk; and we started to make our way to the Riverwalk.

As we reached the edge of the downtown business area, an alternative to the Riverwalk emerged -- the library.  My kids love books, read to them or paged through themselves.  There would be no river to fall into.  We could sit on chairs.  It was perfect.  I didn't present this as an alternative to the Riverwalk and declared we'd go to the library instead.  The kids were receptive to our new plans.

In the library, I read a couple of Halloween books to the kids.  They found some books and paged through them on their own.  And then they both found the computers with an interactive Dora game to play, Cal independently, Ella with a little help and both still in full costume.

After about an hour, I had to peel them away from their library fun.  This involved multiple notifications of the number of minutes left before we'd leave (as in "five more minutes," "three more minutes," etc) and a single effective threat that Ella and I would leave without Cal as he pranced from one book aisle to the next, ignoring my repeated "put your listening ears, it's time to leave, come with me" pleas.

"Okay, let's go, Ella," I said loud enough for Cal to hear but not sure which aisle he was actually in.  And we started walking away.  This was followed by a scared, "Mommy?!?!!!" and hurried footsteps toward my "I'm here, Cal" voice.  Call me mean, but that approach works like a charm.

After a not-so-quick, high-stress Leatherman visit to the bathroom (things like Ella touching the toilet seat and Cal opening the door as I finished peeing), we were out the door to start Trick-or-Treating about 10 minutes after it had officially started.  It's funny that we were actually late at this point.

There were people EVERYWHERE.  Sidewalks were packed with people and their gear and not easily navigated.  On either side of the street, people were going both directions.  In some cases, businesses had people planted outside their entrances handing out treats; in others, the kids had to go inside to get their treats.  Some businesses weren't participating, and most of these businesses thankfully had posted a sign on their doors (e.g. "sorry, no candy") so we didn't needlessly fight the crowd only to find that out once inside.

It was a parent's nightmare, really.  Battling ridiculous crowds.  Keeping track of little kids moving at different speeds.  Avoiding moving cars.  Repeatedly making sure little kids got that damn piece of candy after battling a crowd to get it outside a storefront.

Cal was a pro, stealthily weaving his way through the crowd to the person holding the candy -- inside or outside the store, Cal quickly found the candy, said his "Trick-or-Treat" and moved on.  He never went too far ahead, usually on his own volition but sometimes with a reminder from me to "wait up, Cal."

You'd never know that Ella had been Trick-or-Treating before.  She was slow, didn't fully understand the goal (get candy) and was incredibly distracted by the crowd.  She really just wanted to watch people and needed constant reminders to "come on, Ellie."

I was solo, and keeping both of them, neither one even 4 feet tall, in my sights amongst the crowd at all times was a stress that no one in his right mind would invite upon himself.  It was awful, just awful.

Looking back, there were some amusing antics amid the awfulness of this ordeal.  A few times, Cal stopped traffic for us to cross the street.  The first time he did this, I had no idea what he was doing.  "I've got it" he announced out of the blue after we started to cross the street (mid-street, low car traffic).  He saw a car coming slowly and quickly got into a ninja-like stance and, facing the car, stretched out his arm with the palm of his hand facing the car, a universal symbol for "stop."  He did this a few more times, which was okay because the few more times we were at least in a crosswalk, crossing the street "legally."

About mid-way through the event, we were leaving a pizza joint after collecting some treats when Cal announced dramatically that his "stomach hurt."  This has become synonymous with "I have to poop,"  which he eventually informed the pizza joint's employees after I re-directed him back inside the store to use their bathroom. "I have to go poop," he told the lady who smiled and directed us to the back of the store.  Lucky for me, there was a urinal inside this bathroom that Ella felt the need to touch despite my repeated requests that she not do it as Cal pooped to his heart's content.

Just before 5pm, I informed the kids that we were finished and needed to start heading back to the car.  To encourage cooperation and full acceptance of this, I threw the reward of choosing one of their well-earned treats once we got out of the crowd and to the fountain at the Riverwalk, which was 3/4 of the way to our car.  It worked.  We got there without incident.  Cal picked the Butterfinger he had asked me when he got it if he could eat it, and Ella picked a pack of rainbow Twizzlers.

With the rainbow Twizzlers half eaten, Ella announced she had to go potty.  We were at the Riverwalk.  Any potty that we could use would require fighting an unusually cooperative Cal and hauling ourselves and our gear back into the insanity.  So I actually ignored it.  She had already gone three times since we left the house -- did she really  have to go?  Plus, she was distracted by the fountain that she had fallen into earlier in the summer and the many ducks swimming on the river anyway.  If she did feel like she'd have to go, maybe she'd forget about it for a bit.

We then started to make our way across the bridge.  The kids enjoy stepping up on the wooden slats of the bridge and yell down to the ducks, and Sunday was no different.  Halfway across the bridge, a photographer took pictures of a newly engaged (I assume) couple.  His picture-taking was disrupted by Cal, who had hopped up next to the kissing couple, disrupting the moment being captured by the photographer.  I don't know if Cal really knew what he was doing, but we all laughed as if he did.

Finally across the bridge, I decided I wanted a picture of the kids at the Riverwalk.  So I once again bribed them with candy to cooperate for a picture by the river.  Cal fully understood the bribe and what I wanted and tried to pull Ella close to him to smile for his candy.  Ella, tired and possibly with a full bladder, resisted.  This isn't unusual -- Ella likes her space and feels perfectly comfortable informing anyone violating her space to leave her alone.  I have mental images of the beautiful, happy pictures I could take of my kids, and rarely are they realized.  Instead, I end up with something like this one, clearly a compromise to at least record the moment:

The kids ate their bribe, and we then made the final walk to our car where I hoisted Ella's princess dress over her head (she had a long-sleeved shirt and leggings on) in case she did finally have the accident that was surely brewing since she had announced she had to go potty back at the Riverwalk many minutes before.  I got the kids situated in the car and then climbed in myself.

To say I enjoyed my Sunday afternoon with the kids may be a lie.  I'm really not sure.  No one in his right mind would call that fun; but I'm not really in my right mind when it comes to my Leatherkids.  If you asked them, I'm not even sure what they'd say.  I think they enjoyed it, but I also think they may have enjoyed a visit -- in costume -- to our neighborhood park just as much.

One thing is for sure: I survived.