Thelma and Louise, chipmunks & trampolines

Ashlee and her friend took off Friday for New Mexico, left the kids and took the credit cards. Thank goodness they came back Sunday night (very missed by us and very glad they got away for the weekend).

LESSONS LEARNED: I highly encourage mothers to take full advantage of babysitters on weeks when their husbands are out of town. You just need a break after a couple of days of kids 24-7, even if it is just for a couple hours. That is why we get paid per diem when we travel, to supplement sanity baby sitters. Stop the madness! Call the sitter.

The whole time she was gone I heard two things from Bode 1) "Daddy, where is mommy?" [she went on her trip to New Mexico], "Daddy is she getting silly there?" [absolutely] and 2) Anytime Keegen made a noise, any noise Bode would jump in "Daddy, Keegen wants mommy".

The boys and I spent 2.5 hours Friday at the pool. Bode spashed and did “Super Hero Jumps” in from the side of the pool. For those of you who are uneducated in the super hero ways, a super hero jump entails jumping into the water from the edge of the pool and then hopping up and down on one foot in the water while screaming “SUPER HERO JUMP!!!!” (CAUTION this is not to be attempted by non-super heroes).

Saturday we went to the zoo and had a blast. They have one exhibit where they have tons of parakeets and pretty, colorful small birds. You walk into the room (trees around the inside of the room) and all these birds are flying around your heads. Then, you buy a popsicle stick for $1 that they have glued bird seed to the end of. You hold out your stick and birds come land on the stick and sit there and eat the bird seed. Saturday was the first time Bode wanted to hold the stick himself and had a beautiful blue parakeet sitting on it (inches from his fingers) and eating the seed. Keegen is totally in his element at the zoo and as we near each of the animals he gives them a guttural growl and sneer (he is the real king of the jungle). We ate lunch (PBJ sandwiches) at the small playground there and were promptly joined by some cute little chipmunks. Bode and Keegen each threw a couple small pieces out to them and enjoyed watching them sit on their hind legs and eat the bites. Bode then started chasing them and laughing the whole time. Keegen was great until he was eating his last bite of sandwich and a brave chipmunk started approaching him. It would take a couple paces forward, then sit on it’s hind legs and look at Keegen. Then get a little closer and repeat. Finally, with little Keegen’s hand and arm shaking with fright that chipmunk snatched the last piece of sandwich right out of his hand. Keegen started to wail, but recovered quickly after I picked him up and gave him some of Bode’s sandwich.

Bode has also been having this recurring dream for the last 6 months where Daddy becomes a “tree”. One morning he got up and said “Daddy, I didn’t know you could turn into a tree”, to which I responded “Neither did I”. Periodically the dream recurs and we continue to get more insight and details into it. Saturday was one of those days and Bode proceeded to tell me that the previous night I turned into a tree and came into his room. Bode said he got up and told me “Daddy, don’t turn into a tree. Now go outside my house and take of your tree stuff and them come back into my house”. What can I say, I am an OAK.

Things are going great, still trying to finish the backyard.

We bought a trampoline over the weekend. It is a 13’ square trampoline (with enclosure). It takes up a good chunk of our small backyard, but has been really fun. Bode spent half the weekend asking “Daddy, will you build my trampoline” and the other half of the weekend saying “Daddy, can I go jump on my trampoline?”. I was told many times that the trampoline was “too big” for me and I was only allowed to walk on it. We are learning lots of new tricks like the Donkey Kick, the Dougey Kick and the knee-crash-rollover (yet to be formally named). They are all oddly familiar in execution, but we are having a blast.