Robot Day

As I was going to bed last night, the eve of my first Friday at home with the kids in three weeks, I tried to think of a fun theme, on a par with "Pirate Day" a few weeks back. Before falling asleep I settled on Superhero Day. Thought it would be fun.

I told Jack about it this morning and he was into it at first, but then it became, What superhero should I be? And this discussion went on for a few minutes, with me pointing out I wasn't planning on being a specific superhero, I was just thinking we'd all walk around with shorts on over our pants or something. And maybe I'd make some capes. And then Jack decided it should be Robot Day. And so it was.

Also, he said to Mommy, "Today is special because Daddy is staying home." That was kind of nice.

- We watched the Backyardigans episode "Cops and Robots."

- We played the They Might be Giants song, "Robot Parade."

- We dressed in gray (silver) shirts and pants. Like robots. Jack wore his "Artoo" shirt over his gray clothes, which has a picture of R2-D2 on it.

- We drew pictures of robots, and then Jack drew pictures of his stuffed robot and Kate's stuffed robots, which they call Furbies. I'm not sure the origin of that; maybe Furby is what they're supposed to be called. Anyway, Jack's picture is remarkably accurate.

- We had hot dogs for lunch. Um, no robot theme there, Jack just likes hot dogs.

- We read Harry and the Dinosaurs build a robot, and played Jack's Build a Robot game.

- Jack brought out the Toy Story Yahtzee Jr. game. One of the characters on one of the dice is called Zorg, he's an alien or somesuch. Jack calls him Zoltar. He said, "Zoltar's a robot, right?" Hopefully. Yes, sure, Jack, he's a robot.

- We drew more pictures.

- Jack said "Want to make a project?" So we made robot masks for all of us that we could hold up in front of our faces. "Robots have square noses," Jack corrected me.

- At the end of the day, we watched Wallace and Gromit "The Wrong Trousers," because of the robot pants. Actually, A Grand Day Out has a robot co-star, while A Close Shave has a robot dog. So we could have watched any of the three.

- I put Kate to bed and she sung me Take Me Out to the Ball Game again. Jack hugged me good night and said "Happy Robot Day!"

Kate says "my turn"....

...and starts singing.

"Take.....me out.....to ball
game...

Take...me out....cowd...

Buy me pea uts n
crah
jack

I dohn care
nevuh
back

root root root
redddddddddddddddddddd
sox

they dohn win
shame...

is one
two
fwee strikes out

at ohld
ball
game!"

G'night Kate.

Dragon's Birthday

We went to a St. Patrick's Day parade in Greenwich yesterday, at which I bought Jack a giant Dragon-shaped balloon/beach ball type of thing. Jack grew immediately attached to it and wanted to use it as a sleeping toy (Um, no), bring it to school in the car (no), have a picture taken with it (yes) and printed out on our color printer (sigh...yes).

And of course, when he got home from school today, it was Dragon's Birthday and he had to have a party for him.

First, he made a birthday card for dragon. "How do you spell birthday?" "D..A...Y...How do you spell dragon?"

He got Kate interested in the proceedings and they gathered things up for the party. Together, while I made dinner, they made four or five trips upstairs, setting up the party. He gave me updates: "There are games at Dragon's party.....Dragon is staying downstairs with his eyes closed.....Dragon's party will start after dinner...."

We all went up after dinner. He'd spread a blanket out on the floor, with places and plastic cups set out. I was glad to see that Puppy was invited; he occupied a seat across from Dragon. There were places for all of us.

Jack pointed out the games. On the bed his pillow leaned against the wall, and there were a handful of paper bananas. "This game is called 'Ring the Gack.'" (Reference from Dr. Seuss, by the way.) If you land one banana on the pillow, you get to choose one prize....." Jack landed four; I managed two. It was tougher than you might think.

He held out a box of prizes. I recognized the box from one of his Hot Wheels toys; the prizes were a hodgepodge of small things he'd raided from "Mousetrap" and other games, which hopefully would one day find their way back into those various games (I am not optimistic).

