Lyle, Lyle

I was putting the kids to bed tonight, reading them stories in Jack's bed. We came to "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile," which we got out of the library last week. It's actually the book that I think I remember most from childhood. One of them anyway.

Jack likes to read it, using basically his own dialogue based on what happens in the pictures. He also uses a sort of goofy voice, which is kind of funny. So he started reading it. I left for a minute.

When I came back, they were both cracking up. Jack said something I didn't understand and they cracked up again. Turns out, after much prodding, that he was saying "Hec-Tor P Val-en-ti!" after the character in the book, and this was very funny. And it was pretty funny.

Hec-Tor P Val-en-ti!

Goaalllllllllllllllllll!

We had soccer on Saturday morning. It was a pretty hot day, already. But we went out there anyway and ran around in the sun. I led various soccer drills; passing, shooting, scoring. Standard stuff, but everybody seemed to get it a little more than usual. Well not everyone, but most everyone. Solid kicks. Goals.

We did Red Light Green Light, and they all ran hard, kicking the ball like they were part of something. We did Follow the Leader, and they all followed me.

And then came the game.

I'd basically not given up on Jack scoring, exactly, but I no longer expected it. He was game; he ran around and went after the ball, and kicked it when he had a chance, but safe to say it wasn't his reason for being or anything.

But late in the game, it happened. Couple of our better players were off to the left of the goal, maybe 15 feet away, battling for the ball with a couple of their players. Jack was in the vicinity, sort of in front of the goal, 10 feet away. And then the ball either was passed or kicked out of the scrum, right toward him, and as it came near him he wound up - left-footed! - and booted it, hard. The ball was a dart. His aim was true. I saw the back of the net stretch out. Goal!

There was much celebration. I ran over, which fortunately I could do being the coach and all, and clapped him on the shoulders, patted his head, congratulated him. Did the same for the kids who may or may not have intentionally passed it to him. Congratulated Jack again. He was kind of a stunned happy, I think. I did a theatrical fist-pump toward Emily. A low-key Steve Martin in Parenthood type of celebration.

Afterward, congratulating Jack again, he seemed ready to move on. He had a play-date at Teddy's house, after all, where they would spend the next hour or two pretending to be Godzilla.

Saturday

We all slept terribly last night. Kate's been waking up and getting out of bed too early, waking up Jack, we've been working a lot and going to bed too late, it's too hot, it's too cold, it's too noisy, whatever.

Got up today and the kids had Fruit Loops. Only on weekends. They love Fruit Loops.

Jack had soccer. He had fun running around with his friend Teddy. Only mildly interested, I'd say, in soccer itself. But his team won, that was nice. Jack took a hard elbow at one point and went down. He cried. It's a fine line between trying to soothe him and trying to get him to shake it off. It went OK, though.

As we were getting into the car afterward, one of Jack's teammates yelled out the back window of his car, "Bye, Coach!"

Kate ran around a lot, also at one point asking me during the game when I was near the sidelines, "Please can I have Dora bites?" (The snack we brought for them for afterward, they're like little fruit bites shaped like Dora the Explorer...yeah, I don't know how that's really possible either.) Kate, I'm kind of in the middle of something here.

Kate napped, during which I sat with Jack for a while reading him "Highlights" and "High Five" magazine. He enjoys both of them particularly the puzzles and stories. Yesterday we made Finger Puppets from them. We always do the games where you have to find little things, shapes of common objects and stuff, in pictures of a beach scene or whatever. He also likes to do mazes. I used to love to do mazes.

After Kate's nap, we went and rode their bikes in the office park. I guess when we move we won't go to the office park anymore, because we'll be near a big actual park. But no ducks! Well, we'll see. We fed the ducks. There were two groups of ducklings with their moms (or Dads, far be it from me to make assumptions about familial roles in waterfowl). We threw bread until we were out, than rode our bikes home. Kate likes to sit on the bike and move along with her feet on the ground. Jack actually pedals and stuff; at some point we'll need to take off the training wheels. I don't know when that is.

Kate put on her own pajamas. She beamed proudly about it. Jack sang in the bathtub, I don't remember what about. Grandma put him to bed and cracked him up repeatedly. His laugh is awesome.

Friday recap

In the morning I took apart Kate's crib and set up her mattress. It was a little sad, but at least now she won't have to yell for us to get her at 5:30 in the morning. She'll just come in.

I lured them upstairs to get dressed with the promise of seeing Kate's new bed. She was very pleased and they both jumped on it. Then Jack made a cozy home, which he does by placing blankets and pillows all over something. Usually he makes it on the couch, today he made it on Kate's bed.

