Funny stuff Griff has said lately

When Mom got Griff a new Lego Star wars book which he was totally enthralled with, I asked if he had said thank you to Mom:  "I said it so many times she probably doesn't even remember!"

When we made cinnamon rolls for dinner, Griffin only paused from wolfing down his food long enough to say "I can't take my nose off the smell of those cinnamon rolls!"

Catching Up Again

Griff has a new sister - May.  And a new basement playroom, almost.

So we've been a little busy.  So we haven't blogged for a while.  The family memories, meanwhile, are coming a mile-a-minute.

So stay tuned.  Some Vera and Griffin and May related items from the past few months are coming up soon on the blog.  'cause we still love our kids.  And this is as much an archive as it is a public announcement service.

Sneak peak:

• Griffin goes tubing at Joe's Pond
• Swimming the whole length of the pool
• Vera's current vocab and top ten cutest sayings ("OK Daddy...")
• Stuff Griff Builds, including the latest home depot kids projects (Ambulance anyone?)

“I’m trying to be a better son, too, Dad”

Griff and I are emotionally maturing together.  The other night I was frustrated at his getting-ready-for-bed pace:

Griff:  “Dad, I don’t like it when you get angry with me”

Me:  “I don’t like it either –I’m trying to be more calm and helpful for you.  I want to be a better dad, and you've got to try your hardest, even when you're getting ready for bed.”

Griff:  “I want to be a better son, too, Daddy!”

Turks Highlights

Wow it’s been a while and we have the pictures but its worth capturing the top memories from Turks and Caicos, where we were for a week and a bit in early May.

• Vera in the swimming pool “swimming” by herself with the arm floaties and foam vest.  She immediately started with cute little legs running underwater and even started lounging back and just floating.  Either way, giant smile.
• Griffin and Vera sharing a room and waking up (and falling asleep) alternately saying “HI!”  “HI!”  “HI!”  with a rising tone accent.  Also Griffin occasionally saying “Its okay Vera” or bringing her a stuffed animal or blanket when she cried out.
•  Early mornings and late afternoons/evenings on the beach.  In particular the sunset evening on Grace bay beach where we took a bunch of pictures and watched as the tide slowly eroded the defenses of Lookout Point.
• Lookout Point – a castle we built.
• Oreos.  Vera started saying “O-eYO!”
• The French bakery.  And its lovely proprietor who complemented our kids and treated us to a free box of caramels after we spent 10 minutes admiring and purchasing just about one of everything.  And eating the stuffed breads.
• Taylor Bay.  The best kept secret just off Sunset Bay Drive.  Just walk behind the tennis courts on your left.  We’d have missed it except for the tourists from Maine who were unloading their car road-side and showed us the path.
• Napping Vera in the backpack while I walked three or so miles of grace bay beach.
• Nissan Sunny.  What a P.O.S. rental car – and only $80 per day.
• Cold Coconut water at the fish fry night.
• Cats!  Officially the hotel staff called one of the semi-domesticated feral ones “Mama”, but Vicki was calling her Nickels.  

Awesome Father’s Day

Griffin said “Happy Father’s Day Daddy” three separate times on father’s day.  And it was only prompted once (thanks Vicki!).  Here’s how the day went:

·         Walk/scooter to Dunkin’ Donuts

·         I took Griff to swimming and then Crosby’s

·         Lunch.  Vicki made egg bake and it was awesome.

·         I mowed the lawn while the kids were napping, then did some ceiling strapping and framing in the basement.

·         Water balloon slingshot!   We launched probably like 20  balloons high in the air into our own yard and accidentally into the neighbors a few times.

·         Dinner at Five Guys.  Griff and Vera ate a TON of peanuts.

·         Orange Leaf for frozen yogurt take-out, which we ate in the driveway and did some chalk drawing.

·         Bath and Bed for the kids.

·         And then three episodes of Orange is the new Black for mom and Dad.

"You're kind of a HOT mess, Mommy"

Vicki said "Im kind of a mess today" with a laugh.
Griffin added the word "hot" into the middle there.  Oh what a tangled linguistic web we weave.

Drawing of our House

Griff drew a pic of our brick house yesterday.

Letter U Show-n-Tell: Uncle Eeek (Dan)

So, Griffin has show-n-tell once a week and each week they do a different letter of the alphabet.  This week is letter "U".  I struggled earlier this week with ideas of what to do (umbrellas, unicorn, underwear, united states?) and before bed last night, Tom and I suggested sharing a picture of one of his uncles. In the middle of naming all of his uncles, Griff got all excited and said, "How about Uncle Eek!!?"  Done!

After G went to bed, Tom tried to stalk Dan's FB account and print a picture with no luck, (printer fail), so we gave up and went with really crappy plan B- a plastic toy cow with giant udders and decided that "Udder", although ridiculous, would be good enough... (parent fail)

This morning when I showed the cow to Griffin, and explained that we didn't find a picture of Uncle Dan, and he said, "Hey, I could draw a picture."  Great idea!  He did, and it was so cute... He gave Dan (in his words) "spiky hair because he has spiky hair and a big nose".  While he was drawing, he also said, "I have to leave room for Aunt Larissa."  I said, oh but Uncle Dan is married to Aunt Annie and Uncle Eric is married to Aunt Larissa.  "Oh".

We also had a conversation over breakfast that went something like this:

"Did you know that Uncle Eric and Aunt Larissa bought a new house?"

"Well, how can they carry a house?"

"They don't carry it, they just buy it and then move all of their stuff to the new house."

"But I still want to go to their house to play."

"Don't worry Griff, we can still go over to play."

"But Uncle Dan will be sad that Uncle Eric doesn't live there anymore, but maybe this will make him happy." (referring to his drawing...)

