Monkeys on the Tire Swing

Seriously, aren't tire swings just the best thing ever invented? 

Camden recently discovered the tire swing. No, he is not securely fastened to the swing in this picture. He is just sitting on the swinging tire hanging on to the rope...tightly. If he had let go he would have just slid right off. 

I was pretty impressed with how strong he is. 

I always said he was a monkey.

 

His First Pair Of Chucks

I love Converse shoes. 

Who doesn't?

Actually, I don't like them for me. They seem to run narrow and my feet are never comfortable in them. Maybe I need insoles in them or something. But I love how they look. And in the end that's all that matters. 

Oh the things we do for fashion.

I've wanted to get little baby Chucks since Calen was conceived. Like I found out I was pregnant and the first thing I thought was "YESSS I can buy little baby Converse shoes!"

Okay maybe that's not the first thing I thought about. 

But they're (usually) outrageously expensive for a little rubber sole and some canvas. So I've been reeeeeeeeeally good and in the last 3.5 years of having little boys and have not bought a single pair of them no matter how badly I wanted to.

Until now. 

I went into Target. Which was my first mistake. 

How is it I can go into Target to get one thing and end up with 25 items in the shopping cart before I even leave the dollar seasonal section right by the entrance?? Target sucks out my frugal soul. 

I went into Target specifically for shoes for Cam. I had bought him little canvas shoes (not Converse) a couple weeks ago but I swear to God the kid has two different sized feet, because one fit but the other I literally could not cram his fat foot into no matter how hard I shoved. Not to mention the kid's favorite pastime is pulling off/kicking off/finding any way possible to remove shoes from his feet so I needed a pair that I could weld to his skin were more challenging to get off. 

And there, in the kid's shoe aisle, were the most adorable little Converse slip on shoes you ever did see. And they were only $19.99 as opposed to $19291.99+taxes and your firstborn child that they usually charge. 

Cam's first pair of Chucks

 Now how could I say no?

So finally, finally, I bought Camden's first pair of Chucks. 

Today was the inaugural Wearing of the Chucks day. They fit great and best of all: Cam is incapable of removing them. Even in the car where he will do NOTHING until he manages to rip them off. But not these. Ha! You get what you pay for.   

He likes to stomp in them. I like that he keeps them on.

 

Cardboard Box Magic

I ordered four things online from two different places. They weren't enormous things so when UPS came today I was shocked to open the door and see a freaking skycraper of three huge cardboard boxes blocking the doorway.

Really Toys R Us? You couldn't condense Woody and Buzz Lightyear into one box?

Since these were Christmas presents I told Brad to distract the kids while I took the toys upstairs. And what better way to distract them with than cardboard boxes? Instantly they were cars, castles, airplanes and houses. 


I shouldn't have even ordered toys. I should have just ordered boxes. 

So after dinner tonight Calen and I cut up, colored and taped together two of the boxes to make a super awesome space ship. Which provided the entertainment for the rest of the evening (and probably all day tomorrow too).


Why can't adults appreciate cardboard boxes as much as kids do? Instead of buying a thousand dollar couch I could just throw a pillow in an appliance box and sit in it when I watch reruns of Cops. 

And best of all all I need is a steak knife and a box of crayons to customize it however I please. 

Calen in his space ship "shooting" space aliens (Camden)

 

Our Day Out With Thomas

Calen has loved Thomas the Train since before he could talk. In fact one of his first words was "choo choo" (more like "Choo Choooooooooooooo") and he would squeal and dance in circles whenever the Thomas show opening music started up. And since then, he's acquired a respectful amount of Thomas paraphernalia: toys, clothes, sleeping bags, movies, etc. And last but not least his uber metal Thomas toy train collection and tracks that he plays with every.single.day. 

While he's finally starting to outgrow Thomas, as in not begging to watch it every day, it's still one of his all time favorite characters. And when I heard a little rumor that a real Thomas the Train showed up in Some-Random-Town Pennsylvania and gave rides and there was a whole Thomas festival, I ran out and bought tickets. 

In February. 

Hey, plan ahead right?

In my defense I heard it sold out pretty quick. And I wasn't about to miss out on my opportunity to win my Mom of the Year award and trophy among local three year olds. 

Also, we didn't tell him until TODAY. Because I didn't want to hear "Are we going to see Thomas today?" every single day for the last SEVEN months.

