Frump Olympics

On the 100th day of school, I got to dress Andrew as a 100-year-old man.  I decorated him with a button-up shirt, glasses, a fedora, some suspenders, baggy pants, and a cane.  I used concealer to blot out the color of his lips and an old eyeliner pencil to add a few wrinkles.  He was done--just in time to head off to the bus.

I was already sweating from the exertion of aging him 93 years in 10 minutes when I realized it wasn't time to rest.  There was a problem: the 100 things he was supposed to bring to school--100 packages of fruit snacks--were left sitting on the table.

It was up to me to race the heavy box of fruit snacks to the bus stop.

There was no time to change out of my bathrobe and glasses nor to fix my messy hair. I could almost hear the Olympic anthem and my moment of frumpy Olympic glory had arrived.  As the anthem played in my head, I shot put the baby to the couch, hefted the 5 pound box, and ran toward the door.  I shoved my feet into my husband's running shoes and then flew outside where I was faced with my first obstacle: a dam of ice.  I delicately clumped my way across it in Rex's large, unlaced tennis shoes.  

When I hit the road I set out at a sprint, heaving the box as I ran, stray strands of hair sticking out everywhere and blue bathrobe of wonder billowing out behind me.

The bus pulled up in the middle of my frumpy athletic event.  Then the bus started around the corner so that the length of bus windows was facing me.  I kept puffing along until I reached my finish line--much to the delight of an entire busload of silent, gawking, appreciative fans.  Their eyes were filled with wonder and their mouths were open in disbelief.

Then, just like a runner passes a baton, I passed the heavy box to my shocked son, and let him take the next lap--onto the bus.

I don't want to take all the glory for this personal victory.  I see it as a triumph for all frumpy mothers everywhere.  We are frumpy, we are strong, we can endure public humiliation with dignity!

And then we can blog about it with grace.

Draw a What?

The other night we were playing Pictionary.  It was Andrew's turn to draw and he was supposed to draw a snake.  I thought he would have an easy time drawing a little squiggle with eyes.  I couldn't figure out why he drew this instead:

I could recognize that there was a stick figure, but I asked him to explain the circle with a line through it.

He said, "It's a bum."

"A bum?!!" I yelled.

Exasperated he said, "You said draw a spank!"

Breakfast in Bed

The other day I made spaghetti squash spaghetti for the first time.  Since Andrew doesn't generally like sauce on his noodles, I topped his with melted butter and Parmesan.  He thought the "special orange noodles" were tasty until he noticed that I was sneaking them out of a squash.  Then they were disgusting!

The next morning Rex and I heard Andrew get up before we did.  We waited for the little knock that usually follows his bathroom break, but it didn't come.  We heard him head happily to the kitchen instead.

When the knock finally came, we opened the door to find him standing there holding what he called "breakfast in bed", but looked a whole lot like two plates of cold spaghetti squash.

The cold squash was topped with a little pat of cold butter and the Parmesan, he said, was waiting in the hall for when we needed it.

The breakfast may have been squash, and may have been cold, but the gesture of it melted my heart more than any normal, warm breakfast would have.
(Unless... was he just trying to get rid of it so he didn't have to eat any more?  Hmmmm)

The breakfast didn't end up being consumed in bed as it needed a bit of warming in the microwave first.  It was actually divine once it was warm, buttery, and Parmesaned.  I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Rex, however, ate cereal.  When I asked for his squash, he graciously (and quickly) agreed.

Andrew was busy eating cereal when we came down to warm up our squash.  I said, "It looks like you took care of yourself this morning!"

He said, "Yep!  And I took care of you too."

Desperado

Bunnies Beware!!

Cowboy Drew

Andrew was in the mood for dressing up today. His cowboy outfit was complete with hat, holster, gun, cowboy boots, and...bunny rabbit.
As he put on his ensemble and held the rabbit I wondered if he was mixing manly cowboyness with a babyish need for a snuggly.
My confusion was straightened out immediately.

When I asked, "What's the rabbit for?"
He answered, "It's my meat."

Four-Year-Old Family Night

The other day was family haircut day. To keep Andrew "out of my hair" while I worked, I sent him downstairs to "plan" family home evening. It was the best idea I've ever had because it kept him quiet and busy forever.