"The other game," he said, indicating a colored blanket set up next to his dresser, "is 'Guess the colors.' You have to guess what colors the blanket is made of." I noticed the blue, red, green, orange, and black stripes on the blanket. Um, I said. Brown? He said, no. Blue? "Yes, good, Daddy." White? "No." Um....He leaned close to me and whispered. I said, red? "Good job, Daddy. You get a gold coin." He let me choose a gold coin from the toy box.

Afterward we had soda and cake. I think Dragon had a very nice birthday.

Today

It was a beautiful day, weather-wise and otherwise. Here's a quick, 7-minute blog on how it went.

- Jack and I made Lego figures of Wallace and Gromit. I helped Kate make "Cowboy Tyrone," the Backyardigans character, although really it was just a collection of Legos that looked like a city skyline. Jack pointed this out. Kate said, "mah city."

- We all went to the playground. This had good moments and bad. The bad were Jack hitting his knee and getting upset, and turning all shy when a younger boy wanted to play with him. (Sometimes Jack's the one wanting another kid to play with him at a playground, sometimes he's the one rejecting the attention. It's a fine line.) The good included the slides and swings with Jack, and sitting in the sandbox with Katie making a little sand castle. As I added sticks to it, she said, "Thank you, Daddy.....Thank you, Daddy." She called our structure "Cowboy Tyrone."

- Jack and I went to the supermarket. He was fun here. I can't remember exactly, but he made me laugh. I got him Kix. He said, "Kix." Pause. "Kix." Jack, I asked. "Kix," he explained happily. He likes Kix these days.

- We went to the gas station to get a new propane tank for the grill. Jack helped me pick out a nice one. "Why do we get GAS?" he asked, thinking of a different meaning for gas. Which reminded us of his dinosaur book that has a dinosaur called, and I'm serious here, Gasosaurus. We got a little laugh out of that.

- We went to the office park nearby to ride bikes and feed ducks. Jack rode his bike well; a big difference from age 4 to age 5. Kate rode her tricycle with her feet on the pedals, although I sense she didn't really get that she was supposed to be moving the pedals, rather than them moving her feet. She collected pinecones in her tricycle basket. Jack helped her, getting off his bike to get her pinecones and rocks and some sketchy looking dead flowers. "Thank you, Jack.....Thank you, Jack." Jack got back on his bike and raced; it was important to him to win. Kate fell off her tricycle twice, one sort of a slow motion fall where it was nice she was wearing a helmet, the second one where I basically caught her. She cried hard once and we thought she was hurt. No, she was upset that her pinecones had spilled. Jack helped her put them back in and she was immediately OK.

- We saw Max in his backyard and went over to play. Max is close to Jack's age and they play fairly well together, albeit some moments of possessiveness etc. Kate is fascinated by Max, who wants nothing whatsoever to do with her. We played for a bit, then came home to our own backyard to cook out. Jack said something to Kate that I didn't hear; I asked him about it. He said, "I told her that when Max says something not nice to her, she can just say, No." He paused. "Max isn't always nice to her." Protective big brother. Gotta love it.

- We hit the baseball around the yard a little. Jack really socked one. T-ball, my foot. Kate hit one too, although she didn't want help and hit it with the handle of the bat. Oh well.

- We ate dinner and the kids ate an entire burger. No, really! It was great.

- Gave Kate a bath. At one point she made like she was trying to open a marker as though it was really difficult for her. I laughed at her wide-eyed face and pursed lips, she saw me laughing, and did it again. It was hilarious.

- I put Kate to bed. She was falling asleep during "Swing on a Star." I put her in her crib -- Goodnight, Kate -- and came out. Jack was in the hallway, waiting to say goodnight to me. Goodnight, Jack.

Friday routine

I'm going into work tomorrow, again, while Emily stays home with the kids (she took a day off). It's supposed to be nice out and they'll have a blast, but I thought I'd give her a preview/guide anyway. Usually the day goes something like this.

6:30. Usually breakfast, sometimes a little free play first, on rare occasions TV.

7:00. TV (assuming breakfast has been had). This is the hour I do work, browse the Internet, guzzle coffee.

