Quarterback Princess, etc.

Went outside yesterday afternoon to play football with Jack. It was bitterly cold, but it was clear, and it was a football Sunday, so we bundled up and went out. Kate was inside playing, and I didn't think she'd be interested, but within a few minutes of us going out, I heard the door opening.

She was dressed in her winter jacket, comfy zebra hat, pink gloves, leggings, sparkly pink boots, and her pink princess dress. And she wanted to play football.

For 20 minutes or so, we drew up plays that involved one of us snapping the ball, then handing it to another, pitching it to the third, and then throwing it downfield to Jack. That was the usual rule, anyway, since Jack could catch the long passes, and I could throw them, and I was glad to let him do the running.

But Kate, also, ran downfield earnestly for passes, unmindful of the fact that she wore a dress, and perhaps didn't quite look the part. Strangely, she looked completely ready to catch the football and run through a wall.

At one point, of course, I tossed her one, it glanced off her chest and hit her in the mouth. She blinked for a minute, then dissolved into tears. But we talked her down, and then cheered her up by me hitting myself in the face with it, and then we practiced field goals, which is always a crowd pleaser.

Cold and happy and footballed out, we headed inside for dinner.

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Emily had the suggestion that it would be funny to do a blog on the random, hilarious things they say each day. I tried, but the truth is that even while trying to do that, I forget stuff, or I don't have a pen or paper handy. But here's what I came up with over a few days last week. In general, these were statements that didn't really follow from anything, they'd just come completely out of the blue.

KATE: "Guess what? For buying lunch at school, there's not a fork or a spoon. There's a SPORK!"

KATE: "We aren't allowed to scribble-scrabble at school." What, I asked, is scribble-scrabble? She said, "It's THIS:" And then she made wild scribbling gestures in the air with her hands.


JACK: (In reference to a picture he'd drawn at school of a tree, with a bird's nest in it, and a guy approaching with an axe) "He's a Nature-Killer." Jack's nature-killer, by the way, was wearing an iPod, I guess because you've got to listen to music while you're cutting down trees with birds in them.

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it's been pretty cold lately, and it's weighing on everyone's mind. Putting Kate to bed the other night, she sang me a song.

"I like it better,
when it's warmer.

When we don't....
have to wear.....
 JACK-ETSSSSSSS!"

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Jack had a baseball lesson on Saturday. It went pretty well, and afterward he was pretty tired but still chattering away happily.

"I learned a baseball secret that I can't tell you," he said. OK, I said. Pause a beat. "OK, I'll tell you. You know how when you catch the ball sometimes it hurts your hand? Well, I learned that if you put these two fingers into the same pocket in your glove, it doesn't hurt!" Pause. "But you can't tell anyone else that secret. OK, you can tell Mommy and Kate. It's a family baseball secret." OK, Jack. 

Evening with Kate

Jack had baseball practice this evening, and Emily was at work, so I hung out with Kate. I realized that I do t often spend a lot of time alone with Kate, especially evenings. If Jack has an activity, I usually take him, or else they're both here. Something I need to work on, I think, in part because she's a lot of fun.

We had brinner, breakfast for dinner, which generally means Kate eats a lot. So four scrambled eggs, an English muffin, a yogurt, a piece of banana bread, half a red pepper, and various other foods later, she was done eating. As we ate (I had been planning on splitting those eggs with her...nope), we listened to Taylor Swift and occasionally she sang along and talked about her day. "For snack I had my apple, and I think Anna stole my Cheetos. And then I went back and I looked for them and they weren't there. I looked under my bag and Brooke's bag and...." (the upshot was that her Cheetos disappeared at some point, so I told her to make sure she zipped up her lunch box when she ate snack.) anyway, she didn't seem terribly upset about the whole thing.

