Being boys

When we are out at the store I often get told, "You have your hands full!" I find this funny since I only have 2 kids. But I guess the fact that they are boys ups the ante a little bit. And it is true that there is never a dull day when you are raising boys....

On the first sunny afternoon (after more days of rain than I care to count) the boys spent almost an hour picking the new growth buds off of our bushes. I think it was a good sacrifice to make for an hour of the boys getting along and me being able to cook dinner in peace.

It has been cold here! By cold I mean that we went from beautiful fall days of 70 degrees to highs in the low 50 degrees. Nathaniel was jealous of Jeremiah's Super Mario hat so he got to choose a hat of his own.

Nathaniel is currently obsessed with lions and the Lion King movie. But our video tape player eats VHS tapes now so he can't watch it. This results in one pouting episode per day. However, he can usually be distracted by Ice Age or Shrek. He is not a fan of Thomas the Tank Engine.

Jeremiah has announced that he will do school on Wednesday and Thursday only. Fine with me. He is currently very into maps, geography, and learning about countries. Yesterday he announced that he wants us all to go visit the Great Wall of China. Nice to know that the traveling DNA made it through to him!

Next week is our last soccer game of the season. It has been fun for us all. Jeremiah has learned a lot and gotten a lot of exercise. We have learned that Jeremiah is not competitive by nature, yet. I'm fine with that. I'm not either. We've also learned that Nathaniel probably is. He runs to the soccer field saying, "I play! My coach! Goal!" We spend game time keeping Nathaniel off the field. He has an awesome dribble.

Jeremiah was reading Prince Caspian by himself the other day. I have no idea how much he was retaining, but he was reading away. Aaron and I are learning that trying to spell out things that we don't want him to hear just doesn't work much any more. "Mama, why did you spell park?!"

Yesterday while we sat in the sun a lady bug was discovered on my book. The boys spent half an hour examining it and carrying it around on a leaf. The both cried genuine tears of sadness when it flew away.

It is LOUD at my house. There are sibling spats, good natured wrestling, singing, running, playing music, and pretend play going on constantly. When it gets to be too much for my quiet loving, introverted self I remind myself that there will come a day when my house will be empty and quiet and I may actually miss all the noise.