Kids on Break, Day 4: "Corn is not the best part of my life"

Kids were in a good mood today. Kate actually got into bed for a minute with me and Jack before we went downstairs. Normally she's all "Go downSTAIRSSSSS!" as if she wants a cup of coffee as badly as I do. I don't know what the rush is, I guess she misses her plastic food or something.

We went out early. Went to the bank to deposit a check; kids got lollipops. Jack's turned his mouth blue and he was still eating it 20 minutes later. Kate ate hers like a cookie and it was gone in 2 minutes. "I have more lollipop?" she said. No, Kate.

Went to the toy store to get a birthday gift for Max, next door. Kate hadn't been in a toy store recently, and it was the first time I'd experienced her really noticing things. She was reaching and pointing at everything. Jack looked for dragon toys.

Went to the book store to get gift cards for Jack's cousins, whose birthday was Monday. At the counter, all of the impulse buy stuff was a little too accessible for kids. They grabbed fistfuls of, I don't know, bookmarks, candy, funky pens, whatever. I wearily put everything back, fortunately not having to buy anything additional due to it getting broken.

Went to Starbucks, in the same strip mall. Gift card, got my iced coffee. Jack was getting weary of it all at this point. "Why do we keep going to more stores?" he asked. It wasn't quite a whine, it was almost more befuddlement. Then Starbucks had free samples of little pastry things that I gave to him and Kate. That ended the complaining right quick.

Went to the playground, Lyon's Park, the one we'll one day walk to. Fun was had. There was a little boy, about 3 I later learned from his Mom, who followed Jack around. Jack wanted no part of him; as he explained later, "He kept following me. So, I went down below when he went up on the top part, and when he came down, I went up." Kate, of course, was fascinated by the boy. They made a little train around the playground for a bit.

Went over to Max's to give him his birthday gift. Jack climbed around on the ...climbing wall thingy.... that they'd got for his birthday.

Had lunch. Kids ate cheese sticks, turkey, rolls, and Kate ate peanut butter and jelly. She calls it, "peeberjehwy."

While Kate napped. Jack built an army. Literally; he lined up all his coolest looking toys in a big army on the living room floor. Dragons, robots, Transformers, superheroes, some dinosaurs. More dragons. Then we drew a picture of them together. And he kicked my butt in Yahtzee Jr., as usual.

At one point I looked at the couch, where Kate had been for a while earlier. A brand new box of crayons had been opened. All 15 crayons lay naked on the couch. All their paper wrappers lay strewn about in little scraps. I asked Jack, Why does she do this? The paper keeps crayon from getting on your hands. He started to say something like, "That's Kate..." when I pointed out that he used to do the exact same thing.

After Kate's nap, they ate apples. They're both into green apples these days. Jack eats everything but has me bite out the center part, closest to the core. Kate eats the slices right up to the peel, like it's a watermelon. Four little apple peels sit forlornly on her plate when she's done. Sometimes, feeling bad for them, I eat them.

We went to feed the ducks. We had about three pieces of bread. While we stood there throwing crumbs from those pieces into the water, a woman drove up, parked, and opened her trunk. She had about a dozen entire loaves of bread; they must have been day old or something from a restaurant? I dunno. Anyway, she threw them all in the water, whole pieces, a shower of bread. Roughly 100 pieces of bread floated in the water as we threw our little crumbs from three pieces in. I felt really stupid. If the kids did too, they didn't mention it. Now I know why the ducks are often not very hungry; they're clearly eating well if this woman is a frequent visitor.

We had dinner, chicken nuggets and fries and corn. Jack ate all of his fries and all of his nuggets. He knew we wanted him to eat his corn, but delayed as long as possible. At one point we looked over; he was sitting with his head bent, gazing down at his plate. He noticed us looking at him.

By way of explanation, and with no small amount of regret, he said, "Corn is not the best part of my life."

Put Jack to bed tonight. We told stories. I told him one about a hero rounding up a bunch of other heroes to fight a monster. He enjoyed it. Then he told me one. It bore a suspicious resemblance to the plot of How to Train Your Dragon.