The last 8 days in a nutshell

These last 8 days have been good, and tiring! Bryan has been gone for all of them with work. Aside from a few days of my own personal emotional instability (none of which stemmed from my children, honest), the boys and I have fared pretty well.

Here are some of the things we have done together; lots and lots of artwork, bike rides, running through sprinklers, slept over at Nana and Papa's house and ate popcorn in their bed while watching a movie, read books, pulled a butt load of weeds, planted plants, caught tons of bugs, had tantrums, wrestled, swung on the swing, had musical instrument parties, danced to punk-style Christmas music in the kitchen for an hour (Oscar and Angus have hilariously awesome dance moves, Oscar even threw some sweet moves from Pee-Wees Bid Adventure in too. So cool.), played cars, played bionicles, played lots of games of freeze tag, eaten too many hot dogs (blech), had tickle fights and licking wars, giggled, laughed, cried, screamed, and hit our pillows hard every night.

Overall it has been a really good 8 days with my little boys. We sure have missed Bryan though, and are so glad he gets to come home tomorrow. The boys were constantly asking "how many more days till Dad comes home?"

A few other notes about the past week:

-I love that my boys love to sit by me at every meal. I am so lucky to have one of them on either side of me while we eat, and of their own free will too! They will even occasionally give up the "goodie spot" to sit next to me! I am loved. ( FYI, the "goodie spot" is some magical thing these boys came up with a long time ago. There is a "goodie spot" on the couch, and a "goodie spot" at each table. And there is always a conversation about whose turn it is to sit there.)

-I was the helper at Oscar's school today. Angus was able to come with me. Angus does SO good at school. I am always so proud of how my 3 year old handles himself with the older kids and the school schedule. I just don't want him to grow up too fast, he is always asking me  how many more years till he is 5, 18, 26, 32...etc. Enjoy being 3 my sweet crazy boy! Also, each time it is a child's "helper" day at school they get a chance to pick what the class pretends to be as they walk down the hall for bathroom break. Oscar's choices always crack me up. Here are a few he has chosen; metal, garbage, and today it was bottle caps. Awesome stuff.

- Today, Oscar had his first experience with having to return something to someone that he took with out asking. Our kind neighbor Phyllis who lives across the street, has an impressive collection of rocks throughout her front yard. They boys are enamored with all the different kinds of rocks she has there. They often ask to go look in Phyllis' yard.

Well, yesterday Oscar snagged a couple that caught his eye without me noticing. However I did notice them sitting with his collection this afternoon. After a calm and kind discussion about where he got the rocks, they truth came out. We talked about honesty, and how he knows you can't take things that aren't yours even if you want to. He bravely walked back over to Phyllis' with me, rocks in hand, and apologized for taking them without asking and gave them back to her. Phyllis of course was incredibly kind about it. I wanted Oscar to see that when we are honest about things, even when we make a mistake,  things will usually be okay and people will be kind. I am glad that his first experience with that was a positive one, and hopefully a good lesson was learned.

It is funny because my first experience with stealing was about at the same age, and it involved beautiful rocks I took from my preschool teachers bathroom. When my mom found out, I had to go give them back and apologize. I told this story to Oscar before we walked over the Phyllis' and I think it helped him to feel more calm about righting his wrong.

Anyway. That concludes that is segment of daily babble that important to us. Goodnight.