8:30. Second breakfast. Jack eats a lot at this breakfast: waffles, banana, cereal sometimes, bagel, orange juice, vitamin. Kate eats about half that much but still does fairly well. This coincides with my first breakfast. On occasion we'll walk to Dunkin' Donuts. On occasion.

9:00. Usually I get them dressed around now, remind Jack to go pee, brush teeth. Sometimes I shower, sometimes not. I get dressed. There's usually some play here too, sometimes they play nicely together for a little while. This is when I might make the bed, especially if I'm Emily. Sometimes they play in their rooms, Jack goes into his room and closes the door, Kate cries because she wants to play with him, so on and so forth.

10:00. We often go out. Sometimes a haircut for Jack, sometimes the bank or supermarket or post office (or some combination of those), recycling, that kind of thing. I find it good to get them out of the house in the morning, not too early so it's cold, not too late so Kate falls asleep. It's supposed to be a great day tomorrow, so I'd lean toward the playground.

11:30. Home, free play. Sometimes Jack asks for TV, usually I steer him away from it, saying maybe he can watch something during Kate's nap. It varies.

12 noon. Lunch. Sometimes mac and cheese, sometimes p b and j, usually yogurt or something. I like to save apples and grapes for afternoon snack.

1:00. Kate naps. I play with Jack. Cards, board games, cars, superheroes. Sometimes we draw pictures. There's a new High Five magazine I'm sure he'll enjoy. This is a good time to focus on Jack. I'm not always perfect, but I try.

2:45. Wake Kate up. Don't want her napping much longer than 90 minutes or so.

3:00. Play. Do puzzle with Kate, something like that.

3:30. Apple snack and either water or milk. Much later than 3:30 and they don't eat dinner.

4:00. TV. Whatever they want. Being that it's supposed to be nice, though, I'd lean toward running around the back yard or playing basketball in the driveway. Spider-man ball is at the top of the basement stairs, other basketballs are probably near the front door. Football in the pantry.

4:45. Around now I emphasize CDs and playing in the living room, waiting for Mommy, or in this case Daddy, to come home.

Have fun.

Little Prince

I got up with the kids this morning. They read "Go, Dog. Go" in Kate's room for a bit, both sitting in the glider with their own copies of the book. I went down and made coffee. Gradually they came downstairs too.

As I got them breakfast, I reflected that Mommy was still sleeping. Jack said, "Maybe it's an enchanted sleep." I laughed and said, where did you get that from? He said, "In Miss Ruthie's room, they read it in the mornings."

Then he said, "If it's an enchanted sleep, she'll sleep forever." And I said, well, maybe you can wake her up with a kiss. And he said, "Well, you'd have to be a prince." And I said, well, what about me? I'm kind of a prince.

He said, emphatically, "NO." And I said, why not?

He said, "Princes have capes." Pause. "I have a cape!"

So he went upstairs, got his superhero cape, and went wake up Mommy.

Guest blog

I worked in an office today; it happens every once in a while. When it happens on a Friday, when the kids aren't in school, Emily works from home. So this morning instead of staying in my pajamas until around noon -- unless it was one of those Fridays I got the kids dressed and we walked the block to Dunkin' Donuts -- I showered, got dressed, and stumbled off to work. And Emily stayed home. Let's hear what she has to say.

• Trying to actually work from home and pay attention to two young children is hard. Very hard. So I'm not afraid to admit it: they watched entirely too much TV today.
  
• On the bright side, at least they didn't watch the same shows they usually do. They branched out a bit, watching something called "Cyberchase" that had penguins in it, and that made Jack burst out laughing a few times, which is definitely one of my favorite sounds in the world.
• I managed to get them dressed before 10 o'clock, finally bribing them with a promise that mommy would finally take a break and play with them for a bit, but only if they were dressed. So they got dressed, and we played Zoominoes, the new favorite game. Then all hell broke loose workwise, and then I was stressed for the next hour or so, trying to get done what I needed to get done for work.
• For lunch I made macaroni and cheese. They were all, it's too hot, it's too hot, it's too hot. Jack said, "Daddy usually rinses it off with cold water first." I told him I wasn't going to do that, but I mixed it up a little bit and blew on it. I said it was OK and offered one to Kate. She carefully tasted one, ate it, then looked at Jack. "It's good!" she said. The taster.
  