After dinner I cleaned up while she looked at our photo album from around our wedding, which we dug out recently for some reason. "Daddy, you look nice!....in this picture only you and Lucky are smiling, but in this one you all have nice smiles..... That's great that his name is Lucky, he must be lucky....oh is this your wedding picture? No, you aren't dressed up nice....but you have a shirt with a wedding picture on it...and so does Mommy! ...why do have birds on your floor? What's a patio? Oh, the birds are so cute! Ooh, thats a nice dress Mommy has." (laughter) "DADDY! I see your belly button!" (more laughter) "We didn't see turtles at the beach! You were so lucky!....Ooh, those flowers are so pretty!"

It pretty much went on like this for a while. She flipped through all the pictures, laughing and talking cheerfully. Then we went and watched "Diners, drive-ins, and dives," and I wished i had more food than a piece of reheated pizza for dinner. But the company was great.

Sleepover

For his birthday this year, Jack wanted to have a bunch of his friends over for a sleepover. We ran it by the usual suspects for parents, they all signed off on it, so we said, Ok. Pizza, chips, Fudgie the Football ice cream cake from Carvel, Avengers movie DVD....check, check. Then more trips out for balloons, candles, plates, juice boxes, chocolate chips for cookies, more potato chips to replace the ones I ate....

Jack was beside himself with excitement all day. Counting down the hours. Looking out the window (Jack, it is still two hours before anyone will be here). Random whoops of enthusiasm. Finally, around 5, the first friend showed up. Jack spirited him up to his room while we made smalltalk with his mom. Second kid shows up, Jack comes downstairs long enough to collect him and again disappear. Repeat.

For the first hour or so, they ran around the house. It was like kids getting out of school or prisoners getting out of jail, I guess: they just wanted to run and yell and tell fart jokes. And since Jack had received the Fartmaster 2000 or whatever for Christmas, not my fault!, they had a lot of fun with that last one. Indeed, I was unaware it was possible to have a running conversation about farts for as long as they did. It was really impressive. You know, in a way. They ran, they laughed a lot, they were happy. It was cool.

We ordered pizza. You would think a bunch of boys would polish off a lot of pizza, but it was more like they didn't want to be bothered with stuff like eating. I think they did polish off 2-3 juice boxes each, because all that running around yelling makes you thirsty. Then we brought out Fudgie the Football (Carvel makes a Fudgie the Whale cake, and they make the same cake in football shape, thus Fudgie the Football) sang Happy Birthday, and the kids wolfed it down (along with a whole lot of chocolate chip cookies....hmmm maybe that's why they were all up so late....) and rushed off to watch The Avengers.

I expected them to be riveted, but in fact, a couple wanted to watch, a couple wanted to talk, or ask questions, or have more cookies, or another juice box, or play NintendoDS. There was some random tension over differing motivations, and then the team Assembled and finally we...uh, they...were all focused on the movie. At one point they acted it all out, pretending to be Thor, or Hawkeye, and arguing which hero was coolest. Jumping around in their pajamas (midway through they decided to change) --- you know, just like real superheroes. Pretty cute.

They went up to bed around 930 I guess, and what followed was laughter, yelling, more fart jokes, and of course one boy nervous and wanting to go home. And then stay. And then go home. After an hour or more of that,  I took him home. He came back for breakfast the next morning. Kind of rough, but we also expected it; for most it was their first sleepover.  They were all up past midnight, a milestone they celebrated with raucous cheers, and then slept...until 530 a.m. Ouch. They woke us up, natch.

Coffee, breakfast, happy, tired kids, and then it was time for them all, one by one, to go home. Some, I would later hear, had long naps that day, others (like Jack) were just behind and groggy for the next 2-3 days. But they all had a blast, and we...uh, they....got caught up on sleep eventually.

Maybe a year from now we'll do it again.

January song

Putting Kate to bed tonight, I asked if she wanted a song. She said, "Rudolph." I said, Rudolph? It's January. She said, "Ok. A January song." I said, hmm, I don't  know a January song. She said, "I have one." And she sang.

"January, is time 
For playing with presents
But you can't play
With all your presents.
Because they are so pretty.......

January...is my favorite month.
Because my brother's birthday is in it.
Jack's birthday...
Is 
January .....
SEVEN.
Seven!
Seven!"