Tonight when Geoff came home from work we took the kids outside to play. They have been asking to go out to play more and more and today was the first time this week that everything worked out for all of us to have some outside time together.
E asked me to draw "hopscotch" for him. He knew about it from a Highlights (magazine for kids) story he loves. He and Geoff went on a hunt to find a rock to play hopscotch with. Then I tried to explain hopscotch to both boys and approximately 2 minutes later everyone had moved onto bigger and better things. Ella occupied herself with a ball initially and then E decided he needed one too. We played catch and soccer with them while playing frisbee with each other. Then the neighbor kids came out to play.
It's always a big deal in our neighborhood when it is nice enough for everyone to go outside. Everyone tends to play outside all summer long and we all see each other daily. Then some time around October/November we stop seeing each other outside. We might see each other as we drive down the street or get our mail, but we don't really see each other again until spring. The most amazing part to us has always been seeing how much all the neighbor kids have grown. When we moved into our house a few of the neighbor kids were in the range of 18 months-2 years. Today one of those kids was showing us how he had lost another tooth. It was fascinating to look at him and then look at Ella and think that in a way we will always think of him as her age because that is when we first met him.
It was fun in other ways too because the adults get to talk and catch up. We have new neighbors that most of us haven't met yet and some old neighbors that just closed on their new house today. We will be very sad to see them go, but we are happy for them because they were able to get the home they have been dreaming of.
Eventually it was just too cold to stay outside anymore and E declared that his "knees are too cold." How can you resist that? So inside we went. We had a wonderful dinner as we tend to always do these days because most all our dinners are specially made for us. At the end of that dinner E was goofing around and fell off his chair (again...this happens a lot...) and pulled his big kid glass of milk down on top of himself.
I had already decided that Ella needed a bath, but E sealed the deal, so off to a bath it was. E is currently obsessed with grape bubble bath so I made sure there were lots of bubbles and in they went. They played happily while I read research articles for school. Then I told them it was time to get out. I started to let out the water and E started shrieking about Ella pooping.
Sure enough, she did.
I nearly cried. I hate bath tub poop. It is so disgusting! Why don't people tell you about this before you have kids? (ok, it wouldn't have stopped me, but seriously...)
Geoff swooped in and together we removed all the toys from the tub for a good bleaching and then he gave each of the kids a shower and cleaned the tub while I got the kids in their pjs. E chattered away happily about Ella being on Santa's naughty list now and not getting any presents and I inwardly groaned for ever using that as motivation to get him to behave.
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