Now back at me. When I got home, Jack greeted me at the door, Kate was doing something or other in the living room, Emily was buried under a sea of papers and toys...or not.

Anyway, it was a nice reminder I'm a pretty lucky guy.

I running!

February was kind of rough; snow and cold and all that. Oh sure it was fun making snowmen and such, but you know.

Today, the first Friday home with the kids in March, was nice. Not exactly warm, but sunny and clear, so we got into clothes -- I admit, there are Fridays we stay in pajamas, not often but it happens -- bundled up, and went out in the backyard. Brought a couple of footballs, too.

For a little while, we just walked around. They climbed up on the little play slide and swing, which they hadn't seen all winter. Poked around the empty flower pots. Walked along the fence. Got used to the feel of grass under our feet; a week earlier, there'd been snow and lots of it.

Jack and I threw one football around. He almost brained Kate with it at one point, but fortunately didn't. I tossed them underhand, he caught some. He threw with all his might, one or two were in my vicinity. Go long! he yelled. Throw it, I said, I'm far enough away.

Kate picked up her smaller football, made as if to throw it, but instead ran up to me and put it in my hands. Then demanded it back.

At some point, the footballs were put aside in favor of running. Racing. We all lined up on the edge of the grass and ran. Jack ran full tilt, easily outdistancing us. I ran a step slower than Kate, which is to say running a step, stopping, running a step, stopping, waiting while she picked herself up from her knees, running a step, stopping. Jack won easily. Kate and I continued running in stride. She fell on her knees for the final time near the finish line, at which point I stopped, augh, you got me, Kate. She laughed. She laughed as she ran, laughed as she fell, laughed as she got up and laughed as she ran. Jack laughed triumphantly as he finished minutes before we did.

Later that evening, eating pizza, Emily asked about it, said to Jack she heard we raced. Did you win, she said. Jack said, Yeah, I ran like this. And he showed his fast run. And then: Daddy ran like this. And he did a slow-motion, Six Million Dollar Man run that cracked us up. Daddy always runs in slow motion, he said. Then he did Kate's run, waving his arms and legs in a herky-jerky style that cracked us up all over again.

Kate apparently wanted to clarify that she could, in fact, run. She ran into the living room. Yook, Daddy! she said. Yook! I running! I running! As she ran, she turned to look over her shoulder, making sure I was watching. I running!

Monkey

When Jack was 3 (I think), Grandma gave him this stuffed monkey that would say Ooo Ooo, laugh when you tickled its foot, hiccup after being given a bottle, and other stuff. It kind of freaked me out a bit to be honest, and Jack mostly lukewarm on it as well. Every once in a while the monkey would get taken out and play, but he spent a lot of time peering over the edge of the living room toybox.

In the last week, two years later, things have changed. I don't know if it was Kate first or Jack, but now the two of them together have adopted Monkey. In the mornings they give him breakfast, sitting him at their little play table and laying out quite a spread of play food. Jack looks for fruit in particular -- "Monkeys like fruit," he explains sagely -- so all the toy apples, bananas, and what have you adorn the table for Monkey's feast. "Is a cucumber fruit?" he asks. No, Jack. "Is papaya a fruit?" Yes, Jack.

They also put monkey down for naps, covering him with a blanket. This morning I saw Kate sitting facing monkey, as if they were going to play pattycake or something. Not sure if that actually occurred. She was talking to him, though.

When Jack was getting ready for school this morning, he asked me to take care of Monkey. "If he hiccups, that means he wants food," Jack said. I'm not sure I followed his reasoning, but I said, OK.

Evidently not convinced, Jack spent his last 10 minutes before going to school writing instructions out for me. "How do you spell 'monkey'?" he asked. And so on. When he was finished, he taped the note instructions up for me to see.

There was a picture of Monkey, so I wouldn't get confused. And the note read, "Monkey should only be fed when he hiccups."