week ending feb 22, 2009

More pictures from snow tubing, Chloes LONG braid, Chloe inside the people mover building (Alex is ahead of us with a bluish-green tube behind him), and a bowling birthday party for Mackenzie from school who turned 5 a couple of weeks ago, and the dinosaur project that we bought for $1 at Micheals for a rainy day.

snow tubing feb 19, 2009

The picture on the left is the first frame of a video. If you click the triangle in the lower left of the frame, the video will play. This week we went snow tubing at Snow Roundtop in Lewisberry, PA. The resorts require kids to be at least 5 years old in order to rent tubes for the big hill, so this was our first year. Since Casey's shoulder surgery was only a few months ago he decided he'd sit this one out. I thought we'd go in the morning so we wouldn't be too worn out before we had to drive home, and that we'd go on a weekday when it isn't too crowded. It turns out that tubing hours are 4p-10p on weekdays so we had to change our plans the morning of. One of Alex and Chloe's friends had tried tubing on New Year’s Day and thought it was too fast and didn't want to do it anymore, so I was a little worried that the twins would get scared. We Googled "snow tubing videos" and found that most of the local resort allow multiple tubers at one time, as long each person has their own tube and you hold onto each other's tubes. The twins thought they'd be brave enough as long as I held on to them and "kept them safe" (their words). We "rafted up" (linked together) for the first run and when we got to the bottom the kids both said that it was fun, not scary, and they wanted to do the next run individually. When going individually the resort rules are that the person at the top of the hill must wait for the person at the bottom of the hill to "clear the lane" (get out of the way) before starting their descent. I hadn't really briefed the kids on where to meet up before we went down separately, so Chloe just headed back over to the people mover. This sent Alex into a panic and he started screaming Streetcar-Named-Desire-Style "CWOE! CWOE!" (still can't say those 'L's). I kept trying to calm him down because he was practically in tears. I guess he didn't see how the tubing area was different than getting separated at the mall or a carnival or something. Anyway, Chloe waited for us at the top of the hill and all was well. Aside from our initial trepidation the afternoon went really well. As the sun and the temperature went down conditions got icier the tubes slid faster. The kids tried all the runs to see which was the fastest. We’d take about 10 minutes per run between one minute waiting at the top for a lane to clear, one minute to slide down the slope, one minute to walk over the people-mover, and 5-7 minutes standing on the people mover to get back up to the top. The length of time spent on the people mover was the least favorite part for the kids who complained “when will get to the top?” and “I can’t wait!”. Given that was the worst part of our trip, I’d say it went very well.

week ending feb 15, 2009:

Usually in my “kids this week” I try to focus on the joy in our lives because I feel so lucky to be a part of this family and because I hope to hold on to many of the happy memories that we are making together. But, as I’ve said before, that doesn’t paint an entire picture, and sometimes it is cleansing to admit that there are things about raising children that are unpleasant. Lately I feel like I’m spending more and more time keeping the peace around here. The kids look to me to settle ridiculous arguments like whether Chloe’s imaginary dinosaur is faster than Alex’s imaginary motorcycle, or which twin has the bigger smile. One of the greatest sources of debate around here is “whose turn it is”. I am expected to remember whose turn it is to sit on the passenger side of the car, get the first hug from Daddy at the end of the night, sit on Daddy’s side of the bed during the reading of the bedtime story, pick the movie/TV show to be watched, feed the cat, and pick the “fun part” for the day. This constant negotiating wears me out. The “fun part” is another tremendous source of debate between the kids and me. They used to ask for things that I could easily incorporate into our daily routines, for instance, during a trip to K-Mart, we’d visit the toy department and they’d spend some time browsing the toys, or during a trip to the Petco we’d go talk to the birds and look at the fish, or if we weren’t going anywhere that day, we’d work on a craft project or bake some cookies together. A few times a week we’d visit the playground, or if the weather was inclement we’d sometimes go to the play area at the mall (which is free) or the library. Now none of those things are good enough (according to Alex and Chloe) and there is no way to describe the kids’ expectations except to say that they are spoiled. We do a lot of fun stuff like go to the Aquarium or to carnivals or festivals, so they’ve lost their interest in the more mundane pleasures. We’ve also had lots of conversations that start with one of them asking what we are going to do for a fun part and I’ll say “we had fun doing our craft project” and they’ll both say “that wasn’t fun!” So somehow by setting aside a part of the day to do something that pleases the kids instead of spending my entire day doing chores and errands, I’ve sent the message to them that complaining about everything we do and refusing to admit that anything is fun will somehow guilt me into doing more stuff that they enjoy. After many a school day when we haven’t yet done anything for the kids we try to decide what to do for our fun part I’ll say “let’s go to the library”. They’ll say “that’s not fun, let’s go snow tubing”. I’ll explain that we only have one hour before I have to start cooking dinner and that it takes all day to drive to the ski resort and back. And we’ll continue back and forth like that until we’re home and the kids will end up not getting any fun part at all because they won’t agree to do anything reasonable. I understand that it is a beautiful gift that humanity has the drive to always want more and better. It is that drive that causes people to work hard to change our world for the better. What I don’t understand is how to get two 5 year olds to appreciate the beauty of what they have. Not really a big problem in the grand scheme of things, I suppose. It is just one more example of the kids changing faster than I can adapt. All this whining and I don't even have any cute pictures. I forgot to take my camera to the Valentine's party at preschool!

