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.