Yup.

 Sam just walked into the kitchen with his underwear pulled partially down so his penis and butt were hanging out saying, "Look at meeeeeeee!"

I calmly asked what he was doing. He just stood there staring at me smiling... and then he farted and ran away.

Play Set Modification

The grass under the picnic table portion of the play set is completely dead, so Travis finally agreed to let me turn it into a sandbox.  The boys LOVE it.  In Alex's words after I said I was happy he liked it, "I don't like it, Mom.  I LOVE it!"

We filled it up on Sunday and they, accompanied by some neighbors, spent the entire afternoon in it.  At one point, Sam said he was done, took two steps toward the house, stopped, looked at Travis, and just turned around and got back in.  Yesterday it was the first thing both boys did when they got home and they were out there until dinner.

Pretty sure close to every HotWheel and other assorted tractors we own are in that sandbox.  Some are buried...

I just need to keep reminding myself how happy it makes me to have them out there playing while I am sweeping up the never ending supply of sand on my kitchen floor.

Spa Morning

Hey all you childless households!  Did you get to start your day giving a stretchy plastic frog a bath?  I bet not and I bet you are beyond jealous.  Just sayin'...

Risk Taker

The Easter Bunny brought some window crayons for Sam.  According to the package, they work well on any glass surface.  That Easter Bunny is either an insane risk taker or entirely over-trusting of an almost 3 year old's ability to resist coloring on EVERYTHING IN SIGHT.

Love

There are plenty of days I am quite certain one of us isn't going to make it out alive if we have to spend one more millisecond together.  But it is literally hard to breath when I think about how much I love this kid.

Companion

I have been doing a bunch of yard work the past three days.  We have mulch beds around three sides of our house, and Travis hates them.  He mostly hates how the mulch often sneaks out of its designated area and into the lawn to be run over and spit out by the lawn mower.  He has wanted to replace the mulch with river rock since we moved it.  Alas, it's a lot of work and river rock is flippin' expensive, so mulch it was.  Until last week.

I was driving home and saw a sign in a neighbor's yard, "Free River Rock."  What's that now?  Free?  Like you want no money for this?

So on Saturday, I sent Travis and Alex with shovels and a trailer to the neighbor's house.  They made three trips, and left a giant pile of pretty river rock in our driveway.  I was able to put off starting this project Saturday because Travis's parents came to our house for dinner.  And then Sunday was Easter at my parents'.  Can't start the project yet.  Bummer.  Shucks.  I really couldn't wait.  ::end sarcasm::

I was all set to start in on it Monday if I wasn't too busy with work.  Apparently Sam didn't want me to get rid of the mulch, because he barfed all over me when I tried to drop him off at daycare.  So he was home with me all day.  It is hard enough to work with him home, so there was no way I was going to be able to take care of him, work, and start The Great DeMulching of 2017.  

But Monday was my planned start day.  I don't like plans like that changing.  Luckily Travis knows this about me, even though he doesn't know things like tulips being my favorite flower for, oh I don't know, pretty much my whole life.  I realize not knowing someone's favorite flower is really not that big of a deal, but we have been consciously coupled for going on 16 freaking years.  But I digress.  He does know I want to start things whenever I have arbitrarily picked a start date, so he sent me outside when he got home from work.  Yay!  

I had the front and one side of the house done by Tuesday evening.  Yesterday, I headed back out to finish the last section before it rained.  I brought the dog with me because I like her a little bit and she likes being outside.  Before I started, I did a quick little poo pick-up in the front yard so I didn't have to avoid any landmines while going back and forth from the house to the driveway rock stockpile with the wheel barrow.  Then I got started.

I was about two minutes in when my dear sweet Aiden, even though she had the whole front yard to chose from, decided to poo about three feet from me.  I swear, she is such an asshole.

Sweet Boy

Alex and I went to Culver's for lunch today since he's off of school.  As we were finishing up, he started talking about what kind of shake he wanted.  I chimed in with my input but was quickly silenced when he said, "I mean...you can get one for you if you want to, but I was gonna get a chocolate shake."  Alrighty then.

I asked if he wanted me to order it, and he assured me he could do and asked what I wanted.  I told him I didn't need anything because we have ice cream at home that I could eat.  And then he looked at me with the most sincere face and said, "Mom.  If you want a mint Oreo shake, you should get one.  You deserve it.  You deserve a treat."

I am terrified about what he must have planned for this afternoon.

Just, why?

I got a call from day care on Friday asking me to bring in some extra clothes for Sam.  It struck me as odd since we have had extra clothes there for him since he started potty training.  But when I asked what was needed specifically since he had pants and underwear there, I was told, "Ummm....everything."  Oookkkkkkkkkk.  That's when she explained they were outside playing and Sam poo'd in his underwear instead of asking to go inside.  Ok, but why do I need to bring all new clothes, INCLUDING A JACKET?  Oh, well, that would be because instead of telling his teacher he had an accident, he decided to instead dig it out of his underwear and squish it all over himself.

Yep.

After I recovered from being horrified, I grabbed an outfit and headed to day care.  I got there about 10 minutes after the call to find Sam and his teacher in the bathroom with the teacher desperately trying to clean that disgusting child with a full pack wipes.  She was apologetic that wipes were all she had, while I was trying to drown her voice out with my own apologies for my disgusting offspring.  Sam was unfazed.  He just looked up and said, "Hi Mama.  I pooped a huuuuuuuuge poop."  That was when he teacher handed me a plastic bag full of poo covered clothing.