We went out to the playground. Jack was approached by a little girl to see if he wanted to come play dragon with her and her friend. I later learned from one of their Moms that they were both 5, too. Jack played with them for like 20 minutes, running around and climbing on rocks they called their dragon car, hiding behind trees, going about the park with sticks. It was nice. Eventually they left, Jack came back to me and Kate, and we all had some water.

Jack then climbed around on this tower thingy, while Kate led me by the hand to sit down at a park bench. The woman sitting on the bench as Kate brought me over to it ("Sit here. Sit here! Daddy, sit here. Sit where that girl is. Sit here.") was amused.

We drove home and they played a little before lunch. Jack invented a board game called The Mouse Game. "Do you want to play The Mouse Game?" he asked. Sure, I said. He'd drawn a hopscotch like series of boxes on a piece of paper with numbers in each box, up to 30. And taken the mouse game pieces from the Mousetrap game and the spinner from Chutes and Ladders. The object was to have the mice advance along the spaces until they reached the end. Near the end there was a place marked "Lose a turn." So I spun and got a 5 and moved 5. Jack got a 2. I spun again and got another 5. Jack said, "Wow, Daddy, you're good at this game." He won, however, as I managed to hit Lose a turn a couple of times in a row.

After lunch Kate said, "I want to go nap on my bed." So up we went, she climbed on happily and lay down. I left and closed the door. Five minutes later she came out. "I want to play." We went back downstairs and played. Then it was naptime and I brought her up. This time she stayed in her bed.

Jack and I played The Mouse Game again. Then we did something, I don't know, Oh, we played hockey with the mallets from the Alien game Robin gave us way back when.

After Kate's nap they had an apple, we played outside with the bubble machine, and they watched some TV while I made pizza for dinner. I told them I'd make fun shapes. Jack wanted a Captain Raptor pizza. I made this turtle-like shape that I tried to pass off as Captain Raptor, but Jack wasn't buying it. So that became Kate's, and he and I made Captain Raptor.

They helped me put cheese on both pizzas. And ate some, too.

Busy weekend

- Jack had soccer Saturday morning. Their team had 7 to our 5, and one of their kids was about 14 I think. We were losing, although it was probably only like 2-1 or something, but they had more chances. During a water break, Jack said to me, "I don't think you guys (me and the other coach) are doing a good job." Thanks, Jack. I gave him the whole bit about how it was very close and he was doing great and the important thing was to keep trying. Not sure if he bought it. I also pointed out that they had more kids and one of them was probably shaving already.

- Kate, I'm told, ran around the track around the soccer fields multiple times during the game, with Grandpa once and with Emily another.

- Jack and I went to the supermarket. No great stories, but he was really good, in high spirits and helpful and funny the whole time. It was nice. The fact that I only had one minor glitch where I spent 10 minutes looking for Teriyaki sauce probably helped. Anyway, good trip to the store. He'd been asking for Fruit Loops, which we'd never bought before, and we said OK. He clutched the box all the way from the checkout lines to the car. Nobody was getting that box of Fruit Loops away from him.

- Jack asked if we could eat dinner outside, we said sure. So we ran around the backyard and played with the wiffle bat and so forth, and then had grilled chicken and orzo salad. And when milk was spilled, no cleanup required.

- I read Jack his new library book, Captain Raptor and the something something - it involved pirates and dinosaurs - twice.

- Sunday morning, Fruit Loops were a hit.

- We went to the Greenwich Audobon Society. There was a frog pond; we saw lots of frogs. Learned we need to do more nature stuff, as Kate is scared of ants. Jack thinks every flying insect is a bumblebee. After a while we settled in and had a nice walk in the woods.

- Went out to get Kate a mattress. Big girl bed for Kate! She clung to us the whole time since it was shortly after she'd woken up from her nap.

- At home while Emily made dinner, Jack showed Kate how to make a bed with her new sheets on the couch. And they made a Cozy Home, which is basically Jack using blankets and stuffed toys and various other objects and random stuff to make a mini-home. Kate listened solemnly to everything he did and said.

- Ran around the backyard after dinner, running the bubble machine. Literally ran; Jack likes to race. He generally wins, then points out that I'm running in slow motion. Although that's usually true, in this case it just might have been really hot.

- Before sleep, Jack and Kate lay on their stomachs on his bed with books. Kate read aloud, although she was just describing pictures which may or may not have been the book she was reading. Jack listened. We didn't interrupt even when it was past her bedtime.