Letters to Jack & Audrey

Saturday, October 13, 2007

PlayDate Night

Jack,

Last night we had dinner at one of your Daddy's friend's house.

Daddy was friends with Shannon when they were in high school. They've kept in touch through the years and last night we were invited to dinner with Shannon, her husband Sean, and their son, Brennan.

Brennan is a little older than you by almost a year, but it really didn't seem to make a difference. Brennan was patient, he shared well, and he was excited to have you there playing with him.

You both had a wonderful time playing peek-a-boo under a blanket until you peeked out and I would tickle you both silly.

Shannon and Sean had made spaghetti with homemade sauce.

This isn't something you have yet experienced - homemade sauce. It smelled awesome and you were excited to get a taste.

You enjoyed having dinner with Brennan so much that you even forgot how much you HATE sitting still for mealtime and sat for the entire meal without complaint.

About 20 minutes into it, you realized we hadn't set the timer which we do at home now in order to show you that dinner won't last FOREVER as you always seem to fear that it will.

When the timer goes off, you squeal with excitement because that means you can GET UP!

And that is SUCH a relief since we don't allow you to put your feet on the floor except for once a day and that is after dinner when the alarm goes off.

Another thing that I did for the first time on this occassion is let you and another child play with each other out of my sight. This might sound a little nuts, but I've been around with you where you are playing with cousins and may be in the next room and not actively watching, but I can hear you and you are in my line of vision.

But not on this playdate night. Brennan was incredibly well behaved and I felt comfortable letting you guys play in his room while we all chatted in the family room and kitchen.

Brennan had a lot of cars and trucks like they have at the Daddy Truck Store at the Lake, so you were very excited about this and you both enjoyed crashing them and driving them on the furniture and the ground.

When the luster and attraction of the toys had worn off, the movie The Incredibles did the trick. Even with Reanna who joined into the activities with gusto and didn't even seem to recognize that the two of you referred to her as "Baby".

The evening was fantastic and it is something I will want to try again.

I highly recommend it!

Love,

Mommy

P.S.

Here are some recent art projects that I love!

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Going to Paris

Jack,

At the beginning of your Cars Movie, there is a preview for Ratatoullie (sp?). We haven't seen this movie, yet, but it must have still made a significant impression on you because this evening you and I went to a new park. There was another park just on the other side of the hill which you knew was there because you had been to the other park about a week before.

You started running for the hill that the other playground was on the opposite side of.

As an aside, when you run now, you hold your arms up next to your chest with your hands in little fists and pump them furiously like an ill equipped boxer as you run just to show how fast you can go and how serious you are about your speed.

I called out to you "JACK! Where are you going?"

Without slowing you shouted back over your shoulder "To Pah-wis, Mommy!" (Pah-wis = Paris).

I'm going to get a lot of fun out of that one. When we got to the next park, I started in:
"Do you like to have fun in Paris, Jack?"
"Yesh!"
"Do you like going to Paris with Mommy?"
"Yesh!"
(after awhile, you are grunting and I know exactly what is happening and am thrilled I'll be able to ask this next question)
"Do you like to poop in Paris, Jack?"
"I NO GO POOPY PARIS!"
"Okay!"

Love,

Mommy

Monday, October 08, 2007

Daddy Truck Store

Jack,

One of your favorite places down at the Lake now is the Ozarkland souvenir shop.

There is a section in the kids area that has a graduating stair display of larger fancy cars and trucks

and you couldn't be happier with having full access to a huge range of choices like this.

What does it make me that I think it's okay to treat a toy store and souvenir shop as our own personal playground?

I know - I just asked the question, but my own justification is that

we usually walk out of there with one small thing
if you don't want the toys to be played with, put them in some kind of packaging where the kids can't mess with them or someWHERE the kids can't mess with them
Sometimes you just want to try something different from the other things you've already done a thousand times over already.

As a result, you now request to go to the "Daddy Truck Store"!It's interesting for your Daddy and me, too, because we tend to search the shop for the most unique and strange memorabilia that we could find. That's why we ended up with a rainbow unicorn coffee cup that reads "ALLEN UNIQUE" in off center print because - really? Really?!? Someone thought that someone was going to buy that? Then again, we did soooooo..... Touchez. You attempted to "climb stairs" so you could climb the ascending tower of truck toys, but I was able to talk you down.

Plus - it's kind of fun to be able to flood the senses a little with so much choice and stimulation.

It's almost like reversed boredom.

It's fun to observe you in this type of environment to see what grabs your attention.

It's fun to see what you concentrate on and enjoy and perhaps I learn something new about you through observation.

You love lining up cars and trucks in little traffic-jam replicas.

Oh, what to check out next?!?

So many choices! What to do? What to do?!?

This packaged truck presents a challenge. Now why would they do that?

Hmmmm......

What are they hiding over here?

Trains!

The lining up game is fun with trains, too!Then again, there could be something about how occupied this particular souvenir shop keeps you.Also, I like trying on hats with you!This one in particular is very "trucker"ish and it reads "I LOVE MOM AND DAD".But, no, I didn't buy it.