I took the bag of grossness and headed home.  There was no way in hell I was reaching into that bag, but I also wasn't prepared to throw away an entire outfit and a jacket.  So I put the bag in the wash machine, turned it upside down, shook the nastiness out, set the water temp to HOT, shuddered in disgust, and let the washer do it's thang.  I came back when it was time to move things to the dryer and hesitantly started pulling the clothes out of the washer and inspecting/smelling each item to make sure it was clean.  THAT is when I realized the teacher had put his super poo covered underwear in a separate bag inside the bigger bag of moderately poo covered clothes.  And I had just washed it.  On HOT.  Yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhhhh...

 I may have been unwilling to throw away an outfit and jacket, but you would be sorely mistaken if you thought for any amount of time that I wasn't gonna throw that underwear straight in the garbage.  Do not pass Go.  Do not collect $200.

180

Both boys were gaaaa-rumpy this morning.  As I was gathering everything to get them out the door, Travis bribed them both with a single Mike&Ike.  Those things are like magic pills for Sam.  He was instantly in a good mood.  Alex, while he likes them, isn't quite as affected.

So, my darling almost 3 year old went from flailing and screaming while I tried to dress him to singing the following over and over and over for the duration of the car ride to drop off Alex at school and him at day care:

"I ate a Mike&Ike!  I ate a Mike&Ike!  I ate a Mike&Ike!  Tra la la la laaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Bad Choice

Alex has figured out if he has me drive him to school instead of taking the bus, he can stay in bed a bit longer each morning.  And since I'm already driving right passed his school to take Sam to daycare, I don't mind adding his stop.  But this morning, he woke up on his own with enough time to make it on the bus.  I asked him if he wanted to be a bus rider, and he politely said, "no thanks!" and kept watching Dinosaur Train with his little brother.

But then, when the bus was already close to 5 minutes late and due to round the corner at any second, he happened to look out the window and see his bus stop mates standing there with umbrellas.  UMBRELLAS!  Suddenly he blurted out, "I WANNA BE A BUS RIDER!"  Well, kiddo, you can try, but you don't even have your shoes on yet.  He scrambled to get ready while arguing with me that he will for sure remember to bring home an umbrella if I would just give him a chance to prove himself.  Uh. Huh.  He was so excited, I gave in.  I ran downstairs and got the spare, not golf-umbrella-sized, umbrella.  He was running out the door while I was trying to show him how to open and close it, and he curtly told me he knew how to do it.  Ok, little man, knock yourself out.

I peaked out at the bus stop when I heard the bus finally pulling up, only to see Alex struggling to get his umbrella closed.  Lucky for me, another parent was out there waiting with the kids and helped him close it and Alex hopped on the bus.

About two minutes later, I got a text from a different neighbor with a teen daughter who rides the same bus.  "Just got this text:  'The reason the bus was so late was because the kid in the seat in front of mine puked all over the seat and his jeans.'"

Looks like Alex picked the wrong day to be a bus rider.

Bedtime

We read every night at bedtime.  Sam usually has Travis read to him and Alex and I lay in Alex's bed and read together.  Well, I mean we are together while reading.  Alex loves loves loves to read and has graduated to chapter books that he enjoys reading himself, so I get to snuggle next to him and read whatever I want.  It is pretty awesome.

Last night, Sam wanted Alex to read to him.  In Alex's bed.  With all of us.  I was late to the party and Sam stole what he had previously designated as my place, but I'll let it slide since that gave me the chance to get this memory in a picture.

Tinker Crate!

Every month, Alex gets a project from Tinker Crate.  It is awesome.  We have made LED paper laterns, an arcade type ball launching game, glow in the dark slime, and a mechanical hand.  This month's project was a spin art machine.

Sam is pretty excited about this one too.

Explanation

Welp, it's been a little bit.  I have good reason though...

Last week was spring break for Alex so he was home with me for the week.  Obviously I don't get a spring break from work, so we were a-jugglin'.  And, Wednesday and Thursday of the week prior, I was out of town at a trade show.  See?  All perfectly good reasons for being absent here.

The trade show was at a conference center in a water park type hotel, so I had Travis bring the boys up on Thursday after school and we stayed the night and played.  Alex LOVED it.  I thought Sam was going to love since I have to drain the tub to get him out of the water, but I thought wrong.  He cried every time he got splashed unless I was holding him.  He and I spent a LOT of time in the lazy river.  They have tubes that have a mesh bottom, and he would sit in there with his little legs crossed, narrating everything he was seeing for what felt like eternity.

Then the week of spring break began.  We didn't have any big trip planned, so I had to come up with some stuff to keep my guilt at bay.  First up?  Noodles!  Alex's favorite restaurant in all the land is Noodles.  While we were there, he decided it would be a good time to practice raising one eyebrow.

Close buddy.  To be fair to him though, he did have a couple very successful attempts.  This is just my favorite picture of him trying.

Next on the list of things Alex loves?  Horseback riding at Gramma and Grandpa Z's.

He convinced Gramma to let him trot for the first time.  This picture is just after.  Ya think he was a little proud of himself?

On Friday we went to a movie...per Alex's request.  Alex.  The kid who up until now has refused to watch movies "because there is always a sad or scary part."  But, he saw some trailers for "The Boss Baby" and decided he really wanted to see it.  It came out on Friday, so off to the theater we went.  And?  He loved it!  It has just the right amount of adventure and funny and a very small part of "scary."

We ended spring break yesterday with a little bowling.  After one gutter ball, he agreed to have the bumpers up.

All in all, it was a good week.  He was decidedly not excited to get up for school this morning, so it must have been a bit of alright for him as well.