A few weeks ago, I read on the
Make Magazine blog about a certain paint that you could paint on the wall to turn the whole wall into a white board. I had been planning to paint Sean's room soon anyway, and this seemed like a great idea. He loves to draw so much. When I first told him about this paint, and that he would be able to draw on his wall with special markers, and then erase it and draw new things - he just stared at me silently in disbelief, his eyes getting wider and wider as I went on. When I finished, he just let out a breathless "...thank you...!" Well, I put up the paint about a week and half ago, and last Sunday was the first day that it was finally cured enough to try it out. Here are a couple of pics from our first day with Sean's "special wall".
The kids tell us that they love us plenty often enough, but you always have to wonder how much of that is sincere, and how much of that is reflex. Sean has told me on a couple of occasions that I am his best friend, and I kind of like hearing that too. But those sorts of moments are few and far between. Well tonight we were watching our 'goodnight show' before bed, and Sean was sitting with Lori on the love seat, sort of snuggled in. And out of nowhere, at one point he looks up at her and says "I'm happy about you". I found it more than a little touching - that is not a sentence we've ever said to him, so we know it came from his heart.
Sean had a party to go to last Saturday, so Carter and I had another daddy-daughter day. In the morning, we went to Maudslay State Park for a hike. She did great! We did almost two miles total, and she only asked to be carried the couple of hundred yards. She got to see a lot of cool things there - at one point, we were hiking through an area of dense, overgrown rhododendrons that we as big as trees, and that pressed in tightly on the trail. As we hiked along, we came across two pretty little granite bridges that I never even knew were there. And when we came out to our normal picnic spot, she walked back and forth along the top of a stone wall for a solid 15 minutes before I could convince her to move on. We also found an ancient pine tree that had 5 trunks all growing together, which left a cool little hollow in the center about four feet off of the ground. I gave her a boost up into it, and she played up there for a little while. She said it was her nest, and she was a little birdie. When we got the remains of the formal gardens, we spent another 20 minutes playing there. She was racing around the gardens, with me following her. She kept telling me that the whole area was her pirate ship, and that we were looking for the treasure. It's amazing how much she opens up chats my ear off when her brother isn't around competing for my attention.
Lori and Carter made brownies last Wednesday, while Sean was at school. Carter got to lick the spoons while the brownies were baking. Once finished, those brownies lasted less than 48 hours in this house. That might even be a new record.
Sean finally drew a picture of Mommy. This is also the first one we've gotten him to pose with. I love his semi-evil grin.
As usual, we've got exactly one picture from Halloween. For some reason Sean refused to wear his Hulk mask, even though he had worn it no problem at the Halloween parties at the library and his school. But he still had fun. This was the first year where we didn't have to accompany the kids all the way to the door - we could stand 10 or 20 feet back, and let them go up to the door themselves. I think they loved the independence.
"Today must be a Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays."
- Douglas Adams
Nothing incredibly deep or insightful in this one - just a bit of mid-week silliness. How is your Thursday going?
For a few months now, Sean has given the two of us nicknames - he is acorn, and I am oreo. I have no idea where or how he came up with this. He just suddenly started it one day, and he's stuck with it. No deep insights or anything. Just something cute that I wanted to share. Carry on.
On Sunday, I finished Carter's blanket. Just like Sean's, it is made from all of her old t-shirts. It came out good enough, I suppose, but not as good as Sean's. In order to make her's large enough to cover her (infant t-shirts are pretty small, even though I had a decent-sized pile), I had to use pieces of a polka-dotted purple sheet as 'filler' between the t-shirt tiles. But trying to sew jersey material to a cotton sheet was a huge pain the rumpus. All-in-all, though, I'm sure Carter loves it - and that's all that really matters.
Lori drew a hopscotch board (do you call it a 'board'?) on the driveway Friday afternoon, and the kids spent some time enjoying it. especially love this shot of Carter - she lands her jump with authority! What conviction!