Nice Night

Griffin was well behaved and awesome last night.  He did his own washing in the bath and cleaned up his room without supervision - I just asked once.  While we were reading stories we played "opposite day" where you say the opposite of what you mean.  Griffin said "I don't love my little sister Vera."  That's what he came up with.  We read green eggs and ham and dragons love tacos and he laughed particularly loudly at my word-swap outs as we read.  I love that lil guy.

Awesome Bathtime = Random Present

Griffin did an amazing job getting himself ready for bed last night..  He washed himself properly, got out of the tub and dried off, got his PJ’s out and put them on, brushed his teeth and peed, plus laid out his clothes for the next day and picked out stories to read.  All while I was taking care of Vera.  He was sitting in bed reading quietly when I came in for story time.  Go G.  I’m impressed.   We gave him a random present from the closet of surprises.  He deserved it.

Home Depot projects

Griffin and I go to the depot for a lot of different reasons, especially now that the basement is under renovation. But the biggest thing lately has been for kids workshop time, which happens the first Saturday morning of each month.  Griffin has built a race car, a tic tac toe board, a toolbox, a ship, and now a Trojan horse bank.  He has a little orange apron with his name on it and he collects pins for completing each project.  There are always nails to pound and glue and paint to make a mess with.  The last one even had some screws.  He's getting pretty good at hammering nails.  Makes a Dad proud.

Curious George

Out of the blue today, in the car on the way home from Vera's swim class, Griffin said "You know Mom, Curious George goes to sleep naked in his bed.  He doesn't wear any pajamas."  That crazy monkey (and Curious George is also pretty crazy too).

Birthday Playdate with Bren

Griffin's 4th birthday is tomorrow, and as a very special treat, our ever-so caring babysitter Bren (who has been watching Griffin since he was 10 months old) took him out to eat pizza and Orange Leaf.  She also got him a dinosaur sticker book.  He loved it and is now up in his room taking his very last nap as a 3 year old. :)

Flo Rida - Third time for Griff

We took Griff and Vera to Orlando for the week before Christmas.  It was awesome.  Here's some highlights:

• Swimming in the pools at the Hilton Grand Vacations, International Drive.  There was one big one and one smaller one.  I like to take him "waterskiing", where he stands on my kneecaps and I pull him around the pool by his oustretched arms, walking backwards on the bottom myself.
• Four trips to Sea World.  The longest one was about 4 hours.  We still have to work around nap time for both Griff and Vera.
• He rode the shamu roller coaster (its a kiddie coaster) twice - once with Mom and once with me. 
• Best dolphin show we've seen to date (Our second and third time seeing it)
• Puke.  For the first two days, he was pretty sick and barely eating.  Upshot:  he's really good at identifying when he's about to throw up now, and made it to the toilet most times.
• Breakfast with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pluto, and Goofy at the Contemporary Resort at Disney World.  This was our third trip to Orlando with Griff, and he has yet to actually enter any of the parks there.
• New crocs (lego style) for when he outgrows his current ones.  Also new Jibbits - Tigger from Winnie the pooh and spongebob pirate.
• Sharing a room with Vera.  When she wasn't sleeping well, we watched on the monitor as he climbed out of his king sized bed and went to give her a hug over the pack-and-play wall.  "Its okay Vera."
• Snuggling to sleep with Mom.  And Snuggling to sleep with Dad.  When sickness and insomnia got the best of our two-bedroom suite, we just swapped roommates and Griff slept with either Vicki or I.

Funny Stuff Griff Said

Today in class for a snack we had clam crackers  (he meant oyster crackers).

Dad, what's that thing on you that has you on it?  (it was my corporate ID, still clipped to my belt)
---Its an ID card I use to get in and out of my office, like a key
Why don't you take it off and not use it to get into your office and then you can stay home all day with me?

Do you know why we can smell things from far away mom?
---Its because of particles, right?  (Thinking of Sid the Science Kid)
No Mom, they're minicules (he got it confused with molecules).

16, 384

Griff and I have been reading "one grain of rice", a story that aunt kate gave him about a peasant indian girl who outsmarts a raja by asking for one grain of rice, then two the second day, doubling each day for a month.

Griff has been asking repeat doubling questions:

"What does one and one make dad?"
"What does two and two make?"
Etc. Etc.

Tonight we got to 16,384.  It took me a second to do the adding, and Griffin said the full number "eight thousand one hundred and ninety-two" twice with no prompting.  I'm raising a nerd.  A curious adorable nerd.  And I love it.

Funny Stuff Griff Says

"Dad, I like your red sox shirt.  I like the Red Sox.  I like the Patriots too.  I also like watching hockey games.  I am going to be a hockey player when I grow up.  Did you know hockey and golf are the same thing?  Because in both of them you have a club and hit a puck or a ball.  In golf you have a golf club and in hockey you have a hockey club."

"We should go kayaking more.  You know why?  Because, do you know what kayak guys get to have for a snack?  Ice cream sandwiches."

"When I grow up, I want to be an ancient dinosaur bone discoverer.  Or a super hero."

"It's okay Vera. I'm here."

Said Griff after she started crying when Dad left the room.  He gave her a hug too.  He's a really good big brother.

Griff's Parental Feedback

I took Griff out for frozen yogurt last night.   Between bites I asked if there was anything mom and I could do to be better parents.  He thought for a second, swallowed a big bite of brownie flavored froyo, and said,

"Maybe more higs and kisses would be good"

Swimming on a Monday

We (all four of us) went to the ymca for family open swim last night.  From 5 to 6 pm.  It was Vicki's idea and it was a good one since I am travelling for work the next three days.  Griff enthusiastically swam up to me and said "dad can we play Simba and Raffiki?"  Anytime little man.  Anytime.