Catching Up

Whew! I do have a lot of catching up to do! It’s been a while since my last post, and it’s been quite busy at the Little household. Here are a few highlights from the past few weeks:

In mid-February I took Grant and Bryce on a “Mommy date” to the circus. I hadn't been since I was a little girl and I think I was looking forward to the show just as much as the boys were. The week prior I was ordering our tickets online when after selecting our seats I was trying to locate my purse (so that I could pay for the tickets) when Bryce said, “Wait a minute, mom!” I thought perhaps he knew where my purse was, but instead he came down with his bank from his dresser and dumped out all of the money (totaling $4) and cheerfully said that he wanted to help pay for the tickets. He was so proud to be able to help out. And this was all his idea! What a sweet boy (sometimes, at least). It was the boys’ first time going to the circus and they were overwhelmingly excited about the event. I did, however, have to explain that it was not going to be in a tent but rather in the coliseum. It seems that all of the children’s books and movies talk about a circus tent. We had a grand time. Bryce was amazed at the man jumping through the ring of fire and the highlight for Grant was the people getting shot out of a cannon.

Bryce called this act the "candy cane girls."

I'm sure Dumbo's in the line-up somewhere.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, Grant is really into Star Wars lately. It seems to be popular among boys his age. Recently when Brian was watching golf on TV Grant dramatically pointed at the screen and proclaimed, “Dad, its Anakin!” Brian laughed and acknowledged that yes, he did look a lot like Anakin, but his name was Camillo Villegas and he is a golfer. A few moments later Grant was sitting on the couch and said out loud to himself (holding his Star Wars figurines), “Maybe Star Wars is real.”

Another monthly occurrence at our household is “Mama’s Hair Salon,” when I give all the boys hair cuts. I usually try to do this on a day when I am feeling particularly well-rested and patient. While I am cutting each boy’s hair I try to use the time to have some one on one conversation, a rare treat most days. During Carter’s haircut this is a challenge because at two he is word-limited. So, we were playing the “What do you like best?” game. It went like this:

Mommy: What do you like best, cars or trucks?

Carter: trucks

Mommy: What do you like best, cake or ice-cream?

Carter: ice-cream

Mommy: What do you like best, apples or bananas?

Carter: No, snacks

Mommy: What do you like best, apples or bananas?

Carter: No, SNAAACKS!

Oh well, I tried.

Bryce was second in line for the hair cut. And by the way, I did learn that drawing straws is a good way to determine who goes next for the much-dreaded haircut. Yes, with real straws. We all know that cutting hair is just another method that mommies use to torture little boys, right? This does at least seem to cut down on the complaining for getting the next boy into the chair. After Bryce had been sitting in the chair for several minutes and I was telling him for the umpteenth time to please be still he looked at me and quite seriously asked, “Mom, what does still mean?” You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought. But, I realized that he was asking for real, no joke. After explaining the meaning of still he said, “Oh, you mean like freeze. Like freeze tag.” Who knew that I needed to explain what I meant by, "BE STILL!!!?"

We also had an unusual welcome into March—a tremendous snowstorm. The most snow our boys had ever seen. We bundled them up and tromped through the snow. Our attempts at a snowman were pretty sad, however, as the snow did not want to stick. But we did have a fun snowball fight. It seems I was the target! The snow brought about three and a half snow days, Grant's first snow days ever. I do believe he was the only kid in Chesterfield County wanting to go back to school. When we told him the night of the big snow that he probably wasn’t going to school the next day he insisted that the snow would melt so that he could go. He was greatly disappointed to miss a day of school. What a blessing that kindergarten has been such a great experience for him! I’m sure I’ll probably have to remind him of this in a few years.

Carter wasn't so keen on the snow.

We came inside to discover that he had found the treasure box
while the rest of us were out playing in the snow.

Another big happening this month was that as of this past Friday our house is officially for sale. This was a big undertaking and in only a couple of weeks we went from looking, to picking out a new home, to getting ours ready to sell. We are hoping to get more space for our growing family. Of course, all of this is in the Lord’s hands and if this is his plan for our family we pray that the right buyer will come along. Now that the house is de-cluttered, carpets cleaned, and paint touched up, I am doing my best to keep the house presentable all with three little tornadoes running around behind me…not counting baby tornado number four.

While Brian and I were cleaning and painting we heard cries of "Help!" from downstairs.

Bryce was stuck in the trash can.

Of course I had to grab the camera before helping him out.

Carter is in that silly two-year-old stage when they talk a lot, you can understand about 70% of what they say, and they say some really funny things. Today driving around in the car with him he excitedly pointed out all the things we drove past that were meaningful to him, “Nudder wun (another one) Mer-kan (American flag). Nudder wun mo-ky-kel (motorcycle). Nudder wun twuuuck (truck).” These observations were pointed out at every flag, motorcycle and truck.

Grant had the most hilarious observation the other day while riding with Brian in his car. Brian, Grant and Bryce were all in the car and the boys were thrilled to see another car riding in front of them that looked just like their car (who knew they made more than one green Ford Escape?). So, Brian pulled up alongside the other car and Grant looked at the other vehicle and noticed that there was an African-American man driving. He then exclaimed, “Dad, it looks like Black Obama!” I guess we need to work on explaining exactly what our president's name is...

Oh yeah, and we learned this week that Bryce knows how to dial 911.