Three hours away from home lies Strasburg PA, the heart of gorgeous farmland and rolling hills and Amish country and all that fun stuff. Right away when we got there Thomas himself was chugging into the station for his first ride of the day (ours). We had a little bit of time so I asked Calen if he wanted to go "meet" Thomas first but he said absolutely NOT, he needed to get onto Annie and Claribel (the coaches) immediately. So we did. And thus started an all day shit-eating grin on Calen's face that would not disappear until we left. He announced to the entire coach car that we were sitting in "Claribel" (we were sitting in the second car) and that he was going to take us for a ride around the "Island of Sodor" (he was fully convinced that we had traveled to Thomas' island and was pointing out the name of the station, the "steamworks" where they fix the trains, etc). This ride was pretty short, maybe 20 minutes total. But Thomas' whistle sounded just like on the show and it was a real steam train so you could hear the steam whooshing and the chugging and all that fun train stuff that every little boy dreams of. 

Shit.eating.grin. (on "Claribel" on the Thomas train)

After our first ride we got off and "met" Thomas (i.e. take the obligatory picture with him..it...whatever). Thomas' eyes actually move which was really cool but kind of creepy. 

The boys and Thomas!

We then saw a little diesel train chug by on a different track that was giving out rides. Calen immediately said it was "Mavis" (some little diesel train on the show that looks and sounds just like this one...pretty clever of Calen actually). So of course we HAD to ride Mavis. 

Right after that we dove into a line to meet the Sir Topham Hatt (the conductor boss guy on the show). The line took foreva - long enough that I let Calen eat half of his lunch in line. And when it was his turn, he even obediently ran up to him and instantly turned around and smiled at me so I could get a picture. He is well trained that boy.

Sir Topham Hatt

We took a lunch break after and then went into the Thomas shrine, aka the gift tent. (yeah, it wasn't a store, it was an event tent. A gift event tent. A HUGE ONE). He somehow found two trains that he didn't own and picked them out as his special treat for the day. I managed to smuggle a couple things into the diaper bag for Christmas. 

And just when we thought we had managed to escape the goodies area only spending $20, we found a buggy. An Amish buggy. Selling Amish things. 

And how could I walk pass the charming little Amish lady in her bonnet selling the most adorable hand crafted wooden toys you ever did see?

So we decided to get a couple of heirloom wooden toys for the boys. You know, toys that they aren't allowed to play with until they are old enough to be incapable of causing harm to them. Like when they're 30. But really, something special that they can pass down to their sons and their sons' sons and so forth. 

Besides, when am I going to be able to buy handmade Amish toys out of the back of a buggy again any time soon? Like, never. 

Goodies. Two new trains and two Amish made toys for the boys.

We had time to kill before our next (and last) train ride so Cam and I played while Calen rode on this mini hand-crank train fifteen thousand times. 

And then the grand finale: the BIG, authentic real steam train came and took us on a forty minute train ride in an open car right through beautiful Amish country. You could even see them out plowing their fields with their horse-drawn plows. By this time the boys were pretty tired and trained-out, so Calen mostly just laid on the seat and played with his new trains while Cam fussed in Brad's lap. But Brad and I really enjoyed this ride as it was more "grown up" and the scenery was incredible. This area had everything that south Jersey doesn't have. Hills, farms, grass, and a smell of freshly turned earth (as opposed to Jersey's smell of cigarettes and burning skin from over-tanning). 

Our big Strasburg Railroad steam train ride

After this train ride we said goodbye to Thomas and headed home. We did not make it out of the driveway before both boys were unconscious and drooling in their carseats. 

And all of this before 2:30pm. 

Great day. TONS of fun. Going to be hard to outdo a day like this for Calen for the next rest of his life.

 

 

 

Strategy

It seems the only way I can get Cam to hold still for a picture is to sit him on something elevated that takes him a precious few seconds to figure out how to get down. And before those seconds are up, I need to distract him. Usually by having Daddy make strange noises behind me. And for once in his life, Calen looked at the camera at the same time. Thanks boys. 

 Also note: both boys are proudly wearing their weekend colors. Calen sporting his UW shirt for Saturday's WIN, and Cam in his Seahawks uniform that miraculously still fits (even though he wore it at 6 months old) for today's WIN. Seattle sports sometimes DO prevail!

Sad SuperCam

It' blurry, but Camden's face depicts the type of week we've had. Between illness (that's infected all four of us now), not sleeping well and teething from certain 16 month olds, we've just been a household full of crankiness.

Even Cam's superhero counterpart couldn't find inner peace today. 

But it made a funny picture.

...yes, I do dress my children. I am fully aware that he was wearing the same pajamas in yesterday's picture. In my defense, yesterday's picture was moments before bedtime, and today's was this morning when they woke up. They do wear clothes. Some days they even wear shoes (gasp! I know). I promise.....