After we had dinner with extended family guests, he invited the entire group downstairs for FHE. When we were all sitting, he said, "I'd like to welcome everyone to family home evening. Grandpa, could you say the prayer?"

When grandpa finished Andrew said, "Thank you. That was a very nice prayer."
(Are we all remembering that this kid's four?)

He then assigned a song, a pianist, and a chorister and graciously thanked each of them when they finished.

Then it was time for the lesson. Andrew chose different people to come up and hold up a gospel art picture and describe it to the family. He couldn't have chosen more disturbing pictures...
1. Pharoah's wife trying to seduce Joseph
2. Abraham's near sacrifice (complete with the wicked priest holding a sharp knife over Abraham).
3. Isaac's near sacrifice

After we had carefully made our way through these stories, Andrew showed us the game he prepared.

It looked like this:



He said, "Grandma, you're first."
There was a long pause. For some reason, Grandma didn't know what to do. Andrew sighed at her ignorance and then patiently explained that the frog is supposed to walk across the pole without getting eaten by the tiger or shot by the screwdriver machine gun (complete with a bullet chamber).

Grandma did an excellent job. The frog hopped along, even making sounds, and safely arrived on the other side.

Next was Andrew's turn. This time the machine gun started going off and it looked like the froggy was doomed until, at the last second, the puppet jumped into action sacrificing his own little shell of a body to save his amphibious friend. I was feeling all warm and fuzzy inside until Andrew said, "And now the gun can hit Megan!!"

Rex was next. He got a little too into it. He started making violent noises of destruction and flinging things everywhere.

Andrew gave him the look of death and said, "Dad, you're OUT!"

And that ended our evening of family togetherness, love, and gospel instruction.

Superhero Chessmen

When Andrew was almost three I got this brilliant idea to teach him how to play chess. I thought it would be interesting to see how much he could learn at such a young age, but when I mentioned my idea to the family Alicia immediately responded with some advice:

"Um, maybe you should potty train him first."

I'm sure you'll agree with me that she has her priorities all skrewed up. I mean, it's not like he was going to be sitting on the board without a diaper or anything. Ignoring Alicia, I decided to get started right away. I tried to teach him the best I could how to move each piece but it was an abysmal failure (as was the potty-training, by the way, when we finally got around to that). Yes, it was too young to teach a kid the rules of chess. That part of it failed. But the entertainment factor? Now that has been a huge success.

Though he couldn't grasp the rules, he has caught the spirit of the game and created his own rules. You should see how he can move his pieces. They're like superhero chessmen. They can all fly, come back from the dead, and kill more than one piece at a time. While his opponent is just moving pieces innocuously around the board, Andrew's hoard of superheroes is taking care of some serious business (and I don't mean of the potty-training variety).

So obviously he loves this game, and he wins every time. We all thought he was ignorant of his cheating habit, but after some questioning it was clear that he was fully aware.

My Dad: "So Andrew, are you still playing a lot of chess?"
Andrew: "Yep!"
Dad: "Do you still win every time?"
Andrew: "Yep!"
Dad: "How do you do it?"
Andrew: "I cheat!"

After finding out that he was aware of his cheating habit, I thought I'd play with him tonight and try to break him of it.  I mean he's been playing--and cheating--for a year now.  But, once again, he played by his own rules because a) there's only so many times you can correct false moves b) he's so cute when he cheats and c) the kid's only four.

Here were some of my favorite moments:

The only piece he moved at the beginning of the game was his king. He continued doing battle with his king alone and it took all sorts of coaching to try to keep the king alive, so I finally just killed it and we went ahead and kept playing.

At one point in the game there was suddenly a knight back in play which had already been killed.

When his knight tried to kill my bishop which was only one space away, I reminded him that he had to move in an L-shape in order to kill it. So, he moved in a random L-shape. And then he killed it.

Trying to follow the rules, he moved his queen parallel to my rook and leaned the queen's head down to whisper, "Don't kill me, okay?" (After that, my rook didn't have the heart to do it).

I tell you, if you have the choice between potty training and chess, just keep in mind the entertainment value of the latter.