Playdate with Ciaran

Now that Anthony is getting a little better about sharing his toys, we've been able to host playdates. Well, that's not really true. Now that the weather is nice(er) and the kids can play outside we can have friends over. Ciaran came over yesterday and IMMEDIATELY asked to play in the bounce house. Oh, they had fun. The best part was this game Bob plays with them. Basically he makes claws and "roars" and they shriek and run.

An Evening with Robert

When Anthony was little(er) we got in the habit of going to Robert's house to play practically every evening after daycare. In the summer we'd play out front and in the winter we'd be inside. It was fun, I loved visiting with Sarah, but it made preparing dinner a bit of a pain. Friday night Robert came over to our house instead. The boys played with the airplanes/aircraft carrier briefly, then went outside. I was able to cook dinner and it was so much easier than having JUST Anthony home.

Eggslent Eggs

We've been having fun shopping at the Farmer's Market on Sundays. A week ago I spotted some quail eggs and somehow was persuaded to bring home two dozen. I hard-boiled them and Anthony eats them for breakfast. Its a lot more work than standard chicken eggs as I have to peel three of the tiny suckers for one meal.

Sunday Bob spotted emu eggs. I was so excited, I just had to have one. Since they were $10 each, one was about all the budget could handle. Anthony was *very* excited too and really wanted to carry the egg around. A big no to that one.

Bob made an omelet for dinner last night using the emu egg. First he drilled a hole in the shell and we used a bike pump with a needle valve to flush the egg out of the shell. (Obviously I could have cracked it like a chicken egg, but I spent $10 on this thing!) The omelet itself didn't taste appreciably different from those made from grocery store eggs in cardboard cartons, but I still enjoyed it. Ironically, Anthony refused to eat his, but he happily ate three hard-boiled quail eggs.


He hasn't quite made the connection between the eggs that hatch in "Make Way for Ducklings" or "Hedgies Surprise" are the same eggs that he likes to eat. We'll just keep that our little secret.

A thousand words

Happy St. Patrick's Day

My first thought when I picked up Anthony at daycare today was that I was surrounded by a herd of leprechauns. (Do they come in herds?) No one was over 40 inches tall and they were ALL wearing green. Anthony was excited to share the highlight of the day--while they were eating lunch a leprechaun came and scattered gold (chocolate) coins on the ground for the kids to find.

Fortunately preschool sent out a note reminding us to send the kids wearing green. I'm not sure I would have remembered otherwise. (Bad Mommy!) Anthony even had green underpants!

Edited to add: I figured it out, leprechauns come in colonies!

Playdates

I really enjoy playdates with Anthony's daycare friends. He spends all day with these kids yet I never really get a chance to watch them play together.

Saturday we had a playdate with his pal C. C is 2 months younger and they were near instant friends at Kathleen's house. When he took a particularly bad fall as a toddler (into the brick planter at the side of the yard) she was the first one there and tried to pick him up.

They were so cute together when they were tiny. We had them trained to hug on command and it was just precious.

The playdate went really well, much better than some of the ones we've hosted. C's mother thinks that since C has a sister, she's already used to sharing her toys. (C's sister had a really rough time having friends over at this age, too.)

Budding Artist

"Helping" Daddy get ready

Anthony's favorite part of the morning is watching Daddy shave. He doesn't like playing with the shaving cream, though. Just watching.

Friday Night Pajama Party

Bob and I are doing a great program through our church--10 Great Dates. The program itself is okay. We watch a 20 minute video and then get sent off with a list of questions to discuss. What makes it GREAT is that daycare is provided! Strangely enough, everyone in the class has children under 5 years old. The pajama-clad children play while their parents enjoy an evening out.

Anthony spent the evening playing with his pal Little L. They go to daycare together and evidently the 8 hours they spent together wasn't quite enough for one day.

This picture is Anthony with Nadine, she's his favorite Sunday School teacher, too!

Mardi Gras

This is old video, but it still cracks me up!

Fun with the phone

Grandma Donna called tonight to talk about plane tickets for their trip out at Easter. Anthony was in fine form, it was really quite funny. He held his bird umbrella up to the phone so she could "see" it, he talked ad nauseum about "The Wizard of Oz" complete with showing how the witch has long, sharp nails" and most importantly, asked when she's coming to his house.

The best part was watching him peer into the receiver and announce, "I can't see you!"

Ironically, Daddy spent a good part of the day working on video-phone technology.

"Neigh" says the cat

"Emily adored Mr. Pusskins. Each morning she would invent fun games for Mr. Pusskins to play."
--Mr. Pusskins, by Sam Lloyd

"Run Tigger. Run further."
--Bob

Needless to say, Mr. Pusskins doesn't like Emily. I find it hard to imagine why Tigger tolerates Anthony. Lately he likes to ride her like a horse, complete with rearing her up saying, "Neigh". Yes, he's grabbing her by the neck. And yes, I'm taking photos instead of rescuing my poor cat.

Commercials

A funny story...

The Wizard of Oz was on tv over the holidays so we picked it up on Tivo. We put it on for Anthony and he was most perplexed at how his movie kept stopping in the middle and this other "stuff" came on. Yes, those would be commercials, he hadn't seen them before and clearly had no clue what they were.

Its really quite funny when I stop to think about it, that he doesn't know what a commercial is, at almost 3 1/2. (Now, I do think its a good thing.)

Now, the kid does watch his share of tv. We keep Curious George on the DVR for him. He also has his favorite DVDs, Mary Poppins and The Wizard of Oz. I know on rainy days they often watch some videos at daycare.

Oh yeah, much to Bob's relief, Anthony has no idea who SpongeBob is. He saw a picture and thought it was a piece of cheese. I'm good with that.

Snow Day

Today was Snow Day at Anthony's preschool. They brought in a snow machine and filled up a playground with snow for the kids. I called to check in (his asthma is acting up) and the report was that he had a great time sledding. I'm looking forward to hearing all about it when I pick him up tonight. He was practicing snow angels this morning when I was trying to get him dressed.

On a slightly related note, it did NOT snow this weekend. What a bummer! The majority of the storm blew through early in the night, before it got cold enough to snow. I was very disappointed. Mom, you need to read this article about it!