Even crabbiness is cute

 

Three Inches Taller

Camden uses strange things as stepping stools. Like his sippy cup. 

It still didn't make him tall enough to touch the tv. 

 

Southpaw Circles

Well I'm sick again with a sinus infection (because I haven't been sick enough this week) so we're keeping things short and sweet.

Calen brought home a little work paper from school today that had a bunch of dotted circles that he was supposed to trace. 

Yeah right. He's three and his favorite way of drawing or coloring is scribbling as hard and as fast as he can. Lines don't exist in his little world. 

P.S. He's left-handed. So I can't just sit down and show him how to hold a crayon and draw. When I try to color left-handed I look like an orangutan with severe brain damage and a broken hand. 

However, once I actually looked at the paper I was shocked to discover that he had traced the dotted lines pretty darn well (for being three). 

He probably had a teacher hold his hand while drawing.

So to prove the theory I gave him a crayon and asked him to draw a circle (one of the dotted circles wasn't drawn on yet). 

And he grabbed the crayon with his little left hand and very carefully traced the circle near-perfectly. 

I'm officially impressed.

P.S: Calen then tried to color in the circles and did his classic scribble hurricane. There's the Calen I know and love.

Yeah I know it's hard to see. But click on it and it'll get bigger.

 

 

Just You and Me

It's Calen's second day of school and I had yet another morning with just me and Cam.

Good Lord one kid is SO much easier than two. Especially when the one leftover is the one that can't whine or ask a thousand questions or never.stop.talking. The silence was amazing and I wish I could wrap up and stuff into my ears when the kids get too loud. 

I really like our little time together each morning.

being a monkey at the playground this morning

 




 

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

My (first) baby boy started school today. 

*Wails* *Sobs* *Throws Fit* *Snot Runs Down Face* *etc*

Okay actually, I did NOT cry today. Which I thought maybe was a bad thing? Shouldn't I be more upset? This is the first day of 14 years of school. (as long as he doesn't get held back. Which he better not.) Though it isn't like REAL elementary school, just PRE-school, so maybe I'm just saving my tears until Kindergarten. 

Or maybe I'm overthinking it. 

Where WAS I?

A friend was gracious enough to offer to watch Camden this morning so that I could drop Calen off alone and take pictures without having to worry about baby brother. I really enjoyed our little special morning together. His little school is small rented building attached to a church in downtown Cape May. As we walked up to the doors (which were locked) he took it upon himself to say hi to all his new classmates (ten or so) and I watched him take on a leadership type role as he convinced everyone to play in the gravel. Great influence. This is bizarre to me because usually Calen is a follower, not a leader. But it was fun to watch. He's definitely not shy.

Ready for his first day of school!

The doors opened and they hung up their little backpacks and went to the play area to play with a plethora of "new" toys with his new little friends. 

He didn't give a crap that I was leaving. I even had to beg him for a kiss when I left. Which he happily gave to me and then turned his back to me as he found an entire box full of Woody and Buzz Lightyear toys. 

Exactly how I wanted it. See you in three hours. 

Running to class

I picked up Cam and we went on some thoroughly exciting errands to the doctor's office, Walmart and Kmart. (ooooh, thrilling). Surprisingly, little Cam and I had an absolute blast. For the first time ever, it was just he and I. He really comes out of his shell when he is not being overrun by his big brother. We took our time and pushed the cart through the aisles and Cam would point at things and go "Yeah!" (his way of saying "Hey, look at this!"). We tried on silly hats and played with toys. It was a fun time together.

At noon I went to pick up Calen. When the teacher finally opened the school room door for us to come in, all of us parents gave out a resounding mushy "awwwww!" as we see two tables full of tiny little people sitting silently in tiny little chairs with their backpacks in front of them waiting patiently for us with little smiles on their faces. 

Who ARE these teachers, lion tamers? How the hell did they transform our monkeys into little short people in three short hours? And it's only the first day. 

Calen informed me RIGHT as he saw me "I have papers in my backpack!" Which clearly was extremely important to him. (the papers were actually pictures that he colored). Then he told me that he "played elephants and cars and big trucks and race cars!!!" And later informed me that he sang "itsy bitsy spider" and "Wheels on the bus" and that he liked school and was 'xited' (excited). School is officially a success. 

Because we like any excuse possible to celebrate and give surprises to our kids, Calen had a new small Lego set and a toy snake waiting for him in his carseat to celebrate his first ever day of school. Then after dinner we took him to Yogo Factory for frozen yogurt. I figured it's a pretty damn good reason to celebrate.