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.
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.
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.
Said Griff after she started crying when Dad left the room. He gave her a hug too. He's a really good big brother.
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"
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.
Vicki and I lose our tempers with Griff sometimes. Sometimes he's just crazy. Sometimes, like saturday morning, he starts off whiny and it just gets worse.
Vicki woke up early and thought it would be nice to take Griff to Starbucks for a little mommy/son time. His clothes weren't laid out so he had to get some from the dresser and that set it off. He wanted the shirt that was in the laundry. He didn't want to get dressed. He didn't want to go to Starbucks. Well, so he said in his whiniest voice, which is a pet peeve for both Vicki and I. After some threats to leave without him, Vicki left without him (good move sweet angel!). I got out of bed and tried to be calm. He finally got dressed and cleaned up his trains so that he could come down for breakfast....45 minutes after Vicki went in there. I thought i was going to keep it together. Three whiny comments into breakfast, I did not. "But I don't want honey bunches of oats" (total BS - he loves them). Now it was time for me to follow through on my anti-whining threat. Upstairs with screaming kid on shoulders. Place him in bed. Walk away. It was a new record in frustrated parenting. Both of us in under an hour.
We turned it around. After Vicki left for girls day out, he went for another time out. I told him (amongst other things in a very two-way, very grown up conversation about his motivations) to think about what we were going to do to turn the day around when his time out was over. When I came back five minutes later, he was more calm and said "Daddy can we build a fort please?"
So we did. Big time. It was the best one we've ever made. I set it up so that we could watch TV in there, but we never did. Music lesson on his keyboard. Puzzle. A long game of SpotIt. We ate lunch in there. And Vera and I hung out in there for a few hours while Griff was napping. Success.
Our little "artist" Griffin drew this at school today. He said it was "a whale jumping out is the water". It's abstract.
Griff and I were in the car after a mid day swim lesson - he was tired and we were both quiet.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking Dad?"
"I don't know Griff, what are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking of Vera."
Griff just said, "I changed your vagina into a penis, now you have a penis, and I changed Vera's vagina into a penis too. Wierd. Haha."
Ohhhh my. So there's that.
Griff did the whole process himself last night. The three things I was still involved in were filling the bath tub, getting his toothbrush and toothpaste down from the high medicine cabinet, and reading to him.
He single handedly went up stairs, got undressed and in the bath, scrubbed himself (including washing his own hair!), got out of the tub, brushed his teeth, peed,put his dirty clothes away, picked out pajamas, got dressed, picked out a book, and climbed in bed.
Its very gratifying, time saving, and nostalgia inducing. He grows up so fast.
It's 5pm. At 3pm Griffin ate 2 big cups of cantelope and at 4:40 was begging for food. He just ate about 10 baby carrots with hummus (which he would never normally do), half a large avocado, and 8 dino nuggets (he usually eats 3-4). Crazzzy.
Griffin has a tendency to overreact and he is bit dramatic sometimes. I wonder where he gets this? (Like father, like son)
I just snapped this picture of him after he was fooling around on Vera's high chair and stepped off funny. I showed him the picture and he didn't like that I was laughing. He said, "Mom, I didn't want you to take that picture. Die that picture,
Mommy. "
Devereux Beach...it's a beautiful august morning with the kids.
A little quality time with Griff this morning at Starbucks. Croissant, frozen yogurt tube, grapes, cheerios, games, coloring book... and egg sandwich and soy vanilla latte for me. It's a good morning already.
Griff is watching an episode of Jake and the Neverland Pirates from his own homemade couch-fort.
