Little tragedies

 

In my opinion, one thing that any mother dreads is the day her kid tells her that he does not love her anymore. For me that day arrived yesterday without any warning. What I did not expect was that it would come from my second child first.

We were cleaning up a mess the kids made in the basement. They kicked and screamed about how long it would take to clean up all the rice. Lydia started enjoying the vacuuming experience after a little while and kept wanting to do Tyler’s part. Tyler, a more unwilling participant, kept running away from the job until he received 3 warnings which meant no dessert that evening. He was sad and mad at the same time. That’s when he pulled out the guns, “Mommy I just don’t love you anymore”. ! I told him that I love him a lot, but that did not change his mind, of course. When Paul came home, Tyler rehearsed the whole story to him, including his “Mommy I don’t love you anymore” declaration. Sad day!

Swimming with Tyler

I took Tyler swimming at the gym where Larisa is a member.  It’s a nice place.  This was our chance to spend some time together while Lydia was going to a birthday party.  Tyler was very excited about going swimming with me.

When we got there, showed me the way to the locker rooms (he tried to walk in the women’s room).  Then we went in to change and he got nervous about so many adults in there.  I really don’t know what the deal was, but he said he didn’t want to swim, or even change.  I changed first and then started undressing him, but he wouldn’t have it.  He said the pool was to scary, so he didn’t want to swim.

We walked over to see the pool, and I could tell he was intrigued to see all the kids swimming.  But his nerves were still uneasy.  When I forced him to undress, his last attempt was to not let me put his swim suit on.  He threw a big fuss and started crying.  An older man with his handicapped son talked to Tyler to calm him down.  I managed to trick him a little to put the suit on while he was distracted.  Then I made him budge an inch here and there---“let’s just go to the bathroom”---“let’s just come over here into the shower real quick”---until I had won.  Even as we were standing next to the pool he pretended he didn’t want to swim.  But once I started carrying him in he didn’t put up a fight.

He really loved it the whole time.  We swam for about an hour and 15 minutes.  He held on to a couple of noodles for a while and pretended to chase me around or swim away from me.  He was so energetic and happy the whole time.  It was a lot of fun.  He was proud to be at his “swimming lessons” (Lydia had lessons last summer), and he wanted to show everyone that he was swimming by himself.  After a while I managed to trick him into giving up the noodles for a floaty that strapped around his chest.  That freed up his arms.

We discovered that we could shoot water through the hole in the noodle.  At first I was showed him that it worked without making it obvious that I was doing the blowing.  The he went around shooting water in the air, and I followed to blow in the other end of the noodle.  I asked him how it worked.  He demonstrated.  Then I asked why it does that now and didn’t before.  He said that you have to squeeze the end like he was. :)

Then he decided to keep shooting me in the face.  Then it was a little more clear that I was blowing, but I wasn’t sure if it was registering with him.  I could tell he was still trying to squeeze the end to make it go.  But his smooth transition to reality surprised me.  At one point, after doing something else, he said, “let’s do the noodle again where I shoot water out and you blow.”  I was a little taken back and asked, “why should I blow?”---“So that the water comes out,” he responded.

On the way home he kept talking about how much fun we had.

Rooster, mud and apples

We are experiencing long awaited reminders that the Spring will eventually make its way over here. It was in the 60s for a couple of days, and that made me feel that I could actually hold my breath for Spring. I might pass out in the process, but will probably make it.

Not wanting to miss a minute of this we went to play at Turhune Orchards. Kids and I wore boots to make sure we can enjoy the mud to its fullest. Tyler found the deepest puddle (of course) and jumped in it until his pants were soaked. We barricaded streams and got almost stuck in the gooey mud. It was fabulous!

Lydia wanted to feed and pet all the animals. We got some corn nibblets for the geese, guiney hens, ducks and the goats who butted and/or chased each other out of the way to get to the food. At the farm house store, Lydia loved hanging with the cats, dogs and the goose named Egg. There was also a tiny-winy rooster who performed a cock-a-doodle-do for us. Tyler, Nyle and I went into the store to buy some things.  After we stepped inisde, Lydia was still on the porch playing with the local cats. Then I heard her voice make an unnaturally low sound, sort of alarming, but more shocked than distressed. Upon arriving on the scene I found Lydia making wide circles around the tiny-winy rooster. As it turned out, she got too close and he went into combat mode.