week ending feb 8, 2008

Alex's new hair cut, Chloe's self chosen outfit

Week ending Feb 8, 2009: This week Alex started violin lessons. I’ve been letting the kids pick one extra-curricular activity at a time and they alternate who gets to the picking. Chloe picked gymnastics classes which ended mid-January, so Alex picked “music” for his turn. When I talked to the people at the local music store, they said 5 year olds can play piano or violin. Since we happened to have a violin, I figured we’d start with that. I don’t have a good feel for how much Alex will be able to grasp reading music at this age, but we’ll keep going to classes until he runs out of things he can learn without getting too frustrated. He really liked his first class and has been willing to do some practicing during the week.

On Friday morning Chloe asked me if she could get her ears pierced. We talked about how the jewelry store clerk would use a gun like a stapler to shoot an earring into her ear and it would hurt for a second like a shot, and then it wouldn’t hurt any more, but then they’d have to do it again in the other ear. She thought that over and decided she still wanted to go through with it, so we called her dad to see what his thoughts were. He said as long as Alex didn’t want to get his ears pierced also it would be fine with him. I asked Chloe why she had started thinking about getting her ears pierced. It turns out a girl at Sunday School has earrings, so that got Chloe thinking about it. I explained to Chloe about taking care of the earrings and not wearing earrings that hang below her earlobes until she is older, and she seemed fine with everything, so I was out of arguments against it. I figured she’s going to get earrings sooner or later and I couldn’t think of a reason to put it off, so we headed over to the mall that afternoon. Chloe picked out the October “birthstone” which the stored called “pink ice” and she climbed up in the chair. She looked tense as the clerk drew dots on her ears with a marker to mark where the earring would go. After the first earring was in I held up a mirror for Chloe to look in and while Chloe was distracted with admiring her earring the clerk did the other ear. Even after the 2nd ear, Chloe hadn’t made a noise, but the look on her face was somewhere between shock and horror. It turns out that gun puts the back on the earring very tightly and it has to be backed off by hand. After we loosened the back I asked Chloe if that felt better and she nodded. We were at the store for several minutes after that while the clerk explained the maintenance procedures we’d have to follow 2-3 times a day for the next 6-8 weeks and while we paid, and during all that time Chloe wouldn’t say a word and only answered questions with nods or shrugs. Once we got out of the store she started to relax and said that it hurt more than she thought, but she was happy. She doesn’t like the maintenance at all and her holes are starting to get pink, so I think we are going to have to run in to the doctors tomorrow. I guess now I know why waiting until she was older might have made it easier.

week ending feb 1, 2009:

Week ending Feb 1, 2009: This week we had about 2 inches of snow, our first accumulation of the year. The kids were ecstatic! Chloe wanted to scoop up some snow off the dirty picnic table with a scoop they’d used over the summer to play in the dirt and then put some juice on the snow to make a “winter Slushee”. I suggested we leave two clean bowls outside. In 2 or 3 hours the bowls got completely filled and the kids were thrilled with their slushies. After lunch there was enough snow for sledding and we headed over to the house of the only neighbor in the community with a hill steep enough for sledding. Alex and Chloe were totally self sufficient in their sledding and were able to tote their sleds up the hill, set it up, climb in and launch themselves. We’ve had the same sleds since they were 1, so I guess we got our money’s worth out of them. Alex and Chloe were curious to try the other (older) kids’ sleds and at first the other kids didn’t want to share, but they quickly learned that Alex and Chloe’s sleds were the fastest ones on the hill, so the older kids were willing to cooperate with Alex and Chloe. The 2nd day of the snow a different group of kids came to the hill, this time a brother and sister much older than the twins. This group liked Alex and Chloe’s sleds so much that they all decided to use them to do boy versus girl races with Alex and the older boy in one sled and Chloe and the older girl in the other. Alex and Chloe thought that was the most fun ever! They do love the attention of older kids. Over the 2 days we made hot chocolate 3 times, and we baked and iced some cupcakes. I hope we’ve built some of those childhood memories that the kids will cherish.