This was mostly going to be a post about the playtime experiments I’ve been conducting lately, but I found a bunch of other pictures I need to post. And yes, still no Punta Cana pics and no Easter. I spent the night at the hospital Monday and have been recuperating this whole week so I’ll get to those eventually :) I also have a post in my head titled “an ode to my purse” (yes, my purse) that I need to share as well….

 

Back on topic: I was commenting to Brian the other day about how the boys play with their toys. For example, they got out some degadar tracks and balls on Tuesday (think giant marbles and marble tracks). They built a track in the front hallway, played with it for a while and then left it there. I picked it up and put the pieces in a plastic bin, then put the bin on the stairs to go back up to the playroom. An hour later, they had taken the pieces out and built the track again in the living room. They played with it for a while and left it again. This time I figured that they wanted to come back to it so I left it up. After a couple of hours, I got annoyed by it’s presence in the living room (it’s quite large) so I put it away again….and then Brady got it OUT again. As I was cleaning it up for the third time after the boys were in bed, I was laughing and explaining the situation to Brian. “Also,” I told him, “they never wander up to the playroom and play for any real amount of time until I tell them they have to go pick it up. Suddenly, they are up there playing with everything.” Brian said what he’s always said, “I’m telling you, you need to like rotate the toys, hide some of them and bring them out every once in a while.” I do remember how I used to clean up the baby toys every afternoon and evening because it seemed that Logan’s favorite activity was sorting through the toybox, playing with each thing just a little bit before taking something else out. If everything was already on the floor, he sort of stepped around it all and ignored it. So, I decided to give the plan a try. Aiden is currently on a video-game-play-time improvement plan (ie: I’m strictly enforcing a time limit of video games each week). He’s so creative – all it takes is a little encouragement.

 

So…Wednesday, I brought down the bin of trios to the living room and just kind of left it there. Aiden asked me to help him build some animals. We followed the instructions together and built an alligator. Aiden then had the alligator have a few adventures in the living room. It occupied the whole morning which was great – no video games!

 

I left the trios downstairs on Thursday, but there was little interest in them. So….I took those upstairs and grabbed these things Aiden got, and has rarely played with, for Christmas – tubes and zots. I looked at him sitting on the couch with my ipad, placed the bin on the floor and told him I was going to take a shower. 5 minutes later, he came into my room with this:

He’s a DJ with turn tables and big headphones! I died laughing!!! He’s making “chika chicka chicka” sounds…

He asked me to take another picture of him playing on the box he found downstairs, wearing the “spikey” belt that he had added to the ensemble.

I don’t mean to leave Brady out, but he somehow finds the strangest things to do with his time. For example, yesterday he asked to borrow the little jewelry box I have on my dresser because it’s got a super cool key. I took out whatever I had in there and agreed to let him use it “for a little while”. This became a treasure box, he filled it with other keys and buttons. The blanket basket in the living room became a pirate ship – he hid in there and had a snack. On Wednesday, his big thing was carrying his water bottle around….using a little silver strap he stole from a clutch purse that I have. Another day he played with a tire pressure gage all day. He’s easily amused! Today the boys are playing with the tubes and zots again. I think they are making swords (shocking).

So, speaking of Brady and his silly behavior. I think we all know how he used to drink milk ONLY if I added some of my coffee creamer to it. After going through gobs of creamer, I decided to go with the powder for me (it actually tastes the same) and put sugar-free chocolate syrup in his milk. I can hide the powder in the cabinet and it doesn’t get pilfered. However, I did some shopping yesterday and left my powdered creamer on the counter top. Brady found it – he likes to eat it (!) He also likes to experiment with things in the fridge when my back is turned. I came downstairs to find this: Brady with creamer powder all over his face, sampling the spray butter. Gross picture, but it made me laugh.

Two other funny Brady stories: this morning, all three boys seemed to wake up simultaneously. I heard them coming down the hall to my bedroom. Brady was yelling “cock a doodle dooooooo!!!!” Nothing like a chuckle to start your day. Also, he’s taken up a new instrument – he calls it the “bum drum”. It involves hitting someone's booty (usually mine) while he says, “bum drum, bum drum, bum drum!!”

 

While finding the pics for this post, I came across a few others that were on the camera or on my phone:

 

This one is called: my boys hate shoes

These are from a series called: Brady waters the flowers

I snapped these a couple weeks ago: daddy plays soccer with the boys in the backyard (this is also when Brady was watering flowers)

Some robins are trying to build a nest in the window above our front door. Denay suggested doing what the shop owners in San Fran do when they leave their doors open, but don’t want birds to fly in: post an owl. This is “Owliver” standing guard on the transom. The birds haven’t been back since!! See the mess they already left!? I feel so bad, but I already tore down 2 “starter” nests up there. We did let them build and lay eyes a few years ago. We let the boys climb up on chairs and see the baby birds. It was cool, but it’s a mess and the birds get quite protective over our front porch making it difficult to come and go. I figure if they are just starting to build, I’ll encourage them to do it elsewhere :)