My Dolphin's Name is...

A few days ago Shane and I decided to cancel our subscription to the Dish Network. Don't get me wrong, we love our shows, but we started to think that maybe there were better ways to use our time. Mostly though since Mason has learned to operate the remote control himself we thought that perhaps we should start being more careful about the media that our children were able to consume. So we are TV-less, and really its a good thing. I always thought that we didn't watch very much TV, but when I can see what we have time for without it I realize that actually we did. I didn't think that Mason even missed it until today when we were playing animals. I asked him what his dolphin's name was, he thought for a minute and then said thoughtfully, "my dolphin's name is Mote Control."

Yeah, I think we need a few more weeks without the TV to revive our creative naming skills.

Fun with dad

For anyone who wanted a better understanding of my last post here is a video I took last night, complete with Max in his jungle baby costume. Usually Mason is a little more involved in the fun, but I was trying to get Shane to help me show off how crazy wild Max is sometimes.

My scary kid...

Every night after dinner we have this routine, while I am cleaning up the dinner Shane plays with the kids. On weekdays its the only time they get to play together and I love listening to them. I also love being able to get something done without "helpers." Its always some sort of wrestling match where there is much crawling on the floor, and steamrolling, and dog piling. It must be a male thing because Shane is so much better at this kind of rough house play than I am. Although the activity is always much the same it always has a different theme. Some days Mason and Dad are polar bears, and Max is a penguin; some days they are horses and cowboys, lately Mason always wants to be a lion and Max sometimes gets to be a lion, but sometimes an antelope. I know it sounds like Max gets a bad deal, but the kid is just so squishy he tastes good.

Anyway...On Tuesday we went to the mall. The mall has a play area, we love the play area. Winter is loooong in Idaho, and I mean long, so anytime we can get out we do. This day we had almost the whole place to ourselves, which isn't saying alot, its not a very big space, but it was nice not to worry about Mason getting pushed around by some ten year old who is way over the height restriction, because apparently it really upsets the big ten year old's mom when I yell at her mean kid. Anyway...the only kid there looked like he was about five and was only there for a few minutes when his mom said that it was time for him to leave. On the way out he looked over to me and said, "Is that baby with the red hair your's?" I smiled, and said yes preparing to graciously take the inevitable he's so cute compliment. The kid looked at me and said quite seriously, "he's scary."

I laughed out loud, but this poor boy's mother was mortified, she immediately apologized and demanded that her son recant his statement and say my baby was cute instead, the boy looked bewildered, apparently he thought he was doing the playground a public service by getting this "scary" one year old under wraps. The mom continued to look increasingly embarassed, so I said in my most sympathetic voice, "did he roar* at you?"
"Yeah," said the kid.
"Sorry, he does that sometimes." I replied.
And with that the other mom's face softened, she could see that we both understood the joy of raising boys.

And I'll have to remember to tell Shane that thanks to his nightly tutelage our Max is the scariest kid on the playground.



*in our house its pronounced rawr

Its time for a change

Ok lately I've had this nagging feeling that I should go private. I mean when I initially created this thing it was to be a writer's blog, but since I started telling people in my real life about it, it seems that all I write about is my kids, which is great, but honestly I have no problem telling the random internet world about my thoughts on numerous issues, but I do have issues with telling the random internet world the sweet details about my children's lives. I go back and forth on this issue, but lately it has really bothered me that just anyone can peek into my kids lives. I hardly ever post anyway so really I don't know that the random internet world will miss me, but those of you that will miss me please leave me a comment to let me know that you'd still like to see my blog. If I don't have it please leave your email address so that I can grant you access, I'll turn on comment moderation so that no one's email addresses are made public.

I'm a little sad to change and I hope to come back someday committed to making that writer's blog. Maybe when I have more time for writing, so uh about the time Max leaves for college.